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Indigenous peoples of Australia Indigenous Australians are people with familial heritage from, or recognised membership of, the various ethnic groups living within the territory of contemporary Australia prior to British colonisation. They consist of two distinct groups, w ...
, that is
Aboriginal Australians Aboriginal Australians are the various indigenous peoples of the Mainland Australia, Australian mainland and many of its islands, excluding the ethnically distinct people of the Torres Strait Islands. Humans first migrated to Australia (co ...
and
Torres Strait Islander people Torres may refer to: People *Torres (surname) Torres (sometimes Torrez or Torrès) is a surname in the Catalan language, Catalan, Portuguese language, Portuguese, and Spanish language, Spanish languages, meaning "towers". History A surname der ...
, have strong and complex relationships with the concept of "Country" (often capitalised). In this sense it does not refer to the nation of Australia, but rather different aspects of how the traditional lands of a particular First Nations group affects their culture, way of seeing the world, and interactions with other people.


Country and identity

Margo Ngawa Neale, senior Indigenous art and history curator at the
National Museum of Australia The National Museum of Australia (NMA), in the national capital Canberra, preserves and interprets Australia's social history, exploring the key issues, people and events that have shaped the nation. It was formally established by the ''Nation ...
, and author of books explaining Indigenous knowledge, says: Country is traditionally related to self-identity, and with relation to an individual, describes family origins and associations with particular parts of Australia. For example, a
Gamilaraay The Gamilaroi, also known as Gomeroi, Kamilaroi, Kamillaroi and other variations, are an Aboriginal Australian people whose lands extend from New South Wales to southern Queensland. They form one of the four largest Indigenous nations in Austr ...
man, whose traditional lands ("country") lies in south-west
Queensland Queensland ( , commonly abbreviated as Qld) is a States and territories of Australia, state in northeastern Australia, and is the second-largest and third-most populous state in Australia. It is bordered by the Northern Territory, South Austr ...
might refer to his country as "Gamilaraay country".
Australian Aboriginal identity Aboriginal Australian identity, sometimes known as Aboriginality, is the perception of oneself as Aboriginal Australian, or the recognition by others of that identity. Aboriginal Australians are one of two Indigenous Australian groups of peopl ...
often links to their
language groups A language family is a group of languages related through descent from a common ancestor, called the proto-language of that family. The term ''family'' is a metaphor borrowed from biology, with the tree model used in historical linguistics anal ...
and traditional country of their ancestors.


Connection to Country

Land is of great significance to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, often expressed as "connection to Country". Country can be spoken about as if it is a person, and it implies an interdependent and reciprocal relationship between an individual and the lands and seas of their ancestors. The relationship is enhanced and sustained by the living environment and
cultural knowledge Cultural heritage is the heritage of tangible and intangible heritage assets of a group or society that is inherited from past generations. Not all heritages of past generations are "heritage"; rather, heritage is a product of selection by socie ...
. Because everything is connected, animals, trees, rocks, land and sky all deserve respect. Past is connected to present, and there is a sense it is important to acknowledge and respect the country of other peoples, wherever one travels in Australia. The term "on Country", or "on specific peoplecountry" is often used. Connection to country, "the most fundamental pillar of Indigenous identity", is a difficult concept for non-Indigenous Australians to understand, and disconnection from country has been shown to have an impact on Indigenous peoples' health and well-being. The connection to country is frequently expressed in
Indigenous art Indigenous may refer to: *Indigenous peoples *Indigenous (ecology), presence in a region as the result of only natural processes, with no human intervention *Indigenous (band), an American blues-rock band *Indigenous (horse), a Hong Kong racehorse ...
.
Bill Neidjie Big Bill Neidjie ( – 23 May 2002), nicknamed "Kakadu Man", was the last surviving speaker of the Gaagudju language, an Aboriginal Australian language from northern Kakadu, after which Kakadu National Park is named. He was an elder of the ...
,
Gaagudju The Gaagudju, also known as the Kakadu, are an Aboriginal Australian people of the Northern Territory. There are four clans, being the Bunitj or Bunidj, the Djindibi, and two Mirarr clans. Three languages are spoken among the Mirarr or Mirrar cl ...
elder, expressed that it is by “feeling” country that a person is "made" (exists).
Palyku The Bailgu are an Aboriginal Australian people of the Pilbara region of Western Australia. Country Bailgu traditional lands extended over , according to Norman Tindale's estimate, covering the upper Fortescue River, and taking in Roy Hill and ea ...
woman
Ambelin Kwaymullina Ambelin Kwaymullina (born 1975 in Perth, Western Australia) is a Palyku novelist, illustrator, and assistant professor of law at the University of Western Australia. She was born as the eldest of three children to Sally Morgan, an author and a ...
: "Country is filled with relations speaking language and following
Law Law is a set of rules that are created and are enforceable by social or governmental institutions to regulate behavior, with its precise definition a matter of longstanding debate. It has been variously described as a science and as the ar ...
... Country is family, culture, identity. Country is self."
Aileen Moreton-Robinson Aileen Moreton-Robinson is an Indigenous Australian academic, Indigenous feminist, author and activist for Indigenous rights. She is a Goenpul woman of the Quandamooka people from Minjerribah (North Stradbroke Island) in Queensland. She compl ...
, Professor of Indigenous Research at
RMIT University The Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (abbreviated as RMIT University) is a public research university located in the city of Melbourne in Victoria, Australia., section 4(b) Established in 1887 by Francis Ormond, it is the seventh-o ...
, has written that the sense of belonging, home and place experienced by Indigenous peoples of Australia stands in sharp contrast to that of non-Indigenous peoples, many of whom descend from the original colonisers. According to her, white Australians' sense of belonging is "derived from ownership and achievement and is inextricably tied to a racialised social status...", and based on the persistence of the idea of ''
terra nullius ''Terra nullius'' (, plural ''terrae nullius'') is a Latin expression meaning " nobody's land". Since the nineteenth century it has occasionally been used in international law as a principle to justify claims that territory may be acquired ...
''. The deep spiritual connection felt by
Aboriginal Australians Aboriginal Australians are the various indigenous peoples of the Mainland Australia, Australian mainland and many of its islands, excluding the ethnically distinct people of the Torres Strait Islands. Humans first migrated to Australia (co ...
is related to their continuing occupation of the Australian continent for around 60,000 years, and the belief that Aboriginal lore/law was created by spirit ancestors to look after the land and its people.
Songline A songline, also called dreaming track, is one of the paths across the land (or sometimes the sky) within the animist belief systems of the Aboriginal Australians, Aboriginal cultures of Australia. They mark the route followed by localised "crea ...
s perform several functions, including mapping routes across the continent and passing on culture, and express connectedness to country.


Caring for Country

"Caring for Country" is another term commonly used in an Indigenous context, defined as "participating in interrelated activities on Aboriginal lands and seas with the objective of promoting
ecological Ecology () is the natural science of the relationships among living organisms and their environment. Ecology considers organisms at the individual, population, community, ecosystem, and biosphere levels. Ecology overlaps with the closely re ...
, spiritual and
human health Health has a variety of definitions, which have been used for different purposes over time. In general, it refers to physical and emotional well-being, especially that associated with normal functioning of the human body, absent of disease, pain ...
".
Caring for Country Landcare Australia is a community not-for-profit organisation that involves local groups of volunteers repairing the natural environment. Initially, projects focused on agricultural farmland. The idea was that farmers, conservationists, and scie ...
projects in operation across Australia involve collaborative partnerships between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people working to repair Indigenous lands and to preserve the environment using cultural knowledge. Of Caring for Country, Neale says:


Welcome to Country

A
Welcome to Country A Welcome to Country is a ritual or formal ceremony performed as a land acknowledgement at many events held in Australia. It is an event intended to highlight the cultural significance of the surrounding area to the descendants of a particular A ...
(or Acknowledgement of Country) is a
ritual A ritual is a repeated, structured sequence of actions or behaviors that alters the internal or external state of an individual, group, or environment, regardless of conscious understanding, emotional context, or symbolic meaning. Traditionally ...
or formal ceremony performed at many events held in Australia, intended to highlight the cultural significance of the surrounding area to a particular Aboriginal clan or language group who are recognised as traditional owners of the land.


References


Further reading

* {{Indigenous Australians Indigenous Australian culture