They did use animal hair, but were also very successful at using human hair to create strong and versatile threads. The hair was spun into yarn, sometimes alone and sometimes mixed with bark, which could be woven into clothing items, blankets, bags, and other items.
Hair. Hairstring is an important textile traditionally made by Aboriginal Australians. People, particularly women, would cut their hair regularly using quartz or flint knives. This hair is never wasted.
The ancient art of weaving has been used as an Indigenous method to create food tools, baskets, fishing nets and skin cloaks for warmth for centuries. Over the years, weaving has also been used for ceremonial purposes to produce items like traditional headgear.
In south-eastern Australia, Aboriginal people used resources from the natural world to make beautiful items of clothing, such as decorated possum-skin cloaks and skirts made from emu feathers. The skirts were made of many bundles of emu feathers tied together and then fastened onto a vegetable fibre string belt.
These include; pandanus, palms and selected bark fibres. These plants are woven and knotted into baskets, bags and mats. Another material used are leaves. They are stripped, dried and dyed with natural vegetable dyes, such as roots, leaves and berries).
Artefacts sometimes regarded as sacred items and/or used in ceremonies include bullroarers, didgeridoos and carved boards called churinga.
One of the most complex and beautiful examples of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander technology is basket-weaving—the myriad of local forms reflecting the diverse country of the people who make them.
The wood from wattles was used to produce spears, boomerangs, spear throwers, clubs, shields, handles for axes and chisels, coolamons, digging sticks, clap sticks and fire drills.
In most instances of Aboriginal culture, the body is painted for ritual reasons but in some places, such as among the Walpiri living north-west of Alice Springs, women also paint each others' bodies with quite different designs for sexual reasons, to celebrate their femininity and appeal to men.
feather, used as the principal writing instrument from the 6th century until the mid-19th century, when steel pen points were introduced. The strongest quills were obtained from living birds in their new growth period in the spring.
Scientists are still debating on the cause of the blonde hair in Aborgines. Some of them say, the blonde hair is caused by mixing with Europeans during colonization. Others say it is due to a genetic mutation.
Although modern weaving may most often refer to cloth, Aboriginal weaving facts are different. Among Aboriginals, weaving mostly produced individual items: fishing nets and traps, tools, clothing, and ceremonial items. Most of all, however, they wove baskets, including dilly bags.
(In the past, people were naked, and only in the coldest parts of southern Australia did they wear possum fur and kangaroo fur cloaks during winter.) Everyday body adornments, serving decorative and sometimes functional roles, included: Headbands of various types, worn by men and women.
Some are near-white like the F1; but none darker than either parent have been seen. Study of the various crosses leads to the conclusion that a single main gene for melanin in the skin is present in the aborigines, together with a minor gene which alone produces brunet-white skin colour.
Thus it appears that both sexes of the two regions, the desert and the coastal, of the present study fall within the range of variation of hair forms of the Australian aborigines. Campbell et al. (1936-37) found curly hair with a frequency of 7.89%.
In South Australia the women had large, mat-like cloaks on their backs, from out of which their children peeped when they were young. In South Queensland Lumholtz records that they had a sort of cape of bark cloth, and Eyre found them using seaweed as a dress on the south coast.
Aboriginal people perform Funeral ceremonies as understandably the death of a person is a very important event. The people often paint themselves white, wound or cut their own bodies to show their sorrow for the loss of their loved one.
Where the artist comes from and what culture has informed his/her's tribe will depend on what technique can be used. It is considered both disrespectful and unacceptable to paint on behalf of someone else's culture. It is simply not permitted.
Today there are increasing numbers of 'wrong skin' marriages, in which people who would traditionally be prevented from marrying become partners. A result is families attempting to accommodate the contradictions this presents for the kinship system and wider relationships.
People enjoyed the sticky fruits and in some areas the leaves were used for healing. The Grey Mistletoe ( Amyema quandong) is often found on Blackwood trees. It is a parasite which can take over and eventually kill the host tree.
Lilly Pilly
This fruit features widely in traditional Aboriginal medicine, used as a treatment for sore ears, wounds and skin conditions, and generally consumed as an immune system booster.
Manna gum inner bark was also used for shields. The rounded form made it ideal for deflecting spears and clubs. The leaves of the manna gum had medicinal properties. The smoke was good for healing a fever.
Aboriginal women utilised a range of bags, baskets and containers to carry food and other items including their babies. Soft string bags or dilly bags made from woven bush string and elongated bark containers with pleated and tied ends (known in the Kimberley as anggam) were used as food and baby-carriers.
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples also process fibre to improve its strength and durability. Processed string and cord are used to manufacture nets, baskets, bags, belts and mats for fishing and to catch game, and for other woven or netted items.
Blankets hold great cultural significance in many Indigenous communities. They were used in trade, given as gifts and even offered a way to record community history.