I’m 90% of the way through the 1 metre thick pile I borrowed about aborigines.

And I still feel as though I’m holding one end of a slinky, with the truth on the other end, and trying to deduce the truth from the end of the slinky that I’m holding.

Even the simplest of questions have no easy answer, as the information just isn’t there.

Q1. How many full-blood aborigines are there in Australia these days?
Answer: Anywhere between none and 100,000. There were official census counts yearly between 1928 and 1941. But since then no-one has got off their official fat arse to count full-bloods.

Here’s the plot I did of census data, with projections to the present day.

Q2. How many mixed race children were stolen from their European, Chinese and Macassan fathers by aborigines?
Answer: Anywhere between none and 100,000.

Q3. How many aboriginal and part aboriginal children were killed by aborigines? (There are records of strangled, bashed, speared, starved and abandoned)
Answer: Anywhere between none and 100,000.

Q4. How many mixed race children were stolen from their aboriginal families by whites?
Answer: Anywhere between none and 100,000. According to aboriginal activists who lived through the period in question, before 1970, the answer is none, there is not a single contemporary account in activist literature.

Q5. How many aborigines died in a fever epidemic in Cape York in the 1930s, that may have extended as far west as the Kimberley?
Answer: Anywhere between none and 20,000.

Q6. How many aborigines still alive have gone through tribal initiation?
Answer: Anywhere between none and 100,000

Q7. How many aborigines these days still have a hunter-gatherer lifestyle?
Answer: Anywhere between none and 100,000

Q8. How many aborigines these days still hunt kangaroo with spears while wandering around naked?
Answer: At last count (1941) about 10,000

Q9. How many aborigines these days still follow the tribal laws allowing murder, beatings, and other violations of basic human rights?
Answer: Not a clue

If the information about any of these exists at all then it is hidden in documents that are not easily accessible. I still feel as though I’m holding one end of a slinky, with the truth on the other end.

The bureau of statistics definition of an aboriginal as “anyone who wants to call themselves an aboriginal” (independent of heritage) is fine, so far as it goes, it’s the same way as defining “Christian” or “Greek” for example. But it falls far short of ideal in evaluating how much of the differences in health, education, employment and housing are due to DNA.

In the absence of genetic information, I’m trying to use extraneous information such as aboriginal language spoken at home as a proxy for tribal membership.

Even allowing for the definition of an aboriginal as “anyone who wants to call themselves an aboriginal”, there is no settlement in the whole of Australia that is 100% aboriginal.

mollwollfumble said:

I’m 90% of the way through the 1 metre thick pile I borrowed about aborigines.

And I still feel as though I’m holding one end of a slinky, with the truth on the other end, and trying to deduce the truth from the end of the slinky that I’m holding.

Even the simplest of questions have no easy answer, as the information just isn’t there.

Q1. How many full-blood aborigines are there in Australia these days?
Answer: Anywhere between none and 100,000. There were official census counts yearly between 1928 and 1941. But since then no-one has got off their official fat arse to count full-bloods.

Here’s the plot I did of census data, with projections to the present day.

Q2. How many mixed race children were stolen from their European, Chinese and Macassan fathers by aborigines?
Answer: Anywhere between none and 100,000.

Q3. How many aboriginal and part aboriginal children were killed by aborigines? (There are records of strangled, bashed, speared, starved and abandoned)
Answer: Anywhere between none and 100,000.

Q4. How many mixed race children were stolen from their aboriginal families by whites?
Answer: Anywhere between none and 100,000. According to aboriginal activists who lived through the period in question, before 1970, the answer is none, there is not a single contemporary account in activist literature.

Q5. How many aborigines died in a fever epidemic in Cape York in the 1930s, that may have extended as far west as the Kimberley?
Answer: Anywhere between none and 20,000.

Q6. How many aborigines still alive have gone through tribal initiation?
Answer: Anywhere between none and 100,000

Q7. How many aborigines these days still have a hunter-gatherer lifestyle?
Answer: Anywhere between none and 100,000

Q8. How many aborigines these days still hunt kangaroo with spears while wandering around naked?
Answer: At last count (1941) about 10,000

Q9. How many aborigines these days still follow the tribal laws allowing murder, beatings, and other violations of basic human rights?
Answer: Not a clue

If the information about any of these exists at all then it is hidden in documents that are not easily accessible. I still feel as though I’m holding one end of a slinky, with the truth on the other end.

The bureau of statistics definition of an aboriginal as “anyone who wants to call themselves an aboriginal” (independent of heritage) is fine, so far as it goes, it’s the same way as defining “Christian” or “Greek” for example. But it falls far short of ideal in evaluating how much of the differences in health, education, employment and housing are due to DNA.

In the absence of genetic information, I’m trying to use extraneous information such as aboriginal language spoken at home as a proxy for tribal membership.

Even allowing for the definition of an aboriginal as “anyone who wants to call themselves an aboriginal”, there is no settlement in the whole of Australia that is 100% aboriginal.

Personally I don’t think you have an open enough mind to make any judgement regarding Aborigines, you just don’t get it! You constantly look for simple answers to complex situations. Your mind might be ideally suited to mathematics where there is usually a right or wrong answer. Life unfortunately is nothing like that!

Other examples of “other end of slinky”

Does the “Bringing it Home report” sentence that first gives the number “100,000” also say “by whites” or does it simply say “stolen”. If it simply says “stolen” then it could be a realistic guesstimate.

The census of 1996 (the only recent indigenous census freely available on the web) has some parts that simply don’t make sense.

1. Polygamous marriages dominate tribal marriages, so their incidence among indigenous australians could supply a way to estimate the number of tribal aborigines. But the 1996 census finds no polygamous marriages, not a single one. That isn’t possible. Is it the census form or data analysis that is at fault? And if the data analysis – what are polygamous marriages actually counted as?

2. Tribal aborigines used to live in humpies, so their incidence among indigenous australians could supply a way to estimate the number of tribal aborigines. The 1996 census does include humpies, along with other improvised dwellings such as “shelter, sheds, and tents (and people) sleeping out” Improvised dwellings that are not occupied are not counted. In NT for example, there are 118 improvised dwellings in urban districts and 595 rural outside towns. So far so good, but the average number of people in each is 0.0. That isn’t possible, all of these are occupied by definition. So what has happened to these missing 700 plus indigenous people?

Hmm, I see the problem with census of aborigines, through looking at http://press-files.anu.edu.au/downloads/press/p32061/pdf/ch4.pdf

The start is extremely positive:

“The town camps in Alice Springs have been assisted in their development over the last 25 years by the Tangentyere Council, an Aboriginal organisation specifically established for this purpose. Tangentyere now services and assists 19 town camps which are spread across Alice Springs … Tangentyere agreed to do what it could to assist the ABS with the conduct of the census.It undertook to provide the ABS with the list of dwellings in the town camps for which it attempted to charge rent in order to help with the construction of Dwelling Check Lists for the 19 town camps. It also undertook to provide a training room and to provide ABS with access to a pool of potential local Aboriginal workers through its Job Shop and general networks. It was also agreed that two Tangentyere staff members from the housing section would be dedicated full time for two weeks to the census collection process on a cost recovery basis.”

Then it slowly degenerates into a complete farce of absenteeism and lack of interest. Starting with only 1 of 5 interviewers turning up for the initial training session, and going downhill from there as 13 of 25 people wander off from the first camp without being counted, etc.

Or to put it another way, even those aborigines living in close proximity to whites in a place as big as Alice Springs have no interest in being counted for the census, even when paid to do so. So what hope has a census got in more remote areas?

Another wrinkle in the census problem is “dummy forms”

https://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/7d12b0f6763c78caca257061001cc588/45333e72a039d21cca2570610031b059!OpenDocument

“Dummy forms are created for dwellings from which Census collectors could not obtain a Census form.”

Well, at least this explains the 0.0 persons per dwelling results for NT urban and rural-non-town for aborigines.

I’m missing something, something important. It’s either something that connects one end of the slinky to the other or something that severs the link completely.

I think it can’t be numerical – it has to be psychological.

eg. I understand that our whit bias towards spoken verbal communication is a really narrow-minded approach to communication. For example, in one outback aboriginal community of 166 people, at least four separate different aboriginal languages are spoken at home, so verbal language is not what binds the community together.

Aboriginal communication is dominated by, I’m not even sure if there’s a word for it, perhaps “impersonation” is the best word, or “mime” or “interpretive dance”. Another aboriginal means of communication are the smoke signal, which handles words as delicate as “doctor” for example. Another aboriginal communication is the message stick, which is essentially a pictographic memory aid. Then there is communication by laying tacks.

I’m only just starting to understand totems, which form a big part of marriage, avoidance and food taboos. And I’m beginning to wonder if an aboriginal person can identify a taboo mate just by the smell. Because what we eat affects how we smell, so having a food taboo make a person smell different – the wrong smell would indicate a mating taboo. That’s another way of aboriginal communication – smell.

But totems and other taboos fragment tribes in ways to complicated to mention.

I totally fail to understand “initiation” – why would someone willingly submit to having two teeth knocked out, dodge spears that are meant to kill, submit to a bone piercing through the septum of the nose, allow cuts across the chest that leave permanent scars, and have adult circumcision, all at the same time. Is initiation just a way of destroying children, keeping them out of the way? Initiation seems to be as important as “tools” in separating man from the animals, some animals have tools but none have initiation ceremonies.

Contracts, particularly in the form of dowries, are one thing that separates man from the apes. A dowry is a lifetime thing. often paid (regularly?) all the time from shortly after the birth of the gild child until the death of one of the contract participants.

And then there’s the tribal Aboriginal equivalent of Maslow’s Heirarchy of Needs. So different to the European equivalent, even on the lowest level, with the amplified need for personal safety even more important than air, and no entry for clothing, employment, income, hardly even any for shelter. But corroborees are near the bottom of the Heirarchy of Needs, in tribal locations they are often daily events. Status is extremely important, as it is for chimpanzees for example. So is tobacco, which must sit near the bottom of the tribal Aboriginal Heirarchy of Needs.

But so many gaps in my knowledge. For example I have never seen a picture of a tribal aboriginal laughing – what is their sense of humour?

mollwollfumble said:

But so many gaps in my knowledge. For example I have never seen a picture of a tribal aboriginal laughing – what is their sense of humour?

In Tom Robbins book Fierce Invalids Home From Hot Climates the rain forest shamen End of Time thinks that the superiority of white technology in the form of loggers is down to the difference in humour, his people rarely laugh and do so at different things but the white men laugh a lot and engage in word play and jokes which are unknown to the Kandakamdero.

Aboriginal humour

One of the key characteristics of Aboriginal people is their humour. No matter how dire the situation Aboriginal people are always able to find a humorous way of dealing with their life.

https://www.creativespirits.info/aboriginalculture/people/aboriginal-humour

mollwollfumble said:

eg. I understand that our whit bias towards spoken verbal communication is a really narrow-minded approach to communication. For example, in one outback aboriginal community of 166 people, at least four separate different aboriginal languages are spoken at home, so verbal language is not what binds the community together.

You’re thinking of it backwards. Knowing four languages heightens the subtlety of communications and allows special knowledge to be cloaked in meanings only understood by those intended. Think of it like how the Scottish Upper Class spoke one language at home and another down in Westminster. Or the Swiss. The Swiss aren’t divided by their differing tongues. In fact their unity of purpose allowed them to remain free and united for hundreds of years because their brethren speak one of the languages of their much larger foreign adversaries and consequently know how to gain the upper-hand in most situations.
mollwollfumble said:

But totems and other taboos fragment tribes in ways to complicated to mention.

Why ‘fragment’? Do you feel left out when people talk about sport or do you simply politely ignore chatter that is not meant for your ears?
mollwollfumble said:

I totally fail to understand “initiation” – why would someone willingly submit to having two teeth knocked out, dodge spears that are meant to kill, submit to a bone piercing through the septum of the nose, allow cuts across the chest that leave permanent scars, and have adult circumcision, all at the same time. Is initiation just a way of destroying children, keeping them out of the way? Initiation seems to be as important as “tools” in separating man from the animals, some animals have tools but none have initiation ceremonies.

Initiation ceremonies are just another rite of passage that is accepted as normal at the time. Besides Aborigines are only one of many cultures to practice initiation with even modern societies having some notable ones. Something as simple as graduating high school or Uni is a modern western one. I wonder if many students doing the VCE would prefer to lose a couple of teeth to avoid two years of study?

>I totally fail to understand “initiation” – why would someone willingly submit to having two teeth knocked out, dodge spears that are meant to kill, submit to a bone piercing through the septum of the nose, allow cuts across the chest that leave permanent scars, and have adult circumcision, all at the same time. Is initiation just a way of destroying children, keeping them out of the way? Initiation seems to be as important as “tools” in separating man from the animals…./cut/…”

the answer to all that could be in the consequences of resisting the conventions, or power of conventions(group norms)

you have an arsenal of ideas (the liberty) to question the forces of normal, in fact great part of your intellect is born of liberty, empowered faculties or mind tools, largely courtesy an education (learning freedom) that draws on the histories of many cultures. The best of modern cultures going back, it’s like a massive encyclopedia you consult wherever and whenever.

you get to write your thoughts publicly, have the widest audience any known creature can, share your thoughts, engage others

the culture you enjoy doesn’t forcefully impose normal, certainly not violently, but you’re expected to respect normal (power of), in large part and lending to a harmonious reciprocity, even if more minding ones own business. So you could say the culture you live in provides or protects a soft environment that is counter-territorial, parrying against overly impositional forces, essentially egalitarian, an egalitarian ethic, highly pluralistic and tolerant of individuals

you can question norms openly and as you please, without terrible fear you could be deemed unsafe company and alienated or driven away, or worse, within limits of course, there is a system of law. The law, the system of law protects your operating space, your freedom, that soft territory

>>So is tobacco, which must sit near the bottom of the tribal Aboriginal Heirarchy of Needs.<<

Would not think so, as very widely used and I refer to native tobacco that was chewed rather than smoked. Pituri a much stronger drug than tobacco was also chewed, it would seem smoking was introduced by Europeans.

Bubblecar said:

Aboriginal humour

One of the key characteristics of Aboriginal people is their humour. No matter how dire the situation Aboriginal people are always able to find a humorous way of dealing with their life.

https://www.creativespirits.info/aboriginalculture/people/aboriginal-humour

I entirely agree.

My experience with with several mobs is that aboriginal humour is second to none.

mollwollfumble said:

I’m 90% of the way through the 1 metre thick pile I borrowed about aborigines.

And I still feel as though I’m holding one end of a slinky, with the truth on the other end, and trying to deduce the truth from the end of the slinky that I’m holding.

Even the simplest of questions have no easy answer, as the information just isn’t there.

Q1. How many full-blood aborigines are there in Australia these days?
Answer: Anywhere between none and 100,000. There were official census counts yearly between 1928 and 1941. But since then no-one has got off their official fat arse to count full-bloods.

Here’s the plot I did of census data, with projections to the present day.

Q2. How many mixed race children were stolen from their European, Chinese and Macassan fathers by aborigines?
Answer: Anywhere between none and 100,000.

Q3. How many aboriginal and part aboriginal children were killed by aborigines? (There are records of strangled, bashed, speared, starved and abandoned)
Answer: Anywhere between none and 100,000.

Q4. How many mixed race children were stolen from their aboriginal families by whites?
Answer: Anywhere between none and 100,000. According to aboriginal activists who lived through the period in question, before 1970, the answer is none, there is not a single contemporary account in activist literature.

Q5. How many aborigines died in a fever epidemic in Cape York in the 1930s, that may have extended as far west as the Kimberley?
Answer: Anywhere between none and 20,000.

Q6. How many aborigines still alive have gone through tribal initiation?
Answer: Anywhere between none and 100,000

Q7. How many aborigines these days still have a hunter-gatherer lifestyle?
Answer: Anywhere between none and 100,000

Q8. How many aborigines these days still hunt kangaroo with spears while wandering around naked?
Answer: At last count (1941) about 10,000

Q9. How many aborigines these days still follow the tribal laws allowing murder, beatings, and other violations of basic human rights?
Answer: Not a clue

If the information about any of these exists at all then it is hidden in documents that are not easily accessible. I still feel as though I’m holding one end of a slinky, with the truth on the other end.

The bureau of statistics definition of an aboriginal as “anyone who wants to call themselves an aboriginal” (independent of heritage) is fine, so far as it goes, it’s the same way as defining “Christian” or “Greek” for example. But it falls far short of ideal in evaluating how much of the differences in health, education, employment and housing are due to DNA.

In the absence of genetic information, I’m trying to use extraneous information such as aboriginal language spoken at home as a proxy for tribal membership.

Even allowing for the definition of an aboriginal as “anyone who wants to call themselves an aboriginal”, there is no settlement in the whole of Australia that is 100% aboriginal.

Well, your racist rant above is entirely wrong.

Completely and utterly wrong.

Look up the definition.

Michael V said:

Bubblecar said:

Aboriginal humour

One of the key characteristics of Aboriginal people is their humour. No matter how dire the situation Aboriginal people are always able to find a humorous way of dealing with their life.

https://www.creativespirits.info/aboriginalculture/people/aboriginal-humour

I entirely agree.

My experience with with several mobs is that aboriginal humour is second to none.

Can I second this?

Michael V said:

Bubblecar said:

Aboriginal humour

One of the key characteristics of Aboriginal people is their humour. No matter how dire the situation Aboriginal people are always able to find a humorous way of dealing with their life.

https://www.creativespirits.info/aboriginalculture/people/aboriginal-humour

I entirely agree.

My experience with with several mobs is that aboriginal humour is second to none.

Brilliant link, thanks for that. So many books present aboriginals as a sad people. I can only remember seeing one photo of an aboriginal person smiling, and none of an aboriginal person laughing.

Michael V said:

Well, your racist rant above is entirely wrong.

Completely and utterly wrong.

Look up the definition.

I accept that it’s completely and utterly wrong. Please fix it?

The definition of what? Tribal? Full-blood? Stolen? Aboriginal? Language?

Witty Rejoinder said:

mollwollfumble said:

eg. I understand that our whit bias towards spoken verbal communication is a really narrow-minded approach to communication. For example, in one outback aboriginal community of 166 people, at least four separate different aboriginal languages are spoken at home, so verbal language is not what binds the community together.

You’re thinking of it backwards. Knowing four languages heightens the subtlety of communications and allows special knowledge to be cloaked in meanings only understood by those intended. Think of it like how the Scottish Upper Class spoke one language at home and another down in Westminster. Or the Swiss. The Swiss aren’t divided by their differing tongues. In fact their unity of purpose allowed them to remain free and united for hundreds of years because their brethren speak one of the languages of their much larger foreign adversaries and consequently know how to gain the upper-hand in most situations.
mollwollfumble said:

But totems and other taboos fragment tribes in ways to complicated to mention.

Why ‘fragment’? Do you feel left out when people talk about sport or do you simply politely ignore chatter that is not meant for your ears?
mollwollfumble said:

I totally fail to understand “initiation” – why would someone willingly submit to having two teeth knocked out, dodge spears that are meant to kill, submit to a bone piercing through the septum of the nose, allow cuts across the chest that leave permanent scars, and have adult circumcision, all at the same time. Is initiation just a way of destroying children, keeping them out of the way? Initiation seems to be as important as “tools” in separating man from the animals, some animals have tools but none have initiation ceremonies.

Initiation ceremonies are just another rite of passage that is accepted as normal at the time. Besides Aborigines are only one of many cultures to practice initiation with even modern societies having some notable ones. Something as simple as graduating high school or Uni is a modern western one. I wonder if many students doing the VCE would prefer to lose a couple of teeth to avoid two years of study?

I’ve never understood initiation ceremonies in modern societies either. Except as say entry into a secret society such as the Yakuza, and even there, why?

> Why ‘fragment’? Do you feel left out when people talk about sport or do you simply politely ignore chatter that is not meant for your ears?

By fragment, I’m thinking of avoidance taboos. An aboriginal man can’t look at his mother or father in law, so can’t live in the same place. A person of the possum totem may not be even within sight or smelling distance of a campfire where possum is being cooked, ditto other totems. Women must be removed from the camping area during their time of the month. Unmarried men must not be close to married women. Men need to be away for a week or so on a hunt or a month or so for an initiation. That sort of fragmentation.

Deep Colour

I’ve finally manage to winkle out a teensy bit of deep colour information from the ABS data.

Definition of “Deep Colour”:

• A person who identifies as an indigenous Australian
• Who speaks an indigenous language at home
• Who speaks English poorly or not at all

This is the closest modern proxy to the old tribal full-blood, and it may even be more useful in terms of indicators such as health and age structure. It’s far from perfect because a lot of urban and non-town rural aborigines don’t answer census questions (appear only as dummy forms), and on the other hand it does include aborigines whose second language is Italian, Greek and Chinese. It’s the best I can do.

Deep colour numbers (2011)

8778 Aboriginals
970 Torres Strait Islanders
377 Both
10125 Total

Deep colour distribution by State (1996)

Main Aboriginal & Torres Strait languages spoken at home % (including creole languages), (1996)
This includes only indigenous languages where the speaker knows the name of the language.

Northern Territory

Queensland

South Australia

Victoria (the main language here originally came from the Northern Territory)

Western Australia

Bubblecar said:

Aboriginal humour

One of the key characteristics of Aboriginal people is their humour. No matter how dire the situation Aboriginal people are always able to find a humorous way of dealing with their life.

https://www.creativespirits.info/aboriginalculture/people/aboriginal-humour

Aha. Finally found an account of aboriginal humour in Howitt. As I expected, it’s largely non-verbal. I did not expect that they invented the Wayne’s World trick of following up a serious sentence with “Not!”

From Howitt (1904) https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Native_Tribes_of_South-East_Australia/Chapter_9

“ the intervals are filled in by magic dances, by amusing interludes and buffoonery, in which all the men take part, excepting the Kabos, whose duty is to unceasingly explain and admonish during the whole ceremony; to point the moral and adorn the tale. The pieces of buffoonery are perhaps some of the most remarkable features of the proceeding. If one were to imagine all sorts of childish mischief mixed up with the cardinal sins represented in burlesque, and ironically recommended to the boys on their return to the camp and afterwards, it would give a not unapt representation of what takes place.”

“But there is the remarkable feature that at the end of almost every sentence, indeed of every indecent, immoral, or lewd suggestion, the speaker adds “Yah!” which negatives all that has been said and done. Indeed the use of the word “Yah” runs through the whole conversation carried on during the ceremonies, as when a man in the rear of the procession calls to some one in the front, “Hallo there, you (mentioning his name), stop and come back to me—yah!” This gave to the whole of the proceedings, up to the time when we reached the Talmaru camp, in the recesses of the mountain, a sort of Carnival and April fool aspect. “

mollwollfumble said:

Bubblecar said:

Aboriginal humour

One of the key characteristics of Aboriginal people is their humour. No matter how dire the situation Aboriginal people are always able to find a humorous way of dealing with their life.

https://www.creativespirits.info/aboriginalculture/people/aboriginal-humour

Aha. Finally found an account of aboriginal humour in Howitt. As I expected, it’s largely non-verbal. I did not expect that they invented the Wayne’s World trick of following up a serious sentence with “Not!”

You seem to not understand what it means to be bilingual. Knowing two languages doesn’t mean you only know half as much from each compared to another person only fluent in one of them. In fact knowing a second language usually means you have an enhanced understanding of the first.

> No matter how dire the situation Aboriginal people are always able to find a humorous way of dealing with their life.

that could be a bit disturbing, of anyone, I see it sometimes in american movies, it’s just fucken weird

if you tamed the statement some, removed no matter how dire, and are always able, the statement could start to resemble a more likely reality

mollwollfumble said:

Bubblecar said:

Aboriginal humour

One of the key characteristics of Aboriginal people is their humour. No matter how dire the situation Aboriginal people are always able to find a humorous way of dealing with their life.

https://www.creativespirits.info/aboriginalculture/people/aboriginal-humour

Aha. Finally found an account of aboriginal humour in Howitt. As I expected, it’s largely non-verbal. I did not expect that they invented the Wayne’s World trick of following up a serious sentence with “Not!”

From Howitt (1904) https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Native_Tribes_of_South-East_Australia/Chapter_9

“ the intervals are filled in by magic dances, by amusing interludes and buffoonery, in which all the men take part, excepting the Kabos, whose duty is to unceasingly explain and admonish during the whole ceremony; to point the moral and adorn the tale. The pieces of buffoonery are perhaps some of the most remarkable features of the proceeding. If one were to imagine all sorts of childish mischief mixed up with the cardinal sins represented in burlesque, and ironically recommended to the boys on their return to the camp and afterwards, it would give a not unapt representation of what takes place.”

“But there is the remarkable feature that at the end of almost every sentence, indeed of every indecent, immoral, or lewd suggestion, the speaker adds “Yah!” which negatives all that has been said and done. Indeed the use of the word “Yah” runs through the whole conversation carried on during the ceremonies, as when a man in the rear of the procession calls to some one in the front, “Hallo there, you (mentioning his name), stop and come back to me—yah!” This gave to the whole of the proceedings, up to the time when we reached the Talmaru camp, in the recesses of the mountain, a sort of Carnival and April fool aspect. “

Yeah and they swing from trees and eat bananas.

PermeateFree said:

mollwollfumble said:

Bubblecar said:

Aboriginal humour

One of the key characteristics of Aboriginal people is their humour. No matter how dire the situation Aboriginal people are always able to find a humorous way of dealing with their life.

https://www.creativespirits.info/aboriginalculture/people/aboriginal-humour

Aha. Finally found an account of aboriginal humour in Howitt. As I expected, it’s largely non-verbal. I did not expect that they invented the Wayne’s World trick of following up a serious sentence with “Not!”

From Howitt (1904) https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Native_Tribes_of_South-East_Australia/Chapter_9

“ the intervals are filled in by magic dances, by amusing interludes and buffoonery, in which all the men take part, excepting the Kabos, whose duty is to unceasingly explain and admonish during the whole ceremony; to point the moral and adorn the tale. The pieces of buffoonery are perhaps some of the most remarkable features of the proceeding. If one were to imagine all sorts of childish mischief mixed up with the cardinal sins represented in burlesque, and ironically recommended to the boys on their return to the camp and afterwards, it would give a not unapt representation of what takes place.”

“But there is the remarkable feature that at the end of almost every sentence, indeed of every indecent, immoral, or lewd suggestion, the speaker adds “Yah!” which negatives all that has been said and done. Indeed the use of the word “Yah” runs through the whole conversation carried on during the ceremonies, as when a man in the rear of the procession calls to some one in the front, “Hallo there, you (mentioning his name), stop and come back to me—yah!” This gave to the whole of the proceedings, up to the time when we reached the Talmaru camp, in the recesses of the mountain, a sort of Carnival and April fool aspect. “

Yeah and they swing from trees and eat bananas.

So what’s your objection to? Didn’t happen, not funny enough, aboriginals don’t do slap stick or memes?

AwesomeO said:

PermeateFree said:

mollwollfumble said:

Aha. Finally found an account of aboriginal humour in Howitt. As I expected, it’s largely non-verbal. I did not expect that they invented the Wayne’s World trick of following up a serious sentence with “Not!”

From Howitt (1904) https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Native_Tribes_of_South-East_Australia/Chapter_9

“ the intervals are filled in by magic dances, by amusing interludes and buffoonery, in which all the men take part, excepting the Kabos, whose duty is to unceasingly explain and admonish during the whole ceremony; to point the moral and adorn the tale. The pieces of buffoonery are perhaps some of the most remarkable features of the proceeding. If one were to imagine all sorts of childish mischief mixed up with the cardinal sins represented in burlesque, and ironically recommended to the boys on their return to the camp and afterwards, it would give a not unapt representation of what takes place.”

“But there is the remarkable feature that at the end of almost every sentence, indeed of every indecent, immoral, or lewd suggestion, the speaker adds “Yah!” which negatives all that has been said and done. Indeed the use of the word “Yah” runs through the whole conversation carried on during the ceremonies, as when a man in the rear of the procession calls to some one in the front, “Hallo there, you (mentioning his name), stop and come back to me—yah!” This gave to the whole of the proceedings, up to the time when we reached the Talmaru camp, in the recesses of the mountain, a sort of Carnival and April fool aspect. “

Yeah and they swing from trees and eat bananas.

So what’s your objection to? Didn’t happen, not funny enough, aboriginals don’t do slap stick or memes?

No just the racist generalisations. Something moll does not understand, is like us, Aborigines are not all the same.

PermeateFree said:

AwesomeO said:

PermeateFree said:

Yeah and they swing from trees and eat bananas.

So what’s your objection to? Didn’t happen, not funny enough, aboriginals don’t do slap stick or memes?

No just the racist generalisations. Something moll does not understand, is like us, Aborigines are not all the same.

Which bit did you consider to be a racist generalisation?

AwesomeO said:

PermeateFree said:

AwesomeO said:

So what’s your objection to? Didn’t happen, not funny enough, aboriginals don’t do slap stick or memes?

No just the racist generalisations. Something moll does not understand, is like us, Aborigines are not all the same.

Which bit did you consider to be a racist generalisation?

Everything moll writes about the subject.

PermeateFree said:

AwesomeO said:

PermeateFree said:

No just the racist generalisations. Something moll does not understand, is like us, Aborigines are not all the same.

Which bit did you consider to be a racist generalisation?

Everything moll writes about the subject.

I see, so as substantial as your usual objections then.

Minority groups will never achieve true equality until they achieve equality of criticism.

AwesomeO said:

PermeateFree said:

AwesomeO said:

Which bit did you consider to be a racist generalisation?

Everything moll writes about the subject.

I see, so as substantial as your usual objections then.

You trolling me again Curve, something you are wont to do? Seems I am not the flavour of the day, sorry but I don’t give a damn.

PermeateFree said:

AwesomeO said:

PermeateFree said:

Everything moll writes about the subject.

I see, so as substantial as your usual objections then.

You trolling me again Curve, something you are wont to do? Seems I am not the flavour of the day, sorry but I don’t give a damn.

It was a simple question. You had nothing, who is trolling?

Peak Warming Man said:

Minority groups will never achieve true equality until they achieve equality of criticism.

I think they have had a great deal more than most if not all!

AwesomeO said:

PermeateFree said:

AwesomeO said:

I see, so as substantial as your usual objections then.

You trolling me again Curve, something you are wont to do? Seems I am not the flavour of the day, sorry but I don’t give a damn.

It was a simple question. You had nothing, who is trolling?

Why don’t you read his posts, but no you choose to attack me as you often attack others for the fun of it. Go and play with someone else troll.

PermeateFree said:

AwesomeO said:

PermeateFree said:

Yeah and they swing from trees and eat bananas.

So what’s your objection to? Didn’t happen, not funny enough, aboriginals don’t do slap stick or memes?

No just the racist generalisations. Something moll does not understand, is like us, Aborigines are not all the same.

That bit is a quote from Howitt, not moll’s own words. He was an anthropologist in the early 1900s and wrote in the language of the day.

buffy said:

PermeateFree said:

AwesomeO said:

So what’s your objection to? Didn’t happen, not funny enough, aboriginals don’t do slap stick or memes?

No just the racist generalisations. Something moll does not understand, is like us, Aborigines are not all the same.

That bit is a quote from Howitt, not moll’s own words. He was an anthropologist in the early 1900s and wrote in the language of the day.

I am well aware of that thank you! However one of his last posts claimed Aborigines did not have a sense of humour, which was followed up in his latest post of him having found a reference that they did, but mainly non verbal (which he expected). Well let me tell you that Aborigines DO have a sense of humour that is NOT necessarily restricted to a non-language form. Howitt was commenting on a certain group of Aborigines and certainly not on Aborigines everywhere! I get sick and tired when people here just grab a small piece of information then take it upon themselves to correct anyone who considers a much broader view. Personally I don’t give a shit if you crawl into bed with moll, as it does not justify his blatantly raciest views and the distorted way he presents information.

I have tried to point out that discussions about Aborigines is full of misinformation and red herrings that even for people knowledgeable of the subject can find it difficult to reach the actual truth. People who have only spent a few hours, weeks of months are NOT knowledgeable people as it takes a number of years with unbiased and a willingness to investigate widely in order to obtain appreciation the many complexities.

> Q5. How many aborigines died in a fever epidemic in Cape York in the 1930s, that may have extended as far west as the Kimberley?
Answer: Anywhere between none and 20,000.

Correction. I got the date wrong. It was 1919-1920, and the Spanish Flu.

An estimated almost 15,000 Australians died of the Spanish Flu, About a third of all Australians were infected. https://sydney.edu.au/news-opinion/news/2019/01/21/centenary-of—spanish-flu—pandemic-in-australia.html. It’s far from clear whether that figure of 15,000 includes aborigines or not.

In Idriess “Coral Sea Calling”, footnote to chapter 8.

“During the great Spanish Influenza epidemic justr after the First World war I saw some hundreds of aborigines lying dead upon the beaches of the Cape Yorke Peninsula coast. They had lain in the water to cool away their burning temperatures, and their last strength was used to crawl back up the beach to high-water mark, to die.”
“The same thing happened on Western Australia’s far Kimberley coast, three thousand miles west of the Cape York Peninsula”.

https://www.themonthly.com.au/issue/2009/november/1330478364/tony-roberts/brutal-truth

mollwollfumble said:

I’m 90% of the way through the 1 metre thick pile I borrowed about aborigines.

And I still feel as though I’m holding one end of a slinky, with the truth on the other end, and trying to deduce the truth from the end of the slinky that I’m holding.

Even the simplest of questions have no easy answer, as the information just isn’t there.

Q1. How many full-blood aborigines are there in Australia these days?
Answer: Anywhere between none and 100,000. There were official census counts yearly between 1928 and 1941. But since then no-one has got off their official fat arse to count full-bloods.

Q2. How many mixed race children were stolen from their European, Chinese and Macassan fathers by aborigines?
Answer: Anywhere between none and 100,000.

Q3. How many aboriginal and part aboriginal children were killed by aborigines? (There are records of strangled, bashed, speared, starved and abandoned)
Answer: Anywhere between none and 100,000.

Q4. How many mixed race children were stolen from their aboriginal families by whites?
Answer: Anywhere between none and 100,000. According to aboriginal activists who lived through the period in question, before 1970, the answer is none, there is not a single contemporary account in activist literature.

Q5. How many aborigines died in a fever epidemic in Cape York in the 1930s, that may have extended as far west as the Kimberley?
Answer: Anywhere between none and 20,000.

…

OK, I’ve been whittling away at some of the answers.

> Q5. How many aborigines died in a fever epidemic in Cape York in the (1930s), that may have extended as far west as the Kimberley?
> Answer: Anywhere between none and 20,000.

I’ve been talking to an expert on this epidemic, the spanish flu epidemic of 1919-1921, as it turns out. The death rate for aborigines was close to 10% nationwide, which was much larger than the death rate for whites. So of the order of 6,000 or 7,000 aborigines dead in total. Fewer than expected of those died in Queensland, no more than 1,000 and possibly much fewer.

> Q1. How many full-blood aborigines are there in Australia these days?
> Answer: Anywhere between none and 100,000. There were official census counts yearly between 1928 and 1941. But since then no-one has got off their official fat arse to count full-bloods.

I was wrong there. Australia-wide counts continued until 1965. And after that, counts continued in Western Australia and Northern Territory until 1971. At last count, numbers were declining in Western Australia and increasing in Northern Territory. The last Victorian full-blood either emigrated or died in 1962-3. The most recent count of full-bloods in the whole of NSW (in 1966) was only 130 individuals.

My best chart so far is below. This chart should have error bars on it.

In 1920, we’re talking ±20,000
In 1944, we’re talking ±5,000
From 1958 on, it’s more like ±2,000

So at the present day we’re talking in the range of 10,000 to 70,000 full-blood aborigines.

mollwollfumble said:

mollwollfumble said:

I’m 90% of the way through the 1 metre thick pile I borrowed about aborigines.

And I still feel as though I’m holding one end of a slinky, with the truth on the other end, and trying to deduce the truth from the end of the slinky that I’m holding.

Even the simplest of questions have no easy answer, as the information just isn’t there.

Q1. How many full-blood aborigines are there in Australia these days?
Answer: Anywhere between none and 100,000. There were official census counts yearly between 1928 and 1941. But since then no-one has got off their official fat arse to count full-bloods.

Q2. How many mixed race children were stolen from their European, Chinese and Macassan fathers by aborigines?
Answer: Anywhere between none and 100,000.

Q3. How many aboriginal and part aboriginal children were killed by aborigines? (There are records of strangled, bashed, speared, starved and abandoned)
Answer: Anywhere between none and 100,000.

Q4. How many mixed race children were stolen from their aboriginal families by whites?
Answer: Anywhere between none and 100,000. According to aboriginal activists who lived through the period in question, before 1970, the answer is none, there is not a single contemporary account in activist literature.

Q5. How many aborigines died in a fever epidemic in Cape York in the 1930s, that may have extended as far west as the Kimberley?
Answer: Anywhere between none and 20,000.

…

OK, I’ve been whittling away at some of the answers.

> Q5. How many aborigines died in a fever epidemic in Cape York in the (1930s), that may have extended as far west as the Kimberley?
> Answer: Anywhere between none and 20,000.

I’ve been talking to an expert on this epidemic, the spanish flu epidemic of 1919-1921, as it turns out. The death rate for aborigines was close to 10% nationwide, which was much larger than the death rate for whites. So of the order of 6,000 or 7,000 aborigines dead in total. Fewer than expected of those died in Queensland, no more than 1,000 and possibly much fewer.

> Q1. How many full-blood aborigines are there in Australia these days?
> Answer: Anywhere between none and 100,000. There were official census counts yearly between 1928 and 1941. But since then no-one has got off their official fat arse to count full-bloods.

I was wrong there. Australia-wide counts continued until 1965. And after that, counts continued in Western Australia and Northern Territory until 1971. At last count, numbers were declining in Western Australia and increasing in Northern Territory. The last Victorian full-blood either emigrated or died in 1962-3. The most recent count of full-bloods in the whole of NSW (in 1966) was only 130 individuals.

My best chart so far is below. This chart should have error bars on it.

In 1920, we’re talking ±20,000
In 1944, we’re talking ±5,000
From 1958 on, it’s more like ±2,000

So at the present day we’re talking in the range of 10,000 to 70,000 full-blood aborigines.

I’ve managed to find three more points on the graph. For 1961, 1966 and 1991.

The smaller number marked * from 1966 is almost certainly an overestimate according to the ABS. The reason given is that the questionnaire asked indigenous australians if they had “more than 50%” indigenous blood, and it was clear that many had interpreted that as “50% or more” indigenous blood, so included many half-castes.

Victoria & NSW.

According to census records, the last Victorian aborigine died or emigrated in 1963. Censuses for all of 1963, 19964, 1965 and 1966 all counted zero full bloods in Victoria. I keep wondering who the last Victorian aborigine was. Lived at Lake Tyers Aboriginal community perhaps. It finally closed its doors in 1971.

Aborigines in Victoria since then, in 1996, whose main language is an aboriginal language, dominantly speak a non-Pama–Nyungan language, from a latitude north of Cooktown in Qld.

The count in 1966 was just 130 in the whole of NSW.

Numbers in the other four states are more promising, though I worry a bit about the rate of decline in Western Australia.