Having lived in Australia I can definitely attest to the fact about how important traditional Aboriginal dance is to them and I am not surprised they are upset with these Russian figure skaters:
This year, the theme for the ice dancing original dance was folk dancing. The dance was supposed to represent the “flavor” of one country or another.
Some skating pairs, like Israelis Roman and Alexandra Zaretsky and Georgians Allison Reed and Otar Japaridze, chose folk dances that represented their own country. Others chose to honor other cultures. Canadians Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir did a flamenco, Americans Meryl Davis and Charlie White did an Indian dance, and Russians Oksana Domnina and Maxim Shabalin did an Australian Aboriginal dance.
When the Russian pair did the Aboriginal dance at the European Championships in January, they drew criticism from Aboriginal leaders who found the dance and costumes offensive. Domnina and Shabalin toned down their costumes and removed their face paint, but made no changes to their Aboriginal dance.
The dance they did was more likely their interpretation of Aboriginal dance, though they claimed to have done research. Watching the dance Sunday night, one can understand why Aboriginal leaders were offended.
At times, Shabalin led Domnina around by her ponytail. They mugged, stuck out their tongues and mimicked the hand over mouth gesture that was once associated with American Indians. (See it here and judge for yourself.) After the dance ended, the crowd gave the Russians what could generously be called a lukewarm reception. [Yahoo Sports]
I watched the video of their routine and I have to say that they just looked ridiculous, but watch the video and draw your own conclusions.
Depending on how you look at this, I guess you could say that Aborigines are integrating more into Australian society:
MOST Aborigines are partnering with non-Aboriginal people for the first time in history, research has revealed.
Greater opportunity for interaction is believed to be the main cause of the trend, which raises concerns about Aboriginal culture being lost in future generations.
In 2006, 52 per cent of partnered indigenous men and 55 per cent of partnered indigenous women were married to or living with non-indigenous partners, Monash University’s People and Place journal said.
Those living in cities with university degrees and higher income earners were most likely to “marry out”.
Although Aborigines are still subjected to deep prejudice, new research shows that a majority of Aboriginal men and women nationwide are now married to non-indigenous partners and eight in ten Aboriginal people living in Sydney, Melbourne or Brisbane are married “outside the mob”.
The report said this could be seen as a good thing because it shows cultures mixing and contributes to a diverse and tolerant society.
But it could also be considered negative because it signals the dissolution of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander bloodlines and culture.
Report co-author Bob Birrell said there was still very little outmarriage in remote indigenous communities.
”It indicates that unlike the United States, where almost 90 per cent of blacks marry blacks, the social divide that was there 20 or 30 years ago has almost disappeared in Australia,” he said. [The Daily Telegraph]
I think a key fact that should be highlighted is how the Aboriginals moving into the cities are receiving better education and more chance to interact with mainstream Australian society. Over the long run I think this is better for the Aborigines instead of encouraging a welfare system that keeps them isolated in remote Aboriginal communities with little chance to interact with greater Australian society.
Well at least they are renaming this Victorian mountain which when I first saw it on a map I couldn’t believe it was named that:
AN Aboriginal group plans to sue the Victorian Government for ignoring its heritage in the renaming of Mount Niggerhead, a mountain in the Alpine National Park.
For decades, the 1846m Mt Niggerhead in the state’s northeast has been at the centre of a heated debate about its name.
State Environment Minister Gavin Jennings pledged last week to rename the rocky outcrop Jaithmathangs, after one of the traditional languages of the Bogong High Plains.
But another Aboriginal nation, the Dhudhuroas, says the peak is part of their country and the proposed new name is just as offensive to them as Mt Niggerhead.
“It’s a bit like renaming Australia as England,” Gary Murray, co-chair of the Dhudhuroa Native Title Group, said.
“Jennings might as well have taken any old name from Arnhem Land – it’s bulls**t.
“This is offensive to our people. The Jaithmathangs are from the other side of Omeo, which is miles away. The name is linguistically and culturally inappropriate.” [AAP]
Mt. Niggerhead is actually very close to the Mt. Hotham ski resort and easily visible from the Great Alpine Road. In the above picture you can see Mt. Niggerhead in the background from when I hiked one of Australia’s best trails The Razorback.
This is some pretty disturbing news:
AN 11-year-old boy forced two pre-school-aged girls to have sex with him, infected them with sexually transmitted diseases, but will not be prosecuted by Western Australian authorities.
Police yesterday confirmed that criminal charges would not be laid against the boy from Balgo, a troubled indigenous community in the northeastern reaches of the Great Sandy Desert 100km from the Northern Territory border, despite his being above the age of criminal responsibility under state law.
Although the incident is part of a continuing investigation, senior police have decided to treat the issue as a health matter, not a criminal one.
The Australian also understands the offender was never removed from the remote community, but was warned by a court not to go near his victims, believed to be aged five and six, and several other vulnerable youngsters.
Currently the Australian government is in the midst of a controversial policy change in regards to the Aborigines and have actually deployed the Australian Defence Force into some areas in order to provide security in the Aboriginal communities to protect the children that live there from sexual abuse. The fact that the children are sexually abusing each other just makes me wonder where they learned it from.
A mystery here on Australia that continues to strike debate among Australian scientists and the Australian community in general is what are the origins of the native Aborigines of Australia? It is pretty much agreed by everyone that the natives on the island of New Guinea migrated to the Australian mainland some 40,000-50,000 years ago when the Ice Age lowered sea levels enough where the island of New Guinea was connected by a land bridge to the York Peninsula in Queensland. This same lowering of ocean levels allowed the Aborigines to occupy Tasmania as well. Now the big question is how did the Aborigines get to New Guinea to begin with? The black natives on New Guinea and the Australian aborigines share no genetic relations to the Asian and Polynesian peoples of southeast Asia that they are surrounded by. Well some scientists believe the Aborigines arrived in Australia from Africa:
Australia along with the rest of the world was first settled by a single group of settlers who left Africa more than 55,000 years, new DNA research suggests.
Once there, they apparently evolved in relative isolation, developing genetic characteristics and technology found nowhere else until the arrival of the first European settlers.
The uniqueness of Australia’s ancient Aborigines and archaeological finds on the continent have previously threatened to undermine the “out of Africa” hypothesis of human origins favoured by most experts.
But the latest research by geneticists at the University of Cambridge reinforces the theory that all modern human beings belonging to the species Homo sapiens are descended from a small number of Africans who left their home between 55,000 and 60,000 years ago.
If the Aborigines are linked genetically to a single group of settlers from Africa how in the world did they get to Australia? I seriously doubt people back then were skilled enough to build boats to sail to Australia which means they had to walk and make short boat trips between islands in Indonesia to reach Australia. So how did black Africans simply walk through lands filled with Asians and Polynesians to get to New Guinea and Australia? It is a fascinating question that will probably continue to perplex researchers for some time to come.
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