The Kinship System of the Australian Aborigines

In the following paper I will be discussing the kinship of the Australian Aborigines. I will be discussing how this culture impacts the way they behave such as how the act and live. I will also be comparing this behavior to that of my life. I hope that you find this paper to be interesting as well as informative. I will start out by giving a little background on the Australian Aborigines. They are a group of several hundred Indigenous people that reside in Australia. They have existed before the British annexation of Australia in 1788, before that the number of people was over four hundred. In many cases the people or groups will talk about their “people” and their “country”. The countries are ethnographic areas. In many cases each country had extended families that lived in them. It was common to have cousins that marry. I would now like to talk about how the Aborigines dress. In many cases by early settlers they were observed to be naked. Some of the tribes had men and women that wore a belt around their waste that was used to carry tools and weapons. This belt was made of animal hair, animal fur, skin or fiber. Before the colonization of the Europeans it was just a simple flap in the front but, after they had to modify it. In the winter months the Aboriginal people made cloaks to keep warm. Next I would like to talk about their language. There were somewhere between 200 to 250 different Aboriginal languages spoken. Now there are fewer than 200 that still remain and all but 20 are considered to be endangered. In 1888 the language was proof that it was necessary to refer to the Aboriginal names and locations throughout the colonies. There are actually some Aboriginal words that are still used today. Next I will talk about the diet of the Aboriginal people. They will hunt or fish for their meat, gather fruits, berries, eggs, plants and insects as well. Some of the meats that they eat are kangaroos, wallabies, echidnas and possums as well