Dearest Foxy,

Stereotyping can seem positive, as well (of course) as negative: to believe that people have almost magical powers is a good example, finding enough water from the dew off one plant to last a whole day, for example. To love Blackfellas but expect very little of them - Noel Pearson characterises this as the 'racism of low expectations' - is another, and it's amazing how often they go together. It seems to be very difficult for many people to think of Aboriginal people as people.

Runner,

I'm an atheist but I have developed enormous respect for the missionaries of the 19th century, their devotion, love and relatively high expectations for Aboriginal people. But as you point out, yes, grog was a terrible killer everywhere, in every State and at every time. I suspect that the death rates were far higher for people living away from Missions purely for this reason, and that life expectancy was far lower - in fact, that entire groups killed themselves off by what so many missionaries correctly termed the addiction to grog.

I would also suggest that, mostly because of that addiction, the infant mortality rate - and eventually, the 'removal' rate - was far higher amongst people living away from Missions.

Traditional society was boom and bust - since food wasn't cultivated, and it couldn't be preserved, whenever it was available, it had to be consumed, totally. Then maybe people starved until the next time. So with grog: again and again in the early days, reports tell of shearers blowing their entire pay-check in one night, in drinking parties, beating the daylights out of each other as well, and coming back to Missions dead-broke. I think that boom-and-bust ethic is still alive and well in many places.

Joe

Fox, "Australians are decent people with the right instincts and they wish everybody well: but if all is not well, it is none of their business and they will not lose too much sleep over it"

You Googled to get that 'offering'? A trashy, forgettable throw-away line that was a very poor attempt at humour by some sorry, uninformed wanna-be comedian?

When you repeat it in the context of this thread and try to give it significance, it betrays the arrogant, culturally elitist bigotry that would damn with feint praise to set up and then trash her target, the Australian people.

Have you ever heard of the Mud Army?

What about this?
http://www.projects-abroad.com.au/

What about the military and police personnel who put their own personal lives, wives and families on hold to defend people in other countries from tyrants and to rescue people and restore crucial infrastructure after natural calamities?

The fact is that missionaries saved lives. Before Darwin it was the predominant scientific belief that the different races of humans had different origins, and we were not all one species. Missionaries believed that Adam and Eve were ancestors of all, and therefore the Aborigines were fully human. They gave them refuge. Others thought that Aborigines were not human so it was ok to kill them.

"The Lamb Enters the Dreaming" by Robert Kenny tells about the first Aboriginal Christian.

Loudmouth wrote: "Traditional society was boom and bust - since food wasn't cultivated, and it couldn't be preserved, whenever it was available, it had to be consumed, totally. Then maybe people starved until the next time. So with grog: again and again in the early days, reports tell of shearers blowing their entire pay-check in one night, in drinking parties, beating the daylights out of each other as well, and coming back to Missions dead-broke. I think that boom-and-bust ethic is still alive and well in many places."

Traditional society was not boom or bust. They had excellent techniques of food collection and food preservation. What shearers did had nothing to do with Aboriginal societies.

http://austhrutime.com/food_storage.htm tells about Australian Aboriginal techniques of food preservation. One explanation for the lack of Aboriginal agricultural development is their storage techniques made agriculture unnecessary. Typically Aboriginal societies all over the world spend about 17 hours a week to supply their needs for food. My son is an anthropologist and has lived with two tribal peoples in Brazil, Xikrin and Candela. They both have efficient food collection and storage techniques. The situation becomes different when a people change from hunter-gatherers to agriculturists.

"Dualism and its Discontents" and "Rain Forest Exchanges"are two of his books.

Dear Foxy,

I know what you were referring to. I was just pointing out that the present meaning of the platitude is nonsense.

In the bush you witness the boom and bust of the seasons. Boom and bust bring misfortunes, but bust is the worst and can last a generation, or kill off a generation.

When you get around the country there are ruins of homesteads and other building works to be found, where the return of the usual drought proved that the longer good season before was to be expected, it was usual too if only seldom occurring.

For interest,
http://rdafcw.com.au/wp-content/uploads/Drought-and-Poverty-in-CW-Qld.pdf

Plenty of roo bones around the west right now.

The Aborigines were not unaffected by the seasons.

Hi again DAVID F...

You never cease to amaze me with the depth of your immense knowledge, even in fields not entirely within your own academic disciplines. I wasn't aware of the processes these ancient people had, to preserve their food in climates as harsh and diverse as ours ?

Actually I always thought the agriculturalists were more modern, more advanced in producing their food needs. Rather more so than the hunter gatherers were ? Who by necessity were more nomadic in their existence, travelling through scorching deserts with all their possessions, day in day out where the existence of water, was always problematic ? While those who tended their crops, usually had an abundance of water in the first instance otherwise the proposition of growing anything, was bleak ?

A NT bloke I've known for years, his 'beat' if you like was as big as Wales ! Only a Senior Constable, he and his wife preferred working at one man stations in the NT, he was saying how his two black auxiliary police, were quite capable of walking/tracking through the desert country, in the heat of the day for miles, seemingly completely unaffected ? While he'll not even drive unless unavoidable, until later PM or early AM ? They're a truly extraordinary race of people don't you think ? Yet I know so little about them really ?

boom or bust can certainly be debated. What I have been told by old aboriginal elders is that if a child was born with a disability he was clubbed to death because they had no means or desire to carry him/her to the next waterhole.