mhaze, gotcha.
I actually don't get some styles of discourse, maybe it has to do with coming from a non-English speaking background.
Who knows?
I only know that if I don't get the correct meaning of a comment, I cannot respond truthfully and honestly, thereby justifying and validating the conversation as is the practiced and expected convention.
Anyway it doesn't matter, in hindsight, I feel it might have been a "throw away" comment.

Dear mhaze,

“Did you seriously think I didn't know these were nom de plumes?”

Of course you did and you got caught out so now you are, in typical deceitful mhaze fashion, attempting to claim otherwise. Don't bother, no one is buying it.

But this bit of rank hypocrisy takes the cake;

“Unfortunately in SR-land that's how it works. Don't like the facts - ignore them for any reason at hand. Me? I want to see if those facts are valid.”

My god mate, you have linked to a page attempting to discredit Pascoe because it claims he is not of any aboriginal descent, primarily because they are struggling to counter the facts he has presented, yet you have the gall to try and pull me up?

Stop. You are presenting as an utter fool.

Dear big nana,

You write;

"Steele, regards those atrocities and massacres. My understanding comes from reading first hand letters and journals going back to early 1800s."

So have mine.

As to aboriginal health when touring the NT I visited a community without any doctors, just a nurse even though they were a similar size to the country town I live in in Victoria which was serviced by three doctors. It is very difficult for me to reconcile these facts with your position that it is adequate and not much of a factor.

Steele Redux,

I wonder if that's your real name. Or maybe .... a nom de plume ? Ay ? No ! Surely not !

As for critiques of Pascoe " .... primarily because they are struggling to counter the facts he has presented ...."

begs the question: what 'facts' ? He fabricated what you laughably call 'facts'. If you have the courage to check what Mitchell and Sturt and Lindsay et al. actually write, you will notice a certain amount of embroidery, exaggeration, in the Pascoe Versions.

For example, none of those writers talk about cultivating the ground, i.e. farming. They don't declare that people were pasturing animals, or even definitely penning them for wool or milk, i.e. pastoralism. They don't talk about large permanent towns at all, probably to Pascoe's irritation.

Mitchell writes of grain being 'stooped', i.e. stooked, i.e. stacked, i.e. gathered, most likely by women - IF it had indeed been 'stooped'. Severe thunderstorms can also have those effects on a large field of grasses, not to mention emus and kangaroos running in panic hither and thither (mostly thither) in response to the noise and lightning of major storms.

I'd prefer to imagine that women have gathered those grasses in 'stoops', to leave them to dry, with the intention of stripping off the seed later and taking it back to camp to grind it into damper, i.e. 'cakes'.

Large gatherings of people, usually for ceremonial purposes, are still fairly common: a friend told me about a huge gathering at Willowra a few years ago, with the women working their arses off every day co gather seed - until they went on strike, Lysistrata-like, whereupon the men packed all of their extremely important secret business in. In Rev. Taplin's Journal, he writes many times of large crowds arriving for ceremonies and fights, during the 1860s and 1870s, and a week or so later travelling back to their own countries, and his hassles in scrambling to get rations for them.

[TBC]

[continued]

So you're aware of hunting stories but not planting or harvesting stories ? Gathering stories and dances but not 'fertilising' stories and songs and dances which are common in traditional peasant societies to mark the beginning of the planting season(check out Frazer's 'Golden Bough' which is full of descriptions of such ceremonies) ?

What might that say about traditional Aboriginal economy and society here ?

Which makes me curious about your actual agenda in promoting Pascoe's preposterous claims ? And why the de-valuing and trivialisation of hunting and gathering ?

Joe

Hi Joe, been over in NZ, sent the boys out to do a bit of that hunter gathering last Thursday Friday. Came back on with a few leaves and berries ha ha. Nah, mate the oysters, crays, all the fish etc etc, unbelievable. Put a beast in the ground yesterday etc etc. Do I need to tell you more. After party to 2am. See you are still giving BP and his book a hard time. Cant say more from the phone, next stop Fiji.