271 thoughts on “Sandpit”

  2. Postscript to my above comment. It appears many right-wingers are afraid recognition and a treaty now will cost them some tax monies. It all comes back to the money for these guys. Their money is worth more than other peoples’ lives (in their view of course).

  3. @TerjeP

    “I doubt they knew what the continent of Australia was anyway. Or who it was they would be signing on behalf of.”

    This white man point of view about the traditional culture is ‘ludicrous’ to people who have spent time understanding how our Indigenous people did conceptualise their ‘Australia’.

    They didn’t develop or own this country in the way that you conceptualise ownership and development, because they chose not to, because the fundamental philosophy that did unite all the different nations or groups across the continent said that it was a dangerous thing to do.

    They did have a communication network that worked a lot slower than the internet but it linked all areas, except Tasmania when it became isolated from the mainland which was why the Tasmanian blackfellas didn’t recover the use of fire after they lost it for some reason.

    These communication systems on the mainland worked to refresh each group’s variation on the main philosophy as it was the way they shared information about how other groups were managing their social and economic problems and it worked to maintain the fundamental cultural beliefs about country and human nature and the stories about the original blackfella settlers.

    The lack of what you think of as development and ownership was not because they lacked the ability.

    Do you understand what gives you the authority or right to make bald statements about things that you clearly know very little about?

    There are scholars who are telling us these new and different stories about the lives and ability of the original inhabitants of this country and yet you will not keep up with the latest knowledge, preferring your prejudices.

    And why do you think that throwing out random ‘facts’ that the Maori’s were different from our Indigenous says anything except that your knowledge is random and driven by your need to prove to yourself that your beliefs about ‘them’ not really owning this country is correct.

    “I doubt that signing a treaty with a few white settlers was high on the “to do” list of aborigines at the time.”

    Well really why was it was up to ‘them’ to bring up the need for a treaty?

    Do you think that somebody back them could have talked to Bennelong about the situation and what his people wanted when he first voluntarily cooperated with the white settlers? Why was it not clear to the white people that he was way more intelligent and a better man than they were.

    Does it not break your heart to read how intelligent gracious and cooperative he was and the stupid cruelty he and his people received in return? Does it not strike you that the blackfellas showed how fundamentally humane and generous their culture was in that they did not initially react with hate and a desire to protect their property from the invaders?

    Try to imagine a people so comfortable and satisfied with the richness of their social and cognitive lives and the level of cooperation that their law required – have you every heard about their justice system and the assumptions that their system of law made? – that they didn’t even imagine that other people could be so greedy and immoral as white people turned out to be.

  4. Iconoclast – Thanks. One of the comments on that article sum up my outlook:-

    If you accept that smallpox broke out by the harbour rather than from other directions, of course it’s not currently possible to deny outright that it was purposely introduced. But I think anybody familiar with the attitudes of Phillip and a great may of his officers – as well as their eager desire to learn from friendly connections with local Aborigines – would find it very difficult to believe that they had anything to do with such a move. Possibly there were individuals who secretly defied the governor and contrived such a terrible move; though people who lump all British at Sydney Cove in 1789 together as one are mistaken.

    If it was deliberate then it was a horrific thing to do. Even in desperation.

  5. Julie – Bennelong was abducted. You see to miss that point.

    As for Aboriginal people of the time conceptualising a different relationship with the land this is exactly what I said. Somehow it’s enlightened when you say it and white man ignorance when I say it. You’re a strange one.

  6. As to smallpox, aside from Ikonoklast’s link to the ‘Occam’s Razor’ article we also know that:

    i) the first ever recorded use of biological war was by British Forces during the Seven Years War at the Siege of Fort Pitt by Native Americans in 1763;

    ii) Major Robert Ross, not yet a major, was present at the siege of Louisburg and the capture of Quebec during the Seven Years’ War (1756–63); promoted to captain, he saw action at Bunker Hill in June 1775 during the American War of Independence; he would have been aware the use of smallpox as a biological weapon during the Siege of Fort Pitt;

    iii) he was appointed as commander (brevet Major) to the New South Wales Marine Corps; he was universally reviled within the colony by both Philip and fellow officers including Marine Captain David Collins, who had also served also served at Bunker Hill and Boston; at Sydney Captain Collins was Governor Phillip’s secretary and trusted advisor; Collins would also have been aware of the use of smallpox as a weapon.

    As one source puts it:

    Sydney 1789 – in the grip of famine – was a desperate place. Insubordination, exacerbated by hunger and a liberal grog issue, permeated all ranks of the military. Add to the seething mix sick, starving convicts punished with increasing brutality, their isolation, fear, resentments and hopelessness, fuelled by home-brewed concoctions.

    Famine besides was approaching with gigantic strides, and gloom and dejection overspread every countenance. Men abandoned themselves to the most desponding reflections and adopted the most extravagant conjectures. (A Narrative of the Expedition to Botany Bay and a Complete Account of the Settlement at Port Jackson, Marine Captain Watkin Tench).

    Ross held Philip to be weak and ineffective. Ross was aware that his weapons were broken, that the Gadigal were resisting and no longer dispersed when confronted by Marines with inaccurate and slow to reload muskets. There would appear to be a case that Ross may have been the person responsible for spreading the virus among the Gadigal. He had knowledge of the impact of the virus on previously unexposed populations; he was aware of the precedent set by the Brutish command in North America; he held Philip in contempt; he was given a commission to act ‘according to the rules and disciplines of war’. Under the ‘rules and disciplines of war’ Ross owed a ’duty of care’ to his men; in 1789 his men were starving.

    I see you’ve well and truly retreated from claiming that the suggestion of British biological warfare in NSW is ‘ludicrous’. This is evidence that one of your eyes is still functioning.

  7. @TerjeP

    First time Bennelong went to the white settlement voluntarily but apparently he didn’t like it much and buggered off back to the tribe. The whites were desperate to have an interpreter so they kidnapped him. Get up to speed.

    And again you are the weird one – if it is actually a case of anyone being weird rather than it being a case of people who come from different ‘cultures’ trying to understand the cultural assumptions about truth and morality that the other is making.

    It’s good that you do understand that there are other ways of understanding the world and a country but you seem not to have not taken the next step which is the discovery that your way of seeing the continent – as property to be divided up and sold to the highest bidder or the most entrepreneural person who can turn it into a product that people will buy – is not the one we necessarily should be using for the decisions we need to make about how to integrate the facts of the Aboriginal peoples original and continuing relationship with *their* Australia into a story that works for them more than for you.

    Surely ‘they’ are the ones with real problems that need to be understood and you not so much?

  9. Ikonoclast :
    <@TerjeP
    There is great scope for proper recognition and a treaty now. That’s the point.

    Elsewhere, there has been “truth and reconciliation” not “reconciliation” by itself.

    Judging from some ludicrous statements by Terje, Australian’s do not seem agreed on what is the truth concerning the invasion and occupation of Australia.

    The history of British settlement here and in North America is well worth reading about.

    I don’t have any real sources, maybe others can make suggestions. I have recently been introduced to Davis Day’s “Claiming of a Continent” as he recently did a tour through Australia.

    He covers the smallpox issue and suggests it was deliberate.

    Wow?

  10. @Ivor
    Coming up, as googleable sources:

    The Botany Bay Medallion; the Australian Dictionary of Biography for Robert Ross and David Collins, Trove for ‘Our Original Aggression’ (Noel Butlin); wiki-p’s ‘Controversy over smallpox in Australia’; wiki-p for ‘The Siege of Fort Pitt’.

  11. I found this tv series pretty accurate and not too bad to watch. Dr Langton’s emotions are obvious when she speaks about the possibility that diseases were deliberately introduced but the commentary is lacking in rancour or partisan bias afaict.

    http://www.sbs.com.au/firstaustralians/

    There is also a book of the same name and the website itself provides short stories, photographs and time lines that illustrate some of the features of the history of contact.

    The photographs are wonderful and there is one convict or soldier drawing that I have never seen before showing red coats and blackfellas dancing together. Inga Clendinnen talks about this photo and the conclusions that one could draw from it.

  12. And if anyone is interested in the more esoteric aspects of traditional blackfella culture this series of mongraphs by WEH Stanner might be of interest.

    Peter White introduces these articles available at the link below, by Professor W.E.H. Stanner which are “accounts of Aboriginal religion…. originally published as a series of articles in the journal Oceania between 1959 and 1963 and then gathered into Oceania Monograph 11 in 1963.

    “Its continuing status as a classic led to a facsimile reproduction as Oceania Monograph 36 in 1989, with an Appreciation by Dr Francesca Merlan and an Introduction by Dr Les Hiatt, both of the University of Sydney.

    “Continuing demand, and the usefulness of having a searchable version available online, led to this retyped reprint edition by Sydney University Press. “

    http://ses.library.usyd.edu.au/handle/2123/10764/browse?type=title&submit_browse=Title

    Francesca Merlan writes in her appreciation;

    “In a number of places Stanner makes it clear that, for him, the worst failing of social structural analysis is its aridity, its proceeding by reification and abstraction of social relations that have another nature, resulting in models not of or after them, but about them.

    (We might now see this in light of Bourdieu’s 1977 theme of the limits of objectivism). “

    “Stanner also deplores views that Aborigines have nothing worthy of the name ‘religion’, or—to re-cast this in a way that illustrates the sort of conditions he places on such an identification—that they were a primitive people who ‘could not possibly have had serious thoughts about life’

    And

    “That Aborigines have something worthy of being called ‘religion’ would now certainly be accepted by many, not only because of a general feeling (which, as we have noted, Stanner shared) that to attempt to rigorously define it is futile, but also partly because not all would associate with its definition the high criterion of moral insight (he often softens this to ‘intuition concerning men’s life and condition’, page 299) that Stanner does.

    And

    “Stanner describes the difficulty of eliciting exegesis of meanings from informants, and concludes that there is a general attitude of ‘uninquiring acceptance’ (page 150) of things that would appear to be symbolic in character, standing for something beyond themselves. The religion involves expression in diverse media, and all present difficulties in this regard. Song words are often obscure (page 156).

    “The meaning of spatial motifs of rite, as well as the denotation of many visual signs, often cannot be successfully probed by direct inquiry.

    “People will make some comments on myth, but beyond these ‘The usefulness of both direct and indirect questions falls off sharply’ (page 123). A lack of explicit teaching is also typical of those aspects of the secret-sacred Karwadi ceremony which have to do with the initiation of young men (page 92).

    “Discursive (i.e. explicit, indigenously made and recognised meanings) do not predominate, while in the brilliant use of music, song, mime and dance, presentational symbolisms—indeterminate in sense and reference, but still powerful vehicles of effect—abound (see page 168 for Stanner’s application of this distinction, developed by Susanne Langer).

    “If understanding of rite and myth is to pass the threshold of resistance to interpretation, ‘then it must be by other means’ (page 151) than the usual forms of inquiry.”

    Stanner’s final chapter is the most interesting if one wants to read actual eye witness accounts and interpretations of what could have been going on during the initiation ceremonies for the men.

    Although Stanner seems not to notice how women were part of the ceremonies in a way that is integral to their success, he does note in a couple of throwaway lines that it was probably not true that the women did not know what was going on.

  14. @TerjeP

    There’s been a suggestion from Warren Mundine that a treaty needs to be signed with each nation. He seems to suggest that LLC’s would be the appropriate bodies to sign. There are numerous ‘National Aboriginal’ bodies (google them) which already provide the framework of a national consultative organisation.

    In the meantime, instead of posing faux naïf questions, why not inform yourself about what Aboriginal Australians think and say themselves. Treaty Republicis an excellent source for contemporary coverage.

  15. Terje – there’s been a suggestion from Warren Mundine that a treaty needs to be signed with each nation. He seems to suggest that LLC’s would be the appropriate bodies to sign. There are numerous ‘National Aboriginal’ bodies (google them) which already provide the framework of a national consultative organisation.

    In the meantime, instead of posing faux naïf questions, why not inform yourself about what Aboriginal Australians think and say themselves. ‘Treaty Republic’ is an excellent source for contemporary coverage.

  16. TereP, if you decide that the idea of the smallpox outbreak of 1789 starting from the virus sample brought by the first fleet is ludicrous, then it is clear that you do not arrive at your conclusions by a process of rational thought but instead simply decide that what sounds right to you must be true.

  17. Anyone who wanted to see the 2009 film “Hope In A Slingshot” but couldn’t because it was suppressed by Kim Dalton and Mark Scott’s ABC:

    https://vimeo.com/channels/hopeinaslingshot

    Can watch it, in 3 parts, at the above link.

    Israel’s attempts to suppress our freedom at the very least should stir Australian support for the BDS movement. How dare they try to tell me what I can and can’t watch.

  19. @rog
    All qualified opinion from the First Fleet identified the disease as smallpox. There are some rare and severe forms of chickenpox that may be hard to tell apart from modified smallpox but this issue has no relevance to the 1789 outbreak.

    Correspondence by Assistant Surgeon John Mair to the Colonial Secretary (1831/1832) has been reviewed by Professor Frank Fenner, a virologist, who concluded that the correspondence unequivocally describes smallpox.

    The comments on the ABC site to which you linked provide solid refutations of the claim that the disease was chickenpox including a detailed reply by Craig Mear. Didn’t you get that far?

  20. Anecdotes and opinion do not prove that the smallpox virus can survive outside of the host for a long period of time, such as the voyage to Australia.

    Lab trials have shown that even after under exceptional circumstances 60-70 days is the maximum that a virus can survive.

    There is evidence that the viral concentrations in inanimate objects is insufficient to cause infection.

  22. rog:
    The smallpox conspiracy theory needs to be put to bed.
    http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/ockhamsrazor/chicken-pox-or-smallpox-in-the-colony-at-sydney/2972652#transcript

    I don’t know why you are injecting this stuff. It is from History Warriors. Where has this chicken pox theory been published in any refereed publication?

    It is a serious issue, not to be restricted to ad hoc radio programs that do not cite refereed sources nor any sources that listeners can follow up on.

    You are just creating useless fuss.

  24. @Ronald Brak

    I retracted the word “ludicrous” shortly after I used it. I concede that the theory of a deliberate smallpox deployment against the aborigines is not ludicrous.

  25. @rog

    Jonathan Tucker confirms that British troops in North America indeed deliberately spread smallpox to control restive Indians in the 1760s. By 1775, the British defending Boston from the rebels had already inoculated all their troops. When smallpox broke out in the town, they sent recently-variolated civilians among the besieging colonists, causing an outbreak that delayed the eventual American victory.

    In 1776, the British did it again, as the Americans besieged Quebec City – the story goes that this time they variolated prostitutes and sent them among the troops. Half the 10,000 Americans fell ill, and after burying their dead in mass graves, Tucker reports, they retreated in disorder from the colony, which remained in British hands.

    So, the British had form in this.

    Moreover:

    Warren’s analysis of the viability of bottled smallpox virus is consistent with the discovery, in July 2014,[62] of at least 2 bottles containing viable smallpox in the United States.[63] The viability of the smallpox virus, over 50 years old, was confirmed by the Director of the US Center for Disease Control, Tom Frieden.[64] According to the Washington Post:

    The boxes were in a storage room kept at about 40 degrees (F). Several vials were labeled as flu virus, mumps or typhus, he said. Sixteen vials were labeled “variola,” or smallpox, or were suspected of containing smallpox virus.[65]

    So, the variola carried by the First Fleet could quite well have been biologically active. There is no certainty at all that it was inert on arrival.

  26. Thanks for making that clear, TerjeP. While, the first fleet is the only likely vector of smallpox, there is still the possibility the disease’s release was accidental, but in light of British actons in North American, that seems very unlikely. But I suppose it is remotely possible someone tried to get a few days off work by giving themselves smallpox or something.

  27. The smallpox virus decays more rapidly in higher temperatures, but we know from regular logged temperature readings that they never got especially high on the First Fleet’s voyage. At a constant temperature the breakdown of the virus basically proceeds in half lives, so while most of the virus would have been inactive by 1889 it would likely have still been infectious and something that would be extremely dangerous to expose people without immunity to.

  28. My un-referenced memory tells me that there is some evidence of deliberate biological warefare here, and that in North America it is known to have happened. The colonists here didnt bring enough supplies and servicing tools to keep their rifles going and they were starting to lose the war when disease broke out on Sydneys North shore.

    I do have some sympathy for Leyonheljms logic ,but think that it would be good to acknowledge what our forebears did .I’m not sure it matters that Aborigines may not have been the first here .The Maori hunted to extinction those that were already in N Z when they arrived. Aborigines would have arrived in several waves and fought for territory over the aeons ,the arid zones may have been the last choice of land. Modern Australia doesnt seem to want to admit that we fought them for what was theirs and took it. On the other hand I dont like the style of thought that sees everything pre Captain Cook (the land, flora ,fauna ,and Aborigines) as special or timelessly natural, and what happened after as an exceptional violation of innocence. That seems a guilty Christian style of original sin thought to me;- (white) humans arrive in the garden of Eden and stuff everything up.

    We should have learned from each other ,but white Australia refused and then didnt complete the extermination .Now we are so far down the path of forced assimilation that it is hard for the average person to imagine any other option but ‘just finish this off and be done with it’. Our politicians are getting to the task.

  29. Last night, thanks to insomnia, I saw the last part of a program called First Footprints. It showed a very recent discovery (it was new to white fella, that is 🙂 ) of elaborate artwork on the underside of these stone “bridges”, essentially a large natural formation of rock, like a flat table top, with numerous rock pillars holding it up. Turns out that these natural formations had significant help from the Aboriginal people of the time: i.e. they cut away at the base rock and hollowed out the underside, leaving just enough pillars to support the roof. The ceiling’s paintings were able to be dated, thanks to archeological excavation of the floor of the bridge: at least 40,000 years old!

    Furthermore, the Aboriginal lady accompanying the scientists knew of the site, and presumably it had been cultural knowledge for that entire period. The scientists found worked stone axe heads, very precisely made, again dating from 40,000 years ago. This puts their tool working knowledge way ahead of what was happening in the Northern hemisphere, apparently.

    Honestly, when I saw the intricacy and extent of the artwork, as well as the man-made “bridge”, evocative of Stone Henge, it brought a tear to the eye.

  30. @Donald Oats

    The First Footprints doco is very good; and as with the First Contact doco, there are some photographs that are worth seeing and open one’s eyes about the impossibility that people that healthy and fit could have routinely died in their 30’s or 40’s from ill health.

    The levels of violence that were part of traditional life seem to be a dreadful thing to us but this squeamishness about hitting people is a recent development in our culture. Given the radically different environment, coping with pain and disasters would have been essential for survival in an environment that is so harsh and unpredictable as Australia is and has always been.

    It also seems to me that the information about the latest archaeological knowledge they referred to in the First Footprints doco puts to rest the idea that there could possibly have been an earlier race here – not that it makes any difference to the idea that we really do need to acknowledge formally and legally their prior ownership.

    But the evidence about the geology of the country at that time and the lack of any evidence in the creation stories of an earlier people doesn’t make it seem likely especially when there are stories and art works that do tell about how they arrived – with the all mother and all her babies around her neck.

    The fossil footprints of the family group that they have found that included those of a one legged man was also quite amazing. But I have read recently that it was an exaggeration to claim as they did in the 2nd episode I think it was, that the two legged men were running as fast as Usain Bolt can run.

    When I heard the bit about the one legged man it seems to explain one reason why traditionally men often stood around on one leg. Maintaining this stance was another of the ways that people learned to live with the harshness of life and it was also useful if you lost a leg during a payback episode.

    And wasn’t she the most delightful old lady who talked to the scientists?

  31. @Julie Thomas
    She was indeed.

    Years ago I saw a doco on Aboriginal tribal existence, and in it there was an elderly couple who travelled together, on foot, through incredibly harsh terrain. They knew where the water holes could be found, etc. What I took away from that was that it really wasn’t unusual for Aboriginal people to live a long and physically active life, assuming they avoided serious accident or warfare. It took introduced disease, sugar, alcohol, and a completely different and exclusionary economic system to crush the longevity of Aboriginal people.

  33. I’ve checked and First Footprints is available on ABC iview, but unfortunately the first episode will be unavailable after the 17th of this month, and that is a pity. One might think that making documentaries available for file sharing might be a great idea as watching them actually makes people smarter, but unfortunately we don’t seem to be smart enough to arrange that. Potentially we could set up a system such as public libraries use where publishers get a small fee each time a book is “taken out”. It seems like a tragically missed opportunity to simply and easily use technology to better our lives.

    I haven’t seen any of the episodes yet, although I may make time tonight. I’m not a big fan of watching things on screen, but I’ll make an exception for this. Things just happen too slowly in movies and TV shows for me. (Except the Lego Movie. That was painful to watch.) Unless I’m tired, I only like to watch things in a format where I can increase the speed by 50% or 100% for American documentaries as they often have very little to say. Once I made the mistake of slowing down a David Attenborough documentary by 50% and I ended up wondering if I’d somehow accidently managed to take drugs.

  34. Interested to hear JQ’s thoughts on the $500 million car industry corporate welfare back-flip.

    Politically, I think it’s nuts. They made such a big thing of taking a stand against it (budget disaster, need to stop bad spending, free-market fundamentalism etc…) and said they didn’t care if the car manufacturers packed up, and now they’ve capitulated.

    I’m wondering whether there might be a DD election coming up and they want to clear the decks to make it a “single-issue” thing they believe they can win.

  35. @Megan Polls, if you can believe them, would make a DD suicidal.

    Joe Hockey suing Fairfax is making the upcoming NSW election difficult for Baird.

  36. @Julie Thomas
    Abbott really has become the loaded dog of Australian politics. In this instance Hockey is a flea on the loaded dog. Every day I await the next installment of what would have to be the world’s most astounding collapse of neoliberalism. Car wreck, train wreck, the oohoa-ooha bird (which has a long beak and flies in ever decreasing circles until its beak enters its own date which explains its raucous call). It is too wonderful for words. Every day. Schadenfreude has nothing on jouissance:

    Poststructuralism has developed the latter sense of jouissance in complex ways, so as to denote a transgressive, excessive kind of pleasure linked to the division and splitting of the subject involved.

    All of the patriarchal, liberal identities of the Coalition are splitting before our eyes.

  37. When Humpty Dumpty takes a tumble, it doesn’t take a genius to figure he ain’t gettin’ together again. Cutting the bloody arm off what was left of the car industry, then returning 18 months later to say, Oh, have some money (but only one ninth of the number we first thought of at brekky, or only one fifth of what we then lowered expectations to by lunch time). They pushed Humpty—just to make sure, squealed with delight at the gore, and walked away; now they want us to think they are reversing some decision they’ve already made and acted on. I’m not buying this one.

  38. @Megan

    I thought the car funding was locked in by legislation and removing it was blocked by the senate. And the announcement was just the government accepting that reality whilst trying to put a populist spin on it.

  39. There have been a lot of statements here about the historical record but I’ve yet to hear any reason why we should amend the constitution to give special recognition to aboriginal people. It seems symbolically wrong. And we get told it either changes nothing in legal terms (so what is the point) or else that it creates legal uncertainty (ie more fighting). I’m assuming all the best arguments for change have already been put so unless there is something new I suppose we just wait and see what happens.

    That said I would like some alterations to the constitution. I would like to see the race powers abolished. The law should not treat people differently on the basis of race.

  40. @TerjeP

    Funny, to me it seems symbolically right.

    It might be worth looking at the Australian Human Rights Commission website. In particular, look at Constitutional Reform. Their site is a little tricky to navigate but I dare not give a link or I will go into moderation limbo.

    If you read the section on Constitutional Reform you will either find the reasons given there convincing or not convincing. It’s your free decision of course which way you opt to assess it.

  41. @jungney

    Dorothy Parker at Loonpond takes aim at Abbott’s stupid “life-style” statement.

    He cites Rolf de Heer:

    “It’s so inappropriate that it’s laughable,” de Heer told Fairfax Media after the awards. “It shows such ignorance that he has no right to be the prime minister of Australia…
    …A fired up De Heer said that to make those comments about the residents of remote communities was “profoundly misunderstanding” of Aboriginal culture and economic reality.
    “It’s hypocritical that our Prime Minister pretends to be the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs and has so little understanding of what it is to be on country and that there is no choice involved,” he said.

  42. @Ikonoclast

    I know I know. My feelings are also very strong that it would be very good thing and you know I’ve actually talked to blackfellas about it and about what it would mean to them. But that probably isn’t a useful thing to do according to Terje’s way of feeling about the world and it’s people and the narrowness of his vision about how we human beings should organise ourselves and our societies.

    Terje there are no races; there is one human race with regional variations that overlap to such an extent that we cannot be divided up in this way.

  43. @Julie Thomas

    “… it was an exaggeration to claim as they did in the 2nd episode I think it was, that the two legged men were running as fast as Usain Bolt can run.”

    I am not familiar with this documentary. The claim about running is interesting. The best male indigenous hunters might not have been far off the speed of Usain Bolt. It is certainly known that indigenous warriors of many tribes were often 6 feet tall and well-nourished (lean, muscular). Their diet was well varied and healthy and their way of life meant constant daily exercise, often over long distances, interspersed with the daily rest periods so necessary to maintaining high levels of fitness.

  44. @Ikonoclast

    I was referring to the “First Footprints” doco that Donald and Ronald 🙂 talked about above.

    As Ronald pointed out the first ep is available on iview but only for a few more days. There are 3 or 4 eps in all. Not sure when they will make the next one available on iview. I saw them all the first time ABC aired the series and I watched it again last night.

    I hope it wasn’t too slow for Ronald, lol. I always have my laptop when I watch tv and find things to read while watching David Attenborough.

    This scene which is in the second ep, is in the western desert I think where they have found a set of footprints left on a flood plain many thousands of years ago by a family group that included a one legged man and at least two men who took off running during their walk across this muddy terrain. There were children’s footprints running in circles also as children everywhere do.

    In the TV show there are biomechanists and other scientists on the site with a couple of the traditional owners discussing the significance of this record.

    They do make this claim about U Bolt and being a bit sceptical I searched for more information – couldn’t find this reference again though – and read that it is the case that the particular scientist who made the claim was exaggerating but there is no doubt that the people who left these footprints were very very fit and athletic.

    If you watch the first episode of “First Footprints” on ivew you can see film and photos of traditional people who are quite obviously very fit doing the things that were part of their usual life which was required physical ability and also creative ability in the areas of song dance story telling and representing the land and it’s people in drawings.

    The photos are compelling and one thing I noticed with respect to the idea that they were ‘warriors’ is that none of the pictured men had a shield only spears.

  45. @Julie Thomas

    Yes, I would follow the simple rule of asking Aboriginal people what they want. If they want constitutional recognition and a treaty then it’s the right thing to do. The details naturally will take a bit of negotiation. Of course, what people want is not always a good guide to what they should be given. (Neoliberals want to privatise our whole economy but I don’t think they should be given what they want.) But in the case of a wronged people who have had land and generations stolen, asking them what they want so they can feel restored to a fair and just position, is an eminently reasonable question.

    Seeing it is, amongst other things and its developed form, a question of land rights (property rights), it’s astonishing in one sense that “big L” Libertarians don’t get it. In another sense it is not astonishing at all. We always suspected that Libertarians only cared about property rights for rich white males. Here we have the proof in their opposition to anything that could lead to a (very partial) restoration of property rights for persons other than rich white males.

    Aboriginal land ownership (to use the whitefella term) was communal and custodial. The closest thing in our white culture is public ownership of crown land, state forest and so on. Working with these two categories (rather than privatisations) might be the way to go. I won’t say more as I am ignorant of the current state of affairs in this regard.

  46. @Ikonoclast

    “But in the case of a wronged people who have had land and generations stolen, asking them what they want so they can feel restored to a fair and just position, is an eminently reasonable question.”

    My assumptions about the problem are based on the way my father spoke about the blackfellas that he had known back in the late 40’s. My father took a gap year after he left Art School where he had done a fine arts degree and he and a mate went outback and did all sorts of outback work like droving and fixing shearing equipment – seems art students had lots of practical skills back then, and whatever work was going and he worked with Aboriginal stockmen on the stations.

    He was interested in the traditional culture and thought there were really good things about it that we western people should learn about. He thought that we actually had adopted some of their ideas in the way that we Australians lopped the tall poppies down to size – back then anyway, now we laud the tall poppies, like the ‘murcans do.

    He said that this is the quintessential way that blackfellas behave toward one another; they don’t let people get up themselves or become ‘narcissistic’.

    So he said that the worst thing that happened to these people was the loss of pride they had in their culture and therefore in themselves. He told a story about an old man he met who had said that the traditional culture was “rubbish”.

    My father reasoned that so much of their culture was about proper behaviour and following the law that without any respect from us for what they built meant that they thought of themselves themselves as rubbish people and that they would be unable to live like us even if they did want to.

    He thought way back then that they needed to be respected and we needed to appreciate and admire what they built and actually integrate part of it into our law.

    I wish I could remember more about his stories or really I wish he was still here to explain, knowing how my assumptions are motivated by my beliefs about the way things should be.

    My father took his own life when I was 19. But one thing I do remember clearly was that he said he was sometimes invited to dine in the big house by some of the station owners when they realised that he was an educated man and knew which fork to use and a couple of times after a few drinks, they did reveal that they knew their grandfathers and others of that generation had participated in raids on the blackfellas and killed and raped at will. It was sport.

    I’m ignorant also about the possibilities for conciliation – how can it be reconciliation when we never were ‘conciled’ (?) in the first place?

    But I think Indigenous leaders like Pearson need to take stock of what they have been advocating for their people and take the lead now in suggesting ways that we can integrate into our laws the things that will give our first people their self-respect back and create in more of them a desire to be like us – so they can actually choose to be part of our Australia – and then provide without meanness and trickiness the resources that will support that choice.

  47. @Julie Thomas
    Thanks mentioning the doco “First Footprints”. I watched the first episode yesterday on iview. As usual, the Aboriginal participants are both charming and humble. What an astonishing cultural achievement – fourty thousand and more years of continuous human occupation of a continent right up to the present.

    There are Australians who oppose recognition of the unique place of Aboriginal Australians in human history. They throw up all sorts of spurious and specious arguments. The only consistent element in their thinking appears to be a desire to misrepresent or distort the facts, the law, history and all available evidence.

    What they most want is to continue the culture of silence about Aboriginal people and what was done to them over the course of an ongoing genocide. That silence has been well and truly broken and will never be imposed again. Every desperate rear guard action to reimpose the silence now only serves to identify those people taking such actions as the enemies of the truth and decency.

    Such people lie and dissemble because they think that, for example, altering the Constitution to recognise and reflect the truth of history will diminish them or the nation. On the other side of this bitter divide in Australia are those who hold that telling the truth, righting wrongs and setting in place the means to prevent that terrible silence from ever again dominating our culture would allow us to stand a little taller and straighter, with genuine dignity, not the sort of clownish flag waving that currently stands in for national pride.

  48. Amy McQuire has been covering the referendum question quite well for a long time. She now writes for New Matilda – if you click on her “bio” you will get a list of all her pieces – she recently wrote:

    I have seen some supporters of constitutional reform try and argue that blackfellas who oppose Recognise do not fully understand what or why they are opposing it. I have heard others claim that the voices of opposition are in the minority.

    Both arguments are unjustified – anecdotally, I have met very few Aboriginal people who are supportive of the campaign and who aren’t connected in some way to the Recognise movement. The overwhelming response has been one of cynicism.

    And the people who oppose it often have very good reasons for doing so. You may think that’s an unscientific way to judge public opinion, but I would counter it is just as scientific as Recognise’s own polls and regional forums, stacked with supporters.

    You only have to look at the history of the movement, from the failure to respond to the expert panel, from the expert panel’s own refusal to acknowledge sovereignty in its recommendations because it was unlikely to pass at referendum, to the farcical Act of Recognition which binds Parliaments to nothing…
    There are still calls for treaty and sovereignty. They are not white noise.

    First Nations people do not have time to waste on “Acts of Recognition” which tick a box for big politicians. We do not have time to spend on inquiries that ignore our justifiable concerns at a process that has largely excluded us. As the sun sets on any substantive change to the constitution, there is an urgency that says time is running out for pushing land rights, sovereignty and treaty.

    She concludes the article – “Recognise: The Debate That is Failing and Dividing Black Australia”:

    And if the campaign does not have the overwhelming support of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, what point is there to it at all?

  49. @Ikonoclast

    Is this the page you are refering to:-

    https://www.humanrights.gov.au/publications/about-constitutional-recognition

    I’m all in favour of abolishing the race powers in the constitution. But the agenda being run by the loudest proponents of reform is to simply replace the existing race powers with new race powers. An absurdity in this day and age.

    Section 51 (xxvi) should simply be deleted and nothing new added. Such a minimalist reform ought to find widespread support. But an activist agenda that seeks to use the occassion to install new clauses into the constitution will in all likelyhood face fearce opposition and simply divide people.

  50. @Ikonoclast

    Is this the page you are refering to:-

    https://www.humanrights.gov.au/publications/about-constitutional-recognition

    I’m all in favour of abolishing the race powers in the constitution. But the agenda being run by the loudest proponents of reform is to simply replace the existing race powers with new race powers. An absurdity in this day and age.

    Section 51 (xxvi) should simply be deleted and nothing new added. Such a minimalist reform ought to find widespread support. But an activist agenda that seeks to use the occassion to install new clauses into the constitution will in all likelyhood face fearce opposition and simply divide people.

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