To be honest, when I started hearing about the book Dark Emu, I was skeptical about the claims of Aboriginal agriculture, and I still am. However, even though I am Aboriginal, that doesn’t mean I’m in a position to know that the claims in the book are wrong or right. I don’t know what every nation practiced, I can’t speak for other nations’ practices. I will leave it up to the nations that Pascoe writes about to make any necessary corrections. I never read the book, as it simply didn’t interest me. But I watched as it captured the popular imagination of many people, and generated discussion about Aboriginal culture – which I think is a welcome thing.
But there are a few things about the Bruce Pascoe saga that make me suspicious that it has been a coordinated propaganda campaign running with the constitutional assimilation project. Maybe you want to call me a ‘conspiracy theorist’, but if you stop and consider what is at stake in the battle for sovereignty – conspiracy is to be expected, including coordinated propaganda campaigns. I think Bruce Pascoe sits at the center of such a campaign.
Questioning Pascoe’s identity
Firstly the initial attacks on his identity by concerned Australians. I stumbled on a very creepy website a year or two ago where someone named Jan Holland went through Pascoe’s family tree combing for evidence that he has no Aboriginal ancestry. Stalking someone’s family records like that and publishing them presumably without their consent is creepy. It makes me uncomfortable that light-skinned Aboriginal people can be targets of random weirdos going through their family records. But the main problem I have with this questioning of his identity is this;
We – Aboriginal people, as a polity – should have the prerogative to choose whether or not someone belongs to our community, regardless of whether they can prove ancestry. The descent requirement has been imposed on us.
As an example to illustrate – suppose I were to go and pursue German citizenship because I now meet Germany’s requirements having lived here long enough. The decision to include me in the German polity is between the German community, their criteria they have chosen, and myself. So – on the basis that I do not have any German ancestry – are you going to complain to the German government that I shouldn’t be eligible for citizenship? Expecting all members of the Aboriginal polity to have proven ancestry is like telling the Germans they are only allowed to naturalise people who can prove already existing German ancestry. There is a double standard when it comes to colonised peoples to determine who belongs to their polity. Ancestry and blood quantum requirements are imposed and designed to eliminate us.
I don’t care if Bruce Pascoe has not a drop of Aboriginal blood – it is the choice of the Aboriginal people to include or not include him in their polity (in conjunction with Pascoe’s own self-identification), and to include ancestry or any other requirements they choose. It is certainly none of concerned Australians‘ business.
I suspect these concerned Australians are in cohorts with the colonial elite, they knew all along Pascoe has no proven blood ties and they arranged him the accolades and awards to build him, put him in the spotlight so they could publicly tear him down. They constructed an artificial narrative about a scourge of fake light-skinned Aborigines taking money from the “real” Aborigines in remote communities. They also helped cement in people’s minds the legitimacy of the imposed ancestry criteria that denies us the prerogative to freely decide who belongs to our polity.
False dichotomy
A book “debunking” Dark Emu has come out called “Farmers or Hunter-Gatherers? The Dark Emu Debate“.
False dichotomy is propoganda 101 – throw nuance out the window and present two narrow categories, herd everyone into two camps, and set them to battle each other.
While I haven’t read Dark Emu, I have read “1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus” by Charles C. Mann. This book demonstrates there is something other than agriculture and hunter gathering – a nuance that is not fully appreciated by a Eurocentric worldview. There is some hunting and there is some gathering, but it is not purely opportunistic; it involves extensive land management practices that are not concentrated on designated plots of land. I don’t even know if there is an English word for this concept. Even before I read this book, I knew that Aboriginal people practiced this kind of concept.
One irony about the Farmers or Hunter-Gatherers book is that it accuses Pascoe of adopting a Eurocentric world view for labelling Aboriginal practices as “agriculture” – yet the title of the book does the same by implying an equally Eurocentric label of hunter-gatherer.
Josephine Cashman has primed this hunter-gatherer label with her little redneck army and her people on the ground™ over the last few years like it was pre-planned from the start. Marcia Langton played the opposite side by talking up Pascoe’s book and working on getting it in school curriculums. Concern trolls are now “outraged” because Dark Emu content is in curriculums and the children are being fed left-wing lies. Sounds like we have been setup for an ideological war.
So – I am curious – what is the agenda behind labelling us either way? Colonialism itself can no longer be justified on the basis of technological superiority, so there must be some other agenda. There are possible clues in the criticism of Dark Emu.
Spiritual vs Material rights
(Sutton) was “disappointed” that in attempting to describe Aboriginal land use, Pascoe ignored the importance of spiritual tradition and ritual.
…..
In contrast to the picture conveyed by Dark Emu, the greater part of Aboriginal traditional methods of reproducing plant and animal species was not through physical cultivation or conservation but through spiritual propagation,” Sutton writes. “This included speaking to the spirits of ancestors at resource sites, carrying out ‘increase rituals’ at special species-related sites, singing resource species songs in ceremonies, maintaining rich systems of totems for various species that were found in the countries of the totem-holders, and handling food resources with reverence … A secularised notion of Aboriginal cultivation, devoid of spiritual dimensions, did not exist in Australia before conquest.”
HAS DARK EMU BEEN DEBUNKED? PETER SUTTON AND KERYN WALSHE TAKE AIM IN NEW BOOK
I think a wider political agenda behind this manufactured debate is to emphasise Aboriginal attachment with the land in the spiritual dimension, but minimise the material connection. The groundwork has been set in the Uluru Statement which asserts sovereignty as a purely spiritual notion.
They are trying to build a narrative that pre-invasion Aborigines had only superficial material interests in the land – as if our ancestors were breatharians living on metaphysical energy waves and didn’t need material/physical sustenance from the land.
The land can’t have been materially stolen if it was never possessed by Aboriginal people in a material way.
Of the two Eurocentric labels – farmer and hunter-gatherer – the hunter-gather label fits the spiritual-only possessor narrative well. The farmer has an active material interest in the land – the farmer directly and very visibly makes an impact on the land. The hunter-gatherer in contrast – has a passive material interest – and with a bit of clever sophistry this can be framed as a purely spiritual interest.
We need to be dissociated from our material interest in the land for the Uluru Statement to be successfully pulled off. This is the agenda behind labelling us as hunter-gatherers.
Let me put this in another way – Aboriginal land rights/interests are merely spiritual, cultural rights. We have no right to build homes, or make a living or profit off our land – these rights are reserved for settlers. This is what is meant by “sovereignty is a spiritual notion”.
Divide and conquer
It’s very clever the way they have divided the two sides up.
In the blue corner we have the materialist/Pascoe the identity-fraud/leftists/light-skinned city Aborigines.
In the red corner we have the spiritual/experienced academics/the right/and the real Aborigines on the ground™.
Side by side – you can see what side is being set-up to win.
When looking at how this is playing out – it would not surprise me if Dark Emu is riddled with factual errors and Pascoe has no Aboriginal blood. The propaganda machine is gearing up to paint “City” or “east-coast” Aboriginal people as out-of-touch both spiritually and factually – supporting pseudoscience. “East-coast” Aboriginal people have a powerful voice – they could derail constitutional assimilation, and they need to be neutralised. This campaign is designed to discredit them through association with Pascoe who is being slowly revealed to be a fraud.
As for the “real”, “remote” Aboriginal people – they are much easier to control by using them in the same way people like Josephine Cashman and Peter Sutton do. Cashman and Sutton do not stand in their own authority, but use their people “on the ground” or “The Old People” (yes – they actually use these phrases) as their crutch to give them legitimacy.
Cashman is Aboriginal, she speaks her own mind (which I highly respect, and I often agree with her) – but she also speaks and re-interprets for a small posse of Aboriginal women from regional communities rather than simply giving them a direct platform. This is not correct cultural protocol – but white Australians don’t know that. Sutton is not Aboriginal at all. Both continually emphasize having spent a lot of time with ‘authentic’ Aborigines.
By careful emphasis on selective accounts from people “on the ground“, the colonial powers can control our narrative to the Australian people. They can also pit the east-coast and the “real” Aboriginal people against each other – which will divide us up nicely in preparation for when the time comes to decide who is indigenous and who is not.
Image by Manfred Richter from Pixabay
I’m at a loss as to why you are posting here Jessica. Your conspiracy theories are unfounded; you admit you haven’t bothered to even read Dark Emu; you don’t know much about Pascoe; you don’t know anything about the group behind exposing Pascoe as a hoaxer; and you have based your essay on your own assumptions, which, as it turns out, are totally wrong. So why are you here?
You have taken the lazy way out. You should have at least read Dark Emu before you went on the attack. You should also have taken the time to do some research, in order to make yourself look a bit less ignorant and stupid.
Your theories are wrong. Dark Emu is the core reason why people have a problem with Pascoe. He is a good story teller, but he is not an historian. He is also a self confessed, compulsive liar. Ironically, anybody who willingly admits to being a shameless liar, has to be believed as being a shameless liar. And he is. (https://walleahpress.com.au/FR42Pascoe.html).
Unlike you, our researchers have all taken the time to read Dark Emu. Every edition of it, including Young Dark Emu, the “Truer History” version. The first time I read Dark Emu, I noticed facts that were attributed to Ernest Giles, which I knew were not true. This made me curious. Others had also noticed similar “mistakes”, so a group of enthusiastic armchair historians had a closer look at it. We studied all editions comprehensively, and compared them with his quoted sources. We found that his quotes from the explorers’ journals, were not what the journals stated at all. It wasn’t just Giles that was misreported, it was everybody. His so called evidence had been blatantly and deliberately manipulated to support his theories. He was lying, again.
Liars usually get caught out by their own lies, which is what happened with Pascoe. He could never remember who his Aboriginal ancestor was, or which side of the family that ancestor came from. He changed his story constantly. Anybody who is proud of their ancestor, as Pascoe claimed to be, and should have been, does not forget who that ancestor is. Which is why I (the creepy Jan Holland) took an interest in his family tree. It’s not creepy for Genealogists. It’s what we do. My work was peer reviewed, and I was also assisted by a close Pascoe relative, who shared the same ancestors as Bruce, and who happened to have had a DNA test. Those results were happily shared with me. Bruce Pascoe is not a light skinned Aboriginal. He is a white skinned, red haired, white man with only English ancestry. As for random weirdos going through family trees, this can’t be done to just anybody. Privacy Acts make it way too difficult. It can only be done if the person involved gives out private family details, as Bruce did. He constantly named family members. He wrote a book about his mother. He threw in lots of red herrings, about family members who didn’t exist (usually claiming they had told him about his Aboriginal family), but even his red herrings were amateurish and easily dismissed. He was the person who made it very easy to trace his ancestry. As for your invented claim that Pascoe didn’t know that his genealogy was being done, you are wrong again. He did know. One of our research group (Rob) contacted Pascoe, as a courtesy, and told him we were doing his family tree. Pascoe’s response was that he wasn’t worried by a few amateurs on social media, which was a really strange response from a man if he really did have Aboriginal ancestry. Pascoe and Rob exchanged a few emails about the possibility of meeting up, and Rob later offered to fund a DNA test for Pascoe, who declined the offer. Not surprisingly.
What you say is quite contradictory. You claim that even though you are Aboriginal, you are not in a position to know what every “nation” practiced. Exactly. So how does a white man, who claims to be Aboriginal, know more about your culture than you do? How can somebody who was raised as an educated white man, in suburbia, and who didn’t decide to be Aboriginal until he was middle aged, possibly know more about culture than those who were born and raised on country, in a traditional lifestyle? You also say you will leave it up to the various “nations” that he writes about to make the necessary corrections. He doesn’t differentiate between the different “nations”. All are lumped in together. If you had read the book, you would have known that. Those people who live on country know he is a liar, but it is virtually impossible for the people to “make the necessary corrections” due to pressures within the community. If you knew anything about how Aboriginal communities work, you would know that too.
You say If all members of a “nation” decide to adopt a person into their “nation”, that is their prerogative. However, the problem arises when only a couple of people within that “nation” want to adopt the person, and the rest do not want him there. Pascoe’s couple of mates at the top say yes, the rest say no, and they are then bullied in an attempt to silence them and force them to accept the newcomer. This has caused enormous problems within communities. You apparently haven’t thought of that though. Interestingly, the Bunurong and the Tasmanian Aboriginal Corporation refused outright to accept Pascoe as one of them. They knew he was not one of them, and they said so.
Our research group being in cohorts with anybody is a wild and unfounded claim Jessica. That is your conspiracy theory, but it has nothing to do with fact. We are a group of mostly older people with a passion for history, truth, and a love of Australia. We didn’t like Dark Emu masquerading as truth, but we got really concerned when Young Dark Emu was introduced into primary schools to indoctrinate young impressionable minds in primary schools. Why were our children being taught fake history? Why were our hunter gatherer Aborigines having their culture taken away from them by a white man pretending to be an Aboriginal man?
Pascoe used his claims to Aboriginality to promote the book; to give him credibility; to get cheap printing at a subsidised non-profit Aboriginal only printing company; to take prizes, funding and grants intended for real disadvantaged Aboriginal people; and to get his books into schools. He is a liar, a cheat, a fraud, and a hoaxer. We simply used his lies to expose him, and many Aboriginal people are extremely grateful to us for doing so. They now want us to expose other faux Aborigines. The fact is though, it should never have been left to a small group of dedicated volunteer researchers to have had to expose him in the first place. People in authority who knew the truth about him should have spoken out, but they were too concerned with protecting their incomes and positions.
Do yourself a favour Jessica. Get a copy of Dark Emu, and check his sources. See for yourself if his claims match what the journals actually say. Find out where Giles found and stole the silo full of flour and grain. Find the part where Sturt described villages of a thousand people. Find where the thousand people saved Sturt’s life. Once you have done that, and are less ignorant and more informed, then come back and comment some more.
Like I said – it wouldn’t surprise me if the book is riddled with factual errors and Pascoe has no Aboriginal ancestry.
You have completely missed the point. I’m not defending Pascoe. I’m defending our right to determine who belongs to our communities and the right to tell our own stories in our own way. That includes suburban communities.
Fact is – it’s almost impossible to prove someone is NOT Aboriginal. This is the direct result of the lack of political settlements. This identity gap was never seen as a major issue until the government started going down a treaty path rather than symbolic assimilation/recognition. For a political settlement to fix Australia’s legitimacy – the Aboriginal polity needs to be clearly demarcated. There’s a wider strategy here, I see the big picture. You see an identity fraud trying to scam book grants.
If Pascoe is not Aboriginal, why did Marcia Langton and other left-leaning chosen-ones not contest the awards and grants he was getting? If the book is not factual – why do they talk it up? Langton is an anthropologist herself. They risk their own professional reputations. You think they didn’t know about the questions swirling around him?
OK – maybe you are not in cohorts, but simply taken the Sky News bait.