The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people

Traditional Custodians of the Land
The local community is heavily influenced by the culture and practices of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. They make up Australia’s indigenous people and comprise several groups that have different languages, traditions, and histories. The history and knowledge of the indigenous communities were passed down from one generation to the next through performance, language, story-telling, elders’ teachings, and preservation of important sites. Indigenous Australians are not just limited to the local community. They can be found all over the nation from the cities to the expansive arid lands. The definition the Australian government gives to Indigenous people is people of Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander descent who identify with those communities and are accepted by the communities they live in as part of the group. Not all Aboriginal and Torres Islander people willingly identify by the groups of their descent. While the number of people willing to identify with their groups has increased significantly, there still is under-counting in government statistics. The final data is often arrived at after the Australian Bureau of Statistics takes census data of the people who identify as indigenous and adjusts it to end up with an estimated resident population (ERP) data (Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, 2018, p.1).
As European settlers were setting up in 1788, Aboriginal people had already occupied the continent in its entirety and had adapted successfully to the prevailing climatic conditions of the places they stayed in whether they were arid deserts or tropical rainforests. The population densities varied by climate as the greener and wetter areas had population densities of about one person per 1 to 8 square miles while the remote arid areas were a bit scarcely populated with one person per 35 square miles. The estimated total population of the Aboriginal people stands at between 300,000 and 1000,000 people. They spoke more than 200 different languages with most people being able to speak more than one Aboriginal language. Languages were identified by the territories those who spoke it lived in. The groups were named after the languages they spoke and would be referred to the Europeans settlers as “tribes.” The number of these groups was large as it is estimated that there may have been more than 500 such defined groups with specifically defined territories. Members of a group would interact mainly with members of their own group. The groups had no active political affiliations, though. Generally, they were not pegged on any general political or economic forces and were instead oriented to more local memberships and affiliations. While Aborigines had no shared consciousness of national identity, their worldview went far beyond their immediate groups as they appreciated the place of different communities in making up functional society (Tonkinson & Berndt, 2019).
Aborigines dancing at an event referred to as ‘corroboree.’
Demographics
A significant portion of the Australian population today identify as Indigenous. In 2016, 3.3% of the Australian population identified as such. Between 2011 and 2016, indigenous people’s population was markedly higher than that of non-indigenous people (19% increase vs. 8.0% increase). People of Aboriginal origin made up 91% of the people who identified as indigenous while those of Torres Strait Islander origin made up 5.0%. People of both Torres Strait Islander and Aboriginal origins made up 4.1% of the indigenous population (Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, 2018, p.1).
Religion plays a big role in the lives of people in the local community. The makeup of religious affiliation of the local community mirrors the national outlook. During the 2016 census, data was gathered on religious affiliations of Australians. Nationally, people who do not have any belief or practice make up 30.1% of the population. Catholics are 22.6% of the population, Anglican Christians are 13.3%, the Uniting Church members are 3.7%, those who identify as Christian, in general, are 2.6%, Muslims are 2.6%, Buddhists are 2.4%, Presbyterians are 2.3%, Baptists are 1.5% , those who identify with Eastern Orthodox are 2.1%, while those who identify with Hinduism are 1..9%. Those who identify with the Lutheran Church are 7%, Pentecostals are 1.1%, Sikhs are 5%, Jehovah Witnesses are 4%, Seventh Day Adventists are 3%, and Latter Day Saints are 0.3%, while members of various other protestant groups make up 0.5%. People affiliated with Oriental Orthodox and Judaism are 0.2% and 0.4% respectively (Australian Population, 2018).
Indigenous Specific Services
Government services in the local community are supposed to reach all people with equal ease. To evaluate whether indigenous people in the local community have their needs met by the local healthcare system, it is important to evaluate their access to healthcare services and their usage of those services. Indigenous people have the option of accessing mainstream healthcare or using indigenous-specific health care services (ISPHCS). The services tailored to indigenous people offer prevention and diagnosis services as well as the treatment of illnesses in various settings. These services can be accessed in local communities through community clinics. Some public hospitals also offer indigenous-specific services. A lot has been done to ensure that indigenous people have easy access to health care in Australia. Access is a loaded term which may refer to geographical accessibility, financial accessibility, or cultural accessibility. Also, it may refer to whether or not the local health centers have the capacity to deal with the demand for their services. Data on accessibility especially for the local community is hard to find. To gauge accessibility, service can be used as an alternative gauge. Nationally, services acclaimed look as follows (Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, 2018):
The rate at which medical services are claimed – standardized by age – 2015 to 2016
Relative to the general population, indigenous Australians are high users of the nation’s hospital services. Excluding dialysis, indigenous Australians accounted for 458,000 hospitalizations between July 2013 and June 2015. This is 1.3 times higher than the rate of hospitalization for non-indigenous people. Dialysis-related hospitalizations for indigenous Australians accounted for an additional 393,000 hospitalizations. One notable thing from data collected is that the rate of hospitalizations for indigenous people can be reduced if action is taken to provide non-hospital services or primary care for potentially preventable conditions (PHHs). The occurrence of PHHs was three times that of non-indigenous Australians for indigenous people.
Places of Significance
Aborigines have been living in New South Wales for not less than 45,000 years. There is a lot of evidence around the state in the form of remains that show aboriginal occupation many years ago. There are sites around the state for the preservation and showcasing of the remains of aboriginal occupation. Such sites are important to Aborigines for historical, commemorative, social, and spiritual reasons. They are a reflection of the ways Aboriginal people look at their heritage and they show how people relate to one another and to their immediate environment. These sites are scattered around the state and they range from large shell middens that can be found on the coast to stone artifacts that can be found on the arid plains.
Some of the things that can be found on these sites include:
· Rock art
· Natural sacred sites
· Occupation sites
· Missions
· Story sites (e.g. North Border Mountain in Dooragan National Park)
· Massacre sites (NSW Government, 2018).
Dooragan National Park
In Victoria, imprints of Aboriginal people that span thousands of generations can be found across the land even in the highly developed regions. Aboriginal people lived throughout Victoria from the high country to the coast and from the rainforests to the semi-arid areas. The landscape shows evidence of communities that lived an authentic Aboriginal life as they sought food, told stories and shared cultural norms and values, engaged in conflict, made new alliances, celebrated various rites of passage, and put the departed to rest.
As Europeans arrived in Victoria, their presence and actions led to dramatic changes to how Aboriginal people lived and used their land. There was the creation of different cultural heritage locations that marked places of the first contact between Aboriginal people and Europeans, protective stations, massacre sites, and locations that marked important milestones in Aboriginal rights movements. This period is part of Aboriginal history and the material aspects in the present marking activities during this period may not have physical evidence of cultural heritage and activities preceding this age. These sites include locations of ceremonial or spiritual significance, travel or trade routes, and locations where traditional mineral or plant resources occurred. That Aboriginal society has endured throughout the continent is of very high global significance. Their history and heritage is part of all Australians’ heritage (State Government of Victoria, 2018).
Key Community Members
To help build strong relationships, members of the Aboriginal community laid emphasis on people understanding the various concepts and structures that exist in Aboriginal communities and families. There are very strong family values amongst the Aboriginal people. Western society pays attention to the nuclear family while Aboriginal people pay more attention to the extended family. Government bodies and authorities rarely understand the extended family concept in Aboriginal communities. It is therefore important that government service providers working with Aboriginal people are educated on the place and importance of the extended family in Aboriginal culture. The concept emphasizes community and encompasses a range of communal ideas including the idea that children aren’t just the concern of their biological parents but that of the whole community. Everyone in the community be they old or young, female or male, has a role in raising, educating, caring for, and disciplining children of members of members of the community.
The extended family is structured around:
· Marriage (uncle, cousin, aunt)
· Blood relationships (dad, mum, grandmother, grandfather, sister, brother, uncle, aunt)
· Kinship system (uncle, aunt, cousin, elder)
· Community (neighbor, elder, friend)
· Mutual respect
· Mutual obligation in the community
· Knowledge of and acceptance of Aboriginal kinship ties
· A sense of belonging (NSW Department of Community Services, 2009).
The presence of kinship terms avails to every member of the community a well-defined set of accepted terms of behavior. This encompassed practically all areas of life including sexual issues, face-saving, conflict resolution, work issues, and friendship dynamics, among others. It is expected of all community members to adhere to the expected social norms. Repeatedly flouting these norms and conventions threatens social order and may lead to censure. Children are taught what is expected of them from a young age and are expected to start obeying the social norms when they reach adolescence. In the Aboriginal culture, there were some ‘avoidance relationships’ where certain people were expected to avoid one another as much as possible. The relationship between a man and his mother-in-law was such a relationship. This applied not only to the actual mother-in-law but to all women who were culturally defined as “mother-in-law” (Tokinson & Berndt, 2019).
Developments in the local community have destroyed many sites that would have preserved the histories of indigenous people. NSW’s main piece of legislation that helps protect such sites is the National Parks and Wildlife Act, 1974 (NPW Act). The law makes it an offense to desecrate or harm an Aboriginal place or object or to move an object from where it is situated. Nonetheless, in the local community, a lot more can be done to preserve the history and culture of indigenous people (NSW Government, 2018).
References
Australian Institute of Health and Welfare 2018, Profile of indigenous Australians. Available from https://www.aihw.gov.au/getmedia/f29b7dd4-695a-4f9f-a508-ecdacc52beca/aihw-aus-221-chapter-6-1.pdf.aspx. [26 January 2019].
Australian Institute of Health and Welfare 2018, Indigenous Australians’ access to and use of health services. Available from https://www.aihw.gov.au/getmedia/3a2cdfb0-ba14-4b14-b6ac-039dcf35c5e3/aihw-aus-221-chapter-6-8.pdf.aspx. [26 January 2019].
Australia Population 2018, Australian population 2019. Available from http://worldpopulationreview.com/countries/australia/. [26 January 2019].
NSW Government 2018, Places of significance. Available from https://www.environment.nsw.gov.au/nswcultureheritage/PlacesOfSignificance.htm. [26 January 2019].
NSW Department of Community Services 2009, Working with Aboriginal people and communities: A practice resource. Available from http://www.carersaustralia.com.au/storage/2011Working%20with%20Aboriginal%20People%20and%20Communities.pdf. [26 January 2019].
State Government of Victoria 2018, Aboriginal cultural heritage of Victoria. Available from https://www.vic.gov.au/aboriginalvictoria/heritage/aboriginal-cultural-heritage-of-victoria.html. [26 January 2019].
Tonkinson, R & Berndt, RM 2019, ‘Australian Aboriginal people’, Encyclopedia Britannica. Available from https://www.britannica.com/topic/Australian-Aboriginal. [26 January 2019].