Group items tagged

Tapu is the strongest force in Māori life. It has numerous meanings and references. Tapu can be interpreted as "sacred", or defined as "spiritual restriction" or "implied prohibition", containing a strong imposition of rules and prohibitions. A person, an object or a place, which is tapu, may not be touched by human contact. In some cases, not even approached. A person, object or a place could be made sacred by tapu for a certain time, and the two main types of tapu were private and public. Private tapu concerned individuals, and public tapu concerned communities. In earlier times, tribal members of a higher rank would not touch objects which belonged to members of a lower rank. This was considered "pollution". Similarly, persons of a lower rank could not touch the belongings of a highborn person. Death was the penalty.

While Torres Strait Island populations were agriculturalists who supplemented their diet through the acquisition of wild foods the remainder of Indigenous Australians were hunter-gatherers. Indigenous Australians along the coast and rivers were also expert fishermen. Some Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders relied on the dingo as a companion animal, using it to assist with hunting and for warmth on cold nights.

Torres Strait Islanders

Indigenous Australians did practise agriculture.

sugar cane, taro and sweet potato as well as husbanding pigs

In contrast Australian Aborigines did not cultivate any crops and lacked any domestic food animals

mainland Australia no animal other than the dingo

Indigenous diet included a wide variety of foods, such kangaroo, emu, wombats, goanna, snakes, birds, many insects such as honey ants and witchetty grubs. Many varieties of plant foods such as taro, nuts, fruits and berries were also eaten.

A primary tool used in hunting was the spear, launched by a woomera or spear-thrower in some locales. Boomerangs were also used by some mainland Indigenous peoples. The non-returnable boomerang (known more correctly as a Throwing Stick), more powerful than the returning kind, could be used to injure or even kill a kangaroo.

Permanent villages were the norm for most Torres Strait Island communities. In some areas mainland Indigenous Australians also lived in semi-permanent villages, most usually in less arid areas where fishing could provide for a more settled existence. Most Indigenous communities were semi-nomadic, moving in a regular cycle over a defined territory,

Many Indigenous communities also have a very complex kinship structure and in some places strict rules about marriage. In traditional societies, men are required to marry women of a specific moiety

To enable men and women to find suitable partners, many groups would come together for annual gatherings (commonly known as corroborees) at which goods were traded, news exchanged, and marriages arranged amid appropriate ceremonies. This practice both reinforced clan relationships and prevented inbreeding in a society based on small semi-nomadic groups.

The Indigenous Australians lived through great climatic changes and adapted successfully to their changing physical environment