Paul,

Indigenous people can choose NOT to be Indigenous for whatever reasons (and if I were Indigenous and a graduate, I wouldn't unless i wanted to be pigeon-holed for life), but nobody who has no Indigenous ancestry at all, as in Pascoe's case, can choose to BE Indigenous.

Wishing doesn't make it so, Dorothy.

On top of all that, if one 'chooses' to claim Indigeneity because of the lucrative nature of a position, then that isn't wishful thinking - it's fraud.

Pascoe is a fraud, and I look forward to justice for Aboriginal people when his offences are exposed.

My god, he's done so much damage - perhaps irreparable - to their long-term cause.

Joe

In 1870 a raiding party of Apaches Indians captured a 11 year old German migrant boy Herman Lehmann. Lehmann was adopted by the Indians, and given the name "En Da" he spent 6 years with the Apaches. The boy became assimilated into Indian culture, rising to the position of petty chief. As a young warrior, one of his most memorable battles was a running fight with the Texas Rangers in 1875. In 1876 Lehmann killed an Apache medicine man avenging the killing of his adopted father. Fearing revenge, he fled from the Apaches and spent a year alone in hiding, before joining a band of Comanches, helping them to attack buffalo hunters in Texas. Given the name "Montechema" by the Comanches. In 1877 Lehmann moved with the Comanches to the indian reservation in present-day Oklahoma. In 1878, Lt. Col. John W. Davidson ordered that Lehmann be sent under guard to his white family in Texas. Davidson did not believe the young brave was Herman Lehmann, but in 1871 Mrs Lehmann had been in contact with General William T. Sherman who had granted her a private audience, where she plead for his assistance in finding her missing son, Mrs Lehmann never gave up hope for Herman's safe return. At first, Herman was sullen and wanted nothing to do with his mother and siblings. As he put it, "I was an Indian, and I did not like them because they were palefaces." Lehmann's readjustment to his original culture was slow and painful.

Was it reasonable for Herman Lehmann to claim for the rest of his life that he was an Indian?

Paul, I'm curious as to why you even ask, when all the facts and truths point to one and only one conclusion.
He was not, nor ever had been an Indian.
He was a young boy who was taken and assimilated and integrated into the Indian life and culture.
Tell you what, if it makes it any easier, think of him as an exchange student, that's a close example today.
Then there are the stories of children, mainly girls, being abducted and something strange happens after a while, they become attached, emotionally and otherwise to their captor.
Go figure!
No, I will not wane from my position on this matter.
If both parents are natives of a country, then there is NO dispute.
If only one is then, I'm sorry but you can twist and turn it any way you want, you are Australian, with only one parent a native.
You are definitely not a native, and simply saying you are or you relate to, or some other fantasy of an excuse, does not count, and is therefore irrelevant.
Joe, if we all used this formula, which is based on nature and not some far fetched notion of subjective, greed or fraud, you must agree, we would not have the thousands of wannabees we are getting now, stealing money from the actual, real and truthfull natives.

Paul,

No. On what planet is Lehmann's case similar to the Pascoe Fiasco ? How dare you !

Do you think there haven't been plenty of white fellas, including missionaries and administrators, who have felt so close to Indigenous people over long periods of time, and want so much to be thought of as Indigenous, that they persuade themselves that, in some way, they ARE Indigenous ?

But aren't. End of.

Joe

Joe, I was giving you a case where a person with no indigenous blood, had through contact come to see himself genuinely as indigenous. Regardless of what you and I, and that gate post bloke above may think Herman Lehmann through contact and nothing else had become an Indian in his own mind. Nothing anyone could say, could change his thinking.

Paul,

" .... in his own mind." Yes. So what ?

Joe