Talk:Indigenous Australians

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Contents

[edit] Education section bias concern

I think the statistics on the Education section is bias. I mean it's not right putting one group of people against a group of many groups of people (ahhh - the rest of Australia) and call that 'objective' statistics. It also further brings on that whole other stupid "Us vs. Them" slant. It's just not right. And so what?! Some Indigenous Australians still live traditionally so the statistic is tainted. It's almost like saying Amish people blah blah to the rest of the US population.

I don't see this kind of section in other articles about other Indigenous Peoples around the world. I'm respecting the writer of that section and not modifying it or deleting it.

Please whoever wrote it, modify it. TwinqleTwinqle (talk) 14:40, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Poll re naming Aboriginal, Torres Strait Islander, Indigenous

Contribute to a poll here.

[edit] Cannibalism

I will go deleting this material for as long as is necessary to deter this person. This has nothing to do with the issue of cannibalism, it has to do with the behaviour of this person in continually spamming this page while making no effort to edit the article or do anything contructive. 11:38, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

Sorry Adam, we're working at cross-purposes for a moment. I've reposted Premier's section and my response for now. If this gets us nowhere, he's all yours. Hesperian 12:02, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

I've added this to the article:

"A number of sources claim that cannibalism was practiced in Indigenous coummunities, including Walter Roth in his monumental study The Queensland Aborigines. [1] If cannibalism did occur, the lack of eyewitness accounts suggests it was a taboo and ritualised practice, used for ceremonial (perhaps initiation) purposes. Evidence does not point to it being a regular practice; only certain people would probably have engaged in it and then rarely."

I think somebody would be hard pressed to argue that the great Walter Roth who has a museum of anthropology named after him is a source not worth quoting.

Premier 16:16, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

Actually its proving rather easier than you claim to demostrate that Walter Roth is not source worthy of being quoted(wonder if they'll rename that museum}. There are a lot more reliable sources than you'd belive that are showing Roths claims a falsehood from which he benefited and one that resulted in 80 years of oppression to Aboriginal people. That his claims had been discredited to such an extent that 1984 reprint you quote only used to sensationalise headllines in Queensland during the early stages of Mabo case, then later revive by pauline hanson and friends to grab the media spotlight. Looks like Roths article will become a very interesting read with many interesting discussions on content. Gnangarra 15:10, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

If you'd done that in the first place instead of endlessly spamming this page you would have had no objections. Adam 22:47, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

I still object. This issue has been hotly debated, more so ten years ago than now. You might say it was a front in the history wars. We should be characterising the debate itself, not plucking out a single quote in support of a single point of view. Hesperian 23:46, 13 November 2006 (UTC)
That may be so, but at least he has now made an edit which can be debated, rather than making his own behaviour the issue. Adam 23:58, 13 November 2006 (UTC)
so it goes in an article about the 'history wars'. "characterising the debate itself" does not go in this article, it goes in an article about white attitudes, or on historiography. as it happens there isn't debate on these issues among the relevant qualified academics, those 'debates' are wishfull thinking on the part of journos & and other ill-informed (at best) polemicists. regardless of which, offensive rubbish like this shldn't go on the main page unless it's properly sourced. again, pls read the preceeding debate. regardless of your seeming agreement with this individual, (& quite apart from his repeated posting of material from a racist site) he is impervious to reason. check this, it's no exaggeration.  ⇒ bsnowball  10:38, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
If you spoke to him in the aggressive and bombastic tone in which you've been speaking to me, then I'm not surprised he was "impervious to reason". Hesperian 02:46, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
again read the archive, (esp. before you start randomly accusing people of starting arguments) this is the tail end a lengthy dispute with which you have failed to familiarise yourself. now you've encouraged him to insert out of date research into the article as if it were currently accepted fact. apart from being misleading that material is gratuitously offensive. you could at least take that into consideration before you engage in purely personal polemic.  ⇒ bsnowball  10:51, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
I read the archive before I entered this discussion. I don't know where you got the idea that I hadn't. And even if I hadn't, there still would be no point telling me to do so three times. I wasn't "randomly accusing people"; I was talking to you specifically, as you're the only person on this talk page who is attacking me for the position I've taken. Bless my soul, all I did was try to engage Premier in discussion at a time when you and Adam had already descended to his level of mindless reversion. But I got reverted too. Now my position is that this ridiculously dated cannibalism claim should be removed altogether until/unless someone is prepared to provide a balanced characterisation of the debate. I would have thought we agreed on that point, but you're too busy looking for a fight to notice. Hesperian 11:53, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
For the record I think you've handled this situation quite fairly. Orderinchaos78 (t|c) 15:16, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
Ah, excuse me. I didn't paste anything to wikipedia from a racist website. What I did do is pasted some extracts from the following books: Cannibalism and Human Sacrifice, Adam in Ochre, The Australian Aborigines, Savage Life in Central Australia, Whispering Wind, Origins of Sacrifice. And even if these quotes also appear on a racist website in addition to these books - what about the fact that sources that claim massacres of blacks occured appear on websites of communist sympathisers?
The article says a number of sources have said black people practiced cannibalism. Well that's hardly a revelation. One of the most credible sources is the great Walter Roth who is appropriately referenced.
One issue might be do we know more now then blokes like Roth did back then? Well, I'm not opposed to adding in a sentence about that.
What are we going to do - not mention cannibalism or something? What are you going to do when the competitor to wikipedia starts up and I convince their team of professional editors to cover the issue?
Eh?
Premier 13:32, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
The quotations may be accurate. But they may not be. The fact that you have copied them verbatim from this page on this infamous neo-Nazi website means that we can't know whether they are accurate or not. --bainer (talk) 00:23, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
Exactly - even if they were verbatim, they may not be at all representative of the work - eg qualifications may well be missing, or limitations (such as that of Roth's quote below) which take it well below a standard of proof. In fact, a librarian familiar with Roth's work has informed me it paints an overall sympathetic, although hands-off, view of Aboriginals at that time, and the section we're talking about is a tiny, tiny fraction of the work. Orderinchaos78 (t|c) 15:25, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
Inevitably, we are going to find that the quotations are indeed accurate. And no, I didn't do any such thing. I have all those books at home. I typed all that information into the discussion page in the same order and with the same referencing style used on that racist website.
The probablity of that happening is about the same as for life evolving from non-living matter here on earth but nobody argues that is anything other than an established scientific fact do they?
All I can suggest is that if it really upsets you that much then obtain copies of those books and check them for yourselves. If you live in a capital city it ought not be too hard.
For a bloke like me who crosses all his t's and dots all of his i's and triple checks all his work this is an extraordinary level of scrunity I must say.
Premier 03:02, 15 November 2006 (UTC)


The quotations may be accurate. But they may not be. The fact that you have copied them verbatim from this page on this infamous neo-Nazi website means that we can't know whether they are accurate or not. --bainer (talk) 00:23, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
If anyone of those extracts is not to be found in the source document then somebody make it known and we won't consider that source any further.
Surely that's a practical suggestion if ever there was one?
Premier 05:57, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
as quoted above If cannibalism did occur, the lack of eyewitness accounts suggests it was a taboo and ritualised practice, used for ceremonial (perhaps initiation) purposes. Evidence does not point to it being a regular practice; only certain people would probably have engaged in it and then rarely. this is pure speculation by Walter Roth his wording even highlights that he doesnt have any conclusive evidence. Given his positon and instructions, the amount of information collected surely it would be more definitive than 1 paragraph of speculation. Gnangarra 03:09, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

Let's have a look at what the great Walter Roth did actually say in his monumental study "The Queensland Aborigines", 1984 fascimile edition, originally published as "Ethnological Studies among the North-West-Central Queensland Aborigines", Qld Gov't Printer, 1897.

"Though the prima facie evidence of the practice of cannibalism is very meagre, and any information concerning particulars is but charily given by the aboriginals, there is ***no doubt*** that this custom, though gradually becoming more and more obsolete, certainly does take place within certain limitations throughout North-West-Central Queensland." (paragraph 293, "Cannibalism", p. 166, vol. 1, 1984 ed). [Emphasis added]

It mightn't be fashionable but he said there was "no doubt" about it.

Premier 05:51, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

That he had no doubt or no reason to doubt it is one thing. Verifiability of it actually occurring is another. This is the fundamental problem we run into all the time. For instance, it would be improper for the Vicks page to suggest VapoRub is proven to help asthma (I actually use it, it's more effective than Ventolin in my opinion with less side effects, and several doctors agree with me) - it says for the record that it "was created (by a pharmacist)... as a salve for treating colds and pneumonia". I could probably put such a claim on that page, and say there is no doubt in the eyes of many medical practitioners that ... (my claim). I may even be right. However it is original research and WP:POV to suggest so, as any fan or regular user of Ventolin would probably not hesitate to tell me. This is where we come unstuck - the experiential or observational vs the factual, which has historically always been a problem for the social sciences. One problem with observational, esp if one doesn't observe it oneself (as Gnangarra has highlighted), is that one can "hear what one wants to hear and disregard the rest" as Simon & Garfunkel once put it. As another once put it to me when I was conducting some social research from an admittedly urban, young, lower-middle-class viewpoint, if you ask silly questions, you get silly answers. I've been as guilty of that as anyone in my fields of interest at times. Orderinchaos78 (t|c) 15:37, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
He opens by saying the "prima facie evidence of the practice of cannibalism is very meagre and any information concerning the particulars is but charily given." or "on the face of it very little information is being given and that which is not being given freely". not exactly a strong statement of fact. Since you claim a number of sources there must be others with better information than that of Roth, these should also made available before such claims, these sources should cover a broader population and more than one unspecific nation/tribe/family before inclusion in an article on all Indegenous Australians. Gnangarra 06:59, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

The great man also says there was *no doubt* about it. The article does talk about eyewitness reports or lack of them. I've got no problem with that. Roth says: "certainly does take place within certain limitations throughout North-West-Central Queensland." The article also discusses what some of those certain, qualified circumstances might have been.

I would advance the argument that Walter Roth is generally speaking a credible, NPOV source. There are many other sources that discuss this issue besides him but whenever I paste them in here they are deleted! It appears we won't be able to examine them as I would have hoped. And do we really want to get into a debate about the writings of Daisy Bates? I will, but I don't want to.

I reckon it is a top paragraph. Very balanced. In fact, I think the YES case has been quite agreeable really confining themselves to one short, sweet sentence.

What would you change about the paragraph and why?

p.s. In fact, here's another concession. We could further qualify cannibalism by saying we are only talking about North-West-Central Queensland.

Premier 07:45, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

edit conficlts had change para, is that fair representation based on what your are providing Gnangarra 08:01, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

Wouldn't that be futile knowing I'd only put it back up?

In 1983 Barrie Reynolds of James Cook University wrote the foreward to the edition I was quoting from.

"Roth's papers on north Queensland are recognized as outstanding and in some cases unique ethnographic records of Aboriginal language, life and culture at the turn of the century. They cover a wide range of subjects and provide information on many Aboriginal groups throughout the region. Their importance is such that no anthropologist, archaeologist, historian or linguist concerned with Aboriginal north Queensland can afford to ignore them..."

"Roth proved a vigorous Protector ... earn[ing] for himself the hostility of the local European residents of north Queensland that was to erupt in 1905 in a public petition for his dismissal..."

Premier 15:04, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, but I'm not going to go and put the information in as I don't have the time right now, but if someone wants references to Aboriginal Canibalism I suggest Chapter 4 of "Aboriginal Victorians" by Richard Broome, Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 2005. Whilst this is still inconclusive it does provide a great deal of primary evidence and a balanced view point. Just because something is not provable does not mean it should not be in History. The debate was an important one 150 years ago and is still relevant today and thus deserves a place on this page. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 131.172.4.45 (talk) 08:01, March 14, 2007

[edit] Walter Roth quote

The article wrongly attributes the following quote to Walter Roth

"If cannibalism did occur, the lack of eyewitness accounts suggests it was a taboo and ritualised practice, used for ceremonial (perhaps initiation) purposes. Evidence does not point to it being a regular practice; only certain people would probably have engaged in it and then rarely."

He never said that in The Queensland Aborignies.

Premier 08:06, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

From reading the article, I didn't interpret the above as intended to be a quote or even summary of Roth's views (it existed well before the Roth reference was inserted) but more a summary of the status quo by whoever wrote the section. To be frankly honest it needs references though. Orderinchaos78 (t|c) 15:03, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] The Queensland Aboriginies

This is everything that Walter Roth had to say on the subject of cannibalism in his monumental study "The Queensland Aborigines", 1984 fascimile edition, originally published (in part?) as "Ethnological Studies among the North-West-Central Queensland Aborigines", Qld Gov't Printer, 1897.

from paragraph 293 "Cannibalism", (p. 166, vol. 1, 1984 edn.):

"Though the prima facie evidence of the practice of cannibalism is very meagre, and any information concerning particulars is but charily given by the aboriginals, there is no doubt but that this custom, though gradually becoming more and more obsolete, certainly does take place within certain limitations throughout North-West-Central Queensland. Thus in the Boulia district [Roth was serving there as hospital Surgeon at the time of writing], especially with children who die suddenly from no lingering illness, portions of the corpse may be eaten by the parents and by their blood brothers and sisters only: the reason assigned is that "putting them along hole" would make them think too much about their beloved little ones, though, unfortunately this is apparently contradicted by the fact that if the child has been ailing a long time previously and become emaciated, &c., it will be buried.

Proofs also are at hand that within the last ten years, since 1885, true-blooded aboriginal children have been killed, with the object of being eaten, at Noranside, Roxburgh, and Carandotta. In the more northern areas half-caste infants are not uncommonly murdered at the present time, either at the instigation of their white fathers or their assumed black-blooded ones : but to what extent, in the latter case, for the main purpose of providing food, it is impossible to speak with certainty. My friend, Mr. Edwards, late of Roxburgh, is the only European who to my knowledge has been an eye-witness of such an orgie: this was in 1888, between Roxburgh and Carandotta, when he saw an infant being roasted in one of the native ovens, and subsequently watched the blacks opening the body and making for the fat, but he became too sick and faint to observe anything further. With regard to people of mature years, those who have died suddenly and who are in good condition at the time of death - not the old and emaciated - may similarly be eaten: this rarely takes place in the Boulia or Cloncurry Districts nowadays, though many of the older men of these parts will relate numerous instances of its occurrence in the "early" times. In the Leichhardt-Selwyn District, the Kalkadoon at the present time (1896) will eat any corpse, friend or foe, old or young, even in cases where the flesh is visibly rotten with venereal. there is no doubt of this. Elsewhere individuals who have been killed in intertribal warfare are left exposed where they fall. At Glenormiston, in 1892, on the occasion of a black having been killed by the tribe collectively for murder, a great debate was held as to whether the body should be eaten or not: it was only due to the presence upon the scene of the station-manager (Mr. J. Coghlan, from whom I received the report) that decided the question in the negative. On the other hand, it is only fair to state that, so far as I have been able to gather information, I know of no case in North-West-Central Queensland where any adult male or female has been killed for the sole purpose of providing a repast."

W.E. Roth, 1896.

Premier 08:10, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] roth and others

As roth is the only cited source, it cannot be claimed that their are others who also make the same claim Gnangarra 23:42, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

In discussion with yourself and others I've come to the same conclusion. Orderinchaos78 (t|c) 02:35, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

Well you've come to the wrong conclusion. The authors of the following books were also sure cannibalism was happening in Australia: Cannibalism and Human Sacrifice, Adam in Ochre, The Australian Aborigines, Savage Life in Central Australia, Whispering Wind, Origins of Sacrifice. That is just to name a few.

What about Daisy Bates?

Premier 09:16, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

Daisy Bates has already been discussed, I've talked to the State Library after a lead from here and it's been plainly suggested to me that as she was not an expert in her field and was quite an adept marketing person and journalist. This was something I was unaware of when I myself made the same suggestion. She is quotable when used by WA state government - eg she contributed the names of several suburbs (eg Innaloo) and Perth towns from lists that she made of names in use in various parts of the state. Evidence as to the notability of the above sources or authors has not been submitted - several of them aren't even mentioned on the web (other than in that site and its quotes) or in the Macquarie University catalogue.
Quote from WP:V "Articles should rely on reliable, third-party published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy. Sources should be appropriate to the claims made: exceptional claims require stronger sources."

Orderinchaos78 (t|c) 11:47, 16 November 2006 (UTC)


I think Daisy Bates is a reliable observer but I don't have the inclination to get into an argument about it.

Some of those books mentioned above were written by anthropologists if that's good enough for you. Because somebody keeps on taking the relevant material from those books off this page what I will do is set up a page on the internet with the extracts and sources and provide a link.

Do you need to be a Nobel prize winner to be considered a "strong source"?

Premier 14:00, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] WP:3RR

Over the last 24 hours I've edited this article with information about claims of cannibalism, the last couple of edits have been basically reverts of User:Premiers edits in attributing multiple persons to Roths statements. Under WP:3RR we are both (including his sockpuppets) about to exceed this policy. We can considered ourselves warned of the situation and if either of us make any further alterations today to this we should enjoy the required 24hr block. Gnangarra 23:49, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

You are not in violation of 3R if you are reverting trolling by sockpuppets. I have been keeping an eye on what is the article and will revert any further attempts to inflate what is there now. Anonymous postings to this page should be deleted. Adam 00:23, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

I don't think that reverting my edit would count as part of any 3RR, as that was quite a separate issue (more one of wording). I think Adam's compromise wording is probably the best. Orderinchaos78 (t|c) 00:24, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] genetic links to India and africa

As a qualified geneticist and medical scientist I can assure you, Sofeil, that genetic links to Dravidian and African peoples exist. When I added the edit it was from my general knowledge so I did not instantly append the reference (there are several, however - you can start by looking up Spencer-Welles and colleagues). El Bab —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 150.101.122.132 (talk • contribs) .

Please review WP:OR and WP:CITE. Saying "you can start by looking up Spencer-Welles and colleagues" is not enough. We need an exact citation (with title, year, publisher, page numbers, etc.). If you don't want to do it all yourself, you can give me the exact information and I'll do it for you. Now, to get us started, were you referring to Spencer Wells when you said "Spencer-Welles"? Which book of his are you referring to and what page? Sofeil 01:45, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
try The journey of man, Deep ancestry and Mapping human history for starters. El Bab —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 150.101.122.132 (talk • contribs) .
Well thanks for the titles, but where exactly does he discuss the link to Africans and Dravidians? Sofeil 02:18, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Hi Sofeil, today I have done (so far) five surgical operations; as you can see I have little time to be searching Spencer Wells's books for obscure refs about Australian aboriginals! I will try later perhaps. I think (from memory) he refers in the Mapping book to 'gene-lines' and mentions persistence of an African gene all the way from Africa's Malindi coast (kiSwahili currently) in an arc up and round and south via India and to Australia. I think there was also a TV program. As you probably know there are relic negroid groups throughout that same arc: Montagnards in Vietnam; Negritos in the Philippines; Folo in Indonesia; The Andaman islanders. One could surmise that this was the original route taken by H.Sapiens and the continuous line of people of this gene-line were then fragmented or eliminated by successive waves of Asiatics, etc. (try the GenoGraphic project)


There are in fact three haplogroup (gene clusters) found in this arc: Groups M, B and M130. All of these are mitochondrial and originated between 50 and 60 thousand years ago.

My personal interest is in the spread of Jewish genes down the African East coast to Sena-ba-we from the original Yemen/Sena via the goldsmithing trade/slavery, with those genes ending up among certain african groups in the N/East of South Africa.

We all have our lives to worry about, but Wikipedia has a strict policy of avoiding original research and citing sources properly. You can go ahead and add those two sentences back into the article, but I'm sure someone else would remove them because they're not sourced properly. Sofeil 04:08, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

You may wish to expand your knowledge by checking the Genographic project yourself. Then you might be bound to put such sentences in there yourself. As one whose first language is not English and furthermore one who does not claim to be an expert in Aboriginals of the Australian continent I wouldn't dare. El Bab

[edit] Categories...

I'm not particularly familiar with the Indigenous people of Australia, but if I'm reading this right, Indigenous Australians includes both "aborigines" and "torres strait islanders" and yet Category:Aborigines has almost no entries. If this category is meant for Australian aborigines, a lot of articles in Category:Indigenous peoples of Australia should be moved there. If it's meant to include all Aborigines, I'm not sure how it serves any purpose outside Indigenous peoples. I'll leave it to you experts. --- TheMightyQuill 06:51, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

It looks like Category:Aborigines was created by one person, then gradually slotted into the hierarchy by others. I'm not quite sure whether to propose it for deletion, or renaming to Category:Australian Aborigines. I suspect what is really needed is continuing the overhaul of the category tree below Category:Indigenous peoples of Australia. --Scott Davis Talk 05:58, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
I've nominated Cat:Aborigines for deletion, unqualified the term is quite ambiguous and per above we've already a suitable category scheme to further work with and develop for what seems to be the intention of this recent, but redundant, creation.--cjllw | TALK 03:20, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] copyedit comment

I have been strongly advised on several pages that if a link appears in the text of an article, it should not appear in the See Also section. Looking at that section it has several links which should be removed:

  • Aboriginal deaths in custody
  • Bush tucker
  • Australian Aboriginal art (redirects anyway to Indigenous Australian art)

there are more. I will have a second look and tidy the list up but I thought I should leave some time for comment before editing? Garrie 01:28, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Not sure I would agree with that advice you've received, at least in all cases. Maybe there's some guideline somewhere which stipulates this, but I would think that particularly for lengthy articles such as this which would have many other related topics of interest to a reader, it would be better to corral those which are most relevant into a see also section for convenience, rather than make the reader wade through all the text in search of somewhere the sub or related topic is linked to. Also, it can be quite common to blend a wikilink in with the surrounding narrative by piping an alternative phrasing for it, so it might not be immediately obvious what the targeted article is actually called.--cjllw | TALK 03:02, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
Garrie, please provide a link to the guideline - I want to refer to it in other places :-) I find "See also" lists are almost universally useless. They are one step above a todo list saying "these topics should be discussed in the article". Most of the time, the reader has no idea why the author thought the reader should also read these other articles until they have opened them. The reader should know why they want to click on a link for further info on a topic, which is better placed in the text where they were reading about the topic. My first-pass filter for valuable "see also" topics would be the ones called "List of..." (like a category, but with red links and short descriptions possible) and ones with some text to describe why I should also see it. For example, I challenge any reader to guess why they should "See also: soak" before clicking on the link (I expected something to do with stain removal). That would be much better as a link (which it isn't at this moment) from the use of the word in the text. --Scott Davis Talk 04:55, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

I'd agree with Scott for the most part, but (IMO of course) if a link is related to the overall article, there's no harm in it being in a See Also section (I see it as the illegitimate child of the External Links section in a way) - another situation is if the link is effectively buried in the article and abstraction is useful. Orderinchaos78 14:04, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

I thought see also was to direct reader to similar topics, aka native americans, maori and not necessarily a subject that should be included in the article text aka soak. More clearly an article on holden commodores the see also would be ford falcon, toyota camry, mitsu magna while holden kingswood should be contained with the article text as it predessor as would general motors. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Gnangarra (talk • contribs)

I'd see your Commodore examples as being better contained in a section titled "Competitors". It's up to the reader whether they are interested in following links such as those, or links such as to Vauxhall Carlton and Opel Omega, depending on why they are reading. This is easier to determine in text than a list of links. Links to all the other native peoples in the world would be better handled by a standard navbox template on all the relevant pages. --Scott Davis Talk 00:06, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Copy edit

I just done an extensive copy edit of the History section, IMHO this section could be summarise even more with a lot of the information going to History of Indigenous Australians article. Mostly I split paragraphs where the discussion alters, I have also added {{fact}} where referencing should be included. Some editing has been due to chronological ordering as time periods were irrelevant to that section or out of sequence. Gnangarra 13:42, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Cannibalism

It is a perfectly good point and it is staying.

Ain't ti good how you can just cut and paste with a few mouse clicks?

It makes to task of putting the info. back into the article indefinately very easy and quick!

124.187.150.76 04:24, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

I have removed those additions as they are racially/politically propoganda wikipedia isnt the place to propogate your polictical and racial opinions. I would now point you to WP:3RR and that if you reinsert this material you'll be blocked. Gnangarra 04:43, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

Well, Walter Roth got to observe aboriginies in a pristine state, and he said there was no doubt they practised cannibalism.

A competitor to wikipedia is going to start up soon, with professionals running it. I'll be forwarding them all the relevant information you can be sure.

58.164.35.204 02:44, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

The latest scholarly research on the history of Aborigines in Queensland does not support Roth's views or the views of the other books cited. In fact, Roth is not considered worth citing, or a reliable source. See R. Evans, A History of Queensland, 2007, Cambridge U. Press. Books published by Cambridge U. Press are peer-reviewed by other scholars in the field, whereas some other sources cited in support of cannibalism cannot make this claim. Drvestone (talk) 16:46, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Agriculture

Why does someone keep altering my edits to say that Indigenous Australians did not practice agriculture. This seems particularly odd since the paragraphs above and below, which go into details about Indigenous agriculture and domesticates, remain unchanged. Is someone seriously disputing that TSIs practised agriculture? Is so then please just request a reference for this perfectly uncontroversial fact. Should take all of 3 seconds to obtain via Google. But please stop altering the paragraph state that indigenous Australians did not practice agriculture. That is simply not true in any way whatsoever. TSIs were skilled agriculturists.211.29.68.220 10:03, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

Apart from clumsy language and partial repetition of the preceding paragraph, I see nothing wrong with this edit (although since you mention it, a reference would be nice). I'm not sure what you mean about "keep altering my edits" - That was the first edit for your IP. --Scott Davis Talk 14:11, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Weasel Words?

Why is this flag on this article? I mean, what are the specific objections to this article that have earned it this label? I can't help but think the tag itself in this case may be an attempt to denigrate the article in some weird point-scoring fashion. 203.222.66.222 04:07, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

How about "Some writers have described..." for a classic example? Someone has marked a few places like this where citation is needed. M Holland 02:11, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] First Australians?

This article opens with a rather contentious assertion. While the Maori can easily claim to be the first humans in NZ, there have been many waves of immigration over aeons to Australia. Wouldn't it be correct to refer to Aboriginals as the last inhabitants before European settlement?
Even that isn't right, as today, the word more commonly refers to contemporary people of mixed race and culture, who "identify" as aboriginal. Perhaps these two distinct usages merit separate articles? I'm not brave enough to try editing, but the opening is just plain wrong as it stands. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by M Holland (talk • contribs) 02:33, 23 January 2007 (UTC).


The academic consensus is that Indigenous Australians are descended from the first immigrants to reach Australia. I don't really understand your second point - people who identify as members of Australia's indigenous, pre-Eureopean culture surely should be described as people who identify as such? Slac speak up! 02:53, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

Holland's point is, various historians and archaologists have documented successive waves of migration to Australia. And different people mean different things when they say "Australian Aborigine", "Indigenous Australian", etc. Who is more related out of the following groups:

  • Tasmanian aborigines
  • Wiradjuri Tribe
  • Eol poeple
  • Maoris
  • Mereeba tribe....

it actually takes a bit to work out, due to the succession of waves of migration.

As to the last point, a case study / example: If my brother in law, who is of fully European descent, talks about himself as an aboriginal does that make him one? He currently is in a de facto relationship with an aboriginal. Does that change the issue? What if he and his de facto have a child? Personally, I don't care how we label people. But some do, especially when they start writing encyclopedia articles with categories on the bottom of them.Garrie 02:11, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

The genetic evidence does not support the idea of large multiple waves for Australia. Australia is different to the Americas in this sense. Cf Alan Thorne's work. Drvestone (talk) 16:50, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Indigenous Australians

There used to be an article, Australian Aborigines or similar. Then it got moved to here - but this article incorporates Torres Strait Islanders, who have their own article.

Is there an article which discusses Australian Aboriges - that is Indigenous Australians who are not Torres Strait Islanders - other than the miriad of stubs such as Durag people? Sometimes it would be good to be specifying "mainland Indigenous Australians" without having to put it in those terms.Garrie 02:04, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

If there isn't, there almost certainly should be. If there is a meaningful ethnic or racial group which includes all mainland aborigines but not TS Islanders, then there should be an article for it. Stevage 03:15, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Race?

What a quaint notion! ... Anyway, something is up with the title in the infobox: {{{group}}} - Fred 13:17, 31 January 2007 (UTC) As was Category:Nomads. Removed. Fred 13:32, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

fixed info box - occured back on 11 Jan anti vandal bot was reverting edits by a vandal. Gnangarra 13:43, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] New banner

Afro diaspora has been removed. I asked the editor. He referred me to the project. This page would not appear to be within the scope of that project, unless they include the entire species. Fred 08:39, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

I don't know what that banner was doing there, you were right to remove it. Recent dna evidence suggests that indigenous aussies are as far removed from sub-sharan africans, genetically, as white europeans. Rather ignorant for one to assume they are 'african diaspora', despite having inhabited oz for 15,000+ years, simply because they have dark skin.

Kamilaroi 16:07, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Religion/Belief Systems

On 4 March I did some tidying up of the section on Culture, because much of this had been copied straight from the main Indigenous Australian culture article, which has since been much revised and improved. Or maybe the copying was the other way round. Anyway, I don't think we need to have the same material in two places, and so I left a shorter summary in Indigenous Australians and a link to the more detailed article in Indigenous Australian culture. There were also some problems with the statistics on Christianity quoted there, which have been explained in Indigenous Australian culture. I also changed the section heading from "Religion" to "Beleief Systems" because traditional Aboriginal beliefs (Dreaming, etc) are not normally called a religion.

On 5 March someone who signs himself "172.130.77.138" reverted some of my changes, and gave no explanation of why. No doubt "172.130.77.138" did so in good faith, but you really shouldn't revert someone's changes without any comment being given in the "edit summary". So, I have reverted them back, and am explaining my actions here. I am happy to discuss here the pros and cons of whether the section should be headed "belief systems" or "religion", but let's not have a revert war!

So, "172.130.77.138", and anybody else who cares to join in, I look forward to discussing these issues with you here. RayNorris 10:07, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

Sorry about the revert, Ray Norris, I was wrongly assuming that Belief Systems meant only the traditional Aboriginal Religion. I also added a bit of information on Christianity among Aborigines. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 172.133.237.33 (talk) 02:26, 9 March 2007 (UTC).
OK good - no worries. RayNorris 06:19, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

This section started with a statement about the inconclusiveness of census data and just said in a footnote "citation needed." I have provided a citation about the methodological problems with the census in dealing with Aboriginal people. The citation (Colin Tatz's work) is a general point about the census, not specific to religion, but his conclusions apply as much to religion as to any other census data. Drvestone (talk) 17:16, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Not Up To Ray Norris

... to say Indigenous Australians did not have 'religion' when he wouldnt know if they did or not. What is Norris' authority that they did not have religion? I know they did and do for specialist cultural reasons.

Ray Norris, can you buzz off commenting about stuff you very obviously have totally no skill in or authority to meddle in.

Bold text

[edit] Aboriginal assimilation debate

The article makes no mention of the debate over aboriginal assimilation. Folks have been predicting it since the days of the colonies and many decision makers in Australia beleive it is the final solution. I understand a majority of blacks are only part bloods and 69% of marriages involving and aboriginal involve a non aboriginal.

124.183.177.70 20:00, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

You're right - we should have a section about assimilation. But I don't believe there is any debate nowadays. The concept was indeed very popular until about 10-20 years ago, but has now completely given way to the idea that Indigenous Australians have a culture which is just as important as any other, and steps are being taken at many levels to help Indigenous Australians grow and repair that culture, which was indeed badly damaged by assimilation policies. I don't think any poltical leader who wanted to keep his/her job would nowadays pubicly support assimilation, although I suspect many of them still secretly support it!

I'm happy to do a bit of research and start off a section on that - I'll put it on my to-do list unless somebody gets there before me. RayNorris 00:43, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps you need to drive thirty minutes in any direction outside of Sydney, and you'll find the idea is very much alive still. And, anecdotal I know, but the assimilated, integrated Aboriginal people I know seem to be doing a lot better than the ones still clinging onto the old ways. Lankiveil 12:09, 16 March 2007 (UTC).

The hunter gatherer lifestyle seems like it is no longer viable. The Bennelong society has proposed cash grants to wind up some of these remote communities where 25% of aboriginals still live.

Political leaders don't have to advocate it assimilation, it appears to be well underway already at the level aboriginies live out their lives.

I mean, I'd like to see big brother revive extinct aboriginal languages - that would be fun to watch.

If it has any credibility at all as an ethnicity with a future, the future of aboriginaity is as a minority within the Australian state.

58.164.35.204 02:35, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

It is factually incorrect that "assimilated Aboriginal people seem to be doing a lot better than the ones still clinging onto the old ways." A University of Queensland report on indigenous health shows that all health problems are lower in Aboriginal people who have returned to country (Americans can read "country" as meaning "their traditional lands"), and are living in remote areas in ways closer to traditional lifeways. Mental health problems, in particular, are strikingly lower in those living on country. See T. Vos, B. Barker, L. Stanley, & A. Lopez (2007). The burden of disease and injury in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples: Summary report. School of Population Health, U of Queensland [1]. Assimilation as a practice is alive and well in Australia - witness the recent intervention in the Northern Territory by Howard's government (see Coercive Reconciliation, J. Altman & M. Hinkson (Eds.), North Carlton, Australia: Arena Publications, 2007). A common joke among Aboriginal activists during Howard's time in office was "How do you spell reconciliation, John?" "A-S-S-I-M-I-L-A-T-I-O-N". Drvestone (talk) 16:17, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Victoria section

Someone knowledgeable in this subject should review the Victoria section in this article to see if it is reliable. The author of this section has over the last few days added several articles and sections concerning research by some Colin Leslie Dean person, linking to articles written by him and published in what seems like his vanity press. It would seem like original research, non-reliable and non-notable as well as conflict of interest. However, I am not familiar enough with the subject of Indigenous Australians in order to determine if this is also the case here. darkskyz 12:48, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Genetic Survey released

This is rather exciting. I've only seen the summary as my comp is not up to getting the PDF files of the research. I'll leave editing up to whoever is interested and get the ball rolling by posting here. The Genetic survey (analysis of the mitochondrial DNA and Y chromosome DNA of Aboriginal Australians and Melanesians from New Guinea in comparison with the DNA patterns associated with other early humans) was published yesterday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
It apparently has proved the Out of Africa hypothesis as well as proved and disproved many other theories. The main findings are: There was only a single colonisation event of a small group who were isolated after the initial arrival (despite archaeological indications there was definitely no second migration). Australian Aboriginal and New Guinean populations share ancestry with that group and were involved in secondary gene exchange until the land bridge submerged 8,000 years ago (I'm guessing this explains the gracile and robust forms that were thought to indicate 2 migrations). Homo Erectus already inhabited Australia but there was no interbreeding. The original group that left Africa are the direct ancestors of both the Australian Aboriginals and Eurasians. Assuming 1km per year from Africa along the “coastal express” route the first colonisation event was 45,000 BP. Wayne 03:09, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

Very interesting stuff Wayne, can you give us a link to where you found this? I had no idea about homo erectus ever being discovered east of Java, let alone in Australia, but I don't think anything could preclude the possibility, if they migrated east of the Wallace line, then it's very likely they did.petedavo (talk) 21:29, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
I think the paper being referred to here is this one:
I also doubt there are any confirmed finds of H. erectus in Australasia or, as Petedavo notes, east of the Wallace line. At least, I am not aware of any; I think a couple of decades ago there was some postulating that H. e. soloensis was ancestral to paleo Aust. remains, but this is now discounted. The quoted article only mentions H. erectus in the context of SE Asia, and one of the conclusions drawn from their study's data is that "local H. erectus or archaic Homo sapiens populations did not contribute to the modern aboriginal Australian gene pool" (emphasis added; 'local' in the sense of local to SE Asia, not Australasia). So may be just a case of reportage of the study getting it slightly wrong.--cjllw ʘ TALK 01:53, 18 December 2007 (UTC)
Thank you. Much as I suspected, I think it'd be too early to postulate anything other than to give a timeline for dna divergence indicating isolation of groups. The lead in for dna divergence to show up would therefore seem to confirm the -50K time frame for habitation of the Australian mainland rather than the earlier fossil deposits of ash & soot which some had postulated indicate change to deliberate burning of forests for hunting upto or beyond -100k. In the absence of any hard evidence of Human or Proto Human archaeology we'd have to assume then that the deforestation by burning changing Australia to savannah and eucalypt forest might of been a natural occurrence, as can be seen by lightening fires today, and the assumption that humans designed and started the practice might be erroneous. They might of just saw the consequences, found that it was beneficial to hunting food, and therefore took up the practice of burning due to what they observed and how they benefited.petedavo (talk) 01:50, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
Yes, those few claims of occupational evidence 100 ka and beyond remain exceptionally anomalous and generally viewed with scepticism. And although the Hudjashov et al. paper cited above seems comfortable with c. 50 ka, that's still at the high-end of the spread of date ranges, and this long chronology (while oft quoted) has comparatively little uncontrovertable physical evidence behind it. By my reading of some reasonably current sources, more/most archaeologists would be supportive of a statement of occupation by at least 40–45 ka, with the most accepted datings obtained via direct evidence towards the younger end of this range. At some point should probably rustle up a few of the more recent survey papers and tweak the article accordingly. --cjllw ʘ TALK 05:18, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Slavery

Does that result, (that I have a copy of the paper of) allow for the slaves that were bought to Oz, pre invasion?

[edit] Religious Instruction Compulsory?

What a lot of codswallop. Also, SA is renowned for its anti slavery impetus. Its all Jhons falt so I went and said hello.

[edit] "related groups" info removed from infobox

For dedicated editors of this page: The "Related Groups" info was removed from all {{Infobox Ethnic group}} infoboxes. Comments may be left on the Ethnic groups talk page. Ling.Nut 17:19, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Belief systems

Somebody can feel free to correct me here if I am wrong, but census figures show a very small % of black people adhere to a traditional religion. We should mention the census figure at least, it was like 2% or something.

Australian Aboriginies have overwhemlingly accepted the Christian religion.

58.164.35.204 02:41, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

I think you would find, a large proportion report "No religion" (3rd most "popular religion" throughout Blacktown, New South Wales which is the city with largest Indigenous Austrlalian population.Garrie 05:28, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
What I mean is, it is quite simple to wipe out an existing culture. It is quite difficult to instill a new one. While "if anything" they may be Catholic / Anglican, like the rest of Australia the chances are they are "no practicing religion".Garrie 05:30, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

One has to be very cautious in interpreting census statistics about Aboriginal people. Many Aboriginal people simply refuse to participate, since they have little reason to trust white govt employees who show up at their doors. Many living in remote areas may not have even been contacted, if they are living on country ("country"="their traditional lands", for Americans who may not know the term). Others may give answers that they believe the white govt employee wants to hear, answers they believe will create less trouble for them in the future if the whites believe it. So any census stats on how many Aboriginal people practice Christianity vs. "traditional religion" are highly suspect. (For methodological notes on this, see Colin Tatz, Aboriginal Suicide Is Different, 1999, [2]).

"Religion" is a mis-nomer anyway when it comes to traditional Aboriginal beliefs. As I understand it, their indigenous knowledge systems cannot easily be cut up into separate pieces named "religion", "ecology", "science", "art", etc. Knowledge is knowledge, and the spiritual/religious is one part of knowledge, interrelated to other parts. (E.g., see Mudrooroo, 1995, Us Mob, Sydney: Angus & Robertson; and D.B. Rose, 2000, Dingo Makes Us Human, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge U. Press.) Drvestone (talk) 16:35, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Aboriginal Politics

Can someone had some information on saying how the tribe leader was chosen and stuff. I need the know how politics worked before the Europeans colonised, even though i think they actually invaded. Efansay talk 00:50, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

There was no "tribe leader and stuff" - indigenous groups were extremely ahierarchical. Traditional law was in the custody of the entire community, with elders in particular being respected for their knowledge of customary practices. There is plenty of good printed material on this if you are completing an assignment or something.
After the European invasion, a number of organised resistance leaders sprang up - the earliest and one of the most well known of these was Pemulwuy, but there were many others, such as Tjandamurra. Slac speak up! 04:57, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Reiteration of my above comment: Indigenous Australians

As in, this article incorporates [[Torres Straight Islanders]]Torres Strait Islanderslink corrected, who (obviously) are the subject of an individual article, as well as this article.

But at this stage there is no "unified" article for Indigenous inhabitants of Mainland Australia, or as a lot of people would know them - ATSIC included - Aboriginal Australians / Australian Aboriginals.

I know that it is a pretty diverse group of people. The same way that American Indians don't really exist as a "single race", and that term redirects.

But at the moment, if you try to look for an article that discusses "indigenous people from mainland Australia", you can't really find one.

Is this something that can be addressed while this is the WP:ACOTF?

Garrie 03:30, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

What you are asking for is at worst a WP:SYNTH or at best a duplicate article to this, there is no recognised group of people known/referred to "Mainland Aboriginals". Gnangarra 04:28, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
Agreed. This is exactly the same as expecting to find an article on "American-Indians-Sans-People-From-Greenland-And-Long-Island." It's a pointless and arbitrary distinction since in addition to the massive variation on the mainland such an article would exclude people of the Tiwi Islands, Tasmania and the Torres Strait for no good reason except that they happen to live on islands. I can see a lot of merit in having article on just Aborigines and just TSIs. I can see absolutely no merit in having one article on mainland Aborigines, one on TSIs, one on Tiwi islanders, one on Tasmanians and so forth for every non-Mainland Australian group. Ethel Aardvark
Except for the article on "mainland Aborigines", every other article exists.Garrie 05:26, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

I'm not attached to a specific solution. I am asking because the current article structure confuses the hell out of me. When you look at Indigenous_Australians#Mainland_Australia, you get directed to a list of four articles and are presented with a very sparse summary. That is what I would like to see improved. And I am happy to collaborate. We have succinct articles on Indigenous Australians from the Tiwi Islands and Groote Elyandt, Tasmania, and Torres Strait. What we don't have, is a summary artice to briefly discuss Indigenous Australians from "the mainland". It seems that if anything, this article is already a synthesis, bringing together eethnically, culturally and linguisticaly, peoples who are geographically isolated from each other.

I thinks thats more a reflection on the section lacking in information as there are 6 see also articles in that section the 4 you refer to are see also for the clans section. There actually over 200 recognised groups. This article itself isnt a synth as it about the "official" ethnic group referred to by Australians as Indigenous. I think there is also a strong case to halve the amount of content on in this article creating more succinct and detailed daughter articles, that was one my considerations behind the nomination for ACOTF Gnangarra 05:36, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
With the exception of Tasmanains those groups are not isolated. There is and always has been cultural, linguistic and ethnic overlap betweent he other three groups and they overlap seamlessly. Tasmanians are included because they are rather obviously indigenous Australians. As for the rest of your comment, I'm confused. We have summaries of the island groups precisely because they are small subgroups. In the same manner we could readily create a summary article on the Indians of Long Island or New York State. What we could not do however is create an article on Native Americans that excludes Long Islanders or New Yorkers, or at least not rationally. That's because Long Islanders are part of the spectrum of the broader Native American group. And in exactly the same way Tiwi Islanders have a summary because they are a subgroup, but it would be impossible to summarise Aborigines as a group in a manner that somehow excludes the Tiwi Islanders. The only solution would seem to be what we have now: a major article on Aborigines with some select groups such as Tiwi Islanders given special treatment. To try to give similar treatment to Mainland Aborigines while exclusing those specific groups seems unworkable. Basically I agree with Gnangarra; we should be working at getting more daughter articles on the subgroups, not on suggesting that the mainalnd as a whole was populated by some homogeneous group that were all more similar to one another than to the island groups. That simply isn't true.Ethel Aardvark 05:58, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
So let me get this straight:
Officially there is a group known as "Aboriginals and Torres Strait Islanders".
There is a group known as "Torres Strait Islanders".
It would be synthesis to create an article on Aboriginals - that is everyone who is "Aboriginals and Torres Strait Islanders" but NOT "Torres Strait Islanders".
Is that what you are telling me?
I agree that each distinct group needs an article, and that articles like Darug people are woefully indadequate. I am happy to contribute, but have poor access to offline sources. In fact, I would like to think I have been trying to improve the presentation of material related to Indigenous Australians, and that is my background in asking for such an article to be created.
I know, that I don't know enough to go making additional articles that are meaningful and it is better to discuss it here or somewhere else in project space rather than create unverified stub articles which have poor information.Garrie 00:15, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
Nope, there is no problem whatsoever with creating an article on Aboriginals, and I said the same thing above. The point is that Aborigine is not a perfect synonym for "Mainland Indigienous Australian". Tiwi Islanders and Tasmanians to name just two groups are also indisuputably Aborigines but are not Mainland Indigenous Australians. So while an article on Aborigines woudl be fine and article on Mainland Indigenous Australians makes no more sense than an article on Native Americans exlcuding Greenland and Long Island.Ethel Aardvark

[edit] Template proposal

I wonder if the articles, linked as 'main' and 'see also', might benefit from a template. Has this been considered before? ☻ Fred|☝ discussion|✍ contributions 03:58, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Referencing

Would I upset anyone by moving more of the references to <ref> / </ref> tags? In particular, the inline URL's marked "ABS" like this one:ABS "ABS" is a pretty vague reference caption, they produce "a few" publications each year.Garrie 22:16, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

I added references (there were none) to the Torres Strait Islanders section. The populations are different to the ones in my sources, and I don't have a source for distribution. While mostly in the north of Queensland... isn't disputed, 6,800 / 42,000 is the bit that needs a specific reference. 10% of 458,520 is 46,000 so 6800 + 42000 is more than what the ABS reports in their 2001 census - and the 10% includes the "4% mixed TSI / Aboriginal background" that the ABS report.Garrie 22:54, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Pornography/alcohol proposals

Where would be the proper place to add the recent sweeping bans on pornography and alcohol? Or have these been added and I missed it? Universaladdress 05:12, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

It doesn't seem to have been added. You can add sourced content under the current issues heading if you wish. Recurring dreams 12:13, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

I think section 4.1, 4.3, and 4.5 are all equally valid places for different elements of the wide ranging proposals which relate to

  1. restriction of alcohol
  2. restriction of pornography
  3. forced medical supervision of minors
  4. incresed levels of police supervision of communities
  5. reduction in self-governance of communities
  6. goal of reducing crime
  7. goal of reducing substance abuse
  8. goal of improving health and diet of minors

Garrie 05:24, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

PS to me it smacks of Stolen generation mark 2.Garrie 05:25, 22 June 2007 (UTC)
Me two I dont think it'll get pass a proposal, the cynic in me thinks the federal election is getting closer Gnangarra 05:27, 22 June 2007 (UTC)
Nowhere at the moment as it isnt legislated its currently just a political proposal, you could write a Wikinews article about it though. Gnangarra 05:25, 22 June 2007 (UTC)
Okay, thanks. American news sources were pretty unclear about whether this was a proposal or something that had been implemented. Universaladdress 12:05, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
This appears to be different from "stolen generation" (mark 2) issues which would be political suicide if it was another case of ignorant interference. While aboriginal activists are condemning it as racist from what I see on ABC and SBS the elders of the communities involved support it as the only solution to the problem. Even the opposition supports it. Wayne 04:41, 23 June 2007 (UTC)
At the time of the Stolen Generation, even european-educated aboriginals saw that putting children into missions was often better for the individual child. Hindsight vs real-time realism. I think the only way to see if this is a good way of dealing with the problem is to look back in five years to see if the situation has improved more in the NT compared to "similar communities" in Queensland. Not that I'm suggesting there are communities in Qld with high levels of child sexual assault, I don't know anything other than what's on the news.
Clearly if the same situations happened in Sydney, DOCS would remove the kids from that situation. I don't know what would happen in Bourke, or Wilcannia. Garrie 21:33, 24 June 2007 (UTC)
Newsreader on Seven's "Sunrise" referred to a group from Melbourn calling the plan "Stolen Generation mark 2". Unfortunately she didn't name the group. Anyone know anything further?Garrie 00:17, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
I think it merits an inclusion in the Issues page, with perhaps a short excerpt then a link to its own separate page as a "Current Event" War-hammer 07:16, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] History section

While the section has a {{main}} link at the top - it was actually a duplicate of that article. I have tried to summarise it, I think it is still drastically way too long given that there is a seperate article dedicated to History of Indigenous Australians. ie, in this article it should be a summary written in summary style of History of Indigenous Australians. Garrie 05:17, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

Up until the 60's or something, Aborigines were legally considered fauna and not humans from what I remember. I think that we need to find some citations and add a statement about their status somewhere in this section as it' very telling of previous attitudes, which somewhat permeate through to today in issues such as the Stolen Generation apology issue etc.petedavo (talk) 21:34, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Genocide of Indigenous Australians

In articles about jewish allways is mentioned genocide. I think in article about indigenous australians alsou should be mentioned genocide of australian aboriginals. 159.148.71.250 06:57, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

  • While we're at it lets talk about the thousands of Chinese and European immigrants murdered by the Aboriginals shall we. Damien Russell (talk) 05:23, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Culture section

The Culture section seems to not include ATSI people whatsoever. Which is in line with my suggestion that there should be an article for "mainland Indigenous Australians" equivalent to Tasmanian Aboriginals and Torres Strait Islanders. I'm happy to see it expanded, but there is little similar information at Torres Strait Islanders, although there is a category. Garrie 01:33, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] WikiProject

There's a proposal to start a WikiProject Indigenous Australia, if anyone would be interested. --Ptcamn 06:03, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Vandalism

I recommend that this page be marked off for vandalism and therefore be restricted for editing. I don't know the wiki code to recommend that on the page itself, but surely recent edit history suggests that vandals like to mess around with this page. War-hammer 21:51, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] request

I moved the following post to the bottom of the page. My response follows: Fred ☻ 13:27, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Please whenever refering to Aboriginals or Torres Strait Islanders, always capatlise the A and TSI as you are talikng about a race of people, you wouldn't ever refer to Australians with a lower case "a" so please don't do it in this case either.—Preceding unsigned comment added by 220.239.224.19 (talk)

I have no firm opinion on whether any group of australians should have their name capitalised. The name Aboriginal etc., usually refers to a type of Australian community - not a race. Fred ☻ 13:27, 30 July 2007 (UTC)
The words Aborigine/Aboriginal, when used to refer to Indigneous Australians, are proper nouns and so should always be capitalised. This is standard grammatical practice - check any good Oz dictionary. When referring to aborigines in other parts of the world, it tends not to be a proper noun. This is already in the article here

[edit] Back to front - please place new messages on bottom of page - and signature goes at end not beginning!-

Damien2010 00:01, 24 August 2007 (UTC) The less polite way of saying 'appropriation' is that aborigines where hunted and shot as a means of removing them from their land, especially in Tasmania. Why is that this amendment is continually removed without any discussion on the talk page? Who are the faceless editors who refuse to discuss these amendments?

124.170.222.210 22:01, 20 August 2007 (UTC)Can someone please explain why my addition of a paragraph stating that Tasmanian Aboriginals where hunted by white settlers is continually removed? Im a seventh generation (we arrived 1790) european descent Australian. I know from my family the atrocoties that where committed. Yet academic texts continually phrase it in such polite terms. Why say 'died from disease, loss of land and direct violence'. Why not say 'where often hunted and killed especially in Tasmania'. Australians owe future generations something more than a politicially correct history of their early inhabitation of Australia.

Damien2010 22:46, 20 August 2007 (UTC)Ive created an account and logged in now for discussion of the above.

The opening paragraph is contentious. It would be more accurate to describe Aborigines as the inhabitants prior to European settlement, but a link to the entry on the Bradshaws may be sufficient. This at least explains why some believe the Aborigines may not be the original inhabitants of Australia.

Ive been told that my entry on aborigines is 'unencyclopedic' and needs a citation. Could somebody please explain to me how to make my entry more 'encyclopedic'. As for citation, it has been passed down through our family. How do I add this as a citation. Im assuming this is good enough...it was good enough for the bible so I assume it will meet wikipedias standards. Here is the desired entry. "Aborigines where hunted and shot as a means of removing them from their land, especially in Tasmania."Damien2010 04:02, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Well the fact is that some of the mainstreem population are still fairly racist, its in all cultures, we will class someone according to race and the Native people do not rate highly in terms of respect. The Australian governments treatment of the native population at the moment is one of assimulation as the Idiginous affairs minister has refered to his wish for this to happen. It is not widely reported or teached about the atrocities that happened untill 1928, or is their history and culture taught in schools. Not only were the Native people shot but were removed from their land and there language and culture was destroyed in many comunities. Enlil Ninlil 04:14, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Heres the bizarre thing. As an Australian of European heritage with a history to first settlement, I want the truth to be known. But unfortunately political correctness has managed to poison academic text, and telling the truth in its raw form has become unacceptable. The truth is, white Australians commited genocide. We have to accept this in order to move on and improve the lives of Aboriginal Australians. There is no polite way of saying it. I would welcome debate from others who see it differently.Damien2010 13:47, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

We of course want truthful content, and want to be able to take out untruthful content. But it has to be reliably sourced. If you say something is true, we have to have a good reason to believe you. You might not have bad intentions, but a lot of people do, so this is the only way to ensure that accuracy is maintained. If what you want to include is important and factual information then there should be plenty of sources for it. It is not good enough to just state that there is a historical conspiracy in the sources that are available. Remy B 05:16, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] strong immune system or sumthin

i've read sumwhere (maybe even here) that aborigines are unusually tolerant of extreme conditions i.e. very cold/hot environment. there was an experiment in which they were voluntarily put in a freezer (crudely worded), and felt comfortable enough?? if this is true i think it's something significant enough to be included in the article, if it isn't already. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.45.213.230 (talk) 00:31, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

I don't know about any such unethical experiments. I have heard from contemporary Aboriginal people that their kinship system and their marriage/child-bearing taboos were designed specifically to breed for health and strength - they appear to have had extensive knowledge of practical genetics for breeding (practical genetics to be distinguished from knowledge of biochemistry/genes). Certainly the Aboriginal warriors who first greeted Captain Cook were much taller and healthier than he and his crew. The Aboriginal population, however, was decimated by smallpox, to which they had little resistance. See C. Mann, 2005, 1491 (NY: Vintage Books) for information on how indigenous immune systems are often better adapted to resisting tropical diseases and parasites than the diseases common in cultures raising livestock. Drvestone (talk) 16:47, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Map

I am in great need of the map showing Australia's indigenous peoples, with each tribal region represented by a different color. I used it often and now find that it seems to have been deleted. Can someone please fill me in on where it's gone and why there's been no discussion of its deletion? Many thanks, Badagnani 19:11, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

I think this is the same map. It would be immeasurably helpful to have it in this article. Badagnani 19:15, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

It should be noted that any map could only demarcate language groups. Aboriginal people didn't have sociocentric 'tribal' areas with clear boundaries; this is really a European conception of how people 'should' exist in space. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 58.172.11.160 (talk) 10:07, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Issues facing Indigenous Australians today:Health

I cleaned up the health section a little and added a table. It still could do with some further work and a little more clean-up! (A late, school-night Wikipedia session to be sure. :))

I believe some of the incidence rates might possibly be a little exaggerated or, at the very least, out-of-date. Can someone look into this a little more than I have been able to.

Also, given all the media attention of late, I believe the issue of sexual assault (particularly against children) should be mentioned somewhere. Even if it is possibly media prejudice and hyperbole, it is still an extremely serious problem that many Aboriginal communities are facing. Again, I didn't have time to look for any statistics so I have not included or added any information in this section.

Hax0rw4ng 17:41, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

The table on health stats is a great addition. I can look through a recent U of Queensland report on health stats [3] to see if there's anything to be added.

I don't think we want to touch the issue of sexual assault here - it is highly controversial. The Australian govt under Howard presented no statistics to show that sexual assault had a higher incidence in indigenous communities than in other comparable white, Asian, or Arab communities. As in Canada and Africa, the practice of sexually assaulting indigenous children was common in residential schools run by whites in earlier colonial times. Psychology research indicates clearly that the best single predictor of whether someone will assault children is whether they themselves were assaulted as a child. The historical causes of sexual abuse in indigenous communities thus may clearly be traced to the abuses of colonisation. Many Aboriginal activists believe that John Howard's govt cynically used publicity about child sexual assault to justify their moves to roll back indigenous rights in the Northern Territory. It is very difficult to know the facts in such a case, and I think therefore the Wikipedia article should perhaps not go into it yet. (See Coercive Reconciliation, 2007, Ed. Altman & Hinkson, Arena Publications.) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Drvestone (talk • contribs) 16:59, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Indigenous: Aboriginal peoples AND Torres Strait Islanders

This article claims to be inclusive of mainland Aboriginal peoples and Torres Strait Islanders, but then goes on to describe only Aboriginal culture, music, etc. Either Torres Strait Islanders should be included, or this article should be made into a disambiguation page. - 207.112.57.58 22:58, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

I think the TSI culture should be briefly discussed in this article, and the appropriate link given to an expanded article on Torres Strait Islanders - if it isn't already. A disambig is not necessary. Cygnis insignis 09:50, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Lead/intro

It could use a bit of rewording, this is a bit roundabout;

  • Indigenous Australians are recognised to have arrived between 40,000 and 70,000 years ago, though the lower end of this range ( 50 000 BC) has wider acceptance.
... Perhaps dropping the BC and lower? The scale of time is a bit beyond a couple of thousand years. Does any else have a view on this? Cygnis insignis 09:49, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
There's some conjecture, as a few scientific journals in different disciplines have evidence that could indicate various early dates such as the earliest evidence of plant extinctions by burnings going back 200,000years and DNA suggesting initial divergence only as early as 45,000 with continued waves of up to the last sea level rise (but only from PNG), then there are extinction time lines for mega fauna, and extinctions of thylacines in WA that show differing dates. Someone mentioned H.Erectus in Australia too, so in the absence of hard archaeological evidence of bones, settlements or tools that back these possibilities up, it would be too soon to mention these conjectures, unless they are properly cited, and sub headed as conjectures. See my comments in the Talk:Indigenous_Australians#Genetic Survey released section also.petedavo (talk) 00:09, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Fair use rationale for Image:Aboriginal art memorial at the NGA.JPG

Image:Aboriginal art memorial at the NGA.JPG is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

Please go to the image description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale. Using one of the templates at Wikipedia:Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to insure that your image is in compliance with Wikipedia policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page.

If there is other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified the fair use rationale on the other images used on this page. Note that any fair use images lacking such an explanation can be deleted one week after being tagged, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you.

BetacommandBot (talk) 05:17, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Population estimates 1788

The History section gives estimates of over 300,000 at the arrival of Europeans. This seems quite high for a nomadic hunter-gatherer people. I know Australia is big but the food source is concentrated on the seaboard in much the same areas we live in today - good fertile high rainfall land means abundant food. Wouldn't we expect to dig up burials in fairly large numbers, given that with the shorter life expectancy of past centuries there would bave been over 7000 beople dying each year for centuries?

The ABS pop. stats. seem to be the best source I can find [4] . What this shows is that up to pre-referendum 1967 counts (101,978) excluded full-blooded Aborigines and in 1971 for the first time the count (115,953) included them - the difference between the two years gives only 14,000 full-blooded at that time. It's hard to extrapolate from this, but 300,000+ still seems bullish.

Has anyone got some better info? --jcosco (talk) 23:30, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

from [5] There are no accurate estimates of the population of Australia before European settlement. Many estimates were based on post-1788 observations of a population already reduced by introduced diseases and other factors. In 1930 the anthropologist Radcliffe-Brown postulated a minimum figure of 300,000, that happens to be the source quoted for the statement. Also burials werent part of Indigenous cultures. Gnangarra 04:33, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Customary Aboriginal law

I've created this after discovering there wasn't already one, please feel free to chip in as nes. Thank you. -- Ļıßζېấשּׂ~ۘ Ώƒ ﻚĢęخ (talk) 23:46, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] uncited statements galore - possible original research

This article seems to be filled with unreferenced statements. It also contains statements which may be original research or just unsubstatiated opinion. I have added the 'no original research' tag to the article and a number of {{fact}} tags to some of the unreferenced statements and paragraphs. I do not have time to tag all of the unreferenced material since there is so much of it. OzWoden (talk) 05:15, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

Adding the {{fact}} tags to items which concern you is fine. However I am removing the {{Original research}} tag as I disagree that the article has significant original research. You need to provide some specifics, or even better, improve the article. —Moondyne click! 02:15, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] The Crime, Substance abuse and Unemployment sections

I feel that these sections are and incredibly biased, and should be deleted —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bluemoon86 (talk • contribs) 01:26, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Those sections are well referenced using reliable sources. Deletion isn't likely. -- Longhair\talk 01:36, 11 March 2008 (UTC)
How/where are they "incredibly biased"? —Moondyne click! 05:35, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Related Ethnic Groups

Is there any evidence which can state, once and for all, who the Indigenous australians are more closely related to? --Maurice45 (talk) 11:21, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

Their birth certificates. Seriously, take a look at Recent African origin of modern humans and see how complex the question is. 202.7.183.132 (talk) 14:35, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
Take a look at Gene Flow from the Indian Subcontinent to Australia: Evidence from the Y Chromosome which is referenced in Prehistory of Australia. --JWB (talk) 22:39, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Bathurst Island photograph

While this is a great photo, it does not represent the reality of aboriginal life today. It seems to suggest that to be aboriginal you have to look like those guys and carry a spear. Perhaps a montage of smaller photos representing both their traditional ways of life and new ways of life they have adopted.

I agree, but as a montage cannot be found at the moment, This picture is fine --Maurice45 (talk) 18:28, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Earliest dates

This recent edit amended the range of earliest occupational dates to between 125,000 and 40,000 BP. I realise that reasonable cites were given, but the couple of high-end dates that have been put forward (ca 100,000 BP and even earlier) are highly controversial, and remain unaccepted by the great majority of researchers. It might be technically correct to say this is the full range out of all of the dates that have been published, but I think it's misleading— hardly anyone thinks the high-end dates are valid.

Or to put another way - every researcher would probably agree that people were in Australia by 38–40,000 BP; a reasonable number, maybe half, would think it's likely (tho direct evidence is thin) that people were here 45–50,000 BP, but going higher than that is really pushing it; almost no-one stakes their claim on people being here earlier than 100,000 BP, or anywhere near that figure. Beyond the point where the radiocarbon dating limitation kicks in (beyond 45 kya) it's very doubtful, & researchers are more cautious. --cjllw ʘ TALK 07:49, 7 June 2008 (UTC)