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Comment by defrost | Hacker News Reader

On a related note, it's not quite forty years since the Pintupi Nine first directly encountered "the modern world":

> In 1984 a group of Australian Aboriginal people living a traditional nomadic life were encountered in the heart of the Gibson desert in Western Australia.

> They had been unaware of the arrival of Europeans on the continent, let alone cars - or even clothes.

> If you want to know how Australian Aboriginal peoples lived for 40,000 years, just ask Yukultji.

> She stepped into the 20th Century just 30 years ago.

~ (written in 2014) https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-30500591

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"If you want to know how Australian Aboriginal peoples lived .." is a bit daft (I know you're quoting so I'm not attributing that daftness to you). Australia is a continent with a wide range of ecologies and climatic zones (we're not all hot dry desert!). There were some 500 odd indigenous language groups, living quite differently, despite having some level of continent-wide awareness (via trade routes and songlines). And they certainly underwent changes over those 40,000 years.

Amazing story just the same.

Sure, you can watch Milli Milli [1] (for one example) if you're seeking a contrast between Central to Northern Western practices:

> takes the viewer on a cultural travelogue through the three regions of the Kimberleys: the coast, the rivers and tablelands, and the desert.

and you're correct about the breadth of languages across Australia as a whole.

The point stands that this group were first hand direct testimony to Western Desert lifestyles prior to colonial invasion.

One of the more interesting thing about growing up in the less inhabited parts of Western Austrlia (ie. most it given its 3x size of Texas with a pop of > 2 million mostly living in the SW corner) is the direct interaction with many people that still directly connect to traditional lifestyles [2].

[1] https://www.roninfilms.com.au/feature/710/milli-milli.html

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GmKxmxk6Gas

Thanks for the film ref. Like most Australians, my knowledge of indigenous folk is patchy at best - a few books and local interactions here and there. I have actually helped hunt/collect & eat goanna (not bad) and turtle eggs (yuck), which probably puts me a bit outside of the Australian norm. But in truth the indigenous world is an entirely 'foreign' culture to most of us. As is European culture to many indigenous folk outside the cities - I came here from the UK and I remember being asked in Cape York whether or not we hunted much Dugong where I came from.

We're in a time when only recently > 50% of the human population became urbanised.

Even in the UK and the EU you're barely a generation away from "what do you hunt" being a fair and reasonable question - hunting boar in a European forest in the 1940s was not altogether uncommon, catching birds, fish, rabbits, et al in the countryside to supplement scarce food was absolutely a wartime pursuit in the UK.

As a Kimberley kid I grew up spear fishing [1] from boats, jetties, reefs, and the shore as part and parcel of a life building radios to listen in on US submarine comms stations further down the coast and reverse engineer early NAVSTAR signals .. thanks to a lot of post war types that felt the need to stay in touch with world tensions and events in the region from Vietnam through to PNG.

Can't complain about a healthy lifestyle with plenty of fresh food :-)

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7gmCX7R-W4c

I've only been up to that part of the world once. Seems like an enviable place to have grown up.

Fascinating article, thank you for sharing.

I found it incredible how several of the siblings are now well-known artists[0]! What a life these people have led.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warlimpirrnga_Tjapaltjarri

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