This thread seems to be over and none of Pascoe's champions offered any serious support to his claim to be Aboriginal, so it seems to be that he is bogus.

Dear Is Mise,

If it turns out that Bruce Pascoe's family stories about aboriginal heritage were not verifiable why would that change anything of what he put forward in Dark Emu.

It doesn't.

He took explorer records and painted a different picture to what we had been taught at school. There is certainly enough material in those diaries to support much of what he is putting to us. Why is this an issue?

Hi SR,

The problem is that there is no actual and conclusive evidence of Aboriginal farming anywhere in Australia. And to fall back on the excuse that all evidence has been destroyed by conspiring whitefellas, strains common sense. It's a big country, and there weren't all that many whitefellas in Australia in the first 150 years.

And that's no mystery why there was no evidence of farming: with endless thousands of square km of wallaby grass, and kangaroo grass, and Mitchell grass, and murnongs, why even think of planting it ?

And surely Pascoe is not claiming that Aboriginal people depended entirely on the seed 'crops' that they had planted ? And as well as hunting and fishing - yes, of course. Farming populations usually supplement their diets - and spare time - by hunting, trapping, fishing, etc. I wonder if Pascoe was aware of that.

Belief is one thing; evidence is quite another. The truth depends on evidence, not belief. Otherwise, the world - or parts of it - could indeed be flat.

Joe

Dear loudmouth2,

Mate, you have been repeatedly invited to show where Pascoe misquoted or falsified the diaries of the early explorers because this was the very material he drew from.

As yet all you have done is attributed the wrong diary entry to one of Pascoe's passages, something you failed to apologise for, and otherwise nothing.

How about producing a smoking gun or two. I don't think you can and that is what is getting you and others cranky so you direct your attacks on his background.

Put up or shut up as they say in the classics.

SR,

Well, no, I didn't have a go at Pascoe's background in my last post: I was simply suggesting that there is, nowhere, anywhere in Australia, any evidence of traditional Aboriginal farming, and that it would have been impossible to destroy all evidence of farming, towns, rubbish heaps, fence-lines, etc.

And given that Sturt, Mitchell et al. were army officers, and bureaucrats, not farmers, I don't put much store in their observations - IF they ever did verge on suggesting farming. But I don't think they did from the original quotes that I have seen.

As for Pascoe's fraud, IF he has no Indigenous background but DOES occupy paid positions and collects awards as if he IS Indigenous, then yes, that certainly is an issue.

So double fraud :)

Joe

Steele,

"If it turns out that Bruce Pascoe's family stories about aboriginal heritage were not verifiable why would that change anything of what he put forward in Dark Emu"

It doesn't change any thing that he put forward in "Dark Emu", it remains as speculative and funny as ever.