Dear Paul,

Take no notice of mhaze. He and Josephus have so much in common.

Here's a link for you:

http://newcastle.edu.au/newsroom/featured/new-evidence-reveals-aboriginal-massacres-committed-on-extensive-scale

"aboriginals did write anything down."

Well yes, a typo....should have read "aboriginals didN'T write anything down." So yes I do make the occasional error. I hope that hasn't shattered your understandable veneration of me.

So again, do you think aboriginal society was unchanged over the millennia and that we can make assumptions about what they were like in the dim past based upon what they were like in the recent past? Or does the claim of an unchanging society only apply when it suits?

Dear Paul,

I was fortunate to catalogue an Aboriginal oral collection
at the State Library of Victoria. Aboriginal people relied
on oral histories, artwork, pictographs in various
material (eg. the Maya and Inca recorded history in stone).
Our Indigenous people were able to pass down their history
through stories, songs, and oral communications.

These stories have been considered accurate enough by the
Supreme Court of Canada when in 1997 it held that oral
testimony and oral history was admissable as evidence in
court when the history could be corroborated.

This is indicative of the weight put on the spoken jword by
Aboriginal peoples.

Foxy,
I am not buying into who is right or wrong in this discussion but to place too much reliability on oral history is a wee bit fraught. It is only a matter of a generation or three that it slips into the category of folklore no matter who is so involved.
Even a written history is affected by the bias of the author. Our indigenous folk have a claimed 80,000 year history, the nuances and interpretations over that period of time would be mind boggling let alone the last 1000 years.
It is not lies just individual interpretation of events which will vary from individual to individual depending on their bias or experience.
Take it easy.
SD.

mhaze you were right about one thing, there was mass killings of natives, but it wasn't Aboriginals massacring Aboriginals, rather those "civilised" European Colonials, you're so fond of, (was there a great grandpa mhaze?) massacring thousands of innocent men, women and children of the native population. Do you think they murdered greater numbers than the "civilised" Europeans murdered during WWI? You love your facts, do you not!

Thanks Foxy, for the link to Newcastle University research on the subject of the hundreds of massacres of thousands of Aboriginals carried out by Europeans during the first 140 years of colonisation. Maybe that's where Blainey got his evidence from, which mhaze agrees with!

mhaze, my dear friend, YOU WRONG! not possible, you tell us how right you are often enough, and how dumb we mere mortals are. Can't be wrong, maybe you were just mistaken.

Dear Paul,

I admire your continuing to argue. I am losing
patience - when there is so much accurate information
available that has been corroborated by many sources.
People need to simply do their research, visit
libraries, and museums. The information is available.
It's only a question of wanting to know - and seek the
truth.

Dear Shaggy Dog,

To access the accuracy of any historical source of
course questions need to be asked, especially -
is the information corroborated by other reliable
sources and are there clues of bias in the sources
which suggest they may be in accurate.

It all depends upon how much time the historian has
spent chasing up other sources to corroborate the
initial ones. Bad or careless historians cut corners
for either professional gain or personal bigotry and
bias and we have seen many of these. Some historians
have gone with the flow of what they felt would be
acceptable by the majority. We've had this repeated
in our schools and educational institutions.
Finally, truth-telling is beginning to raise its
head - and it is long overdue.

If it available - if one is prepared to look and find it
no matter how confronting it may be.