"The main basis for the child eating trope which you and Quadrant have tried to run was ultimately oral evidence from a swagman. "

SR,
Just because that's the only evidence you're aware of doesn't make it the only evidence. The 30 minute research isn't likely to yield too many results.

The items I listed were the only ones I could find that were digitalised. But there are plenty of others, although all of them are from the time before historians and aboriginal activists decided to whitewash the bleak aboriginal past.

Books like "The Australian Aboriginals" by Elking (I think) which has several examples of child cannibalism not to mention many other examples of the cannibalism of defeated foe or old revered leaders. Another book I recall reading on the same lines as "Man in Ochre" (I think) (no idea who wrote it) which talked of survivalist eating of kids in bad times as well as general cannibalism.

All the pre-digital age books I read on this were from the Mitchell Library if you're interested.

The fact is that the survivalist practice of eating kids and the old in bad times is well established among stone age peoples the world over. Aboriginal tribes were stone age people....QED

Foxy,
I have seen so many projects, solutions etc fail over the years that I have no solutions or ideas as to what would improve the existing situation. The Voice has all the feelings of yet another one. Which way I will vote will have to wait until the day. SD

mhaze,

The British may not have eaten their children - but their
record of abusing them is well documented. Not only in
the past with child labour, but half a million children
a year suffer abuse in the UK today. Study the country's
history. Do your research before pointing the finger
at "stone-age" people.

And regarding massacres of Aboriginal people:

http://theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/mar/04/the-killing-times-the-massacres-of-aboriginal-people-australia-must-confront

Dear Shaggy Dog,

It's true, much has been tried to solve the "aboriginal problem"
by various governments. However, this will be a first to let
them have a say on the laws and policies that affect them.
It's worth a try - I'm sure you'll agree.

Dear mhaze,

You didn't list anything mate, it was Quadrant as we both know.

But to your new found sources. I have looked at Elkins's The Australian Aborigines. There is utterly zero talk of eating children. In fact he made this interesting observation:

“Fear of the unknown. A more striking manifestation of the
tribal sentiment is seen in the attribution of “evil” practices
to other tribes, an attribution which increases with distance.
Thus the cannibals and the savage treacherous natives are
always those of the next tribe or the next but one, though
when the investigator visits and studies them, he finds them
quite as peaceable and courteous as those he just left, but
now it is the latter who are credited with savage attributes.”

Which is exactly what you are doing here isn't it. Rather telling.

Elkin does relate some ritualistic eating of human flesh, but only of the bodies of important people who had died.

“Cannibalism, too, practised in
Queensland as part of burial, was considered a most hon-
ourable rite, to be used only for persons of worth. It was
incidentally a quick method of preparing the bundle, the
flesh being eaten instead of dried. In some tribes, at least,
in which interment was the only burial-rite, much more
ceremony was observed in the case of those who were
deemed of special importance, such as men of much know-
ledge and medicine-men, than for other persons.”

Keep in mind the tradition of the symbolic eating the flesh of and drinking the blood of Christ which are as much a part of our rites.

None of this supports the scurrilous and unsupported notion of children being killed for sustenance. For Quadrant to have propagated such rubbish is bad enough but for you to be using it as part of the No campaign is completely unacceptable. Repent!

Hi mhaze, Foxy and Steele,

There is 10 years between meself and me younger brother, do ya thinks me mum and dad ate a couple of me brothers and sister, and feed em to us other kids as fried chicken, we ate a lot of fried chicken, after all me mum did have Aboriginal blood. Mum used to talk about eating "Poor House Johnny Cakes" as a child, hummm, I though they were made from flour and water, wrong, now I know what happened to poor Uncle John, ended up as a "Johnny Cake"! Mum did say 5 of her sids died before the age of 5. BTW are children high in cholesterol, like doughnuts?

Foxy wrote: "The cumulative wealth and power of the rusted-on no voters,
their prominence in media ownership and on corporate boards,
their conservatism and unwillingness to commit to social
change can easily be juxtapositioned with Australians who
believe in social change and inclusion."

A really fine post there Foxy. Fully of erudite observations.

Too bad you didn't write it....
http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/jun/19/new-australia-v-old-indigenous-voice-referendum

(I was trying to leave unharassed, but you couldn't help yourself)