Traditional family structures are still evident in the organisation of modern, urban Indigenous families.
Traditional Indigenous family groups follow the ‘hearth’ group system, where an extended family group shares the proceeds of a hunt and the same camp fire – in other words, an extended family lives together.
Closest relatives are those related by blood or marriage, but a spiritual relationship or a connection with a language group may be acknowledged as part of the kinship structure.
Since European settlement, Indigenous people have married people of non-Indigenous races but Indigenous beliefs, customs and kinship systems often remain as a strong part of the family’s life even if only one parent is Indigenous.
In traditional settings, all Indigenous people have a recognised relationship with each other, be it through blood, marriage, language group or clan.
When people met for the first time, a formal connection was established before communication began.
Following traditional practice, marriages that take place outside the strict kinship structure are forbidden and transgressions are dealt with according to tribal law.
Since European settlement, Indigenous people have married people of non-Indigenous races but Indigenous beliefs, customs and kinship systems often remain as a strong part of the family's life even if only one parent is Indigenous.
Arranged marriages are common, often arranged when girls are infants, although there is no formal marriage ceremony like that in non-Indigenous culture.
Women may marry often, because they can outlive their much older husbands, and when a man dies his wife may be left to a man’s brother.
Children are brought up with an awareness of the kinship structure and close relatives help guide them through early life to initiation. Children without able parents are accepted and cared for by others as if they are part of the original family group.
Kinship in Indigenous families has a different structure to non-Indigenous families. For example, a man may call his brother’s children son and daughter, and they call him father. Similarly a child would call his mother’s sister as mother and his mother’s brother as uncle.
Families have a strong commitment to the extended family and the whole group comes together for important events. In regional areas this could mean camping together for days or in the city at one person’s house (usually the oldest woman's or matriarch’s).
It is obligatory that travellers are given food and shelter – it would be shameful not to help someone when help was needed.
Families are guided by Elders – either community Elders (people who have lived in an area for a long time and are respected community participants) or traditional Elders (people who are descendents of the area and are active in community issues).
Indigenous family structures have been under pressure since European settlement, with the separation of children and families, inter-racial marriages and imposition of white culture on Indigenous people.
However, Indigenous kinship structures have never disappeared. With the increasing respect for Indigenous culture and people and quashing of past segregation laws, the Indigenous community has been able to restrengthen the ties of its binding structure – the family.
State and Federal governments now support the rebuilding of Indigenous families by helping Indigenous people trace lost relatives – caused by the governments’ early policies (1910 to 1970) of removing children (especially those of mixed blood) from their parents – and by providing services to help Indigenous people record their family histories, which gives the whole Indigenous community a record of their heritage in this country.
The Department of Indigenous Affairs’ Family History Unit was established in 1986 to help Indigenous people research their family history.
The State Government has also set up the Bringing Them Home Reunion program to fund reunions of separated people.
