Aboriginal History Story
My name is Bungi Namajera.
It has now 2 years since the European had invaded our land. Up until then we had a peaceful, simple life.
It all began on a warm sunny day. The women were off gathering berries and I was with the men of the tribe spearing for fish in the shallows of the water. When we walked around the corner of the bay we saw before us the biggest, strangest, scariest boats we have ever seen. We stood there in amazement crossed with fear as we saw these spirit-like figures coming onto the shore. Their skin was pale and their bodies were covered in a cloth we had never seen before.
At first it seemed that these people wanted to be our friends. But when they started building houses and taking control of our land, that’s when the trouble really began. The settlers started fencing off land where we had traditionally hunted and gathered food. If we had tried to go fishing in the streams or hunting for food the property owner would shoot us. Things became so bad for us that we started to depend on the white people for help. We moved to the out skirts of the township. This was when I had to work for the troopers. I had to give up my culture and language just to be able to survive.
Even though my people were camped near the towns, they did not build structured buildings like the settlers nor did they wear all the clothes like the others. My people were used to a simple life. Because of this some of the settlers thought that we were inferior to them or even stupid, and were surprised when our young boys easily learnt English.
But some of the people in my tribe did not want to change and many of them were shot because they tried to resist the authorities. Others were left to starve. Those who did survive would end up dying from diseases that the settlers had brought into the country, and having no resistance to these diseases they had never built up an immunity to them.
We were also made to...
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