Australian society before European settlement

The Aboriginal people of Australia came to that continent between 40,000 and 60,000 years ago. In some areas enough of the basic structures of their society remain to show how they used to live.

A 

Traditionally, Australian Aboriginal people used to live in family groups, a few of which would join together to form larger groups known to sociologists as bands or hordes. To take part in important ceremonies or gatherings such as initiations, these bands came together as a single tribe, making a group of a hundred to several hundred people. In turn, these tribes sometimes met in still larger groups of a thousand or more. Aboriginal society was organised in three different ways: according to geographical structuring, religious/totemic structuring, and kinship structuring.

B 

Firstly, there was the geographical structuring of society, in which tribes of perhaps 500 people were made up of a number of bands of up to 20 people, each of which occupied a specific area. These bands were economic groups which would join together for day-to-day hunting and other food gathering. However, the term 'band' is given to this type of group by non-Aboriginal observers, and is not a distinct group in the minds of Aboriginal people, who regard themselves rather as belonging to a particular tribe or totemic group.

C 

In Aboriginal Australia, tribes are groups made up of people sharing the same language, customs, and general laws. The people of a tribe share a common bond and, in their own language, the word for 'man' is often the word used for the name of the tribe. Some tribal groups now also use the English term "nation" to describe themselves, as, for example, the Larrakeyah tribe around Darwin in Australia's Northern Territory who call themselves the 'Larrakeyah nation'. Tribes were generally not groups concerned with making war, and were not led by a chief. When Europeans first settled in Australia at the end of the 18th century there were an estimated 500 Aboriginal tribes. Of these, around 400 still have people representing them in the centre and north of Australia, where the tribal structure is still largely intact.

D 

The second way in which Aboriginal society was organised is religious and totemic. On a religious level, Aboriginal society in Australia was divided into two 'moieties' (a term used by European anthropologists) or halves. Within each moiety are significant animals, plants or places connected to the time of creation, which Aboriginal people call the 'Dreamtime'. For example, in the northern Kimberley area of Western Australia, the two moieties are represented by the two birds, Wodoi, the spotted nightjar, and Djungun, the owlet nightjar, who are said to have fought in the Dreamtime. Wodoi is associated with certain plants such as the edible cabbage palm, while Djungun is connected to a fish called the rock cod and a bird, the corella.

E 

Each person, as well as belonging to one or the other moiety, also belongs to a totemic group. A totem is an animal, plant, or other object which is believed to be ancestrally related to a person. In the Kimberley example given above, people belonging to the Wodoi moiety call the spotted nightjar their father, but they also have other animal and plant associates. For example, Jack Kararlada, a Kimberley elder, is named after his totem, the butcher bird, or kararlada in the local language. A totem can be represented by a large rock, a tree, hill, river, or other land form, and may also have a man-made emblem such as a wooden pole or other decorated object. Much of Aboriginal art is connected with the imagery of totems. A person is born into one or the other moiety, with their own totems, and that does not change throughout their life. A person belonging to one moiety must marry a person of the opposite moiety, a custom which has the effect of increasing genetic variation in the group.

F 

The third way that the society is structured is through the kinship system, which regulates relations between people. The kinship system is complex, needing up to 70 relationship terms to describe it. It structures obligations and behaviour among families and between members of society in general, and defines such matters as who will look after children if a parent dies, who can marry whom, who is responsible for another person's misdeeds, and who will care for the sick and the elderly. Under kinship laws, Aboriginal people may have similar family obligations to their aunts and uncles as they would to their mother or father.

G 

A family group can be quite large, consisting of a man and his wives, the children from each wife, and sometimes his parents or in-laws. A man used to have from one to ten wives, but nowadays most men have just one. Interestingly, Aboriginal custom all over Australia bans a person from speaking directly to their mother-in-law. So, in traditional society, if you wanted your mother-in-law to do something for you, you would have to ask another person to ask her. When food was divided and shared around the camp fire, a mother-in-law would have her own small fire, and her son or daughter would take her some of the meat and stay to chat, or a grandchild would sit with her and act as a messenger.