‘Aboriginal Race’ fruitful hunter treaty is a demand on Australian taxpayers money

The ‘fruitful native hunter’ on his reappearance at camp had to share the wild animals he had procured not only with his family, but with all those who had traditional claims upon his labours as dictated by the elders.

The British are said to have treated Australia as terra nullius.

In the New World European discovery era the British came across an unowned land, a land that had been imperfectly explored.

Over a couple of centuries four seafaring vessels played an important part in the discovery and settlement of Australia by the Europeans. The Duyfken, under the command of Willem Janszoon. HM Bark Endeavour under the command of Captain James Cook. HMS Sirus flagship of the First Fleet under the command of Captain Arthur Phillip and the HMS Investigator in which Matthew Flinders first circumnavigated the Australian mainland.

Lieutenant James Cook, appointed to Command His Majesty’s Bark the Endeavour, took possession of the whole eastern coast of the Australian continent for the British Crown in 1770, naming it New South Wales.

Lieutenant James Cook’s instructions contained an outline of the route of the voyage was to take, described the activities he and his men were to complete, and the way in which he was to report his progress. Then in additional secret instructions given to him by the British Admiralty he was told there was reason to imagine that a Continent or Land of great extent, may be found to the Southward of the Tract recently made by Captain Wallis in His Majesty’s Ship the Dolphin and he was to pursue the finding of it as soon as the observation of the Transit of the planet Venus was finished. He was instructed to travel to the Latitude of 40° and if the land was not discovered he was to proceed in search westward to Latitude 35° until he discovered it or fall within the eastern side of the land discovered by Abel Tasman called New Zealand.

These instructions authorised James Cook to take possession of ‘a Continent or Land of great extent’ thought to exist in southern latitudes. The Secret Instructions stated he was to employ himself diligently in exploring as great an extent of the coast as he could carefully observing the true situation recording the head land height, direction and course of the tides and currents, depths and sounding of the sea, shoal and rocks etc. He was to survey and make charts of bays, harbours and part of the coast that may be useful for navigation. He was to provide detail about the nature of the soil and products thereof, the beasts and fowls that inhabit or frequent the land, the fishes that are found in rivers and the coast and how plentiful the stock was. If he found mines, minerals or valuable stones he was to bring home specimens of each along with seeds of the trees, fruits and grain she was able to collect.

Lieutenant Jams Cook was instructed to observe the Genius, Temper, Disposition and number of natives. If there were any natives and endeavour, he was by all proper means to cultivate a friendship and alliance with them, making them presents of such trifles as they may value inviting them to traffick and showing them every kind of civility and regard taking care not to suffer from any surprises by them and to be always upon their guard against any accidents. He was to with the consent of the natives to take possession of convenient situations in the country in the name of the King of Great Britain: or: if he found the country uninhibited take possession for his Majesty by setting up Proper Marks and Inscriptions, as first discoverers and possessors.

Upon return to England Lieutenant James Cook had to give a full account of proceedings throughout the whole course of the voyage taking care before anyone left the vessel that all log books and journals were sealed up for inspection and enjoyning by the Admiralty. The whole crew had to had to swear they would not divulge where they had been until they were given permission by the Commissions for executing the office of Lord High Admiral of Great Britain.

Australia, Lieutenant James Cook reported was very sparsely populated. The local natives did not seem to live in large bodies but circulated in small parties along by the water side. Cook observed abandoned camp sites, vacant stick huts. The local natives did not store food or water, rather they subsisted from day to day.

Sir Joseph Banks, naturalist, and patron of science, travelling with Lieutenant James Cook on the Endeavour, reported that Australia was an immense tract of land considerably larger than all of Europe, he observed it was thinly inhabited even to admiration. He conjectured that the interior was ‘totally uninhabited’.

Captain Tobais Furneaux an English navigator and Royal Navy officer, who accompanied Commodore James Cook on his second voyage of exploration, said of Van Diemen’s land that they never found more than three or four huts in a place and these huts were capable of containing three or four person each only.

Because of these reports Britons believed that Australia was mostly empty. The local natives were the occupants but not the proprietors of the land mass as they had never tilled the soil, or enclosed it, or cleared any portion of it, or planted a single tree or grain or root. The local native people had not converted their occupation of land into ownership.

In some circles, not all, the Australian natives were thought of as the most miserable of God’s creatures, idle, indolent people of no ingenuity, a very dirty and lazy collection of people. Miserable beings that were nomadic within tribal boundaries.

History tells us from British experience in New Zealand, North America and Africa terra nullius was not a standard feature of settler land policy. The explorers were able to pay landowner natives and did so in other territories they settled. English and European agreed legal opinion was that settlers had a right to occupy uninhabited land.

As Lieutenant James Cook saw the Australian continent it was an enormous available land. He described Botany Bay as populated by a very few primitive, dark-skinned hunter-gatherers and his fleet believed that the interior of the continent was totally unoccupied. He and his colleagues rationalised that the occupant natives were few in number and in comparison to other indigenous people the British had encountered not technically advanced. They wore no clothing and built only simple seldom used shelter that was tiny and built with sticks, bark, and grass. Cook also noted the local natives knew nothing about cultivation or farming and they showed no interest in trade or could offer no meaningful military resistance.

Back then, how sparse did a population need to be to be considered as unoccupied? Was it right that one family or a small population could claim an entire uncharted southern continent as its own land? It was believed that with a tiny population, living on an enormous continent of 7,692 million km² not yet mapped, surveyed, or investigated there would be plenty of unowned land available for the taking.

The art of agriculture was key to the concept of a more permanent property right in the soil. Unsettled habitation in the immense regions could not be accounted for as true legal ownership.

The native occupiers were seen to live in a ‘state of nature’. That being a state in which humans had not yet seized land as property. At that point in time in the discovered world, property in land entailed a minimum degree of social organisation, of civilisation and of law – property in land necessitated a society to commence to detach itself from the state of nature.

As such a valid argument remains that as the native occupants as seen by voyagers at the time of European discovery in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and settlors in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries had not transgressed from the ‘state of nature’ then they did not own the land they lived on.

Eighteen years after Lieutenant James Cook, captain of the HMB Endeavour’s, arrival at Botany Bay, the First Fleet landed. They carried around 1,487 settlers, convicts, marines, and family. Between 1788 and 1868, around 162,000 convicts were transported from Britain and Ireland, ousted from their homeland to various penal outposts in Australia. Many convicts lived out the rest of their life knowing they would be executed if they dared to return and set foot on the land of the country of their birth.

Before British settlement Australia was a land of local natives living as individual mobs with differing cultures, languages, food sources, traditions, and rituals with no idea of what the land mass looked like on a map or how large it was. Although Lieutenant James Cook and his colleagues may have erroneously misjudged the local native population they were not one large national family of peaceful people with one set of laws around land ownership.  

The interior of Australia was populated. Sparsely.

In the newly discovered great southern land unique cultural and linguistically diverse nomadic native ensembles of peoples existed. No national property law of any kind existed. There were no maps of local areas or the mainland, no written or common language.

The Australian local native nomadic way of life was a direct result of a notable shortcoming of the hunter-gatherer economy. In country where there was no domesticated animals or agricultural crops, no food or water was stored against famines and droughts. On the mainland fire was started via friction when rubbing two sticks together. In Tasmania the local natives did not know how to light a fire. The fire there was carried around and if one clans fire stick went out they had to approach another clan for a relight of their fire stick.

On the mainland the local natives ate scale fish on the Tasmanian island the local natives only ate shellfish.

The local natives had no homes with seats to sit on, tables to eat at, or soft warm beds to sleep in. No electricity to power equipment and lights. No taps with running water. No toilets. No bath or shower to wash in. No clothes to protect their skin from the sun and harsh weather elements. No shoes to protect their feet. No supermarkets to buy food. No medicines for strong pain relief and other ailments. No transport.

The ‘fruitful native hunter’ on his reappearance at camp had to share the wild animals he had procured not only with his family, but with all those who had traditional claims upon his labours as dictated by the elders. Co-operation and food sharing of the fruitful hunter command were seen to be essentially required for the survival of the mob living in a primitive hunter gatherer lifestyle.

Local native tribal law can be harsh, savage, and brutal. Aspects of local native time-honoured laws, expressly concerning specified sacred and ritual topics, are secret, and disclosure to unqualified persons is a serious offence punishable by savage means even death. Ceremonial body paint designs are painted onto the chest, breasts, arms and thighs. Each new body paint is different from the last. Dreamtime stories are many stories, some key and some trivial and are said to belong to each mob and not the ‘Aboriginal race’ as a whole.

Initiation allowed the young local native male to hear wisdom of what was heard by the elders before. Mythology and Dreamtime stories to share in the incarnation of the ancestors expression. The initiate’s blood turns out to be the blood of his ancestors, as he passed into the sacred world of these spirits. Tests for pain tolerance included circumcision, tooth avulsion, plucking of bodily hair, body cuts for scars to form and the pulling out of fingernails. Endure the pain say the elders or the sacred Law will not survive as the secrets and wisdom of the local native ancestors will not be passed on to those who are uninitiated.

Like whispers of the wind no old tribal Law can be seen. The old men spoke, and their words floated to the initiated. Tribal law and dreamtime stories are the inheritance said to be passed down through the generations. There was no accountable form register or locked cupboard to protect still to be issued texts because all law was oral law.

In times gone by every bank passbook had an individual document number. The document number was recorded in a register by the issuer with an account number and the name of who the passbook was issued to. A newly issued passbook was full of blank pages that got filled in as an individual made deposits and withdraws. The passbook was a written record of every transaction that occurred in that passbook account. The issuer kept a copy of each transaction for a set time period then the issuer record was destroyed. The individual passbook may have been kept by the account holder as a historical document or thrown away when no longer required. Modern day tribal Law interpretations that are written are like the historical passbook without a way of verifying the transactions with the Law that was heard being whispered in the wind.

A paedophile performance, as the adult controller, is to incite fear into the innocent child to keep ‘their secrets’ from those who would stop the deviant behaviour and the transference of guilt onto the innocent child.

A domestic violence perpetrator, as the adult controller, incites fear of harm to gain and maintain ‘power and control’ by verbal abuse, emotional abuse, physical abuse, and sexual abuse.  

Coercive control generates invisible chains and a sense of fear that saturates all foundations of the innocent’s life. The aim is to restrict the individual’s human rights by depriving them of their liberty and reducing their ability to act. The innocent becomes caught in a mythical dreaming created by the abuser, to entrap them in a life of confusion, contradiction, and fear.

Future expectation appearing real through coercive control.

Today in Australia local native tribal law is still an everyday reality. Women are not supposed to know, let alone speak of tribal religious secrets revealed by the tribal Old Men to boys when initiated into manhood. Wives have been killed by their husbands due to daring to speak of such forbidden things.

People live in fear in local native male dominated continuation where women and young people do not have a voice. Where some are denied their right, by their elders, to read, write, and speak in the Australian national language of English, or to learn truthful Australian history and way of life.   

Today there are some who call themselves ‘First Nations people’ who want to keep their modern interpretation of their ‘ancient’ tribal culture playacting respect for their ancestors and to keep their tribal laws in existence for all time and force them onto others who call Australia home.

Offensive indoctrination practices such as ‘Acknowledgement of Country and Welcome to Country’ being allowed and encouraged are but one example. Country as divided up on a map in 1996 to reinforce “Wherever you are in Australia you are on the lands and waters of Australia’s First Peoples. Only traditional custodians can speak for and welcome visitors to their homelands.”

Where perceived cultural grievance exists, payback is still expected.      

The ancient laws were considered to ensure order and discipline. Payback tackled crimes like stealing things or women, socialising with someone from the wrong tribe, crossing cultural boundaries without consent and acts of perceived sorcery. In traditional Aboriginal spirituality there is no natural death, every death is caused by evil spirits or spells.

In the commonplace ‘pointing the bone’ practice being ‘sung’ is a mythical spell delivered by a powerful ‘Feather-foot’ believed to have supernatural powers to call on spirits to do ill to or invoke death of another human being. The wearer of shoes made of feathers, blood and human hair is said to hold mystic powers and can fly and pass across the ground unseen and unheard. The shoes are kept hidden from the eyes of women and children.

An inclusive society would not allow a human being to be armed with only a small shield to defend himself, to be speared in both legs, punched in the face and chest, hit on the head with boomerangs and have boomerangs thrown at him. Or allow a 55 year old male have sexual intercourse with his fourteen year old bride, promised to him by tribal elders.

Is it right that these examples of cultural tribal law can be practised in modern day Australia?  

Tribal warriors are fact not fiction. Tribal killings connected with the refusal of youths to undergo initiation ceremonies is real. Disputes and traditional warfare with neighbouring tribes were commonplace in which warriors and others were speared, killed, and wounded. Weapons were used to inflict injury and to cause the death of fellow human beings. Mind blowing, senseless, torturous initiations marking the passage into manhood, were conducted on young boys in secret and rampant with violent body and mind mutilation.

Australian native traditional warfare included formal battles, ritual trials, raids for women, and revenge attacks. In some places local natives used their finer bush craft to conduct prolonged and effective guerrilla campaigns until in the end were overwhelmed by force of arms.

One only has to look at Alice Springs and other ‘Aboriginal Race’ townships running rampant with old tribal revenge and payback behaviour to know that the Labor Party’s voice to parliament is an absolute nonsense that will only bring more hardship and pain to citizens of Australia.