Aboriginal Ways

Australia: Life in the Outback

To the Aborigine, life was all about survival, a work ethic had nothing to do with it, here in America as well as in other parts of the industrialized world, we are taught a good and moral work ethic in order to improve our lot in life and have things previous generations couldn't even imagine having.

The Aborigine knew no such thing, because of their environment, their only focus was surviving, they don't understand and even laugh at us for working so hard. They wouldn't think of working hard, to do so would burn up too much energy, in turn because of the lack of readily available food, they would probably starve to death.

Their life has been greatly romanticized, people often tell them, "It must be great to live off the land and not have the worries of modern day civilization." Their reply, "If you think it is so great, try it!"

Life was very hard in the outback, in the extremely dry years, when food was almost nonexistent, women wouldn't ovulate, thus no children were born. There are even rumored cases of cannibalism, when one is desperate and hungry he will do anything to survive.

In better times, only the healthy babies were kept, they were suckled for 7 years. The mother was expected to keep up her end of the work and raise the child. If the mother couldn't do both, the baby was thus killed.

It would take about 6 acres to support one adult, so with the average family containing four or five people, the average tribe would consist of twenty to thirty people, thus it would take many acres to support just one tribe. They lived entirely off the land, surviving mainly on ants, termites, and grub worms. If they happened to live near a stream of water, a delicacy of fish or even crocodile could be enjoyed.

Even today, with all the good intentions of the Australian government, many of their lives have changed very little. In many instances the government have provided free food,housing and shelter for them, but after spending forty thousand years living in the bush, they have a hard time adapting. Many sleep outside in back of the government housing, being more comfortable than they would be in a nice warm bed.

Many have lost their way, because of the changing society, many don't have a purpose and have resorted to drugs and alcohol. Let's hope they don't disappear altogether, their way of life, their intuitive ways and knowledge of life could offer us many solutions to the modern day problems we all face.