Aboriginal Bush Walk...
I went on a 7-hour walkabout today with five other participants and an aboriginal guide. The area, near Faulconbridge, was about 1-1/2 hours by train from Sydney. It was one of the most low-key, yet the most significant things I've done in the Sydney area. We basically followed our guide through 8-kilometers of small trails, bush scrambles and minor rock climbs to several ancient aboriginal sites. He explained what they meant and how his people had existed for the last 50,000 years and how the earlier European visitors pretty much wiped them out in 200-years.

How can it be that a culture that has existed for far longer than any other on earth, over 50,000 years and a culture that had virtually no war, is hardly known about, even by native Australians? On the other hand, billions of dollars is spent researching and making movies about the bloodiest cultures on earth. Somethings wrong here...

Here's a little about the aborigines that I learned from our guide, but I copied from MS Encarta:

"Until Europeans began to settle in Australia in 1788, the Aboriginal way of life was supported by hunting, gathering, and fishing. Like other hunting and gathering peoples, Aboriginal people had an extremely detailed knowledge of their environment, especially plant ecology and animal behavior. The deep connection between Aboriginal people and the natural world influenced every part of their culture, including their food gathering, tools, trade, religion, art, music, language, and social organization."

"Before the arrival of Europeans, Aboriginal societies were organized in a variety of ways ... However, all Aboriginal societies also had certain characteristics in common. They were essentially egalitarian—that is, no one had significantly higher status than anyone else. There was, of course, some variation in people’s status and influence according to their age, gender, knowledge, skills, and personality. In addition, all Aboriginal people maintained exchange relationships with other groups to whom they had ties by blood or marriage. These relationships involved visits, the exchange of gifts, and participation in each other’s ceremonial life."

"Unlike tribes elsewhere, those in Australia had no overarching political or social organization, nor was the tribe a landowning group until after European contact."
(quoted material from Microsoft ® Encarta ® 2006. © 1993-2005 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.)

Wow! A classless society without wars that existed for over 50,000 years! What are we doing wrong???