Hi Ttbn,

I'm not sure but she might have thought that she came under the Endangered Species Act.

Why has this idiotic rumour got around ? Partly because, once, in WA, around 1907, the Minister responsible for Fisheries was also responsible for Native Welfare. There you go: Aborigines = fish. You know it makes sense.

As well, in SA (and probably other colonies and States as well), Aboriginal people were exempt from the 'Close Season' sections of the Game Act: they could hunt and fish all year round while, for non-Aboriginal people, there were prohibitions, and much of the year when they couldn't hunt or fish for some species at all. So there you go: Aboriginal people were, in that roundabout way, associated with fauna. Therefore they were treated as flora and fauna. Case closed. White bastards !

Is paranoia contagious ? Especially if one completely distrusts the media and get one's 'news' only from other similar paranoiacs ? So that whatever conflicts with the Narrative is ignored [Whitefellas' lies !], but whatever cock-eyed notion conforms to the Narrative, is believed and embroidered - and spread vigorously.

I've been thinking of starting a false rumour to see how far it goes, something like ........ nah, just to say it risks some idiot believing it and spreading it, with added details. And if Linda Burney gets hold of it, it will become Official Truth. Too dangerous, even for a lark.

Joe

Joe,

Yeah. Not much logic in 1907 either. It sounds as though they handed out the important tasks - like fish - and then slung in the one about people as an afterthought.

Ttbn,

'Fisheries' in WA in 1907 probably had a lot to do with the pearling and trepang trades, ergo overseas fishermen in remote northern bays, ergo a need to protect Aboriginal women; and to cut back on abuse of Aboriginal labour and the influence of opium as a trading medium. The Moseley Royal Commission of 1935 into Aboriginal Conditions warned against the employment of young Aboriginal boys, and the 'Mahometan vice' amongst lugger crews. So being the same minister for both Fisheries and Native Welfare was probably a natural fit.

But I do enjoy some of the absurdities of the current Aboriginal political Narrative. I'm hanging onto the remnants of the Indigenous Cause by my fingernails :)

Cheers,

Joe

Another possible 'mis-truth' is 'Terra Nullius': yes, we all assume that it is written, chapter and verse, in countless official documents from even before 1788. Yes, it's used in interpretations of the Blackburn decision on Milirrpum v Nabalco (1971). And of course, in the Mabo decision in 1992.

But can anyone find it in any of those earlier documents ? Maybe I don't read much, but I haven't come across it in official nineteenth century documents, from Britain or any of the colonies, or anything since, except third-hand accounts like those of Henry Reynolds.

It isn't mentioned in McCorquodale's seminal 'Aborigines and the Law', or in Hanks & Keon-Cohen's 'Aborigines and the Law', or in McNeil's 'Common Law and Aboriginal Title', or in Meek's 'Land Law and Custom in the Colonies', or as far as I can tell, in any letters or instructions from the British Colonial Office. It is briefly covered in Bartlett's 'Native Title in Australia' but only from the writings of Reynolds and the Mabo decision of the High Court, which seems to be partly a response to Reynolds, especially his 'Law of the Land' (1987). According to Bartlett, the High Court critiqued it as " 'a concept of straw' which lacked relevance and substance in the context of native title." [p. 24].

So how is it a fundamental cornerstone of Australian law ? Surely it wasn't just dreamed up by Reynolds in 1987 or perhaps in an earlier work ? My amateur reading of the 1996 article by Henry Reynolds and Jamie Dalziel, examining the correspondence between Australian colonial governors and the British authorities, suggests that even Reynolds and Dalziel didn't refer in any way to the concept or its adoption by the British, quite the reverse: that Aboriginal people had almost all the rights of land-use, to forage, camp on land, collect water, cary out ceremonies, etc., EXCEPT the right exclude Whitefellas.

Any suggestions ?

Joe

Ttbn..

This is my source..

Regina Ganter and Peta Stephenson, drawing on the work of Ian Mcintosh (2000), argue that aspects of Islam were creatively adapted by the Yolngu, and Muslim references survive in certain ceremonies and Dreaming stories today.[36][37] Stephenson speculates that the Makassans may have also been the first to bring Islam to Australia.[38][better source needed]

According to anthropologist John Bradley from Monash University, "If you go to north-east Arnhem Land there is [a trace of Islam] in song, it is there in painting, it is there in dance, it is there in funeral rituals. It is patently obvious that there are borrowed items. With linguistic analysis as well, you're hearing hymns to Allah, or at least certain prayers to Allah."[b]

Wiki.

Laugh a minute. I just heard about fish-traps up on a northern NSW river, claimed by the local Aboriginal people but probably built by white settlers in the 1830s. A local 'elder' has spun a yarn about them being very special, with people only allowed to access them on very special occasions, such as a blue moon.

So: traditionally, some Aboriginal groups had 30- and 31-day months, twelve of them through the year ?

Or does this 'elder', thumb up arse, think that a blue moon is actually blue, therefore extremely rare ? After all, down here in SA, another 'elder' proclaimed, also with thumb up arse, that traditionally, Aboriginal people had a name for every star. Of course, that's possible when you look up at night in the city and see literally dozens of stars. Dozens !

You can never under-estimate the contemporary wisdom of an 'elder' :)

Joe