1.) For at least 40,000 years before the first British settlement in the late 18th century, Australia was inhabited by indigenous Australians. Who spoke languages grouped into roughly 250 language groups. After the European discovery of the continent in 1606, Australia's eastern half was claimed by Great Britain in 1770.
2.) The voyages of Christopher Columbus from 1492 to 1502 resulted in permanent contact with European powers. Diseases introduced from Europe and Africa devastated the Indigenous peoples, and the European powers colonised the Americas. Mass emigration from Europe, including large numbers of servants, and forced immigration of African slaves largely replaced the Indigenous Peoples.
These are two of the deeper meaning subjects that I want my game to subtly revolve around. My game is set in a world based around both the aborigines dreamtime and the native americans Spirit walks. The Evil/ Villain in the game actually represents the contamination of these two separate but very familiar cultures by the foreign explorers/ Invaders. Both cultures were hugely effected by the arrival of their european ancestors, and very little of it was positive. Both Cultures were incredibly misunderstood at the time, and as in so many cases difference was feared. Of course that logic can be applied to both sides. Since the arrival of Europeans both cultures have been diluted and upheaved from their cultural roots. Traditions and languages have been lost as it becomes steadily harder for them to stay true to what their culture once was. The temptations of the modern world have effected what people believe in.
Before the arrival Native Americans mainly lived as hunter-gatherer societies and preserved their histories by oral traditions and artwork. The arrival of the 'white man' in America was followed by centuries of conflict. The land and nature that the Native Americans believed sacred went through radical changes to make way for numerous new colonies. For example the american buffalo which once roamed the grasslands in giant herds were put on the verge of extinction due to commercial hunting and slaughter. Native Americans suffered the highest fatalities from contact with European diseases such as Smallpox to which they had yet not acquired immunity. What makes these losses worse are that some of them were intentional, Colonists are known to have "gifted" tribes with smallpox infected blankets. Probably one of the first cases of known biological warfare.
"In 1830, the U.S. Congress passed the Indian Removal Act, authorising the government to relocate Native Americans from their homelands within established states to lands west of the Mississippi River, accommodating European-American expansion. This resulted in the genocide or near-genocide of many tribes, with the brutal, forced marches coming to be known as The trail of tears."
Before the arrival of the European settlers there were over 250–300 spoken languages with 600 dialects. Now there are fewer than 200 of these that remain in use, and all but 20 are considered to be endangered. Sadly Aboriginal people today mostly speak English. To me this is an example of, I don't know the correct term but Im calling it Cultural Dilution.
In the 2006 census, 73% of the Indigenous population reported an affiliation with a Christianity, 24% reported no religious affiliation and only 1% reported affiliation with an Australian Aboriginal traditional religion. Another example of what i'm calling cultural dilution, It saddens me that today only 1% believe in there ancestral religion. There were many preachers that wished to 'civilise' and spread the word of god and christianity to the aborigines.
Traditionally the aborigines adhered to animist spiritual frameworks. Within Aboriginal belief systems, a formative epoch known as 'the Dreamtime' stretches back into the distant past when the creator ancestors known as the First Peoples travelled across the land, creating and naming as they went. Indigenous Australia's oral tradition and religious values are based upon reverence for the land and a belief in this Dreamtime.
The Dreaming is at once both the ancient time of creation and the present-day reality of Dreaming. There were a great many different groups, each with its own individual culture, belief structure, and language. These cultures overlapped to a greater or lesser extent, and evolved over time. Major ancestral spirits include the Rainbow Serpent, Baiame, Dirawong and Bunjil.
The narrative of my game is that you are the last dream-walker, which is something I made up based on the mix of spirit walks and dreamtime. It is someone who is able to enter the world of the Dreamtime/ the Spirit world in which the creative ancestral deities live. Too few people believe in them anymore and so they no longer hold power over the physical plane, the arrival of the europeans and thus a more industrial culture was the beginning of the end. The modern way of life has left the dreamtime world infected, contaminated, tainted by things that don't belong there. But it is to late, the only way to save the dreamtime is to purify it and then sadly break the bridge between worlds. This is what the character must accomplish through the game, at the end you have the choice to leave with the spirits or stay behind.
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