Hi Minotaur,

Yes, you're right, I tend to ignore 'personal testimony' unless it can point the way to some actual evidence.

But let's re-cap on what you do and don't consider believable:

* Evidence: you discount any actual evidence, on the grounds that, after all, we don't hear about what hasn't been spoken or written about. You are a firm believer in the principle that 'Absence of evidence does not necessarily mean the evidence of absence.'

* Documentation: again, we don't hear about what is NOT documented, and have to rely on obviously biased and selective documentation, even if it amounts to thousands of pages. What about what wasn't ever written about ? Ay ? Yeah.

* Anecdotes: of course, all anecdotes other than your own are obviously biased and selective - few anecdotes go against what somebody already believes. Thankfully, your anecdotes are spot-on, accurate, dispassionate.

* Primary sources: these are obviously biased by the attitudes of the times, and we should rely on second- and third-hand sources, written by people who have not done any primary research of their own, such as Richard Broome's.

So what are we left with ? Personal accounts, memories, stories handed down through the generations, which are never misunderstood by their new recipients, never garbled, always 100 % accurate. Indigenous memory is an amazing thing in that way, so different from ordinary human memory. And of course, every story is true.

Minotaur, I respectfully beg to differ.

Cheers,

Joe

Hi Minotaur,

My favourite example of how oral memory can get garbled:

My late wife's gr-gr-grandfather, Sewsty, is variously described as being born on Kangaroo Island, at Cape Jervis and at Rapid Bay here in SA. He is also described as possibly a Russian-Finn, although he looks pretty much Aboriginal in photos of a century ago;

In Tindale's massive data collection, 1939-1941, available at the SA Museum (ask for Ali Highfold), on the family tree sheet relating to Sewsty, he married the daughter of a man called a Russian-Finn, John Wilkins (perhaps an uncle of Sir Hubert Wilkins). He had worked with his father in Adelaide as carters, mainly for the Survey Department, from the late 1830s, according to the SA Gazette. Wilkins died from pneumonia in the late winter of 1860 at Penneshaw (where his wife had a lease of land), after rescuing passengers and crew from a ship wrecked on the coast there. In Cawthorne's Reminiscences of life on Kangaroo Island, written in the 1870s, the captain of the ship was described as a Russian-Finn.

I've been trying to understand how the captain of a ship could be confused with an Aboriginal bloke who would have been about twelve at the time. Oral memory loves the exotic, so I suppose 'Russian-Finn' has to be included in any and every story vaguely connected with the Wilkins family or with Sewsty, or even his descendants, 'Russian-Finn' is exotic enough.

I'm certainly not suggesting that people lie, just that oral memory - for anybody - is pretty unreliable: just try one of those Chinese Whispers games with a group of people and see how twisted a story can become after, say, half an hour. A hundred years or more is a long time in the process of oral transmission of stories, Minotaur. But hang onto whatever you want to believe, rather than evidence, or documentation, or anecdote if it makes you feel good.

Cheers,

Joe

If you can believe in religious text you're capable of believing and disbelieving anything according to choice....truth, or facts, have nothing to do with it....Pope Erasmus 11

Hi SD,

Yes, good point - one relies either on as much evidence as possible, positive AND negative, and makes one's own judgments, OR one relies on faith. Faith doesn't need evidence, only on fervent belief and passion. Yes, a reliance on faith and passion indicates that causes can easily become religious rather than rational (now I've pissed off not only Minotaur but Runner as well), and once that happens, believers respond to reasonable argument (using evidence, documentation and anecdote) with anger and outrage (i.e. the passion component) and eventually to abuse.

Alternatively of course, they try to counter a reasonable position with dead-silence, hoping it will go away. But it rarely does :)

In this case of a 'Stolen Generation': evidence ? One case. Documentation ? Everybody's file. Anecdotes and oral memories: yes, many [but see above].

Cheers,

Joe