A couple of prominent Australians have recently discovered that an ancestor was described as a 'native', and taken it to mean 'Aboriginal'. However, the question is whether they were also described as an 'Australian native' or an 'Aboriginal native'.

The Australian Natives' Association was set up in 1871. Earlier, a Sydney Natives' body had been set up, in about 1838 - roughly when the first generation of native-born white Australians had reached adulthood and were beginning to assert themselves, as against the British-born whites, 'natives' against 'ring-ins'. A similar association was set up in Melbourne, leading to the instituting of the A.N.A, which was, in its time, and until surprisingly recently, a solid pillar of the native-born white establishment and counted many prime ministers in its membership.

Many native-born white Australians proudly called themselves 'natives': one of the first times that I had heard of this was from a researcher with the Genealogical Society, who had found that her own grandfather had insisted on 'Australian native' being written on his death certificate.

Aboriginal people certainly were often called 'natives' in letters and everyday speech in the nineteenth century, but in official documents, where there needed to be some differentiation, they were more commonly referred to as 'Aboriginal natives' or even 'black natives'.

We would all, or most of us, love to have something exotic in our ancestry – a Spanish princess, or a Turkish soldier-of-fortune, or vice versa. Times change; there is nowadays some cachet in discovering an Indigenous past. But even eminent figures need to do a bit more research, to discover whether or not their ancestors were 'Australian natives' or 'Aboriginal natives'.

Loudmouth, which two prominent Australians are you referring to?
I'm presuming Cory Bernardi's one (though he specifically didn't assume it meant Aboriginal) but I haven't heard of anyone else making that discovery.

I think you're right about people wanting to find something exotic in our ancestry. Probably most of us will find nothing more exotic than Plantagenets.

Dear Joe (Loudmouth),

I love watching the Australian Story series -
"Who Do You Think You are?"

One thing I have learned is that everyone has
a story and everyone's background is "exotic."

We're all different - and it's our differences
that make us unique.

cont'd ...

Ray Martin will tell us his family's story
this coming Tuesday.

It should be worth watching.

erm ...cof cof
It's about white natives, to put it racially. All European-type people born in Oz are Australia natives. Not the Queen of Australia, not Captain Cook or Aust .Aboriginal children born in New Zealand.

Hi Nick,

That's right, so now there are 'Australian natives' of Vietnamese, Greek, Sudanese background, etc., IF they have been born here. Actually, there are also 'Aboriginal natives' who also have Vietnamese or Greek background, and probably Sudanese background now as well. People's backgrounds are becoming more and more gloriously mixed, and beautifully exotic.

That 'Australian Natives' movement grew in strength towards Federation, and really, Federation was its major political expression: Australian states coming together and being run by Australians - white Australians - 'Australian Natives'. The A.N.A. was still running into the 1990s, but I think it's changed its title to 'Lifeplan', running old people's homes [can you till call them that ? or is it offensive ?] and operating as an insurance company.

Dear Foxy,

Yes, I enjoy WDYTYA when I can get to it: I love the surprises. You get the idea that every family has a multitude of skeletons in its cupboards if anybody looks deeply enough. How many times have we come across bigamists and crooks in people's stories ? i.e. human stories :)

But for many of us, the trail could go in any direction or even dry up completely, given the likelihood that we could have any of a multitude of fathers and paternal ancestors. One day, personal genomes will cost next to nothing, and be very quick, so that should certainly help clear up some uncertainties. And provide yet more surprises !

Love,

Joe

Dear Joe (Loudmouth),

When I retire I plan to work on discovering more
about my family background.
I'll have the time to do it. I would love to learn
more about my Lithuanian ancestry - and also
more about my Russian grandmother and her background,
(from whom I suspect I've inherited my cheek-bones,
almond-shaped eyes, and stubbornness).

Dear Foxy,

Yes, imagine what might be in your genome ! Invasions by the Teutonic Brotherhood, the Poles, the Tartars, the Russians, the Russians and the Russians, and maybe even the Finns. It depends how far back you can go ? It would be fascinating !

I sent off to Genographics for my Y Chromosome and got back 'Haplogroup A', African. My sister says, yeah, everybody's got that, we all came out of Africa, after all, it's all a con; but who knows ? How that might be, baffles me. I thought it was all Scottish and northern English but that's thrown a cat amongst the budgies.

Love,

Joe

Maybe an Aboriginal who has a child in UK and later returns to Oz could hear the child being called a pommy. A final insult?

English people : the African-Saxons?
African Diaspora in Roman Britain - Decoded Past
decodedpast.com/evidence-african-diaspora-roman-britain/6254

Feb 25, 2014 - Ongoing archaeological finds continue to show evidence of Africans as a presence in Britain as early as the 3rd century and well beyond ...

It was usual for people of my parents' generation to refer to themselves with pride as native Australians. Many Australians are native English speakers, to give another example.

That is correct English usage of 'native' in that circumstance, as an adjective. There are native Sydneyites, native New South Welshmen and native Australians.

One could ask if AFL is a native Australian sport. The reply could be possibly not. Because strictly speaking (foot)ball games pre-dating the Code were played in the UK.

It is an inclusive description that could be used more. No harm in capitalising either, Native Australians.

Dear Joe (Loudmouth),

I have noticed that many of our sheep have
blue eyes.

Hmmmmm. Interesting.

Dearest Foxy,

And with high cheek-bones as well ? Are you using 'our' generally, or specifically ? Or are you suggesting that lonely Scottish shepherds have left behind more than just a historical legacy ?

My Scottish-originated grandfather told my mum that, when he was a drover up in the channel country before 1900, they had to be careful around any shepherd and his sheep - they usually had a favourite, called by the drovers 'the shepherd's wife', which used to sidle up to any visitors, and was watched very jealously by the shepherd. I imagine they had furious rows after the drovers had gone. I suspect that some of the drovers might have been sorely tempted though. Some of those young ewes are damn good-looking.

Joe

Fox,

You are spending too much time on OLO. Just tend to those home fires and his sheep bothering should cease. If not, a farmer might get some further use out of his Schrade Old Timer.

Dear Joe (Loudmouth) and otb,

Great responses from you both.

I'm most impressed.

Fox,

Ta very much.

I must return the compliment though, because your innate skill at diversion has been honed to a razor's edge.

What about Native Australians though? If you were born here do you accept - whoops the PC word is 'embrace' that kind description?

After all, those Native Australians are among the most generous, welcoming peoples in the world, even encouraging migrants from teeming, monocultural countries with values and political traditions toxic to our own to expand their cultures here.

Or are foxes forever feral in their ways? It is a challenge, because foxes cannot be domesticated,

"when wild/tame foxes age from juvenile to mature, they go through hormonal changes and can become extremely aggressive. ("They turn into real bastards," says Fedewa.)"
http://www.popsci.com.au/science/can-i-have-a-pet-fox,378909

otb,

Thank You for your kind words.
A great improvement in your posting tactics.
I hope this keeps up.

Native Australians?

A "native" is regarded as a person born in a specified
place or associated with a place by birth - whether
subsequently resident there or not.

So of course I do not have a problem with that term.

Thank You for your link to foxes. I chose that moniker
mainly because I love their colour. (Being a red-head
myself). Also we're always on the side of the animal
being chased - on the side of the fox not the hounds. ;-)

There's a quote from Napoleon that appeals to me:

"I am sometimes a fox and sometimes a lion.
The secret lies in knowing when to be the one or
the other..." (or words to that effect).

BTW: My star-sign is Leo!

Dear Joe (Loudmouth),

Thanks for this discussion.
I'm learning quite a bit from it.

The following website may be of interest to you as well:

http://www.australiangeographic.com.au/news/2011/09/dna-confirms-aboriginal-culture-one-of-earths-oldest/

It is very interesting to learn that Aboriginal people had
Siberian ancestors. Yay!

We're also told that -

Aboriginal Australians are descendants
of the first people to leave Africa up to 75,000 years
ago, a genetic study has found, confirming they may
have the oldest continuous culture on the planet.

Isn't it great that humans have inter-mixed throughout
history!

Dearest Foxy,

"ABORIGINAL AUSTRALIANS ARE descendents of the first people to leave Africa up to 75,000 years ago, a genetic study has found, confirming they may have the oldest continuous culture on the planet."

Well, yes, the first people to move out of Africa [who perhaps did not have Australia in mind as their destination] were the ancestors of almost everybody in Asia, Europe, Oceania and the Americas - everywhere but Africa, in fact.

Those ancestors took tens of thousands of years to reach Siberia in one direction, Australia in another. Once some of the descendants of those foraging voyagers travelled through India and south-east Asia before they reached Australia, then yes, they became some of the ancestors of today's Aboriginal people, the Aboriginal Australians.

Another group might have turned left and gone off into Europe, rather than detouring through central Asia first.

Of course, the groups would have been 'travelling' so slowly, perhaps a mile a year on average, that they weren't actually aware that they were actually migrating from x to y. We know it now, but they didn't.

As for 'the oldest culture' - I've never understood that: all human cultures are equally old. If what is meant is that Aboriginal culture is the most unchanging culture in the world, then I'm not sure what is so great about that: other words for 'unchanging', especially for human culture, would be 'stagnant', 'rigid', 'unlearning', 'hidebound'.

I think the Aboriginal population in Australia had the disastrous misfortune to be cut off from the flow of human ingenuity of the Asia-Europe-Africa landmass for so long.

But Australia was one of the richest countries in the world in the late nineteenth century, and Aboriginal people - at least down this way in South Australia - shared in that affluence. Aboriginal women here in SA had the vote thirty and more years before women gained it in the UK, the US or France - a bit of an improvement on fifty thousand years of violent treatment, as occurs for women in all traditional societies.

Willerslev has written some great stuff.

Love,

Joe

Dear Joe (Loudmouth),

Talking about Eske Willerslev :

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/genome-analysis-links-kennewick-man-native-americans-180955638/?no-ist

Joe (Loudmouth), "I think the Aboriginal population in Australia had the disastrous misfortune to be cut off from the flow of human ingenuity of the Asia-Europe-Africa landmass for so long"

Regrettably the 'self-managing' communities favoured by the left and Whitlam resulted in a self-imposed apartheid, a black curtain, that among other very unfortunate effects, ensured that many aboriginal children and youth were denied the essential keys, English and mathematical proficiency, to realise their possible futures in modern Australia and the world.

Political correctness is working against the interests of aboriginal children and stunting them in all ways but particularly psychologically.

Apart from your contributions and those of an experienced woman senior (who has not posted for a while), few on OLO have but the most superficial idea, usually wrong thanks to activists and the media, of the poor prospects for aboriginal children inherent to the misguided policy of preserving 'indigenous' (a word disliked by Aborigines I have met out bush) culture by isolating children from their destiny, which is broader than sitting in the local creek.

I have found articles by Anthony Dillon interesting and informative. I don't think he has ever appeared on ABC programs like Q&A, which is a pity, but possibly predictable given its emphasis on entertainment and sensationalism.

Hi OTB,

Anthony appears often on The Drum, and gives a very good account of himself. He's written a timely article recently on suicide:

https://bay167.mail.live.com/?fid=fl4LGX7MXV3k-1G_XxcmBv9A2

There is an article today about the positive correlation between remoteness and untreated illnesses, especially cancers. Being totally cynical, I suspect that if we asked our Goat Cheese Circle friends whether they thought Aboriginal people would be better off as far out as possible, I'm sure they would all say immediately 'Of course,' and launch into paeans about culture and community.

The old Marxist in me suspects that the GCC classes have vested interests in such Apartheid, as it probably did, in its earlier incarnation in South Africa, in the Bantustans - that dirty alliance between white bureaucrats and local Black go-getters which we know so well here these days. And culture is so colourful and charming - in South Africa, the bare-breasted maidens certainly were boons for tourism (and for National Geographic, and for adolescents like me), as remote Aboriginal people are now seen to be.

Perhaps this is why so much is put into Indigenous tourist ventures, i.e. vast expenditure projects, big turnovers, many Chinese and Filipina workers, many 'council' members sitting under trees on commissions. Sweet ! For some. As an Aboriginal friend keeps saying, 'Racism is good for some Aboriginal people.'

Back to topic: I was trying to calculate the degree of Aboriginal re-identification since the 1970s - the Census figures each time give different - and growing - figures for, say, the age-group born in the early eighties: 31,849 Aboriginal people were aged between 0 and 4 years in the 1986 Census, but through the process of miracle births, that cohort number (now aged 25 to 29) has grown to 38,804 at the last Census. In fact, there were 46,445 in that age-cohort in the 1996 Census, but it seems many have become non-Indigenous since.

[TBC]

[continued]

On that last point: those 38,804 in 2011 were the median age-group enrolled at universities - an average of only 7,761 in each age-group; but 5,726 Indigenous people commenced award-level university study last year (overwhelmingly at degree- and post-grad levels) which is equivalent to a fairly respectable 73 % of the median age-group.

So the stats would tell us. Even I, gullible as I am, would question those figures, or who they represent. Back in the day, I used to reckon on about 10 % of Indigenous students not actually being Indigenous, but the proportion may have increased since then. Or something.

Meanwhile, out in the more remote communities, expect an epidemic of ice and the brutal murders of Aboriginal women by their beloveds in the coming years.

Cheers,

Joe

Loudmouth, what question did that census actually ask?

Hi Aidan,

It has varied from one Census to another, that's been one of the problems.

There has also been the problem of under-counting, of the Census forms not actually getting to people, or, for whatever reason, people not being counted. So for every Census, there is an 'adjustment' which has tended to inflate the numbers in more remote areas. I'm not sure that that is really valid, if only because paradoxically, people in remote areas are more likely to be counted already - after all, they would be well-known to welfare providers, Centrelink, health workers, etc.

It may be the odd family here and there, perhaps in farming areas or out in the scrub, who are perhaps not counted at all, and people who don't tick the box. Which brings us back to identification as a movable feast, from one time to another: people ticking the box in on Census, but not in the next, which, of course, is their right.

So maybe it makes no sense to get too particular about Indigenous statistics, e.g., 24.07% in this or that category, an increase of 13.56789% in the growth in one dimension or other - but perhaps just ball-park figures are far more useful - university commencements have doubled since 2006, graduations are up around forty thousand, women in remote areas are eighty to a hundred times more likely to be victims of domestic violence than the Australian average - that sort of imprecision might be the best we can expect.

Cheers,

Joe

Many Australian natives have wanted apartheid from the motherland from birth. A few freed convicts returned and some governors applied Tory suppression but the new colonial personality led to political reality. After 2 centuries the adult stage of the species was reached.
In recognition, the forebears of British bloodlines saw the separation of different cultures and not an extension of native British stock.
In British tradition of the wars between Saxon kingdoms and Scot-English wars, the Melbourne-Sydney rivalry came close to warfare and would have added a layer of tradition . It's not too late for some colourful growth of the country's identity.

Hi Nick,

I don't really agree with that first statement: Apartheid implies not just 'separatism', but 'dependent separatism', a vile process by which one population is kept dependent on the power of another while its best resources, including its able-bodied workers, are super-exploited.

There are crucial differences between 'separatism' and 'independence', not least that independence means that one population or nation can make its own decisions, but also of course, make its own mistakes - and on its own money.

Clearly on those imperfect definitions, remote Aboriginal Australia is not quite in a state of Apartheid (there's not a lot of super-exploitation of the able-bodied going on), but most certainly it isn't in a state of independence either - nor can it ever be while it remains on the public teat. Perhaps remote populations have inherited the worst of both Apartheid AND dependence - Apartheid in an environment of affluence, sugar-coated Apartheid. Maybe that's a worse situation than straight-out Apartheid ?

And policies since the days of the well-meaning Dr. Coombs have driven remote populations further down that road, perhaps to the point of no return.

Meanwhile, in the cities, many Indigenous people just get on with making a living as honestly and fully as they can. But a handful put on the mantle of Aboriginality and get themselves into well-paying positions on good salaries. Maybe, down the track, a fourth definition (self-identification, community recognition, etc.) of 'Aboriginality' can be added, a quick and cheap method - DNA testing. That might separate the chooks from the foxes.

Joe

Chooks and foxes here subsist on marginal agricultural land while poms stuff themselves obese on mad-cows. It's been apartheit since the first Fleet natives starved while Aboriginals laughed on the river bank. English aboriginals saw their green valleys taken to New South Wales because the hills looked similar, and did they not come out of coal mine with face black , look you ?

Hi Nick,

I suppose that's clever, in its own way. What are you talking about ? Do you understand what Apartheid meant when it was in force in South Africa ? Sorry, what obese poms and what mad-cows ?

Joe

I dreaded having to explain the joke.
explain the..
can't