A Brief Talk About Indigenous People and Arts of Australia

A Brief Talk about Indigenous People and Arts of Australia

Abstract: As a component of the Australian population, indigenous people have their long history and profound culture. In addition, the development of indigenous arts and the destiny of the indigenous are closely connected. The author intends to connect the indigenous people’s life and their culture, and introduces history of indigenous, the challenges they faced, the new chances they met, and three kinds of Australian indigenous arts. Finally, the articles also focus on the new development of the Australian indigenous arts.

Key words: Australia, indigenous people, indigenous art, multiculturalism policy

1. History of indigenous people

Although Australia is a young country with a history about 100 years, the indigenous people have settled down on the devastating land more than 40,000 years ago. They lived a nomadic life by hunting and gathering, and separated on the land without a fixed resident. Before the Europeans set their foot on the continent, there were appropriate 500 indigenous tribes living on that magical land.

During this long history, the indigenous people bear the unique culture belonging to them. As one of the oldest living arts in the world, Australian indigenous arts express the aborigines’ respect to the ancestors and land. They believe in “dreamtime”, which is the time when their ancestors developed the world. From their angle, the souls of the ancestors have been always lying on the land, so “land” is the permanent thesis of their art works.

2. Facing catastrophes: the difficult survive of the Indigenous

2.1. Early policy:

From 17th century, the Europeans gradually discovered Australia. In 1770, Captain Cook landed on the east coast of Australia. He named it as New South Wales and denounced that Australia belonged to Britain. The British first set Australia a place to send prisoners into exile. In 1790, the first batch of freeman from Britain immigrated and settled down in Australia. After that, the British social system and value became the mainstream culture of Australia. In order to keep the purity of its culture and value, the colonists drove the aboriginal people out or killed them. Trapped in the crisis of genocide, the indigenous were homeless and lived a quite miserable life. Hence it led to a great damage of indigenous arts, at the same time; it hurt the indigenous people’s positivity of artistic creation.

2.2. Assimilation policy

In 1870s, the contradictory between the white and the indigenous sharpened, which rendered the government to make a reflection on the policy. Finally, the government adopted the assimilation policy and began to “protect” the indigenous. On the one hand, they didn’t kill or drive them out anymore and allow them to live on their land. On the other hand, the government took different kinds of measures to make the indigenous to lose their own culture. What’s more, the indigenous children were taken away from their mothers forcibly, and then, some were adopted by white families, some were sent to church, all of them suffered a lot. It is the reason why the tragedy of “stolen generation” happened. Such a policy aimed in assimilating both indigenous people and their culture, including their arts. At this period, it was hard to keep the unique character of the indigenous art under the tough policy of government. There is no doubt that it brought harm to indigenous people both physically and mentally and pushed the indigenous arts to the brink of extinction.

3. The turning point of the Indigenous and their arts: Multiculturalism policy

Fortunately, the indigenous people survive in the catastrophes toughly and the turning point appeared. In 1973, the Minister of immigration and ethnic affairs, Al Grasby launched a famous speech “The Family of Nation” after his visit in Canada. In the same year, the multiculturalism policy came out, and from then on, the white Australia policy was officially abolished.

Multiculturalism policy is a public policy for the government of a multiracial society to manage its multi-culture, that is, to adopt official measures to pursue the mutual respect and tolerance among different cultures. Multiculturalism emphasizes that each culture has its originality, which is crucial to accept other nations.

The multiculturalism policy in Australia includes three significant principles:

Firstly, cultural identity: every Australian has the power to express and share their unique cultural tradition, including ethical language and religious belief.

Secondly, social justice: every Australian enjoys equal opportunity and treatment, despite of the differences of race, religion, language, gender and birthplace.

Thirdly, commercial efficiency: it’s necessary to remain, develop and make advantage of the techniques and capacity of all the Australians, regardless of their backgrounds.

The multiculturalism policy provides a free and beneficial environment for the indigenous arts to awaken. The Australian government realized the significance of protecting the old valuable indigenous arts and also set up several organizations for protection and digging out.

4. Four kinds of indigenous arts

The indigenous art is the crystal of wisdom and belief, showing the world the 40,000 years of Australian history. The theme of the arts is very wide, including their homeland, starry sky, the animals and other things related to their land, their legend.

In addition, the indigenous arts own three special characters. Firstly, it integrates with witchcraft. The Australian indigenous arts are called “the arts communicating with divinities”, and this character is obviously performed in the totem. The Australian indigenous totems are full of mysterious original religion and witchcraft atmosphere. And the totem expresses the feeling of dependence and reverence to nature of indigenous people. Secondly, it embodies fairy tales. For the Australian indigenous people, fairy tales means lives beyond nature and the world created by the ancestors. Based on the legend, fairy tales combine human and divinities, ancestors and the mental strengths in the arts. Thirdly, it is the dependence on land. The indigenous arts are firmly linked to the land, and in their eyes, the land, the nature and them are integrated together. And there are mainly four types of indigenous arts, namely, body decorating, painting, stonecutting and weaving.