Dear mhaze,

You are so transparent it makes me laugh.

A little innocent “Have you ever read Krzywicki?”.

Of course I have, he is directly quoted in the Quadrant article you have pulled you material from. He never visited Australia. He is the Warsaw professor who put his lazily researched and flippant book together in 1934. You know the one, your little 30 sec read where you decided it was too hard to delve any further because it wasn't digitised.

Its lack of rigour means it is not highly referenced except by the excited the agenda driven and the titillated.

Of course you yourself were titillated when you teased us with “This is before we even get into the issue of killing one child to feed another which ws widespread but something I'd prefer to not assail your sensibilities with.”

Then a few posts later you were dragging out the full Quadrant quote. But at least they had the courtesy of acknowledging the source.

Quote: “A swagman, Phil Moubray, relates that he found in the basin of the River Mitchell the Aborigines roasting and eating their own children”.

A bloody swagman!

Balance this against the Buckley account which, although salacious in its own manner, does not make mention of any “killing of one child to feed another” despite his over 30 years living with them. Your contention is somehow woke forces abounded in 1835 preventing him from mentioning it? What utter garbage.

Look, there are quite a few accounts from the period which through dehumanising the tribes legitimised their slaughter and dispossession by squatters and the like. Much of it does not stand up to more thorough study today. Only the scurrilous continue to quote them.

There were some pretty wild clashes between Aborigines, Maccassans & British Australians in the Arnhem Land region as late as 1870.
Hard to get this information past the sanitising filter system now.

Foxy.
I have a photo somewhere of my young bloke, probably around six years old, with his best mate of that time. Both fast asleep sharing a bunk. My young bloke is fair, blonde hair. His mate is indigenous and about as dark as they come. This is where it starts, where it has a chance, not with feuding adults from both sides.
Forcing people together will never work, when we reach the stage, if ever, of wanting to be together there we will find the solution.
That is something for the distant future and some rather different thinking.
The Voice appears to being doing the reverse, pushing those involved further apart.
SD

Dea Indyvidual,

Your "Hard to get this information past the sanitising filter system now." really should read "Hard to get this information past the sanitising filter system back then."

The secrecy with which many a massacre was carried out by colonists is widely recognised. Much harder to get away with it now. An no, materials do not get destroyed or ignored by reputable historians.

materials do not get destroyed or ignored by reputable historians
SteeleRedux,
It's nigh impossible now for non-academics or non-indigenous to get information from the Archives !
Trove appears to be morphing into a closed circle filing cabinet !

"Even so, you call 3 deaths in 500 between two armed parties a "massacre", loser!"

Nup. Never did call it a massacre. Do try to keep up.

SR,

Yes I get it. Any information that doesn't square with your preconceived notions about how truly wonderful aboriginal life pre-contact was, is immediately rejected. You don't need any valid reasons for rejecting it, just the assertion that its wrong because its wrong. That is of course not how historical research (or any research for that matter) works. But you won't get that.