50 Fun Facts About Aboriginal Australians

Roughly how long ago did the ancestors of Aboriginal Australians first migrate to the continent?

They arrived when Australia and New Guinea formed a single continent joined by a land bridge.

What is the name for the body of creation stories, songlines and beliefs central to Aboriginal cultures?

It is passed down through dance, story, songlines and art and still shapes kinship and care for the land.

Roughly how many different languages did Aboriginal peoples speak at the time of European colonisation?

The 2021 census found 167 Indigenous languages still spoken at home.

Which group of Indigenous Australians is ethnically distinct from Aboriginal Australians?

They come from the islands between Cape York and New Guinea and have their own official flag.

What are the three colours of the Australian Aboriginal flag?

Black for the people, the yellow disc for the sun, red for the earth and the ochre used in ceremonies.

Who designed the Aboriginal flag, first flown in Adelaide in 1971?

He held the copyright until January 2022, when he transferred it to the Commonwealth.

In what year did the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander flags become official flags of Australia?

The Keating government proclaimed them under the Flags Act 1953 to advance reconciliation.

What percentage of voters supported the 1967 referendum on Aboriginal people?

It let the Commonwealth make laws for Aboriginal people and repealed the section excluding them from the census count.

Which prime minister called the 1967 referendum?

Section 127 of the Constitution had excluded 'aboriginal natives' from being counted.

In what year did all Indigenous Australians gain the unqualified right to vote in federal elections?

Ex-servicemen's right had been affirmed in 1949; Queensland and Western Australia had denied the vote until then.

Which 1992 High Court case rejected the doctrine of terra nullius and recognised native title?

Eddie Mabo and other Meriam people of Murray Island brought it; the Native Title Act followed in 1993.

What does the Latin phrase terra nullius, used to justify colonisation, mean?

Justice Blackburn had upheld the idea in the 1971 Gove case; the High Court overturned it in 1992.

On what date was the Mabo decision handed down?

Eddie Mabo himself had died five months earlier.

Which prime minister delivered the formal apology to the Stolen Generations on 13 February 2008?

Howard had refused an apology despite the 1997 report recommending one.

What was the name of the 1997 report into the Stolen Generations?

It estimated that between one in ten and one in three Aboriginal children were removed from their families.

Who led the 1966 Wave Hill walk-off of Gurindji stockmen and their families?

Paul Kelly and Kev Carmody told the story in 'From Little Things Big Things Grow'.

Which prime minister handed land back to the Gurindji in a symbolic ceremony in August 1975?

The strike had lasted the best part of a decade after the 1966 walk-off.

Under what was the Aboriginal Tent Embassy first set up in Canberra on 26 January 1972?

It is now the longest continuous protest for Indigenous land rights in the world.

Who became the first Indigenous Australian in Federal Parliament, as a senator in 1971?

Ken Wyatt became the first elected to the House of Representatives in 2010, and Linda Burney the first woman in 2016.

Which Aboriginal sprinter lit the Olympic flame in Sydney in 2000 and won the 400 metres?

She also won gold at World Championships and Commonwealth Games.

Which Aboriginal tennis player became world number one in 1971 and won 14 Grand Slam titles?

Ashleigh Barty, inspired by her, later reached number one too.

Which Aboriginal polymath and author appears on the Australian $50 note?

His Legendary Tales of the Aborigines of 1924-25 gave the first accounts of Aboriginal mythology written by an Aboriginal author.

The Papunya Tula movement is famous for which style of art?

Albert Namatjira's Hermannsburg School, by contrast, worked in watercolour.

In which regions was the didgeridoo traditionally played, rather than across the whole continent?

Yolngu men were among its traditional players; the stereotype spread it everywhere.

What is a woomera?

Weapons also included boomerangs, clubs and spears tipped with stone or fishbone.

At which northern Australian rock shelter does dating suggest humans 65,000 years ago?

Mungo Man, the oldest modern human remains found outside Africa, is much younger.

How old are the remains known as Mungo Man, the earliest anatomically modern human found in Australia?

They were found at Lake Mungo in New South Wales.

About how long ago did the dingo reach Australia?

Its arrival coincided with changes in language and stone tools, though genetics show no outside gene flow.

Which people from modern Indonesia traded with northern Aboriginal groups before European contact?

They are one theory for how the great 1789 epidemic reached the continent.

Across which ancient supercontinent joining Australia and New Guinea did the first people migrate?

Rising seas at the start of the Holocene, about 11,700 years ago, cut Tasmania and the islands off from the mainland.

According to the 2021 census, how many Aboriginal people were there in Australia?

That is 3.7% of the national population, with the largest share in New South Wales.

Which Aboriginal man's 1796 letter is the first known Aboriginal work in English?

He adopted European dress, travelled to England and acted as a go-between; the others led armed resistance.

What was the first Australian sporting side known to have travelled overseas?

The players came from the Western District of Victoria.

The 1938 Day of Mourning marked what anniversary?

Aboriginal protesters have since marked 26 January as Invasion Day or Survival Day.

What were the Yirrkala bark petitions of 1963?

They came from Yolngu people of Arnhem Land protesting a bauxite mine on their land.

What was the 1965 Freedom Ride?

University of Sydney students organised it to encourage Aboriginal people to resist discrimination.

Who was the first Aboriginal person in vice-regal office, as Governor of South Australia in 1976?

He was a long-time Aboriginal rights campaigner and former footballer.

What did the Uluru Statement from the Heart of 26 May 2017 call for?

Makarrata is a Yolngu word for conflict resolution, peacemaking and justice.

Which epidemic of 1789 is estimated to have killed up to 90% of the Darug people around Sydney?

Whether it came from the First Fleet or from Macassan fishermen, or was really chickenpox, is still argued.

Who was the first Indigenous Australian to captain the nation in any sport, leading the 1973 Kangaroos?

Mark Ella later captained Australia in rugby union.

Which Tasmanian Aboriginal woman's skeleton was displayed after her 1876 death until her ashes were scattered in 1976?

Fanny Cochrane Smith, the last speaker of a traditional Tasmanian language, died in 1905.

According to the 2021 census, which Aboriginal language had the most speakers?

It is an English-based creole spoken in the Northern Territory and Western Australia, and one of the fastest growing.

Which term for territory expresses the spiritual bond between language groups and their land?

Kinship responsibilities and looking after it are framed by knowledge from creation stories.

The oldest surviving Aboriginal boomerang, found in a South Australian peat bog, dates to roughly when?

It is held by the South Australian Museum; the word originally referred only to returning types, not hunting sticks.

Watercolourist Albert Namatjira, of the Western Arrernte people, was raised at which Lutheran mission?

In 1957 he became the first Northern Territory Aboriginal person granted full citizenship rights, freeing him from wardship.

After whom did surveyor William Gosse name Uluru 'Ayers Rock' in 1873?

Sir Henry Ayers held the post; in 1993 the site became the Northern Territory's first official dual-named feature.

Which Bidjigal warrior waged a twelve-year guerrilla war against the Sydney colonists from 1790?

His people were the original inhabitants of Toongabbie and Parramatta; he was killed and beheaded in 1802.

The band Yothu Yindi's name means what in the Yolngu language?

Formed in 1986 from a white rock band and an Aboriginal folk group from Arnhem Land, it mixed rock with yidaki and manikay.

In which year did NAIDOC become a week-long event, having grown out of the 1938 Day of Mourning?

The first NAIDOC poster appeared in 1972 to promote what was then called Aborigines Day.

Which dual Brownlow Medallist for the Sydney Swans was named Australian of the Year in 2014?

He was honoured for his community work and anti-racism advocacy and is in the AFL's Indigenous Team of the Century.