Australia's First Nation People are called Aboriginies

Article by Boy, age 11

The Australian Aboriginie has been here for more than 60,000 years. When white people came to Australia they killed many Aboriginal people and they herded the rest into groups and made them work for white man.

I live in an area where there are lots of Aboriginal people (Far North Queensland). They are nice. Their skin can be balck, brown, tan or even like a bit sun tanned but not too much.

Aboriginal people live in houses like you and I live in but they love the land more than we do. Their country is very important to them. Where a person is born and where their family comes from is something that means important stuff to Aboriginies. If they are born in the rainforest they may have a rainforest bird or animal as their totem. If they are born in the dessert then they have a dessert totem.

A lot of tourists have the wrong information about Australian Aboriginal people. They only see the bad stuff on the news but there is also lots of bad stuff on the news about us white fellas. Mum said that someone told her that all Aboriginal people abuse their kids. Mum nearly had a heart attack and set them straight. Most Aboriginal people love their kids and try hard to protect them.

Aboriginal painting is pretty neat. They paint with lots of dots and colours made from mixing sand and ground up stone. Their colours represent the earth and other natural stuff like water, sky and grass.

The Aboriginal people tell their stories by either talking or dancing. They are an oral culture (Talk not write about things). The Aboriginal dance story telling is called Corroboree. We call it "shake a leg" as its nick name.

Here is a video that I found on YouTube. Mum is letting me look at YouTube for technology. Because we are studying Aboriginal culture she said I had to find some videos to share with you about Aboriginal culture or people.