HISTORY & CULTURE

OF AUSTRALIA

dr Marcin Buczek
 Some Facts
 OFFICIAL NAME : Commonwealth of Australia
 CAPITAL: Canberra
 TOTAL AREA: 7,700,000 sq.km
 POPULATION: 24 million people
 HEAD OF STATE: Queen Elizabeth II represented by Governor-General
 FORM OF GVERNMENT: Constitutional monarchy
 PORTS: Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane
 LONGEST RIVER: the Darling (2,740 km)
 HIGHEST POINT: Mount Kosciusko (2,230 m)
 NATURAL RESOURCES: coal, zink, nickel, gold, wool
 NATIONAL HOLIDAY: Australian Day , 16 January (1788)
 MONEY: basic unit – Australian dollar
 NATIONAL SYMBOLS: Kangaroo and Emu
 NATIONAL ANTHEM: Advance Australia Fair / “Waltzing Matilda”
 The flag of Australia is the only one to
fly over a whole continent. The small
Union Jack represents the historical
link with Britain, the large seven-
pointed star represents the six States
and Territories, and the small stars
from the Southern Cross – a
prominent feature of the southern
hemisphere night sky.

Australia's coat of arms – the official

emblem of the Australian Government –
was granted by George V in 1912. The
arms consist of a shield containing the
badges of the six states. The supporters
are native Australian fauna – a kangaroo
and an emu. A yellow-flowered native
plant, wattle, also appears in the design.
 British Australian
barbecue barbie
kangaroo roo
mosquito mozzie
chicken chook
candy lollie
slippers thongs
TV tellie
girl sheila
form year
sheep jumbuck
cinema pictures
postbox letterbox
trainers runners
freeway main road
IN THE BEGINNING
The Aborigines
 Historians believe the first humans arrived in Australia
between forty thousand and sixty thousand years ago.
 They traveled from Southeast Asia.
 They first settled in northern Australia.
 They may have used boats or walked across land that
once connected Australia to Asia.
 Europeans later called these people Aborigines, which
means “from the very first”.
 Aborigines formed many different groups that lived in
different parts of Australia.
 They spoke different languages.
 They developed their own cultures.
 Scientific theories:
 Generally agreed
 Aborigines arrived
around 65 000 years
 Aborigines came by
canoes from South
East Asia
 Aborigines believe:
• Original inhabitants of Australia.
“We go back, a long way back,
into the Dreamtime,
into the land of our Dreaming.”

“We have been

here forever”
What is the ‘Dreaming’?
• Original inhabitants of Australia.

• The ‘Dreaming’ to Aborigines was

a time when sacred beings
created the:
• universe
• land
• people
• rivers, water holes, hills, rocks
Aboriginal Art – the Rainbow
• things living. Serpent – a sacred being
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 The ‘Dreaming’

• gave each tribe their own

special ‘Dreaming’
• a strong relationship
with land
• totems

• hunting tools

• laws, customs,
ceremonies

Aboriginal Art – The Dreaming

Aboriginal nations before the British
arrived in 1788:
 around 500 nations and
unique cultures
 around 200 languages
 nations rarely mixed with
other nations
 they lived off the land
 sometimes they traded goods
such as
 ochre for body paint and art
 possum furs

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 Early Aboriginal Culture
 Aborigines usually lived and traveled in small
groups called clans.
 Clans included one to five families.
 They shared a common language and religion.
 Neighboring clans often traded food, tools, and
other goods.
 Hunters and Gatherers
 Early Aborigines were hunter-gatherers,
 They hunted kangaroos, possums, turtles and seals.
 They used bones, wood, and stones, to construct tools and weapons
for hunting.
 They used nets and harpoons to catch fish.
 In the Outback, Aborigines used spears and boomerangs to hunt.
 A boomerang is a piece of carved wood thrown by hunters at their
prey.
 Many Aboriginal tribes also gathered edible fruits and plants.