Letter to the Editor
STOP brainwashing children with nonsense
“Indigenous writer says Aborigines were farmers “ (Courier Mail 25/5/19) writer Bruce Pascoe’s book ‘Dark Emu’ adapted for children is based on a nonsense theory without any substantiating facts. He refers to Sir Thomas Mitchell in the 1830’s who rode through nine miles of stooped grain, indicating aboriginal people were harvesting grain. Nine miles really, where were the people to ‘stoop’ such a huge area and what species was it? Far more likely the native grasses had been subject to a cyclone and were twisted into ‘stoops’ by the swirling winds, something a Pommie had never seen, it often happens in cane plantations and grasses today. Then claims the British destroyed the crops that’s why there’s no trace—rubbish.
Lieutenant Grey came across yam pastures that reached the horizon, there are no yams here of such quantity, native yams are small plants, vines or shrubs. Yams as in tropical areas or Taro have a distinguished large spade shaped leaves on long fleshy petioles often confused with native Conjevoi, Acasia brisbanensis, these poisonous plants do grow in very large areas.
As for his fish traps being of some outstanding feature, most country kids-built fish traps that years later were deemed aboriginal. Rock walls or caves for shelter was because the ground was too hard to use sicks and there were no bushes to use as walls. Another baloney faux history to mislead children.
G J May
Forestdale 4118
Editor: What explorer Thomas Mitchell referred to is most likely one species of numerous native sorghum which grows naturally throughout northern Australia. Had large stands of this plant, which grows to one metre tall been wind-swept, it could give the appearance of being farmed. No such luck for author Bruce Pascoe who is trying to rewrite and uplift a “wretched race of people” as explorers of this era described Aborigines.
Aborigines did not practice ‘farming’ as we know it. They did however perfect firestick farming by burning areas of native grasses thus regenerating more palatable grass regrowth attracting their major meat food source, kangaroos and wallabies.
Coastal Aborigines did build rock fish traps some of which remain in the far north today.
Bruce Pascoe should be thankful; if it were not for the dreaded whiteman he wouldn’t be here today.
Well said Kawon.Editor
John,
Mr Pascoe asserts that the actual explorers whose diaries he consults , actually contrived to withhold true witness accounts of aboriginal peoples engaged in agriculture. So he asks us to believe that the explorers recorded signs of farming practice , but actually denied aboriginal peoples what they themselves witnessed on their exploratory travels. So, which is it?
http://gutenberg.net.au/explorers-journals.html
John McPherson, if you access the website that I have delivered to you, and IF you choose to buy the novel>>> Dark Emu, you can cross check all Mr Pascoe’s claims. Actually reading the journals or diary entries of the explorers is quite interesting. Many of the explorers were very LIBERAL in their viewpoints , and sensitive to aboriginal peoples. I myself found that Mr Pascoe has embellished the commentary of the explorers , and misrepresented what was recorded , on too many occasions to count. The most ridiculous claims of the author are that aboriginal peoples cultivated , tilled, weeded , and harvested , thousands of miles of grain crops , and all done with ????? STONE PICK HEAD implements. A lot of Dark Emu was inspired by the work of 1 x Rupert Gerritsen, a socialist if not an outright commie.
IF one takes even one assertion by Pascoe, or even more carelessly the botanical name of a grass , and it’s supposed common name , you are in trouble in this argument re-EXPLORERS’ DIARY ENTRIES , and FACT.
I have investigated the Panicum loevinode that was witnessed as the green pasture that Mitchell rode through( My post JUNE 25TH) , and it is NOT COOLY GRASS.
Contributors to this debate have been misdirected by the term “cooly”
COOLY is actually PANICUM DECOMPOSITUM…providing a larger grain.
Panicum loevinode is actually referred to as PEPPER GRASS.
IF you then look at images of PEPPER GRASS, you will see a grass head with the smallest of seeds , which explains why the aboriginal women were compelled to “PULL” such extensive lines of the plant.
The volume of GREEN MATERIAL PULLED*, to achieve a small collection of seed would be exponentially disproportionate to the reward.
“LIVERPOOL PLAINS DISTRICT.
GOOLAH GRASS SEED, PANICUM LOEVINODE… about the SIZE OF A PINHEAD…
The Coolies from India name this Seed the Sawa Chena, they say that it is Cultivated in India & it is Made use of there as bread…”
SO, there finally is the story of the PULLED CLUMPS of grass( Panicum Loevinode) observed by Mitchell. Miniscule grain head necessitating the collection of interminably more green material than required from other more robust grain providing plants.
FROM>>>Volume 01: Production and resources of the northern and western districts of New South Wales, 1854 [ca. 1850-1857] – Page 67
Not much research went into this book. Pascoe is just a militant, poor blackfella me.Editor
As Bruce Pascoe’s research relies heavily on the diaries of early colonial explorers, it beggars belief that bigotry finds a way to dismiss his work.
It is an age old tactic – fear of the truth is responded to with deflection, distraction and personal attack.
Don’t be afraid of history, even if it is not the type of history that allows you to remain comfortably ignorant.
It’s funny, I just had the ABC on and was confronted with some part aboriginal academic lauding the great achievements of aboriginal Australians, and thought to myself what the hell is going on? Why is aboriginal history being rewritten and given a platform like the national broadcaster to spread this misinformation.
Hi there have a look at this story about the real origin of Aborigines.
https://cairnsnews.org/2018/10/26/republish-dreamtime-a-cruel-delusion-of-british-anthropologists/
Thanks, I’ve been interested in archaeology and prehistory for 50 plus years and I was delighted with the “dark emu exposed ” website.
I have followed Cairns News since it started.
Well said, if you search cairnsnews for ‘phoenicians’ you will find the history of Aborigines.Editor
Forgot to add look at ABS stats on indigenous. You can refine down to number in each town.
Less than 700,000 people “identify as aboriginal ” of which only 2% still speak their language (all in the top end) something like $4 BILLION is spent on them by the govt. And they have the same access as everyone else to all services plus indigenous only health, housing, legal etc.
They are now trying to revive the dead aboriginal languages (Words written down by white people) even though no one living knows how to pronounce it!
Bendigo has 1000 people who identify as aboriginal out of 120,000 yet council in its wisdom is going to create bilingual signage because of the activists.
And here’s an interesting wrinkle in the treaty debate, the land and aboriginal councils are all CORPORATIONS with the boards APPOINTED BY THE MINISTER none are elected. There is no electoral roll for aboriginals, they are just lumped in with the general population. Contrast this with native Americans who have got an electoral roll and elect their council directly to represent them.
If the Minister appoints the representatives who he is going to negotiate the treaty with, how is this democratic or legal?
“Fire stick farming ” is itself a misnomer, it refers to practices of people’s in third world countries who clear jungle by burning in order to plant crops for harvesting later. Aboriginal ancestors came to northern Australia and gradually migrated south. It was a mixed forest and Casuarina not eucalyptus dominated. And they started burning the bush to open it up and provide more grazing for roos, a major food source. Hardly classed as farming. They altered the landscape forever, eucalyptus survive fire well, thus we now have a flammable monoculture forest. So in fact they were the first environmental vandals by changing the landscape.
The fish and eel traps are hardly unique as a quick Google shows. In the north sea (Doggerland) and Baltic Sea (drowned valleys) mesolithic and Neolithic traps have been discovered just as old as those claimed for aboriginals in Australia. Just read of one recently discovered in Canada. They are also found all over the US.
As for the alleged stone huts, that is laughable, if you have ever looked at the real Neolithic stone houses of UK and Europe, they even had built-in dressers to put there Clay pots in. I agree with the authors, these were windbreaks.
I’m also getting tired of experts constantly referring to top end aboriginal rituals and customs, they do this because the people in the south who identify as aboriginal, have majority European ancestry and have lived an urban lifestyle for at least three generations. Add that 98% of people who identify as aboriginal speak only English. Therefore how can they justify their claim to aborinality?
It’s a) Marxist indoctrination by leftists and b) $$$ for the gimme tribe.
The Narran was full of water every where, and
with this abundance of water there was also plenty of most excellent
grass. The Panicum loevinode of Dr. Lindley seemed to predominate, a
grass whereof the seed (“Cooly”) is made by the natives into a kind of
paste or bread. Dry heaps of this grass, that had been pulled expressly for
the purpose of gathering the seed, lay along our path for many miles. I
counted nine miles along the river, in which we rode through this grass
only, reaching to our saddle-girths, and the same grass seemed to grow
back from the river, at least as far as the eye could reach through a very
open forest. I had never seen such rich natural pasturage in any other part
of New South Wales. Still it was what supplied the bread of the natives…
MITCHELL REPORTS HIS OBSERVATIONS AS >>>>NATURAL <<<< PASTURES
MAKES NO MENTION OF CULTIVATION
Dry heaps of this grass, that had been pulled expressly for
the purpose of gathering the seed,<<<< HEAPS OF GRASS DOES NOT REFLECT ON EUROPEAN CONCEPT OF SHEAVES OR STOOPED OR STOOKED ….
Pastoralists today refer to this grass as green panic*
Mitchell does not say he rode through nine miles of stooped grain…nine miles referenced as total dimension , and NOT 9 miles of grass heaps.
Volume 01: Production and resources of the northern and western districts of New South Wales, 1854 [ca. 1850-1857] – Page 67
Transcription( from Mitchell's handwritten diary)
BRUCE PASCOE has interpreted explorers' diary entries in such a way that it indicates that he was possessed of a theory , and sought excerpts from those diaries to support his claims . In reading Mitchell's exact wording , Pascoe has been proven to me to be a false interpreter of the facts. Specifically in relation to supposed cultivated grains ( 9 miles of stooped grain) – old English not referenced by Major Mitchell, Pascoe makes the claim that such an expanse of " NATURAL PASTURAGE" had to have been cultivated by aborigines….simply not so. Mitchell did not use the word " stooped " ( weeping or standing grain) but referred to heaps ( small collections) of grass PULLED for later collection and threshing. As Mr Pascoe has failed in this elementary investigation of his claims , I would suggest that the entire dark emu manifesto is a charade.
Pascoe is a Jewish surname.
Another figment of someone’s imagination was that the Maori’s used to paddle across the ditch and trade with the blackfella’s in what is now Victoria and a Tasmanian bloke calling himself Palawa reckons that the native population there used to build stone houses pre white fella colonisation .