What conditions did the Aborigines live in?

Answer 1

Presuming this question to refer to how the Australian Aborigines lived prior to European settlement, and for some decades afterwards:

• They were hunters and gatherers. The men hunted animals, while the women and children gathered fruits, seeds, nuts, plants, yams, etc. If they lived by rivers or along the coasts, the men also fished and the women gathered shellfish.
• They had utensils for preparing the food, and they were skilled in using otherwise inedible parts of plants and animals, preparing them in certain ways.
• They were nomadic, moving from place to place to follow certain growth seasons. Forexample, coastal aborigines would move out to an island for the season when the fruit bats came in to feast on particular fruits. Those near the mountains would move to a particular area to take advantage of particular fruits or nuts for a season.
• They did not build permanent shelters, but humpies or lean-tos out of bark and branches.
• Aborigines had a culture of sharing, and no concept of ownership. This was one of the reasons they conflicted with Europeans. White man "owned" everything - the land, the animals, etc. The Aborigines did not understand this, and were often accused of stealing due to this cultural misunderstanding.
• They had a rich cultural tradition of weaving stories about the "Dreamtime" - the time when the world was created and when men and women turned into animals based on their deeds and actions.
• They held fireside ceremonies, called corroborees, with music and dancing. Didgeridoos and click-sticks formed the music, and men decorated themselves with ochres, dancing and singing to tell a particular story. Some of these corroborees were strictly men-only, especially if they were initiation ceremonies.
• Initiation ceremonies would involve cutting deep cicatrices into a youth's chest and back, packing them with mud and ash so they would heal in a distinctive way that would permanently mark the youth as a member of a particular tribe.
• The tribal medicine man was greatly feared and respected.
• Everyone lived in fear of the Kurdaitcha Man who had the power to kill by "pointing the bone". If someone employed the Kurdaitcha man to "point the bone" at a tribal member, that person would die. This was an incredibly powerful psychological weapon. The Kurdaitcha man would point the bone in a special ceremony in the dead of night, but leave an item behind so that the victim would know the bone had been pointed at him. Within a few days, sometimes weeks, he would die. No argument.

Answer 2

The indigenous people of Australia, known as the Aborigines, were found throughout the continent. They lived from the coastal areas (including offshore islands), through the mountains, the bush and in the deserts.