Absolutely brilliant ! Yes, nobody wants to go back to a strictly walk-around, bare-arsed, foraging existence: in his fifty-odd years of research, the anthropologist Stanner could find not a single person who had gone back to foraging once they had experienced the ration system. After all, the strongest driving force in traditional society was food, the search for it, the working-up of rituals to get more of it, competition for it, strict social rules about its distribution. Food.

The historian Bob Reece has also noticed the same pattern across the 'south'. In South Australia, it is clear that the setting-up of a ration depot in Adelaide in the earliest days drew Aboriginal groups from fifty miles away, even from the upper Murray river. As Reece says, people 'came in', they didn't - as some of us on the 'Left' used to think, move away: that seems to have never happened. The whaling stations on SA's south coast around Victor Harbor drew hundreds of people from a hundred miles away: after all, the whites wanted only the skins, blubber (oil) and bone, while the Aboriginal people wanted only the meat. A beautiful symbiosis !

I read once of an interview in the 1930s with Albert Namatjira: he was asked what he like to do when he wasn't painting. 'Hunting,' he said. Oh, okay then, very traditional, the interviewer assumed. Then Namatjira added, "Yeah, on the back of a truck, with a .303.'

Of course, perhaps most Indigenous people have 'culture', since after all, it's usually their mothers who have raised them, and in an 'Indigenous' way - but this is using the word sociologically, not anthropologically.

Close to forty five thousand Indigenous people have graduated from universities now, 99 % since 1970, 95 % since 1980. Commencement and graduation numbers are rising by about 8 % p.a. and that growth doesn't look like slowing down. Bad news for the Indigenous elites who would rather restrict the numbers of potential new elite members to a manageable level. Enrolments in Indigenous-focussed courses

[TBC]

[continued]

Enrolments in Indigenous-focussed courses have shrunk to a few percent, post-grad numbers are now consistently rising about 12 % p.a., with - it seems - the equivalent of more than 50 % of undergraduates - 60 % since 2010 - going on to post-graduate study within five years.

Life expectancy amongst urban, working Indigenous people is about the same as other Australians'. I suspect that, out in remote 'communities, it is barely half, an average of around forty years. Yet that's the life that the elites promote and protect. The Gaps are most certainly there, within the Indigenous population. And getting Wider.

Thanks, Don.

Joe
www.firstsources.info

Hear, hear and well said Don!
Alan B.

“No one of indigenous descent seems to want to return to being a hunter-gatherer with traditional implements, no Western medicine, no vehicles, no Western food.”

No they don't, but perhaps the whiners demanding recognition and all the hand outs that would go with it should be packed off to the bush for a certain period to give it a try. The drop kicks in local councils presuming to make decisions on Australia Day should be sent with them only, unlike the aboriginal-identifying people who need to get a dose of their real history, they shouldn't be allowed back. I can't think of a suitable reality check for Karl Stefanovic, who is just another media crank.

In the meantime, decent Australians of indigenous descent, are still copping flak which should be directed only to black professional activists and white renegades like Stefanovic and the Left hordes.

Don and Joe, you are both right on the money. The days of the traditional aboriginal are passing. Only those who live in coastal communities can/will survive.

David

Legacy anxiety.
I mean really, this phenomenon of virtue signalling and grand moral causes isn't about the particular causes at all.
It's about the virtue signallers themselves.
We all grew up learning of the great achievements and triumphs of our forebears and did physically productive things in our industrialised economy. No matter how small we had a sense of worth.
But now..
Why else would modern "progressives" harbour so much hatred for all our traditions and institutions?

Loudmouth. The idealised “bare-arsed, foraging existence” was sustained by population control, and that involved infanticide; but it is “racist” to say so.

Hi Leslie,

Yes, but I think that there was a host of ways in which populations could be cut back, in all traditional-type societies.

During droughts in Australia, young children would have to be left to die because their mothers had no milk. Old people died quickly in droughts. Some droughts lasted ten years or more, massively impacting on future populations. One drought, around 800 years ago, lasted 32 years, judging from lake-deposit records: that would have wiped out entire groups, i.e. no new births possible, so their country would have been slowly re-populated over centuries. And of course, the longer a drought, the larger its geographical spread, usually.

Lloyd Warner, a US anthropologist of the Top end in the 1930s, wrote of a death-rate amongst warring groups equivalent to a constant World War I death-toll. Hence, by the way, old fellas with many wives.

Down this way, death records have been kept since the 1860s, so we can construct birth-families and observe their mortality rates. In some, every child died, often from TB or gastro, and perhaps neglect. Hence their family name has vanished.

Yes, there seems to have been infanticide in most places, often because the young mother either had a falling-out with the putative father, or couldn't be bothered carrying a baby around, or more likely already had another baby on the breast, and not enough milk for two.

Joe

I've just come across this amazing article by the historian Michael Connor, titled 'Error Nullius Revisited', available on:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/1906369299642736/

Anybody who believes that there ever was such a term as 'terra nullius' used liberally in Australian history, should have a good look at this article, it's a real eye-opener.

One wonders how other historians, judges, lawyers, etc. could have got it so wrong. How can you so easily mix up 'res nullius' - a stretch of land without observable forms of government', with 'terra nullius', a stretch of land which seems to have no form of land ownership, only land use' ?

i.e. confusing concepts of sovereignty with concepts of land ownership and land-use ? Amazing.

Was there ever an explorer, ship's captain, etc. who ever declared that Australia was empty of people ? No ? Then why do some idiots push the idea ?

At least in SA, and I suspect (why not?) in other colonies, the right of Aboriginal people to use the land as they always had done was recognised from the outset. Of course, ration depots were set up simultaneously, so people seemed to abandon their lands in return for easy food. Those rights are still active, in SA's Environment Act.

Notice that the recognition of the right to use land is completely different from the recognition of sovereignty, some sort of governmental control or administration. The first might be standard English common law, while the second is part of international law. The absence of one, i.e. terra nullius, which never seems to have existed wherever there were people, does not necessarily presume the absence of the other, res nullius.

Did Aboriginal people have customary systems of land-use ? Of course, and these were recognised. Did they have any systems of government ? Maybe not above clan-level, family-level, the level of groups of 20-50 people: above that was always the threat of warfare between clans, and even more so between more distant groups.

You live and learn all your life, don't you ?

Changing the date will not satisfy the whiners: it is not the date but the fact of settlement which offends them.

Fremantle Council tried the same stunt a couple of years ago and was promptly cut out of the citizenship ceremony loop.

The Fremantle Council posturing was ludicrous, since the first white settlement in what is now Western Australia did not occur until 1826 (at Albany) and three years later the Swan River Colony was established - now Perth. How could any Aboriginal people living near Albany or the Swan River have been concerned about the arrival of the First Fleet at the other end of the continent in January 1788?

One of the great mysteries of public administration is that Aboriginal communities have been able to continue "traditional" hunting of rare and endangered species such as dugongs and magpie geese - with their traditional high powered rifles from their traditional Yamaha-powered tinnies.

Yes Joe, except if you're a radicalising urban activist, rewriting oral history to make it fit the victim, new narrative? To foment mindless hate and disunity! And at the one time in our history, when we need exactly, the very opposite!

Thus color code infanticide, just didn't happen. Neither did cannibalism, now reinterpreted as a sort of honor the enemy communion? All the tribe partook of, and tribal wars that lasted longer than the blood soaked divide between the Sunni and the Shiite? Just didn't happen, and used by the white authorities, following successful Roman example, to impose their rules and regulations, on a new to them, territory!

Rewritten oral history/self delusion, not worth the paper it was written on! Educated, erudite, cogent, credible comment mate!
Alan B.

Hi Alan,

Thanks. I also just found this article by Geoffrey Partington, on the same subject, i.e. 'terra nullius':

https://www.samuelgriffith.org.au/papers/html/volume19/v19chap11.html

Thankfully, at least some writers have paid attention to this key issue. I look forward to the day when an Indigenous 'researcher' turns their valuable attention to this issue, even just to rebut what Connor or Partington write. If they can.

I suspect that one principle in Indigenous discussion, such as it is, is that, because Indigenous people have suffered so much, to a degree unknown in human history, therefore everybody should go easy on whatever their 'experts' assert. Any exaggeration should therefore be taken at its fullest, any asserted crime believed without question.

Sounds a bit racist to me :) i.e. that one can't disagree with an Indigenous person for fear of seeming to be racist. Bugger it, if someone asserts something, they must demonstrate, no matter who they are. Any outlandish assertion has to be questioned until it can be demonstrated. That's how we discover the truth. Otherwise, it remains 'undiscovered'.

Joe

I have never met a gw alarmist who has been willing to give up their high paid jet setting jobs in order to save the planet. And yet just like with Indigeneous affairs the 'elite' glorify their belief system knowing they have no intention of living a sacrificial lifestyle.

"His attitude towards the indigenous people he found was peaceful and conciliatory, though firm." So, kidnapping people and keeping them in chains is peaceful and conciliatory is it? Ordering a massacre (which thanks to cooler and saner people didn't happen) and demanding the heads of those killed be delivered to him is peaceful and conciliatory is it?

"The great majority seem to like it the way it is." The 'great majority' are generally poorly educated fools when it comes to Australian history.

"...there was no Frontier War, or Wars. Such language implies organised warfare on the part of nations or nation-like entities. That was not at all the case for the indigenous people, and rarely the case, if at all, for the colonial governments." That is straight out of the master narrative whitewash of history. Completely ignores the fact that there was an outright war declared against Aboriginal people in Tasmania. Completely ignores what happened on the 'frontiers' across Australia. Martial law doesn't get declared because people are going to parties.

And no Don, the Treaty of Waitangi did not put an end to the Maori Wars...they came afterwards and a contributing factor was that the British reneged on aspects of the treaty.

Don is just as hopeless with New Zealand history as he is with Australian history. Stick to knitting Don.

The landing in 1788 and the events that followed for the next 6 decades were events in British history and Aboriginal history. The signal event that ushered in the independent, multiracial and democratic nation of Australia was the battle at Eureka in 1854, a battle we lost on the day but won in the aftermath.

I agree totally with those who challenge the relevance of January 28 to the great country we are building. December 03, the date of the Eureka battle, is the most appropriate day for a commemorative national holiday.

(Forget about April 25 - that was an event in British history into which Australians were dragged)

Was the landing of 1788 a blessing to Aborigines? Minataur's post gives good reason why it wasn't.

However unknown to anybody much at the time, the southward march of Islam had reached Bali, and before too long the Moslems would have had the Aborigines for breakfast (and not as guests). British occupation meant a (historically temporary) halt to that.

Emporor Julian, Muslims from Indonesia (Makasasns) had been visiting Northern Australia since around the 1500s and in the 1600s set up the Trepang (sea slug) industry. They would spend months working and trading with Aboriginal people.

Some tribes adapted Makassan ways into their cultures and some Aborigines travelled back to Makassar...there are Aboriginal people today who still have family links to people in Makassar.

The experiences Aboriginal people had with the Makassans was in direct contrast to those they had with the European invaders.

EJ ! Where you been ?!

1788: the context is crucial - a century or more of the development of Enlightenment thinking, the slow liberation from the Churches, the notions of human rights, focus on 'the noble savage', questions about democracy, slavery, absolute rule, etc.

And grappling with the notion of what to do with territory which didn't seem to have systems of government or land ownership. As you say, pretty soon, the Muslims would have been bringing labour (since they didn't do much of it themselves) from 'pagan' areas to work the land in Australia. They wouldn't have wasted any angst or time on Aboriginal people, not being adherents of the Enlightenment.

So sooner or later, Australia would have been claimed by some power. Does anybody seriously dispute that ? Right or wrong, that's how it was going to be regardless. So, what Phillip and others believed and did at the time set the pace: Phillip as an abolitionist - 'no slavery in Australia'. Aboriginal people as British subjects from the outset, with their land-use traditions recognised implicitly, and formally after a lot of trial and error, by the 1840s.

There's a way of thinking which assumes that, if we complain enough about something, we can somehow reverse it. But the moving finger writes and, having writ, moves on, nor all one's complaints nor wits can bring it back to cancel half a line.

Yes, bring on a Truth and Justice Commission: explore the whole truth, not some assertions about the past. Examine the past, establish the past, and move on into a common and equal future.

Joe

Joe, you state that "Aboriginal people as British subjects from the outset, with their land-use traditions recognised implicitly, and formally after a lot of trial and error, by the 1840s." Well, at least you get the bit about Aborigines being British subjects almost right. On paper that may have been the case but reality was very different. As Aboriginal people were not Christians and could not speak English should they be charged with an offence (against British law) then their 'testimony' would not be heard in court as they wouldn't/couldn't 'swear' upon the bible...and naturally they had no idea of what was actually going on as they didn't understand the language being used against them.

As to the argument that it was simply a matter to time before a more technologically advanced people came and 'colonised', well I don't think anyone would seriously challenge otherwise. What made the Australian situation different was that many of those who were sent here were convicts. According to the 'class system' they were part of...and the bottom of...they found themselves with 'class' below them; Aboriginal people. And the acted accordingly by abusing Aboriginal people, stealing from them and raping their women.

It is no coincidence that the first person to be killed after the initial establishment of a penal colony was a convict, Peter Burn...who was speared to death for most likely interfering with Aboriginal women and/or stealing from them. Arthur Phillip's gamekeeper suffered the same fate and on his deathbed admitted his transgressions against Aboriginal people. Phillip himself was speared in a ‘payback’ for his transgressions against Aboriginal law…and he knew what it was for too and ordered no retaliation. Interestingly after the death of his gamekeeper his attitude changed and he ordered a massacre and demanded the heads of those killed be brought to him. Thankfully, one of those ordered to lead the massacre, Lt. Watkin Tench, had a more saner attitude and ensured it never happened.

However, as history graphically shows, massacres and other atrocities, including slavery, did follow in what became an invasion.

Hi Minotaur,

Nobody who wasn't a Christian could swear on the bible, and so couldn't give evidence. If anything, this got a lot of Aboriginal people off charges, at least in SA, since any Aboriginal witnesses couldn't give their evidence :) That regulation was modified in the late 1840s.

As well, there had to be an interpreter if they couldn't understand English, and the lack of interpreters also got quite a few people off very serious charges, at least here in SA.

Convicts were not a 'class', they were convicted felons, they had committed crimes. At least my ancestor-convicts did, bolts of cloth, sheep, etc. Some Aboriginal people had convicts assigned to them, the people on Flinders Island for example, and Maria Lock in Sydney. So they certainly weren't lower than convicts. Dreadfully sorry :(

As for convicts raping or abusing Aboriginal women, where's your evidence ? It's so easy to make assertions, as long as they sound sort of right. Prove it. Too late ? Then leave it in abeyance.

So Phillip's 'massacre' never happened ? Good to know.

Anything else ?

Joe

Once again Joe your response and knowledge are fatally flawed as you rely on your research in regard to the recorded (white) history of the South Australian experiences when it comes to colonization. My research clearly shows that Aboriginal people were victims of injustices due to the fact they could not defend themselves in court when accused of crime/s. Interpreters were virtually non-existent as very few whites took the time to learn ‘local’ language, of which there were hundreds. In essence, the majority of whites couldn’t give a toss about Aboriginal languages, cultures or peoples. In their ‘eyes’ they were the dominant class.

And ‘class’ it was. To believe that convicts didn’t know about ‘class’ due to them being felons is a false one. They came from a society that was divided by ‘class’ and informed by the ‘Great Chain of Being’. Aboriginal people were classified as being not better than apes. Of course the convicts took that as they being above them…and treated them accordingly. And to deny rapes and other atrocities occurred is to have your head in the sand.

You won’t find much, if anything, recorded about that happening though as the convicts who were allowed freedoms, or even given a ticket of leave, never recorded in writing what they did. Many were illiterate and of those who were literate they had nothing to write with or on. Your reliance on written evidence is completely flawed Joe…and ignores the realities of the times.

At best you are an apologist…and at worst a denier. You rely upon the whitewashed master narrative as your sources…and won’t acknowledge that events happened that were not recorded as there were reasons to not record them. Welcome to the world of the now completely discredited Keith Windschuttle.

Loudmouth requires proof for statements which makes this a little bit strange: " As you say, pretty soon, the Muslims would have been bringing labour (since they didn't do much of it themselves) ".
The general population of Indonesia was Muslim . Loud. Mouth.

I wasn't around at the time and my study of history is largely anecdotal and sporadic. That said, Minotaur's picture of the history of the times comes across as much more credible than Loudmouth's.

Notions of moral right and wrong have developed slowly over millennia, with a big boost from the analytical thinking of the giants of the European Enlightenment like Immanuel Kant.

The question of whether a convict had committed crimes is better judged from today's standpoint of decency than from the standpoint of the British judiciary which was even more corrupt then than now. To assert that people from Britain's grossly underprivileged "lower orders" who had been "convicted" in British courts were criminals makes no sense whatsoever. Stealing a loaf of bread to feed a starving family? Come ON.

The only convict I could find in my own ancestry was an Irishman who had been transported for gun-running. In view of the English occupation of Ireland then, I'd think the bloke was probably a patriotic hero.

And it still remains true that Aborigines were spared the horrific megadeath injustices and massacres that have prevailed in Moslem Indonesia in recent times, even to this day in captive West Papua.

Why do you say "spared"? What exactly is that?

Minotaur,

My god, you come out with some amazing rubbish, unsubstantiated BS. But I guess it fits the Grand Narrative, so who needs proof, eh, EJ ?

Of course, convicts knew about class. But where is your evidence that Aboriginal people were regarded as lower than convicts ? They were free British subjects. Where is your evidence that the lack of interpreters in court disadvantaged Aboriginal people ?

Of course, many people tried to learn the local languages, especially missionaries: often, the only text in a local language was written originally by a missionary. That would have been the case here in SA with Ngarrindjeri, Kaurna, Nauo, Diyari, Pitjantjatara, perhaps Booandik. Most early mission schools were taught in the local language. Of course, as people mixed around, later missions may have had to rely on their common language: English.

I'm not sure where you get the idea that convicts were usually illiterate, and therefore didn't write anything down. Actually, out of my eight or nine convict ancestors, I think most would have been quite literate - in fact, I doubt whether many of them were ever flogged, as in the stereotyped image. One was employed immediately on arrival in 1811 by Mrs Macarthur to help develop the Merino breed of sheep. I doubt that she ever flogged him. Another helped build some of the roads over the Blue Mountains, and even had a bay named after him.

A reliance on written evidence ? You've got me there, Minotaur, given that, by definition, no written evidence ends up effectively being no evidence. So how do you know about anything from those days if you ignore written sources ?

Yes, perhaps I'm a denier who won't rely on unwritten sources. So please present your unwritten sources so that we can get some 'balance'. Just ask the little fat bloke in the front bar, he's a great yarn-spinner, he'll know all about it.

Joe

Hi EJ,

Yeah, the legal system was pretty brutal until Peel's reforms in the 1820s. One of my gr-gr-gr-grandmothers was pinged for theft of an expensive item (and nabbed just up the street trying to sell it) in about 1812 and given the option of transportation or execution: she said she didn't want to be transported because she got sea-sick, but the judge commuted the sentence anyway.

Nick,

It would be interesting to trace the gradual spread of Islam over what is now Indonesia: I suspect that it was slower in Sulawesi and eastern Java - and in eastern Indonesia generally - than in, say, Aceh (although the first Muslim conversions in Java seemed to have been around Gresik in the sixteenth century, about the time that the first Christian missionaries got there. The people there weren't exactly a blank slate, being strongly animist, with Hinduism and Buddhism being very influential across Java and Sumatra, not to mention Bali.

Hey, thanks for the hominems, guys ! Nothing else ?

Joe

NNN asks: Why do you say "spared"? What exactly is that?
Posted by nicknamenick, Monday, 18 September 2017 6:21:05 PM

"Spared" means it didn't happen to them. The march of the Islamic cult stopped in Bali, though it didn't stop the Moslems murdering so many people in 1965 that the sea wall at Bali beach consists of packed skulls. This didn't happen in Australia because the occupation following the British landing, and the democratic society that superseded it from 1854, caused the rapid march of Islam to be slowed down.

Joe, my comments are informed from doing years of research and reading from the likes of Attwood, Marks, Johnson, McFarlane, Clements, Brodie, Reynolds, Ryan, Connor, Flood, Maynard, Goodall, Pascoe, Langton and firsthand accounts from those such as Watkin Tench and David Collins. To label my comments as BS is to label all of the above as such for creating it. Nice work in trying to trash (mostly) esteemed historians.

You also misrepresent my comments about convicts and literacy levels. Again, the recorded history clearly shows many were illiterate beyond being able to write their name…although that was often enough for them to be recorded as being literate. Of course, not ALL had poor literacy levels but if you had read my comment with care you would have noted that there was a distinct lack of resources to write on for those away from settlements and on the frontiers. Literate or not, it makes no difference if there is nothing to write with and on. And it is worth noting you accuse me of not having facts and then present the following, ‘ I think most would have been quite literate - in fact, I doubt whether many of them were ever flogged’. All unsubstantiated opinion.

When it came to languages very few missions allowed native languages to be spoken. Many of them banned it and punishments were given out to those attempting to speak in their own language or engage in cultural practices. Some missions did allow cultural practices to continue but they were the minority. Missions, overall, caused more damage than they prevented though, as they often failed to recognize tribal differences and would put feuding groups together and then wonder why there was conflict.

And to finish with as I have made graphically clear previously, just because something is written doesn’t make it true. Keep on believing the master narrative though as it clearly suits your purpose and outdated (and discredited) views.

Emperor Julian
"And it still remains true that Aborigines were spared the horrific megadeath injustices and massacres that have prevailed in Moslem Indonesia in recent times, even to this day in captive West Papua."
OK the Muslims who weren't in Oz didn't massacre Aborigines in Oz. Can't argue with that . Or with Oz newspapers and histories about British attacks on Aborigines . Dutch massacred Balinese prisoners.Yanks killed ."The war and occupation by the U.S. changed the cultural landscape of the islands, as people dealt with an estimated 200,000 to 250,000 total Filipino civilians dead,[17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24] disestablishment of the Catholic Church in the Philippines as a state religion, and the introduction of the English language in the islands as the primary language of government, education, business, industry, and among families and educated individuals increasingly in future decades."
Loudmouth.
Your Indonesian history is so far off the truth that it resembles your Australian Aboriginal history.

Loudmouth wrote: "Yeah, the legal system was pretty brutal until Peel's reforms in the 1820s."

Peel's reforms notwithstanding, the British judiciary are still corrupt up to the armpits today. See Lord Denning's comments supporting the frameup of the Birmingham Six and the Guildford Four in the late 1970s (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Denning,_Baron_Denning) - and Denning was one of the less-worse of the British judges! Convicts sent to the Penal Colony were victims of this gross injustice and to call them criminals is simply more injustice.

The rebellion against the British at Eureka was a breath of fresh air and its date - December 03 (1854) is by far the most appropriate for commemorating our national heritage.

Hi Minotaur,

Well, I suppose there is a sort of hierarchy of evidence, something like this:

* physical evidence, forensic examinations of sites, artifacts;

* primary written sources, both Indigenous and non-Indigenous;

* secondary and tertiary written sources, such as the authors who you rely on;

* story.

Any judge in any court would be aware of this sort of break-down. What do you reckon she might tend to rely on ?

I don't disbelieve or deny, I simply suspend my convictions about something happening until, ideally, there is something of the first source mentioned. Primary written sources are probably less reliable unless they are cross-checked or triangulated by other primary sources.

The third option, secondary written sources, can't be any more reliable than primary sources. That's logical. 'Story' - which by definition provides no evidence at all, is particularly unreliable, unless backed up by the first two in some way.

I've typed up about fifteen thousand pages - pages, not words - of primary data and it's on my web-site: www.firstsources.info . Clearly, I'm biased towards first sources (otherwise I would have called the site www.prooflessyarns.info). But physical evidence would be more crucial even that primary sources.

My trigger, back in about 1983, was the 600-page Journal of the Rev. George Taplin, missionary who set up Pt McLeay, on Lake Alexandrina, my wife's community. Of course, being on the extreme Left back then, I suspected from the outset that he was doctoring his Journal especially for me to read, 124 years later, sanitising and fabricating everything that he was REALLY doing. But it didn't take too long to realise that this was paranoid fantasy, he simply didn't have time to doctor anything, especially not for me. So I settled back and enjoyed it. Like most missionaries, he was an amazing and a good man, treasuring the language and culture of the people, dying of exhaustion in their Cause. Would that somebody on the Left could be as dedicated. No ? Anybody ? No, all wnakers.

Joe