Owning Your Past – Colonial Australia – Part 2

To read part 1 -> Mistakes – Owning Your Past

Continued … Colonial Solutions for Social Problems

One of the few institutions of the colonial era that did address a social problem prevalent of the day was Point Puer, at Port Arthur Penal Prison. Young boys and men were seen to be in an insidious position when they arrived into the colony as convicts. Some as young as 9yrs old were exposed to the worst of social constructs, abuse and ill-use as convicts, this particularly in the penal settlement of Hobart Town where the majority of convicts were first sent. This problem of unassigned boys and how to deal with them was considerable .

Unlike the young girls who were quickly assigned for reasons addressed previously, as well as being placed into service as domestic servants, the boys were unwelcome and viewed as a drain on the penal system and so Point Puer was developed. It was no holiday for the young boys and young men but it was a improved arrangement which often gave them skills and training they badly needed. Some of these skills were of course questionable as can be seen in the wake of the bushranging era of the mid-late colonial era… many of these bushrangers were early inmates of Point Puer.

Historical Mistakes – Owning Your Past – Part 1

Australian History, as Australians and the world is told in our society and schools is largely a fantasy… It is the construct of a self-interested class of people who have an obsession with ‘Mother England’ and who attempt to rule our society even today. Why and just what is it they want us to believe?

It was interesting to read a former Prime Ministers comments recently published, someone within the system who has had the chance to consider all the flaws evident in the machinery of our Government which was formed under English rule.

So what is it that can be considered corrupted in our historical account? Read on…

1. Captain Cook discovered Australia : Reality = Lieutenant Cook mapped the east coast for the British Admiralty.
2. Australia was terra nullis : Reality = Australia the continent/island supported a large, stable and well established tribal based society that not only prospered but traded widely.
3. Australia was colonized by the English : Reality = The English shipped out approx. 160,000 convicts and vast numbers of emigrants sourced from European, Irish & Scottish countries along with others.
4. Colonization of Australia was ordered and peaceful : Reality = Colonization was haphazard and led largely by squatters. In Northern NSW & Queensland it was anything but peaceful.

Yes there is a great deal that has been corrupted … and you can add to this very incomplete list other aspects of our history in relationship with native Aussies which has been also adulterated by those with agenda’s all their own…

1. The white colonists murdered thousands of natives : Reality = The Aboriginal Native Police, under the control of the Government massacred thousands of tribal Aboriginal people along the frontier to gain control of the land.
2. Whiteman murdered and decimated the Aboriginal tribes when they arrived in Aus : Reality = disease from which there was no immunity in the indigenous population decimated the indigenous population in the early years of colonization. The penal settlements were under orders from the Governor to treat the natives well, (not everyone listened as usual) actually they had trouble finding natives initially and resorted to kidnapping them in an attempt to learn from them. ie.. Bennelong, Colby etc
3. Explorers opened up the Inland and led the way for expansion throughout the continent : Reality =  Adventurers who claimed to have discovered and opened up the inland, were taken there by Aboriginal guides, mostly using often well established tracks and depended on the natives and often squatters for their survival and comfort. These guides were not always treated well though some did receive recognition from the adventurers (explorers).

The list goes on, and still the fallacies perpetuate.

In the Southern Night Skies – Aboriginal Astronomy

The study of the stars was an integral part of Aboriginal life, the science of the Songmen and Storytellers in preserving a history and the ancient understanding of who were perhaps the first astronomers to live by the cycle of the stars and the movements in the heavens in mans history.

It was the role of the Songmen and Storytellers who preserved the ancient knowledge and who passed down this knowledge to initiates and others while settled around thousands of campfires, and during the trials of initiation in the Aboriginal culture.

Aboriginal and Convict Pioneers – Australia’s Own

In Australia, when we are taught of our pioneers in Australian history we are told that they were sturdy folk, those who struggled to survive against often great hardships and indeed most were, if they weren’t they commonly died. They were also of many different elks… some convicts, some emigrants, some pastoralists or squattocracy and others a mixture of all of the above and including the indigenous Aboriginal cross cultural people. Emphasis here is on the world indigenous (born of the country) and of any mixed cultural heritage.

Australia’s most forgotten pioneers, those who pioneered the culture and nation we now all enjoy and benefit from, were those too of aboriginal descent, often of mixed race or dispossessed of their country. They, more than any other group should be considered as Australian pioneers as they were seen to belong to neither the aboriginal people, nor the colonial population… they were a people unto themselves largely who were disdained by other cultures because they were of mixed race and culture, in many ways they were the first true-blood Aussies. I have heard it commonly said that cross-cultural sons and daughters were too white for the blackfella and to black for the whitefellas.

Aussie Spirit Creatures – The Kitji

One of the most striking things about legends from across the world is the similarities they wear. Always of an interest to me I have now come to search for these markers in legend and lore. From serpents to dragons and the snakes of Eden, all noted as the bearers of knowledge or evil, which can often be considered the same.

Aussie Bush Poetry – Two-Fellow Level ‘gether

I first came across this poem in my research into Tribal Aboriginal Australians and the poem so touched me that I included it as a preface into Book 3, Spirits of the Rocks of The Dreaming Series.

I would like to share it with you now… enjoy.

An Australian Poem
Unknown Author

Two-Fellow Level ‘gether

Missus boy and my little boy two fellow grow up ‘gether
Level play in mud all day longa the rainy weather;
Two-fellow chase em dog all-time, fight and climb em tree,
Listen hard when my man tell stories longa to we.

That little white kid him likem me, properly nice one boy,
My old man go bush all day, cut em out boomerang toy;
Two-fellow play-play all the day, one fellow black one white,
Two fellow same when play at game, two-fellow level fight.

And my old man him say to me, ‘must be someone mad,
Whitefellow think him all time good, blackfellow all time bad;
But kiddie him no more think that way, two-fellow level play,
Whitefellow talk-talk one-fellow God, two-fellowlevel pray.

‘Blackfellow all day help ‘em white, somebody must be fool.
Whitefellow boy go different kind whenever him go to school;
“Can’t understand,” my old man say, “somewhere somebody mad.”
But I no more listen, me only see, two kid happy and glad. 

So I talk, ‘old man, listen here, no more growl-growl white,
All-about must live him way, which one say him right?’
Kiddie him play-play every day, kiddie him no more fool.
Two-fellow level understand when two-fellow level school.

Drawn from ‘Tales From the Aborigines’
By Bill Harney (1895-1962) – First edition Oct 1959

The Links Between Education and Racism

It is no wonder to me that our kids do not know our own history in Aus. I have spent the last few days examining just what our vegemiters are taught of our national history at school and further down is a breakdown in case you yourself are wondering. The data presented here is collected from Queensland but can be applied as an example across our country.

It is little wonder to me that we are now dealing with endemic racism and gross misunderstanding and ignorance about who we are and how we got here. Most believe we were English crim’s who having arrived in a convict boat with a couple of the landed gentry, hopped off in old Sydney town to a land full of roos, sheep and ockerisms to be greeted by Aboriginal savages and there we started the fighting. This is a load of crock! Having received such a strong response to my recent post Just Who are Aussies I have consistently heard of how history as a subject is failing to inform Australians about ourselves, and our national heritage and history.

I sincerely believe that if we were taught something of our rich and varied experience as a colony and a nation, we would not be dealing with the racial dissention we are now seeing, this about WHO Australians are and just where we each belong in our world.

The RACISM I see everywhere, sticking its head up like a ferret out of a nest to be shot at by others is truly disturbing. We need to understand WHO we are and how we got here to truly appreciate our diversity with due respect.

Our kids spend a small part of Year 5 learning about our Colonial History, that which forms the basis for our self-awareness as a nation and valued individuals and I sincerely think that this is grossly inadequate. While the topics relevant to our self-awareness are so blatantly absent from the curriculum, or are barely mentioned if addressed at all, our children will lack in self-awareness and due respect in their varied heritages.

Just Who are Aussies?

The question of Australia as a race of people is an interesting one. Just what makes up Australia as a race? Many would say Aboriginal Australia is the only race in Aus that could qualify as an Australian race and I would disagree. It comes down to just what makes the term Aboriginal relevant. What is an Australian Aboriginal?

The pic I have used in this article here is of an Aboriginal child. I know for a fact that this child is Aboriginal, in fact her Grandmother is a Traditional Owner and her full siblings are more Aboriginal in features as well as fact.

We are not talking traditional Aboriginal tribal people, very, very few of these people exist if they exist at all in today’s world and if they do exist … why would they join us? Anthropologists will tell you that the traditional tribal Aboriginal race ceased to exist in its purest form in the 1930’s. Today there are near half a million people who see themselves as Aboriginal and many more who can claim aboriginal descent but also have what is largely a convict ancestry from the Colonial Australian era.