Dear Banjo,

Thank you. Actually, by the way, my grandfather served under your namesake during the First World War, in the Remounts in Palestine; both were experienced bushmen, good with horses, and with camels. There are a few stories there, some of which may be entirely untrue.

Yes, that 'other 80 %': from what I can gather in other states besides South Australia, life was much harder for them: their kids got little or no schooling, right up to the 950s and beyond. Because grog was banned from missions and government settlements, but was, it seems, easily procured elsewhere, it may have had dreadful effects on those free-floating populations. It wasn't illegal for Aboriginal people to drink, but any grog found on them was taken away, and anybody caught supplying was fined or imprisoned. Outright drunkenness by Aboriginal people was also an offense, they could be fined or jailed.

As well, people living away from missions and settlements did not access medical attention or vaccination programs like people did on those settlements. They still had access to free medical attendance, but would have been far less likely to utilise it.

But of course, Aboriginal people could still fish and hunt. In SA, Aboriginal people were provided with boats and fishing gear and guns, to assist them in this way, and quite deliberately to keep them in their own country, to 'stay in their own districts'. Many times, people were given free rail or coach passes precisely to force them 'to return to their own districts'.

[TBC]

[continued]

Hi Banjo,

I'm not suggesting that life was all sweetness on settlements: during the nineteenth century, and perhaps beyond, the amount of rations was the same, more or less, as people received in the Destitute Asylums ('poor-houses') and in jails. But kids got schooling, everybody got medical support, and at least at Pt McLeay on Lake Alexandrina, all the men found work, at least during the nineteenth century. Rations seemed to be more generously distributed into the twentieth century.

And, of course, for everybody, Black and white, work in the nineteenth century meant hard physical work, often from dawn to dusk, walking behind plows/ploughs or hand-harvesting, or lumping hay, working horses or spending all day in the saddle.

On schooling: at least up until 1908-1910 or so, in SA, Aboriginal kids on missions received standard schooling, with standard Ed. Dept. school inspection: they would have been far more literate and numerate than the white kids in their districts.

Very few Aboriginal people were ever catered for in those Destitute Asylums, by the way, quite deliberately, although some of course would have been provided with standard rations in jail.

So it all seemed from the written record. I'm still looking for anything which might contradict any of this. Some written evidence is not everything, but it sure beats none at all, or mere rumour or story.

Cheers,

Joe

Is Mise,

Not long ago, I saw a TV programme with present day descendents of the originals burning the scrub in the claimed to be the old. They burned small sections at a time and walked with the fire, never letting it get ahead of them. It looked safe.

Banjo Paterson and ttbn,

Regarding fire 'managed' by Aborigines, I would remind you both of the Canberra fires which were 'only' grass yet burned out whole suburbs and despite modern firefighting equipment.

Where is the evidence that Aborigines applied fire breaks for example?

The consequences of lighting a fire in most country in Australia are inevitable, resulting in an uncontrolled burn and devastation. How could a few Aborigines manage a fire in scrub country? As for driving animals into 'traps', how does a fence survive if they built any? More likely the Aboriginals profited where animals were driven to suicide over cliff faces, but it is a stretch to claim that was planned (as the American Indians drove buffalo over cliffs to their death).

I am aware of the very positive and optimistic speculations of some anthropologists who really should have a chat with experts outside of their field and qualify their assumptions accordingly.

I come from the land and I can assure you that NO fire is without slaughter of wildlife. Have you never seen the post-fire evidence in TV reports? Although farmers and the fire authorities always hope to keep that to a minimum by modern management techniques including fire breaks, seasonal considerations, accurate weather reports and early reduction of fuel (opposed by the Greens).

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Dear onthebeach,

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« I come from the land and I can assure you that NO fire is without slaughter of wildlife. »
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Thanks, onthebeach. I understand you are speaking from your own personal experience.

I don’t think anyone would deny that things can easily get out of hand and even though it was not intended, Aboriginal burning could well have resulted in direct destruction of wildlife. However, that was not your original contention. You indicated that it was their objective :

« They burned the bush to harvest part-cooked animals that through injury and shock were much easier to locate and catch. »

To quote the Stanford University anthropologist Douglas Bird in that study for which I provided the link in my previous post to you, speaking of the Aborigines, he indicates :

« You never burn unless you're with someone who has all of that knowledge about that estate. If your fire were to threaten one of those totemic spots where they keep all their religious paraphernalia associated with these rituals, it's technically punishable by death.

Burning desert in about 55-acre chunks, the hunters make their grounds a patchwork quilt of recently burnt earth and recovering vegetation. These scars are much smaller than those left by lightning wildfires, which char an average of 2,000 acres. »

I was raised on the Darling Downs on land that had been occupied for 40,000 years by the Gooneburra (the ones who hunt with fire). Obviously, I was not around at the time and can’t tell you how they operated. However, for as long as I can remember, the local farmers continued the tradition and burnt off their land after each harvest.

I was also co-opted to fight bushfires in the Snowy Mountains when I was working on the Snowy Mountains Hydro-Electric Scheme as a labourer. All we had was our shovels. The fires were ferocious and completely out of control. They were not man-made and nobody could put them out. They just ended-up burning themselves out. I didn’t see any wildlife, either dead or alive. Nothing cooked anyway.

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Dear Joe,

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You certainly paint a colourful picture of Aboriginal life in the old days. Have you ever considered writing a book about it?

I, for one, should be happy to spend a few dollars on it if you did. It’s worth giving it a thought, Joe. Otherwise a lot of that stuff you have accumulated might be lost.

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