From the look of "Dark Emu", Keith Windshuttle is going to have even more sources for his series on "The Fabrication of Aboriginal History".

It is just amazing the lengths that neo Marxists will go to in order to air brush history to comply with their white hating agenda. Aboriginal people were never famers because Australia had no harvestable grains nor herdable animals. They were therefore locked for all time in the lowest level of human existence. Luckily for them, the most socially advanced nationality of people on the planet on the planet at that time chose to settle on this continent when every other nationality considered it unsuitable for colonization.

But the neo Marxists portray the white race as thieves and genocidal baby stealers in order to whip up racial hatred towards them from the ever increasing waves of non European settlers. They see that as their ticket to power. This loathing of white people has also been successfully inculcated among the educated young white people themselves, to whom self loathing has become as important an essential fashion accessory as their clothing.

On the basis of long-term research and observation
Sutton and Walshe portray classical Australian
Aboriginal people as highly successful hunter-gatherers
and fishers.

They strongly repudiate racist notions of Aboriginal
hunter-gatherers as living in a primitive state.

In their book, they assert there was and is nothing
"simple" or " primitive" about hunter-gatherer -
fishers labour practices. This complexity was and in
many cases still is, underpinned by high levels of
spiritual cultural belief.

Sutton and Walshe provide extensive evidence to support
their argument that classical Aboriginal society was
a hunter-gatherer society and as sophisticated as the
traditional European farming method.

The book also asks Australians to develop a deeper
understanding and appreciation of Aboriginal society
and culture.

Bruce Pascoe used historical sources, including the
journals of explorers. In his book he provided an
impressive Bibliography for further research.
He is pleased that his work, now in its 40th reprint
has succeeded in shining a light on further debate
about Australian Aboriginal people and their
labour practices.

Sutton and Walshe's book will be available from all
good bookshops on 16th June 2021. Or from your local
municipal libraries. Worth reading.

As I wrote in a previous topic, Foxy, if your family escaped from the Marxists in Lithuania, it just boggles me that you are now being their "useful fool" in Australia? All they had to do was to present their air brushed view of history as what smart, educated, "progressive" people know is the truth, and your compulsive need to feel like you are one of the class of moral and intellectual superiors, will see you swallowing their BS, hook, line, and sinker.

As I asked you before, where are you and your family going to flee too next when the neo Marxists bugger up Australia?

Don't answer, because you never answer answer my questions anyway. That would require thinking, and I am not too sure you can handle that. Just keep parroting the slogans your Marxist comrades think up for you and your friends will think you are morally pure and clever.

This has already been thrashed out in the other forum. Dark Emu us a monumental fraud, which should be burned and forgotten about. There is probably nothing that can be done to its author, but there should be.

On Lithuania, there is not much said about people who "escaped" after aiding Nazis in the persecution of Jews in that country.

The author says "recently discussed in depth owing to our increasingly devastating bush-fires". I understood that bush fires in the 19th Century and the last century were far worse?
See once you start making stuff up you appear as just another fraud.

Yep, its true. Aboriginal farming practices were as advanced as others in the rest of the world! That's why everywhere you go in Australia there's ruins of ancient canals, aqueducts and granaries. And indigenous art work is littered with pictures of organized labour engaged in farming (just like there's is on some of the walls ancient buildings in just about every other continent). And those Dutch and their windmills, or the Aztec and their swamp draining techniques, knew nothing of making new land compared to the Aboriginals. I mean hell, didn't you all know that the whole of where Melbourne now sits was once was under the sea and is the result of a massive Aboriginal land reclamation process spanning generations.

Bushfires? The number of bushfire in 2020 was a record low.

LEGO,

I thought that I had responded to you previously.
Perhaps I didn't make it quite clear though that
your accusation of me being a "useful tool"
to Marxists in Australia made no sense to me
whatsoever having grown up in a Liberal voting
conservative family. You provided no evidence to
your statement apart from tossing labels around
simply because some of my views differ from yours.
You should not make assumptions about people you
don't know. I can assume a great deal about you.
But that would be not only be unkind but uncalled for.

As for where would me and my family flee to if Marxists
"buggered up" Australia?

I believe in this country - having been born and educated
here. As I've told you in the past - I would not live
anywhere else.

If you're so concerned though, perhaps you should look
into your own resettlement options. Like the UK?
Although I suspect there's even more "Marxists" there.
And certainly "foreigners."
So instead of making suggestions to others - look at your
own options.

ttbn,

Regarding Lithuania?

Your general statement about people who "escaped" aiding
NAZIS in the persecution of Jews in that country - I'm
not sure what that has to do
with either my family or me - or why you even felt the
necessity to make such a statement.

However, there are also many who believe that
there are those who "escaped" and who aided the Soviets
in the deportations and persecution of Lithuanians.

History is clear that in 1939, in the evil minions of the
NKVD (KGB) and the Gestapo were Christians and Jews, Germans
and Russians, members of all nations caught in the
merciless war.

No faith, no nationality, no race was free of cowards or
collaborators. No group was spared from killers and
traitors in its midst. Some of these villains perished,
some were captured and punished, for the most part shortly
after the conclusion of the war.

Others escaped retribution, dying, as did Stalin and Hitler.
The evil architects themselves - without having been brought
to justice.

cont'd ...

cont'd ...

ttbn,

While half of the criminals, the Nazis,
have been pursued all over the world for their crimes,
the other half, the communist criminals,
were allowed to go free. They were, in effect, given tacit
permission to continue the operation of their concentration camps,
to expand their draconian systems to include psychiatric wards,
thereby raising torture, suppression, and murder to a science.

The fact that the process persisted was vividly disclosed to the
free world by Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn in his book,
"The Gulag Archipelago."

Given a predilection among some ("Aboriginal") activists for humbug and role-playing of the victim? I find I agree with most of this, Christine.
Alan B.

Dear Foxy. I can't see why you allow these xenophobes/white supremists and neo Nazis, to use up your, rationality personified and polite posts.

They're just so full of irrational hate? That trying to debate them just gives them the opportunity to spew more of their hate laced shite storm/verbal vomit from the anonymity of assumed identities?

As they say things none would have the guts to say to your face or from behind their actual identities!

Personally, I'd advise them to shove it where the sun never shines and then do the world their greatest possible service by following it permanently! After all, it's clearly where they speak from!

It's a shame we closed up all the lunatic asylums and let loose the former inmates!

I say these things as I vehemently disagree with your position on the topic.
Warm regards, Alan B.

Thinkabit, I think you've pretty well summed it up from where I sit.

Some of my ancestors were Tasmanian aborigines. And the stories told me from Grandma's knee, told a very different story of survival of the original inhabitants. So, much of what's claimed by the (semi-white) historical revisionists is humbug?

It's a whitewash (oops, Blackwash) that excludes the violent tribal wars, the wife hunting, the normalised degree of domestic abuse, the widespread sexual abuse of minors, the colour coded infanticide, and vicious head hunting cannibalism and the homosexual orgies dressed up as secret men's business/initiation ceremonies.
Alan B.

Dear Alan B.,

I read somewhere that "To try to defeat or
explain away an irrational supposition, especially
when it is firmly held by its proponents with
rational explanations is virtually impossible."

Still I believe in diversity, especially diversity
of thought. Although it can get quite upsetting
if it becomes in the form of personal attacks.

As far as the Indigenous and settler experiences
are concerned? I guess there are those who strive
to resist and to retain pride in the colonial story.
While others who see the need to synthesise the
Indigenous and settler experience. I personally
want to read both versions and hopefully learn
from them. I think it's a debate worth having.
Certainly if we can learn more about each other
and do it respectfully.

Once again, Thank You for your concern and advice.
It was what I needed.

ttbn quote; "which should be burned (Dark Emu) and forgotten about." The last great book burning was in NAZI Germany, easy to see where YOU come from.

Hi Foxy,

Don't take the personal attacks from the Neo-Nazi seriously. He is totally convinced, like several others on the Forum, of the superiority of the white race.

I've placed a hold on the book with the Library but with limited copies and a high number of requests I may wait some time. With 'Dark Emu' BCL had 50 copies, this book at the moment 1 copy (more coming I hope) and already 14 holds.

If you go back and look at the debate on these pages back in 2019 as regards Pascoe's book, you'll find people like Foxy, Paul and others declaring that the book proved aboriginals were agriculturists and farmers who weren't nomadic at all. Indeed they declared that the thought that they were hunter-gathers and not farmers just like Europeans was racist and beyond the pale.

Now, we find Foxy et al declaring that the aboriginals were indeed hunter-gathers, but very good hunter-gathers. Well at least its a step in the right direction for those with lesser understanding of history, although I suspect its more about believing the last thing one reads.

Yes, the aboriginals were very good hunter-gathers.....just like all other hunter-gather cultures. Any hunter-gather society that wasn't good at what it did would go out the backdoor in a big hurry and be lost to history. So being very good hunter-gathers doesn't make them exceptional, just standard.

I loved this part of the article...." this willingness to accept Pascoe's argument reveals a systemic area of failure in the Australian education system.". Given that Foxy, Paul et al fell for Pascoe's arguments (for what they're worth) shows that the education failure goes back a long way.

I'd also point out that the article talks about the Sturt diaries and the narratives of William Buckley as evidence that Pascoe was wrong AND that Pascoe distorted sources to fool those who wanted to be fooled. Back in that discussion in 2019 I tried very hard to get people like Foxy and Paul to read the Sturt diaries and the Buckley papers by providing links and extracts. But they assiduously and judiciously refused to do so on the basis, in my view, that they didn't want to see anything that muddy the pretty picture Pascoe had provided them. Its good to see Sutton wasn't so blinkered.

When I was young at school the Atlas of Australia had Tasmania "stuck by plastic to Australian map.

Bruce Pasco's book relates to nothing I was taught in History at school.

Am pleased his book - including claims - has now been debunked as "rubbish".

Foxy and Paul 1403

I have researched Aboriginal history for many, many years.

Please once you read "dark emu", then continue to research the "correct History".

I then implore you both to conduct your own research.

No judgement - but Aussies deserve the truth - not "unverified facts".

We weren't born yesterday.

Oh, don't worry, Alan B. Foxy only rarely responds to my posts anyway, and she never answers any pertinent questions. I think that Foxy is a rooly nice lady who has been brainwashed to think that sticking up for the "oppressed" is what a decent person like her should do.

The problem is, that this makes her vulnerable to the neo Marxist message that the world is divided into "oppressors" and the "oppressed." The commie bastards then air brush history with outright lies like "Dark Emu" which Foxy wants to believe is true, so much. "Belief" is an amazing thing, Alon B. People can want to believe things so much that they will believe in the most ridiculous nonsense. Runner thinks that the universe was created in six days. Why does he believe such nonsense? Because he needs to believe it. He has based his entire hopes of eternal life on it, so he is willing to believe in what any rational person realises is complete crap to fulfil his deep psychological need.

Foxy needs to believe she is a humane and intelligent person, and there are plenty of pampered middle class like people like Foxy. My personal view is that most of these have deep feelings of guilt about their own privileged middle class childhoods, so they work off their guilt, by being the defenders of the "oppressed."

The Marxists know this, and they just pretend that they are part of the same morally pure and intellectually advanced caste. Then they dictate who the "oppressed" and who the "oppressors" are. Foxy is walking around with her eyes wired shut if she can not see that the Marxists today are demonising the whole white race, her race, to gain political power.

The whole idea of multiculturalism is to displace the white race in their own homelands by mass immigration. Then the Marxist present themselves to every non white ethnicity and disaffected minority, as their protectors.

It worked in the USA, with a bit of election fraud. Now the US has a senile President and a complete fool for a VP.

To Foxy.

Most historians agree that there are seven stages in the development of human societies. From hunter gatherers to advanced civilisation. Aboriginal people lived at the very lowest level of human existence, and it was impossible for them to change their circumstances because of Australia's unique environment. Australia has no herdable animals nor harvestable crops.

Because to get to the next level of human development, you must be able to obtain a more or less reliable food supply, in order for some people in the tribe to have the resources to think of other things, like creating technologies not directly related to obtaining food. Like storing food for later use.

Now use your brain.

Aboriginal people were hunter gathers, weren't they? They did not even possess the technology to make skins for clothes. They were naked savages. They could not even store food.

For you to claim that saying what is self evidently the truth is "racist" is just potty. You don't want people to think you are potty, do you?

Saying that aboriginal people were "very advanced" hunter gatherers does not alter the fact that they were still hunter gatherers. Saying that they had "advanced" "spiritual" beliefs does not alter the fact that they were hunter gatherers. You already know that every hunter gatherer society had spiritual beliefs, because "spirits" were the only way that they could make sense of the world.

You say you went to uni so you must have some brains. An intelligent person would look at "Dark Emu" and realise that the authors were trying to promote a ridiculous and easily refutable ideal, that somehow very primitive aboriginal society was somehow advanced. An intelligent person would realise that is farcical. Only a person who wants to believe something so much that he or she will ignore plain reality would accept it.

Ask yourself, is your compulsive need to think that you are intelligent and morally above reproach blinding you to self evident reality? And is that the way intelligent people think?

If you want to be smart, Foxy, start thinking smart.

LEGO,

So much "noise" coming from you.

Have you actually read any of the books under
discussion? Including Bruce Pascoe's book?

It's not me making all these assertions
about the Aboriginal people. Bruce Pascoe started it
and now - it's Sutton and Walshe - highly respected
historians and researchers - who
in their book (which is available as of today)
are the people who strongly repudiate the notions of
Aboriginal hunter-gatherers as living in a primitive
state. Pascoe's and Sutton and Walshe's books ask
Australians to develop a
deeper understanding and appreciation of Aboriginal
society and culture.

Sutton and Walshe provide extensive evidence to support
their arguments. While Pascoe asks us to look at
Aboriginal people in a different light.
He used historical records and
the journals of explorers and colonists, plus he supplied an
extensive Bibliography for people to do further
research. Sutton and Walshe found differences in
their research - which makes it all quite interesting
and is now shinning a light of discovery and putting
these issues on the table for further discussion.

What have you got to support your claims and accusations?
Judging from your posts - merely just a bag of wind and noise.
Including making up weird and false
assumptions about me as well. And you wonder why I
rarely reply to you?

Seriously?

There are legitimate issues and questions regarding
Indigenous history but it is up to the researchers and
historians to divulge this material. And so far they are
doing a good job. Go to your local library or good
book shop and get hold of Sutton and Walshe's book.
It is worth reading.

Dear Paul,

Once again - Thank You for your concern.

But I must be doing something right to continue to get
these responses. If people follow what I post, watch
me, and read what I write - lets face it - they
are fans - big time!

LOL!

See you on another discussion.

It seems that Foxy is determined to miss the point. She's constantly going on about Sutton/Walshe " strongly repudiate the notions of
Aboriginal hunter-gatherers as living in a primitive
state."

Well its true that they do say that SOME aboriginal groups didn't live in a primitive state, but that's only a surprise to someone as clueless as Foxy.

But the crux of the Sutton book is about utterly debunking Pascoe's rubbish. Yet Foxy is determined to not see that. She's also determined to ignore the truth that Suton used sources that Pascoe ABused to prove how Pascoe lied. She's also determined to ignore the fact that this misuse of sources was pointed out to her years ago.

Foxy and friends pretend to not see all these issues and then pretend that they are acting in a scholarly fashion.

Sutton et al don't reveal new information. Anyone who cared to look at the truth of aboriginal society knows that what Sutton reveals isn't a revelation at all. Its only a revelation or a surprise to those who cluelessly fell for Pascoe's fantasies.

Its best to just ignore Pascoe. He offers nothing to advance an understanding of aboriginal society. Aboriginals, pre-Cook, were a stone age people who had adapted to their circumstances enough to allow them to survive all but the worst draught events. Their lives were short and brutish. Their women were treated a chattels, beaten and sold as needs be. War was rampant. Intellectually their society was a dead-end and would have not advanced one iota in the next 40000 years in the same way as they hadn't advanced in the last 40000 years.

That some can so delude themselves that they can swoon over this backwater society is one of the few revelations worth considering in this debate.

LEGO,

Basically what you say is very true, although it seems it falls on deaf ears.

Just one point. You write: " Australia has no herdable animals nor harvestable crops."

Although its true that Australia has no herd animals now, this is because the aboriginals had wiped out the megafauna many millennia ago, some of which were, it seems, herbivore herd species.

As to harvestable crops, there are any number of such plants available in Asutralia. The problem wasn't that the plants weren't here, but that the aboriginals failed utterly to develop them. If you look at the original wheat and maize plants that still exist in the wild, they don't look in the slightest bit promising. You wouldn't look at these species and opine that it could be turned into fields of grain. But the peoples of the Levant and South America did just that.

Take for example a plant like Lomandra which is native to Australia. Even without intensive breeding it yields large volumes of edible seed. But none of the multitude of aboriginal tribes ever farmed it. Yet it is very much a harvestable plant.

We are constantly reminded by those who swoon over aboriginal society that they had a large variety of 'bush food'. But again not a single tribe ever tried to cultivate that bush food. And that's why they remained an intellectual and economic backwater.

Thank you for correcting me mhaze.

I have not read "Dark Emu" and I doubt if you have either. If an "historian" from a group of people that I already know are liars had written a book about how the Aztecs had a space program, would you even bother to read it?

What have I read on aboriginal culture?

I read the book "White out" (I can not name the author because I recently moved and many of my books are still in storage), which put all of the problems of aboriginal society squarely upon (surprise, surprise) "blame the white guy for everything."

I have read Keith Windshuttle's two books on "The Fabrication of Aboriginal History" by post modernist, left wing historians. I saw with my own eyes on TV one of those historians (a woman) burst into tears and admit to the 60 Minutes team (after being confronted on camera with direct evidence) that she had twisted the meanings of recorded first person historical accounts to conform to her left wing agenda. I read the series of debates in "The Australian" newspaper between Michael Manne (proponent of the "Stolen Generations" propaganda and Keith Windshuttle, and it was clear who was telling the truth. Manne was evasive, presented "facts" which Windshuttle easily refuted, relied upon character assassination, and stood on his dignity. Windshuttle simply stated the facts.

Aboriginal people were so primitive they did not even wear clothing, and you want me to believe that they had a sophisticated society? Every book I have read about aboriginal culture stresses how cruel aboriginal men are towards aboriginal women. And still are. Governor Phillip himself personally intervened to prevent an aboriginal man from killing a young aboriginal woman. One publication on crime in Australia, claimed that the murder of aboriginal women by aboriginal men is so common, and so well known by government authorities as part of aboriginal culture, that the male murderer is much more likely to be charged with "manslaughter" than murder.

You are a woman, aren't you? And this is the culture that you are defending and idealising

"Thank you for correcting me mhaze."

My pleasure. Of course some here aren't open to help if it challenges their prejudices.

I've read Dark Emu but not the recent book. But then based on its reviews I don't think it says anything I didn't already know.

I've read all of Windschuttle's books and the critiques of them. Also all of the articles etc that I could find on the history wars. For example there's been a massive argument going on about how small pox came to Australia.

Of course, despite what we're told, the debate over the so-called stolen generation has basically resolved in favour of those who pointed out that no such group exists or existed. The supporters of the claims of a stolen generation basically now just say its true because they want it to be true.

"Aboriginal people were so primitive...."

I've urged anyone interested to read the diaries of Charles Sturt who travelled through S-E Australia in the early 19th century. His was an unbiased account of the aboriginal people unaffected by political needs and shows just how backward they were.

"how cruel aboriginal men are towards aboriginal women."

This article is interesting....http://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-06-16/supreme-court-judge-blokland-sexual-assault-victims-banished/100216398

"NT Supreme Court judge urges action to stop sexual assault victims being banished from their communities"

I've tried to raise the issue of aboriginal domestic violence here several times. But the pro-Aboriginal crowd here aren't the slightest interested in it. It seems that the travails of aboriginal women aren't of concern to these people. Only white women suffering mysogyny is important to them.

Hi Mhaze. Despite Foxy declaring to her allies that she was going to fight it out with her critics this time, she appears to have left the arena. Maybe what we wrote about the traditional brutality that aboriginal men have always shown towards their women hit a nerve, and she finally did some thinking? Anyhoo, she is definitely AWOL.

If I remember correctly, "The Australian" newspaper did a hit piece on Dark Emu and it's author, Bruce Pascoe. Apparently he claims that he is aboriginal. But if I remember correctly, "The Australian" hired a genealogist to find out who his ancestors were, and she could not find any aborigines in his ancestry at all. He appears to be as big a phony as his book.

It reminds me of that book written by an aboriginal woman who claimed that she was raped by her pastoralist employer, and the book won a literary award. The book was attacked by the family of the deceased employer, who's family records completely debunked her whole story.

Or the blond haired, blue eyed US woman who dyed her hair black, used dark contact lenses, and used hormones to darken her skin, then claimed that she was one of the "oppressed?"

Maybe Foxy had such a sheltered life that she does not possess the social skill which most working class people have, of smelling a rat? How any woman with a degree could accept the premise that naked stone age primitives had a "sophisticated" social system, is beyond me? I get the idea that Foxy thinks that aboriginal people lived a Hobbit like existence before those evil whites destroyed paradise? It just goes to show how wishful thinking can trump common sense.

Pascoe claims that aboriginal people had democracy. Sure they did. In any case, I thought that Foxy's comrades hated democracy anyway? So why that would even consider that a virtue boggles me? She probably thinks that aboriginal people had carbon neutral factories in Pascoe's fabled "towns" making microchips and solar panels.

Perhaps she drinks too much Merlot?

It is amusing how the Left Whingers are twisting in the wind. Their icon Pascoe has been caught and his Dank Emu has the academic merit of a pulp novel.

I wouldn't pay 5c for this ideological drivel.

FOxxxxxyyyyyyyy!

Where arrrrrrrrrre youoooooooooooooooo?

Hey guys. Do you think that maybe the penny might be statrting to drop with Foxy? Is she smart enough to figure out that a white man who claims to be a black man, and who wrotes a so called "historical" book which claims that the (surprise, surprise) white race has done something absolutely dastardly to the black race, might really be promoting racial hatred of whites?

Especially since he claims in his book that stone age primitive aboriginal people had a "sophisticated" society with towns and democracy? Because reasoned logic would say that such a claim looks a bit far fetched? Foxy might now be thinking, "Is this the sort of claim that even PT Barnum would hesitate to promote, given his experience with dealing with complete idiots who can believe anything?

Is Foxy starting to think? Is she using impartial logic to sift through data that seems self evidently implausible, submitted by a man who appears to be a completer fraud? A man has been denounced by historians as a complete fraud to the extent, that one historian wrote an entire book pointing out the fabrications? ?

Or, is her deep psychological need to fit in with her university mates so strong, that she uses the three monkey approach to any leftist accusations against her own people, instead of giving these clearly fraudulent claims an impartial assessment?

Anyhoo, Foxy. I hope you understand that what I am saying to you is kindly meant, becasue I ask you to please obtain a copy of Burt Lancaster in the movie "Elmer Gantry", and see if you can make any connections with the sort of people who followed Elmer, and the loony left.

Well mahaze and shadowminister, so this is where you have been lurking along with your fellow travelers and speaking hogwash to a nice little echo chamber while belting out your nasty little perspectives. Oh what fun.

Still not a single instance of Pascoe fabricating anything though.

Dear Alan.B,

You write:

"It's a whitewash (oops, Blackwash) that excludes the violent tribal wars, the wife hunting, the normalised degree of domestic abuse, the widespread sexual abuse of minors, the colour coded infanticide, and vicious head hunting cannibalism and the homosexual orgies dressed up as secret men's business/initiation ceremonies."

Bloody hell mate, where is all this guff coming from? I have read early explorer accounts which speak quite glowingly of Aborigines as being physically superior to most classes of Englishmen and exhibiting good humour and quick intelligence.

As a race there is a gentleness which is repeatedly flagged as a significant trait by those who came into early contact. For a large part I think they measure up remarkably well compared to many other cultures of that time.

Hi Steele,

"Bloody hell mate, where is all this guff coming from?"

Its a 20th Century fabrication by the far right to blame the victim for his own misfortune.

I've spoken with my Cousin (she has established her Aboriginal heritage) about life in the 19th century around the Wellington district of NSW, and how it affected the Aboriginal population. They lost their land to pastoralists, and that was an injustice. Remarkably many faired reasonably well working on runs as stockmen, boundary riders, general hands etc. It seems the black fella with his knowledge of the land, and tough conditioning, was the preferred worker to white blow-ins whom many were soft, lazy and unreliable. European accounts (Charles Warne) say Aboriginals were Christian and sober folk, not privy to the drink. After early conflict between black and white things did settle down by the latter part of the 19th century and early 20th century. My relatives still have properties from the original run at Euchareena NSW.

Some interesting reading;

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-08-17/curious-central-west-how-the-wiradjuri-survived-first-contact/10128822

"Previous criticisms of Dark Emu have been condemned as some conservative racist conspiracy. But Sutton and Walshe are not right-wingers. Nor is Indigenous lawyer Hannah McGlade, a member of the UN’s Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, who told The Australian this week, “It’s a nonsense to say that we support truth-telling and at the same time support Dark Emu, which clearly is not very truthful or accurate.”

shadowminister,

Glad you think that.

Sutton says in the first chapter to the book "I have described our focus on Australia 'before conquest', not 'before settlement', for some very good reasons."

Are you happy to accept that view from an expert?

SR,

The choice of the word "conquest" shows that Sutton has the left whinge credentials to be believable in claiming that dank emu is bollocks.

Secondly "conquest" has such a broad range of meanings from "acquire, seduce, master and subjugate" that one can be correct and politically correct at the same time.

Well I have just started Sutton's book and it already has issues.

They include an appendix purporting to show how much the Wathaurung tribe of Geelong moved around.

I go to the mention of Jerringot because it is a place I am familiar with.

They quote from Morgan's the Life and Adventures of William Buckley page 83:

"we proceeded together to a lake called Jerringot - one of a chain of of that name - which supplies the Barwin River."

This was supposed to be evidence of the nomadic nature of the tribe.

Unfortunately the quote actually starts with these words: "The various families returned to their several camping places — except one old man, his wife, and children, who remained; and"

So Buckley with his mate and his mate's family head off on their own to a separate location.

They seem to be doing exactly what they accuse Pascoe of, abridging quotes to suit their own narrative.

Not a good look.

SR, what are you babbling on about? For someone who always professes to be so, so clever you do bang on about nothing consequential. I should not do so much posting until you actually have something to contribute in future.

Dear JBowyer,

Do catch up mate.

That is exactly the point I am making. Pascoe abridged a similar quote and mhaze declared it the crime of the century. When these guys do it apparently according to you there is nothing to see here.

Can't have it both ways so make up your bloody minds. Which is it? Inconsequential or a hanging offence?

Hi Steele,

Could you comment on what you believe motivates the rabid right to be hysterical about Pascoe's book? It can't be a concern for the truth, they would'nt give a rats about Aboriginal people so why would they be concerned about a yam garden 10,000 years ago. Obviously they must feel threatened by Pascoe and his narrative to the extent they have to denigrate it without actually reading it. Is it that threatening to their cosy existence

SR,

With all due respect,

Firstly the extended quote adds to the point Sutton was making rather than detracting from it whereas Pascoes editing cut out parts that contradicted his conclusion

Secondly, Pascoe added words that weren't in the original text to make his directly fraudulent point.

Nice try, but no cigar.

Pauliar,

The conservatives have no issue with Pascoe producing a work of fiction, the problem is that the rabid left whingers are trying to push this crap into schools etc as legitimate historical research.

shadowminister,

'With all due respect' my arse.

Nothing you put is true. The full quote quote doesn't extend the point at all, it detracts from it.

The Monthly's piece makes this point and others I had put pretty well.

"Farmers or Hunter-gatherers? would have provided a
more effective critique of Dark Emu if its focus had
remained on these essentials. When Sutton and Walshe
turn to considering the historical record in south-eastern
Australia – Pascoe’s favoured locale – their vision shrinks,
and some points seem petty or overblown. On two
separate occasions, they pour scorn on Pascoe’s
perspective on village life in western Victoria by
providing low population estimates that would throw
doubt on such a characterisation. But it is not known, for
example, whether there was a serious smallpox outbreak a
generation before the 1835 invasion. And who, aware of
the historical context in the Port Phillip District in 1836,
would take seriously a “census” count of Aboriginal
people undertaken that year? We don’t know how many
people lived in the vast grasslands of the Western District
before British pathogens and guns arrived, or the full
truth of the complex economy constructed around its
extraordinarily rich wetlands. And it is wrong to imply
that the Wathaurong Briton, William Buckley, fills the
gaps with his reminiscences."

Dear Paul1405,

On a very base level it questions the legitimacy of ownership, the soundness of pride in our history, and causes uncomfortable reflections on what it may take to address those wrongs.

Thanks Steele,

That's very much how I read 'Dark Emu' as a threat to the cosy narrative of the "Poor Darkie" and his attempted salvation by the European. From the forums 'Usual Suspects' there is nothing ever that portrays Aboriginals, past or present, in a positive light. Aboriginal people trapped in the poorest of socio-economic conditions today have problems and issues, lots of them, just as poor whites trapped in the same circumstances do. Somehow Aboriginal people are portrayed differently, as a lazy unintelligent mob, ungrateful for the generosity bestowed upon them by the European.

As Pascoe portrays Pre-European Aboriginal society as complex and robust doing far more than eking out a rudimentary existence, then it does challenge the long held European narrative of the "Poor Darkie". Those holding with the European interpretation would much prefer Australian history books for schools to be the of the variety I was fed in the 1960's. Australia a vast empty continent discovered by James Cook in 1770, the beginning of Australian history. It was stoic European men who first explored and then settled and developed this land. Aboriginal people barely mentioned, totally irrelevant to the narrative.

SR,

While you might try and nitpick at Sutton's review of Pascoe, the simple fact that he pointed out several areas where Pascoe indisputably and deliberately misrepresented others' notes etc leaves Pascoe's fantasy tale without credibility.

Pauliar,

I'm sorry that your cosy narrative of the noble savage has been destroyed, but most of us prefer to live with reality and not edit history to our liking.

shadowminister,

Toning down your language doesn't detract from the fact you asserted: "Pascoe added words that weren't in the original text to make his directly fraudulent point."

Where? In what part of the book? Please give even a single example.

Oh! Steele, you've caught shonkyminister with his pants on fire! He hasn't read the bloody book! He doesn't read unapproved literature, he said so himself! Next question!

SR,

If you have the book you can find it yourself. Are you going to put your credibility on the line and claim that Sutton's book does not say that most of Pascoe's work is factual? I think not. Unless you do my point is made.

Pauliar,

Your pants are continually on fire as you are a consistent liar.

"Now, as finely tuned, thinking readers will know, two passionately truth-loving and scholarly academics, social anthropologist and linguist Peter Sutton and archaeologist Keryn Walshe, have written their own book, Farmers or Hunter-Gatherers? The Dark Emu Debate. In their book, they forensically take Pascoe's book apart for its falsifications and wrong-headedness. In recent days I have read and listened to everything Sutton and Walshe have publicly had to say about Dark Emu and am persuaded they are right.

There is no room here to do the controversy justice. It is very well covered elsewhere, especially in Stuart Rintoul's recent, long-form Debunking Dark Emu: did the publishing phenomenon get it wrong?

Basically, Pascoe argues that the First Australians were never the "mere" primitive hunter-gatherers they've been dismissed as but were sophisticated farmers. The scholars, horrified, say that the First Australians were never farmers, that they were always hunter-gatherers, but that there has never been anything "mere'' or primitive about hunter-gatherers, their way of life requiring sophistication and spiritual attunements to their world of which Pascoe is totally ignorant. The scholars' case is evidence-based. Pascoe's is largely made up."

shonkyminister,

Steele has read 'Dark Emu' unlike you, who is relying on third hand biased critiques by the likes of your man 'Beat Up' Bolt. Steele asked a very simple question about your claim; "Pascoe added words that weren't in the original text to make his directly fraudulent point."

Steele asks; "Where? In what part of the book? Please give even a single example." Since you are totally ignorant of what's in the book, you had the cheek to ask Steele; "If you have the book you can find it (the parts that offend me) yourself." Amazing logic shonky!

Pauliar,

You are as thick as a plank. Quoting others does not make what I say false. When serious critics call it bullsh1t I tend to believe them over a poster that continuously lies.

shonky, Steele asked you for references from the book 'Dark Emu' that particularly offend you as being false. You failed to supply any such references (because you haven't read the book), instead you asked Steele to find that in the book that offends you. I'll try to help you out.

Steele, can you please put up some quotes from 'Dark Emu' that particularly offend shonky? Juicy bit if you've got them, he likes juicy bits. Can you find that quote where Pascoe said he dug up a stone age 'combine harvester' in his backyard, still in working order, or that pre historic 100,000 ton bulk grain carrier still sitting in Collins St Melbourne that Burke and Wills missed, B & W missed a lot you know.

Obtained a copy of 'Farmers Or Hunter-Gatherers?' from the library. The early part of the book sees Peter Sutton establishing his "Aboriginality", congratulating himself on his ability to speak an indigenous language from the area around Cape York. I'm sure there will be more that relates to Bruce Pascoe and his 'Dark Emu' later on.