Aboriginal Culture: The Ngunnawal People In Australia

The Ngunnawal People have been living within the borders and surrounding mountains of the Australian Capital Territory for over 25,000 years. The way the Indigenous people used the land to live off was extremely efficient and sustainable. They had a bounty of knowledge about the land surrounding them, and over generations, devised resourced management skills to ensure maintenance of the animals and plants, and most importantly, the land in which provided these things. Aboriginal culture existed long before Captain Cook arrived in Australia in 1770. He claimed the land to be "Terra-Nullius", meaning that the land did not belong to any person. This claim obviously seemed ludicrous and crazy to the Indigenous people whom already lived on the land.

The government deemed this necessary after alleged wide spread sexual and physical abuse of children was accruing within these Aboriginal communities. This is commonly known as the stolen generation. By 1950, every state of Australia had embraced this Act. Repression of Aboriginal language, culture and beliefs continued and in 1961, The Australian Government declared "The Policy of Assimilation, which stated all Aboriginals will inevitably be expected to adopt the superior Anglo-Saxon ways, language, beliefs, and culture. This policy was a government attempt to take the last thing the Aboriginal people had, their identity. Regrettably, the impacts of colonisation have had detrimental effects on the Indigenous cultures remaining within Australia, being effected largely by media stereotypes and false accusations. Understandably, a mistrust for the government has developed throughout generations within Aboriginal communities, as years of slavery, pain, grief, depression and sorrow were caused by the Australian