The 26th of January Controversy

[onetrack]

It took well in excess of 25 years to come to a "Treaty" agreement between the colonisers of W.A. and just 6 tribal groups of the S.W. of Western Australia. The document below is light on details that doesn't support their story line - but what they left out was that the Native Title agreement between the W.A. Govt and the Noongar-Boodja mob was fully approved around 8 years ago - except that just TWO Noongars out of the 3,500 Indigenes involved, refused to accept the Settlement agreement, and lodged a Federal Court appeal against the Agreement that had taken about 10 years to hammer out - whereby it was virtually all dumped, and had to be REWRITTEN to take in the TWO aggrieved peoples complaints.

 

I couldn't even begin to imagine how long it would take, or what it would cost to negotiate a Treaty between the Eastern States colonisers, and the 250 Indigenous groups that were here when Capt. Cook arrrived.

And at the end of the day, a payment of $1.3B to just 3500 Indigenes, plus the setting up of no less than SEVEN Indigenous Corporations, fully funded to the tune of another $600 MILLION over the 12 years following the agreement signing, plus many hundreds of guaranteed highly paid positions on those Indigenous Corporations for anyone who just claims to have some kind of Aboriginal heritage, is quite a "nice lil' earner", as Arfur was wont to say.

That, plus Native Title ownership of all Vacant Crown Land in the entire S.W. of W.A., which gives them a major say on the use of that land.

 

https://antar.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/Treaty-in-WA-Factsheet.pdf

 

Edited January 25 by onetrack

[willedoo]

27 minutes ago, nomadpete said:

So how does that fit with the much discussed songlines which helped tribes navigate from one end of the continent to the other? Or has that story transitioned from amazing navigating skills, into yet another myth?

 

If they travel through another tribe's land they do it with permission. If they don't have permission it ends up in a spear chucking barney. Most neighbours got on ok. They did a lot of trading and often different tribes got together for big events, but definite demarcation of tribal boundaries was always there.

[Marty_d]

8 hours ago, nomadpete said:

 As a nation, Australia probably has way too many public holidays anyway.

That depends on your perspective - I don't think we've got too many!

 

But I do agree we don't need to have a public holiday "for" anything, just have the damn holiday.

And they're scattered unevenly, most near the beginning of the year and bugger all later on.

 

Maybe we should have a public holiday on say the first Monday or Friday of each month.

[old man emu]

3 hours ago, willedoo said:

The only difference between them and us is ... they had geographical features for boundaries instead of survey pegs.

I can show you a lot of land titles that use geographic features such as creek beds and tide marks to define property boundaries.

 

Raw materials and goods may have crossed the continent, but it is highly doubtful if any individuals travelled outside their mob's territory, unless it was to go to a trading/ceremonial meeting place with the near neighbours. In that way they were exactly like their contemporaries in the rest of the world. The commoner didn't stray far from its birthplace.

[onetrack]

What is not recorded in detail is how often, so many tribes entered neighbouring tribes territory to steal their women or food, and even kill off the other tribe members. As with most of mankind, there has been plenty of warring and plenty of age-old grievances held between various Indigenous families, groups and tribes.

 

Wadeye is still a scene of constant warring today, as is Warburton (W.A.) and in many Indigenous communities - and in W.A., there are many Aboriginal families who will launch attacks on other Aboriginal families, over long-held grievances - even travelling several hundred kms to carry out attacks. A lot these attacks are "payback" attacks.

 

The very fact that the Govt had to initiate the National Indigenous Violence and Child Abuse Intelligence Task Force in 2006 is telling - they can't blame Indigenous violence and child abuse totally on alcohol introduced by whites - they were indulging in this kind of behaviour long before the colonists arrived.

 

https://www.aic.gov.au/sites/default/files/2020-05/rpp105.pdf

 

Edited January 25 by onetrack

[willedoo]

1 hour ago, old man emu said:

Raw materials and goods may have crossed the continent, but it is highly doubtful if any individuals travelled outside their mob's territory, unless it was to go to a trading/ceremonial meeting place with the near neighbours. In that way they were exactly like their contemporaries in the rest of the world. The commoner didn't stray far from its birthplace.

About twenty years ago, I came across a site that I'm sure was a meeting place for a few tribes to get together. Whether it would have been ceremonial or trading or both I don't know. It was a series of fireplaces strung out along a creek branch that fed into the Cooper in far SW Qld.. What made it unusual was the sheer number of fireplaces; there were hundreds of them. In almost thirty years of working and travelling in that type of country, it was one of the biggest sites I'd ever seen.

 

Why I think it was a meeting place is that the number of fireplaces didn't add up with the population of the tribe on whose land they were located. Even though their land was approximately 4,500 square miles, the number of people on it wasn't large. The site looked like it had large numbers of people gather there over time on a regular basis. Maybe it was an annual thing. There wasn't anything obvious to give the impression it was any sort of sacred site. I'd say it was probably more of a convenient navigation point for different groups of people to  gather.

[pmccarthy]

The warfare is well recorded in the records of William Buckley.

[Bruce Tuncks]

My understanding was that the first whites were seen by the blacks as a resource to help them fight their real enemies, that is the other tribes.

There could have easily been a "treaty" formed between the first fleeters and any local abos they could find, in fact there was between John Batman in what is now Melbourne. They could only catch up with a lame old woman, but instead of killing her, they gave her mirrors and blankets and a bit of paper asking her to sell them Victoria. She signed ok, and the batman lot were sorely upset when the govt, then based in Sydney, refused to honour the sale.

Edited January 25 by Bruce Tuncks

[Bruce Tuncks]

I personally will be really hostile to the idea of giving billions to the abos to " buy" Australia. I reckon I own it as much or more than a younger black.

[Bruce Tuncks]

The lame old woman just couldn't keep up with the more able-bodied tribesmen.

[nomadpete]

I seriously question some of these statements that are reported as being facts. For instance, this notion that tribes seldom left their own patch.

That is illogical from the perspective that they all had to follow the seasonal available food  sources.

And my own discussion (admittedly this was only one full blood couple). They knocked on the door of a boarding house I was staying at. This was in an indigenous town on the east side of Cape York. The house was locked up like fort knox at night for safety.  An elderly couple knew the bloke running the house and introduced us. We had a great chat. They travelled freely all their married life between his family and hers a couple of times a year. One came from a Cairns mob and the other came from a Booraloola mob. No car, mostly walked from camp to camp. No mention of permissions. Isuspect they passed through numerous so called "nations".

 

My grandmother had a tribal nanny when she was a child - and she used to tell first hand stories of their habits and skills. Mostly good and interesting. And as an adult she used to revisit that tribe when their seasonal wanderings brought them to the family farm. Clearly nomadic. None of this tallies with revelations I hear currently from modern experts.

Edited January 25 by nomadpete

[old man emu]

What confuses the idea of widespread, transcontinental  travel of indigenous people is lack of accurate data on population numbers, which would provide population density figures. Nowhere in the records of armed conflicts between Aborigines and Whites are numbers of attacking Aborigines said to be in the hundreds. There was never anything like the numbers of Zulus or Plains Indians known to have been involved in their wars. So I'm assuming that there was a low population density which could be supported within the accepted range of a clan within a linguistic group. The Aboriginal seasons are integrated with the availability of the great variety of foods, and that variety would dictate where the population was at any time during the year. By using the seasonal resources in a "smallish" range to ensure survival, there would be no need for say, a Dharawal from the southern shores of Botany Bay to cross the lands of the Gundungurra to enter those of the Wiradjuri in Central NSW. However, it is quite likely that the white pipe clay found in Dharawal country made its way to Wiradjuri country. Asia and Europe were linked by the Silk Road, why wouldn't the same thing develop in Australia?

 

There were ceremonial meetings throughout the year where neighbouring clans from different linguistic groups met for ceremonies, marriages and trade. That arranging of marriages helped prevent in-breeding amongst the small populations and would explain why women especially would travel, with husbands, back to the woman's people, crossing territorial boundaries with implied permission. 

[Jerry_Atrick]

I will be the first to admit that the nature of the movement between mobs/tribes and the nature of the trade between them was (and probably still is) beyind the scope of what I studied in a law course. So what I have to ay in this is mere speculation. But, given that there was trade between the mobs/tribes is considered to have occured, could it be that they also traded food? It is plausible, if unlikely without salk or some other preservative.

 

Also, could one mon not grant passage through a corridor to a third mod for food and other stuff? Again.. I am not sure, but it is worth asking?

 

Yes, the relative few Aborignals per sql km compared to others may be corect, but it still doesn't detract from the fact the land was not terra nulius.

 

2 hours ago, Bruce Tuncks said:

She signed ok, and the batman lot were sorely upset when the govt, then based in Sydney, refused to honour the sale.

Thankfully the NSW people had scruples (can I say that as a Victorian? 😄)

 

 

[facthunter]

White man's Law would be for white people, NO?  Like today, the law is only available to the very rich. The ordinary person can't afford even a few days in court especially when you might get lumped with the other groups costs..   Nev

[Jerry_Atrick]

Yes.. but the argument may go, the law tha applies is the one of the "successful" side (country) of the battle. However, in this case, the law that was broken was the white man's law.

[facthunter]

It's always the "Interpretation' and  precedent that plays a part.  Nev

[old man emu]

Dwelling on the rights or wrongs of terra nullius will not lead to a solution of the 26th of January controversy. The consensus should be that the Aborigines remember it as the Day of the Beginning of the End, and the British remember it as the Day of the Beginning of the Start. Then each side can express its feelings in whatever way it decides. It even allows Aborigines to jump the fence and acknowledge that the life of an individual in the 21st Century is an improvement over that of the individual in the 18th Century.

 

For the whole population, Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal, the First of January should be the day on which we hang the celebration of the unification the people of 1901 and of today into s single Nation. Each of us can call ourself "Australian", and have the approval of every other Australian to use an adjective that reflects a cultural or ethnic ancestry. 

 

"Ancestry" means your ancestors who lived a long time ago, or the origin of your family. It is hard to find a word to classify what you mean when you say, "I am Australian", in terms of the the here and now. We can classify those who will exist in the future as "progeny"

 

 

[red750]

[red750]

Here's how you celebrate Australia Day.

[willedoo]

Flag protocol allows for the use of the flag on clothing as long as it's done in a respectful way. I think by that they mean things like flag logos on a shirt, military patches etc.. Australian flag bikinis and board shorts wouldn't pass muster in my opinion. With the shorts, people are basically rubbing their bum on the flag. I also think anything that crops the image of the flag is not good. Most clothing and merchandise would be in that category.

[willedoo]

Note that in the above post, I'm not singling out or particularly defending our defaced British Blue Ensign design; the same would apply to whatever our national flag design happened to be.

[old man emu]

While any disrespect to the Flag needs to be questioned, you have to see what is being done to get a verdict. For example, burning the Flag, smearing it with ordure or stomping on it are showing definite disrespect. However, let us consider the display of components of the Flag in the context of our lifestyle.

 

We advertise our lifestyle as being outdoorsy, relaxed of attitude, self-deprecating and informal. We express those things in what may constitute the style of clothing that is almost a National dress. If part of the National costume is swimwear, then why not use components of the Flag in their design? 

 

What is clearly lacking in Australia is the display of the national flag by individuals. One could almost say that such displays are actively opposed by authorities. Try erecting a flagpole without going through the Development Application process with your Local Government body. Look around where you live and see the number of flagpoles without flags. The public flagpoles are only used on three days of the year. So if you can't raise a flag, why not turn your vehicle into one?

 

We don't do anything to instill a modicum of patriotism towards the Flag in our children. Who of you has ever been taught how to display the Flag? (It doesn't count if you were in the armed services.) Who has seen an allegiance ceremony at a school? Each day, very many school children in the USA recite these words, ""I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one Nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all".

 

Surely it would not be too offensive for us and our children to say, "I pledge allegiance to the Flag of Australia, and the Commonwealth for which it stands." 

[facthunter]

Patriotism is the" refuge of a scoundrel" and I wouldn't cite the US as much of an example of how to deal with their society justly. Deutchland Uber Alles. Like religion . just a means of controlling people. Make America GREAT AGAIN and stuff the rest. Gods chosen country and All that $#1t. I f the World's a mess we're ALL done. We are now interdependent..like it or not.  Nev

[red750]

No one is as patriotic flagwise as the Americans.

 

[old man emu]

1 hour ago, facthunter said:

Patriotism is the" refuge of a scoundrel"

There's a difference between being overzealously patriotic as the Yanks are and simply being patriotic by showing love for your country and being proud of what it represents. Australians aren't as demonstrative nor jingoistic as the Yanks, but there's definitely a lot of pride which is the source of patriotism.