Backbencher
Weblog for HIST 381 at NDSUWednesday, January 30, 2008
Lecture 1
This is kind of late, but the blog keeps slipping my mind.
I wasn't even aware that there were two completely different native cultures on both Australia and New Zealand, or even that their beginnings were so far apart, chronologically.
The Aborigines were very skilled and knowledgeable in the techniques needed to survive out in the brushlands. They used fire as a means to create farmland, and control the landscape to their needs. The Maori also were very skilled and intelligent by managing to find their way to New Zealand, not by pure chance, but by scientific speculation. It really amazes me that a group of people can set out into the ocean in wooden boats and manage to not only find a new land, but to be able to adapt and live there without much of a hitch.
Europeans seem to always cause trouble wherever they landed, and that could again be seen by their contact with the Aborigines and Maori. The Europeans were quick to dismiss the Aborigines off as being primitive, although the Aborigines were well assimilated into the European cultures brought along. The Maori impressed the Europeans as they would adopt European tools and habits with relative ease, although they weren't always peaceful with their reception. The Europeans in both cases did their best to bring the native peoples into European customs and to try to erase the previous cultures of the tribes.
In more recent times, the European and native cultures thrive more or less as a single unit of predominantly European influence. Some customs still remain, and there is a passionate stance for native patriotism among the descendants of these first peoples.
I have to say that I'm most impressed with the two tribes' abilities to work with what was given to them in an intelligent way to get by. They really weren't all that primitive, especially in the Aborigines' case, living on a landmass predominantly made of dry, arid, desert-like terrain.
It would've been interesting to see how these two cultures would've progressed if they'd had a few hundred more years of isolation from Europeans.
I wasn't even aware that there were two completely different native cultures on both Australia and New Zealand, or even that their beginnings were so far apart, chronologically.
The Aborigines were very skilled and knowledgeable in the techniques needed to survive out in the brushlands. They used fire as a means to create farmland, and control the landscape to their needs. The Maori also were very skilled and intelligent by managing to find their way to New Zealand, not by pure chance, but by scientific speculation. It really amazes me that a group of people can set out into the ocean in wooden boats and manage to not only find a new land, but to be able to adapt and live there without much of a hitch.
Europeans seem to always cause trouble wherever they landed, and that could again be seen by their contact with the Aborigines and Maori. The Europeans were quick to dismiss the Aborigines off as being primitive, although the Aborigines were well assimilated into the European cultures brought along. The Maori impressed the Europeans as they would adopt European tools and habits with relative ease, although they weren't always peaceful with their reception. The Europeans in both cases did their best to bring the native peoples into European customs and to try to erase the previous cultures of the tribes.
In more recent times, the European and native cultures thrive more or less as a single unit of predominantly European influence. Some customs still remain, and there is a passionate stance for native patriotism among the descendants of these first peoples.
I have to say that I'm most impressed with the two tribes' abilities to work with what was given to them in an intelligent way to get by. They really weren't all that primitive, especially in the Aborigines' case, living on a landmass predominantly made of dry, arid, desert-like terrain.
It would've been interesting to see how these two cultures would've progressed if they'd had a few hundred more years of isolation from Europeans.
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