🚀 go-pugleaf

On Thu, 29 May 1997 03:44:17 GMT, brindley@cheerful.com (David
Brindley) wrote:

>On Thu, 29 May 1997 07:58:08 -0700, Geoff Pike <gpike@hotmail.com>
>wrote:
>
<snip>

>There was no aboriginal civilisation. Simply ekeing out an existence
>as stoneage hunter/gatherers does not make a civilisation, no matter
>how many years it lasted.
>
>By definition, a civilisation needs complex cultural, political and
>legal structures, highly developed material resources, and cities.

Whose definition is that? My Shorter Oxford does not mention cities at
all, nor highly developed material resources - but what would it know?

As for complex cultural, political and legal structures - they were
all present in aboriginal society.

>These were not in evidence in aboriginal communities in 1788.

Not in evidence because the observers lacked the discernment to
distinguish them.

>As to living in harmony with the environment, are you aware that it
>was the use of fire by aborigines that destroyed Australia's great
>forests and turned much of the land into desert? This is fact.

And your evidence for this is what? I haven't notice much rain west of
the Divide to , say, coastal WA and NT. Did they do that too?

>Can you prove there was no loss of fauna? Who wiped out the giant
>kangaroos and wombats. And someone must have killed all those etcs.

Can you prove that there was? I think it is accepted that there was
some loss of species. Haven't heard of the "etcs" before though. Any
further info on them?  :-)

>Yes, on the scale of civilisation, the aborigine circa 1788 was at the
>very lowest part of the scale.

As you would be on a scale I designed. Who designed the scale you
refer to and what are its criteria. Do those criteria appropriately
evaluate what is actually present in tribal aboriginal society or do
they merely measure the extent of European-style development?

>They had no writing; no agriculture; no animal husbandry; no
>technolgy; no cohesive social systems outside the tribe; no knowledge
>of the wider world (your big picture, I believe); no foreign
>relations; no science; no permanent settlements.

When I was in Queensland a couple of years ago, I was shown some
berries which were bush tucker. They had to be dried and ground up
into a paste, which then had to be cooked in the fire of a particular
species of tree which burned at a higher temperature than any of the
other species. If other wood was used, consuming that food sent you
blind because the toxins within would not be destroyed.

Aboriginal tribes had customs and taboos which were enforceable
through sanctions including exile and death - a legal system in other
words; they had special knowledge and initiation which was held by the
elders and passed on; they had rule by the elders - a political
system; they had inter-tribal trading which spanned huge distances
(see Blainey's The Triumph of the Nomads); they understood how to find
food where none was apparent to the European eye; ...

They were civilised - it just was not a European civilisation.

<snip>
>
>Chookas
>--
>
>David
>
>Cogito ergo sum.  uumh I think?
>
>--

Stan Rosenthal