Gruesome Racism Of Christian Mission Propaganda

It's still hard to believe PR films like the one linked below, from 2.30 minutes in, were made to pave over the heartbreak and lifelong misery dealt out to Aboriginals over the stealing of their land and their children. The narration of is practically gleeful, and these kind of films were shown in cinemas, in schools, in government offices to staff, across Australia and England from the 1930s to the 1960s. Such films were made to convince those concerned by the purposeful destruction of Aboriginal culture and heritage and families that it was done "for their own good."

'Happy HalfCaste Girls In The Orphanage'

The counterpoint of an Aboriginal man detailing their rich lives and cultural lifestyles before the stealing of land and children began is jarring.


Here's the transcript, via The Australian Screen Office :

This clip shows black-and-white archival footage of Indigenous Australians engaged in traditional ceremonial activities, building a shelter, fishing with spears and collecting food. This footage includes narration by Aboriginal activist Mick Miller, who details the treatment of Indigenous people since Australia was colonised by the British in 1788. The second half of the clip shows footage of Indigenous people on a Christian mission in the 1930s. The original narration, included with this footage, claims that the missions are giving Indigenous people 'the benefits of civilisation’ and includes the intertitle 'Happy halfcaste girls in the orphanage’.

Mick Miller, narrator When the British, to use their word, “discovered” Australia, we had already been here for at least 60,000 years. Our culture was rich and complex. Based on a deep spiritual affinity for the land. The land is our mother. It is the source of all life and meaning to us. We were on the continent in small clan groups. We had no need for houses of parliament, or cathedrals, paved roads or fences, but the white man took that as evidence of our backwardness. They called us savages, subhumans. We were shot, poisoned, kept in chains. Our women were raped. They drove us from our land, and they desecrated it. Later, they decided to civilise us, to make us like themselves.

Original narration from Christian mission footage The Australian blacks are a vanishing race no longer. Earnest efforts by those who know and understand them are today bettering the condition of the Aborigines. The blacks are encouraged to live the old free life, but they are given the benefits of civilisation as well. And one big benefit is regular meals. Rations are issued to all who apply, and there’s no reluctance to apply. Some are reluctant to go. Along with the bucks and the youngsters, the women get their food the new way, but they still carry their babies the old way. The piccaninnies take their exercise seriously, even if some of them take it a bit out of time. “Well, how do you like this fella (inaudible), Mary? Too much altogether walkabout (inaudible).” So the good work of the Sacred Heart missionaries turns a primitive people into a happy, healthy community.

Mick Miller In less than 150 years, our ancient civilisation had been destroyed. It was accepted that we were doomed to extinction. We had become marginal people in our own country. Our land was now their land. 

Aboriginal Martial Arts 'Coreeda' Based On World's Oldest Martial Arts?

'Coreeda' is being used to control aggression in young people in Western New South Wales, but it's also good for fitness, fun and community ties:

Based on Aboriginal combat, the ancient martial art of Coreeda has played a crucial role in controlling hostility for thousands of years.

Gavin Dickson of the Coreeda Association of Australia is using this art form to similarly manage the aggression among kids on Mornington Island.

He said the children often resorted to violence and experienced aggression as a result of boredom.

"We were invited to Mornington Island to try and utilise the sport to help the kids in town manage aggression and inspire them towards traditional culture," Mr Dickson said.

 Great background story from Living Black:
  

Some more background:

"The legendary Dreaming account of how Coreeda first came into being was told in the Ngiyampaa Nation of Western NSW and is about a lizard man named Beereun, who was told by a giant snake to watch the Red Kangaroo bucks so he could learn how to fight without weapons. He then brought these fighting techniques back to his clan and initiated a wrestling tournament as an important peace-keeping ceremony, which instigated an era of great prosperity for the Ngiyampaa people.


Based on the dating of rock art at sites like Mt Grenfell near Cobar in Western NSW, it is estimated this first Coreeda tournament began over 10,000 years ago, making Coreeda one of the oldest documented styles of Folk Wrestling in the world"

More at the Coreeda Association here

Fossil Record Confirms Ancient Dreamtime Legend Of 'Galloping' Kangaroo



For thousands of generations, Aborigines have passed down the story of how kangaroos that once ran on four legs were 'cursed' to hop along instead.

Now scientific research confirms that the ancient Dreamtime legend of Bohra was, in fact, true :

The dreamtime story of Bohra the kangaroo says the animal once ran like a dog before it was punished for joining a corroboree and forced to hop for eternity.

Researchers at the University of New South Wales say they now believe a dog-like skeleton, found in north-west Queensland, is from an extinct kangaroo species that once galloped rather than hopped.

Indigenous expert Michael Connolly says he has no doubt Aboriginal people were around to see the species.

"The Aboriginal people were always here, as far back in time as people can [say]," he said.

Mr Connolly says his ancestors used the dreamtime story over thousands of generations to record the animal in history.

"The Aboriginals had no books, so it was always by ear and by mouth and by art. These stories were told and passed down from generation to generation, so that was our storyline, that was our Bible that was everything," he said.

You Can Read A Story Of Bohra The Kangaroo Here

More Stories From The Dreaming Can Be Watched And Heard Here

Aboriginal Families Flee The Police, Military 'Intervention'

Howard's "Invasion" Of Aboriginal Lands Begins Today

Prime Minister John Howard said he was left with no choice but to act immediately to stop the rape and molestation of children in a number of Northern Territory Aboriginal communities, after the release of a report detailing the living horror that is daily life for thousands of Aboriginal children, living in Third World conditions.

For many who have spent years and decades trying to help Aboriginal communities devastated by alcoholism, petrol sniffing, gambling, social decay and sexual exploitation, Howard's move to action has been years overdue.

But the speed of Howard's 'emergency intervention' has reportedly left some Aboriginal communities reeling, and horror-struck, and there is much angst that Howard did not consult enough with Aboriginal leaders before setting his plans into immediate action.

Howard said the time for talk and discussions was over. It was time for action.

Today, the first wave of police, backed by Australian Defence Force soldiers, will enter Aboriginal communities to start rounding up the more violent, abusive offenders, and to close down pubs and liquor outlets.

According to Howard's rushed, vague and possibly disastrous plan, medical professionals will follow the police and military and will conduct medical examinations of all children under 16. The examinations will be compulsory, and parents will not be required, according to Howard's comments, to give their consent.

Howard's stated mission is for health workers to examine the children for signs of sexual abuse, or infection by sexual disease. Many of the doctors who are taking part said they will use the opportunity offered by the intervention plan to do complete check-ups of the children they encounter, and they will not be rushed in their work by the politics that will overshadow the intervention as the federal election draws near.

Neither Howard, nor the vast sprawl of critics of his plan, know what the eventual outcome of the intervention will be. But few, obviously, are hoping it will fail. Virtually all Australian want the exploitation of Aboriginals, by their own, and by outsiders, to cease. Today.

But it will be a dream many years in the realisation, with some extremely ugly and possibly deadly confrontations to come.

It is not only a small number of Aboriginal elders who don't want the social order, the power of their rule over their communities, by decree or by sheer force of violence and threat, to change, or to be lessened by the presence of police and soldiers.

There is also a lesser known number of white Australian males who have grown rich and powerful from the illegal trafficking of alcohol and drugs into remote Aboriginal communities, and who control pedophile rings where Aboriginal children are prostituted and traded between communities, and between mine workers.

Howard has vowed to stamp out alcohol and pornography in more than 60 Northern Territory communities, and not all of them are dominated by Aboriginals. There is a small number of camps filled with white Australian miners, who will also be told their days of heavy drinking and watching hardcore porn, and buying sex from Aboriginal kids with a few litres of petrol, are well and truly over.

To believe that all of the people in the isolated communities of the Northern Territory will relent to the police and military is a fantasy. For a few months, at least, the police and military may be facing their own mini-insurgency, as hundreds of members of Aboriginal gang members go bush and possibly begin to fight back.

The police, and the military, already have their 'hit lists' of the more violent and abusive and dangerous members of the communities they will be entering.

There will be jubilant scenes in some towns as drunken thugs are taken away and the sober grandmothers and community elders are able to take back control of what alcohol, rape and violence had desecrated for so many years.

And it all begins today.

In the first community to be targeted, located near the base of the majestic Uluru, reports claim that Aboriginal families are packing up and fleeing their community, terrified that their children will be taken away from them, and a replay of the 'stolen generation' stories of their parents and grandparents, will become their reality as well.

From the Sydney Morning Herald :

Panic about the Howard Government's crackdown on child sexual abuse has spread widely throughout remote Aboriginal communities, where parents fear their children will be taken away in a repeat of the stolen generation.

Some families have already fled the first community to be targeted, Mutitjulu at Uluru, but the Minister for Indigenous Affairs, Mal Brough, blames "liars" who have something to hide from police and military personnel for terrorising people and spreading hysteria.

"The reason people are scared there at the moment is because people are putting around that the army are coming to take their children away, that the army is coming in to shoot the dogs and the Government is going to take away their money and make them sit there and do what they're told," Mr Brough said.

Social workers and indigenous MPs in the Northern Territory are being swamped with phone calls from Aborigines wanting to know what will happen in their communities.

An indigenous MP, Alison Anderson, said she had been trying to persuade families in her huge desert electorate south of Alice Springs not to take their children and flee before police and troops arrived, which in some places could be within days.

"In one telephone hook-up last night people told me they were going to run away to a waterhole 50 kilometres away," Ms Anderson said. "I have heard from many people thinking they may do the same thing. I've urged them not to panic and to stay on the communities and work with the people who arrive."

Marion Scrymgour, a Northern Territory Government minister, said: "There's a lot of fear, particularly among elder woman. Not so long ago - 30 to 40 years - children were being taken out of the arms of Aboriginal mothers. There is real fear that is going to happen again."

The Chief Minister, Clare Martin, told MPs yesterday to travel to their bush electorates as soon as possible to tell people "what is fact and what is fiction" in an effort to halt the panic.

Lesley Taylor, one of the Territory's most experienced child abuse workers, said: "They are scared stiff … This is creating very stressful environments that could lead to even more children being at risk."

Sixty to 70 communities will be targeted, and small teams of police, military and government officers will begin arriving today to audit people's needs. They would be replaced by teams who would stay to meet those needs, Mr Brough said. Public servants will oversee the programs, with a manager in each community responsible for what happens.

This is only the beginning. The road ahead will be hard, long, historical and will hopefully change the nature of how Australian state and federal governments deal with Aboriginal communities forever.

Hundreds of Aboriginal tribes survived more than 50,000 years in this country, in some of the harshest environments in the world. It wasn't sheer luck that saw them survive, and in some regions absolutely thrive. Aboriginal culture holds knowledge and secrets about this land that we can barely comprehend, that we have barely begun to understand.

It's no time to tell them all that they were wrong, that they don't know what they're doing, and what they believe is bad for them, and destructive for their children and societies.

Australia stands on the edge of a new beginning for its Aboriginal people. But the 'emergency intervention' cannot last only to the federal election. It must mark the fresh start of a new life for the tens of thousands of people left behind, and it must usher in decades of rehabilitation, rebuilding and re-integration.

But it is not only into the dominant white society of Australia that Aboriginals must integrate. We must meet them halfway, and protect what they hold sacred, and preserve the knowledge and traditions that helped them survive for hundreds of centuries before white man arrived in their lands, and changed their societies forever.

We may believe we still have much to teach them. But they have so much more to teach us, about this land, about their ancient knowledge, that we are only beginning to understand after 200 years.

We all have a long way to go.

But something, finally, and hopefully for the better, has begun.

The Lord Is My...Stockman?

It's taken 30 years and the work of some 100 linguists and translators, but the Bible has finally been translated into an Aboriginal language, Kriol, a pidgin variation that was used by stockmen, and spread far and wide through the Northern Territory.

Only 200 or so other Aboriginal languages to go.

While the Kriol translation will no doubt be read, and welcomed by some Aborigines, it's not exactly going to be a record breaking print run for this version of the Bible. The Anglican Church, who commissioned and oversaw the translation, are showing great ambition, however, by planning to distribute some 30,000 copies of the Kriol translation through the Northern Territory in the coming months.

One of the reasons why it has taken so long to finish the translation is that numerous Bible stories and tales had to be rewritten so they made more sense to traditional Aborigines.

The Dreamtime tales traditionally passed down through the generations by oral storytelling are usually short on examples of Christian-based morality and concepts of kings and individual ownership. Many such stories don't have beginnings, middles and ends, as Western stories usually do, and for the most part were tales told for the benefit of learning how to hunt, what plants and roots were safe to eat, how to read the wind, the clouds and the landscape to forecast the coming season(s), and generally how to survive.

There was also the problem that Aboriginals tend to worship the Earth, more than some formless, all powerful entity. After all, it was knowing and loving and respecting the Earth that enabled them to survive in some of the harshest climates on the planet for more than 60,000 years.

The stories of the challenges faced by the linguists and translators are fascinating :

Peter Carroll, a linguist who worked on the translation, said the phrase “to love God with all one’s heart” was a special challenge. He said: “The Aboriginal people use a different part of the body to express emotions. They have a word that is, broadly translated, ‘insides’. So to love God with all your heart was to want God with all your insides.”

Margaret Mickan, another linguist who has been working on the translation since 1984, said: “If you want to get to the deep things of life and talk about meaningful things, about your beliefs and those sorts of things, then you need it in your own language. What has meaning is something that really touches and speaks to you in your own language.”

Those working on the project needed to check constantly with far-flung communities that their interpretations of language and Biblical concepts were correct – and they were often surprised to find that their offerings had vastly different meanings from what they had intended.

Here's an example of how the "Lo, tho I walk through the valley of the Shadow of Death" passage from the Bible now reads, after re-translation from the pidgin English Aboriginal language Kriol :

Yaweh, you are the best stockman. You care for me continually, and everything I have comes from you. I can’t want more.

You care for me just like the stockman who takes his sheep to rest in a quiet place with lots of grass and spring water.

Every day you make me strong. You show me the way to go because I trust your name to do what you have promised.

Even if I go through a very dark place where anything could kill me, but I am not frightened because you are always with me. You have your spear and long stick to always protect me.

Aborigines Use Ancient Weather Forecasting Methods To Predict Coming Rains

For more than 60,000 years, Australian Aborigines have been reading the land, the clouds, the stars, the plants and the animals to predict how the cycles of nature would affect their hunting and gathering in the season ahead.

Using that ancient knowledge, some of the world's longest surviving cultured people are seeing a bit of good news in the natural world for some areas of Australia devastated by mega-drought.

So don't start evacuating the cities just yet, drought breaking rains might not be as far away as previously thought :

With wattle trees blooming across southeastern Australia and native birds and cockatoos on the wing, Aboriginal weather watchers say rain is on the way – giving some hope to parts of the country ravaged by drought.

"The cockys are flocking everywhere. That's usually a good sign that rain is coming," said Jeremy Clark, from Victoria.

"The way the flora and plants and shrubs are starting to react, I'd certainly be expecting rain."

For the first time, the forecasts from Clark's Brambuk community, which covers five Aboriginal homelands, are being taken seriously by Australia's Bureau of Meteorology as it looks for different ways to better understand the changing climate.

Bureau climate meteorologist Harvey Stern said the traditional Summer, Autumn, Winter and Spring seasons have little relevance in Australia's tropical north – or even in the temperate south, where aborigines have six seasons based on the weather and changes to the natural environment.

The bureau's Indigenous Weather Knowledge programme taps into the Aboriginal philosophy that all of nature is connected, and subtle changes to plants and animals can give clues about the climate and weather.

Mr Clark, chief executive of the Brambuk community which covers most of western Victoria, including the Grampians mountains and national park, said Aborigines have always had different ways of looking at the weather, reading landscape rather than a calendar.

"It's still practised. We won't go fishing for eels, for example, until wattles start flowering and the animals start moving, and the full moon comes. Then you know the eels are running on the migratory journey to the sea," he said.