Ludwig. Some valid points/observations. I think however, that Brian's point of de-legitimising some of the 'noble savage' paradigm that pervades is ok.

On another point, your "offensive" feelings may, with the unamended passage of Roxtons latest legislation, allow you to take Brian to court to seek redress for your feelings and Brian would never be below to voice this opinion again.

It is the all pervading 'grievance' and 'victim hood' political correctness that Brian, thank heavens, is challenging here.

Ludwig,

Two points:

* when pastoralists took up their leases out in the dry country (at least down here in SA) they had to drill wells in huge numbers for their sheep, which need water every six miles or so. So they created many watering-points unintentionally for native animals and Indigenous people, who - as in other states and the NT - had the right to use the land as they had done for tens of thousands of years, in accordance with a clause written into every pastoral lease (check out the writings of Jamie Dalziel on this point, and Dalziel and Henry Reynolds, NSWLR, 1996).

* along the Murray and indeed, all waterways, the Protector during the nineteenth century issued people with fishing tackle and boats - in one contract, he ordered the building of twenty six 14-ft boats just for people around the lower Lakes. Each year, around a ton of netting twine was distributed. This change in fishing practices would have been incredibly bountiful for the Aboriginal people, since the rivers and lakes teemed with fish, which were easier to catch with line and hook than with fishing spear - spears went out of 'fashion' within weeks of people finding out about lines and hooks, not to mention nets. The boats would have also been something of a godsend. Possibly, even the people on Cooper's Creek were supplied with a couple of 15-ft boats, as well as fishing tackle, from the 1880s.

Maybe we are more aware, down here in SA, of how dry our country is, and how limited food and water may become during droughts. Aboriginal people are not magicians and there is a lot of hard country out there.

Cheers,

Joe

As others have noted, the Aboriginal was nomadic, followed the game and the rainfall.
When white settlers arrived, there were heavily forested areas along the eastern seaboard, and virtual endless reliable water flows.
The Bunya mountains, would have provided a tri annual feast from pine nuts nearly as large as a mans hand and scrub turkey, [better than KFC chicken,] were and remained plentiful until the white hunter and shot gun arrived.
Fish were simply scooped up after being stunned with native bush medicine, which also doubled as soap, when the hands were dirty.
There were fish traps in virtually every estuary, and bountiful shell fish, were also collected.
Alexander Pearce and a few of his cell mates escaped from Sarah Island in a stolen boat.
However, they only made it as far as the Pieman river.
They starved and resorted to cannibalism, even though surrounded on all sides by bush tucker.
And there were plenty of sea worthy canoes, dugong and turtle!
People survived in this land for 40-60,000 years, and really only needed white assistance, when their nomadic lifestyle was removed from them, by white acquisition of their traditional hunting lands.
Yes sure, the new wells allowed some to continue to stay in one place and survive?
The consequent enforced dependence on white settlers, resulted in slave wages and slave labour, with a bit of baccy, some tea, sugar, sack cloth and flour, substituting for honest wages, or a fair days pay for a fair days work.
People lived in tin sheds with dirt floors.
Children were stolen from their parents, just because they happened to have some white blood! Often the product of rape?
Yes sure things were tough for the native before white settlement, but arguably, got a whole lot tougher, after he arrived and tried to civilise people, who knew more about the land and survival, than any intrepid white adventurer!
Oh sure, 1788 was good for a few of the landed gentry, but hardly any of the first people, or those who arrived bowed down with iron chains.
Rhrosty.

Hi Rhosty,

I admire your ability to think and write only in cliches, it's certainly economical. Some of what you write touches on reality - but then shies away. Yes, life in river valleys and estuaries must have been usually pretty good, never any shortage of food or water (hence - as the Berndts wrote about the Ngarrindjeri here in SA on the Murray, they never needed to develop and maintain increase ceremonies, hence no 'secret women's business'.)

But out in the drier country, life may not have been so rosy. Across much of southern SA, limestone plateaus didn't retain water, so animals and people had to move around relatively far and wide to gain any sustenance - and semi-desert groups were always intruding into River-people's country, sometimes peacefully by offering marriage partners, sometimes not so peacefully.

In the drier country, beyond the Murray or Ranges, droughts would have periodically devastated groups, particularly their younger children and their elders. Life may not have been quite so idyllic, not so many fish-traps, mussel beds, crowds of bettong frolicking near the fire, out there.

But yes, in the good times, life even on the Cooper's Creek would have been bountiful - in the 1880s, the Protector here had two 15-ft boats built for the people up there, and thanks to the fishing tackle which was standard issue as part of rations wherever there was water, one year people hauled in nearly fifty thousand perch with their new technology.

[TBC]

[continued]

But children stolen from their parents ? Find examples and get back to me. Looking at the school records (1880-1960) at the community my wife came from, it struck me belatedly that almost none of the kids on the school roll were strangers - out of 800 kids enrolled at some time at the Mission school, only about 20 were 'outsiders', i.e., not the children of parents living and working there -

i.e. if kids were taken AND people were 'herded onto Missions', then logically Mission School rolls would have shown huge numbers of 'outsiders', but not at this particular Mission, so maybe nowhere else either.

So perhaps children were taken away FROM this Mission, away from their people ? Well, out of the 800 kids ever enrolled between 1880 and 1960, only about forty were ever put into care, and all but one or two came back, usually in a year or less. 40 mothers died leaving 140 school-age children without mothers in that time, but only a fraction of those were ever put into care. Some fathers died, and when the mothers remarried, their teenage daughters were sent off to the Fullarton Girls' Home, but every one eventually married an Aboriginal bloke.

It's interesting how we tend to judge the past in terms of current social practices and situations - so we are no longer aware that around 5 % of white kids were taken off to be adopted or into orphanages.

But the huge Goodwood 'Orphanage' here in Adelaide never, as far as I can tell, took in an Aboriginal kid.

There was a comparatively small home for Aboriginal kids at Colebrook, which was at first based at Oodnadatta, made up mostly of children of workers in the marginal cattle industry - and why, if the devious and evil purpose of wicked authorities was to raise Aboriginal kids as white kids, did they set up a home in Oodnadatta, the most remote town in South Australia ? Why not Goodwood ?

Time for a re-think :)

Of those 'stolen generation' children cases bought before the courts seeking redress, I believe only one of those (South Australia) stood up.

Many years ago (70's), whilst working in Jigallong in the western desert, I met the 'rabbit proof fence' girls and family. The circumstances of their removal were not very accurately portrait in the film. I believe this is an example of Loudmouths' efforts in portraying a reality that is more centred in the historic record and evidence.