Dearest Foxy,

I'm unsure what you were getting at in your last post, addressed to me. With the deepest respect and love, I suspect you were trying to teach me how to tie my shoe laces.

There seem to be (roughly) three positions in relation to history, evidence and narrative:

* the slightest piece of 'evidence' is enough to build a huge case on: for example, a bone found is, thereby, an Aboriginal bone, and, thereby, a victim of a massacre by whites and, thereby, probably one of many, many people probably in the same vicinity, thereby evidence of a huge massacre, therefore proof that many such massacres occurred; a variation of this is the 'possibility' approach: if it was possible, then it most likely occurred, for example, pushing people off cliffs into the sea.

* chapter and verse should be required to demonstrate the validity of any claim: for example, was there just one employee of the 'Aborigines Department' in South Australia, i.e. the Protector ? What about all the others that we don't hear about ? Surely they were there ? Just because we don't hear about them, just because there is no record of them anywhere in the State doesn't mean they didn't exist ? Well, actually, it does. Sometimes the absence of evidence means precisely, amply, the evidence of absence.

* the reliance on 'sufficient' evidence, perhaps not exhaustive but certainly more than surmise and maybes: for example, bones found with bullet holes or sabre cuts, associated with digging sticks, artifacts and grinding stones, and in some number, would indicate a massacre of Aboriginal people by whites.

So where are they ? Surely there must be some, somewhere ? Not just bones, but human bones, and not just human bones but, by DNA or associated artifacts, Aboriginal bones, yes, and not just that but evidence of their killing specifically by gun or sabre.

How we weigh up evidence is a bit like Mother Bear's porridge.

Love and forgiveness always,

Joe

Dear Joe,

I was not trying to teach you how to tie your shoe-laces.
In fact I didn't even know that you wore shoes with shoe-
laces. What I was/am trying to do is broaden this
discussion and make it more interesting for everyone.
If our history books were to cover all of the country's
past, we would have to record thousands of years of
Aboriginal history. However, as we know the books spend more
pages of detail on the European settlers than on the history
of individual Aboriginal tribes. And seeing as we don't have
the recorded details that a full account would require, we
have to fill in the missing centuries by making some
educated guesses.

However, all is not lost. The Aborigines may not have recorded
their history in writing, but they made sure their legends and
beliefs were not forgotten by teaching their people to
memorise the facts their ancestors wanted passed on.

cont'd ...

It is possible to learn about Aboriginal civilisations, not
only from their legends, but also from the finds of
archeologists and of anthropologists. We can therefore put
together the pieces of the jigsaw by looking at:

1) prehistoric skeletons that have been dug up.
2) artefacts that have been excavated or found in areas
where Aborigines lived.
3) cave and bark paintings.
4) the many different languages, legends, customs that have
been passed on by word of mouth.

But enough said.

I meant no disrespect to you.

Well I made a comment about Mungo Man but some here seem to have ignored that completely... So much for reading and listening to scientific facts.

Dear T800,

Scientific facts are fascinating and they are
constantly evolving as new discoveries
replace the old theories. Regarding
Mungo Man the following website gives some
more interesting data on the subject:

http://www.convictcreations.com/aborigines/prehistory.htm

Recently there was a doco on SBS that looked into the claim that the Wright brothers were responsible for the first powered flight by man.
The program brought forth, what many have claimed for years, that others had flown before them.
Good luck on ever getting the truth of this bit of history accepted.