Talk:Indigenous Australians/Archive 9

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Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples

I think this article's title should be changed. The most widely accepted and respectful descriptor for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples is "Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples". Not all, but many Aboriginal peoples object to the descriptor "indigenous", everyone is indigenous to somewhere, it's too generic, it's like we are saying Aboriginal peoples are not diverse (more than 250 different language groups) and do not have their own individual identities. According to the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies "Today, the term ‘Indigenous Australian’ is used to encompass both Aboriginal people and Torres Strait Islander people. However many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people do not like to be referred to as ‘Indigenous’ as the term is considered too generic." https://aiatsis.gov.au/explore/articles/indigenous-australians-aboriginal-and-torres-strait-islander-people I mean Pauline Hanson's callous remarks a few years ago exemplify the issue, when she claimed to be indigenous: "I'm indigenous as far as I'm concerned. I was born here. This is my country as much as anyone else." - Pauline Hanson. She couldn't and wouldn't try that nonsense on if the claim was Aboriginal rather than indigenous.

So what do other editors think? Bacondrum (talk) 23:06, 25 October 2020 (UTC)

Firstly, that we should ignore Pauline Hanson in deciding what to name our articles. Secondly though, you probably have a point. The name of the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies is probably an excellent guide. HiLo48 (talk) 23:25, 25 October 2020 (UTC)

For a more detailed outline of the terminology, see my draft here, and the page it links to. I would still like to see this work finished and put up as a reference point for all editors, once the page has been completed and approved by the Australian project. As far as the title of this article goes, I think that at this stage the shorter one is easier for readers to find, and the lead does include several other terms (which should be in bold). Although there are some objections, the term does not seem to be widely viewed as offensive, and it depends on how it is used, I think. Laterthanyouthink (talk) 07:42, 23 April 2021 (UTC)

This is a really interesting discussion, I will follow with interest. The long version "Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples" seems like a mouthful and there is no "approved" abbreviation, right? Indigenous Australians makes it perhaps more comparable with "indigenous peoples" elsewhere in the world. But let's see how it pans out and what various subject matter experts recommend. Meanwhile, in some Wikipedia articles I still see the term "Aborigines" being used, which is something we should correct when we come across it. (I came across this terminology issue while working on Climate change in Australia; please help improve that article, too, if anyone has time). EMsmile (talk) 13:35, 27 April 2021 (UTC)

Hi guys, thanks for your replies. I've allways been under the impression (mostly anecdotally, from Koori friends) that "Aboriginal" or "Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples" is the preferred descriptor in broad terms - I've heard plenty of objections to "indigenous", and "Aborigines" is seen as outright offensive. In terms of verifiable claims rather than personal anecdotes; all the Traditional Owner (TO) organizations and peak bodies I've looked at (the ones that make any mention of preferred descriptors) use "Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples". I don't think unwieldiness or our own opinions should come into play. I think that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples TO groups, Aboriginal associations etc. should be the lead we follow. I've certainly noted plenty of objections to "Indigenous" from organisations and anecdotally. As the lead of this article notes "The term Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples or the person's specific cultural group (their mob), is often preferred, though the terms First Nations of Australia, First Peoples of Australia and First Australians are also increasingly common". regardless, I think Aboriginal people and organisations should be treated as the gold standard for reliable sources in articles about Aboriginal people - definitely not those of colonial/European decent - we have a long and bloody history, of violence and lies used to justify ourselves - the only truly reliable sources on this subject are Aboriginal, IMO. Bacondrum 23:37, 2 May 2021 (UTC)

Hi Bacondrum. I'm not going to be around much this week, so this is just a quick note here. I would really like this discussion to happen on the talk page of the background work I did on the draft guide, linked to above (Wikipedia:WikiProject Australia/Draft style guide1), from which I started creating what could perhaps be a Indigenous naming conventions page. I think I might have recently happened upon a precedent and a home for this page - along the lines of these two that I found: we have one for Football and Roads.

Being Wikipedia, we have to look at published sources, rather than rely on anecdotal evidence, as you know - which is what I did back in 2019, and while there is no doubt more to be found, we don't need to reinvent the wheel but can build on this. The work put into the various style guides created by other organisations, represented on the first page, was based on input from Aboriginal people, and AIATSIS is our "gold standard" with regard to languages... I was planning to put this proposal up on the Aus notice board (the Naming conventions idea) and try to get a discussion going when I get back and have more time to participate. Laterthanyouthink (talk) 01:24, 3 May 2021 (UTC)

Hey Laterthanyouthink great Idea, I'll have a look tomorrow. I think a well considered and thorough style guide is the go for sure. I also agree that AIATSIS is a great source and indeed it is gold standard, but I'd hate for this conversation to take place without Aboriginal and Torres Straight Islander peoples. I think the principal of "Nothing about us without us" needs to be applied. I think it is of paramount importance that Aboriginal and Torres Straight Islander peoples are involved in creating the standards for how they are described and discussed on Wikipedia. Bacondrum 03:20, 3 May 2021 (UTC)

It looks as if Bacondrum has departed Wikipedian shores, but F anyone else's I, I have revived the discussion on the talk page of my background document for the style guide. Laterthanyouthink (talk) 07:15, 5 June 2021 (UTC)

Traditional Aboriginal Warfare

Why no content on Traditional Aboriginal Warfare? This is quite an interesting and important topic [1]. —DIV (1.145.43.213 (talk) 14:50, 5 September 2021 (UTC))

Governor "Macquarrie" and the "Walpuri"

I'm flagging that I plan to delete the 2nd sentence of the 3rd para of British Colonisation unless someone can give a good reason why it should be retained.

 ″In 1819, Governor Macquarrie declared total warfare against the Walpuri people of Western New South Wales, waging a war of extermination against them″

This line has a number of problems: the name of the Governor is incorrect (it should be "Macquarie"); I can't find evidence of a group called the "Walpuri" in Western New South Wales; Governor Macquarie had no knowledge of "western New South Wales"—in his time NSW was a colony that extended west to beyond Central Australia and even if the current state boundaries are meant, Macquarie had never ventured far west of the Blue Mountains.

As well, I have scoured the book and can't find this quote (if it is a quote).

Dougg (talk) 05:33, 27 April 2018 (UTC)

Without arguing with your general point, the Aboriginal group being referred to may be the Warlpiri people. (Remember, these people had no written language, so spelling is arbitrary.) Warlpiri country, however, is in the central parts of the Northern Territory, so your point about the unlikelihood of Macquarie having anything to do with them makes sense. Your argument is weakened by the petty point about spelling "Macquarie". You could have just fixed that. HiLo48 (talk) 05:43, 27 April 2018 (UTC)

The Warlpiri have a very well established orthography (writing system) that they have been using since the 70s (and note that English had no writing system until the 9th century yet we don't say spelling is arbitrary). But I agree, when I saw "Walpuri" my first suspicion was that it was supposed to be "Warlpiri". However, although I haven't been able to find evidence of this, it might be that "Walpuri" is a term that was used in Macquarie's time to refer to some relevant group, eg the Wiradjuri, in which case it would all make sense. Re "Macquarrie", I think that's a bit harsh of you. I just thought I'd ask first then either delete or fix all in one go. Plus my suspicion is that someone got the information from hearing Stan Grant jr. give a talk about his book (rather than reading it in the book), hence the odd spellings. Dougg (talk) 00:01, 28 April 2018 (UTC)

HiLo48, I disagree with your judgement that identification of a typographic error in conjunction with raising a broader issue somehow weakens the case made in relation to the latter point. In the present situation I actually think it somewhat strengthens the case. Furthermore, your recommendation to fix the spelling raises two problems: firstly, time is spent making superficial changes to (potentially) false content; secondly, after accumulating several superficial changes the (potentially) false content might start to seem credible (e.g. ″In 1819, Governor Macquarie declared total warfare against the Warlpiri people of the far west, waging a war of extermination against them″). Not good. —DIV (1.145.43.213 (talk) 15:01, 5 September 2021 (UTC))

Overquotation and unattributed quotes

In the section "Frontier Wars and Genocide" there are two major problems:

1. There are too many or too lengthy quotes. Using attributed quotes is of course justified in many cases, but generally we should use summarisation and paraphrasing as the preferred method.
   One paragraph in the section I tagged with {{cn}} – beginning with "Unlike the forcible removal of Indigenous children ..." – seems to be paraphrasing one or many sources, but it is not clear to me what those sources are.
2. Many quotes lack inline attribution. For example there is one quote that says "...Extermination seems to be the only remedy." According to the inline citation that is something from Colonial Times, but there is no indication of who said that. I would also note that many sources in this section are very, very old.

I happened to find this page by change through https://copypatrol.toolforge.org/en/, and I'm not the best person to fix these issues as it would pose difficult for me to assess how much content is due. Politrukki (talk) 13:47, 31 December 2021 (UTC)

Hi Politrukki. Happy New Year.

Thanks for giving me the heads up. So, to begin...

First, a little background. As you may be aware from the 1990's in Australia the far right, starting with John Howard and then working their way down, began a nationwide attempt to reposition Australian history in their own image. Politicians, shock jocks, and ideologically motivated 'academics' like Keith Windschuttle deliberately distorted and falsified interpretations of the past. In terms of the 'debate' about the various genocides perpetrated against Aboriginal Peoples, this manifested as outright denial. After the inquiry into the stolen generations which specifically determined that genocide had been committed, Howard famously denied it and the right has been denying it ever since.

One of the excuses that Australia uses to justify the ongoing denial is that the left- liberal, tree hugging hippies and the like- are seeking to impose on previous generations 20/21st century liberal values or to distort history through misinterpretation. The pot calling the kettle black, so to speak.

The fact is that at the time, those people who had boots on the ground, who were living in that frontier society, had much the same values as today, all informed by the Judeo Christian ethic and British law. Those people spoke and wrote and thought in the same framework of Christianity, humanity, liberalism and humanism. Simply allowing those voices to be heard after 100 or 150 or 200 years has the pleasing effect of ridiculing the the Holocaust deniers, which I personally think a noble endeavour. For that reason it is not sufficient to quote one or two voices but by quoting many voices over the course of a century, all singing from the same hyymn book, you establish a)that extermination and genocide occurred, and b) that everyone in that society knew what was going on, whether they wholeheartedly approved, were vehemently opposed or completely ambivalent. No one doubted it. Those contempoaray historical voices are fundamental to the readers' understanding of the history of colonisation and its effects on Indigenous Australians but, because most Wiki users simply will not follow the breadcrumbs and go and read that primary texts, I believe it both necessary and beneficial to quote said sources at some length.

The same need for clarity and understanding also informed my choice to quote at length the Genocide Convention and the findings of the HREOC's inquiry into the stolen generations. Those quotes, I beleive, are the bare minumum necessary to establish the existence of genocide in law- the subject of that particular sub heading. In short, while brevity is great...conclusive proofs are better.

Regarding the "Unlike the forcible removal of Indigenous children...", that refers to the previously quoted text from the HREOC's inquiry. That inquiry is important in that it established the the process of wholesale forcible removal of Indigenous kids in Australia was genocidal,not simply because forcibly removing Aboriginal children from their families, communities and cultures might be interpreted as genocide, but because the stated objective of that policy was genocide. In law intent is fundamental to establishing the existence of genocide.

That is also why it is worth quoting at length contemporary colonial voices- government, politicians, squatters, bureaucrats, newspaper editors, letters to the editor- all advocating for extirpation,annihilation and the extermination of Aboriginal Peoples. Those voices are a prerequisite for establishing that it was genocide, because all those voices establish society wide intent. Intent is the key to any meaniningful discussion of genocide. There is, and can be,no doubt whatsoever that Aboriginal Peoples were systematically wiped out. Intent then becomes the only legal basis upon which denial of genocide can be valid. Remove that obfuscation and there is no doubt whatsoever, at which point the article gains a bit of clarity rather than just being a few lines that say nothing. It is, after, all a topic that deserves more than mention in passing. Whole Peoples were exterminated. Even Hitler didn't manage to actually wipe out anyone, despite his best efforts. Australians did. Australians systematically exterminated whole Peoples, intentionally.

Finally, the sources. Yes, they are old. That is the point. They are not modern 21st century opinions. Many of those quotes are taken from various colonial newspapers, etc. Back then newspapers were very different than they are today. Often they were just a few pages. The distinctions between reporting, an editorial, a letter to the editor and an advertisement were not always clear. A case in point is the Mortimer brothers of Manumbar Station north west of Brisbane who wrote to their local paper vilifying the Native Mounted Police for carrying out a massacre of Aboriginal people on their property. The paper published the letter as an advertisement. Back then there were also no bi lines. Journalists didn't get credit for what they wrote. That didn't come until the 20th century. Mostly these reports and opinions were just published without quoting a source directly or simply as 'our correpondent'. Letters to the editor were often published anonymously or under pseudonyms. The fact that these sources were not named does not in any way negate the genocidal sentiment that was being publicly expressed and again, this society wide, century long, public expression of the desirablility and inevitablility of extermination of Aboriginal Peoples establishes intent and intent establishes genocide in law. If the article was written without those quotes and their focus on fore knowledge and intent- as it previously was- it would essentially be saying nothing, which is pretty much what Australians are comfortable with.

Hope that clarifies your queries.

Cheers. RickPass (talk) 05:38, 1 January 2022 (UTC)

Long lists of quotes are not what makes good encyclopedic entries. They are also hives of original research as their compilation is subjective. I would suggest the section should be changed to a summary of secondary sources. I suspect most could be deleted and replaced with a secondary source stating the intended genocide.

Briefly do you feel Wikipedia's typical practice is wrong or that this topic is unique? Dushan Jugum (talk) 07:54, 1 January 2022 (UTC)

I was a bit bold and moved the quotes to a note. I feel having them in the main text is way out of line with Wikipedia best practice. Having them at all may be a violation of original research, however I can see their value. Dushan Jugum (talk) 01:10, 3 January 2022 (UTC)

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 26 August 2019 and 6 December 2019. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Austin Levant.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 00:26, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 8 September 2020 and 16 December 2020. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Km.moroz.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 22:56, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

1980’s WA connection with aboriginal culture and families

I became blood brothers with my classmate in a ritual conducted by elders.

I was always told by them that THEY belong to the land, culture and heritage… NOT the white man version where the land belongs to the aboriginal.

Who tracks true aboriginal culture & heritage (without other influences) ??? Should land rights etc be voided for the true historic cultural connectivity with the place in question, 60,000 years has to count for something on THEIR terms… no ours!!! 120.16.101.215 (talk) 18:45, 20 July 2022 (UTC)