Learn the truth about life in Australia before the European invasion. You'll discover it's not quite the "Terra Nullius" proclaimed by invaders.
You are ten, and the Elders are selecting a future wife for you. In this part of the country older men are married to younger women and older women married to younger men in order to keep the population stable. So in the second week of the Barnji festival, a woman of the Gubbi Gubbi people to the north is selected, and the appropriate intertribal exchanges and promises are made.
She is of the Bunda class, and therefore allowed to marry you, who are of the Barung class. Her totem is snake, and yours is honeybee. So your children will be of the Daroin class and they will inherit the snake totem from their mother. This is all part of an intricate social system designed over thousands of years to protect and foster the complex interdependent relationships necessary for survival. It also ensures that genetic vigour and purity is maintained. The elders and the Bora council always make sure that wrong-way marriages, or wa:ri marndini are avoided at all costs.
You are not allowed to "see" your future mother in law. You are also not allowed to interact with your future mother in-law's brothers, as they are now Jalu (forbidden) to you also. There are those among your own immediate family to whom you may speak, but from whose hand you can not take food, and from whose cup you can not drink. These are your father, your blood sisters and your father's brothers. Your father's brother's children are called your brothers, while your mother's brother's children are simply called your cousins.
There are also totemic groups that determine your social interactions. As honeybee, you belong with possum and emu people, and they always work and play together. But you still have to liaise and cooperate with the second group - kangaroo, snake and eaglehawk, and the third group - sugarglider, kangaroo rat and mopoke, in order to ensure the survival of all these species, and therefore the tribe as well.
You are learning to care for your totem. It is the duty of honeybee people to ensure the survival of this important food source. You aren't allowed to raid nests or eat honey yourself, or even touch a vessel which has held honey, but if somebody of another totem wishes to raid a bees' nest they have to seek your permission first.
In addition to this responsibility, each person is given an important section of land to look after, and none can hunt there without their permission. When you come of age, you will inherit a special stretch of creek which belonged to your recently deceased brother. It is your mother's father, or Natja, who has the duty of teaching you about this place and preparing you for the duty of caring for it. It is an important place, as it is the only breeding ground for the local freshwater jewfish. Such breeding grounds are referred to as Mimburi, which is the name given to anything involving a continuous flow. The dark patches in the night sky, the great heavenly Bora rings from which the universe is continuously being created, are also called Mimburi. So protection of breeding grounds is considered a sacred duty, and involves doctoral levels of knowledge. You can only inherit this place after years of training and initiation, if the Bora council deems you fit.
Aboriginal built civilisation pre invasion
