Joe,

You said...."but the genuine evidence is thin".

All I'm saying is that in the Goldfields in Western Australia in 1974, I lived in a mission run by a religious group which housed Aboriginal girls - not a vast number, probably around twenty when I was there. They were housed in houses, a few girls to each family. In our family the Aboriginal girls (for which I counted amongst, even though I'm not Aboriginal) did "all" the house work. However, the place seemed fairly well run, although there seemed to be no Aboriginal cultural input whatsoever.

In the town nearby (we were slightly out of town at the "mission") there was a dormitory for the boys, which would have housed perhaps slightly more boys than there were girls at the mission. from what I can remember, that was run fairly well too.

These children were looked after full time. While I was at the mission, I can't recall any family of the girls being involved in their lives, save for one day when a lot of Aboriginal people turned up for some sort of gathering - memory is hazy on that one as I was away in town for part of the day.

My sarcasm reference was in response to your "grovel for forgiveness" line.

The discipline of history is about teaching people values, not facts.
Just as one example take British History, most of what the layperson accepts about the origins and achievements of the British people is completely false, there were no "Celts", there were no Anglo Saxon and Danish "invasions" and agriculture developed there independently and perhaps slightly before it did in the middle east. The people of the British Isles and Ireland are all from the same genetic stock as the people who settled there after the last ice age, they are a remarkably homogenous race of people, not a "mongrel race' diluted by constant "invasions" from the continent.

All these stories about a "mongrel race" who were invaded and assimilated over and over and who gained all their knowledge from outsiders then set about pillaging the world were born of a particular set of values and political principles which originated in Christianity, they have nothing to do with facts.

Perhaps a bit of both, Jay, facts and values, and a bit of passion as well.

But the appreciation of history, 'what happened', surely can't rely just on gut feelings alone, or oral history alone. Otherwise, we are forced into the ridiculous position that whatever someone says is true, no questions asked, and that - in the big, wide world - nobody ever lies, or gets things wrong. Or forgets anything. No-one drops detail from an account, and nobody embroiders.

But after all, we do that every day, get a name wrong, or misunderstand what a story might be getting at. We add details, to make a story more meaningful, and drop out details which we can't really make sense of. Chinese Whispers.

At my advanced age, I'm aware of the power of forgetting and distorting, and I have to go back to the original to check and double-check details, and I still might get them wrong.

Another point: Aboriginal people may tend to believe that there is nothing, absolutely nothing, written about them 'out there'. They may not realise that especially back in the Mission days, their ancestors were registered, and recorded, and monitored, and tabulated, up hill and down dale, that there are references to their families and ancestors in many, many documents - Protector's letters, monthly ration returns from sixty depots down this way, missionaries' journals, birth, death, marriage, police, school and hospital records.

Down this way, for example, the massive work on the Ngarrinyeri by Ronald and Catherine Berndt included a hundred pages of annotated genealogies, incredibly useful and informative.

So, David, there is no need - in Aboriginal history - to rely on inference and 'maybes', or on secondary interpretations - the primary stuff is there, if people will only look for it.

Thank you, Poirot. What does it mean ?

Joe

Joe,

I have no idea what it means. I was merely giving you alittle first-hand evidence that it was still happening in 1974.

I ask again....why do think written evidence might be missing from the record of wrongs committed against the Aboriginal population?

It is of no surprise a all that these things were recorded merely in oral history, as Aboriginals had no recourse to writing it down and their culture had always relied on oral transmission.

Albeit that this sort of transmission is never going to be as accurate in an historical sense as that recorded in writing.

Seems we're still at it. Now we are to apply the Western standard of "evidence" to dismiss our invader/possessor past.

Fascinating.....

Poirot,

Sorry, WHAT was happening ?

I don't get your next point, that "... why do think written evidence might be missing from the record of wrongs committed against the Aboriginal population? "

Possibly because what you suspect happened, didn't happen ? That there is no evidene of something if it didn't happen ?

How do you know something has happened without evidence THAT SHOULD BE THERE if what is asserted is true ? What evidence should be available somewhere, if something did actually occur ?

I have a paranoid friend who won't believe evidence of something which conflicts with his suspicions, AND asserts 'evidence' to back up his position, which he claims has been suppressed. (I wonder if he's Arjay).

But on the contrary, one must take account of what may be 'evidence', and not rely too much on what might have been suppressed, or destroyed, i.e. isn't there. Of course, we have totake accounts - from either side - with a grain of salt, but there is a word for denying evidence in front of us, and asserting that missing 'evidence' has been deliberately hidden- and that word is 'pfrejudice', pre-judging without evidence, and ignoring what may be counted as evidence.

'Denial', if you prefer, Poirot.

Oh well, off to the Archives.

Joe

Joe

I have spent time listening to elders pass on 'chinese'whispers in some communities in WA. I have been told that 'massacres'have taken place in certain areas. Generations of people now believe this despite not one bit of evidence except for the pass down story. If I was to pass on some of the factual acts witnessed by missionaries in some communites I would quite likely end up in gaol. I can't see how anyone thinks that they can help to aboriginals by passing on myths.