Talk:Indigenous Australians/Archive 7

How they arrived?
How did they travel to the island? By boat?
 * They spontaneously manifested out of thin air. — Preceding unsigned comment added by AJH0014 (talk • contribs) 06:20, 12 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Somewhat more constructively, I have now added some text to the article explaining the most likely answer to this question. HiLo48 (talk) 06:48, 12 June 2011 (UTC)
 * I would suggest that you see the series The Incredible Human Journey, particularly the fourth episode. At the time of their arrival the water level was much lower than today. Still they had to go by boat the last distance. Possibly, they understood that it was land on the other side because of the migration of birds, or they could have landed there by accident when out on the sea fishing. --Oddeivind (talk) 09:56, 26 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Another theory is that they would have seen smoke from fires coming from over the horizon. It's great to speculate. HiLo48 (talk) 11:29, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

Archiving
Due a large number of discussion including numerous comments by banned users I have archive the talk page. Please dont restore the discussions from the archive. Gnangarra 04:03, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

Child sexual abuse
We need to be careful when talking about child sexual abuse in the section "Violent crime". The only reference to child sexual abuse in that section about the moment is the example of the community of Cherbourg. This does not prove by itself that there is excessive child sexual abuse in indigenous communities. I have not so far seen any evidence that there is more child sexual abuse in Indigenous communities than in other communities. I understand that this is a topical political issue in Australia at the moment but we need to be careful to approach these issues from an objective point of view rather than mention things because they are politically topical. If there is no dissent within a week I will remove the comment about Cherbourg. I also don't think that a quotation by the crown prosecutor about child abuse being a "National problem" is appropriate in an objective section about violent crime in Indigenous communities. Perhaps this could be replaced by a comparative criminological or sociological research conclusion, if such a thing exists. --Sumthingweird (talk) 02:17, 20 October 2008 (UTC)
 * I agree one location shouldn't be singled out, it is an issue that has received much publicity across Australia though I think most of the information is on individual events and anecdotal information rather than systemic research. Given this it should still have some coverage though under a more neutral broader section heading. Gnangarra 03:38, 20 October 2008 (UTC)
 * I didn't hear you. What did you say? Joe9320 of the Wikipedia Party  |  Contact Assembly of Jimbo Wales  01:08, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

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First sentence revert
talk, why did you revert my change? I don't understand what your edit summary means. Ashmoo (talk) 13:59, 24 November 2008 (UTC)


 * Hi Ashmoo, sorry I didn't quite understand your change. You wrote "Indigenous Australians are the peoples than inhabitanted" - there's a spelling mistake: "inhabitanted" should be "inhabited". But I don't understand what was wrong with the original wording. Can I suggest something like "Indigenous Australians are the nations of people who inhabited the Australian continent..." or something like that? Feel free to change it to whatever you think is appropriate. I was just trying to get rid of the spelling mistake and come up with a wording that wasn't confusing. Cheers --Sumthingweird (talk) 23:58, 24 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Yeah, sorry about the spelling mistake. My problem is ' The term XXX refers to ' is generally a bad way to start a WP article, as it focuses on the words rather than the topic, and WP is not a dictionary. Your suggestion seems fine to me, although I would remove 'nations', because 'nation' has no clearly defined meaning and also has some meaning that wouldn't be appropriate to describe IA political structures. I'll make a change, let me know what you think. Ashmoo (talk) 09:35, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Figures in infobox
The infobox presented population figures as percentages, which are ambiguous - a reader might interpret a figure of "NT 32%" as meaning that 32% of the NT's population is Indigenous, or they might conclude that 32% of Indigenous people live in the NT. I've replaced them with totals (from ABS estimated resident populations 2006). (Also reordered states by those populations.) Percentages are discussed elsewhere in the article, where there's a bit more room to clarify their meaning.

Also reverted these edits by 210.80.143.67 - the figures given were badly wrong under either of the above interpretations, not sure whether this was vandalism or just somebody looking at the wrong set of figures. --144.53.251.2 (talk) 23:41, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Number of Languages
In the introduction, it says- "Although there were over 250 spoken languages at the start of white settlement, fewer than 200 of these remain in use"

But then later on under the history section it says- "Each nation had it's own language and a few had multiple, thus over 250 languages existed, around 200 of which are now extinct"

50-199 is a big range! Which statement needs fixing? 222.152.99.195 (talk) 08:36, 15 December 2008 (UTC)Tiddy

Indigenous Australian cuisine
Would anyone be willing to pull this article together to help put the various foods, eating habits, diet, preparation methods etc. in a single place? It would balance out the Euro-Australian centric Australian cuisine article.

--Jeremy ( Blah blah... ) 09:56, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

Full bloods
The last accurate census in 1960's showed 37,000 full blooded Aborigines. Today it might be as high as 50,000 according to the One Nation party.

Discussing this would not hurt. Only 10% of people who self identify as Aborignal are pure bloods.

121.216.201.146 (talk) 17:13, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

The last accurate census was taken in 1961 when the number 37,000 to 2 sf.

Most authorities estimate the number of full bloods today at between 30,000 - 50,000.

That's quite low considering 500,000 people self identify as indigenous in Australia and is worthy of being mentioned.

That's like only 10% of Indigenous people. It's like we are at the fag end of aboriginality in Australia.

138.130.139.198 (talk) 12:48, 15 February 2009 (UTC) - comment moved from separate section by --144.53.226.17 (talk) 00:52, 16 February 2009 (UTC)


 * The "Population" section already discusses the self-identification issue. Could you explain in more detail what additional material you'd like to see added? You'd also need a reference for the census figures, and the One Nation party is not a reliable source for statistics of this kind. Euryalus (talk) 19:24, 3 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Census coverage of Indigenous people in the 1960s was actually rather poor. As noted in Census in Australia, procedures for remote areas were altered in 1971 (following the 1967 referendum), specifically to improve coverage of Indigenous. Nearly forty years on, getting accurate counts for remote Indigenous people (or even the non-remote ones) is still difficult, and the ABS continues to put a lot of work into this problem. Pre-1970s figures should be taken with a large grain of salt, on the understanding that there was a lot of undercount (and there continues to be more than we'd like).


 * Attempting to distinguish between 'full blooded' and other Aboriginals is impractical (how many people know all their ancestors for the last 200+ years?) and unless one's trying to institute some sort of reverse one-drop rule or one has political reasons to want estimates of Indigenous populations as low as possible, the relevance is doubtful. --144.53.226.17 (talk) 23:17, 4 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Excellent points. Euryalus (talk) 23:29, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

Employment rates
It's probably not useful to try making statements like "Indigenous unemployment is X times the non-Indigenous figure", for a couple of reasons - the exact numbers go out of date very quickly with the passage of time, and without age-standardisation the comparison can be very misleading. (Unemployment tends to be higher amongst young people, so even if Indigenous and non-Indigenous of the same ages had the exact same employment rates, the younger Indigenous population would cause higher Indigenous unemployment.) Better to leave it qualitative, and use the figures for illustration rather than standing on them too heavily. --144.53.226.17 (talk) 00:53, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Prominent Indigenous people
This section seems to be turning into a list of all Indigenous Australians who have a Wikipedia article (though omitting a lot of the historical ones e.g. Truganini). Do we really need to triplicate so much that's already in Category:Indigenous Australians and Lists of Indigenous Australians?

I'd suggest cutting the list and replacing it either with a brief discussion naming a handful of the best-known figures (if people can cope with some of their personal favourites not making the cut ;-) or maybe just turning it into a 'see also'.

There are a lot of sportspeople and activists in this list, but very few scientists, businesspeople, or elected representatives. If anybody can dig up sourced commentary on the reasons for that imbalance, it would be a valuable addition to the article. (I can speculate, but can't offhand find WP:Reliable sources to back it up.) --144.53.226.17 (talk) 00:19, 19 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Since nobody raised objections, I removed the list. I've tried not to get into WP:OR in turning a list of names into discussion, but I'm not sure how well I managed - apologies if I've over-editorialised here. --144.53.226.17 (talk) 04:21, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Book Review
I found this book review on the World Wide Web. It truncates the first chapter of Rodney Liddell's "Cape York - The Savage Frontier" pretty well. I understand state education authorities have no problem with this book.

Might be relevant to include in the article.

(Copyright text removed - review can be found at http://nigelrmorris.com.au/Prehistory_of_Australia.htm)

—Preceding unsigned comment added by 143.238.66.51 (talk) 00:03, 10 February 2009 (UTC)


 * The inclusion of Liddell's opinion was last suggested in September (see here) and there was a firm consensus that it not be included as it is a self-published source. Similar views were expressed by Keith Windschuttle and his work is included in the "Further Reading" section.


 * On a more general point, article talk pages are for discussing changes to the article. If you have specific suggested changes to the article, please suggest specific wording rather than posting long book reviews. Euryalus (talk) 00:55, 10 February 2009 (UTC)


 * I've looked again at the website you copied the review from. The material on the website is marked as copyright. While a paraphrasing might be valid, you have instead copied and pasted the entire page from that website onto this one, which raises a copyright problem. I've replaced the text with a link to website you got it from, so people can read the review in its original context and without it being a copyvio. Happy to discuss if you (or anyone else) disagrees. Euryalus (talk) 11:08, 10 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Based on past experience here, I don't think discussion with 143.238.66.51 (no relation to my own anon IP) is likely to be productive. S/he has been pointed at the relevant bits of WP:RS et al. but seems to be unwilling or unable to understand why 'some guy on the web' is not a satisfactory source. (I'm also a bit mystified by how somebody can claim "state education authorities have no problem with this book", while enthusiastically citing a review that claims a conspiracy by the Education Department to suppress Liddell's opinions...) Seems to me that WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT describes the situation pretty well.


 * Edit: I am assuming, based on style etc, that 143.238.66.51 is the same person who was advocating Liddell's theories here back in September. --144.53.226.17 (talk) 23:50, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

I don't think it would be safe to assume anything.

Why can't wikipedia display the text of the book review in full? It's been released into the public domain as far as I know. I actually got the text from a newspaper. It truncates chapter 1 of that book pretty well.

It might be self published but what about Liddell's sources? I was watching a documentary about aborigines and colonial era anthropoligists on Australian television just the other day and Haddin's name for one name was mentioned.

138.130.139.198 (talk) 11:50, 14 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Out of curiousity, what newspaper was this published in, and what was the TV show you watched the other day? Euryalus (talk) 19:29, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

I saw the book review in the Newcastle Herald. The program that mentioned Haddin's name screened on SBS on Friday, 13/02/09. The show made him sound like a source worth quoting.

Haddin is one anthropologist who used to just say it plain that the Paupans were in Australian when the first aboriginal people arrived. Like it was a plain old fact.

What has happened to all this plain talking since the mid 1950s?

Today it is very hard to get publicity for the fact aborigines were part of the second wave of immigration to Australia.

138.130.139.198 (talk) 10:14, 15 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Thanks. A couple of points. The idea that Aborigines were not the first Australians is a fringe theory. That doesn't mean it cannot be included in the article, only that begfore it is included, we would need even better sourcing than for any other significant point. This we don't have. What we do have is:
 * a review by an unknown author of a self-published book which makes reference to the subject, reportedly published in a regional newspaper. Book reviews are not in any case a reliable source for anything othetr than the reviewers opinion of someone else's work. As neither the reviewer nor the book are the subject of this article, there seems little point in pursuing this review as a potential reference for this page.
 * a TV show on SBS on 13/2/09 which allegedly mentioned someone who might hold the same views as the person who wrote the book that is the subject of the above review. I say "allegedly" because the SBS schedule for the day doesn't include any show that covered this topic. There were two programs that day which referred to indigenous issues - a music show (Blaktrax) and a short film (River of No Return) about a woman who dreams of being a movie star. Neither of these featured anything claiming Aborigines were not the first Australians. I can only assume when the anon IP said they saw a show on this day, they got the date wrong.
 * In case this is getting too long, the key point is we don't even have sufficinet sourcing here for a non-controversial point, far less for something outside the mainstream understanding of the topic. Without better sources, we cannot include the claim suggested above. We are at the same impasse we've reached every previous time this suggestion has been raised, and unless something radically new and interesting is put forward I'd suggestr this thread, like the earlier ones, has reached a natural end. Euryalus (talk) 11:28, 15 February 2009 (UTC).

I wouldn't say it's a fringe theory. The work of Haddin and the others has been made very hard to find over the last 30 years but it hasn't yet been burnt.

There is not much awareness of the fact of prior occupation of Australia by the Paupans. At this stage of the struggle.

Why did Haddin and Gribble and those people publish statements such as:

"The first inhabitants [of Australia] were a negroid race being curly haired. Later came the [Pre] “Dravidians“ A straight haired race driven from Egypt, through the north of India."

in their works?

How did they conclude there was a curly haired negroid race living in Australia at some stage predating the arrival of the aborigines?

Is it true two boomerangs were among the items found in King Tutankamen's tomb when it was opened?

Is it true only evidence of the curly haired negroid race has been found in Tasmania?

Why did William Dampier write in his log of seeing a "curly haired" race of people whilst surveying the coastline of Australia on his voyage of discovery?

That's what I want to know.

138.130.139.198 (talk) 12:40, 15 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Then you're asking in the wrong place. Wikipedia exists to report the general scientific/historical consensus (and where appropriate, prominent alternatives, clearly identified as such). It is not here to determine whether that consensus is correct, or evaluate the strength of Haddin & Gribble's arguments, and indeed its structure is entirely unsuited to such a task.


 * When you say things like "The work of Haddin and the others has been made very hard to find over the last 30 years... There is not much awareness of the fact of prior occupation of Australia by the Paupans", that is a pretty clear acknowledgement that this theory is not prominent. As such it doesn't belong in Wikipedia, and if you keep trying to push it you'll eventually end up in arbitration. --144.53.226.17 (talk) 01:37, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

Why does Liddell assert this is his book?:

"All the evidence clearly identifies the Papuan as being the original Australian. Numerous anthropologists have acknowledged that fact, but are ignored by Universities who are paid millions of dollars to force feed the public with a false pre-history of Australia."

Haddin and the others just wrote about it as if it was a fact. It's true the fact aboriginal people were part of the 2nd wave of immigration to Australia is not well known. But they say the truth is the truth no matter if no one believes it. There was once a time when most people believed the world was flat and yet it is a sphere.

This is the debate wikipedia has to have.

138.130.139.198 (talk) 04:32, 16 February 2009 (UTC)


 * "they say the truth is the truth no matter if no one believes it" - and Wikipedia's verifiability policy says: "The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth". If you believe that policy ought to be relaxed, you'll need to persuade people over at Wikipedia talk:Verifiability. Arguing it here will not achieve the result you're looking for. --144.53.226.17 (talk) 05:42, 16 February 2009 (UTC)


 * I've marked this discussion as closed, because:
 * fringe theories require strong reliable sources but in this case no such sources have been provided;
 * This issue was also discussed at length last September with a consensus against inclusion;
 * Nothing here suggests the consensus from last year has changed; and
 * The discussion has moved away from proposing changes to the article, into claims of real-world "burning" of sources, and debates "Wikipedia needs to have". These might make interesting blog topics but they don't meet talk page guidelines, and this page isn't the place for them.


 * Thank you to all those who contributed here, but I sincerely doubt there's profit in prolonging the discussion. Euryalus (talk) 05:45, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

The work of E. R. Gribble
According to E. R. Gribble:

"The first inhabitants [of Australia] were a negroid race being curly haired. Later came the [Pre] “Dravidians“ A straight haired race driven from Egypt, through the north of India."

Source: E. R. Gribble, A Despised Race (Syd, 1933)

Is that true? Is it also true two silver wrought boomerangs were found in the tomb of King Tutenkarmen?

138.130.139.198 (talk) 05:07, 19 February 2009 (UTC)


 * This is an opinion more commonly expressed during in the first half of the 1900's .. explored a lot in by some of the early physical anthropologists such as Birdsell (measuring people's physical dimensions etc).  It remains an opinion .. with almost no followers amongst contemporary physical anthropologists, nor other specialists.


 * It would seem inappropriate to present and priveledge at the very beginning of this article .. an OPINION expressed by a member of the clergy back at the beginning of last century .. as if it were an undisputed opinion/ consensus/ fact!


 * Please, it would be appreciated agreement might be obtained amongst editors either here or, more appropriately, on the Prehistory of Australia talk page, before reinserting this material ... Bruceanthro (talk) 06:01, 19 February 2009 (UTC)


 * And once again, please have a read of WP:FRINGE before trying to add fringe theories to this article. A single line from an outdated and not especially credible source is not enough to justify including the idea that Egyptians colonised Australia. There is a place in articles for minority theories, but only relative to their credibility and support in reliable sources. In the absence of extensive additional source material, this Egypt theory is simply too fringe for inclusion in its current form. Euryalus (talk) 08:59, 19 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Comparison of edits - both style and subject material - make it pretty clear that 138.130.139.198 is the same person as User:Premier, who has already been permanently banned for a history of disruptive edits to this article, along with sockpuppet abuse. The assumption of good faith has been well and truly exhausted here - it is clear that no matter how many people try to explain WP policy to him, he's just going to keep on disrupting the article until admin action prevents him from doing so. --144.53.226.17 (talk) 00:02, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

And it looks like he's back.--GenericBob (talk) 01:37, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

Spelling "Indigenous" / "indigenous"
Can someone please explain why the term "indigenous Australian" is mostly spelled with with a capital "I" in this article? Note that in some instances this article spells it with a lower case "i", and the term itself is sometimes spelled with a capital "I" when it isn't used together with "Australian". The article Indigenous peoples is no help because the usage there is even more irregular. I can't find any sanction of the usage with a capital "I" at MOS:CAPS.

In my opinion, it's an adjective which is not exclusively tied to "Australians" (are indigenous Canadians spelled with a capital "I"?) and it should be spelled in lower case. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 12:32, 24 May 2009 (UTC)


 * It can be taken either as an adjective + proper noun (making lower-case appropriate) or as a construction that's evolved into a compound proper noun that's sometimes abbreviated to the first word (in which case, capitalisation is appropriate). Capitalisation seems to be the norm on Australian government sites - see e.g. WA Dept of Indigenous Affairs, ABS, Australian Government Indigenous Portal. Note that the exact same considerations apply to "Aboriginal"/"aboriginal"; AFAIK, it's just that "Aboriginal" has been used longer and has more time to evolve into a proper noun.


 * FWIW, Indigenous Canadians are sometimes capitalised - see e.g., although the site doesn't seem to be very consistent about it. --GenericBob (talk) 13:16, 24 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Those sites provide only limited evidence, as many instances occur in titles, where title case rules apply, and other instances strike me as plain wrong: the first sentence at the WA DIA: "DIA engages with Indigenous people […] benefits to Indigenous communities." The other websites employ similar usage.
 * Regardless of the sites quoted above, Wikipedia has its own house style, the Manual of Style. My question was whether the capitalisation of "indigenous" is covered by that manual. I also raised this question at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (capital letters). -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 14:59, 24 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Whether it's "plain wrong" depends, as above, on whether you're treating 'i/Indigenous' as a basic adjective, or as a proper noun (with identical adjective form) that happens to be depended from that adjective. I doubt anybody would object to capitalisation if we were talking about "engaging with Greek people" or "benefits to Greek communities"; here, 'Indigenous' is being used in the same fashion, to indicate association with a proper noun. Or, for a closer parallel, capitalisation seems to be the norm when talking about "First Fleet ancestry" or the "Pilgrim Families" who settled the USA, even though both those terms are descended from lower-case adjectives and nouns.


 * I'm not sure why you'd describe the Australian government sites I listed there as 'inconsistent' - while it's tricky to search specifically for lower-case spelling, as best I can tell, they are extremely consistent in using capital 'I' throughout, including non-'title case' content. (edit: now that I've had the chance to check, I've confirmed that this is official style, at least for the ABS - will continue that discussion over at WP:MoS.) But if the MoS has some specific guidance on this issue, I'd be interested to see it. --GenericBob (talk) 01:51, 25 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Many indigenous Australians feel that the capitalised form it is more respectful and as a result many govt and other bodies use it. I like the points GenericBob makes about parallels with `Pilgrim Families' etc. While I don't have a strong opinion either way myself, consistency is a good thing -- it seems to me it's surely not harmful and maybe quite good if we capitalise when referring specifically to Indigenous Australians (as an identifiable group) and not capitalise when referring to indigenous people generally. As far as I can see the MOS doesn't have specific guidance, but it does say (`General principles') to follow the relevant cultural and linguistic context.  Dougg (talk) 02:20, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

Regarding this question, see also the discussion at Talk:Indigenous_Australians/Archive_2. -- Paul foord (talk) 14:15, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

Grammar question ...
In the past the word Aboriginal has been used in Australia to describe its Indigenous peoples as early as 1789. Is that correct English? Really? :) Well, the worst is still to come: English is NOT my first language ... and yet ... I feel something fishy about that sentence. From my understanding of grammar, it must be was used - past tense! "In the past" is a key-phrase just as "...ago" which reigns the past tense. Or not? -andy 92.229.171.12 (talk) 05:23, 28 May 2009 (UTC)


 * You're correct. Fixed now (and simplified the wording a bit too). --GenericBob (talk) 05:34, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

Self-determination of Australian Aborigines
I just ran into the above while vandal-chasing, it's a bit of a mess, anyone have any suggestions what to do about it? Thanks.

Dougweller (talk) 06:30, 15 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Uncited for over two years - should probably be deleted or replaced with a redirect, maybe merging appropriate content to here if somebody wants to find cites for it. At the very least, it should be renamed to 'self-determination of Indigenous Australians', since the material it discusses includes Torres Strait Islanders. --GenericBob (talk) 06:49, 15 June 2009 (UTC)


 * I added a reflist, and a link from this article to it. No sources, not even ELs.  It is linked from Self-determination as well...which is its source... there appears to have been too much coverage there in the opinion of an editor, and the content was cut to a new article rather than simply killed.  Hopefully someone will take it under their wing.  If not, I think I might PROD it later in the year when I groom my watch list again.- sinneed (talk) 20:54, 27 June 2009 (UTC)

Misinterpretation of statistics
"due no doubt to the fact that they commit more offences" was cited to: http://www.lawlink.nsw.gov.au/lawlink/bocsar/ll_bocsar.nsf/vwfiles/bb17.pdf/$file/bb17.pdf

This is not what the paper says. It focuses on reported crimes against aboriginal people, and convicted offenders. Since the pools of people in both cases will be much smaller, the statement is simply not correct. I would suggest that such an inflammatory change be proposed here.

I have added a cite web linking directly to the document:

- sinneed (talk) 06:07, 27 June 2009 (UTC)

It would certainly be reasonable to cite that source as evidence that Aboriginal people have higher rates of alleged offending, but offering it as an explanation for a figure from a different source would be synthesis. (Especially since, from a quick glance, the disparity in the NSW stats in rate of alleged offending is smaller than the disparity in the imprisonment figures in the ABS source.) --GenericBob (talk) 08:25, 27 June 2009 (UTC)

It's intended only as a citation of offending rates. I was asked for a citation for that figure, and I provided one. I used the NSW example because it's a large and demographically varied state. Do you really want me to find stats from WA or NT which will be even worse? As to the synthesis proposition, perhaps you could note it separately that aborigines commit so many more criminal offences than other ethnic groups. 118.208.203.37 (talk) 05:04, 28 June 2009 (UTC)

Fixed that synthesis issue. The source now cited also attributes higher aboriginal imprisonment rates to the greater violence involved in aboriginal criminality and the fact that aborigines have more extensive criminal records. 118.208.203.37 (talk) 05:14, 28 June 2009 (UTC)


 * "In 2000, Indigenous Australians were more likely per capita to be both victims of and perpetrators of reported crimes in New South Wales.[66] In 2002, Indigenous Australians were twice as likely as their non-Indigenous peers to be a victim of violent aggression,[67] with 24% of Indigenous Australians reported as being a victim of violence in 2001.[67] In 2004, Indigenous Australians were 11 times more likely to be in prison (age-standardised figures). In June 2004, 21% of prisoners in Australia were Indigenous.[67] One report found this to be because they commit more offences, commit offences of greater violence, and have more extensive criminal recordsANU source cited


 * This is still problematic, for a couple of reasons:


 * Offering Source C as an explanation for the findings of Sources A and B is still synthesis, unless you can find a reliable source that specifically links those sources in that way. In this case the ANU source cannot possibly be commenting on a statistic reported in 2004, since that's three years after the ANU source was published (and looking at the paper, it's based on analysis of data collected in the 1994 NATSIS).
 * The ANU article does *not* simply say that it's because "they commit more offences, commit offences of greater violence, and have more extensive criminal records". In fact, page 10 of the PDF specifically says (emphasis mine):

"This paper confines itself to examining the economic and social factors underlying the various types of arrest experienced by Indigenous people. That is, it examines arrest rather than analysing the nature of offence (re-offence) or differential treatment by the police. While the categories of arrest in the NATSIS are broadly based on various offences, it is important not to conflate the two concepts since people can be arrested without actually having committed an offence."


 * Considering that the author goes to some trouble to make a distinction between 'offence' and 'arrest', it would be an extremely bad idea to ignore that distinction in citation. --GenericBob (talk) 05:48, 28 June 2009 (UTC)

New statement and source
"One report found this to be because they commit more offences, commit offences of greater violence, and have more extensive criminal records." is sourced to http://www.anu.edu.au/caepr/system/files/Publications/WP/CAEPRWP10.pdf

No, the synthesis still remains. It talks about rates... you speak of quantities. These are very different indeed. Please provide location in the source for your statements, if you feel I am incorrect. - sinneed (talk) 05:27, 28 June 2009 (UTC)

Here is the source in Cite Journal form.

- sinneed (talk) 05:43, 28 June 2009 (UTC)

Self-sufficiency
It could be mentioned that Indigenous Australians have proven to be better skilled in travelling and searching food than even the military. This was shown in test between the military and a group of Aboriginal australians led by David Gulpilil —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.243.190.151 (talk) 10:40, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

blank template
See completed example click here



—Preceding unsigned comment added by Buzzzsherman (talk • contribs) 23:04, 15 September 2009

It is purty but why is it here? - Sinneed (talk) 23:09, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

Smallpox
"An immediate consequence of colonisation was a pandemic of [..] smallpox"

That's arguable. Not the pandemic, but the assertion of consequence. Briefly, the accepted technical position is that the pandemic was caused by infection from Indonesia, which reached Sydney and Melbourne soon after settlement. But that is such a comfortable excuse that it remains contentious: http://www.questia.com/googleScholar.qst;jsessionid=KWdRrYgt4TPh8h2pCyhYJZ8DbkvC2brZ3kFm0Mp1R3h511W1SyDq!1527970456!507429036?docId=5008438627 http://www.ahc.org.au/history/history.html —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.206.162.148 (talk) 08:54, 15 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Hello, I see that one of my references has been added to the article, but not the other...that's not really neutral, is it?203.206.162.148 (talk) 04:32, 15 January 2010 (UTC)
 * I couldn't stand anymore either. What do you think about the current version? schomynv 09:51, 16 January 2010 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Schomynv (talk • contribs)
 * You're a braver man than I am! I think it's important to note that this is still contentious, because not doing so invites further revisions. (I note the page is now locked) Also, the new statement doesn't include the South East coast (Melbourne and Sydney), which is a significant ommision. Note that particularly for Melbourne, race relations are best seen in the context of disastorous epidemics which killed all the children and many of the adults.
 * Smallpox is normally spelled without the space "Small Pox": see the Smallpox article. I'm glad you found the ISBN for the article, I'd like to see the excerpt (http://www.questia.com/googleScholar.qst?docId=5008438627) added to the reference, because it is available on the web. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.206.162.148 (talk) 01:52, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

Post European Settlement or British Invasion & Colonisation?
Noongar (talk) 08:08, 19 November 2009 (UTC)Wondering why this page reports "Europeans as settling Australa", when every history book on the subject explains how the British invaded and then colonized Indigenous Australia. Any feedback on this bizarre claim, appreciated. - Noongar (talk) 08:08, 19 November 2009 (UTC)


 * Copied sig to end. Interesting.  I don't find the word "settling" in the article.  Please see wp:talk page guidelines, wp:CITE.  Perhaps if you explained what edit you think should be made, and gave a wp:reliable source supporting it?-  Sinneed  22:23, 19 November 2009 (UTC)


 * Ah, are you objecting to the section head where the 1st sentence is "British colonisation of Australia began with the arrival of the..."? Colonisation instead of settlement seems a reasonable proposal. I look forward to other thoughts and ideas.-  Sinneed  22:26, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

Thank you Sinneed for your response. The misleading text is the History sub-heading "Post-European Settlement". This misreprentation is repeated a number of times throughout the page in similar form i.e. Australia was settled / colonised by "Europe" or "Europeans". Unless Im missing something here, Britain is not recognised as part of Europe. Britain seized and later colonized Australia. Along with the original 1788 invasion, led by James Cook, the colonization of Indigenous Australia had very little to do with Europe. It was and remains a very British affair.

James Cook died in 17792.127.7.171 (talk) 16:29, 4 October 2013 (UTC)

Should you feel it still necessary, Im happy to list links substantiating Britain as opposed to Europe colonised Australia. This fact, albeit distorted and diluted, is more or less reported on the same page. Noongar (talk) 03:31, 20 November 2009 (UTC)


 * In this context "European" is a perfectly satisfactory term to describe the colonisation and settlement: Britain is synonomous with Europe in that sense, and is certainly part of Europe (as oppposed to continental Europe). Using your argument why not use England (or Yorkshire)? I'm sure I could find you examples of non-British European colonisers.  eg German Lutheran settlers in SA in the mid-1830s.  –Moondyne 04:06, 20 November 2009 (UTC)


 * Using your argument why not use 'The Northern Hemisphere', or 'The Rest of the World'2.127.7.171 (talk) 16:31, 4 October 2013 (UTC)

Er what has this got to do with the 1788 British invasion and seizure of Australia, led by the Britain James Cook? Australia was a British Colony until Federation 1901 (Australian Constitution), and till this day Australia remains part of the British Commonwealth. Dont know how you figure Europe into this history apart from the odd migrant.Lingiarri (talk) 12:29, 20 November 2009 (UTC)
 * User:Noongar / User:Lingiarri have previously been indefinitely block for causing disruption as User:Jackamarra Gnangarra 14:13, 20 November 2009 (UTC)
 * It's non-encylopedidic, but I have to say that my German friends laughed at me in a superior, pitying kind of way, for unconciously accepting that "England" is not part of "Europe". It's a common Australian belief, but not one shared by the Europeans. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.206.162.148 (talk) 04:45, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

European Settlement or British Invasion & Colonization; Potato/Potato? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 110.174.19.130 (talk) 12:19, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

Aborigines of not of mixed descent
How many "indigenous" people fit into this category?

What is the current estimate?

I've heard it is around 30,000 - 50,000. Which is small enough to be significant enough to be mentioned in the article.

124.183.114.44 (talk) 09:01, 19 December 2009 (UTC)


 * it has been discussed before; see Talk:Indigenous_Australians. schomynv 09:21, 20 December 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Schomynv (talk • contribs)


 * Pretty sure the anon commenter here is the same one who brought it up last time (and the time before, and the time before); he's been trying to assert that most Indigenous people are fakes because they have some non-Indigenous ancestry, under some weird sort of reverse one-drop rule. Every so often he comes back for another try at pushing it into the article, like a toddler going "Mum... Mum... Mum... Mum... Mum..." But until he comes up with a decent source to establish numbers and notability, it's not going to happen.


 * Frankly, I doubt such a source exists. Back in the 1960s when people placed more importance on concepts like 'full-blood', the methodology wasn't good enough to get reliable numbers. These days, while ABS does a much better job of measuring the Indigenous population, they don't make such a distinction. --GenericBob (talk) 23:15, 20 December 2009 (UTC)


 * Yeah that's the problem, an up to date citable spurce, as the last accurate census was in 1961 when the figure was 37,000. Currently it might be between 30,000-50,000.


 * The article goes into intermarriage and assimilation stats in some depth, which is good.


 * It needs to state clearly that a majority (an overwhelming one) of people who self identitfy as aboriginal are of mixed descent: http://www.bennelong.com.au/articles/howson6.php 124.183.114.44 (talk) 03:17, 22 December 2009 (UTC) (NOTE - edited to remove racist comment, again.  The talk page can be semiprotected if this long-term pattern of disruption continues.)-  Sinneed  04:00, 22 December 2009 (UTC)


 * Once such a statement is wp:notable, it *MIGHT* merit inclusion, if wp:consensus is reached. Otherwise it is just opinion. -  Sinneed  03:59, 22 December 2009 (UTC)


 * The 1961 Census is not a reliable source for the figures you're trying to insert, even for 1961. The ABS itself notes: "As counting of 'full-bloods' was not a prime purpose of the Census, remote areas of Australia which were only inhabited by Aboriginal people were not enumerated, although counts were sometimes derived. The quality of such counts is questionable." I'm pretty sure I have reminded you of this before - why do you persist in trying to ram these bad numbers into the article? --GenericBob (talk) 12:40, 22 December 2009 (UTC)


 * Such things depend entirely on the opinion of those giving the information, and are inherently unreliable in fine detail... census information is statistical in nature, and must be used wisely. Reporting the opinions of a relatively small group about whether ANY of their ancestors (how many of us have reliable data about *ALL*great-grand-parents?) were non-aboriginal seems unlikely to spread knowledge in an encyclopedia article.-  Sinneed  16:31, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

I know. But 30,000 - 50,000 full bloods remaining. That sounds about right.

You only have to live to a certain age and travel around Australia to know that full bloods are a small minority of the 'indigenous' population indeed.

I just think it is important from the point of view that Australian aborigines have dysgenic traits. Which also could be mentioned in the article.

124.183.114.44 (talk) 03:07, 25 December 2009 (UTC)

You would need to find extremely sound evidence to demonstrate here that Australian Aboriginal people have dysgenic traits, and then deal with the fact that the Wikipedia article on Dysgenics largely suggests that there is no such effect. HiLo48 (talk) 04:45, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

"Religion" in Info Box
The Info Box tells us "Majority Christianity, with minority following traditional Dreamtime beliefs". In the Belief systems section we are told "The 1996 census reported that almost 72 percent of Aborigines practised some form of Christianity; 16 percent listed no religion." This makes the percentage following "traditional Dreamtime beliefs" no more than 12 percent, smaller than those professing "no religion". That should be reflected in the Info Box. I would also note that there have been two national censuses since the one quoted in the article. Anyone want to hunt for more up to date figures? HiLo48 (talk) 00:14, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

The last Tasmanian Aboriginal ?
The article tells us that "Fanny Cochrane Smith, who died in 1905, is recognised as the last of the Tasmanian Aborigines". Given the broader definition of Aboriginality now in play, that claim is nonsense. The article on Fanny Cochrane Smith tells us she had eleven children. Any one of these or their descendants could claim to be Aboriginal. I personally know three people who self identify as Tasmanian Aboriginal. Can we clean this up? (Without argument about the definition please.) HiLo48 (talk) 10:22, 11 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes, I interviewed a descendant of Fanny Cochrane Smith the other day. I think the writer was trying to say something like she was the initiated or traditional Tasmanian Aboriginal but yes, it needs a clean up. --Roisterer (talk) 12:55, 11 February 2010 (UTC)
 * I made a few changes to eliminate the contradiction between the census count of 15,000 quoted earlier in the article and the statement that Fanny was the last. That was weird.Phantomnubian (talk) 01:16, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

Arrival
The introduction says some believe the first people arrived up to 125,000 years ago. The first sentence under History says there is a consensus among scholars that the first people arrived 40,000 to 50,000 years ago, with a possible range up to 70,000. This is a flat-out contradiction. I suspect someone doesn't know what the word consensus means. It means ALL scholars agree the first arrival was 40,000-70,000 years ago. This is not true. There is considerable diversity of scholarly opinion as noted in the introduction. The word consensus needs to be replaced with MOST scholars, or better, MANY scholars believe etc etc. Hypatea (talk) 13:23, 28 February 2010 (UTC)


 * I would be happy with that kind of change. It's a difficult area. I don't think any of the serious scholars write with too much certainty on this matter. All they can comment on is what the diverse sources of evidence possibly point to. Words like MOST and MANY can be accused of being weasel words, but I think they fit here. HiLo48 (talk) 17:22, 28 February 2010 (UTC)


 * done --Amaher (talk) 23:24, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

Prominent Indigenous Australians.
I know that it is very hard to have a comprehensive list here and some important people will of course be left out, but I feel that David Unaipon, Aboriginal inventor and the only Aboriginal person to be acknowledged by being placed on Australian currency ($50 note) should not be among the omitted. Also, please consider adding a couple of other resistance fighters to accompany Pemulwuy, such as Yagan and Windradyne. Finally, the concluding sentence "Others who initially became famous in other spheres - for instance, poet Oodgeroo Noonuccal - have used their celebrity to draw attention to Indigenous issues" seems to potentially imply that the people listed are excluded from this group due to the use of the word "Others"... slight I know, but I think that perhaps something like "Many Aboriginal people who..." might give a safer meaning as it doesn't specifically include or exclude those listed. Thanks for your consideration and keep up the good work, you have my sincere admiration for your patience and dedication to this endeavour.Perasonism (talk) 12:49, 16 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Have done :-) I pruned the list a while back because it was getting unwieldy, but those all seem reasonable. --GenericBob (talk) 11:52, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

Category
This page is appearing in Category:2010, and I can't work out why (and there's no reason it ought to appear there). Any bright ideas? Fences &amp;  Windows  23:48, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

Prominent Indigenous Australians - sport - no AFL
I'm pretty sure this part of the article was written by someone from NSW or Brisbane. I know there's a bias, and I know Aussie Rules isn't an international sport, but to fail to mention any success of indigenous people at the Australian game (which they possibly invented) is a huge oversight. Doug Nicholls cracks a mention as a state governor, without mentioning that he first came to fame as a footballer. The former probably wouldn't have happened without the latter.

Is there any good reason the article ignores Aussie Rules success?

I'm contemplating writing something. It won't be easy because of the huge number of people potentially worth a mention. Any thoughts? —Preceding unsigned comment added by HiLo48 (talk • contribs)


 * They're currently ignored because you haven't written about them yet. Someguy1221 (talk) 06:26, 31 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Haha. Thanks for that help. Gimme time! HiLo48 (talk) 07:25, 31 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Actually, I'm a Victorian, formerly from ACT, who just isn't terribly interested in AFL or most other forms of sport ;-) I pruned the section heavily because it was turning into a long and unwieldy list, mostly redundant with existing lists/categories. For the sporting section, I felt 'high profile in competition at international level' was a reasonably objective criterion, but I'm happy to let the sports fans decide among themselves whether AFL should be mentioned there too. I will note that the article already includes several mentions of AFL and two AFL-related images, so it's not totally neglected... --GenericBob (talk) 13:41, 31 March 2010 (UTC)


 * As far as male sporting aspirations and admirations go, Australia is not a homogeneous country. If the article was just about NSW, Qld and ACT, your point would be quite valid, but everywhere else in the country, Aussie Rules fame is the highest goal. I don't think one needs to be a sports or AFL fan to see that. It means that 'international competition' is not a meaningful measure of 'prominence'. It would be like telling an American that success at baseball or their local brand of football is of no significance. HiLo48 (talk) 15:47, 31 March 2010 (UTC)


 * I recognise what you're saying (while disputing your choice of parallel - by any of the measures WP offers, baseball is much more of an international sport than AFL), but what measure of prominence would you suggest instead? I have no great personal preference as to who gets mentioned in the section, as long as it doesn't get too much larger than it currently is. --GenericBob (talk) 22:04, 31 March 2010 (UTC)


 * I've made a small addition naming three indigenous Australian who gained prominence through Australian Football. I don't think it unbalances or enlarges the section too much. I still disagree about baseball in the USA. The best players do not play internationally, unless one counts occasional games against the Toronto Bluejays in the domestic competition. HiLo48 (talk) 01:17, 2 April 2010 (UTC)


 * The addition looks reasonable to me. --GenericBob (talk) 02:52, 2 April 2010 (UTC)

Be careful when using survey results
Survey statistics on Indigenous Australians need to be treated with some care. There are several issues that make it tricky to get good-quality figures on Indigenous people, including but not limited to:


 * Small sample sizes - because Indigenous people are a rare subpopulation, the numbers in sample can be quite small, leading to large random error.
 * Undercoverage - remote areas are difficult/expensive to sample, and many surveys will exclude some of these areas from coverage. While the effects on 'general population' stats are pretty small, the effects on Indigenous stats can be larger, because a greater proportion of Indigenous people live in these areas.
 * Age standardisation - Indigenous people are on average a fair bit younger than the general population, so non-standardised comparisons can be quite misleading.

It's generally a good idea to go to the original source and read carefully for quality caveats etc. Be very wary of percentage figures that don't mention the actual sample numbers involved - often they turn out to be very small, especially in surveys that aren't specifically designed to produce accurate Indigenous figures. --GenericBob (talk) 13:15, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Prominent politicians
Marion Scrymgour MP (NT) and Linday Burney MP (NSW) were/are both ministers in territory/state governments.

Carol Martin MP (WA) was the first Indigenous woman to be elected to any parliament in Australia.

Barbara McCarthy MP and Alison Anderson MP were both elected to the NT Parliament in 2001.

Could the politicians list be updated to include these?

203.38.135.50 (talk) 05:44, 30 April 2010 (UTC)ellie


 * They could be added. The main place to deal with individuals is Lists of Indigenous Australians, but notable examples like Carol Martin could be added. We need sentences like "Carol Martin MP (WA) was the first Indigenous woman to be elected to any parliament in Australia." followed by a citation to reliable source that this is the case. If i get around to it, i may try and do a bit of this. hamiltonstone (talk) 05:54, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

Circumcision - rite of passage
Djungawon ([male] circumcision) : This is an age-grading initiation ceremony (http://www.acropolis.org.au/articles/InitiationRitesAborigines_GunerOrucu.pdf) - is this worth a mention? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.86.6.69 (talk) 20:36, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

Map
A map showing percent of aboriginals by area similar to those used for languages in many south africa related articles would be good. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.124.88.94 (talk) 05:46, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

infobox gallery
I don’t understand why somebody would revert summarily from this layout back to this one (spaces, commas and all). However that’s what happened in revision. Am I missing something? ―cobaltcigs 08:39, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

History post-colonisation
There is very little here, it could well do with an expansion. Has anyone written an Australian equivalent to Dee Brown's Bury My Heart and Wounded Knee, or the like? Ross.Brighton (talk) 12:47, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Crime section
I'm not sure why my edit has been reverted. The material I replaced wasn't written properly, used poor sources, the heading was redundant, didn't cover the proper facts etc. There really was no reason to revert it. Christopher Connor (talk) 22:58, 14 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Well, I rolled it back because it appeared to be a cut and paste from another article. There's no need to duplicate the same information here, as the duplication will make maintaining the material more difficult. I like the idea of linking back to the other article, and I think bringing over some of the more pertinent data would also make sense, but I think what we'd want here would be a brief summary of the other article. I hope that's clear, --Nuujinn (talk) 23:02, 14 November 2010 (UTC)
 * It already was a summary of that article, and was only two paras long. Are you saying you want it even shorter? Christopher Connor (talk) 23:08, 14 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes, I think one paragraph would be sufficient, just a brief summary, since the entirety of the other article is just a click away. But I'm willing to defer if this is an important issue for you, assuming no one else has an opinion. --Nuujinn (talk) 23:22, 14 November 2010 (UTC)
 * The existence of that article shouldn't really have any effect on what goes in this one. The issue is a big deal for Indigenous Australians, and is covered extensively in studies and the media, so I don't think my insertion was undue. Other sections on less notable topics are substantially bigger. Christopher Connor (talk) 23:47, 14 November 2010 (UTC)

Cannibalism debate
I realise this topic by its very nature is one to be treated sensitively, but this debate is notable enough to be covered in an encyclopedia entry, and I propose that it be the article on Indigenous Australians.

I was reading a book review on "Cape York - The Savage Frontier" which stated:

"He [the author] catalogs accounts of numerous shipwrecks around the Australian coastline, with the castaways from these vessels set upon by hordes of savages as they rowed ashore with hundreds of helpless men, women and children were brutally slaughtered by club and spear. Rejecting claims by modern academics that Aborigines were not cannibals as absolutely false, he asserts that many were eaten, whilst others were beheaded in Northern Australia and the nearby Torres Strait Islands and still others more were kept as slaves and slowly worked to death, whilst subsisting on starvation diets."

Whilst this is a self published work, there are other verifiable sources for each side of the debate that I would like us to discuss. For example, the following media outlet interviewed a Western Australian man who claimed he ate a Japanese fighter pilot who crashed during World War 2:

http://www.local-legends.net/home/RARE-SPECIMENS.php

I am convinced that this practice did exist in pre-history and early colonial Australia, but not for subsistance, rather for ritualistic purposes. Cannibalism denial seems to be a fairly recent contention.

I see that this has been raised before but perhaps all parties could be more sensible this time.

Theredchief (talk) 07:18, 22 April 2011 (UTC)


 * Well, Wikipedia requires reliable sources for its content. The two you have mentioned hardly qualify. The link you supply is to a site openly named "Local Legends". The word Legends reduces credibility instantly. It seems to be a site designed for entertainment more than historical record. The earlier source is a book review. Not enough on its own. The book itself would be needed. But even then, there's a credibility problem with such documents being used to cast the locals in a bad light at the time. It helps justify stealing the locals' land if you portray them as low class savages. I cannot say whether cannibalism occurred routinely or not, but we need better sources than yours so far to say anything definitively. HiLo48 (talk) 07:32, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

The writings of Walter Roth, who I believe is reliable, can be discussed first:

"293. Cannibalism - Though the prima facie evidence of the practice of cannibalism is very meagre, and 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."

http://www.archive.org/stream/ethnologicalstu00rothgoog#page/n185/mode/2up/search/cannibalism

Maybe a potential "Cannibalism controversy" section of the article could start with the claims made in the 1997 publication "The Truth" and the subsequent counter claims.

Theredchief (talk) 10:07, 22 April 2011 (UTC)


 * An earlier discussion on cannibalism is in the talk archives #4 Paul foord (talk) 11:40, 22 April 2011 (UTC)


 * Note - one of the editors who was very 'enthusiastic' in that discussion (and quite fond of Roth) was Premier, who was eventually banned for sockpuppet abuse. Later on, other accounts with very similar styles to Premier's showed up, trying to push the same content (see archive 6). So I'm a little wary of a brand-new editor who happens to choose this as their first topic for contribution, coincidentally invoking Premier's favourite outdated source... --GenericBob (talk) 12:46, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

I don't agree Mr Roth's work is outdated and think he'd know better than people over 200 years later. I don't know that there is a modern consensus that aborigines did not practice cannibalism merely because some academics in the present day are unwilling to admit it. But perhaps the existing reference in the article cannibalism is already enough?

''According to one historical account, aboriginal tribes of Australia were most certainly cannibals, never failing to eat persons killed in a fight and always eating men noted for their fighting ability who died natural deaths. "... out of pity and consideration for the body." ''

Thoughts?

Theredchief (talk) 12:09, 22 April 2011 (UTC)


 * Typical misinterpretation by Europeans. Cannibalism to Aborigines is so abhorrent that most Aborigine groups believed their enemies practiced cannibalism and they often recounted minute details of who was especially at risk of being eaten and why to explorers. However, explorers could never find sources that admitted that they had done it themselves, such claims are always second hand. A claim in the above supports it being a second hand account, always eating men noted for their fighting ability who died natural deaths. A traditional belief held Australia wide, which is at the heart of Dreamtime law, is that with the exception of the very old, no Aborigine dies a natural death. Every death, whether from illness or falling out of a tree, is caused by a sorcerer from a neighboring tribe. Consensus among anthropologists is that there is currently no direct evidence supporting cannabalism. Wayne (talk) 17:54, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

I've asked the person who told me to supply more details, but one of those Dutch explorers said Cape york was full of cannibals.

I still say cannibalism denial really took off in recent times.

Theredchief (talk) 02:44, 23 April 2011 (UTC)


 * And Pliny the Elder wrote about a type of Asian buffalo that defended itself by spraying a three-furlong trail of burning dung. There's a reason "traveller's tales" have the reputation they do. --GenericBob (talk) 05:26, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

If there are references to support that there is now a true consensus aborigines did not practice cannibalism, rather than some people in modern times not willing to admit it happened, then this belongs in a section dedicated to this debate.

I've put up a few references such as Mr Roth who say it did happen. When we have some from the other side of the debate we could then move on and discuss what this new section could look like.

Theredchief (talk) 08:11, 23 April 2011 (UTC)


 * If you see this as a debate, you're in the wrong place. HiLo48 (talk) 08:17, 23 April 2011 (UTC)


 * "Cape York - The Savage Frontier" is not a RS. For example it also posits that Australia was originally inhabited by another race who were wiped out by the Aborigines when they arrived. The book is considered fringe. "The Truth" is not a RS. It was authored anonamously and was written to promote Pauline Hanson. Daisy Bates is not a RS as her claims were personally investigated by Elkin. Elkin found all her claims regarding cannabalism to be false (Australian Aboriginal Studies (Canberra), no.1, 2007: 131-137). Elkin points out that Bates made a living by selling articles to magazines which may explain her "obession" with cannabalism (and ceremonial blood drinking which Elkin found to be a red ochre surrogate) and that gnawed "human" bones she sent to the museum as proof were later identified to be marsupial. Roth is ok as a source but has been critiqued for claims of cannabalism so really shouldn't be used. "Ritual burial cannabalism" certainly occured but it has it's own name and is not considered cannabalism. Wayne (talk) 14:21, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

Yes, for ritualistic purposes. And maybe what's already written in the pre-history section of the article on cannibalism proper is enough.

I didn't know that was there when I started this thread.

Theredchief (talk) 15:20, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

The article Corroboree has a single reference, to colonist and columnist Tom Petrie, where he gets graphic about cannibalism. Should that reference be removed or commented upon? --Wikiain (talk) 23:25, 21 June 2011 (UTC)

Indigenous population statistics
I have updated the population statistics for the introductory para and for the box. These statistics are based on the 2006 census, as interpreted by the Australian Bureau of Statistics in 2009. Figures in the "Population" section of the article are also based on the 2006 census, but on the ABS's interpretation in 2007, which itself foreshadows the 2009 version. These sources seem clear when taken in isolation from each other, but I hope that the "Population" section will be updated by a demographer. --Wikiain (talk) 04:14, 30 April 2011 (UTC)

Massacres
This article tries to excuse the British for the deaths of the Aboriginal people, blaming the diseases as the main reason.

The fact is the British/Australian British were conducting many massacres like the one at Forest River. They also kidnapped many children and women. The diseases are not the primary reason, rather the Australian de facto British colonial government line of policy that goes in most book and tourist brochures in Australia. I think we all know very well the reality of those times and how the British were brutally coloniazing other parts of the world. I recommend to change it and I hope that if the writer if this article is white British Australian - he or she will try to be objective and avoid writing here the Australian government propaganda. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.129.45.239 (talk) 07:23, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

Life expectancy
An IP keeps removing content about the life expectancy by stating that 2003 is too old and that a Chinese Government page is fact (UN states otherwise "According to official Chinese policy, there are no indigenous peoples in the country; the term used is "ethnic minorities" Human Development Report 2010 p.75). It maybe approximately eight years old however it is far more reliable then the Chinese Gov source. I've downloaded the Human Development Report 2010 report but yet to have a complete read of it since I have other things to do in real life. Bidgee (talk) 01:34, 13 June 2011 (UTC)


 * The most recent (2009) estimate of Indigenous life expectency is 70.5 years (m&f). As life expectancy at birth is also a measure of overall quality of life, compared to the world average of 67.07 (2011) Indigenous australians can't be "second worst of the planet". In fact Indigenous Australians rank (if given a ranking) 146 out of 222 countries, or around the equivalent of Iraq. Source: CIA World Fact Book (2011). Wayne (talk) 05:00, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, a slab a day of green cans does that. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Towsuckswilly (talk • contribs) 10:27, 3 September 2011 (UTC)


 * Found one news source going back to 2004. Life of Aborigines second worst on earth, The Age. Bidgee (talk) 05:04, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

Northern Territory National Emergency response.
The paragraph beginning "In 2007, Prime Minister John Howard and Indigenous Affairs Minister Mal Brough launched the Northern Territory..." has grown unwieldy for this article, and is covered better in the article it links to. To fit with the flow of this article, I propose changing it to something like: In 2007, the Northern Territory National Emergency Response was launched by the government in response to the report "Little Children are Sacred". This program to deal with social problems in Aboriginal communities has proved controversial and evoked strong responses (then all the references).

I haven't made these changes as another editor found a few useful references around this (Observoz), so I'll let him/her take an axe to it. It is definitely too long as is (look at the one liners either side of this paragraph). Bendav (talk) 13:49, 21 June 2011 (UTC)

Date of Arrival
I think the section that reads:


 * with estimates dating back as far as 125,000 years ago.[3]

should be revised as it's patently absurd, unless the indigenous Australian's are not modern homo sapiens and are a more prehistoric ancestor of man--which is an equally absurd postulation--as the 'out of africa' theory at most puts an estimate of 60-70k years, only in 2011 was a paper released postulating it could be POSSIBLE that an earlier migration occured anywhere up to 125,000 years ago.

Clearly the source for the 125,000 date is absurd and inaccurate and needs revision for that line, not just opinion based commentary. Based on mitochondrial DNA there is no difference between indigenous Australian's and any other human as far as age of origin goes, so it is impossible for them to have arrived earlier than 60,000 years ago at a stretch, and that's still assuming a lot of crazy things happened between 60,000 years ago and now.

By crazy things I'm talking believing in creationism to substantiate a scientific speculation type event. Perhaps an editor with better knowledge on this subject than I could revise this? Pmorphsab (talk) 06:02, 2 August 2011 (UTC)


 * I agree that this text is problematic as it stands. The source is an advertisement for a talk probably written by a university public relations person, and it does not classify the 125,000 claim as reasonable or unreasonable. The 125,000 proposal comes (if I recall correctly) from a large increase of bush fires at that time noted in sediments around Lake George. No human remains or tools. Here you can read one expert calling it "not outlandish". It is certainly not correct to compare it to creationism. The theory does not have much support, though the DNA findings you mention do not rule it out.  They only indicate the history of the present Aboriginal population, but there could have been multiple immigrations over the millennia.  There were early humans in Indonesia back then, so it isn't completely out of the question that some came south. What we need for citing is a brief summary written directly by some expert or other. McKay (talk) 06:50, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

Culture
Much of the information within a few subsections of the Culture section of this article should probably moved to the main article, Australian Aboriginal culture. This article only needs a summary of what appears in the main article. Conversely, for some of the subsections, the existing briefer sections currently at the main article should be moved to this article as a summary of the more-detailed sections that should be moved from this article to the main one.-- Jeffro 77 (talk) 14:48, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

Need more about illtreatment of the Aboriginal people by the British
I have seen images of the Aboriginal people in chains, beaten, tortured, locked, abused, enslaved... Yet, this article doesn't mention anything about illtreatment of the Aboriginal people for almost 200 years. Interesting. Can we know why? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 183.37.190.191 (talk) 02:52, 25 September 2011 (UTC)

Macassan Trading
There is no mention of pre-European trading with Indonesia here. I'm not sure how/where to put it - in the "Arrival and occupation of Australia" section?? Tobus2 (talk) 07:14, 13 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Yes, that seems the best spot. --Roisterer (talk) 09:34, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

german wiki - "aborigines"
hello, i would appreciate your expertise: this article in the german wiki, where i come from, is called Aborigines. this should be changed, for obvious reasons, maybe to Indigene Australier. i wonder when and how the shift from Aborigines to Indigenous Australians in the english language happened and how deep it is? would a man on the street in, say, pensacola or edinbourgh still use the term Aborigine or would he call them Indigenous Australians? Maximilian (talk) 15:58, 30 June 2012 (UTC)


 * In contemporary Australian English, "indigenous" is a collective noun which encompasses two groups: the Australian Aborigines (who inhabit the mainland and Tasmania) and Torres Strait Islanders, who, inhabit the islands of the Torres Strait. So "Aborigines" or "Aboriginals" are words with a meaning used in both every day and official English, but "indigenous" is considered the more thorough and inclusive term as the Torres Strait Islanders are a distinct group who also pre-date Europeans and other recent settlers in Australia. That said, "indigenous" is a word more likely to be used in academic circles that in the street. This article encompasses both Aboriginal Australians and Torres Strait Islanders, but both groups have their own articles on wikipedia. Perhaps the German wiki should be redirected, unless it also discusses both? Mainland indigenous Australians will often use the term Aboriginal, or else the name for their regional people in their local language, such as Koori etc. Ozhistory (talk) 00:09, 1 August 2012 (UTC)

Discussion at Talk:White people#Discussion on direction of article
There is an ongoing discussion on the "Black people" and "White people" articles about whether these terms can only mean "race" or can be used as description of skin color. Relevance is given as "Black Australians" are also discussed in the Black people article. You are welcomed to participate. Cheers:) You are invited to join the discussion at Talk:White people.  FonsScientiae (talk) 12:15, 9 August 2012 (UTC)

unreliable sources
This article has several references which are unreliable. "Aboriginal Australians descend from the first humans to leave Africa, DNA sequence reveals", Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) is problematic as it states in relation to the Science journal article An Aboriginal Australian Genome Reveals Separate Human Dispersals into Asia - Rassmussen et al : "They have shown that modern day Aboriginal Australians are the direct descendents of the first people who arrived on the continent some 50,000 years ago and that those ancestors left Africa earlier than their European and Asian counterparts."

The abstract of the science article states: Our findings support the hypothesis that present-day Aboriginal Australians descend from the earliest humans to occupy Australia, likely representing one of the oldest continuous populations outside Africa.

Supporting a hypothesis is not the same as showing something. To show something is generally to prove something. The journal article is about genetic divergence, it contains no discussion in regard to the arrival of aborigines in australia other than in the conclusion it states:

Finally, our data are in agreement with contemporary Aboriginal Australians being the direct descendants from the first humans to be found in Australia, dating to ~50,000 years B.P.(7,8). This means that Aboriginal Australians likely have one of the oldest continuous population histories outside sub-Saharan Africa today.

The sources 7 and 8 are

7. G. R. Summerhayes et al., Science 330, 78 (2010). 8. J. O’Connell, J. Allen, J. Archaeol. Sci. 31, 835 (2004).

The Summerhayes article is "Human Adaptation and Plant Use in Highland New Guinea 49,000 to 44,000 Years Ago". Its abstract states:

"After their emergence by 200,000 years before the present in Africa, modern humans colonized the globe, reaching Australia and New Guinea by 40,000 to 50,000 years ago."

However no material within the article refers to Australia. The article does not speculate on whether the modern humans were melanesian or aboriginal, it only examines artifact dates

The O'Connell article is "Dating the colonization of Sahul (Pleistocene Australia–New Guinea): a review of recent research". The abstract states

We conclude that while the continent was probably occupied by 42–45,000 BP, earlier arrival dates are not well-supported. This observation undercuts claims for modern human migrations out of Africa and beyond the Levant before 50,000 BP.

The article does not state that the colonisers of Sahul were Aborigines or Melanesians. It discusses artifacts and dating methods. There is nothing which supports the statement made in the conclusion of the Rasmussen article, even refuting the "to ~50,000 years B.P."

Given the unreliability of the statement in the conclusion of Rasmussen et al, it suggests this article can not be used for date of arrival claims regarding Aborigines. The article is indirectly referenced with reference "Aboriginal culture one of world's oldest, Australian Geographic, 23 September 2011".

Finally there is the cheeky inclusion of the source "Http://www.visitmungo.com.au/mungo-lady-mungo-man" which is tourism information site, not in any way reputable. This source is used to claim "it is generally accepted that the Lake Mungo remains are direct ancestors of present day Indigenous Australians." This is a rather strong statement to be poorly source — Preceding unsigned comment added by 211.31.101.169 (talk) 18:20, 31 July 2012 (UTC)


 * Hi, and thanks for your interest in the accuracy of this article, in the reliability of the sources used, and also for explaining here, why you made these changes. It seems to me though, that Rassmussen was used as an appropriate reference (based on what its conclusions are) Perhaps you are not contesting that so much, though, but rather whether Rassmussen's conclusions themselves are valid? But Rassmussen has been peer-reviewed in a reputable journal, so, on the face of it, is a good reference in Wikipedia. If you have problems with Rassmussen, then that should be taken up with the journals; to do so in Wikipedia would constitute original research, and hence not be appropriate. Or to view it another way, if there are problems with Rassmussen's conclusions, then there ought to be other reputable references that can be sourced to support a different view.


 * I found your objection regarding "supporting the hypothesis" not establishing a fact to be confusing. In many sciences it is the closest one gets to proof. True, it does not establish the fact in finality, in the sense that some future evidence might result in a completely different view being adopted... but until then, it is legitimate, and actually seems pretty strong.


 * supporting a hypothesis is not the same as establishing a fact. proving a hypothesis is what establishes fact. There is no such thing as a fact in finality. For encyclopaedic purposes the standard of proof should be very high in order to make an outright statement. Rassmussen doesnt even support the hypothesis outside the abstract, it merely refers to it.


 * I don't think your distinction of supporting and proving hypotheses is valid. Wikipedia policy is to use reliable sources, of which Rassmussen seems a fine specimen, and a perfectly valid reference. Mozzy66 (talk) 12:42, 9 August 2012 (UTC)


 * Finally, I don't think there was anything wrong with the "Visit Mungo" reference, which you have removed. It is not by a commercial organisation (i.e. with a specific interest to serve), but by an Australian National Park, administered by the Government, and I am pretty sure their charter requires them to ensure that the information they are providing to the public is factually correct. Perhaps it could be replaced by a better reference in the future, but for now it is adequate. And there is no reason to remove the statement it was supporting. Mozzy66 (talk) 09:55, 8 August 2012 (UTC)


 * The Lake Mungo site isn't an academic source, and to some extend it is an interested party, given that Lake Mungo is owned by aboriginal landholders. It doesnt quote any external source to forward any of it claims, and there is no material which supports the statement made in the article. There are a lot of non encyclopaedic statements however:


 * Not being an academic source is not an issue, provided it is a reliable source. The site is administered by the Office of Environment and Heritage, of the NSW Government, and there is no particular reason to consider it unreliable. Its lack of quotes from external sources or materials does not make it unreliable. Such external references are not obligatory for Wikipedia reliable sources - for example, media reports are frequently used as reliable sources, although they often don't have external referencing, and are certainly not academic.


 * Regarding the presence of non encyclopedic statements on the web site, this is immaterial. Firstly, reliable sources don't need to be encyclopedic - we are not trying to plagiarise their words - it is up to us to write encyclopedic (again, we use media as sources, and they are almost never encyclopedic...). Secondly, these quotes below are out of context, since they mostly come from the section Share Mungo Culture, which appears to showcase aboriginal cultural interpretations. The final one actually *is* a quote from an external source, a release by the Uni of Melbourne. Mozzy66 (talk) 12:42, 9 August 2012 (UTC)


 * "About 42,000 years ago, Mungo Lady lived around the shores of Lake Mungo. A time of plenty was coming to an end at Willandra Lakes, when the basins were full of water and teeming with life. The human population was at its peak, and Mungo Lady was the daughter of many mothers - the generations before her that had lived at Lake Mungo since the Dreamtime. She collected bush tucker such as fish, shellfish, yabbies, wattle seeds and emu eggs, nourished her culture and taught her daughters the women's lore.


 * When Mungo Lady died, we know her family mourned for her. Her body was cremated, the remaining bones were crushed, burned again and then buried in the growing lunette."


 * "About 42,000 years ago, Mungo Man lived around the shores of Lake Mungo with his family. A time of abundance in the Willandra Lakes system was drawing to a close, but he could still hunt many species of game, including some of the soon-to-be-extinct megafauna. Mungo Man cared for his Country and kept safe the special men's knowledge. By his lore and ritual activity, he kept the land strong and his culture alive."


 * "This research extends far beyond mere academic interest. Non-indigenous Australians too often have a desperately limited frame of historical reference. The Lake Mungo region provides a record of land and people that we latter day arrivals have failed to incorporate into our own Australian psyche. We have yet to penetrate the depths of time and cultural treasures revealed by those ancestors of indigenous Australians."


 * I've had a look at visitmungo.com and agree with Mozzy66 - it may not be the best source, but it's certainly a reasonable inclusion. We certainly should be including the University of Melbourne's "New age for Mungo Man, new human history" media release as a reference, because it is freely available (unlike the article in Nature), and it includes the statement that "The Mungo people ... their present day indigenous descendants", which supports the claim that "the Lake Mungo remains are direct ancestors of present day Indigenous Australians" (although not necessarily "it is generally accepted that..."). Mitch Ames (talk) 00:49, 11 August 2012 (UTC)