Many Aboriginal people were known by a single or common first name and no surname – for example, Nellie, Jenny and Lizzy for women, and Bobby, Jimmy and Charlie for men. Surnames were often assigned by European employers and Aboriginal people were sometimes given their employer's surname.
Aboriginal people believe that if the deceased person's name is mentioned, the spirit is called back to this world. Images (film and photographs) or broadcasting the voice of the deceased person may also be against protocol and may cause serious offence.
Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander heritage is voluntary and very personal. You don't need paperwork to identify as an Aboriginal person. However, you may be asked to provide confirmation when applying for Aboriginal-specific jobs, services or programs (for example grants).
You're more likely to make friends by saying 'Aboriginal person', 'Aboriginal' or 'Torres Strait Islander'. If you can, try using the person's clan or tribe name. And if you are talking about both Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, it's best to say either 'Indigenous Australians' or 'Indigenous people'.
The historian Patrick O'Farrell argued that (in contrast to other colonists) Irish Catholics treated the Aborigines as equals, as evidenced by their willingness to intermarry, thus giving rise to the Irish surnames prominent among Aboriginal activists.
Surnames were often assigned by European employers and Aboriginal people were sometimes given their employer's surname. Some surnames were derived from the names of rural properties or places of residence. Some Indigenous people adopted aliases to avoid control by police and government.
There is no one Aboriginal word that all Aborigines use for Australia; however, today they call Australia, ""Australia"" because that is what it is called today. There are more than 250 aboriginal tribes in Australia. Most of them didn't have a word for ""Australia""; they just named places around them.
The islands were settled by different seafaring Melanesian cultures such as the Torres Strait Islanders over 2500 years ago, and cultural interactions continued via this route with the Aboriginal people of northeast Australia.
"Indigenous peoples" is a collective name for the original peoples of North America and their descendants. Often, "Aboriginal peoples" is also used. The Canadian Constitution recognizes 3 groups of Aboriginal peoples: Indians (more commonly referred to as First Nations), Inuit and Métis.
Dual naming is the approach whereby geographical features or places are officially recognised by two distinct names. One name is usually of Aboriginal language origin and the other of non-Aboriginal origin.
Assimilationist terms such as 'full-blood,' 'half-caste' and 'quarter-caste' are extremely offensive and should never be used when referring to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and Indigenous holding entities don't need to pay income tax or capital gains tax on native title payments or benefits.
Acknowledgement of Country should be everyone's responsibility. Why is the term "Aunty" and "Uncle" used so widely in the Aboriginal Community? Put simply - RESPECT! It also relates to recognition of Aboriginal Elders, kinship and extended families.
Aboriginal people refer to an Elder as 'Aunty' or 'Uncle'. However, it is recommended that non-Aboriginal people check the appropriateness of their use of these terms as referring to an Elder or leader as Aunty or Uncle may not be appropriate for an outsider unless a strong relationship has been established.
To make direct eye contact can be viewed as being rude, disrespectful or even aggressive.To convey polite respect, the appropriate approach would be to avert or lower your eyes in conversation. Observe the other person's body language.
In what is the strongest kinship avoidance rule, some Australian Aboriginal customs ban a person from talking directly to their mother-in-law or even seeing her. A mother-in-law also eats apart from her son-in-law or daughter-in-law and their spouse.
The “ab” in Aboriginal is a Latin prefix that means “away from” or “not,” so in that sense, Aboriginal can actually mean “not original” - not exactly what we're trying to convey with the term.
Today, the term 'Indigenous Australian' is used to encompass both Aboriginal people and Torres Strait Islander people. However many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people do not like to be referred to as 'Indigenous' as the term is considered too generic.
When used in Australia, it's preferable to capitalise the words 'Indigenous', 'Aboriginal' and 'Torres Strait Islander', just like you would with any group of people, and avoid using acronyms like ATSI or TSI. If you're referring to indigenous peoples generally around the world then 'indigenous' is spelt in lowercase.
Based on the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) projections, the number of Indigenous Australians in 2021 was estimated to be 881,600.
Aboriginal origins
Humans are thought to have migrated to Northern Australia from Asia using primitive boats. A current theory holds that those early migrants themselves came out of Africa about 70,000 years ago, which would make Aboriginal Australians the oldest population of humans living outside Africa.
Aboriginal Australians became genetically isolated 58,000 years ago, tens of thousands of years before other ancestral groups, making them the world's oldest civilization.
Genetic studies have revealed that Aboriginal Australians largely descended from an Eastern Eurasian population wave, and are most closely related to other Oceanians, such as Melanesians.
Prehistory. It is generally held that Australian Aboriginal peoples originally came from Asia via insular Southeast Asia (now Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei, East Timor, Indonesia, and the Philippines) and have been in Australia for at least 45,000–50,000 years.
Aboriginal peoples
Genetic studies appear to support an arrival date of 50–70,000 years ago. The earliest anatomically modern human remains found in Australia (and outside of Africa) are those of Mungo Man; they have been dated at 42,000 years old.