Current Events > There is no written history of Australia prior to 1788?!

(+) Yeah! (+)

That's nuts. Wtf were the people there doing? Every other culture had made massive strides in language and architecture and science and these people were gathering berries for 40,000 years?
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Wasnt it a wild prison island before then?

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There was a strong oral tradition.

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EffectAndCause posted...

Wasnt it a wild prison island before then?

No, it became a wild prison island once Europe made contact with it in the 18th century. Prior to that the aborigines were just chilling in much the same way their great great great ancestors did 60k years ago.
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You try to find the time to sit down and write a book when literally every living thing near you can either kill you or be set on fire.

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theres like cave paintings and shit but the aboriginal australians wernt particularly advanced compared to civilizations even thousands of years ago
i mean they adapted to australia well enough but thats about all they did

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@TreyFlowers my favorite aussie, weigh in

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@MrMallard wanna clear things up? :D

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The land was ruled by Roos

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What were they hiding????

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I never knew this either. That's wild.

Also they were technically still in the stone age until then too.

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This is what they call the Dark Era.

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lilORANG posted...

That's nuts. Wtf were the people there doing? Every other culture had made massive strides in language and architecture and science and these people were gathering berries for 40,000 years?

what are you talking about? Native Americans didn't have written language either, genius

derp @lilORANG

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It was solely Aboriginal land. The Aboriginals still live in tribes in the outback and have hundreds/thousands of languages. They were/are hunter/gatherers.

Frankly, it was probably a better place than it is now.

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They were as advanced as all the other uncontacted peoples, meaning they were well behind the ancient civilizations.

TreyFlowers posted...

Frankly, it was probably a better place than it is now.

That could be said about all modern civilizations. Every single one of them is built on disease and war, which in turn lead to advancements and rapid adaptability. So it's more of an "eye of the beholder" kind of thing.

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It's not that crazy, tbh. There are still places in 2020 that have very little knowledge, let alone almost 400 years ago

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teepan95 posted...

MrMallard wanna clear things up? :D

I appreciate the tag! I'm just some random white 20-something, so I don't think I have a huge insight into indigenous history or culture - pretty much everything I know is from high school and from like the most barebones glance at indigenous activism.

My understanding is that the indigenous population had their own territory and communities and stuff, and they travelled across the continent a lot in a culturally significant process that we know as "walkabout". There's this massive deposit of uranium in one of our natural parks, and one thing I've heard is that aborigines would avoid this particular area because they regarded it as a cursed place - people who travelled through there would get sick from the radiation there, and the knowledge of this sickness was known among the indigenous population and phrased in their beliefs.

The indigenous population had a big emphasis on oral tradition and dance. They would pass their stories down by word of mouth to their children, who would pass it down to their children, and so forth. Their history was their spoken history and their culture. That's not to say that indigenous Australians didn't have culturally significant landmarks or anything - in fact, a dozen or so sites of indigenous importance stretching back 14,000 years were recently destroyed by the mining company Rio Tinto in their pursuit to open a new mine. They also have art that depicts significant moments in their individual cultures, with symbols depicting groups of people and the customs they would take part in when they would gather.

Indigenous Australians were a very tight-knit population. They had hundreds of tribes, and these tribes weren't always friendly with each other - but they had a history, they had a culture. Just because it wasn't written on a piece of bark, it doesn't mean there was no culture in Australia until the 18th century.

For example, do you know any Aboriginal beliefs? They had a concept called the Dreamtime, where the world was shaped and where the creatures of the land had their own principles and squabbles. Indigenous Australians had aesops and fables, just like the Greeks did. Just like Native Americans did. Like countless cultures on Earth have had.

It's easy to just go "well they weren't writing anything down that late into the modern world, that suggests a lack of culture". But they had stories. They had dances. They had art, and fables, and culture. They had community and language. Written history began in 1788 because that's when the "settlers" arrived, and from that point on the indigenous population was under constant attack.

Well into the 20th century, aborigines were still meeting in speaking circles, trying to pass on their legacy to their children in the way that their ancestors had done. White, British settlers had been putting them in plantations for years, trying to stamp out their culture. And one way that they would punish indigenous Australians for not assimilating to the British standard was to take their children and raise them in white families. This would ensure that they wouldn't hear their history from their community, being raised in a "civilised" manner, and it was merely one of the later stages of genocide that was foisted among the aboriginal population. They had been introduced to alcohol to destabilize them, they had been infected by disease to try and wipe them out, they had been enslaved and they had been raped by white settlers in an attempt to breed out their race. And this manifestation of genocide, which we now refer to as the stolen generation, was to interrupt the indigenous traditions of speaking circles and destroy indigenous culture in favour of the British standard.

Australia had history and culture prior to 1788. And it has been an uphill battle to catalogue and pass down what remains of that history due to the genocide of our indigenous population. Would you gawk at Maori culture, or any other Polynesian culture with a strong emphasis on imagery and spoken word?

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MrMallard posted...

I appreciate the tag! I'm just some random white 20-something, so I don't think I have a huge insight into indigenous history or culture - pretty much everything I know is from high school and from like the most barebones glance at indigenous activism.

My understanding is that the indigenous population had their own territory and communities and stuff, and they travelled across the continent a lot in a culturally significant process that we know as "walkabout". There's this massive deposit of uranium in one of our natural parks, and one thing I've heard is that aborigines would avoid this particular area because they regarded it as a cursed place - people who travelled through there would get sick from the radiation there, and the knowledge of this sickness was known among the indigenous population and phrased in their beliefs.

The indigenous population had a big emphasis on oral tradition and dance. They would pass their stories down by word of mouth to their children, who would pass it down to their children, and so forth. Their history was their spoken history and their culture. That's not to say that indigenous Australians didn't have culturally significant landmarks or anything - in fact, a dozen or so sites of indigenous importance stretching back 14,000 years were recently destroyed by the mining company Rio Tinto in their pursuit to open a new mine. They also have art that depicts significant moments in their individual cultures, with symbols depicting groups of people and the customs they would take part in when they would gather.

Indigenous Australians were a very tight-knit population. They had hundreds of tribes, and these tribes weren't always friendly with each other - but they had a history, they had a culture. Just because it wasn't written on a piece of bark, it doesn't mean there was no culture in Australia until the 18th century.

For example, do you know any Aboriginal beliefs? They had a concept called the Dreamtime, where the world was shaped and where the creatures of the land had their own principles and squabbles. Indigenous Australians had aesops and fables, just like the Greeks did. Just like Native Americans did. Like countless cultures on Earth have had.

It's easy to just go "well they weren't writing anything down that late into the modern world, that suggests a lack of culture". But they had stories. They had dances. They had art, and fables, and culture. They had community and language. Written history began in 1788 because that's when the "settlers" arrived, and from that point on the indigenous population was under constant attack.

Well into the 20th century, aborigines were still meeting in speaking circles, trying to pass on their legacy to their children in the way that their ancestors had done. White, British settlers had been putting them in plantations for years, trying to stamp out their culture. And one way that they would punish indigenous Australians for not assimilating to the British standard was to take their children and raise them in white families. This would ensure that they wouldn't hear their history from their community, being raised in a "civilised" manner, and it was merely one of the later stages of genocide that was foisted among the aboriginal population. They had been introduced to alcohol to destabilize them, they had been infected by disease to try and wipe them out, they had been enslaved and they had been raped by white settlers in an attempt to breed out their race. And this manifestation of genocide, which we now refer to as the stolen generation, was to interrupt the indigenous traditions of speaking circles and destroy indigenous culture in favour of the British standard.

Australia had history and culture prior to 1788. And it has been an uphill battle to catalogue and pass down what remains of that history due to the genocide of our indigenous population. Would you gawk at Maori culture, or any other Polynesian culture with a strong emphasis on imagery and spoken word?

Most of this is over dramatized or completely made up.

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ColdOne666 posted...

Most of this is over dramatized or completely made up.

Okay, please detail what I posted that's over-dramatizednor outright wrong. I legitimately want to know what you think.

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MrMallard posted...
Thanks for the detailed post!
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I believe they were experts with boats and navigating the oceans as they island hopped

There were so many whales near Australia that if you went into the beach youd essentially be walking on water.

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Anyone have pics of attractive native australian women?

ColdOne666 posted...

Most of this is over dramatized or completely made up.

Such as?

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MrMallard posted...

Okay, please detail what I posted that's over-dramatizednor outright wrong. I legitimately want to know what you think.

The disease part is a lie, they weren't deliberately infected.

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ColdOne666 posted...

The disease part is a lie, they weren't deliberately infected.

Hardly an outright lie. More perhaps up for debate.

There are a number of academics who have suggested that the early smallpox epidemic that decimated aboriginal communities around Sydney was deliberately started by the early colonists.

Is there anything else in his post you took particular umbrage to?


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Bad_Mojo posted...

It's not that crazy, tbh. There are still places in 2020 that have very little knowledge, let alone almost 400 years ago

Like Mississippi

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ColdOne666 posted...

Most of this is over dramatized or completely made up.

Since you're a fucking moron I'll assume it's all true

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Trigg3rH4ppy posted...

Since you're a fucking moron I'll assume it's all true

Jesus LOL

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Returning_CEmen posted...

I believe they were experts with boats and navigating the oceans as they island hopped

That's the Polynesians, not the Australian natives.

Bad_Mojo posted...

It's not that crazy, tbh. There are still places in 2020 that have very little knowledge, let alone almost 400 years ago

Without question those who are as far from the media as possible will be the happiest

Thanks Mrmallard very interesting

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The_Creep_2020 posted...

Hardly an outright lie. More perhaps up for debate.

There are a number of academics who have suggested that the early smallpox epidemic that decimated aboriginal communities around Sydney was deliberately started by the early colonists.

Is there anything else in his post you took particular umbrage to?

There are also academics who say that it wasn't, it's up for debate therefore Mallard is a blatant liar.

Trigg3rH4ppy posted...

Since you're a fucking moron I'll assume it's all true

Keep having your meltdown crybaby. Rent free.

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ColdOne666 posted...

There are also academics who say that it wasn't, it's up for debate therefore Mallard is a blatant liar.

Keep having your meltdown crybaby. Rent free.

Is this guy an 1800s British colonist? Lol

"They did it to themselves! Life is better for them now! The British wouldn't be so cruel"

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ColdOne666 posted...

There are also academics who say that it wasn't, it's up for debate therefore Mallard is a blatant liar.

Keep having your meltdown crybaby. Rent free.

Well, no. If he believes the academics who say it was (but it actually was not), that would merely make him mistaken.


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ColdOne666 posted...

The disease part is a lie, they weren't deliberately infected.

I might have been mistaken on this point. It's a common tactic among European settlers - the Spanish settlers spread syphilis among the Mayans, and America has a pretty infamous case where they passed out blankets to the natives that were infected with smallpox. I might be wrong on this point - maybe I'm drawing parallels towards other colonialisation efforts.

With that being said, though, that's one potentially exaggerated statement that was potentially made out of ignorance in a post with like 8 paragraphs. That's hardly "most of" what I said. Again - if you truly feel like my post before is exaggerated or fraudulent, put in the effort to debunk what I said. All you did with this post is challenge one of the smallest points I made. It's weak shit.

How much of my post did I get wrong? What did I say that was exaggerated or wrong outright, and how does that make me a blatant liar?

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Maybe my last point didn't come out at a time where ColdOne might have seen it, I woke up at 4am. So here's a bump to give him a chance to discredit the post I made, since a majority of it is clearly made up or exaggerated.

@ColdOne666

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lilORANG posted...

Every other culture had made massive strides in language and architecture and science and these people were gathering berries for 40,000 years?

Uhhh, American and African Natives say hi. It wasn't just Australians

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The_Creep_2020 posted...

There was a strong oral tradition.

This. It was pretty much the standard for a ton of cultures, including Pacific Islanders and many Native Americans.
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MrMallard posted...

It's a common tactic among European settlers - the Spanish settlers spread syphilis among the Mayans, and America has a pretty infamous case where they passed out blankets to the natives that were infected with smallpox.

I liked your Australia write up. Ive only been there once, but hope to go again. The country is too large to appreciate in one or two visits

Just to be clear, there is only one documented case of British citizens allegedly delivering small pox-infected blankets to Native Americans. That was in the summer of 1763 when a trader might have done so to diplomats negotiating a possible surrender of Fort Pitt in Pennsylvania. No one knows if it had any effect, assuming it happened. What we do know is that at least two high-ranking officers of the British forces not only discussed infection as a potential weapon, but also agreed it should be attempted.


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There is one thing I find fault with in regard to your post, @MrMallard , and that is that it did not mention the frequent massacres of Aboriginal people, from first settlement up to and including those in the early 20th century.

Of course, those are no doubt lies as well.

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They had an oral tradition which was much more sophisticated than the western worlds savage writing system.

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Da void century
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In 1606, Willem Janszoon of the Dutch East India Company made landfall here.

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Honestly this just confirms ancient aliens. How are much younger civilizations building massive temples and cities and shit, while these old af people have been mucking about in the stone age?
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008Zulu posted...

In 1606, Willem Janszoon of the Dutch East India Company made landfall here.

Looked around, and then wisely fucked off for some other idiot to put a flag there.

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Orgy central

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Crazyman93 posted...

Looked around, and then wisely fucked off for some other idiot to put a flag there.

First Mate: Sir, some sort of land monster attacked one of the crew!
Captain Janszoon: What was this monster?
F.M: Some sort of giant lizard, with no legs. It bit him, and now he's dead!
Captain: Everyone back on the boat, we are not claiming this hellscape.

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MrMallard posted...

I appreciate the tag! I'm just some random white 20-something, so I don't think I have a huge insight into indigenous history or culture - pretty much everything I know is from high school and from like the most barebones glance at indigenous activism.

My understanding is that the indigenous population had their own territory and communities and stuff, and they travelled across the continent a lot in a culturally significant process that we know as "walkabout". There's this massive deposit of uranium in one of our natural parks, and one thing I've heard is that aborigines would avoid this particular area because they regarded it as a cursed place - people who travelled through there would get sick from the radiation there, and the knowledge of this sickness was known among the indigenous population and phrased in their beliefs.

The indigenous population had a big emphasis on oral tradition and dance. They would pass their stories down by word of mouth to their children, who would pass it down to their children, and so forth. Their history was their spoken history and their culture. That's not to say that indigenous Australians didn't have culturally significant landmarks or anything - in fact, a dozen or so sites of indigenous importance stretching back 14,000 years were recently destroyed by the mining company Rio Tinto in their pursuit to open a new mine. They also have art that depicts significant moments in their individual cultures, with symbols depicting groups of people and the customs they would take part in when they would gather.

Indigenous Australians were a very tight-knit population. They had hundreds of tribes, and these tribes weren't always friendly with each other - but they had a history, they had a culture. Just because it wasn't written on a piece of bark, it doesn't mean there was no culture in Australia until the 18th century.

For example, do you know any Aboriginal beliefs? They had a concept called the Dreamtime, where the world was shaped and where the creatures of the land had their own principles and squabbles. Indigenous Australians had aesops and fables, just like the Greeks did. Just like Native Americans did. Like countless cultures on Earth have had.

It's easy to just go "well they weren't writing anything down that late into the modern world, that suggests a lack of culture". But they had stories. They had dances. They had art, and fables, and culture. They had community and language. Written history began in 1788 because that's when the "settlers" arrived, and from that point on the indigenous population was under constant attack.

Well into the 20th century, aborigines were still meeting in speaking circles, trying to pass on their legacy to their children in the way that their ancestors had done. White, British settlers had been putting them in plantations for years, trying to stamp out their culture. And one way that they would punish indigenous Australians for not assimilating to the British standard was to take their children and raise them in white families. This would ensure that they wouldn't hear their history from their community, being raised in a "civilised" manner, and it was merely one of the later stages of genocide that was foisted among the aboriginal population. They had been introduced to alcohol to destabilize them, they had been infected by disease to try and wipe them out, they had been enslaved and they had been raped by white settlers in an attempt to breed out their race. And this manifestation of genocide, which we now refer to as the stolen generation, was to interrupt the indigenous traditions of speaking circles and destroy indigenous culture in favour of the British standard.

Australia had history and culture prior to 1788. And it has been an uphill battle to catalogue and pass down what remains of that history due to the genocide of our indigenous population. Would you gawk at Maori culture, or any other Polynesian culture with a strong emphasis on imagery and spoken word?

nwtf who is reading this

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