Talk:Aboriginal Tasmanians

Deniers Active on this Page

Please keep in mind that Webley332 is active in promoting the fringe theories of Keith Windschuttle, an author that denies the Tasmanian genocide. This type of denial should not be acceptable here.Likebox (talk) 10:04, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

Please be aware of Likebox's history including repeatedly reverting and overwriting other editor's text until they give up and abandon editing articles that he wants to take control of, failing to provide sources for his text, misrepresenting what his sources say, removing other editors' accurately sourced material when it conflicts with the 'story' as he wants to portray it, use of very strongly biased text which he somehow claims is NPOV.... The list goes on. Webley442 (talk) 22:48, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

There were Tasmanian Aborigines after Trugunini alive on the Bass Strait islands. Also, I understand that Fanny Cochrane-Smith did not die until 1905 and she was of Flinders Island descent. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Charles1b (talk • contribs) 04:19, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

Windschuttle and Flood are being used far too often as a source in the artical. I point out that Windschuttle is very fringe so should be used sparingly and Flood is an archaeologist not a historian who has never undertaken any research in Tasmania. I suggest reducing their input unless supported by reliable historians (in which case they should preferentially be used anyway).Wayne (talk) 20:11, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

Reference/footnote # 7 is bogus. Benjamin Madley is commenting on the historical nature of commentary on the Tasmanian genocide, which he ultimately concludes did occur. The contributor who added this reference has clearly not read the article in question, or is deliberately manipulating it's intent. Madley, in the final paragraphs, comes to the opposite conclusion. He states " In light of the U.N. definition, sufficient evidence exists to designate the Tasmanian catastrophe genocide. " I would kindly ask a diligent contributor to amend the error. If this is not done in 7 days I will be contacting Madley directly to make him aware of this situation. I would also like to thank the person in question for bringing such definitive proof of the genocide to light. Madley systematically addresses all of Windschuttle's fallacies. It's a good read, if you can.—Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.106.5.150 (talk) 09:49, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

I'll read the source and make any appropriate changes.Wayne (talk) 10:54, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

Regarding the above, it appears that User 122.106.5.150 doesn't seem to have grasped the distinction between the statement by Madley that there is no consensus on the issue of genocide in Tasmania which is a statement of fact and Madley's mere personal opinion that it was genocide. Two separate issues, nothing to get worried about.

Last full blooded

On the particular point regarding Trugernanner - there is much debate about whether Trugernanner or Fanny Cochrane Smith where the last "full blooded" Tasmanian Aborigine. The article cannot definitively state that Trugernanner was the one. Barrylb (talk) 05:08, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

Except that there are photos of Cochrane Smith, and she is obviously half white. This is documented by several sources, although she herself claimed to be the last of the Tasmanians.Likebox (talk) 05:20, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

sources? this reads like WP:OR, please attribute any claims to sources so that other can verify claims. Gnangarra 06:18, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

I will NOT attribute this, go do it yourself.Likebox (talk) 22:53, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

No worries if you dont want to attribute it then there is no reason for its inclusion, the onus is on the person making claims to attribute them so that others can verify the information. Gnangarra 02:55, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

Go do it yourself, means google for two seconds and you find the source.Likebox (talk) 17:45, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

Ok, here's the first link which states that Cochrane Smith had a white father.Likebox (talk) 18:26, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

There are sources claiming that Fanny Cochrane Smith’s father was white and others suggesting that he was a Tasmanian Aborigine called Nicermenic. Other sources say her father was unknown. I’m not sure that it is possible to definitively identify FCS’s parentage from an old photo. Are there enough photographs or detailed drawings of the faces of Tasmanian Aborigines to compare her features to others and draw definitive conclusions? I’m not aware of any academic claiming to have done such a study. Since there are conflicting claims, the article could just state the facts: that there are claims that FCS was the last full-blooded Tasmanian Aborigine and other claims that she was of mixed descent. It is not a particularly important issue and it is not Wikipedia's role to rule on it. Webley442 (talk) 19:25, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

Political comment

The sentence

However, Josephine Flood's work has been criticised as 'part of the conservative campaign to blame Aborigines for their suffering'.

is attributed to Green Left Weekly. It seems unencyclopaedic to include criticisms from (minor) political groups. GLF is not an academic journal or recognized subject authority and it seems inappropriate for wikipedia to include their opinions. I think it should be removed. Qemist (talk) 06:25, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

On second thought I agree and I removed the statement. However, there is no obvious consensus regarding the 19th century events on Tasmania, and most other sections in the article contain several interpretations of various historical accounts. I'd be surprised if there was a general agreement on "sealers treated aboriginal women reasonably well because [...] they valued their sexual services". Perhaps there are more encyclopaedic criticism around? --Fama Clamosa (talk) 08:20, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

It may be true but it's not logical. Slaves can be valued for their labour and their sexual services, but that doesn't necessarily mean they will be well treated, unless refraining from wantonly killing or mutilating them counts as good treatment. I don't think the last sentence needs to be criticised, I think it would be better removed. At the moment it looks rather odd and out of the flow of the section. Qemist (talk) 12:47, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

The best reference that I can find for the relations between sealers and Tasmanian Aboriginal women seems to be James Bonwick's The Last of the Tasmanians, Chapter 10, from page 295, where he goes into some detail about the sealer community in Bass Strait. As summarised in the article, he reported women who were obviously very unwilling captives of sealers but also women who seemed perfectly content living with sealers. Other historians tend to concentrate on the atrocity stories, almost all of which can be traced back to GA Robinson and are highly questionable. Flood's conclusion that the sealers valued the womens' labour and their sexual services seems consistent with Bonwick's reports.Webley442 (talk) 11:37, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

“Sealers were known as 'banditti of the straits', but most treated Aboriginal women reasonably well because they valued their labour as well as sexual services.”

No, that sentence is not logical. As Webley pointed out, sealers treatment of aboriginal women is already described in the section, and the sentence is therefore redundant. Removed. --Fama Clamosa (talk) 14:18, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

I'm not vehemently opposed to the removal, the sentence isn't vital but I do see some logic in it. If sealers did value the labour and sexual services of the women, then they couldn't 'afford' to be as brutal as they were accused of being. Obviously, killing women would have destroyed their 'value' in both capacities. Inflicting injuries through floggings, beatings or mutilations would render the victim unable to work for some time. Ill-treatment would also have encouraged escape attempts whereas good treatment would be more likely to encourage co-operation. Bonwick also goes into the 'natural' development, on both sides, of 'affection' between the sealers and their Aboriginal 'wives'. Too much has been made of claims of a 'slave society' in the Straits. It was certainly a male-dominated society with some rough characters but the women seem to generally get, at the very least, no worse and often better treatment, than they received when living with their bands. The ill-treatment of Tasmanian Aboriginal women by Tasmanian Aboriginal men was notorious, i.e. killings, beatings, rape and abduction so perhaps many of the women didn't consider themselves so badly off when with the sealers.Webley442 (talk) 01:38, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

You are probably right, under any circumstance my knowledge on the matter reduces me to slightly more than a "casual reader" (i.e. my interest is uncontacted peoples in general). When it comes to this part of the article, I'm convinced it should neither say that virtually all men in the "Tasmanian Wild West" were villains, or underline several times that there can't be true love in a "red light district" (so to speak). Neither Robinson's Reductio ad Hitlerum or modern conspiracy theories seem very plausible, but both should perhaps be mentioned in the article. From my (Eurocentric) POV, the article should focus more on Aboriginal society before the arrival of Europeans, including "notorious Aboriginal ill-treatment", but I have no idea how much information there is out there. --Fama Clamosa (talk) 07:38, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

No article on the (alleged?) genocide?

[1] - I've found there is no Wikipedia article that treats the purported genocide and its apparent debunking. That is odd indeed. The Sound and the Fury (talk) 14:10, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

Pending changes

This article is one of a number selected for the early stage of the trial of the Wikipedia:Pending Changes system on the English language Wikipedia. All the articles listed at Wikipedia:Pending changes/Queue are being considered for level 1 pending changes protection.

The following request appears on that page:

Comments on the suitability of theis page for "Pending changes" would be appreciated.

Please update the Queue page as appropriate.

Note that I am not involved in this project any much more than any other editor, just posting these notes since it is quite a big change, potentially

Regards, Rich Farmbrough, 00:16, 17 June 2010 (UTC).

Intelligence of Tasmanian Aborigines

It is impossible for any tribe to forget their basic survival skills, such as starting a fire, fishing, and making hafted tools, and yet the ancestors of Tasmanian Aborigines lost all these skills, and they may have lost the ability to make clothes and simplest shelters. I do not know any medical condition that could cause such widespread and permanent amnesia. The most logical explanation of the loss of these basic survival skills is declining intelligence. Inbreeding due to isolation and tribal taboos prohibiting intermarriage with other tribes lowered their intelligence so much that they could not perform these tasks.

Australian Aborigines have dismal average IQ of 62 because their genes are different from the genes of other races. Papuans of the highlands of New Guinea have average IQ of 64. Melanesians on the New Guinean coast have average IQ of 84, probably due to infusion of Taiwanese genes a few thousand years ago. (source: http://robertlindsay.wordpress.com/2010/03/07/iq-by-region-maps/) Despite their low IQ, Australian Aborigines and Papuans can start fire, catch fish, and make hafted tools. This means that all Tasmanian Aborigines had shockingly low intelligence. They were stupid animals in human form.

A 60-page review of the scientific evidence, some based on state-of-the-art magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of brain size, has concluded that race differences in average IQ are largely genetic: http://www.news-medical.net/news/2005/04/26/9530.aspx (talk) 09:38, 21 August 2010 (UTC)

Ad what USer:Quinacrine was the point of this piece of nonsense? You will find any people in the modern world who also have forgotten all these "basic survival skills". For the same reason they were no needed for survival. IQ of this group was not tested as there was no such thing so long ago. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 20:41, 21 August 2010 (UTC)

I think he was just pointing out that indigenous IQ is demonstrably higher than that of the average denizen of any Australian suburb.Nishidani (talk) 10:43, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

Palawa

There's a problem with this. The 'Palawa' has a political ring to it, being the preferred name of the government-back Tasmania Aboriginal Centre, which represents the Bass Strait people. But in Tasmania, many claim descent from marriages between sealers and sailors, and aboriginal women, people who were never moved by official agency, but stayed put because, as the scions of mixed descent, they were not at the time classified as true tribal aborigines. These are the Lia Pootah. It's a problem of NPOV, since, as it stands (esp the lead) one position is endorsed, while the minority position, is ignored or passed over in silence.Nishidani (talk) 17:08, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

Parlevar (Palawa) was the name of the "first man" (created from a Kangaroo) by a creation spirit and the name was used by Tasmanian Aborigines to identify themselves. However, the name is now used by the political minority group that runs the Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre. Since splitting from the main Aboriginal community (Palawa and Lia Pootah) in 1996, the Palawa have had the power to decide who is a Tasmanian Aboriginal (ie: who can and who cannot access money and services provided by the government) and they recognise only decendants of the Bass Strait Island community as Aboriginal (around 2,000 people) and all claim direct decent from Manalaganna, the grandfather of Fanny Cochrane Smith. Palawa do not consider those decended from Tasmanian mainland Aboriginal communities, the Lia Pootah, as Aboriginal (around 16,000). In Tasmania, the Department of Aboriginal Affairs is subordinate to the Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre who control all government funding and also control what books on Aboriginal history schools and libraries in Tasmania can have, unapproved books are banned as are records of their own pre 1996 oral history as it contradicts their post 1996 oral history. Michael Mansell is their spokesman. This political connection probably makes the use of the word in the article inappropriate.Wayne (talk) 19:21, 27 September 2010 (UTC)