Australian Aboriginal People: The Rapa Nui of Easter Island and the Tiwi Islanders

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In this essay I will examine two different cultural groups the Rapa Nui of Easter Island and the Tiwi islanders of Australia’s Northern Territory. My main focus will be on the impact colonisation had on these two different cultural groups. I will explain how these two different cultural civilisations were colonised at different times in history and how this effected each culture. I will describe the differences that occurred on each island and how each group handled the different situations they were put into. I will state how these two Indigenous groups responded to the colonizers, with a discussion of the impacts of colonisation on each of the islands human population the changes that resulted because of these impacts. I will explain the role colonisation has played in creating the current situations of each group and what has altered the traditional life of both and discuss both the social and cultural changes of both groups.
These two different cultural groups the Tiwi of Australia and the Rapa Nui of Easter Island are located in very different parts of the world and were discovered at different times in history. It has been suggested that the human population on Easter Island rose to an unknown level of thousands, followed by warfare and then a crash in population size. This theory is questionable. It originated from the French explorer Comte De La Perouse. Perouse believed that the over population of humans on Easter Island destroyed the natural plants, degraded the islands eco systems and almost led to the human population becoming extinct. Perouse also believed that the Rapa Nui felled so many trees for the purpose of moving the large Moai statues around the island that they no longer had enough trees on the island to mak...

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...were still managing the island with great agricultural practices. Then in 1805 the Americans arrived on Rapa Nui and started to take slaves back to America to work in the mines. The worst year for the Rapa Nui was 1863-1864. During this time the Americans took 1400 Rapa Nui as slaves to America. When the rest of the world found out about this they forced the Americans to return the Rapa Nui to Easter Island. But the damage had already been done and the Americans only returned 12 Rapa Nui Natives to Easter Island. The 12 people that were returned had small pox and passed it on to the other islanders, which caused even more deaths. It was recorded in 1877 that only 111 Rapa Nui remained on Easter Island. Easter Island went from having a population of thousands to a population of just one hundred and eleven in the 150 years after the Dutch arrived on Easter Island.

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