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Hello everyone, here is the "Cultural Story Collection" at the top of the Purple City, welcome all the friends to watch the wonderful content of this issue.
Whether from the perspective of the history of culture or historical culture, culture should include a complete set of national development history (such as social structure, social system, economic model, science and technology, etc.) and the development and evolution process of national mentality and national cultural traditions (such as religious beliefs, social customs, customs and customs, moral ethics, values, etc.).
This article mainly discusses the origin, development and reasons for the lag of Australian Aboriginal culture based on the above broad cultural concepts.
The results of archaeological research in Australia show that the oldest ancestors in Australia appeared in ancient times 40,000 years ago [1].
But archaeologists regret that so far, they have not found any historical traces of the evolution of higher mammals or primitive apes into humans in Australia.
Therefore, archaeologists have concluded that the earliest Indigenous Australians migrated from other continents.
The skulls of the Wagja found in eastern (Targai) and southern (Melbourne's Carol) in 1884 and 1940 respectively have many similarities with the Wagja skulls found on the Indonesian island of Java in 1889; in addition, the body shape of the Aboriginal Australians is very close to that of the Vida race in Southeast Asia; and the tooth shape of the Pacific and Asian races is similar to that of the Australian Aborigines.
Based on this, archaeologists conclude that the Aboriginal australians migrated from Southeast Asia[2].
However, it is puzzling that after tens of thousands of years of vicissitudes, Australian Aborigines still maintain the backwardness of the primitive tribes of the Mesolithic period in many aspects such as living patterns, economic models and social systems.
When Britain's first fleet of ships landed in Sydney Bay in 1788 with prisoners and guards unveiled the title page of Modern Australian history, the Australian Aborigines had a population of at least 300,000, divided into more than 500 tribes, and spoke more than 500-600 languages.
Judging from their hunting-gathering economic model and means of production, it can be said that the Australian Aborigines of the late 18th century were indeed still in a backward state of primitive tribes.
Anthropologists believe that human culture, at the beginning of its emergence, was mainly manifested as the "process and result of humanizing nature" of human ancestors [3], and the ancient ancestors came from nature and took it from nature, so their ability to transform nature depended not so much on human beings' own ability as on the natural environment and geographical environment in which human beings were placed [4].
The Australian continent, located above and below the equator, not only has a warm climate but also is rich in flora and fauna, so it can only rely on the primitive production method of gathering and hunting to maintain food and clothing.
Engels said that the materialist view of history holds that the determining factor in the historical process is, in the final analysis, the production and reproduction of real life [5].
It can therefore be said that the mode of production of indigenous peoples is fundamental to determining the nature of their society.
Hunter-gatherer is the only economic activity of Aboriginal Australians.
Their production tools include stone tools, wooden tools and fibres for fishing and holdings, such as fishing nets and net bags, bone needles for sewing and bone fishing hooks for fishing, and so on.
Aboriginal Australians who make a living by gathering and hunting have no place to live throughout the year, and can only live in huts or huts or stone houses wherever they go.
Aboriginal Australians are almost all year round naked, sometimes covering their bodies with leaves or wrapped around their waists in animal skins.
Indigenous ornaments include feathers, shells, bouquets, grass crowns, necklaces made of stone or shells, and bracelets .6]
Indigenous people have long known how to drill wood for fire or stone for fire, and have long known how to roast prey or grind grain into powder and water balls and roast it and eat it.
However, before the Europeans settled in Australia, they did not know how to farm and raise livestock, and they could not make pottery or metal products.
Despite this, Aboriginal Australian society is an organized and systematic society.
They have their own laws and institutions of marriage, their own social customs, family models, religious beliefs and culture and art.
They mostly organize economic and religious social life on a clan and tribal basis.
Each tribe has its own territory, totem, religion, language and living customs.
Most of the tribes in eastern, western and southern Australia are mostly patriarchal; the rest are mostly matrilineal.
The indigenous clan society exercised communal ownership of all means of production, including territories and means of labour, and only self-defense weapons were owned by individuals.
The prey and food obtained were generally distributed among the clan members on the basis of the principle of the total enjoyment of the commune.
In the eyes of the indigenous people, the territory and its occupants were spiritually linked by the spirits of the ancestors who believed that the actions of the ancestors created the natural landscape, animals, plants, and descendants of the land.
It is believed that this creation took place in a long and mysterious "dream age", and that the social organization, legal system and production technology created by the ancestral elves were passed down to future generations and owned by them.
Generally speaking, the paternal group or paternal estate is the main territorial area of the indigenous people.
This is a group based on land and forms a tribe in a large area associated with a certain language [7].
Moreover, the indigenous people believed that their groups, territories, and all species of flora and fauna were closely related to religion, totem, and ceremonial expression, and that many everyday things in social life conveyed and cared for the philosophical point of view of the universe [8].
Indigenous peoples have strict living practices and social codes of conduct.
Each tribe is divided into three parts: adult men; adult women and children.
Among the adult men is a small elderly class who are responsible for upholding the customs of life and the norms of social behaviour.
Each tribe also elects a highly respected elder as its leader. Elders and chiefs form tribal councils to decide or deal with various matters within the tribe.
Adult men must be recognized after attending the "Cheng Ding Ceremony".
Adult women also have a more important position in the tribe, and they can participate in the mediation and negotiation of inter-tribal disputes.
Adult men and adult women each have a division of labour in production, with the former responsible for hunting and the latter responsible for gathering.
Adult women also possess their own religious practices and secret knowledge, and also play an important role in men's "rites of passage" (9).
The marriage system of Australian Aboriginal people is basically a group marriage system.
A tribe practices a system of foreign marriage between two ethnic groups, and intermarriage between the ethnic groups is strictly prohibited.
Each clan is divided into two marriage levels, for example, the A clan is divided into two marriage levels, A and B; the B clan is divided into C and D marriage levels, so only A and C or B and D can intermarry.
In the family, each adult man may cohabit with 1 to 2 women (main wives) of the relevant marriage class, and also have supplementary sexual relations with several women (vice wives) of the relevant marriage class, and the number of "deputy wives" of a man depends on his social status and age, such as more than 10 tribal chiefs and elders [10].
Since the 19th century, however, monogamous marriage laws have begun to dominate among indigenous peoples, but the vestiges of their taxonomic marriages have not yet been completely eliminated.
Australian Aboriginal tribes generally do not form a fixed oral or written form of legal provisions, "right and wrong good and evil" are judged by people's intuition.
If a tribal member commits a crime of "enchanting" others by "magic", violating the prohibition of foreign marriage, sacroaching on holy ceremonies and religious beliefs, etc., the tribal elders and chiefs generally make a judgment, and the punishments are: injury, disability, death penalty and other levels.
In general, people who violate the system of foreign marriage mostly flee on their own.
When an armed conflict arises from suspicion or vendetta among neighboring tribes, they usually compete in the form of armed fighting at night, and if anyone is injured, they can give up.
In general, due to the superior living environment of the Australian mainland, coupled with the simplicity and generosity of religious ideas, indigenous people rarely pose a harm to society [11].
Aboriginal Australians have a very unique religious belief.
They believe that there is no clear boundary between the material world and the spiritual world, so they believe in the "animism" theory.
It is believed that life exists in any visible object, whether it is a person or other animal, a cliff, a forest, a water source, etc., has the same divine life.
Therefore, he does not believe in the saying that there is any "god or deity who can dominate the world or the universe", but believes in the spirits in myths and legends that appear in various forms or incarnations.
The indigenous people believed that the elves who appeared in the incarnation of the indigenous ancestors created the physical world and were placed in it, so they gave sacred meaning to the land and life, believing that the elves existed independently and unpredictably, and had a form and ability beyond nature.
Since they equate the elves with other substances in nature, they do not give them the exalted status of "gods who rule over everything" [12].
The totem in the minds of Australian Aborigines is described as a fantasy creature of both man and beast, half man and half beast, male or female, and it is believed that everyone is the embodiment of the ancestor of the totem.
Their concept of "genie" is directly related to its totemic beliefs.
It is the concept of "animism" and the myths and legends of totemic belief that the indigenous people believe that everything is created by the elves, and they just have to enjoy it, so they never think about transforming nature, nor do they have the desire and pursuit to create a better society.
Tens of thousands of years have passed, and the primitive tribal society of the indigenous people has made little progress.
It is also this "animism" and totemic belief that make the indigenous people believe in the "cycle of life".
Therefore, we believe that the religious beliefs and totemic cults of indigenous peoples in the form of myths and legends do not seem to have ethical connotations as a whole, but only stay at the shallow level of understanding and interpretation of the reality of life and the natural world, and thus have not yet risen to the level of discovering human morality, sin, salvation, atonement or theory of the other side.
Australian Aborigines believe that life does not belong to itself, it originates from the "Dream Age" and is embodied in human form, and forms a cyclical continuation through generations of reproduction, so the Aboriginal people do not believe that the life and death of individuals are very important, but believe that human life is embodied in the mysterious connection with the "dream" life force through myths, legends and religious rituals, and believe that even if individual life dies, it will continue to exist with the help of "dream" life force, therefore, they do not believe that death is a punishment for sin, nor do they believe in the "heaven or hell" theory [13].
"Spells" are also an aspect of indigenous religious beliefs.
People blame the "spells" of their enemies for all kinds of diseases, calamities, deaths, and misfortunes, and are therefore terrified of their "curses."
Sometimes mutual suspicion often leads to vendetta. When indigenous people had natural disasters and diseases, they often asked wizards or witch doctors to drive out disasters or diseases.
Indigenous peoples are disposed of after death by methods such as burial, cremation, mummification or ghoul [14].
Questions about the art of Aboriginal Australians. Raymond William argues that there is a fundamental assumption in the development of cultural ideas that the art of a period is closely and necessarily related to the "way of life" that prevailed at the time [15].
The rock paintings, grotto paintings and tattoo art of the Aboriginal Australians largely reflect their production patterns and lifestyles at that time.
It can be said that the Aboriginal people of Australia have created a unique and rustic primitive culture and art on the basis of their unique religious beliefs and totem worship.
The indigenous people had a rich imagination and at the height of their culture appeared a wide variety of tattoos, slate paintings, bark paintings, petroglyphs and grotto paintings.
Tattoo painting refers to the simple scars and patterns that indigenous people tattooed on the skin of the chest, back and arms as a permanent commemorative decoration, referred to as tattoos.
The aborigines also carved various patterns on shields and flying instruments or wooden handles to symbolize a certain spirit or totem. Since tattoos mostly belong to individuals, they are difficult to preserve.
The art that can be preserved for a long time is rock painting and grotto painting.
A large number of petroglyphs and cave paintings have been found in the north-west of the Australian continent, most of which use red ochre, yellow ochre, charcoal and white clay as pigments to depict ancient legendary heroes and various totemic animals.
This cave rock mural in indigenous art has a fairly long history and high artistic achievements.
Some of these rock murals, which have been preserved to this day, can be pushed back to the "Dream Age" tens of thousands of years ago.
One of the 102 Aboriginal rock mural sites discovered in the Lara district of Queensland in 1982 is 30 metres long with lifelike ancient animals; the rock wall of another site is painted with a giant catfish, one of the largest rock murals in the world, and some rock paintings depicting the daily life and production scenes of aboriginal people.
It is worth mentioning in indigenous paintings that X-ray methods are used to depict the shapes of human and animals, and even the bones, organs and internal organs of people and animals are often accurately depicted.
However, this method of perspective differs from modern physiological anatomical drawings, and the shapes depicted in the perspective paintings of indigenous people are generally flattened and do not pay attention to the details of the appearance.
However, this perspective painting is quite contagious because it looks simple and cute.
It can be said that this kind of perspective painting is a unique in Australian painting art[16], and it is unique even in the world.
The most common themes in indigenous rock frescoes are mythical and legendary spirits and totems, and sometimes scenes of religious ceremonies and celebrations.
Since each tribe's territory has its own sacred site, the rock murals of each tribe are also unique, especially in the totem pattern.
Indigenous people regarded these stripes as markers handed down from ancestors, representing the identity of a group.
In addition, the indigenous people have a unique bark painting.
The process involves peeling off the bark, drying it and blackening it in smoke, carving it on the surface with fingernails, shells or other tools, and sometimes decorating it with some paints, and the subject matter and content of this bark painting is roughly the same as that of the rock paintings.
Indigenous music and dance are also distinctive.
Their music is generally dominated by singing, usually passed down from generation to generation by singers and accompanists.
The instrument consists mainly of a large digjeldo bamboo flute and some percussion instruments.
In general, indigenous peoples did not have instrumental concertos and solo performances.
They know almost nothing about music theory, but they have a strong sense of rhythm.
In religious ceremonies, people sit in a circle, led by one or several people, and the crowd claps their legs or sings on the ground.
The tattooed dancers in the circle dance to the rhythm of the song and instrument.
Indigenous music, dance and chanting are based entirely on the myths and legends of the "Dream Age", or praise, or pray to the spirits of the tribe, or in the form of totemic worship, and singing and dancing are a collective activity of indigenous religious celebrations .[17]
Aboriginal australian literature is also generally preserved by oral transmission.
There are usually myths and legends, songs, incantations and fairy tales.
Its themes are mostly concerned with people's understanding and thinking about life and death, the natural environment and spiritual ideas.
In general, the myth of the "Dream Age" has a deep metaphysical connotation and, in many ways, a certain symbolism.
They mainly like to chant and sing, and the myths and legends of the indigenous people are mostly poetic prose.
The multiplicity of indigenous tribes and languages makes their oral literature complex and complex.
Aboriginal literature throughout the Australian continent is still in more than 200 languages in the folk, with the development of the times, today's Aboriginal oral literature in addition to ancient myths and legends, there are some elements of modern traditional culture.
Indigenous oral literature has a distinctly regional character.
The differences between the different tribes of Esperance and the Strait of Torre can be discerned by their different cultural identities.
Aboriginal tribal oral literature is both secular and sacred in content and theme, both narrative and singing, which can be seen as a common feature of Aboriginal oral literature throughout Australia.
Indigenous oral literature in general appears to have evolved from the traditional content of historical myths, legends and totemic worship, but with the change of times, indigenous oral literature has also shown a tendency to transition to modern real life.
From a historical point of view, indigenous oral literature has a longer cultural origin and therefore a stronger vitality than contemporary indigenous written literature [18].
The father of Australian Aboriginal written literature is generally considered to be none other than David Una-ipon.
Since 1920, he has written a number of works, mostly religious beliefs, moral preaching, and other short stories drawn from various places.
The overall title of Unaipeng's short stories is Legendary Tales of the Au-stralian Aborigines, along with hundreds of pages of commentary on Christian legends, religious indoctrination, fables, and anthologies.
All of Unaipeng's works are stored in manuscript and typographical form in the Michel Library, four of which were published in pamphlet form by the Aboriginal Friends' Association in 1929, the earliest indigenous written works.
From the 1930s to the 1940s, some church magazines gradually published some of Unaipeng's works, and in 1951 published a biography of Unaipeng.
In the early '60s, another indigenous writer, Kath Walker, also began publishing literature.
From the 1950s to the 1960s, the educational and cultural level of indigenous peoples has improved, and by the 1970s and 1980s, indigenous written literature has a good foundation and certain achievements.
Keith's collections of poems We Are Going (1963) and The Dawn Is At Hand (1966) are landmark works.
She later published a collection of poems and essays, My People (1981).
It can be said that both Unaipeng and Kath, pioneers of indigenous literature, made great contributions to the early development of indigenous written literature [19].
Although indigenous written literature is directly derived from the transition from indigenous oral literature, the direct or indirect influence of Western literature on contemporary indigenous literature in form and style cannot be denied.
For example, indigenous literature written in English is fascinating in its novelty, and all indigenous works have a clear and strong socio-political tendency.
Aboriginal literature presents a new perspective on contemporary white Australians, whose treatment of government authorities, sexual relations, and aboriginal identities is very different from that of whites, and Aboriginal literature that has distinct post-colonial literary features, or fourth-world literature.[20]
Although Aboriginal Australians have almost never had direct contact with American Indians or Swedish Laplandians, their poetry bears many similarities with the poetry of North American Indians and Nordic Laplanders, whereas the dominant literature of Aboriginal Australians and White Australians is far removed.
The first Indigenous play to be staged was Kevin Gibert's The Cherry Pickers (1971).
Since then, aboriginal dramatists such as Robert Merritt, Gerry Bostock, Eva Johnson and Jack Davis have consolidated aboriginal theatre in the domestic and international theatre markets.
Bostock's Here Comes the (1977) was not only staged in Sydney that year, but was later reprinted in its entirety in the prestigious literary magazine Meanjin.
In addition to touring the country and abroad, Merritt's The Cake Man (1978) was televised as early as 1977 in abbreviated form, and was staged for two weeks at the 1982 World Theatre Festival in Australia.
In 1984, Iwa's play Tinderella, a satirical play of fairy tales, became a hit at the Adelaide Festival.
Davis's No Sugar (1986) was extremely well received at the World Theatre Festival in The United Kingdom in 1986, and later brought to the screen and won the Australian Film Institute Award.
At the first Congress of Aboriginal Dramatists and Exhibition of Works, held in Canberra in 1987, five Aboriginal plays were performed and a grand celebration was held.[21]
Nevertheless, the overall level of Australian Aboriginal culture is much behind the overall level of world culture. In particular, written literature appeared several centuries later than the written literature of other civilized peoples of the world.
Of course, this is especially true from a broad cultural concept.
The political system, economic model, religious beliefs, living customs and cultural and artistic profiles of the Aboriginal societies mentioned above illustrate that Aboriginal Australian society is an ancient and backward tribal society.
Some people say that "Australian Aborigines are ancient people who broke into the modern world", although this statement is a bit disrespectful, but the lag of Australian Aboriginal culture is an indisputable fact.
Marx said in his Introduction to the Criticism of Political Economy that "the mode of production of material life restricts the process of socio-political and spiritual life, and it is not the consciousness of men that determines man's existence, but, on the contrary, it is the social existence of man that determines man's consciousness" [22].
Marx's incisive assertion breaks through the root causes of the lag of Australian Aboriginal culture.
From the perspective of historical materialism, it can be said that Australia's natural environment is one of the main reasons for the lag of its Indigenous culture.
At the beginning of human culture, the influence of external natural conditions on human evolution was indeed an important factor.
For different natural conditions, the ancestors adopted different ways of life, thus creating different types of cultures.
Ancient Australia, which is sparsely populated, is on both sides of the equator and has unique natural conditions: the climate is warm, the vegetation is abundant, the animals are abundant, and the simple labor methods of hunting and gathering can meet the needs of life, so the indigenous people do not think about farming and grazing; because of the warm climate, they can survive without clothing and housing, so the indigenous people do not think about weaving and building, and in this way, the indigenous people have still lived the primitive tribal life of the Mesolithic period for tens of thousands of years.
This was true even after the Europeans entered Australia in 1788.
The impact of isolated geography on human culture is more pronounced in Aboriginal Australians.
From the perspective of the internal environment, in addition to climatic conditions and animal and plant ecological environments, the geographical distance between people in different regions between various cultural groups is also a factor that cannot be ignored.
External environmental factors are mainly the isolation or restriction caused by geographical distance between a cultural body and a foreign cultural body.
Obviously, geographical distances partially, or even entirely, make two distant humanities culturally isolated.
For example, from the perspective of the interior of the Australian continent, the indigenous people of the Australian continent before 1788 and the indigenous people of Tasmania are not only different in physical appearance, but also in terms of language, production methods and religious concepts.
From the perspective of the general environment, the Australian continent is far away from the world's various civilization centers.
For example, Sydney is 8,752 km from Shanghai, China; 21,000 km from the Suez Canal to London sea lane; 12,320 km from Honolulu to San Francisco; 10,420 km from Puntarenas at the southern tip of South America; and 11,766 km from Cape Pier in South Africa.
In this way, before the opening of air traffic, maritime traffic was extremely backward, not to mention ancient Australia, that is, before the 18th century, Australian culture was basically enclosed in an isolated environment.
Although Australia is relatively close to Asia, there are originally land bridges formed by Sumatra Island and Java Island between Asia and Australia, and it is reasonable to say that there should be mutual exchanges, but in fact there is no close connection between the two continents.
On the other hand, Asia and Europe are conjoined continents, while Asia and Africa are connected by the Suez Isthmus, and Asia and North and South America are connected by the Bering Strait, so that the exchanges between the continents of Asia, Europe, Africa, and North and South America are relatively close, and only Australia is isolated in the ocean.
In addition to the limitations of natural conditions and the isolation of the geographical environment, the more important reason is that the totem worship, myths and legends of the indigenous people, especially the religious concepts of "animism" and "reincarnation of life" have seriously bound the minds of the indigenous people, thus forming a static cultural psychology of not seeking progress and being satisfied with the status quo, which has made them firmly adhere to the social system and way of life of the primitive commune for tens of thousands of years, so that both the level of production and the degree of civilization are far behind the inhabitants of other continents.
Before 1788, the various indigenous tribes in Australia were generally primitive tribal societies characterized by a self-sufficient hunter-gatherer lifestyle.
Australia is 4007 kilometers from east to west and 3154 kilometers from north to south, and the mountains in the east and the desert in the central or western part form an insurmountable geographical barrier, so it is difficult for indigenous tribes in different parts of the Australian continent to overcome this natural barrier and communicate with each other, and they are only accustomed to breeding in the territory handed down by their ancestors.
The natural conditions of warm climate and abundant vegetation limit their enterprising spirit of striving for survival, and the relatively closed and steady social system and production mode they have formed over thousands of years are satisfied with the subjective consciousness and objective environment of self-sufficiency without thinking about communication and development, which eventually leads to the Australian Aborigines still retaining the production relations and social form of the Mesolithic period.
Although Asians came to Australia via the land bridge between Australia and Southeast Asia, there have been historical records that there were once a small number of Fishermen from the East Indies and Indonesia who came to the Papua-New Guinea area off the northern coast of Australia, but they had little contact with the local indigenous people.
In fact, outsiders have traded with indigenous peoples for barter, but the primitive public ownership of indigenous peoples makes them not possess the concept of animals and plants in their own territory, and since outsiders can pick or capture them by themselves, it is obvious that any transaction naturally loses its necessity.
The superior natural environment deprives indigenous peoples of the desire to change their cultural traditions, and the isolated external environment also deprives indigenous peoples of the opportunity to improve and enhance their own culture.
All this has led to a static trend in indigenous cultures for tens of thousands of years.
The myths and legends, religious beliefs and totemic cults that have been formed for a long time have made the indigenous people have too strong spiritual dependence on nature, and the indigenous people have closely linked marriage and the reproduction of life force to the land and the natural world, especially the concept of life and death such as the reproduction of life as a spirit is basically expressed as the principle of dependence on nature, respect for nature and worship of nature, and due to the continuous strengthening of religion, the principle of coexistence of all indigenous groups has finally been formed. Thus, the relationship between indigenous peoples and nature is a harmonious coexistence rather than a relationship of transformation and struggle.
Thus, the indigenous people's excessive worship and dependence on nature has never allowed them to step out of nature and reach a stage of superiority over nature and domination of nature.
Although, in the narrow sense of culture, Aboriginal people have also produced some literature and art that reflect their level of production, life and socio-political and economic development, but the Australian Aborigines did not make pottery, metalwork, and more importantly, there was no writing until the end of the 18th century, these important factors can only freeze aboriginal culture in the primitive tribal social stage of the Mesolithic period.
However, since the 19th century, there have been major changes in indigenous culture, such as the emergence of indigenous scripts with Roman script as the target, some indigenous people began to integrate into the mainstream white society, so they began to identify with white Australians in terms of living and production methods, etc., but this process of social assimilation will be an extremely long process.
Of course, when it comes to the reasons for the lag of indigenous cultures, we should not lose sight of the plundering and destruction by European colonialists of the lands and natural environments on which indigenous people depend, as well as the inhuman massacres perpetrated by indigenous peoples, which had led to the almost collapse of indigenous cultures.
In the years after the colonization of Australia, the powerful influence of European culture and modern civilization gradually forced indigenous culture into the margins of society and hid in Australia's remote inland areas.
However, with the awakening of the indigenous people and the improvement of their educational level, the indigenous culture that has experienced the baptism of blood and fire of the times will surely come out of the shadow of history in the process of rebirth, and be reborn and developed in the process of gradually adapting to the civilization of modern society and the contamination of mainstream Australian culture.
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