Talk:Cooman

Name
Are there any sources, apart from Rodney Kelly, that name this person "Cooman"? Or sources that identify a person in the 2 illustrations in this article so? If not, the whole article fails WP:Verifiability (Kelly is not a reliable source.)

Also: the Blainey (2000) needs to be completed with "Captain Cook's Epic Voyage" etc.

Also 2: Cook wasn't "Captain" in 1770.

Also 3: Cook didn't shoot the man, he shot at him. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 07:16, 30 October 2023 (UTC)


 * There are plenty of secondary sources referring to Cooman as well as more than one ancestor. I'm also unsure why Kelly does not qualify as a reliable primary source? As for the art - they are depictions of this encounter from two artists aboard the Endeavour as far as I've read. There is another primary source here: Theresa Ardler Reliable secondary sources: The Daily Telegraph The Guardian SBS This paper: A History of Aboriginal Illawarra, Volume 2 : Colonisation https://ro.uow.edu.au/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=4020&context=lhapapers The Independent Northern Ireland Legal Quarterly ABC News AU
 * Will fix that up
 * Its well sourced that Cook shot him. It's in his journal. "took up a stone and threw at us which caused my fireing a second Musquet load with small shott and altho' some of the shott struck the man yet it had no other effect than to make him lay hold of a ^Shield or target ^to defend himself" https://webarchive.nla.gov.au/awa/20110403094436/http://southseas.nla.gov.au/journals/cook/17700429.html Poketama (talk) 06:47, 31 October 2023 (UTC)
 * The paper you give above (Donaldson, Bursill & Jacobs, 2017) is not mentioned in the article. The sources from the article that I looked up were based on Kelly, a self-professed descendant – clearly a primary and non-neutral source – or they didn't mention "Cooman" at all. Further, the provenance of the shield at the British Museum is disputed. BTW, if that shield and those spears hadn't been taken to England, where would they be now? -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 10:27, 31 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Sorry what is the relevance of your last question? I'm not interested in having an ideological debate. I'm interested in historical truth, and will do my best to present it.
 * I've already altered the article to reflect the provenance question. I think Kelly is just as reliable as any other primary source, which is why I've provided two primary sources and several well-reputed secondary sources. I'm happy to provide a section on disputed identity. Poketama (talk) 14:18, 31 October 2023 (UTC)

Neutral Point of View
Hello all

I have tried to rewrite this from a more neutral point of view. The statement that Cooman was one of the two Aboriginal men who opposed Cook's landing appears not to be supported by the Gweagal clan and a number of experts in the field, and therefore I have tried to remove all content which states, or assumes, this as a fact.

I have also moved a number of statements by two descendents about their political views on colonialism. This is supposed to be an article about Cooman, not about the views of two activists. Wikipedia is not a soapbox.

I have also removed two statements about genocide. The NSW Legislative Council and the Australian Senate did not call Cook's encounter with the Gweagal a genocide. I have replaced the newspaper citation with the record from Hansard.

Happy to discuss Aemilius Adolphin (talk) 07:31, 2 November 2023 (UTC)


 * You claim that naming this man Cooman is an exceptional claim as per WP:EXCEPTIONAL.
 * I don't believe this is true.
 * Surprising or apparently important claims not covered by multiple mainstream sources; There are over a dozen cited sources that refer to this man as Cooman, including reputable newspapers, Masters thesis' from high-quality universities, and the University of Wollongong paper that I cited on the Voyage page. (University of Wollongong is not an Aboriginal organisation, it is a major university).
 * Challenged claims that are supported purely by primary or self-published sources or those with an apparent conflict of interest; Again, there are many secondary sources.
 * Reports of a statement by someone that seems out of character or against an interest they had previously defended; Unrelated
 * Claims contradicted by the prevailing view within the relevant community or that would significantly alter mainstream assumptions—especially in science, medicine, history, politics, and biographies of living and recently dead people. This is especially true when proponents say there is a conspiracy to silence them. This is not relevant. The addition of a name to a previously unnamed Indigenous person in a British journal is not a significant deviation or have significant impact on prevailing views.
 * Among all the sources I've read, there's only two that dispute the identity Cooman. One is the article by Maria Nugent and Gaye Sculthorpe, in which Gaye Sculthorpe, a curator at the British Museum , has a vested interest. Nugent argues that there is no consensus on Cooman's identity, not that they dispute it. The other is the Gujaga Foundation article.
 * As such, there is far more evidence given for Cooman being this man's name than not. The only argument explicitly against being one community leader (Noeleen by the way is not an Elder). As such, the way you've rewritten the article puts too much weight on this dispute and I'll be editing it again. Poketama (talk) 08:45, 3 November 2023 (UTC)
 * The main problem with the article is that you are presenting a disputed claim as historical fact. Two descendants of Cooman state that he was one of the people who confronted Cook's landing party at Botany Bay in 1770. The Deputy Chairperson of the La Perouse Local Aboriginal Land Council states that the Gweagal clan do not support this claim and that there are "a number of more feasible candidates present within the oral histories kept by Aboriginal families belonging to the area." Maria Nugent, Co-Director of the Australian Centre for Indigenous History at the Australian National University, states that there is no consensus for the Cooman thesis.
 * Most of your sources supporting this claim are newspaper articles based solely on the statements of the two descendants who obviously have a conflict of interest in the matter. There is also a Masters Thesis published on an open access website and a local history by an indigenous group which are also based on the claims by the two descendants. There is also an article by Vincent Smith which Nugent states is based on "inconclusive evidence" and "a questionable interpretative leap."
 * Policy states that "seriously contested assertions" should not be presented as facts: WP:VOICE. The Cooman thesis is also an exceptional claim because as far as I can see none of the standard histories of Australia, James Cook or Indigenous Australians supports or even mentions this thesis. As an exceptional claim it needs to be supported by "multiple high-quality sources": see WP:Exceptional. In questions of history "academic and peer-reviewed publications are usually the most reliable sources." See: WP:SOURCES. So we need better than one MA thesis or a local history which repeats a disputed thesis. And we need better than the repeated statements of two descendants who have an honest belief in their statements but also have a clear conflict of interest in a matter that is seriously contested by the local Indigenous community and two respected specialists in the field.
 * Also you shouldn't present the opinions of one activist about the Cook encounter as historical fact. This article is supposed to be about Cooman, not a platform for the tangential political views of one person.
 * Two editors have challenged the neutrality of this article. I will rewrite the article again from a more neutral point of view. I suggest you carefully read policy on NPOV before you make any further edits to the article. Please also read WP:NOTADVOCACY. You might well be a believer in the Cooman theory, but Wikipedia is not the place to try to prove it. If it becomes widely accepted by historians we can incorporate it into relevant articles.
 * Happy to discuss Aemilius Adolphin (talk) 23:24, 3 November 2023 (UTC)
 * Again, naming a previously unnamed person is not an 'exceptional claim'.
 * Again, Nugent is one academic against another. The article they are writing with is arguing on behalf of and in conjunction with the British Museum so it's not a neutral source to base the whole article around.
 * If I was intentionally writing this article to push a biased POV I wouldn't have written and sourced a whole section about the disputes.
 * The 'activists' you are referring to are descendants who are referring to the oral history of their lineage. I'm not convinced they have a conflict of interest in naming Cooman. They do not need to lie about the identities of their ancestors to ask for the return of the Gweagal shield, any person with ties to the Gweagal could reasonably make that requests. Case in point, Noeleen Timbrey has also campaigned for the return of the Gweagal shield.
 * You're being disingenuous with the sources. If you want to reach an understanding here, listen to what I'm saying and respond to it. I'm willing to change my view. I have told you, The Illawara History paper is from the University of Wollongong, not a 'local history by an Indigenous group' . One of the academics who worked on this paper is a Dharawal scholar. You are assuming they are taking Kelly's claims at face value with no fact-checking or criticality. We use secondary sources because it is assumed that highly reputable newspapers and institutions will look into this a bit. Referring to Masters' thesis (which are also reviewed and overseen by multiple academics) as disreputable because they are 'open-access' is also disingenuous.
 * The Land Council does not speak for all Gweagal people and shouldn't be assumed to. The relationships and politics of who runs and is involved in groups like Land Councils, Aboriginal Corporations, etc., are very hot topics within Aboriginal communities.
 * Poketama (talk) 12:25, 5 November 2023 (UTC)
 * The work by Donaldson, Jacobs & Bursill (2017) doesn't contain a single footnote, so its phrase, "the older brother, later called Cooman", must be based on the following phrase, "Rodney Kelly from Bermagui, Cooman's direct descendant". Theresa Ardler is not mentioned in their paper. When was the name 'Cooman' first mentioned? By whom? Ardler says in the ABC article (Higgins & Collard, 2020) that her was shot. You do the maths. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 13:31, 5 November 2023 (UTC)
 * The earliest reference to Cooman being the man shot comes from the 1800s. Again, you are assuming they are taking Kelly's claims at face value with no fact-checking or criticality. I don't know what you are playing at but I assume that quote by Ardler is a misprint or a slip. Poketama (talk) 13:44, 5 November 2023 (UTC)
 * Again, naming a previously unnamed person is not an 'exceptional claim'. [It is when all the standard works about Cook, Australian history and Australian Indigenous history do not mention Cooman in relation to the Cook encounter. In other words, this article amounts to re-writing history.]
 * Again, Nugent is one academic against another. The article they are writing with is arguing on behalf of and in conjunction with the British Museum so it's not a neutral source to base the whole article around. [It's Nugent and Sculthorpe, and they are not writing ' on behalf of' the British Museum. Are you saying that Kelly is a reliable source but experts from The British Museum and the Australian National University aren't?]
 * If I was intentionally writing this article to push a biased POV I wouldn't have written and sourced a whole section about the disputes. [Your intentions are irrelevant. The article itself isn't written from a NPOV and two editors have objected to this].
 * The 'activists' you are referring to are descendants who are referring to the oral history of their lineage. I'm not convinced they have a conflict of interest in naming Cooman. They do not need to lie about the identities of their ancestors to ask for the return of the Gweagal shield, any person with ties to the Gweagal could reasonably make that requests. Case in point, Noeleen Timbrey has also campaigned for the return of the Gweagal shield. [You seem to be suggesting that this article isn't about Cooman, it's ostensible topic, but a campaign by a particular activist to return the Gweagal Shield. There is already an article on the Gweagal shield and there is no need for another one under the guise of an article about Cooman. The concern is that Kelly and Ardler state that their ancestor was one of the two men who confronted Cook. But anyone can make such a claim. It only becomes Aboriginal oral history if it is widely accepted in the relevant Aboriginal community. However, the evidence is that it is hotly contested in the relevant community and not widely accepted by historians in general. By the way, you don't seem to grasp that the Gweagal shield is the shield taken by Banks. The overwhelming evidence is that the shield in the British Museum is not that shield.]
 * You're being disingenuous with the sources. If you want to reach an understanding here, listen to what I'm saying and respond to it. I'm willing to change my view. I have told you, The Illawara History paper is from the University of Wollongong, not a 'local history by an Indigenous group'. One of the academics who worked on this paper is a Dharawal scholar. You are assuming they are taking Kelly's claims at face value with no fact-checking or criticality. We use secondary sources because it is assumed that highly reputable newspapers and institutions will look into this a bit. Referring to Masters' thesis (which are also reviewed and overseen by multiple academics) as disreputable because they are 'open-access' is also disingenuous. [I didn't say any of the sources are 'disreputable', and it was A History of Aboriginal Illawarra, published by Dharawal Publications, not the MA Thesis, that I called a local history. My point is that when you read these it is clear that their sources are Vincent Smith and Kelly. The source of all the newspaper articles is Kelly and Ardler. This is clear because they quote them and no other source. The local land council states that none of these journalists consulted them or listened to the local histories of other residents. And people have disputed these sources.]
 * The Land Council does not speak for all Gweagal people and shouldn't be assumed to. The relationships and politics of who runs and is involved in groups like Land Councils, Aboriginal Corporations, etc., are very hot topics within Aboriginal communities. [Which is precisely why wikipedia should not take sides in an inter-clan disagreement. You need to understand that if you write an article which states as fact the claim that Cooman was the person shot and wounded by Cook then you are lending the Wikipedia Voice to one side of a seriously contested issue. This is precisely why policy states that "seriously contested assertions" should not be presented as facts: WP:VOICE].
 * I am going to restore the previous version of the article because it was written from a neutral POV. Two editors have objected to your version of the article and stated their reasons. If you want to take this further I suggest you ask for comment on relevant forums such as the Australian History group. Or you can lodge a RfC. Aemilius Adolphin (talk) 23:55, 5 November 2023 (UTC)
 * As for the Vincent Smith paper, Smith states:
 * "In the 1840s, an Aboriginal woman named Biddy Coolman (Cooman) gave this version of the encounter in 1770 to Richard Longfield, who told William Houston, who wrote it down for the first time in 1905.
 * 'They all run away: two fellows stand; Cook shot them in the legs; and they run away too!'
 * Biddy, ‘who often yarned with Mr. Longfield’, said the spearman’s name was Cooman and that he was the ancestor of her husband, also called Cooman, and often described as ‘the last of the Georges River Tribe’."
 * So that's it! Someone told a white person that 60 years earlier an Aboriginal woman named Biddy Coolman (she is best known as Biddy Giles) told him that her first husband told her that his grandfather was one of the two people who encountered Cook at Botany Bay. That's hardly sufficient evidence to establish an historical fact. Maria Nugent calls it, "an assertion" based on "inconclusive evidence" and "a questionable interpretative leap."  Noeleen Timbery of the La Perouse Local Aboriginal Land Council states that the Gweagal clan do not support this claim and that there are "a number of more feasible candidates present within the oral histories kept by Aboriginal families belonging to the area." The claim is seriously disputed and can't be accepted as fact. Aemilius Adolphin (talk) 02:01, 6 November 2023 (UTC)
 * The same paper also mentions in the section "Naming the spearman" that 'Go-mang' means 'grandfather'/'grandson'. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 03:03, 6 November 2023 (UTC)
 * You have again added information stating as fact that Cooman was one of the men who confronted Cook. You seem incapable of grasping the fundamental point that in writing an article from a neutral point of view you can't state as fact or assume as fact an assertion that is seriously disputed. Please answer this simple question:
 * Do you think the views of Noeleen Timbery of the local Aboriginal Lands Council, Maria Nugent of The Australian National University and Gaye Sculthorpe of the British Museum should be taken seriously on this issue?
 * I will once again re-write this article from a neutral point of view. I am happy to discuss compromise wording, but it should be on the Talk page before you make edits which present contested information as fact. I have already suggested that if you disagree with the two editors who have challenged the neutrality of your version of the article you can take it up on one of the relevant Wikipedia forums or submit a RfC. If you continue to simply repeat contested assertions as fact it will look like disruptive editing. Aemilius Adolphin (talk) 03:45, 6 November 2023 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure how much more ambiguous I can make it. Ive changed it to pretty clearly state that it is a name used by some of his descendants and enumerated clearly how it is disputed. I'll remind you that the existing edits typically take precedence on Wikipedia until disputes are resolved. Poketama (talk) 09:38, 6 November 2023 (UTC)
 * The issue isn't making the article "ambiguous" it's about neutral POV. See my detailed comments below. And there is no rule that "existing edits typically take precedence on Wikipedia until disputes are resolved." The article has been challenged for its lack of neutrality since it was created. The current consensus is for more neutral wording. Aemilius Adolphin (talk) 03:33, 7 November 2023 (UTC)

Legacy
Several times you have added the following sentence: "Cook's attack on Cooman has been falsely characterised in some history books as a peaceful encounter, or that Cook shot above Cooman not at him. Additionally, Cook falsely translated 'warra warra wai' as 'Go away', a falsehood that has been repeated many times."

I have already deleted it once and explained why. I will explain again. This sentence is based on a statement by one person, Theresa Ardler about an experience she states she had at school. You can't generalise this statement as an historical fact. Every serious history book which discusses Cook's landing at Botany Bay includes the fact that Cook's party shot and slightly wounded one of the Gweagal men. A monument was erected at Kurnell in 1938 which states this. Also Cook did not "falsely" translate the gweagal men's words 'warra warra wai' as 'Go away'. It was a later translation based on a simple misunderstanding (which, by the way, has often been repeated by Aboriginal historians). See here.https://www.nma.gov.au/exhibitions/endeavour-voyage/kamay-botany-bay/telling-our-stories-our-way

Another objection is that this statement has nothing to do with Cooman. It is merely an assertion by a contemporary activist about some unspecified history books. Wikipedia is not a soapbox. Aemilius Adolphin (talk) 05:43, 6 November 2023 (UTC)


 * Can you stop accusing me of using Wikipedia as an activist platform? If you're seriously concerned about this report me, but as far as I'm concerned we have a content dispute and you're coming off as pushy and petty after I've severely edited this article to be more in line with your argument. That Cook shot one of the warriors is a commonly disputed fact, you only have to look at this page with Michael Bednarek saying "no he didn't". The mistranslation, as you say, is also often wrongly repeated.
 * I am pointing out that there has been frequently been misinformation about the events of this man's life. To say that that has nothing to do with the article and is merely activism is a huge stretch. It has value because a reader will benefit from knowing what alternative narratives are out there. Poketama (talk) 09:50, 6 November 2023 (UTC)
 * The point is that you are using the wikipedia voice to generalise a statement by one person about her school into a statement about Australian history in general. Why should one person's "alternative narrative" be highlighted over the facts? It is also a misrepresentation of the article which clearly states that the violence of the encounter was recorded by Cook and that the local Aboriginal community considers that there was simply a misunderstanding about the words the Gweagal were shouting. There is no evidence of widepread falsification of Cook's encounter at Botany Bay and no evidence that Cook or his crew deliberately falsified the words of the Gweagal men. To suggest so is ridiculous: the British didn't understand the Dharawal language and what would they gain by pretending that "you are all dead" meant "go away"? I have already said all this so how abut removing the offending passage or work with me to come up with an agreed wording? Aemilius Adolphin (talk) 03:49, 7 November 2023 (UTC)

Neutrality dispute
@Poketama I object to your wholesale reversion of my contributions. My contributions were reliably sourced, relevant, improved the neutrality of the article and were supported by the policy I have repeatedly quoted. You did not give any reasons for your reversion except for an edit summary that claimed my improvements constituted "edit warring". You did not engage with my detailed explanations for my changes which I had put on the talk page of this article or on your Talk page. Please note policy on reversions:


 * BRD is not a valid excuse for reverting good-faith efforts to improve a page simply because you don't like the changes.
 * BRD is never a reason for reverting. Unless the reversion is supported by policies, guidelines or common sense, the reversion is not part of BRD cycle.

Specifically:

1) Short description. I wrote: "Gweagal man". You changed it to: "First Aboriginal man to meet James Cook." But it is precisely this identification which is in dispute. You can't state a seriously contested assertion as fact.

2) In the first sentence of the lead I wrote: "Cooman was a Gweagal man whose descendants state was shot and wounded by James Cook's landing party at Kamay (Botany Bay) in 1770. This identification is contested within the local Aboriginal community. "

You changed this to: "Cooman was a Gweagal man identified by some of his descendants as the warrior who was shot and wounded by James Cook's landing party at Kamay (Botany Bay) in 1770. As he was previously unnamed in written historical documents, his identity has been disputed."

His identity isn't disputed because "he was previously unnamed in written historical documents." His identity is disputed because, according the former chair of the Local Aboriginal Land Council,: "there are "a number of more feasible candidates present within the oral histories kept by Aboriginal families belonging to the area." The lead is supposed to be an accurate summary of the contents of the article. My sentence is a more accurate summary of the contents of the article. Why did you change it?

3) I wrote: "Two Gweagal men came down to the beach to fend off what they thought to be spirits of the dead."

You changed it to: "The older warrior, identified as Cooman, and another Gweagal man came down to the beach to fend off what they thought to be spirits of the dead." The problem with this is that the identification of the older man as Cooman is precisely what is in dispute. If you use the WP voice to state that this man was Cooman you are taking sides in a serious dispute within the local Aboriginal community and the community of scholars in the field. I have already explained this to you several times in this Talk page. See WP:VOICE

4) I wrote: "However, many sources, drawing from Keith Vincent Smith and two descendants of Cooman, refer to Cooman as the man shot and wounded in the leg by Cook."

You change this to: "However, many sources, primarily drawing from Biddy Giles and Rodney Kelly, refer to Cooman as the man shot and wounded in the leg by Cook." But if you look at all the sources you provide you will see that they are based on Kelly, Ardler and Smith. They don't cite Biddy Giles, they cite Smith.

5) I wrote: "The identification of Cooman stems from an article by Smith which cites a 1905 document recounting an 1840s oral history told by Biddy Giles. Biddy was a Gweagal woman who married a man named Cooman who was often described as "the last of the Georges River Tribe". However, there were several documented Coomans in Sydney, and it is not clear who Biddy's husband was. Biddy stated that the Gweagal spearman who confronted Cook was the grandfather of her husband and was also called Cooman. Maria Nugent calls Smith's identification of Cooman as the Gweagal spearman on this basis "a mere assertion" based on "inconclusive evidence" and "a questionable interpretative leap."

You changed this to: "The identification of Cooman as the name of the wounded warrior stems from an 1840s oral history told by Biddy Giles which was subsequently recorded. Biddy stated that Cooman was the grandfather of her husband, also called Cooman, who was often described as ‘the last of the Georges River Tribe’. Why did you remove reliably sourced information which explains why Smith's identification of Cooman as the Gweagal spearman is contested by experts in the field?

These changes reflect my major concerns which are that your version of the article isn't written from a NPOV. Indeed your repeated distortion and removal of sourced information that throws doubt on the Cooman thesis suggests that you are advocating for one side in a dispute. The Cooman thesis is also an exceptional claim because as far as I can see none of the standard histories of Australia, James Cook or Indigenous Australians supports or even mentions this thesis. For example, Helen Goodall's (2009) Rivers and Resilience discusses Gweagal history, Biddy Giles and Cooman extensively but doesn't state that Cooman was the warrior who was wounded by Cook. If this were a widely accepted piece of Aboriginal oral history, why wouldn't Goodall mention it? Similarly the National Museum of Australia had an exhibition on the Endeavour Voyage in 2020. The local Indigenous community was extensively involved and recounted their oral histories of the Cook encounter. No one mentions Cooman. Once again this indicates that the Cooman story is not a widely accepted in the local Indigenous community or by the majority of historians.

As an exceptional claim it needs to be supported by "multiple high-quality sources": see WP:Exceptional. In questions of history "academic and peer-reviewed publications are usually the most reliable sources." See: WP:SOURCES. I have no problem with an article presenting Cooman as just one possibility, but it can't use the WP voice to endorse or promote this seriously contested thesis.

There are other issues with historical accuracy and the legacy section in your version. We can discuss these separately. For the moment it doesn't look like we will reach a consensus on the main issues so I will ask for dispute resolution. Aemilius Adolphin (talk) 00:52, 7 November 2023 (UTC)

Feedback from New Page Review process
I left the following feedback for the creator/future reviewers while reviewing this article: I have marked the article as reviewed even though it is the subject of a content dispute. The subject is notable as presented, however if the content dispute resolves with him not being in fact considered notable, it can then go to AfD. For now, we're reviewed.

Alexandermcnabb (talk) 13:07, 9 November 2023 (UTC)

Compromise wording on neutrality dispute
Hello all,

@Poketama @Michael Bednarek

There were no useful contributions on the Neutral Point of View Noticeboard so I have made another attempt to come up with compromise wording. Specifically:

1) Short description: I have changed "First Aboriginal man to meet James Cook" to "Gweagal man who possibly opposed James Cook in 1770."

The reason for this change is that the previous version assumes the disputed identification of Cooman as a fact which is contrary to policy: WP:VOICE. Furthermore, the previous version is factually wrong because two Gweagal men opposed Cook at the same time.

2) Lead: I have changed, "As he was previously unnamed in written historical documents, his identity has been disputed." Changed to: "He was previously unnamed in historical documents, and his identity has been disputed within the local Aboriginal community."

The disputed identity isn't because Cooman was previously unnamed in historical documents, it's because there are more plausible candidates put forward by the local Aboriginal community. The article explains this.

I have also changed, "Little is known of Cooman's life apart from his involvement in this incident" to: "Little is known of Cooman's life apart from his possible involvement in this incident."

I've changed this because it is contrary to policy to use the Wikipedia voice to present a disputed opinion as fact. WP:VOICE

3) Life: I have changed: "The older warrior, identified as Cooman, and another Gweagal man came down to the beach to fend off what they thought to be spirits of the dead." Changed to: "The older warrior, who some identify as Cooman, and another Gweagal man came down to the beach to fend off what they thought to be spirits of the dead."

4) Disputed identity: I have changed. "However, many sources, primarily drawing from Biddy Giles and Rodney Kelly, refer to Cooman as the man shot and wounded in the leg by Cook." Changed to: "However, many sources, primarily drawing on Biddy Giles, Keith Vincent Smith and Rodney Kelly, refer to Cooman as the man shot and wounded in the leg by Cook."

If you look at the cited sources, several draw on Keith Vincent Smith, who publicised the 1905 document.

I have also added: "Smith cites a 1905 document recounting an 1840s oral history told by Biddy Giles. However, there were several documented Coomans in Sydney, and it is not clear who Biddy's husband was. Maria Nugent calls Smith's identification of Cooman as the Gweagal spearman on this basis "a mere assertion" based on "inconclusive evidence" and "a questionable interpretative leap."

I have added this in order to show that the identification of Cooman is disputed by reliable sources. See: WP:NPOV.

5) Legacy: I have changed, "Cook's attack on Cooman has been falsely characterised in some history books as a peaceful encounter, or that Cook shot above Cooman not at him. Additionally, Cook falsely translated 'warra warra wai' as 'Go away', a falsehood that has been repeated many times." I have changed this to: "Theresa Ardler, a descendant of Cooman, is one of the Dharawal community working with libraries, museums and linguists to tell the story of Cook's landing from an Aboriginal perspective in an attempt to correct misrepresentations of the encounter.

I have made this change because the previous version was not an accurate summary of the source. It was using the Wikipedia voice to state the opinion of one person quoted in the source as a fact. It ignored the other opinions provided in that source. WP:VOICE.

Do you have any thoughts on this? Aemilius Adolphin (talk) 04:34, 9 December 2023 (UTC)