The use of alcohol and other drugs is not a traditional part of Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander culture. Although people did consume weak alcohol made from various plants, traditional rules controlled how and when it was used.
In the past, Aboriginal people tapped the trees to allow the sap, resembling maple syrup, to collect in hollows in the bark or at the base of the tree. Ever-present yeast would ferment the liquid to an alcoholic, cider-like beverage that the local Aboriginal people referred to as Way-a-linah.
Introduction of alcohol
In 1964 a majority of Legislative Council Committee members voted that, for the Northern Territory at that time, alcohol should also be made available to Aboriginal people. It was, in fact, white people who introduced Aboriginal people to alcohol.
Unhealthy alcohol use is a key concern for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander ('Indigenous Australian') communities. Due to systematic disadvantage and inter-generational trauma, Indigenous Australians may be less likely to have satisfied basic psychological needs (autonomy, competence, and relatedness).
Although most Australians would probably say we've always been a heavy-drinking nation, the consumption of alcohol has followed a roller coaster curve since European invasion. Alcohol consumption in Australia began at an annual high point of 13.6 litres of pure alcohol per head in the 1830s.
Humans invented alcohol many times independently. The oldest booze dates to 7,000 BC, in China. Wine was fermented in the Caucasus in 6,000 BC; Sumerians brewed beer in 3,000 BC. In the Americas, Aztecs made pulque from the same agaves used today for tequila; Incas brewed chicha, a corn beer.
Drinking is arguably a big part of Australian culture. In Australia, it's strongly connected to social situations; you'll struggle to find a party or gathering that doesn't have alcohol in one form or another. It's common to go out for drinks to relax after work, or to celebrate over a toast with friends and family.
It may be traced back to times when European settlers introduced and used modern alcohol as a means to ply Indian populations.
Coronary heart disease was the leading individual disease contributing to burden in Indigenous Australians in 2018.
The stereotype that aboriginal people have a genetic intolerance to alcohol persists in Canada and around the world, but a Manitoba medical expert says studies show a possible predisposition to alcoholism really boils down to social conditions such as poverty.
Stone and natural glass tools
Aboriginal stone tools were highly sophisticated in their range and uses. Stone and natural glass were fashioned into chisels, saws, knifes, axes and spearheads.
After European settlers arrived in 1788, thousand of aborigines died from diseases; colonists systematically killed many others. At first contact, there were over 250,000 aborigines in Australia. The massacres ended in the 1920 leaving no more than 60,000.
Chemical analyses recently confirmed that the earliest alcoholic beverage in the world was a mixed fermented drink of rice, honey, and hawthorn fruit and/or grape. The residues of the beverage, dated ca. 7000–6600 BCE, were recovered from early pottery from Jiahu, a Neolithic village in the Yellow River Valley.
The first official brewer in Australia was John Boston who brewed a beverage from Indian corn bittered with cape gooseberry leaves. It is likely though that beer was brewed unofficially much earlier. The first pub, the Mason Arms was opened in 1796 in Parramatta by James Larra, a freed convict.
Locally made drops - from tonic to golden ale, vermouth to eau de vie - are full of the flavours and aromas of the bush, as the next generation of producers embrace quandong, wattleseeds and more.
In the 1860s, Victoria became the first state to pass laws authorising Aboriginal children to be removed from their parents. Similar policies were later adopted by other states and territories – and by the federal government when it was established in the 1900s.
28% of suicides between 2000-2004 were the result of alcohol consumption in Aboriginal communities. In some communities Aboriginal women are more prone to over-excessive domestic violence, rapes and deaths due to Aboriginal males consuming alcohol at harmful rates.
The largest rate ratios are seen for deaths from Diabetes (Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander rate 5.2 times higher than the Non-Indigenous population), Cirrhosis and other diseases of the liver (Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander rate 3.7 times higher than the Non-Indigenous population), and Chronic lower ...
Before European people arrived in what is now known as Canada, Aboriginal peoples did not have a brewing tradition and had no experience with alcohol. As the Fur Trade developed, alcohol came to be used as a gift item as well as an item of trade at trading posts (Waldram, Herring, Young, 2000).
People from Australia are getting wasted at a much higher frequency than the rest of the world, according to a global drug survey. The world's largest annual drug survey has ranked Australia as the drunkest country on the planet, with Australians getting shitfaced almost twice as frequently as the global average.
Belarus, a country that drinks the most liters of pure alcohol than any other country in the world, was also classified as having one the riskiest pattern of drinking.
But it wasn't until the 8th century A.D. that Arabic alchemist Abu Musa Jabir ibn Hayyan designed the alembic pot still, a contraption that allowed for the effective distillation of alcohol.
How is alcohol made? The type of alcohol in the alcoholic drinks we drink is a chemical called ethanol.To make alcohol, you need to put grains, fruits or vegetables through a process called fermentation (when yeast or bacteria react with the sugars in food - the by-products are ethanol and carbon dioxide).