Australia, New Zealand, USA Timelines

There are many similarities between Australia, New Zealand and the US.  The first point highlighted on the timeline was in 1770 when Britain claimed Australia and settled the first six colonies in 1788. In 1769 an English explorer made expeditions to New Zealand, but did not create colonies.  His journals inspired other Europeans to explore New Zealand.  This is very similar to what happened in America.  In 1606 the London Company sponsored a colonization expedition to Virginia and in 1607 Jamestown was founded (http://www.historyplace.com/unitedstates/revolution/rev-early.htm).    England would end up having 13 colonies in America and many people would come to explore America. 

Another similarity between Australia, New Zealand and the US is the gold rushes.  In 1850 gold is found in Australia.  Word spread quickly and within a few days there were 100 people searching for gold and by June there was over 2000 people looking for gold and thousands more on their way.  Many people came hoping to find wealth.  In 1851 the population in Australia was about 430,000 and in 1871 the population was about 1.7 million (http://www.patricktaylor.com/australian-gold-rush).  New Zealand's gold rush occurred in 1861 when gold was discovered in Tuapeka. This is similar to what happened with the gold rush in America.  Many people left their homes and traveled to California with the hope of finding gold.  The population of California greatly increased. 

The six colonies in Australia had a democratic government and Britain's royalty only had a ceremonial role.  In New Zealand they had their own self-governing community within the British empire.  In the American colonies however, Britain had more control.  They collected taxes and made acts for the colonies. The colonists did not like British rule and fought in the American Revolution and eventually got independence from England in 1776.  New Zealand got independence from Great Britain in 1947.

Each of these counties had natives that had already been living there.  In Australia there is the Aboriginals, in New Zealand there is the Maori, and in American there is the Native Americans.  The Aborigines in Australia were given the right to vote in 1962 and were recognized as citizens five years later.   The Aboriginal Land Rights Act is passed in 1976 allowing Aborigines the right to make claims on their ancestral land in the Northern Territory.  In 2008, The Australian parliament apologizes for past wrongs committed against Aboriginal people.  In New Zealand the Maori signed the Treaty of Waitangi in 1840.  This gave control to the British in exchange for protection and guaranteed Maori possession of their lands.  In 1860 a decade of land wars began between the Maoris and European settlers.  Europeans were buying land from the Maori at very low prices and Maori had little say in the running of the country.  Maori traditions and customs were undermined by the Europeans.  This caused tension between them and the land wars began (http://www.backpack-newzealand.com/history.html).  In America, Congress passes the Dawes General Allotment Act in 1887.  This granted citizenship to Native Americans who give up their tribal affiliations. The Act sought to open Indian land for white settlement (http://www.aclu.org/voting-rights/voting-rights-act-timeline). American government had no respect for the Native Americans. America wanted their land and wanted to make them give up their culture and fit in with theirs.  All Native Americans did not become citizens until 1924 and it would be even longer before all Native Americans got the right to vote(http://www.nebraskastudies.org/0700/frameset_reset.html?http://www.nebraskastudies.org/0700/stories/0701_0140.html).

Creation Stories

I think that human cultures form some sort of  creation story/myth because we are always in pursuit of knowledge.  We generally don't like the unknown and therefore create some sort of explanation for everything.  Humans are also very curious and always like to explore new things.  I think that myths still have a place in the world today because we still sometimes use myths to explain things that we cannot explain.  When modern science can come up with no explanation we still tend to come up with stories in order fill our need for knowledge.  Today there is also the debate of how the earth was created.  It can be looked at from a scientific evolution point of view or from a religious view. 

The Maori creation story reveals that they value they elements and nature.  The story mentions how the children were the gods of wind, storms, sea, and other elements.  I think they also looked down upon greed because the children wanted to separate the parents and this was portrayed as selfish.  In the Australian Aboriginals story they also valued nature, but they seemed to be more focused on the animals and plants.  The story talks about how the mother brought all the creatures and plants to life when she came down to earth.  This story talks about greed as well.  The animals were given the gift to change forms, but they took advantage of this gift and the mother was not pleased with them.  Both cultures seemed to value the same things.

Some similarities between the creations stories were that they both had a mother and a father figure in the beginning.  These figures were the creators of life on the earth.  In both stories the male was dominant.  The father of the story had more power in the story than the mother figure.  In the Australian Aboriginal story the mother was afraid of the father and was always commanded by him.  In the Maori story the mother and the father were more equal, but they had 70 sons and only one daughter.  The stories were also similar because they children became envious and rebelled against the parents.  Both stories talk about love and compassion as something that should be treasured.  Light and dark imagery is present in both stories.  Some differences between the stories were that in the Maori story there was nothing.  There was only blackness and the mother and father created everything.  In the Australian Aborigine story everything was still in the beginning.  The mother spirit had to go down to earth and awaken the spirits.  I think that there were these differences because stories can be changed when passed down.  This causes different versions of stories, but they can have some of the same ideas.

Although most myths are proven to be untrue, they still reveal eternal problem of the world.  They do this through the use of morals or lessons.  Most myths contain some sort of moral in the story.  It can be about things such as love, greed, truthfulness etc.  These stories create commonalities between different cultures, but it can also create conflict.  The stories change and there can be different versions of the story and this can cause tension between cultures.  Today there are still some problems between cultures. This is because of religion clash due to different creation stories. 



black and white moths
on a polluted tree



I don't really believe in a specific creation story.  I know that there is the debate between evolution and a god creating the earth.  I do believe more in evolution though because there is scientific proof.  I like knowing that there is something to explain the creation of the world.  Although I believe more in evolution and science, it is still interesting to think about the idea of there being some sort of god/spirit that helped shape the earth.  Evolution has made me view environmental influence differently.  It makes me more aware of how much humans impact nature.  For example, researchers did a count of black moths and white moths.  The count of black moth had become greater because pollution caused by industry caused moth's environment to change and caused white moths to become more scarce because of predation.  It makes me see how much we change the world through the things that we do.