The first Europeans to find Australia were Dutch and Spanish seafarers that arrived in Australia sometime during the 1600-hundreds, but they weren’t the first people except the aboriginals who had come to Australia. Chinese sailors had visited it in the 1200-hundreds. The Dutch and Spanish seafarers thought that it was part of an undiscovered continent – “a Great South land”. They didn’t explore Australia. It was a British seafarer who explored the continent in the late 1700-hundreds.
James Cook arrived with his boat, the Endeavour, south of the place where Sydney is now in 1770 and claimed Australia for England. From 1788, the British used Australia as a really, really big prison, where they could send people who broke the law. The prisoners where sent there to work for English explorers who had settled down in Australia.
Gold was found in 1851 and a lot of people moved there. As a result, Australia was divided into 6 states (New South-Wales, Victoria, South Australia, Tasmania, Queensland and Western Australia) that ruled over themselves. The 6 states went together in 1901 to form The Commonwealth of Australia with Canberra as capital.
2. THE ABORIGINALS
The original inhabitants of Australia are the aboriginals. They came to Australia from Asia about 40,000 years ago. Before the Europeans came to Australia, the aboriginals inhabited the entire continent, even the dry deserts. In 1770 there were about 380,000 aboriginals and now there are 150,000 of them.
The Essay on Influence of South Africa
It is reported that South Africa has become the third largest iron ore supplier for China through the competition with India, which will have a great influence on China’s mining machinery industry. According to Business Day Live’s report, the iron ore export to China from South Africa was 40.6 million tonnes in 2012, while Indian exports plunged nearly 55% to 33 million tonnes. It is evidently ...
There were around 680 different tribes all over the entire continent back in 1770. All tribes were different, some had settled down in one area and some were nomads, but they did have a lot in common. For example, the men (usually) handled the hunting and the women took care of the gathering of fruits and stuff like that. They lived in small groups that usually consisted of one or two families. They often lived near places that were important to them (where they were born or where they were married).
The Europeans brought diseases and guns to Australia, which wasn’t very good for the aboriginals. The white man, balanda, decided to try to destroy the aboriginals. They gave poisoned food to aboriginals, made it legal to shoot them and stole their children and even went so far that they killed all aboriginals in Tasmania.
The aboriginals weren’t considered Australian citizens until 1967. Until then, they didn’t have same rights as other Australian citizens. Some of the land that the British took from them a long time ago has been returned, but there’s still a lot of land that someone else owns which is rightfully theirs.
2.1 THE DIDGERIDOO
The word “didgeridoo” means “carved wood”. Herbert Basedow (he was Chief Protector of Aboriginals during 1899 – 1913) came up with the word in 1900. The aboriginals use(d) the instrument to imitate the sound of the emu so that the animal could be caught more easily. Different aboriginal tribes call the didgeridoo different things (yiki-yiki, ngarrriralkpwina, wuyimbam for example).
The didgeridoo isn’t entirely made by man. First, termites eat the inside of a eucalyptus tree (this is said to make the sound more “earth-like”), but people still have to “fine-tune” the instrument before it can be used.
The didgeridoo maker finds a good eucalyptus tree that he/she thinks will make a good didgeridoo. Then he/she saws off the part that should be used. Aboriginal didgeridoo makers used to use a stone axe, but nowadays they use chainsaws or other more modern tools. Putting it under water for about 5 days and then poking out the stuff on the inside with a stick will clear the inside.
The instrument is usually 1 – 3 metres long and it is often painted with some aboriginal pattern.
The Essay on Aboriginals In Australia Aborigines
HoW Aboriginals In Australia ABORIGINES HoW WERE THEY TREATED? Since the beginning, Australia was said to be a colony of settlement, not of conquest. The legal fiction of terra nullius- the land belonged to no one with no official negotiations, no treaties was how the land is said to be the basic injustice on which modern Australia was built. The High Court of Australia overthrew this ruling in ...
3. AUSTRALIAN PEOPLE TODAY
17 million people live in Australia, which isn’t very much for such a big country. Almost 70% of the population live in the southeast part of the country, where most of the big cities are located. Not many people live in the middle and western part of Australia (those areas are often called “the outback”).
There can be up to 50 (Swedish) miles between the farms in the outback. This makes it hard for kids to go to school. Who wants to have to go a couple of hundred (Swedish) miles every morning to get to school? The children who live in the outback (usually) have classes in “the School of the Air”. Both the teacher and student have a radio that they use to talk to each. This way the teacher can give assignments to the student, have tests and so on. There are of course other ways the children can go to school (using computers, for example).
If someone would need a doctor in the outback they would call the RFDS (Royal Flying Doctor Service).
The doctors use aeroplanes to fly out to the outback and save peoples’ lives.
4. THE NATURE AND WILDLIFE
The Australian nature and wildlife is very different from the rest of the world because of the fact that the continent was isolated from the Europeans for so long. A lot of animals that can’t be found anywhere else in the world can be found in Australia (the kangaroo and the koala bear for example).
Australia is the driest continent in the world but it still manages to show great variation in its nature. There are big deserts in the centre and west of the continent and there are big eucalyptus forests in the east.
4.1 KANGAROOS
The kangaroo is a pouched animal that can be found only in Australia and New Guinea. There are 50 different species, but only 17 of them are called kangaroos. The rest are called wallabies. The kangaroo has a strong tail, two long and powerful hind-legs and two small forelegs. Its big tail is used for balance or for pushing the body forward over the ground. The largest kangaroo is the red giant kangaroo (Macropus Rufus).
The Term Paper on Australia 2
The name of Australia comes from the Latin word Australis, which means southern. Since it lies entirely in the southern hemisphere, Australia is most commonly referred to as down under. Australia, being a country, is also a continent. In land area its the sixth largest for a country and the smallest continent. Australia is a very dry, thinly populated country. Very few coastal areas receive enough ...
It can be up to 2 metres tall.
4.2 DINGOES
The dingo is an average sized dog that used to live in flocks all over Australia. It came to Australia with the aboriginals as a pet but it became wild. There aren’t many wild dingoes left. After the British colonisation it fed itself mostly on sheep, which the British immigrants didn’t like very much. Dingoes eat kangaroos, wallabies, rabbits, birds, sheep and cattle. It usually hunts at night. A 4800 kilometres long fence has been built in Queensland to keep the dingoes out (don’t know if it works though).
4.3 KOALA BEARS
The koala bear is a small pouched bear. It doesn’t have a tail but it does have a fluffy fur, round ears and a black nose. It lives in the eastern parts of Australia. The koala eats nothing but the leafs from the eucalyptus tree. It can eat up to 1 kilo of leafs per day (!) and rarely drinks water. In fact, the word “koala” means “seldom drinks”.
4.4 ULURU (AYER’S ROCK)
Mount Uluru (or Ayer’s Rock) is the largest rock in the world. It’s 348 metres high and 3 kilometres long. The rock is yellow, but at sunset it turns deep orange or dark red. It turns honey yellow or purple at sunrise. The Australian government has rented Mount Uluru from the aboriginals so that tourists can visit it. They’ve rented it for 99 years and it’s to be returned in 2084.
