Foxy,

So they would have Dreaming stories about farming then ?

And the earliest contacts would have noticed evidence of farming, with the elders being immense stores of knowledge about farming techniques ? Including the first contacts with groups barely a hundred years ago in the Kimberley ? People would have readily taken up opportunities to farm on Missions across the country since the very beginning ?

People everywhere would still be yearning to farm rather than go out hunting ?

Interesting to know.

Joe

The still common assumption is that Aboriginal
Australians in 1788 were simple hunter-gatherers
who relied on chance for survival and moulded
their lives to the country where they lived.

Historian Bill Gammage has driven the last nail
into the coffin of this notion. Gammage argues,
the First Australians worked a complex system of
land management with fire- their biggest ally,
and driven on the life cycle of plants and the
natural flow of water to ensure plentiful wild
life and plant foods throughout the year.
They managed, he says, the biggest estate on
earth.

The publishers of his book say it re-writes the history
of the continent.

It's a big claim. But not to big. Gammage says,
"When I look at the subject, I think, that's right.
When I think it's my claim, I think people might
regard me as a mug liar. But I believe the book
will lead to a re-think of what Aboriginals did."

There's more at:

http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/books/the-first-farmers-20110930-111gv.html

Bill Gammage - "The Biggest Estateon Earth: How Aborigines
Made Australia."

Explodes the myth that pre-settlement Australia was an
untamed wilderness revealing the complex country-wide
systems of land management used by Aboriginal people.

http://www.allenandunwin.com/browse/books/general-books/history/The-Biggest-Estate-on-Earth-Bill-Gammage-9781743311325

cont'd ...

My apologies. I made a typo in the first
link I gave. Here it is again:

http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/books/the-first-farmers-20110930-1l1gv.html

Foxy,

Why the reluctance to recognise that Aboriginal people did go out hunting (mainly men) and gathering (mainly women) ? Every group that I have ever read about did that in the early days. That's what was reported. So why this insistence that they were mainly farmers, when there is so little evidence of that anywhere ?

People 'managed' the environment with fire - well, maybe, but more like set fire to the landscape in order to drive out animals; that would make sense: a form of hunting. But setting fire to the bush is not really farming, is it ? Otherwise national park rangers might, to their surprise, find themselves classified as farmers. Every pyromaniac too.

'To farm' has a fairly clear definition, hingeing on cultivating the ground. I'm still waiting for any evidence that that occurred here: any specific cultivating tools ? Specialised tool-makers ?

I have great respect for Bill Gammage, but he may have gilded the lily somewhat. He was my class-mate at Wagga High School, a good friend, he lived just down the road at Turvey Park, we used to insult each other in Latin. When I left, we wrote to each other for a year or so. Lovely bloke. So I fear reading his book - I want to keep a high opinion of him.

So please tell me, Foxy, does he write of cultivating the soil ? Not just setting fire to the landscape (we would all love to do that, so exciting) but actually cultivating, growing something which is special, more productive than the crap beyond the cultivated area (otherwise, what the hell is the point of cultivating anything ?)

As for Major Mitchell's observation of a nine-mile paddock of stooped (stooked?) grass: in the Middle Ages in Britain, the definition of an acre was: the area that a man with a bullock could plow up in a day. A nine-mile paddock (and, say, a mile wide) would contain around 5500 acres. That's a hell of a lot of land to plough, let alone turn over with a stick.

Any reconsiderations ?

People interested in this topic should try to get
hold of Bill Gammage's book "The Biggest Estate on
Earth: How Aborigines Made Australia."

And - Bruce Pascoe's "Dark Emu."

See you folks on another discussion.

.

Dear Is Mise,

.

You wrote :

« You should ask "What was the value of Eastern Australia?" Britain didn't claim the whole country, the West was considered French territory »

I was replying to Individual’s question : “Any figures/estimates what it's [Australia’s] worth was in 1788 ?” – not just “that part of Australia claimed by Britain”.
.

Dear Loudmouth,

.

You wrote :

« You're touching on a different matter - what in law is termed "res nullius", 'a thing or space without government'. None of all this is peculiarly British, it's standard international law »

That could be, Joe, but, as I indicated, I was actually referring to Aboriginal land ownership and “terra nullius” – not government.
British common law failed to recognise Aboriginal rights to land. International law, as it stood in 1788, had been elaborated by the major European colonial powers to suit their purposes. None of the world’s indigenous peoples were consulted or invited to participate in their deliberations. It was strictly a European construction. The rest of the world had no say in it. Its validity is not at all evident by today’s standards.
.

You noted :

« You mentioned Badu. Yes, people on the TS Islands farmed the land, cleared it, cultivated it, dug it, planted it, weeded it, built up irrigation works on it, marked its boundaries with rocks, markers often going out into the sea to mark sea-bedrights as well. In other words, they owned the land in British Law »

That may be so but, in the Mabo case, Justice Brennan indicated a wider application of his rulings :

« Nor can the circumstances which might be thought to differentiate the Murray Islands from other parts of Australia be invoked as an acceptable ground for distinguishing the entitlement of the Meriam people from the entitlement of other indigenous inhabitants to the use and enjoyment of their traditional lands »

.

(Continued …)

.