Aborigines Essay, Research Paper

The Aborigines of Australia can be viewed in three different views. All cultures have the basic three different categories. These three categories form a pyramid. At the bottom of the pyramid is technology. Technology is anything the culture uses to aid themselves. In the middle of the pyramid is social system. The social system refers to the way they organize their society, and which roles everyone plays. At the top of the pyramid is world view. World view is they way the culture sees the world. This include their beliefs on creation and how they relate to the world.

First I?ll start at the bottom of the pyramid. The Aborigines like everyone else, have and use technology. Some of the types of technology they use include sticks for finding eggs. The men in their society wear loincloths, while the women wear shirts and pants. For fire, they rub two sticks together, and for art canvases they use an axe and cut the bark off of a tree. Although their technology seems primitive to us, it provides them with everything they need.

Next is their social system. In the Aborigine society, men are superior to women. The men are responsible for keeping the sacred traditions of their society alive. However, their population has dwindled so much, that for each different section of their religion, their is only one man who knows all the procedures. For example, only one man in the tribe knows the full laws and regulation that govern how the proper burial procedures go. When this man dies, there will be no one left to bury him, and properly send his soul to heaven.

Last is their world view. They believe that the world was created by other beings that came from the sea and gave life to the world. They also believe that different kinds of animals gave the geography to the land, shaping it after their own characteristics. An example of such, the winding path of the hills were created by the snake, who slithered his way through them. The Aborigines are very strict about following their guidelines according to their world view. They are at peace with nature and believe in spirits and the afterlife.

The Aborigines are very innocent. This is because the believe that you must be at peace with nature and that technology to them breeds corruption. Because of their innocence, they are dying off. Their population has dwindled to almost nothing, and almost all of the members are elders. When these people die, there will be no one left of their kind.