Joe,

I get where you're coming from.

That Aboriginals in the early days of settlement couldn't record events in writing.

And that the white settlers certainly wouldn't have recorded anything that threw a dark light on them.

So....yeah, as far as white history goes, unless a white European descendent recorded it - then it obviously "didn't" happen.

Back here later....

Poirot,

on the other hand Poirot everything the white man does is bad and everything the blackman says is true. The reason the Prisons are full of aboriginals is because they don't commit domestic violence, don't abuse the children, are not drunk and disorderley. This is all in the white man's head. Just ask the blackman in prison. They will all tell you they are innocent. Your loathing of the white man is not very well balanced.

Grow up, runner,

I'm not saying that every story that emerges is true.

What I'm saying as that if they did happen, then they most probably weren't recorded in writing by the caste who could record them in writing and who was dominant.

And since there is now no written evidence, it's a simple procedure to dismiss any question of impropriety or bad behaviour on the part of the invading parties.

White people have been recorded as carrying out some pretty savage behaviour when colonising "undeveloped" societies.

But I'm sure it didn't happen here.....

: )

Poirot,

My point in all this is that if there is no evidence for something which is supposed to have happened, like Runner's mythical massacres, then you suspend your belief, until you can establish some evidential base, somehow.

But so much of what passes for Aboriginal history is precisely base-less assertions, which allows all manner of accusations to be made which really do need to be challenged - and which so much written material actually does serendipitously challenge.

And of course, there are other ways of establishing whether something may have happened besides having to have it, chapter and verse, in writing. As they demonstrate so well on 'Time Team', you can dig it up: if there was a massacre at a particular place, for example, we know from 'Silent Witness' etc. that there MUST be some evidence present, OR - so the forensic people say - something should be there which isn't.

More likely the first: that if a massacre has been carried out of, say, thirty people (the usual quantity), then that's around one and a half tonnes of bodies to dispose of. If they were all burnt, at a tonne per body, that's thirty tonnes of timber from the surrounding area, which would leave a lot of charcoal. In the drier parts of the interior, that's a lot of trees to chop down and use, maybe a hundred acres, and if they are mallee and grow again, then there is a hundred acres of fairly fresh mallee out there in one place, all about the same age. And most likely, the obvious thing to do would be dig somewhere in the middle of all of that new timber.

If a massacre was carried out, then - as Arthur Upfield showed in his first novel - bits and pieces, teeth, stone ornaments, etc. will be present in the remains, evidence of disordered burials, children's fremains, old people' remains, men and women, all jumbled together.

So evidence can be many things besides the written word. Either way, why believe anything without any evidence of any kind ?

[TBC]

[contd]

I guess I was bitten once too often by the Hindmarsh Island 'secret women's business' scam, by some of my own wife's people - in country so lush and bountiful that nobody every needed increase ceremonies.

Observing how people lied their way through that debacle, people I knew and had respected, observing them attacking their own relations on the 'other' side, for manifestly a white audience, and so viciously, disabused me of any pure and innocent holiness about each and every Aboriginal cause.

Not to mention that, in order to believe in the BS about women's business, people had to put aside all the stories and legends that had hitherto been the cornerstones of Ngarrindjeri culture. In that sense, the scam actually has hindered, perhaps now destroyed, the proper transmission of the stories about Ngurunderi, Waiungeri, Nepelle, how the world of the Ngarrindjeri came into being, and so much else.

Evidence, one way or another, written or material - not just hearsay and assertion and anti-white stance - is vital. Otherwise why should anybody believe or not believe anything ? What are the foundations of belief and truth other than evidence of some sort ?

Cheers,

Joe

Poirot, many Native Americans, though not literate in English were able to draw pictures of their lives, traditions and interactions with Whites
Here's a pictograph made by Sitting Bull:
http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2477/3597250709_d3d8b6a37a_o.jpg

We in Australia also have artifacts like Oscar's Sketchbook:
http://www.nma.gov.au/interactives/oscar/oscar_online.html
I'd be speculating of course but I'd wager the indigenous collections held by the various state and national archives are full of these types of documents. The reason we Whites know so little about our history with Aboriginals is down to what I call the ideological "force field" around the issue, not malice or lack of interest on our part.