In another thread, Mr O maintained that 50% of Sydney residents were Chinese. When point out that the Bureau of Statistics said it was 5% he just ignored the information. Didn't mount arguments against it, mind you. Just pretended that the data didn't exist. He was incapable of understanding the contradiction in his view as against more persuasive data and didn't have the wherewithal to even try to reconcile his position with the actual data.

Elsewhere Mr O asserted that all scientists accept CAGW. When pointed out that there were links in that very thread to scientists who didn't accept AGW let alone CAGW, Mr O just carried on as though the data didn't exist. He didn't mount arguments against it,mind you. He simply pretended the data didn't exist, even after having it pointed out several times. He was incapable of understanding the contradiction in his view as against data that was right there in front of him and didn't have the wherewithal to even try to reconcile his position with the actual data.

Now we find Mr O asserting "Let's just say that I am considered to be one of the most educated men in the country."

One wants to laugh but its all very sad.

I for one feel less than comfortable making fun of this poor bloke. Showing up his sheer lack of cognitive abilities is no longer fun, but instead just plain cruel.

So pointing out Mr O's foibles is now of limits as far as I'm concerned.

Dear Big Nana,

You have misinterpreted what I am saying. I'm not saying for example that a man wouldn't have chosen a M-M-B-D-D from people A of X totem as a wife but saying that he would not construct it in the way that an anthropologist would by using kinship terminology to describe exchange between matrimoieties. Do you get what I'm saying?

Dear mhaze,

Please don't include me on the list of those who are lying to you and trying to do you harm. I sympathise with you for having paranoid delusions. Just keep taking your medications and eventually everything will come back to normal.

MHaze,

Of course, what happened was inevitable and it was both an invasion and a program of settlement. It was an inevitable invasion because no other major power, then or into the future, would have left Australia alone (France, Spain, Russia, the US, Japan, China or India, to name a few); and it was clearly the settlement of millions of people, employing far more effective forms of economy.

Would Aboriginal people like to go back to their former foraging ? Well, of course they can right now, but does anybody ? In communities, is the cry for fewer (European-style) houses, or for more of them ? Would people rather go out and collect kangaroo-grass or get money from the ATM , which of course is their right ? Do people travel by foot between communities, or by car ? And plane ?

It's been that way for a long time. When Albert Namatjira was sked in the thirties what he liked to do in his spare time, he said "Hunting". Oh, right, with spears and clubs ? No, of course not, on the back of a truck with a .303. People often adapt amazingly quickly to new opportunities.

Back in the 1880s, when Melbourne was planning for its fiftieth anniversary by putting on an Exhibition, the Protector of Aborigines in SA was asked to send over some fishing spears. But nobody knew by then how to make them: people had got used to fishing lines and fish-hooks and netting twine for nets, probably within hours or days of first discovering them, so no need for fishing spears ever again.

People adapt; they make use of new opportunities. They may remember old ways, even fondly (although I don't think women missed the sixty thousand years of collecting bloody grass-seed), but they don't necessarily want to retain them.

Joe

Mr O, naturally we use different terminology and concepts to describe aboriginal customs than the original people did, however people like me who have lived with aboriginal people in remote areas can come to understand how the kinship system works. Different tribes have different skin systems. Some are very simple and only have two skins, whilst others are far more complex and can have up to 16 skin groups, which requires quite complex u derstanding of relationships and is taught to every child from the moment of birth. Everything they do ,everyday, is seen in contex of skin. And no, totems have nothing to do with kinship system.
However, you seemed to have missed my original point. If aboriginal people don’t see the word “ tribe” as a concept they can accept, , then how the hell would they think the word “ nation” was any more acceptable.
In actual fact, aboriginal people who still understand the concept of country and culture do use the word tribe but they more readily ask what country someone comes from, rather than asking what tribe.

Dear Big Nana,

Do they see 'tribe' in terms of their political-economy or in terms of kin group social organisation?