29th April 1770, 250 years ago today Captain James Cook sailed into Kamay (Botany Bay). Did the great lie about Aboriginal people begin with the European account of the events of that day? Cook described being threatened by the indigenous people on the shore. Sydney Parkinson recorded in his journal that the local men made threatening gestures with spears and yelled the words "warra, warra, wai", Parkinson presumed that meant "go away". according to Ray Ingrey, a Dharawal man, the words mean "you're all dead" and was a warning to other Aboriginals near by that ghosts on a low-lying cloud had appeared.

Cook claimed that due to the threatening behaviour of the inhabitants he was forced to fire shots over their heads. The local Aboriginal account claims that at least one local man named Cooman was shot. The "Gweagal Shield" recovered by the Europeans and now in the British Museum with a bullet hole in it adds weight to the Aboriginal account. Did Cook and others lie, or were they mistaken, about that first encounter, just as much of the European history over the past 250 years concerning Aboriginal people has been misleading.

Hi Paul,

So Cook knew - and recorded - that there were plenty of Aboriginal people living around Botany Bay ? Indeed, up along the entire coast ? He wrote that he was never out of sight of smoke from camp-fires. So no terra nullius then ?

Right, wrong, up or down, the occupation of Australia by imperialists was inevitable. Inevitable, but not, of course, immaculate perfection. If not the British, then the French, Spanish, Dutch, Americans, Russians, Japanese. These days, the chinese and Indonesians would be fighting over the place. Would of those powers have left Australia alone, really ? [I'm just listening to bloody Elgar's 'Land of Hope and Glory' on the wireless].

So let's acknowledge history and move on. Recompense where it's due and recognition of realities where they are due.

Joe

What a load of BS! I'm currently reading Blainey's 'Captain Cook's Epic Voyage'. The Endeavour has just arrived from New Zealand, and the locals want nothing to do with Cook and company. They won't accept gifts or even look at the newcomers. They show no aggression whatsoever. Cook walks alone, unarmed, towards them, and they walk away. He remarks that he has seen nothing like it: it's as if they think that if they ignore the ship and it's crew, they will just disappear. There are a few problems when it is clear that that is not going to happen, a couple of shots are fired; one native is hit (with small shot)' and comes back as an onlooker shortly after retiring. The Endeavour's crew had been gathering wood and water peacefully, in full view of the natives who were interested long before tensions arose. No "bullets" were fired, merely the equivalent to ratshot at a distance.

What Paul describes (imagines really) is like something out of a tawdry ABC period drama, specially concocted to fit the "invasion" fiction.

There's nothing to be done about the Pauls of this world, full of delight at any chance to spew hate and denigrate one of the most accomplished seamen and explorers ever. What really should disgust Australians is Mr. Believes-in-nothing Morrison's silence and lack of recognition of THE most important event in Australia's history. All our politicians should get a real bollocking for their cowardice.

It is accepted that some of descendents of those first people on the beach see things differently from the descendents of the British explorers and settlers. But, settlement was inevitable, and if it wasn't the Brits who did it, it would have been the French, or much worse.

Grow up. After 250 years this sort of self-hatred and denial of your own rights and achievements is pathetic. If there is anything to be ashamed of it is our gutless politicians

Humans could withdraw and leave areas of the earth to other species. The Aborigines got to Australia possibly seventy thousand years ago. Australia should be evacuated. The Maoris got to what is now New Zealand several hundred years before the English. That should be evacuated. Humans crossed to the Americas about eighteen thousand years ago. The Americas should be evacuated. The process should be continued until all humans are back in Africa. Humans could withdraw from other parts of Africa until we were concentrated in the Rift Valley where the human race originated. Of course the numbers of humans would have to be reduced, but the result would be a much better world.

ttbn, nothing against Geoffrey Blainey, a fine writer worthy of many awards, but what he quotes are the accounts of Europeans. Cook had a vested interest in seeing events of that day portray himself, and his expedition, in the best of light. Can't buy that burglar defence of "what if" for robbing someones house often trotted out to justify the British annexation of Australia. The burglar before the judge claims, if I didn't rob the house, it would have been a Frenchman, or Dutchman, or worse still a Spaniard, and you know what they are like! The fact is it was the British and not the others who invaded Australia, and it is they and their decedents, us, that must be held to account.

Personally I'm all for Reconciliation, and moving forward, but lets not forget the true history, and correct some of the European inaccuracies and omissions of past events. After all the only account of what transpired, and mainly recorded, has been that from the European viewpoint, little or nothing of the Aboriginal oral history of the last 250 years is ever recounted in mainstream telling of Australian life since Cook.

David,

You propose that all humans, no matter where they may be now, should retract back to the Rift Valley in east Africa.

As blokes used to say up on the Mission, to someone with a brilliant idea, " Well, go on then. "

Off you go, David :) Do you reckon you could round everybody up, all seven billion of us, by, say, next September, and pack us all back in the Rift Valley ? The locals might, for some obscure reason, perceive that as 'invasion'. But you and I know that it wouldn't be: it would be 'coming home'.

Hmmmm ...... how to completely reverse the past. That's a problem ......

I wonder if any of Trumpf's Marvel comics feature a Superman Past-Reverser that you could borrow ? e.g., if only we could prove the Chinese deliberately started this virus and told nobody, it would all reverse, and disappear: no sixty thousand Yanks dead, no million infected (and counting). The thinking patterns of small children are endlessly entertaining.

Joe