Backbencher

Lecture Two the class discussed the geography of Australia and New Zealand. We started off the lecture with a fun picture display, literally walking us through the geography of both countries. We were also very lucky to have the opportunity to see multiple pictures of Dr. Isern's friend in his high-fashion apparel! ;-)

One of the points of interest I found right in the beginning of the lecture was how emphasized extreme sports were. Dr. Isern discussed how many teenagers/young adults in those two countries participated in an extreme sport in some way or another, and it made me wonder if America would be considered much differently?

The lecture then divided Australia into three different divisions, Western Plateau, Lowland Basins, and Eastern Highlands. A very similar description was given to New Zealand. We learned about the "Felden" in New Zealand, a word distinguished by a historian. Felden means fieldish, and "Arden" means not quite as good for agricultural production. We saw a map of NZ, and there were far less Felden spots then Adren ones.

The part of the lecture I enjoyed the most was the horror story of "introduction of European species." It appears that the countries have something magical about them, every new plant, animal, etc, multiplies and flourishes to numbers too large to imagine. Rabbits, Toads, weeds…you name, Australia and New Zealand are mass producing it. It would be frightening to experience something like that, to wake up and find your front yard missing, completely replaced with lovely rabbit 'left-behinds.' And to think, some of the introduced items were introduced for hunting purposes. I don’t think they meant 1,000's of deer per hunter.

"The world's bravest mice, Bernard and Miss Bianca, answer a call for help from deep in the heart of Australia's vast and unpredictable Outback!" My first introduction to the "Australian Outback", even if it was just a cartoon! "Say 'G'day' to a classic Disney adventure full of unforgettable characters and incredible animation in this down-under delight you'll cherish for years to come!"
Alright, what does the rest of the class think? Was Rescuers Down Under a note-worthy movie? Did you see it when you were younger? After reading a small part of the back cover, do you wish you could see it?

Lecture two was titled Geography: Taylor and Cumberland. It was appropriately named after Griffith Taylor and Kenneth Cumberland, two of the most famous geogrphers in Australia and New Zealand. There are three main regions on the continent of Australia. They are the East Australia highlands, the Interior Lowland Basin, and the Western Plateau. The East Australia Highlands are the more humid area where most of the rain seems to fall. There is a mountain range in that region that is big in Australia but would be considered pretty small by American standards. The Interior Lowland Basin is what people generally tend to think of when they think about Australia. It is covered in bush and has a very low altitude, which is surprising since it is inland. The Western Plateau consists of volcanic formations with sandy desert. There is little rainfall, often 20" or less a year. In New Zealand they have two different regions: the felden and arden regions. The Felden region is a lot better for farming than the Arden region is. One thing that I found interesting about this lecture was first of all the fence that they put across the entire continent to try to keep dingos out. Another thing that I found quite interesting was that both countries seem to draw their identities off the landscape. We saw some really cool photos of how the people have shaped the land in order to make it more livable. One example would be the sheep farms that they have. Dr. Isern showed us pictures of the ruins of the houses and they were made of sort of a mud mixture. They also had a lot of water tanks in sheep country as it is a rather dry area. One way that they think differently from Americans is how they take care of the land too. In America, when land is getting poor vegetation, we tend to not graze it as much. Down under, however, they tend to introduce more animals to graze it and make it better.

Also check out children author Mem Fox. She lives in Adelaide, Australia and has written several picture books about Australian people, animals, and places.

Amanda Peterson

If you want a humerous look at an Australian animal, check out Diary of a Wombat by Jackie French, illustrated by Bruce Whatley (both of whom live in Australia). It's a fun look through a wombat's eyes of his daily life and encouters with a family that move into his territory.

It makes me wonder if wombats really act this way? Also, what the story would look like from the family's perspective.

Amanda Peterson...reminding you not to underestimate picture books!!!!!

The movie Ten Canoes, directed by Rolf de Heer and Peter Djigirr, gives an insight into the pre-European Aboriginal world unlike anything I've experienced. The movie has quite an odd setup in that it is a story within another story. The narrator (David Gulpilil) tells a story of an Aborigine man of the Yonglu tribe telling his younger brother, Dayindi (Jamie Gulpilil), an ancestral story while on a traditional goose egg hunting expedition. Both stories are set in northern Australia near the Arafura Swamp. The ancestral story, told by Minygululu (himself), depicts the succession of events dealing with a young Yonglu tribesman Yeeralparil (also Jamie Gulpilil) who secretly obsesses over his older brother's youngest wife. The story is meant to teach Dayindi a lesson deterring him from desiring Minygululu's wife. Neither of the stories has nail-biting, edge-of-your seat action, but that's what is most attractive about this movie.

Ten Canoes really avoids the Hollywood route, and attempts to look at the Yonglu tribe with outsider perceptions and bias at a minimum. I thought the film not only did a great job in showing the day-to-day life and often humorous interactions, but also in bringing many interesting traditions performed by the Yonglu into the film. The traditions that stick out in my mind are the yearly goose egg hunting expeditions, the death dance, and the law of the Makaratta (punishment for murder which allows for spears to be thrown at the perpetrator until he or she is hit).

The authenticity of the film is definitely something I questioned after viewing this film, but further research has shown me that this may be as authentic as it gets. For one, the whole cast is of native Aborigine descent, and it is the first film shot fully in a native Aborigine dialect. Another reassuring factor into its authenticity is the overwhelming positive reaction it got in the Aborigine community. Many felt the film was in many ways a preservation of their history and a great source of pride. After viewing this film, it seems hard to find a reason why one wouldn't be proud to be a part of this Aborigine culture.

Lecture two was entitled Geography: Taylor & Cumberland. Taylor and Cumberland were two of the top geographers in Australia and New Zealand. The lecture started out with Dr. Isern showing us photos from some of his trips. We were able to see photos from Queensland, North Ireland Bush & Paddock, Cook Straight, and Central Otago. Threw the photos that we saw we were able to get a better idea of what the land really looks like. After we went through the photos Dr. Isern talked about the different areas in Australia and New Zealand and the different types of land. In Australia there were three different areas, like, East Australian Highlands, the Interior Basin Lowlands, and the Western Plateau. The Highlands are covered with eucalypt forest, the Interior Basin Lowlands are at a low altitude and have lots of grass land, and finally the Western Plateau is full of volcanic and metamorphic formations. Then we proceeded onto the geography of New Zealand. In New Zealand there are only two different areas. They are Felden and Arden. The Felden area is an area that is suitable for agriculture and the Arden area is not as suitable for agriculture. Then Dr. Isern taught about the Tussock Grassland. The Tussock Grassland has evolved over the years. Here they use fire to control the plant growth and maintain the land.

Griffith Taylor was a geographer at the University of Sydney. Taylor had a theory entitled environmental determinism. In this theory he stated that the humans must conform to the land. This idea of his was at first denounced, but later the people saw that his theory was true and they went along with it. The next person that we learned about was Kenneth Cumberland. Cumberland had a theory about soil erosion. He said that when humans messed with the land it would only hurt the land. But when he found out about the Tussock Grassland he found that his theory was weak.

This lecture really brought some new things into light for me. It showed me that other people also burn the land to renew the vegetation. When I was younger I always thought that my uncles were nuts when they did that. Then my dad taught me why they did it. Now I see that even people thousands of miles away do the same thing that we do. So now I am starting to think that maybe us, as Americans, are not as crazy as I once thought. Also in the Western Plateau they built cob and rock houses. Which reminds me of Dirty Jobs with Mike Rowe. In 2005, he was on location and he was helping build cob houses. After seeing that episode and then learning that in Australia it enabled me to realize what the people were living in and what their homes were made out of. In a way it kind of gross. They had to use their feet to mix different ingredients in it. It has straw, clay, and some other things. Like I said, this lecture has really opened my eyes to what things are like in Australia and New Zealand!

I was just wondering if we are gonna be able to do film reviews about the Lord of the Rings movies since they were filmed in New Zealand by a New Zealand director. I think that they give you a great view of some of the landscape and it could be an interesting angle to take on a film review.

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 listened to the local radio station 612 ABC Brisbane. This radio station broadcasts to Brisbane and the Brisbane region. The station was formatted a lot like American radio. They had weather, sports, traffic reports, and news. They had a lot of viewers call in and speak on-air. One of the main topics discussed was floods in the region. They had continuous weather reports to inform the residents of the forecast for rain in the coming days. They also had a lot of information about flood cleanup. A newscaster reported that some residents of the flooded region (Rock Hampton) were giving police a problem because they weren't following safety warnings. Many of the people calling in were wondering if the snakes coming out because of the rain and floods were harmful. The sportscast was focused on cricket and tennis. I don't know much about cricket, but there seems to be controversy between India and Australia. (What is a cricket test?!)

The most interesting thing I heard was actually the DVD releases for the coming week. The DJ's rated the DVDs that are being released in the next week. I happened to hear the review of the film Sicko by Michael Moore. Because Michael Moore is a critic of our government, it was interesting to hear the Australian point of view of this film. The movie is based on what Moore feels are weaknesses in the US health system. The reviewer spoke of privatized health coverage and insurance, which leaves me wondering if medical coverage in Australia is universal. From the response of the reviewer, I assume they do have universal health care. Neither of the reviewers criticized George W. Bush or our health care system, but they both agreed that it was a good film They rated it an A-.

I also listened to the Australian radio Station Triple J (ABC Radio). I listened to this station over the days January 28th-January 30th. Triple J is a government-funded radio station that is aimed at youth (those ages 12-25). The music played on the station is generally Australian bands. They also play a lot of live music. I don’t know a lot about Australian music, but it seemed to me like they played more alternative music, rather than popular or commercial music. I actually enjoyed a lot of what I heard. The music is eclectic, and the bands incorporate a lot of different instruments.

The schedule of this radio station is a lot like American radio. They have morning shows (Mornings with Zan) and request hours. For the few days that I listened to the radio station, they were holding contests to give away tickets to a large music festival. It was very similar to American radio stations. One difference is that the DJ's will play a song, then speak for a few minutes. Then they will play another song and speak again. They didn't really play a block of songs in sequence.

I actually enjoyed listening to Australian radio more than I enjoy listening to American radio. I personally enjoyed the music more. It was interesting to hear another point of view on international issues. American news radio tends to be negative and critical, but from what I heard, Australian news radio gives facts without negative opinions.

Gradually, I'm getting organized as to who is doing what to keep the course going. You're already acquainted with Jim Sele, who is doing duty as wingman for the course. Another assistant, Dave Mills, whom some of you know, also will be doing some grading, although you will never see him, as he's mainly teaching over in central Minnesota. So, who's grading what? Here's the line-up.

Tom: grading book reviews and research reports

Jim: grading lecture response papers and text response papers

Dave: grading everything else

Jim, however, is keeping the roster and all the records. Dave and I feed scores to him, even as we reply directly to you about assignments we read from the weblog.

Tuesday the 5th we'll have a brief visit by Sara Johnson, NDSU Study Abroad, who will bring with her Steve Luther, a representative of AustraLearn, as well as Sarah Price, who represents Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne. A good time to pose questions about study in Australia. I'm still planning another session later in the semester about studying in OZ.

The Maori of New Zealand and the Aborigines of Australia were the primary topics of conversation within the first lecture. Among the first points brought up were the ways in which Europeans affected the natives. The Europeans believed that the Aborigines were inferior to them and worked to push them out of Australia. By taking Aborigine children from their parents at an early age and adopting them out to European families, they believed this could be achieved. Though the Aborigines presented a great deal of resistance to the adaptation/change that the newcomers were forcing upon them, they never gained the independence or respect they were seeking. Yet another piece of information communicated about Australia was the concept of "firestick farming." This was a technique that involved burning existing brush in order to allow for productive, lush land later.
The Maori of New Zealand were perceived in a much different manner than the Aborigines. Perhaps this was because of the willingness to change the Maori demonstrated upon the Europeans' arrival. They readily adopted certain European ways and it seemed as if they had grown immensely from the experience. The Europeans saw them as a functioning culture, as they had demonstrated advanced communication and organization.
Though both Australia and New Zealand seem to be doing quite well today, it is difficult not to wonder what they would have been like had the Europeans faced further battles with the natives. Indeed, there could have been many differences.

Lecture Two was titled Geography: Taylor & Cumberland after the two foremost geographers in Australia and New Zealand. After looking at some pictures Dr. Isern had that gave us a better idea of what the two islands actually looked like, we were introduced to some of the prominent landforms of Australia and the great variation of ecosystems that exist on the island with the most telling statistic being that Australia is the driest continent on earth. This dryness has effected the landscape greatly forcing it's inhabitants to adjust to it. New Zealand is described by the two terms Felden (areas suitable for agriculture) and the Arden (areas NOT suitable for agriculture). This simple description, however, misses on of the most recognizable plant formation, the tussock grassland. This formation has evolved over centuries of control through fire, where the land was periodically burned to renew the plantgrowth and maintain the formation. Both Nations have also been altered greatly by the outside introduction of exotic species such as rabbits and red deer prompting creative management strategies on both islands. Finally, we were introduce in earnest to both Taylor and Cumberland. Taylor's theory of environmental determinism where all important aspects of human culture must conform to the environments demands was at first shunned, but later proven true in Australia. Cumberland on the other hand believed that when humankind converted a landscape for their uses, the outcomes were always detrimental to the landscape. However, with the unusual situation of fire management in the tussock formations showed his theories weakness.

This lecture was interesting to me due to the fact of how much it differed from views held in our country. In the US the environmental determinist theories of Walter Webb were accepted and praised sometimes even after they were proven to be only a small part of the picture. The human fingerprint on the land is also often seen as a negative but like in New Zealand the practice of burning the landscape to renew the vegetation is gaining acceptance by some. This lecture also reminded me of one of my favorite Simpsons episode. Bart is sent to Australia to apologize for a prank he has pulled. Bart unknowingly brings in his pet bullfrog but when he gets of the plane it escapes. By the end of the episode the Family is escaping and from the birdeye view of the plane you can see the countryside ravaged by billions of bullfrogs, how they spawned asexually I will never know.

First of all i came to this class with a few common misconception on the people of these two nations. I thought both the First peoples of Australia and New Zealand were natives and thought of themselves as such. The Maori f the NZ did not consider themselves natives because based on the extensive Genealogy or (Whakapapa) they can trace their origins even to the specific boat that brought them to the island. the aborigine of OZ claims they are natives to the land even though Archaeologist and anthropologist say otherwise.

When Europeans (pakeha's) started coming to these two very distinct lands they had to very different kind of reaction and interaction with the inhabitants based on each culture. unilaterally the Europeans had the belief in the fatal contact. they thought that native populations would die out because they were an inferior sub-group. their view were somewhat confirm more or less with the peoples in OZ. European had a completely different view of the Maori, partly because Maoris were warriors they fought the Europeans with vigor. first in the Musket Wars then followed by the Maori Wars (New Zealand Wars). Those subsequent wars were brought to an end by the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi in (1840).

The Aborigine in Australia were applied to the labor needs in the system of pastoral stations. The world of the aborigines were a lot more on surviving and taking care of the land then about conquering it. there was no form of Hierarchy in there society. they weren't a settled society. in Class Dr. Isern caution from calling them nomads but the Had to continuosly moved place to place to set fire (Fire-Stick Farming)to the land as a form of modern Range Management.

The prehistoric animal living in those lands were without any serious predators. When these groups of people migrated to OZ and NZ the Mega fauna were wiped out in relative sort time. The Diprotodon and the Giant Sloth in OZ and the MOA in NZ were hunted in to extinction.

In watching TV shows i seen that some of these people were as black and sometimes blacker then me, so i thought they thought of themselves as having more in common with Africans. but i got the since that they are much more connected to the Indians in North America.

Native Peoples: Aborigine and Maori

The first lecture shows the two sides to two different 'native' people, and ultimately, two cultures. The Aborigine (AB) lived in Australia and the Maori (M) lived in New Zealand. The M have been in NZ for a lot less than the AB have been in AUS. The big difference between the AB and M is that the M got legal claim to their land, and the AB did not. It seems to me that the small size of NZ held some sway in the M getting legal claim. We also talked about the differences in cultures and how each group of people lived and survived. We talked about race relations in AUS and NZ, and it seemed like people in AUS got the raw end of the deal. Again I think the size of both continents shaped the outcome of race relations. Also, European contact played a huge role in shaping both continents and peoples, mainly, diseases that the native peoples had never been exposed to before. Fatal contact? Possibly.

Muriel’s Wedding is a movie about a young woman whose only dream in life is to get married. Her family and friends make fun of her and tell her she will amount to nothing. Muriel decides to steal some money from her parents and goes on a vacation with her friends. The friends are surprised to see her there and to Muriel’s surprise she meets up with an old high school friend. After the vacation she moves to Sydney from her hometown of Porpoise Spit to start over with a new life. It is during this time that she learns that her friend has cancer. Muriel decides to start looking for a husband. She finds a man who will marry her; he is a Australia swimming star, who needs a wife to make him look good. She abandons her friend in her excitement over her new marriage. A big shock occurs in her family when her mothers die suddenly. Moving home to take care of her family after her mother’s death is the major climax in the movie. Muriel quickly grows up and realizes that her father needs to take care of her family, and also decides that her friend is important to her and that she no longer wants to be married. I thought this movie was ok, it seemed long and was hard to follow at first, it seemed random in parts. Muriel’s Wedding was interesting, because it shows a woman, who after wanting to getting married for so long, decides that marriage is not what she needs. There was nothing in this movie that seemed specific to Australia. The language was a little different, and the scenery was nice to look at.

This movie is about Muriel and how she feels useless in her life, and her supposable three friends turn on her and tell her that they don't want to be friends with her anymore because of how she dresses, looks, and how she doesn't do anything. Muriel ends up reuniting with a high school classmate and the two decide to move to Sydney and start their lives over. Muriel's only dream is to get married, and she ends up going to every bridal shop in town just to try on dresses (even though she has never dated a man before!) She ends up marrying a swimmer so that way he can compete for Australia in the Olympics. Then, when her life gets turned upside down, for one more time, she realizes that she needed to stop lying to everyone, and reunite with her best friend, Rhonda.
I thought that this movie was good. It had a lot of twisted humor in it, but what I liked about it was that it shows how by making a few changes in your life, you can change your life, and thus, change how you feel about yourself, as that is what happened to Muriel. This movie shows how a woman's only dream is to get married, and that way be happy. I feel that a lot of people all over the world feel that way, and by the end of the movie, Muriel realizes that you don't need to be married to be happy. All you need is family, and good friends. This movie, however, did not show me something about the life of Australians. It just shows how similar they are to the US and other nations.

Rabbit Proof Fence tells the story of three children, Molly, Gracie, and Daisy and the incredible journey they make after escaping from Moore River Native Settlement. “Mr. A.O. Neville, Chief Protector of the Aborigines” is the man behind this terrible conquest to teach the “savages” the ways of the white man, and to breed the “half-caste” children, those who have aborigine mothers and European fathers, out of existence. Molly, the oldest girl at 14, along with her sister and cousin are shipped to the Moore River Native Settlement to begin their transformation from “savages” into servants for white people. However, one day they decide to escape from the settlement and begin their trek back home, using the rabbit-proof fence as a guide. As soon as they are found missing an aborigine man they call “the tracker”, is sent out to find them. The rest of the movie covers their attempt to walk 1500 miles back to their home of Jigalong.
This film paints a terrifying picture of children being kidnapped by the government, ultimately to breed their “half-caste” race out of existence. I thought that artistically this film was well thought out. It was the perfect length given that it was mostly about people walking, and incorporated some beautiful scenery. However, as with all films based on books, it is usually a good idea to read the book along with viewing the film. It would be especially beneficial to explore the character and motives of A.O. Neville more deeply. I say this because I have read a few reviews that say he was not portrayed fairly, and that the some parts of the movie are historically inaccurate. In order to get a true idea of the worth of this film historically I think it would be necessary to read the book, along with study the history behind it from multiple points of view.

Peter Jackson's Heavenly Creatures is a preview of things to come for his career. The film, which falls between the splatter-fest Braindead (Dead Alive in the US) and the Michael J. Fox feature The Frighteners, is possibly Jackson's best work. The story is that of two teenage girls--Pauline and Juliet--who form an obsessive bond with one another. These girls create a fantasy world which eventually goes beyond the realm of their imaginations and becomes a shared hallucination. The girls are forcibly separated when one set of parents begins to worry about a possible lesbian relationship, which leads to the concoction and enacting of a terrible plan.
Everything about this film is great; from the performances by Kate Winslet (Juliet) and Melanie Lynskey (Pauline) to the phenomenal visual effects, the picture is top notch. I love films based on actual events, so this sort of movie appeals to me anyway--but Heavenly Creatures has been a favorite of mine for some time, so I was glad to view it again. Peter Jackson (watch for him as the drunken bum getting kissed by Kate Winslet!) is a master and this is his first film in which he is at the top of his game. The mood is built slowly and deliberately, and you know something bad is going to happen--you just don't know when. This eerie feeling is bolstered by the haunting score, which does not relent throughout the picture. Like any film shot in New Zealand, the backgrounds are amazing and the cinematography truly captures the grandeur of the environment. The primary sources used for the picture are the actual diary entries of one of the girls (Pauline) which really adds to the authenticity of the adaptation. A great movie by one of the modern masters of cinema.

This newspaper is very similar to ones in the US. I looked at three articles that relate to either the class or myself. The first article is about how state schools are really struggling to find teachers. The article said that there are half of all the secondary schools are struggling to find teachers. This article applies to the class, as there are students who are going to become teachers, and this affects the market. There is a chance that they could go to Australia and teach there. The second article that I looked at was about how two men died in a boating accident. They haven't released that much information about the accident, but I feel that this is still relevant to everyone, especially since boating is a popular during the summer. This is just a good reminder that everyone needs to be careful when they are boating. The other article that I read was about how parents are struggling over the term "free" education. Parents have to spend money for their children's books, uniforms, and many other things. This article is interesting and it shows how similar the schools are in the US and Australia. Schools here are requiring fees for activities and other things for school, and it keeps getting more expensive.
This newspaper is very interesting and it has a lot of stories that are very important to not only that are, but to the entire world. The paper is very similar to major newspapers from around the world and has sections for everything including movies, music, business, etc. This shows how industrialized Australia and specifically Melbourne has become.

Hi again,

I just found the answer to my own question. So you can go ahead and disregard my previous post.

Thanks!

Hi everyone!

I was just wondering if anyone could tell me who we are supposed to talk to in order to get one of the films to watch for the film review.

Thanks

I was not sure exactly what to look for since the set up of this site reminded me a lot of, say, The New York Times. They had many similar sections such as sports, news, business, and lifestyle. I don’t do politics here and I wasn’t going to be able to follow anything on Australian politics, so I looked at the top ten articles for the day and number one was an article about Jamie Lynn Spears’ baby, and there were numerous other articles concerning entertainment…so this leads me to think that they are perhaps just as wrapped up in the entertainment industry as we are in the U.S. There upwards of ten articles hashing over Heath Ledger’s death and they have apparently taken his death very hard because they felt that he was a kind of representative for Australia in the increasingly international cinematic stage of Hollywood. One article mourned that Australian entertainment was becoming a “sub-contractor” of Hollywood.

This may sound creepy, but this newspaper had a “dating” section that I decided to explore. I found a few rugged looking blokes and refined ladies, but it is so strange how so many people look for relationships online or via the classifieds. Maybe it is that in Australia some people are finding themselves too busy to go out looking for love as so many Match.com users in America would claim.

Other popular articles included a crime report on someone who bottled another person in the eye socket and one about a shark who was beheaded to save a person’s life. Apparently, they are quite interested in events that sound intense. They have several different pages for different sports activities. This would lead me to believe that Australians take their sports and exercise very seriously…I could be wrong though?

Whale Rider strikes a heartstring. With its sometimes slow moving, but always impact-filled plot, the viewers find themselves traveling along with Paikea (Pai) and her struggle to please her disappointed grandfather. Pai, is born in to a family whose grandfather, Koro wanted a grandson to carry on the family name, because they are the descendants of the first Maori leader, who supposedly rode a whale. Paikea, the granddaughter was named after the leader.

In the film Koro eventually takes a liking to his granddaughter and we see his softer, more caring side. We watch the pair ride bicycle together, and he lovingly goes to all of her school events. But when the father of Pai, and son of the granddad comes to visit and confesses he has impregnated a white German woman, the grandfather becomes bitter, because he still has no grandson. Koro suggests that his son takes Pai with him and Pai agrees to go. But when she spots the whales in the ocean as she's driving away from home, she finds herself wanting nothing more than to return to her grandfather. She busts through the door of her grandfathers meeting place and announces that she is back, "I'm back, I'm back." Her grandfather has no interest in her anymore, ignoring her shouts he turns back to his conversation. That emotional scene led to many more, Koro soon begins to look for a new leader among the young boys of the community, ignoring Paikea's desire to fulfill her grandfather's dreams.

Pai, still trying to earn her grandfathers love, starts to secretly train, performing all of the tactics her grandfather is teaching, better than any of the boys could. Sticking, and swimming better. When whales wash up on the seashore the friends and family gather together to help keep the whales alive. When their efforts have failed, Pai steps in and gives the movie its title, saving the whales, and touching the heart of every viewer.

Lecture one focused on the Maori and the Aborigine of New Zealand and Australia. Dr. Isern compared the terminology used to describe these native peoples to those of the Native Americans in the U. S. He spoke of the extinction of the Diprotodon, the Giant Sloth, and the Moa, due to the arrival of Europeans. He covered how the Aborigines used "firesticking" to "shape" their land and how the Maori adapted so well to the introduction of new methods and ideas.
I would have to honestly say that I chuckled a bit when I heard of the "terra mullius". It is so typical of white Europeans to "assume" that God and Crown gave them the right to the world. No matter what history course one takes; there they are, in all there pompous simplicity.
With this in mind, the most interesting things that I find throughout history are when someone looks at a group people (originally labeled as "savages") with an open mind and realizes the intelligence and adaptability of said people. It makes those who labeled them all the more foolish. In this case it would be the Aborigines and how they manipulated the land by "fire sticking", or how the Maori adapted to the ways (and at times excelled) of the newcomers.
I am curious about HOW the Aborigines fought ( in small skirmishes) the settlers. Were they actually small battles or did they use weapons of the weak: steal livestock, burn homes, refuse to leave a particular area, etc.

The first lecture was a brief introduction to the Maori of New Zealand, and the Aborigine of Australia. We started the lecture talking about the problems with terminology of the tribes. Sioux, Cherokee and other tribes of America have basically been generalized as Native Americans. Aborigine and Maori are clearly defined with no generalizations. The second part of the lecture was the discussion of the European influence on these people. The Maori were much more open -minded to the European ways than the Aborigine. The third part of the lecture was the environmental actions on the land. “Firestick Farming” was a way to form the land for easier use. These people were great farmers and had a great talent for up keeping the land.

When I think of Australia and New Zealand, I don’t think of native people. I think of the English speaking nature loving people. I think it is interesting that the Aborigine and Maori had very different outlooks of the European settlers. I didn’t hear where the Europeans immigrated first or if there was war or real conflict when they did migrate. I am looking forward to the hardships faced throughout the history of this country. I think that a country’s hardships and how they resolved them is the most interesting thing about the history of the country.

The Piano is the story of a mute pianist and her emotional struggle. The woman, Ada, is married off to man in New Zealand that she doesn't know. She and her daughter travel to him along with Ada's beloved piano. Ada hasn't spoken since she was six but uses the piano as her voice and emotional outlet.
The struggle between husband and wife starts early when the piano is left at the beach. Bainnes, the neighbor, becomes taken with Ada and knows that the way to her heart is through the piano. He gets the piano and uses for his own ends to get Ada. They strike a bargain where she "earns" keys for the piano. The daughter sees some things, and Stewart becomes a very jealous and dangerous husband. He eventually chops off one of her fingers.
Stewart finally figures out he has lost Ada and she and her daughter leave with Bainnes and the piano. The piano threatens the boat's safety, and Ada lets them push it into the sea. She puts her foot in the rope and goes down with the piano, but she chooses life and frees herself from the piano. That is the start of her new life with Bainnes where she teaches piano, learns to speak, and has a metal tipped finger.
The weakness of the movie is it is centered around a love triangle and borders historical romance/drama not a historical account. The Maori people have slight roles in the film. They are depicted as hired help, and don't want to give up their land but are enticed with firearms. The film does show some trials of the land/mud and the oppression of women but nothing historical really stands out. The film is for entertainment, not for facts.

Gosh, we almost missed it. Actually, we already did.

Today, January 26, is Australia Day. But of course, it's already January 27 in Australia.

Australia Day

Coverage in Sydney telegraph

Celebrate with the ones you love!

For the newspaper response, I looked at the Sydney Morning Herald that was online. I looked at many articles that were on there, and there wasn't any problems for me in understanding what they were talking about. There were names in the articles that I of course did not know, which I'm sure they are in the same boat when they read our newspapers. There is a lot of information and articles about the death of Heath Ledger. The articles talk about the movies that he has made over his career, even though his career wasn't very long. This is something that is similar to the newspapers that we are used to seeing.

There was a lot of things in this paper that reminded me of newspapers here in the US. They have the same sections in the paper that we have. There is the usual news section, the sports section, and other normal sections like business, entertainment, travel, life & style, and of course the opinion section. Although they have the same sections, it seemed to me that there was more information in Entertainment section then what we would have. But otherwise it all seemed interesting and almost the same as our papers.

One interesting article was about new immigrants coming to Australia. They hold a special ceremony for those people who pass the test and are able to stay in the country. They were holding those ceremonies all over Australia. It said that over 14,000 people becoming Australians. It said that more then 3,000 of them were going to be in Victoria. It was also said that about 20% of people fail the test to allow them into the country. That number is really shocking to me. That is a lot of people who are trying to start a new life somewhere else that are not allowed to because they do not pass a test.

Lecture 1 entailed the history of the so called native peoples of austraila and New zealand the aborigines and Maoris. we discussed about how and when the arrived in the area possibly dating as far back as 60,000 years. Also talked about during this lecture was how the culture of the land was changed and the effects it had on the natives when european settlers came in and began to change the landscape of the culture.

Matt Liese

Lecture one, Native People: Aborigine and Maori , discussed Australia and New Zealand’s settlement by the Natives, and further into the lecture about the European’s effect on the natives. The beginning of the lecture Dr. Isern discussed the problems of terminology, that the word ‘native’ itself does not work as well, because the Aborigines and the Maori were not ‘native’ to the land. The lecture discussed the way that the Aborigines came to Australia as long as 60,000 years ago and the Maori roughly 1,000 years ago. Yet really there is no true record of the time that they arrived. The Aborigine’s took to the land with fire stick sculpting and turning it into land that was semi-manageable. The Aborigine’s were hunter/gather types and were ones to be on the move a lot. The Maori, which were from Polynesian descent, had more of a warfare history. They were very resistant to the European invasion as much as possible. However, like usual, the presence of the Europeans brought disease and worked at changing everything that the Aborigines and the Maori were. The tribal warfare became worse as the Europeans tried to take over.


Also discussed was the deconstruction of the traditions and changing the lives of the natives. The Europeans thought it was a great idea to go on killing rampages and kidnapping the Aboriginal children and putting them up for adoption with hopes that they can, I feel, eradicate the history of the natives. This is still where I have the most questions. Bonnie brought it up in her post relating it back to the Native American’s and what the U.S. did to their children by sending them to boarding school. With reference to Rabbit Proof Fence which was set in 1931, that still feels very recent for something so ridiculous to occur.
This lecture just reminded me once again how horrible Europeans are, and pretty everyone who invades land that is home to the ‘natives’ of the area.

The summation of the first of the three part Lecture 1 discussion consisted primarily of the origins of the natives of the Aborigines and Maori. Unlike the United States, groups of individuals are not characterized by their ethnic backgrounds, however, by their arrival timeframe. For example, the Aborigines are defined as being the first settlers; the true natives! The Maori are characterized by their arrival after the Aborigines but before the European settlers, who would later be called the Pakeha. Part 2 and 3 discussed the environmental interactions by the Aborigines, Maori, and Pakeha, as well as peaceful and war relations amongst natives and settlers. Environmental actions included actions such as Firestick Farming intended to cleanse the land and the Pastoral Frontier by European cattleman. Race relations in Australia became very sensitive after the European settlers decided that children of stockmen and their Aboriginal wives should be denied access to their native culture and raised, what they considered properly…against their mothers culture; even if that meant kidnapping and adopting them out to strangers! However in 1967, the referendum allowed the government to have claims brought against them for times when the government was not acting in the natives best interest.

Throughout the lecture 1 material, I found the animal interactions to be the most interesting. Having studied last semester on the reasons why animals can achieve such great sizes without the pressure of larger or in the case of humans, more dangerous predators, I am sad to know that if caution was used originally by the natives and settlers, in all parts of the world, that a vast number of wondrous species would still be alive and be prosperous in one way or another.

This first lecture identifies the people who have become known as "native" to Australia and New Zealand - native being a loaded term because history before the European settlers is largely unknown. The aborigine are thought to have migrated from SE Asia - however no concrete record of this is known, whereas the Maori celebrated their migration to New Zealand by knowing their genealogical history so well that they could pinpoint exactly which ancestor arrived on which canoe and when they made the journey. Most of the known history starts when Europeans arrived with their "since no one has claimed this land - its ours" mindset and the initial preconceptions of the aborigine and Maori people were based upon European interpretation. The aborigine people were seen as "savage and hostile" in part due to their nomadic lifestyle with very little organized hierarchy and their resistance to European influences, whereas the Maori people were seen as more civilized - having established villages with a system of hierarchy and organized (or at least understandable) sharing of resources. What's more interesting is the fact that the Maori welcomed European influence - they weren't going to change completely, but more or less integrate the new ideas into what the already have.

While European impressions of the people might have represented how they felt at the time - I don't think they objectively illustrate the aborigine and Maori people. The aborigine used fire to help rejuvenate their fields following harvesting and were very effective managers of the land. The Maori were very good at being able to establish a system of commerce (not what we'd see today, but in their own right) for which they could share resources between other villages. These are only examples of why the European impressions could have been wrong - could there be more?

Just wanted to let people know that I made video footage/slide shows of my 6 month stay in Australia (Queensland only as I don't have the footage from Sydney done yet (...over a year later)) Also, when people I knew while in Australia traveled over to New Zealand they asked me to make them a video while I was there as well so I have video of that also, both burned to DVD. Granted they are of other peoples experiences but they do help you get an idea of what the land and cities look like and 'typical' college experience at USC in Sippy Downs. (I think I remember someone interested in studying at USC?) I also have a grand supply of Vegemite (if you dare) and an unopened box of Tim Tams a popular Australian cookie if anyone wants to try either of these I will gladly bring you some, as I brought multiple cartons of them home for family to try, and have 1 carton left (maybe 15 cookies?) I haven't eaten them because I don't like cookies.... or Vegemite. (Be Aware: the cookies are over a year old, but they are basically all preservatives pretty sure they last forever and have not been opened...). Anyhow if any interest let me know at betha_be@hotmail.com

Hobbiton is located on the North Island of New Zealand in Matamata, Waikato. For those of you who don't know what Hobbiton is, it's where Peter Jackson filmed part of Lord of the Rings. They offer tours of the area as well.



Another fun fact is that New Zealand is where Peter Jackson filmed parts of King Kong.

Lecture 1 dealt with the native peoples of Australia and New Zealand. It is thought that the Aborigines were the first native people to originate in Australia. They created a way of life through what is called "fire-stick" farming in which they burned pretty much all of Australia's rainforests to make room for vegetation. They carried torches with them at all times, which was helpful in keeping warm as well as cooking food. This technique is believed to be the cause of Australia's very dry land and spinifex grass that covers most of the continent. When the Europeans eventually arrived in Australia, they looked down on the Aborigines, and immediately imposed their beliefs and ways of life upon them. They even went as far as kidnapping the Aborigine children and adopting them into white families. The whites strongest weapon was disease, which wiped out most of the Aborigines who were not yet immune. This information suprised me mostly because I think I related it so much to U.S. history of native americans. It's odd to think how alike the wars between native americans and whites were, yet they were continents away.
The native people of New Zealand were called Maoris, and it is believed that they came from Asia. The conflict between whites and Maoris was very different than that from Aborigines. A big difference was that Maoris were pretty much immune to the whites diseases. They also had a very organized way of life, and it bothered the europeans that the Maori were good at what they did. It was actually genius for the Maori to adopt the European's forced ways, because eventually the Maori mastered these ways and "trumped" the Europeans at their own game. The Maoris were also more violent than the Aborigines. As soon as they came in contact with the Europeans they were fighting them off, sometimes even eating them. They also fought with weapons such as guns and adopted European warfare techniques such as trenches. The Maori were never actually defeated but instead gave in to the Europeans because they could live with their ways. But in my mind this presents an interesting question, what would have happened in New Zealand if the Maori had never given up?

I can't find Hobbiton on the map...where do the hobbits come from?

Lecture one was titled Native People: Aborigine and Maori and focused directly on those two peoples. Dr. Isern began by explaining how colonial nations, such as New Zealand, Australia, and America, begin to take interest in their native peoples history as a way to identify themselves. In the case of Australia-New Zealand the native people are known respectively as the aborigines and Maori. The cultural backgrounds of these two people began long before European contact (much longer in Australia than in New Zealand) and both peoples changed their environments greatly before Europeans came and recorded history. In Australia the environment was changed and managed mainly through the means of fire where nomads would use fire to keep vegetation in check. The Maori culture began much more recently than their Australian counterparts but was just as dramatic. New Zealand lacked many of the great mammals of other continents so the main source of food was a giant bird called the Moa. This bird, unaccustomed to predators went extinct quickly due to over hunting by the Maori (among other reasons.) The contact both these peoples had with Europeans was very different in that the aborigenes, much like native americans, attempted to hold their beliefs and were seen as inferior. In New Zealand the Maori were much more adaptable to European ways and the contact was not nearly as dramatic leading to relatively good race relations in that nation which many New Zealanders take pride in.
This lecture was interesting because ill admit i have very little knowledge about the cultures of these two peoples. Besides what i know from Crocodile Dundee or Steve Irwin these two nations are fairly unknown to me so this insight into the culture was very new to me. It was interesting to compare the European contact in these countries with our own here in the U.S. and how the issue of race is dealt with there. My favorite part though was watching the All Blacks perform the Haka before the game and how a traditional dance of its native people has become a symbol for a nations sport team and a source of pride for the entire nation. I doubt it would go over so well in America.

Robert Meland
In my opinion Lecture one was mainly about the history of the native peoples of Australia and New Zealand both culturally and physically. It began with explaining how the Aborigines are native to Australia and the Maori are native to New Zealand. Following this, we also discussed the possibility of Aborigines immigration to Australia possibly 60,000 years ago or the fact that they may have actually always been there. On the other hand the Maori are much more recent inhabitants of this country they arrived in New Zealand about 1000 years ago. The Australian Aborigines are a nomadic culture, whereas the Maori are much more agriculturalists. When the Aborigines of Australia came into contact with the Europeans, disease swept through them with a catastrophic impact. (In some areas eliminating entire tribes of people.) This first contact with the Europeans came to be known as "fatal contact". This was the belief that just being in contact with the white people would curse the local population. This often was due to the less powerful immune systems that the Natives, had compared to the more resistant European ones.
This little fact that Fatal Contact can actually exist makes makes me look at the similarities that arise between all countries and their Native Peoples and analyze our mentality at that time. I personally found it intriguing how in such a short period of time a disease can conquer a civilization. Both in Australia and New Zeeland the people were hit with a powerful experience of death and destruction. I know that this is a fairly common phenomenon today because of my study of Native Americans and how they were affected by the European diseases and the ever so infamous “Fatal Contact”. For example, the Native American population was almost made extinct with the threat of disease such as smallpox and measles in North America. I think all of the material we went over in class brings up many important points and ideas that us as academics should acknowledge. One question I would like to share is do you think that the elimination of the weak immune systems was a good thing or a bad thing? My example being that if we hadn’t infected them when we did, eventually someone would have and then the same results would have arose just in a different context. Proving that the strong really do survive and those who adapt to their environments are the ones who will be successful in man or animal.

In lecture one, titled Native Peoples: Aborigine and Maori, Dr. Isern introduced Aboriginal origins, impact on nature, their world and how they have acclimated to European arrival to Australia. He also introduced the origins of the Maori peoples of New Zealand, their culture and society, and the introduction of European settlers to their island. With background information on Aborigines in Australia, it is evident that they played a major role in shaping the landscape of Australia not only by their fire stick farming but also eliminating the mega fauna. Upon receiving European settlers in Australia, they claimed that no one had ownership of the land which was actually occupied by the Aborigines. The Aboriginal lineage came from Dreamtime, a place that has no time or space. For the Maori peoples of New Zealand, when British settlers approached the shores, they were greeted with a challenge dance. However, the relationship with the Maori, though a more aggressive group, seemed to take. Maori would learn about goods and ways of living from the British and make it their own. Maori also knew they lineage more extensively then the Aborigines. They could recite their line of ancestors to those that first came to New Zealand. The history of expansion of both islands coincides with American expansion in the west. Aborigines and Maori both put up fights against the British to protect their lands and traditions around the same time that America was forcibly taking lands for their Native Americans. One difference between the time since expansion for the Maori of New Zealand and the Native Americans is that Maori embrace their traditions that have been introduced to the non-Maori New Zealanders whereas in America there are currently members of various tribes who do not wish to allow their traditions in with Euro-American culture. My only confusion is on Aborigine and Maori traditions in their culture. I understand what was introduced, my only wish is learn more on their cultural history and compare it with how they understand themselves today.

I finally got this up and running, so I will start at the beginning. I am a History major, and this is my second semester at NDSU and third year in college. I am taking this class because I want to know what "Crikey!" really means. Here's to a good semester.

joel d. ptacek

Introduction to the Aborigini and Maori cultures highlights the extreme differences which geography, climate, fauna, and availability of resources all influenced settlement of these two cultures. Although they are close in proximity, in the world view, their approach to and differences of society and culture could not be more opposite.

The Australian "outback" as it is know, was a land that is now both shaped by and managed by the Aborgini. Their use of fire to renew the lands for grazing purposes, as well as how the land responded to the perpetual use of fire by the growth of eucalyptus trees shows both management by the peoples, as well as nature responding to the fires. This type of land management shows, to me, an indepth analysis of what the land was and how it needed to be refurbished at times to better their own "ranch lands". From the little history I have studied, this was a use which was also used in the grasslands of America, probably for the betterment of grazing also. One can say that this type of rangemangement is not exactly that atypical of an early culture but maybe a simply natural phenomena that happened at some point, and they realized the benfits from it and it became not so much a phenomena.

The Maori had a totally different approach to life as dictated by their cultural views. Obviously they were an exporing people, who found this island and were attracted to it possibly by the ease of hunting the large Moa bird which were in a surplus at that time. The extinction of them proved problematic to the Maori, but they had such a synthetic culture as explained in the lectures that the ability to adapt to problems was an advantage that they had over euopeans when they "found" New Zealand. The ability to recognize things for their usefulness and then exploit it even more so was a strength of the Maori cluture.

So the differences of the cultures of Moari and Aborigini are vast. The Maori used lands to their advantage, hunted what was availiable, planted what grew well, and more so exploited what euopeans brought to New Zealand. The Aborgini had a magement program for the land, much like large roving ranchers, they did not want to change their lifestyle and tried to refuse and push euopeans back. Struggling to maintain their lifestlyes through diminishing lands.

Very polar opposite cultural outlooks on life but very interesting so far.
Dan Hillukka

Lecture one was on the native peoples of Australia and New Zealand. The first topic that we covered in depth was the origin of the Aboriginal people and their impact on nature. The Aboriginal people used fire stick farming techniques in order to shape the land for their needs. The Aboriginal people were considered nomads. They lacked a structure of hierarchy in society and were mainly isolated, which explains the disastrous impacts of European disease. The second major topic we covered was the Maori people of New Zealand. They are different from the Aboriginal people in several ways, they were more of a settled people, they had a larger population and most importantly they organized their knowledge by the use of whakapapa. Whakapapa is how the Maori relate to their place in the world, not only geographically but through their family ties as well. We covered in depth the impact of the European migration on the Aboriginal and Maori people. The European people took over the country with little regard to the native peoples of both countries. The last area we covered is the race relations in Australia and New Zealand. In both countries the native people are disliked. However the Maori are managing to hold their own and have even had a population increase during the twentieth century.
Overall I found this to be an interesting lecture. I enjoyed learning about the native peoples of both countries. The two cultures are different in several ways, which I found surprising, seeing as both countries were settled from similar peoples. I would like to learn more about the current race relations between the European-Australians and the native people of Australia.

Lecture one was on the native peoples of Australia and New Zealand. The first topic that we covered in depth was the origin of the Aboriginal people and their impact on nature. The Aboriginal people used fire stick farming techniques in order to shape the land for their needs. The Aboriginal people were considered nomads. They lacked a structure of hierarchy in society and were mainly isolated, which explains the disastrous impacts of European disease. The second major topic we covered was the Maori people of New Zealand. They are different from the Aboriginal people in several ways, they were more of a settled people, they had a larger population and most importantly they organized their knowledge by the use of whakapapa. Whakapapa is how the Maori relate to their place in the world, not only geographically but through their family ties as well. We covered in depth the impact of the European migration on the Aboriginal and Maori people. The European people took over the country with little regard to the native peoples of both countries. The last area we covered is the race relations in Australia and New Zealand. In both countries the native people are disliked. However the Maori are managing to hold their own and have even had a population increase during the twentieth century.
Overall I found this to be an interesting lecture. I enjoyed learning about the native peoples of both countries. The two cultures are different in several ways, which I found surprising, seeing as both countries were settled from similar peoples. I would like to learn more about the current race relations between the European-Australians and the native people of Australia.

Prof Isern has spent the first lecture period (all classes until last thursday) giving information about the native peoples of Australia and New Zealand. Unfortunately for me, I came into the class about a week late and had to play catch up to the lecture. When I first started taking my notes the subject was how the Aborigines changed their environment. The one piece of information that stuck with me was the idea of 'firestick farming'. I am a little curious as to where this information comes from. What evidence is provided to suggest the idea of burning the land and caring for it in this way? This is something I will have to explore on my own.
I find the Aborigine culture very interesting. The idea that they only committed to warfare if both sides were ready sounds very peculiar to me. Too bad the entire world today doesn't play that way.
The Maori are of interest to me because last spring I took a class by Kenneth Clark about 'Peoples of the Pacific'. The class focused more on the three major spheres of Oceania (Polynesia, Micronesia, & Macronesia), but also did touch on the topic of the Maori and New Zealand. The idea that the Maori came from the same people that populated many of the islands in the Pacific (in many waves) is very exciting seeing as how the cultures diverged. Not only culture, but language as well.
We also discussed the confrontations between Europeans and Aborigines. It's a shame that the European diseases affected the Aborigines in the quantities that they did, but it seems to be that way wherever the Europeans met new people. Which makes me think of the show Stargate SG-1. Nerdy, right? Well, in the television show (based on the movie) the team (led by Richard Dean Harris aka McGyver) travels to other planets in the Milky Way galaxy. They meet many different peoples on these planets but rarely does the idea of disease ever come into play. Maybe the writers of the show never studied European diseases and the effects on unprotected populations? Plot holes! But I digress.
It might have been wrong by our point of view today, for the Europeans to take the lands from the Aborigines like that, but this is only our perception and we cannot say that we were in the same culture as the Europeans and thus you have cultural relativism.
In review of the lecture, I learned some good information about the Australian and New Zealand native peoples and the first interactions between them and Europeans. There is some ideas brought up in the lecture that I will have to read more into myself.

The first lecture dealt with Professor Isern giving us a basic background on Australia and New Zealand, and telling us how these two countries first became settled. Australia was settled by the Aborigines, while New Zealand was settled by the Maoris. These groups are from Asian descent, and made there way to these countries at very different times. The Aborigines came to Australia thousands of years ago, while the Maoris made to New Zealand about a thousand years ago. Both of these groups of people had a tremendous effect on the new environment they moved in to. The Maori killed off the megafauna in New Zealand, while the Aborigines are responsible for shaping the land dramatically in Australia by burning the brush thousands of times over thousands of years.
What I found to be very interesting was that Australia and New Zealand are very similiar to the United States in the fact that the land they were settling had already been inhabited for many years. Much like the American Indians, these natives had already shaped the land, and the land was truly not a wilderness, like whites thought it was. It was an organized ecosystem that humans and animals alike participated in. These systems were dramatically altered when whites appeared.

For the first lecture, we went over the Aborigines and Maori of Australia and New Zealand. The Aborigines were a nomadic culture. The Maori were a culture that moved to different places each season of the year. They were farmers, and were very adaptable to the environment and new other cultures, such as the Europeans. The Aborigines were violently resistant against the Europeans. The Maori adapted many of the European cultures and used it against them.

Once the Europeans arrived to Australia and New Zealand, the megafauna were killed off or food. And therefore changed the landscape of the land. The race relations between the Euorpeans and the Aborigines and Maori were vasly different. The Aboriginal relations were bad. The Europeans destroyed the traditional cultures of the Aborigines, and killed them outright on the frontier. The children were kidnapped and put into a systme of adoptions. The Maori adapted to the European ways of living, and were synthetically resilent against the Europeans. The Maori had a population increase in the mid-20th century. This was due to the talk of a bi-cultural country and an immense pride in "model" race relations.

Author David Ausubel wrote the book The Fern and The Tiki. This book focused primarily on the race relations of both countries, and how they weren't as good as once believed. De facto segregation prevailed in both countries, and the white prejudices were pervasive towards both native culutres.

Aborigines arrived in Australia around 50,000 years ago. Or perhaps they never arrived, but were always there. It is an intriguing proposition and not unlike Native American tradition, but it seems less controversial in the land of Oz. Either way, the aboriginal were nomadic hunter-gatherers, arranged into bands with definite country boundaries. The people were able manage and transform the range, using a technique called fire-stick farming. This is still used by modern Aboriginal populations on reserves. Life changed with the arrival of Europeans, whose harshest weapon was disease. Perhaps the Aborigines would have disappeared for good if the Europeans thought them an actual combative threat, but the odd spearing of livestock or ranch hand did little. In the end, Aborigines ended up serving as hands on the stations or as the wives of those worked there. From unions between Aborigines and whites produced a mixed-blood class and until the 1950s, these children were forced into white families, in the hopes that they would conform; again, not unlike Native Americans.

As for the Maori, on the other side of the Tasman Sea, they did arrive – on fourteen outriggers. From these first settlers all Maori are descended and form the basis for one's whakapapa. This "place in the world" is not only one's family tree but the physical location and relationship to one’s surroundings. I imagine it is unlikely for a Maori to have an identity crisis. After settling, the Maori became sedentary in villages, with the occasional move for exploit seasonal resources. Their meetings with Europeans were quite different, as the Maori could find use for many of the artifacts introduced to the island: especially muskets and wheat. In fact, the synthetic nature of the Maori allowed them to produce more wheat than the Pakeha settlers. Conflict was inevitable and Maori Wars were fought. For near 20 years, the Maori used tactics that allowed them not to lose but not quite win either. The Waitangi Treaty now allows New Zealanders to proclaim that they got race relations right.

My only qualm is that I want to know more about traditional Aboriginal life. - Krista Hellman

In this lecture, entitled Native People's: Aborigine and Maori, Dr. Isern talked of different writers and their views of Australia and New Zealand. Such authors as Dawn May, Mary Durack, Stephen Pyne and Henry Reynolds to name a few. He also talked of "The Thin Red Line" and how according to the British they will always win even if they only have a thin line of men left to fight, like in the New Zealand Wars. During these wars the British thought that the Maori did not fight to the best of their abilities and that they just decided to quit the war. In truth the Maori really fought for blood revenge and resources. In the end the Maori knew that they could function in a European society so they stopped fighting, but they never truly gave up their guns because they still fight back in other ways.

What surprised me was when Dr. Isern said that the British kidnapped the aboriginal children and put them into adoptions that they did not want so that they would eventually not have a race problem. It reminded me of when we did the same sort of thing to the Native Americans by putting them into boarding schools and forcing them to forget their culture. And unlike what the Australians believe of the race relations they have not really improved to what they would like it to have.

The first lecture of the class began with talks about the Aborigines of Australia and the Maori people of New Zealand. The Aborigines were a low density population of people with various languages for each region and seemed to be a pretty nice bunch of people who had no hierarchy system and just seemed to lay low just live day to day lives. They used a technique of firestick farming that burned the land to ensure good productivity. They were however susceptible to the Europeans invasion and didn’t put up much of a fight and European disease took a toll on them. The Maori on the other hand were a very different people. They had a hierarchy, a settled population and a common language. They were agriculturists and highly adaptable people which made there meeting with the Europeans better off than the Aborigines had with the Europeans. The Maori put up a fight to the Europeans. The Maori and Europeans fighting eventually ended in the Treaty of Waitangi 1840. I found it very interesting learning about these two separate groups of people. I pretty much knew nothing about Australia other than what I saw watching Crocodile Dundee and The Crocodile Hunter and the only thing I new of New Zealand was that Lord of the Rings was shot there and I have wanted to go there ever since learning that. Anyways, lecture one was pretty interesting stuff. Learned about some cool and people and learned some cool words too. Looking forward to the next lecture.

For the newspaper response, I examined a couple days worth of news from the online website for the New Zealand Herald. The news coverage was very similar to what you might find in any national newspaper, and I found no problem in the vocabulary used in the articles. The website had an abundance of articles pertaining to Sir Edmund Hilary's death. I found it intriguing how much the New Zealander's admired Hilary as a national hero. Even 2 weeks after his death, the paper was still flooded with articles and tributes to Hilary. One of the articles I read about his funeral was nearly 5 pages long, which by far exceeded the length of any other article I read in the Herald.

A major distinction that separated the Herald from any newspapers I read was the sports section. I'm used to reading about football, basketball, and baseball; but in the Herald, there was nothing of the sort other than a minor blip on who made the super bowl. It was all about rugby, soccer, and cricket. And before all you soccer fanatics get on my case about being ignorant and calling it 'soccer' not 'football'; save it. I'm just going by New Zealand lingo. I thought everyone other than the U.S. called it 'football', too.

Another interesting thing I found on the website was a section devoted to opinion articles debating whether or not New Zealand should construct a constitution and become a republic. The arguments for a constitution were basically ripping on the parliament for being controlling and condescending. The dissenters argued that New Zealand isn't mature enough to become its own republic, and if Australia hasn't made the move yet, New Zealand shouldn't. I'm not going to lie; I didn't even know that neither New Zealand nor Australia was a republic yet!

Entitled “Native Peoples: Aborigine and Maori”, lecture one was based on the origin of Australia and New Zealand. The native people of Australia are the aborigine and Maori originated in New Zealand. Even though these two groups lived so close to one another they each had different cultures and impact on the lands.

Aborigines are known for their use of fire sticks, also known as “firestick farming”. Their take on how to manage land was to burn it so that it would grow renewed. The only thing that lived through these fires was the Eucalyptus trees because they are fire retardant. Hence, the most abundant tree of Australia is the Eucalyptus.

The Maori had hierarchy and stratification unlike the Aborigines, but both did adopt some things from Europeans. The aborigines adopted cattle and sheep and had pastoral stations and Maori adopted Muskets. Just looking at those two things shows how different the thinking of these two groups must have been. War was on the mind of Maori as the want to farm was on