the aborigines have a culture that is the most unusual of any known people. today, unfortunately, they have been all but destroyed as a distinct society. within a hundred years of the immigration of europeans into australia there were virtually no aborigine tribes that were uncontaminated by the white man's ways. occasionally today, a small band is discovered in the outback that follows its ancestral path but none of these are ignorant of the white man and his culture. according to the 1966 australian census there are some 80,000 half and full-blooded aborigines living. when european immigration first began in the 1780's it was estimated there were 300,000 natives composing 500 tribes. by many of the invaders the aborigines or "abos" were seen as subhuman and were hunted and killed like animals. the supposed "dispersal" of the natives was a euphemism for genocide for many years. thousands were given poisoned food and a typical saturday night adventure would be to go out and shoot "abos" for fun. the aborigines also received smallpox and other diseases from the whites and their numbers rapidly declined. (strangely, they were immune to syphilis which was imported by europeans elsewhere.)
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