0107, 2872 AUSTRALIA - Indigenous Australians

2872 Australian Aboriginal men in Top End, taking part in a ceremony
which is accompanied by the haunting music of the didgeridoo

Human habitation of the Australia is estimated to have begun between 42,000 and 48,000 years ago, possibly with the migration of people by land bridges and short sea-crossings from what is now Southeast Asia. These first inhabitants may have been ancestors of modern Indigenous Australians. Australia's Aboriginal culture probably represents the oldest surviving culture in the world, with the use of stone tool technology and painting with red ochre pigment dating back over 60,000 years. Australians never developed an "iron age", "bronze age", or pottery.

0107 An elder Australian Aboriginal,
his grandson and a Goanna

There is great diversity among different Indigenous communities in Australia, each with its own mixture of cultures, customs and languages. At the time of initial European settlement, over 250 languages were spoken; it is currently estimated that 120 to 145 of these remain in use, but only 13 of these are not considered endangered. Although Aboriginal society was generally semi-nomadic, moving according to the changing food availability found across different areas as seasons changed, the mode of life and material cultures varied greatly from region to region.

2602 AUSTRALIA - Eddie Koiki Mabo (1936-1992)

2602 Eddie Koiki Mabo (1936-1992)

Eddie Koiki Mabo was an Indigenous community leader and human rights activist who achieved national prominence as the successful principal plaintiff in the landmark High Court of Australia ruling on native land title. In 1992 the historic Mabo decision of the High Court of Australia recognised traditional land rights for Australian Indigenous People, overturning the legal doctrine of terra nullius (land belonging to nobody) which characterised Australian law with regard to land and title.

0295, 2318 NEW ZEALAND - Māori people

0295 A Māori man

Posted on 01.08.2012, 21.02.2016
In 1642, at about 350 years after Māori colonized New Zealand coming from the mythical home Hawaiki in their canoes (waka), Abel Tasman arrived with two ships near to the South Island's shore. Couldn't be said that it was love at first sight. Behold a fragment from the Dutch explorer diary: "Upon this the other natives, with short thick clubs which we at first mistook for heavy blunt parangs [large knives], and with their paddles, fell upon the men in the cock-boat and overcame them by main force, in which fray three of our men were killed and a fourth got mortally wounded through the heavy blows. The quartermaster and two sailors swam to our ship, whence we had sent our pinnace to pick them up, which they got into alive. After this outrageous and detestable crime the murderers sent the cock-boat adrift, having taken one of the dead bodies into their prow and thrown another into the sea."

2318 Māori performing Haka at Whakarewarewa, Rotorua

 

Europeans didn't revisit Nova Zeelandia until 1769, when James Cook mapped almost its entire coastline, anglicised also the name to New Zealand. The route was created, so that the islands have become a stopping and supply point for whaling and trading ships, the sailors developing over time some trade relations with the locals. Besides potato, Māori received diseases unknown for them and muskets, who helped them to be fewer and fewer, the population decreasing to around 40% at the mid of 19th century. Further, Captain William Hobson brought them in 1840 the British sovereignty. Also the Christianity. Although tensions have continued, some Māori have contributed actively to the life of British Empire, even putting his fighting spirit in the crown service in WWI and WWII.

2316 UNITED STATES (Hawaii) - Keiki Aloha

In the Hawaiian language, aloha means affection, peace, compassion, and mercy. It derives from the Proto-Polynesian root *qarofa, and ultimately from Proto-Polynesian, and it has cognates in other Polynesian languages, such as Samoan alofa and Māori aroha, also meaning "love." Since the middle of the 19th century, it also has come to be used as an English greeting to say goodbye and hello. Today, aloha kakahiaka is the phrase for "good morning." Keiki is Hawaiian for "baby" or "child", literally "the little one".

1040, 2226 UNITED STATES (Hawaii) - Merrie Monarch Festival

1040 Hula dancers at Merrie Monarch Festival

Posted on 30.03.2014, 17.01.2016
The early settlement history of Hawaii isn't completely resolved. One hypothesis is that the first Polynesians arrived in Hawaiʻi in the 3rd century from the Marquesas and were followed by Tahitians in 1300, who conquered the original inhabitants. Another is that a single, extended period of settlement populated the islands. Whatever the truth, the fact is that the Native Hawaiians (kānaka maoli) are Polynesian as origin, and their culture is a clear evidence in this regard, even if the different ethnic groups who established on the islands during the past 200 years added elements of its own culture.

2226 Let's hula!

The Merrie Monarch Festival is a week-long (from Easter Sunday morning to Saturday evening) cultural festival that takes place annually since 1963 in Hilo, in honor of the last reigning king of the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi, David Kalākaua, called the "Merrie Monarch" for his patronage of the arts and credited with restoring many Hawaiian cultural traditions during his reign, including the hula, a uniquely Hawaiian dance accompanied by chant or song that preserves and perpetuates the traditions and culture of Hawaii. The festival is the most prestigious of all hula contests, and many hālau hula (schools) attend it each year.

2003 PAPUA NEW GUINEEA (Central) - Students from Kwikila at Port Moresby National High School Culture Day

The culture of Papua New Guinea is many-sided and complex. It is estimated that more than 7000 different cultural groups exist in Papua New Guinea, and most groups have their own language. Because of this diversity, in which they take pride, many different styles of cultural expression have emerged; each group has created its own expressive forms in art, dance, weaponry, costumes, singing, music, architecture and much more.

1942 FRANCE (New Caledonia) - Spearfishing on the island of Maré

Spearfishing is an ancient method of fishing (maybe the first) that has been used throughout the world for millennia. One could say that it is the most selective fishing method, because uses no bait and has no by-catch. It may be conducted with an ordinary spear or a specialised variant such as an eel spear. Today modern spearfishing makes use of elastic powered spearguns and slings, or compressed gas pneumatic powered spearguns, to strike the hunted fish.

1918 MARSHALL ISLANDS - People and moments

Located in the Pacific Ocean, near the equator, slightly west of the International Date Line, the Marshall Islands has a population of 68,480 people, spread out over 29 coral atolls, comprising 1,156 individual islands and islets. Micronesian colonists gradually settled the Marshall Islands during the 2nd millennium BC, and the first Europeans which explored them were the Spaniards, in the 1520s.

1748-1750 UNITED NATIONS - We the peoples...

1748 - A child from Solomon Islands

 

CHARTER OF THE UNITED NATIONS
PREAMBLE

WE THE PEOPLES OF THE UNITED NATIONS DETERMINED

• to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, which twice in our lifetime has brought untold sorrow to mankind, and
• to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women and of nations large and small, and
• to establish conditions under which justice and respect for the obligations arising from treaties and other sources of international law can be maintained, and
• to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom,

1749 - A Kirghiz family at the foot of
the Kongur mountains in Xinjiang, China

AND FOR THESE ENDS

• to practice tolerance and live together in peace with one another as good neighbours, and
• to unite our strength to maintain international peace and security, and
• to ensure, by the acceptance of principles and the institution of methods, that armed force shall not be used, save in the common interest, and
• to employ international machinery for the promotion of the economic and social advancement of all peoples,

1750 - A Northern Ndebele woman from Zimbabwe

HAVE RESOLVED TO COMBINE OUR EFFORTS TO ACCOMPLISH THESE AIMS

Accordingly, our respective Governments, through representatives assembled in the city of San Francisco, who have exhibited their full powers found to be in good and due form, have agreed to the present Charter of the United Nations and do hereby establish an international organization to be known as the United Nations.

1610 PAPUA NEW GUINEA (Milne Bay) - A man from Trobriand Islands

The Trobriand Islands are an archipelago of coral atolls off the eastern coast of New Guinea. Most of the population of 12,000 indigenous inhabitants live on the main island of Kiriwina. Other major islands in the group are Kaileuna, Vakuta and Kitava. The people of the area are mostly subsistence horticulturalists who live in traditional settlements. The social structure is based on matrilineal clans. People participate in the regional circuit of exchange of shells called kula, sailing to visit trade partners on seagoing canoes. When inter-group warfare was forbidden by colonial rulers, the islanders developed a unique, aggressive form of cricket.

1588 SAMOA - Candle-lit Beach Fale

The Samoan people are a Polynesian ethnic group of the Samoan Islands, which are divided between the independent country of Samoa (formerly Western Samoa) and American Samoa, an unincorporated territory of the United States. The traditional culture of Samoa is a communal way of life based on Fa'a Samoa (The Samoan Way), the unique socio-political culture. There are 3 main parts in the Samoan culture, that is faith, family and music. The traditional living quarters, or fale (houses), contain no walls and up to 20 people may sleep on the ground in the same fale. During the day, the fale is used for chatting and relaxing. One's family is viewed as an integral part of a person's life. The aiga or extended family lives and works together.

1567 PAPUA NEW GUINEA (East New Britain) - The Warwagira & Mask Festival

The Warwagira & Mask Festival was introduced in 1995 and is staged in Kokopo as an annual national event to promote the Mask Cultures of East New Britain, New Ireland and other areas in PNG where masks are significant projections of cultural expression. The festival is a five-day extravaganza of cultural dancing, ritual performance, display, story-telling and exchange - with a variety of arts and crafts. Some of the masks are many decades old, and many of them are sacred. They aren't meant to be viewed or transported to alien places, hence the ceremonial Kinavai, which acts as a cleansing or appeasement ritual for the broken taboos and to pay respects to the Tolai people.

1565 KIRIBATI - Tarawa

Tarawa - Kids carrying kindle

Tarawa Atoll, the capital of the Republic of Kiribati, comprises North Tarawa, which has much in common with other islands of the Gilberts group, and South Tarawa, which is home of the half of the country's total population, i.e. more then 50,000 inhabitants. It has a large lagoon, of over 500 km2, and a wide reef. Although naturally abundant in fish and shellfish of all kinds, marine resources are being overharvested by the growing population. North Tarawa consists of a string of islets, separated in places by wide channels that are best crossed at low tide. On South Tarawa, the construction of causeways has now created a single strip of land from Betio in the West to Buota in the Northeast.

1412 UNITED KINGDOM (Pitcairn Islands) - Daily life of the locals

The Pitcairn Islands, the last British Overseas Territory in the Pacific, are a group of four islands spread over several hundred miles of ocean, but only one of these, Pitcairn, the second largest, measuring about 3.6km from east to west, is inhabited. All the residents are descendants of the Bounty mutineers and the Tahitians who accompanied them. This history is still apparent in the surnames of many of the islanders. With only about 56 inhabitants, originating from four main families, Pitcairn is the least populous national jurisdiction in the world. The only settlement is Adamstown, which practically houses the entire population, and currently holds the record for being the smallest capital in the world. Given all this, it can be said that half of the population of the island appears on this postcard.

1380 SOLOMON ISLANDS - A bride with shell money from Malaita Province

Named after its largest island, Malaita is one of the largest provinces of the Solomon Islands, the island nation located in Oceania, to the east of Papua New Guinea and northwest of Vanuatu. Malaitans are of a varying phenotype. The skin varies from rich chocolate to tawny, most clearly darker than Polynesians, but not generally as dark as the peoples of Bougainville or the western Solomons, who Malaitans refer to as "black men". Most of them are shorter than average Europeans, though not as short as Negritos.

1195 MICRONESIA (Pohnpei) - Miller time at a Pohnpei river

About Pohnpei, The Garden Island of Micronesia, I wrote few words here. I should add that its tall mountain peak, Nahna Laud (772m), receives one of the world's highest rainfalls (over 8,000mm annually), creating a lush tropical jungle and 40 rivers that sweep over the rugged terrain in a series of swift running streams and create spectacular waterfalls. The Nanpil Watershed, situated on the northern side of the island, is unique in many aspects. This area of approximately 5 square km provides inflow to the Nanpil River that is the main source of the island's water supply. Unfortunatelly In recent years large areas of native forests are being cleared for housing and road development projects and unmanaged agricultural activities, activities which have negatively impacting the biodiversity health. Very close of Kolonia, the capital of Federated States of Micronesia until 1989, now the capital of Pohnpei State, is a large natural pool of Nanpil River, where the river temporarily slows down. Further along the same river are the spectacular Liduduhniap Twin Waterfalls.

1182 FRANCE (New Caledonia) - A Kunie child ready to dance in Isle of Pines

New Caledonia, a special collectivity of France, consists in an archipelago located in the southwest Pacific Ocean, in Melanesia, at mid-way between Australia and New Zealand. Among its islands is the Isle of Pines (French: Île des Pins; Kanak name: Kunyié), nicknamed "l'île la plus proche du paradis" (the closest island to Paradise). The inhabitants of the island are mainly native Melanesian Kanaks and the population is 2,000 (estimated 2006). The origin of Kanak people is unclear, but ethnographic research has shown that Polynesian seafarers have intermarried with the Kanaks over the centuries.

1113 MICRONESIA (Pohnpei) - Pohnpei Surfing

Pohnpei "upon (pohn) a stone altar (pei)" (formerly known as Ponape) is an island of the Senyavin Islands, which are part of the larger Caroline Islands group. It belongs to Pohnpei State, one of the four states in the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM). Palikir, the FSM's capital, is located on Pohnpei Island, the largest, highest, most populous, and most developed single island in the FSM. The locals have a reputation as being the most welcoming of outsiders among residents of the island group. Pohnpei is one of the wettest places on earth, and contains a wealth of biodiversity.

0386 INDONESIA (New Guinea) - Traditional huts in Papua

The traditional houses of each ethnic group are different, with its own characteristics, primarily due to the environment, but also to the lifestyle and to the social structure. Therefore the 300 distinct native ethnic groups who live in the more than 17,500 islands which form Indonesia have a very diverse range of traditional housing, so it wasn't easy to find information about the houses in the picture, especially that the explanation is very vague. "A traditional hut in an Indonesian mountain village". Which mountain on which island?

0287 INDONESIA (New Guinea) - Young warriors of Yali tribe

Yanita says that in Indonesia are (over) 300 tribes, and she is right. So far I have postcards with two of them, Dayak (from Borneo island) and Asmat (from New Guinea island), to whom is added this by now, Yali, also from New Guinea island, more precisely from Papua region, the Indonesian western half of the island. Therefore I need "only" still (over) 297 postcards to cover all native ethnic groups to this country. I don't think that I will manage to do so. Anyway, not in the next quarter century.