The Aboriginal Australia

The Aboriginal Australia

An aborigine is a first inhabitant of a country. it comes from two Latin words ab origine it means from the beginning.  In Australia there is no widely accepted name for aborigines, they are called aboriginals.  There are a lot of traditions, customs, cultures, and special characteristics from aboriginal people.  This essay will describe firstly the aboriginal art, secondly the aboriginal houses and food, as well as a comparison between the aboriginal food and shelter in the past with in the present day, and finally discussion about the problem of health issues of aboriginal people in Australia.

Art was an essential part of aboriginal life which permeated every aspect, both ceremonial and secular.  Roberts (2000) explained, “They are always part of the land and nature as we are. Our connection to all things natural is spiritual” (para.5).  The art was an expression of deeply held religious beliefs the record of gossip and hunting.

Long time ago, body painting used ancestral design was the most important part of a ceremonies.  While, the most commonly used symbol of body painting are relatively simple, aboriginal people used in detail combinations to tell more stories. For example: a single wavy line shows where a river flows, parallel wavy lines symbolise a path, a kind of U-shaped sticks represents a woman, a straight sticks is a man, concentric circles mean there was a campsite or a meeting place, dots show rain or a lots of ants.

Similar like art, the aboriginal people believed that the ancestral providing all the appropriate created the land and necessary resources needed to support them in their semi-nomadic life style.  Hodge (2005) stated,”For Aboriginal people, life is linked to the seasons” (p.8), therefore they were built many different structure suited to their environment.  Definitely, they built a wide variety of shelters that varied with the seasons. For example, Wind Break, usually they use to provide protection from sun during the day.  It is also protection from breezes at night.  These windbreaks were the main form of shelter across the deserts territorities.  Also, they built temporary domed huts with grass roofs when the weather turned wet.  Some times, they can build robust domed houses, made of a hard wooden frame with a turf covering, to keep out the wet and the cold.

For necessity, their people lived by hunting and gathering various wild foods. Hodge (2005) stated,”Tools crafted with heat were invented for hunting” (p.9).  In addition, a man was hunted food by spears, clubs throwing sticks or boomerang, and the women used digging sticks and dishes for gathering food.  Recently non-Aboriginal people too have started to discover these fruits and vegetables.

In the past, the functions of shelter for aboriginal people are fundamentally similar with house after colonisation.  Neverthless, they used different types of material for structure.  Earlier, they using bough and branches for timber frames covered with bark and hides for cladding as a material of shelter.  They also used a stones structures such as a caves and natural shelter.  Whereas, numerous examples of stones structures can be seen in the present day.  Wooden structures are more fragile and survive only in very dry sheltered in land area.

Furthermore, their people lived by hunting and gathering various wild foods before European settlement.  In contrast with the present day, there are any a lot of supermarkets have built for the aboriginal people.

Although, in the present day the aboriginal people have lived in urban areas and they can gather some foods at the supermarkets, Neverthless they have a higher rate of ill health. In the past, the diets were rich in nutrients and low in fat.  Modern urban diets tend to be high in fat and sugar, but low in nutrition. High fat, low fibre diets have been linked to a number of disorders including obesity, cardiovascular disease and diabetes.

In conclussion, it is clear that the aboriginal Australia made art with ancestral design, it is also as a symbol that is connected with the spiritual, sorcery, and magic. In addition, it was the important parts of the ceremonies. They also believe the land, house, and food has been created by the ancestral.  Although the houses and food are strikingly differences between before European settlement and in the present day.

Reference List

Robyn H., (2005). Aboriginal Australia (p.8). Carlton, Victoria: Echidna books

Silas R., (2000). Dreaming and the Dreamtime (p.5). Retrieved August 24, 2009, from http://www.aboriginalartonline.com/culture/dreaming.php

Stem Cells

Most countries have a wide range of technology in the field of medicine.  Many treatments were created for tackling major diseases problems.  One of them is the research of stem cell, which have the capacity for prolonged self-renewal and can produced at least one type of highly differentiated or specialized descendant (Holland, Lebacqz, and Zoloth, 2001, p.xvii). However, research and development of stem cells become the most controversial issue in the current century.  Ethically and legally, it is proven that stem cells have brought negative effects for many people regards the use of stem cells means killing people.  Also, the expensive cost of stem cell therapy can be memorable injustice to poor people because only rich people can use this treatment method.  Therefore, the stem cell research and development should not be continued.  There are several reasons to support this argument, such as stem cell treatment is in a big contradictory with religions because of the process of freezing embryos of these treatment can cause death of embryonic stem cells, as well as the costs required to process this treatment is very expensive.

First, research and development of stem cell is a controversy, particularly embryonic stem cells.  Although the process has the potency to produce clinical benefits are very large and more detailed knowledge about human development, our society is divided over how to show the proper level of respect to human embryos and cadaveric fetal tissue, which currently are the source of these cells.  However, many people have the view that human embryos deserve respect as a form of human life.  Caroline Chisholm Centre justified the reason that “therefore every proposed technology or therapeutic procedures involving the destruction of human embryos should be banned altogether,” (as cited in Smith, p. 10).  In addition, Holland et al. (2001) mentioned that “many people believe that the embryo is fully human and therefore should not be killed” (p.xix).  Therefore, embryos generated by couples should not be used as stem cell research material because the process of freezing embryos can cause death of the embryo.  Moreover, stem cell research is contrary to religions, especially Roman Catholicism.  The Bible says that God forbids any person to kill each other (Exodus 20: 13, Good News Bible Today’s English version). Although the use of embryos in stem cell research is used to help others. Thus, the technology of stem cell therapy is very contrast to the commandments of God and against the rights of human life. Therefore, research and development of stem cells are being debated in the religious aspect.

Another reason is that the stem cell technology is very expensive.  Consequently, this method is available only for wealthy country with people who have better financial condition.  Therefore, this therapy will exacerbate inequalities in health care between the rich and the poor, and could be considered injustice.  Although scientists have tried to create a strategy to reduce budget costs by using a simple and efficient medical techniques, the required fees are still very high (Wertheim, 2002).  Accordingly, not everyone can use the benefits of this treatment method because of the costs required stem cell therapy is very expensive, as a result of stem cell therapy may be used only by people they have a better financial.  In addition, these conditions would be unbeneficial for patients who are economically poor and would lead to social inequality.  By reason of the people from among the poor may not be able to handle major disease problems with this method.

In conclusion, the ethics and legal issues illustrate that many negative effects are resulting from stem cell treatment.  Moreover, contradictory to religious aspect is one of the reasons for people to stop this research because the processes of stem cell treatment such as freezing embryo can kill the embryo and it is opposing the religious aspect.  Also, the costs of stem cell treatment is not cheap, that the advantage is only available in developed countries and the only people who have better finances can use this therapy to treat a variety of major diseases.  This can cause social gap between the rich and the poor.  Therefore, the stem cell research and development conducted by scientists are not allowed to continue.

Reference List

Smith, S (2002). Human cloning and stem cell research. retrieved from : http://www.parliament.nsw.gov.au/WEB_FEED/PHWebContent.nsf/PHPages/LibraryPublications

Good News Bible today English version. (2007). the ten commandments (Exod. 20 : 13). Philippine : Philippine bible society

Holland, S., Lebacqz  K., & Zoloth, L. (2001). The human science, ethics, embryonic and stem cell public policy debate. The United State of America : Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Wertheim, M. (2002). Stemming the Tide : Clones, Stem cells, & Future of Medicine. Retrieved from : http://www.slv.vic.gov.au/programs/ltf/lectures/rbl/2002/wertheim.html