Aborigines Page 2

Aboriginals of Australia
They were hunters and gatherers and those living in the harsher desert conditions were forced to be more nomadic due to their constant quest for water and food. Men hunted with spears, clubs and boomerangs, camouflaged themselves with mud and developed intuitive hunting methods while the women and children gathered fruit, seeds, witchetty grubs, lizards, honey, roots etc and then cooked the food in an earth oven. Their mythological and sacred past, ‘Dreamtime’ refers to when their ‘Ancestor Spirits’ travelled to Earth in human form creating plants, animals, rivers, mountains. Afterwards they transformed into stars, animals, hills etc but they and their powers are still present. Their ‘Rainbow Serpent’ and ‘Fertility Mother’ together with all their other beings are celebrated in ceremonies and legends. Aboriginal art played another fundamental role in their lives with rock shelters, bark and bodies painted for relaying traditional stories and used in ceremonies.