ind more (Blainey, 20). They were nomads who traveled from site to site within their home territories. Most of the time they hunted and gathered in small groups. When the food resources were high, though, they would organize large gatherings. At these gatherings is where social and religious business of the society would be transacted over a two- to three-week period of intense social activity. This pattern of aggregation and dispersal was fundamental, but because of the living conditions, they had no choice but to follow this pattern. Their food supply was not always abundant (Tindale, 31). Even though they were the only ones inhabiting Australia, the Aborigines spoke more than 200 different languages. Most of the Aborigines were bilingual or multilingual. Both languages and groups of people were associated with stretches of territory. There may have been as many as 500 such named, territories (Broome, 27-28). Their members shared similar cultures and interacted more with one another than with members of different groups. These groups were not, however, politically or economically tied to each other. While language groups as labels may have commonly used names for one another, individual and group identity differed greatly from how they were labeled by other groups. The Aborigines were not aware that they shared a national identity. However, the Aboriginal worldview tended to be expansive, with a perception of "society" as a community of common under-standings and behaviors shared well beyond the confines of the local group (Broome, 30). Aboriginal society was the outcome of interplay between economic, ecological, social, and religious forces (Goldberg, 144-5). The territories that the different groups of Aborigines occupied were called estates. The estate group was the group that shared ownership of a territory. These groups consisted of people who traced connections with one anoth...
