News — Aboriginal art

Few stories capture people’s imagination like that of the “Seven Sisters”. The Seven Sisters Story is told by aboriginal people all over Australia. The stories vary from area to area, but one common factor is that the Seven Sisters are always watchful or running away from the unwelcome advances of a male (Orion). In NSW, the sisters are called Mayi-mayi. Mayi-mayi were chased by a man called Wurunna. He succeeds in catching two of the women by using trickery. Eventually they escape and rise up into the sky forming the star constellation we know as Pleiades. In the Kimberley area,...

The words ‘Aboriginal’ and ‘Indigenous’ are both used in Australia to describe the original inhabitants of the Australian continent. The word ‘Aboriginal’ is the established way to describe the first inhabitants, regularly used in contexts of Aboriginal community, Aboriginal health, Aboriginal art etc. ‘Aboriginal’ is also used as a noun, so a person is an Aboriginal as well as an Aborigine, which seems to be used less often in the media. As the term ‘Aboriginal’ is the established way to describe first inhabitants in Australia, we then extend that to ‘Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders’ to cover all first inhabitants...