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The Forum > General Discussion > The Cost Of Colonisation

The Cost Of Colonisation

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Loudmouth,

"Can you try to understand that ALL. hunter-gatherer societies used appalling amounts of violence - there was nothing uniquely Australian-aboriginal about it. "

There's no doubt that Stone Age life was short and brutal. Survival was precarious. Death by famine was one bad season away. Death by disease common. Death at the hands of rivals even more common.

While my education on these issues is far from extensive, my understanding is that the incidence of fracture bones, particularly skulls, in skeletons from pre-historic aboriginal women significantly exceeds that found in all other studied Stone Age groups.

I don't know that anyone's offered a reasonable explanation for this and I'd guess that even acknowledging it as a sphere of study would be career-ending for any budding anthropologist.

Whatever the cause, it would seem that this cultural habit has survived contact with civilisation... "Indigenous women are 34 times more likely to be hospitalised as a result of domestic violence than their non-Indigenous counterparts. "
Posted by mhaze, Saturday, 16 March 2019 1:23:06 PM
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Hi MHaze,

34 times, across the entire Indigenous population - but in the cities, it's probably not much higher than across the non-indigenous population. So in the rural, and even more so in remote, areas, the rate of violence against women is far higher than 34 times. I look forward to the day when my feminist compatriots pay attention to that statistic.

Is colonisation or colonialism to blame ? Let's see - the populations who have experienced the most from colonisation seem to be the least affected in those appalling statistics. The populations which have experienced the LEAST amount of colonisation seem to be the MOST prone to violence against women. Hmmm ...... what's wrong with that 'explanation' ?

Cheers,

Joe
Posted by Loudmouth, Saturday, 16 March 2019 2:06:24 PM
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Dear Paul,

This may be of interest:

http://australianstogether.org.au/discover/australian-history/colonisation
Posted by Foxy, Saturday, 16 March 2019 2:44:20 PM
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Foxy,
here's another one.
https://www.theguardian.com/theguardian/1999/mar/27/guardianletters5
Posted by individual, Saturday, 16 March 2019 7:53:28 PM
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One way of learning about life before white settlement was to talk to aboriginal people who remembered the coming of white man, and how their lives changed. Of course this has not been possible in the eastern and southern parts of Australia for many years but in the Kimberley, many missions and settlements occurred after 1900, so, when I arrived in the Kimberley in 1970, there were still people alive who had childhood memories of traditional life score white man.
Even better for me, my aboriginal father in law was raised in a very remote mission in the far north west Kimberley, where the first whites arrived in 1912. His aboriginal father was the skipper of the Lugger that carried supplies from Broome up to the mission.
These missionaries did not believe in interfering with traditional culture, they just wanted to bring religion and hopefully educate the people.
My father in law told me some horrific stories of the brutal way women, babies and old people were treated
No one could ever say aboriginal people didn’t benefit from colonisation.
Posted by Big Nana, Saturday, 16 March 2019 8:43:37 PM
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Big Nana,
I have similar experiences. I spend many hours talking to old people about the stories they were told about the very early days.
Many years later when I retold some I was accused of talking BS by you guessed it, young teachers & academics. Some of the young locals they managed to convince of my "BS" later apologised when I asked them if they thought their old people no longer alive were liars.
Posted by individual, Saturday, 16 March 2019 9:30:58 PM
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