Joe,

So, we're either - arrogant, ignorant,
or gullible.

You're the expert here . We get it.

And as I said - no matter what's presented -
you're right and the rest of us -are ignorant,
child-like, et cetera.

All this despite the fact that people like explorer and
surveyor Major Thomas Mitchell who ventured into
Australia's inland in the early 1800s recorded in his
journals his impressions of the landscape. Around him
he noted expanses of bright yellow herbs, nine miles of
grain-like grass, cut and stooped, and earthen clods that
had been turned up resembling ground broken by the hoe.

Mitchell like other early explorers noted what many white
Australians would later over look. There was evidence on this
vast continent that Aboriginal Australians managed the land.

Bruce Pascoe has recently published a book that challenges
the popular perception of our Indigenous past. Bill
Gammage's publication in 2011 does the same. Both were
referred to in this discussion.

It is for this reason that I see no point in continuing
this conversation with you. I shall leave you to your
self-proclaimed "expertise," while at the same time continue
on with my journey of my childish pursuit of what you
refer to as "ignorance."

They say you never wrestle a pig, because you both get
dirty and the pig likes it. Similarly there's only one
thing more sillier than being a know-it-all and that's
arguing with one.

Fixy,

Thanks for your admiration. I try :)

Mitchell's nine-mile expanse of grain-like grass, looking like it may have been 'stooped'. I think he meant 'stooked', or stacked, i.e. gathered into stooks or stacks. Is there any other way to 'explain' what Michell might have seen ? A mob of kangaroos or emus running willynilly across a plain ? A violent storm knocking grass flat willynilly ?

Seriously, is that all there is ?

So what type of 'grain' ? [Please don't say kangaroo grass :( ]. Did Mitchell see anybody around who might have been guarding the 'crop' ? Thousands of people nearby, ready to harvest and transport the product of their hard labour ? Worn pathways between 'fields' and storage areas, mostly likely in cities nearby, the first in the world ?

Surely you're not that gullible ? Okay, okay, you are; right, okay, whatever.

My admiration for Bruce Pascoe, as a brilliant left-wing spoofer (and/or con-man) grows daily.

Joe

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Dear Loudmouth,

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You wrote :

« Generally, at least in Australia and perhaps in France too, there is a distinction made between agricultural and pastoral activities … Pastoralists don't usually think of themselves as farmers, but as pastoralists: they raise animals for market - and are expressly prohibited, under the terms of their leases, from cultivating the soil, except for a hectare block around the home »

I beg to differ on that statement, Joe. Agriculture is a generic term for farming activities. The OED defines it as :

« The science or practice of farming, including cultivation of the soil for the growing of crops and the rearing of animals to provide food, wool, and other products »

That said, it is a fact that we Australians don't speak the Queen's English. We speak Australian English – and that is why our conversation has gone off-track.

Allow me to explain :

The British colonised Australia on the grounds that it was occupied by nomadic Aboriginal tribes who had no ownership rights to the land they occupied because they did not farm it. Hence, our discussion on what the term "farming" meant in this context at the time of colonisation in 1788.

As the seven High Court judges clearly established in the Mabo case, the only applicable legal principle that could possibly justify British claim to land ownership – despite the fact that it was occupied by Aboriginal peoples – was "the enlarged notion of terra nullius" (cf.: http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=8797#283888) that had been developed by the major European colonial powers as part of their so-called "international law".

In Australia at the time of colonisation, there was no Australian language as we know it today, nor was there any Australian law. There were just multiple Aboriginal languages and Aboriginal customary laws together with the King's English and British law.

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(Continued ...)

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(Continued ...)

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It seemed to me, therefore, that in our discussions, we should take into consideration what the British understood by the terms "agriculture" and "farming" and not what we Australians understood by them. That is why I indicated the OED definitions as the most appropriate.

When I was living in the old family home on the Darling Downs in Queensland, a "farm" usually meant a wheat farm and a "station" meant a sheep or cattle ranch. There were no "pastoralists". We called them "graziers". We had no lease-holders. There were only landowners.

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(Continued ...)

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By the way, Joe, it seems the British colonisers didn't do much more "farming" in South Australia –  according to your definition ("tilling the soil") – than the Aboriginal peoples did :

http://www.southaustralianhistory.com.au/overview.htm

That doesn't seem very legal – even by British colonial standards !

Any idea how they justified dispossessing the Aboriginal peoples of their land in South Australia ?

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The instructions prepared by Lord Sydney, only the draft copy remains, and then given by the Crown to Governor Phillip, among other things it included what Phillip was to engage in with the local inhabitants of New South Wales, the instructions were totally inadequate. In the original draft Lord Sydney refers to Aboriginal people as "savages", this is amended and the word "natives" is substituted. The only significant change recommended to the King from Lord Sydney's original draft, and given to Phillip concerned religious observance, nothing more about the "native" population.

The Draught Instructions provides a link to the official British decree to claim Aboriginal lands and administer them without acknowledgement of prior ownership or use. The Aborigines' lives and livelihoods were to be protected and friendly relations with them encouraged, but the Instructions make no mention of protecting or even recognising their lands. It was assumed that Australia was 'terra nullius'. This assumption shaped land law and occupation for more than 200 years.

The British, either by design or by error got it wrong, and the recognition of Aboriginal sovereignty is way overdue. No matter how unpleasant that recognition might be to many other Australians it needs to be done. As I said way back in the discussion, once we put the issue of sovereignty to bed we can then move on as a united people.