Showing posts with label aboriginal. Show all posts
Showing posts with label aboriginal. Show all posts

Aboriginal Cultural Burning Stops Australian Bush Fires

Global warming is a problem that no government wants to deal with. It is a scientific fact that the planet is getting hotter. With people doing nothing to combat the issue we need to look to the past to prevent damage to houses and farms from bush fires.


Aboriginals practiced a system of animal farming called cultural burning. They set fires where scrub was low. Small animals could see the fires coming so could safely flee. The patchy habitat made hunting of the animals easy for hunters.

When lightning set large trees alight they could not breach the flatter areas. Aboriginals believed that continual burning sustained life for all. Early Australian governments continued with assimilation programs moving aboriginals to towns. Thus, the cool burns stopped.

Out of control wild fires destroy ecosystems. All burnable material is destroyed as the fires burn across hundreds of square kilometers. Occupation of the land by white people particularly with their monoculture has seen once quite fertile land turned to dust.

Aboriginals have always known the truth but paternal treatment of them silenced whole communities. They knew that without controlled burning kangaroos, dingoes and lizards would diminish in number in their old lands. Hunter gatherers have managed the environment in the past. We need to listen to them.




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 Keywords: fire, cultural, burning, people, aboriginal, martu, land, fires, food, australian,

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The World's Rice Originated in Australia

Rice came from Asia, more specifically China, right? You would be wrong. Genetic tests on rice grown today show it come from northern Australia. It was clean, uncontaminated and has been pinned down to Cape York in Queensland.
Australian wild rice in cape york northern queensland
Originally, it was growing wild in the tropics, an unusal place for rice as we associate it with wet conditions all year round. The real question is how did it get to Asia? Obviously, people from Asia came to Australia and took it home.

The Middle East is the cradle of Mankind. For rice it is Australia. Wild rice growing there today is more genetically diverse than anywhere else in the world. Asian domestic and wild rice is inbred. Australian rice is wild. It grows there today unchanged by human intervention. This took place 7,000 years ago.

Australian rice will be the basis of research to improve world food production. It holds the genetic keys to open the door very wide indeed. Modern rice varieties are just little sparks from the fire of the Australian native gene pool. The introduction of genes from Australia is vital to feed the growing world population.
Genetics by Ty Buchanan
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Australian wild rice cape York northern Australia species modern food crop world population

Petrichor the Smell Before Rain

Man like other animals has inherited a fine sense of smell from ancestors who did not have technology to know things that would help them survive. The environment gives out smells when something changes. Because we now mostly live indoors these smells do not come to our attention. However, they still exist.
Petrichor the smell before rain mattiak ka attar
Before it begins to rain the air falls and oil is released from the earth. A special odour is notable. CSIRO has named this smell "petrichor". It seems no one had given it a named before. The particular smell was made public in 1964 when Isabel Bear wrote a paper which was published in Nature journal. Mineralogists were first aware of it and mentioned the odour in text books but little was made of the smell.

Aboriginals would have know of it because oils given off before rain are stronger after drought. The word "mattiak ka attar" is used in Asia to describe the odour trapped in sandalwood oil to enhance the perfume.

Scientists at CSIRO identified a yellowish colored oil on soil and rocks that was created by moisture. Humidity is the trigger: water droplets form in crevices thus leaching the oil. It becomes stronger when it actually rains. The smell gets into the wind and is picked up by mammals.
Chemistry by Ty Buchanan
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Aboriginals Knew a Disaster Would Hit Darwin

White people just don't listen. They think they know everything and are better than black people. History shows that Europeans have believed in their superiority over Aboriginals, condemning their culture as nothing spectacular.

We do need to learn what we can from Aboriginals before all their practices are lost. Languages are disappearing as Aboriginals are westernized. Elders pass away and the traditions go with them. They know about the nature of the land, understanding things that we should record for posterity.

Evidence has been brought to light that Aboriginals left Darwin before Cyclone Tracy arrived. This is why none are seen in film footage. An Aboriginal woman Betty Pearce has come forward saying she was responsible. She travelled to Arnhem Land and went on to warn tribal people about the coming catastrophe. It was not clear in her mind what the specific disaster would be, but she knew something bad was about to happen.

She noticed something odd happening on her trip to Arnhem Land. Snakes and goannas were lying in the sun and not attacking each other. Goannas usually face the morning sun to warm their bodies up. Yet some were looking away from the sun. After seeing this she began a virtual pilgrimage to warn other Aboriginals to go home. Local people in Arnhem Land had known about the danger before she arrived.

After being told by elders to never speak of it openly, Betty finally decided to tell everyone black and white alike. After all, 40 years has passed since the cyclone and many had passed on due to old age. This knowledge is common sense really. Animals have developed senses which can identify subtle changes in the environment before a weather event. More research needs to be done on this.
Culture by Ty Buchanan
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No One Can Claim Ancestry to Native Tasmanian Aboriginals

There is a problem in Australia in regard to claims that one is an Aboriginal. In the past, part Aboriginals have identified themselves as native Australians, so they are entitled to welfare benefits that white Australians cannot access.

The Palmer United Party Senator Jacqui Lambie has ignited the debate by claiming she is Aboriginal. This is questioned by other Aboriginals. Sure she does look a little bit different than "pure" white Europeans, but the difference is minuscule. She actually claims that she is a descendant of Mannalargenna, a famous Tasmanian Aboriginal leader.

Her offer of a DNA test to substantiate her claim is not of much use. Aboriginals originally came from Africa, as we all did. No genes have been identified as being unique to Australian Aboriginals. DNA testing was suggested in 2002 at the Tasmanian ATSIC elections.

The issue is that Tasmanian Aboriginals were a different "race" than mainlanders. They were all killed by European immigrants to Tasmania. The original Tasmanians had a very primitive culture. They believed that fire was mysterious and magical. They did not know how to light fire. If the fire went out they had to steal it from a neighbor.

All Aboriginals living in Tasmania today are Imports from the mainland. They left their cultural bases on the mainland more than a century ago so their lineage cannot be traced. The theory that mainland Aboriginals were the first people to leave Africa is brought into question by the earlier presence of Tasmanian Aboriginals.
Culture by Ty Buchanan
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The Aboriginal "Race" is in Danger

Aboriginals have been in Australia for at least 40,000 years, perhaps 60,000 years. If they were the first to leave Africa this could be pushed back to 80,000. Because they are so different from Asians this could be the case. A skull found in South America is clearly aboriginal - How did it get there?

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders number about half a million of Australia's 23 million. Numbering them is difficult as many, like the American black population, have white people in their ancestry.

There is a strange state of affairs with more than a quarter of the overall population in Australia being born overseas. This has meant an important inter-cultural mix. However, the Aboriginal culture is dying out. Few young people speak native tongues in depth. Older people are not able to pass on languages completely: there are thousands of Aboriginal dialects across the country. Religious rituals in particular are disappearing.

Aboriginal art is very strong and many earn income from this. It is in demand not only in Australia but worldwide. Indeed, Aboriginals tried to patent the "dot" in their painting. The claim was turned down which left fake paintings by white people as a problem in the market.

Absorption into the white population has been the country's main aim for centuries. There are a few Aboriginals who stubbornly stay out of this idea. They are losing as time passes. City Aboriginals know nothing about traditional Aboriginal life. They would die of starvation if left in the outback. Their forebears knew how to survive.
Anthropology by Ty Buchanan
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TV Dog

"Never anything on worth watching."
Funny Animal Pictures by Ty Buchanan
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Evidence of Tiny Pygmy Aboriginals

Did tiny people ever live in Australia?  There is photographic evidence of pygmy-like Aboriginals being here, but ignored by scientists. They are widely seen in Aboriginal rock art and are spoken of in Aboriginal mythology. To native Australians pygmy people are here with us all the time. They are just out of our vision.

Apparently there are thousands of them living in the vast outback where no "physical" people live. They are mischievous, playing tricks on us all the time. Older Aboriginals say they remember seeing them. This is like the local people on the Indonesian island of Flores , where little people died out ten thousand years ago. Obviously, there is some truth in myth and living people really believe they have actually seen them.

There seems to be different types of Aboriginal pygmies and each lives in its own dimension of reality. It is fact that there were two types of Aboriginals on Bribie Island in Queensland and they didn't intermarry. One was tall thick set rather like Papua New Guineans. The other was shorter.

Myth has it that tall thin mainlanders moved down the coast to Groote Island and found little people living there. They interbred with them. However, a dispute arose and there was a great battle between them. The little people were completely wiped out. If this was the case there would be some unusual genes if present day Groote Islanders were tested. Skeletons of short, thin people have been found in caves on the island.

Little people are prominent in Aboriginal mythology. They act as spiritual intermediaries. As in the family religious tradition in China the "Mimih" society lives in the spiritual realm and is structured the same as physical people living today. This is hard to sustain given how technology has radically changed even Australian Aboriginals.

It seems Mimih did once live in the physical world. Over time they dwindled and left for the spiritual realm. It is possible for modern Aboriginals to wander into the bush, make contact them, stay and live with the Mimih. Aboriginal people tell you that the stick paintings on the rock are accurate representations of the little people who are very thin, so they can no longer live in the physical world because strong wind would break their bones.
Anthropology by Ty Buchanan
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Recognition of Aboriginals in the Constitution a Waste of Time

Tony Abbott is planning to include Aboriginals in the Constitution as the original "owners" of the land of Australia. This is like like Kevin Rudd's speech apologizing for the lost generation of Aboriginals forcibly taken from their parents and put into institutions or brought up by White people. Talk is cheap.

What Australia needs is a planned development program to make life better for Aboriginals. The right for men to receive unemployment payments was taken away by a still paternal federal government in the Northern Territory. It was taken on the premise of bad treatment of Aboriginal children. This was a blatant lie. No Aboriginal has ever been charged for ill treatment of children.

Money is needed to spend on Aboriginal communities. Tony Abbott has no money to spare, particularly with his right-wing policy of reducing taxes for wealth whites. How is Australia going to decrease the deficit with such a policy? The only thing that government can do is reduce spending. This will hit the economy and bring hard times upon us.

How can a prime minister be known for development, as Tony Abbott announced, if he has no money to spend, unless he has a magic wand up his shirt. The private sector will not voluntarily help Aboriginal communities. There is no profit in it and business has only one motivator - make more money. Telling industry to employ more Aboriginals will change nothing: they have never been taught the needed skills.
Politics by Ty Buchanan
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The Wrong Missing Body Found by Psychic

Mediums can be right - some of the time. An Aboriginal female elder in NSW told police she saw a girl dead in a dream. A six year old girl had been missing. The problem was the body found by police was of an adult, a woman. She had been dismembered wrapped in plastic and left at an Aboriginal burial site.

A Sydney woman was last seen in June. Post-mortem tests will probably confirm that the body was missing 31 year old Kristi Mc Dougall. The Aboriginal woman strongly believes that she has psychic talents.  It is odd that the Aboriginal knew about a murdered adult before police suspected it.

The odds of finding bones of dead people in an Aboriginal burial site are extremely high. Though having a premonition that a recently dead person are there is not strong. The seer has helped police with their enquiries, but not in the way she had "imagined".
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Society
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Native Claim Wins Out Over Commonsense

Here we go again. Beliefs of a small group win out over commonsense. We all know that the land around Uluru, Ayers Rock, is sacred. That is accepted. Saying it is too sacred to go boating on a freshwater lake in South Australia is absolute rot. The native Aboriginals, the Arabunna, at Lake Eyre are making outrageous claims. How does boating affect their beliefs that objects have souls? If you want to believe that grains of sand have souls so be it, but leave everyone else alone.

The Arabunna were quite happy with local boating until plans were made to hold a sailing event by a yacht club. Nothing has changed. Swimming will be banned next. Aboriginals are afraid to use the lake anyway because they fear the lake's spirit keeper.

It all boils down to a dispute with the government over native title. If things aren't going well say something is sacred and stop this, stop that, stop everything. It is just bloody mindedness.

As the commodore of Lake Eyre Yacht Club says: this infringes on the natural right of people to use the lake as a navigable waterway. Talks have stalled. It seem nothing will be done until the Arabunna have their way.
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Keviin Rudd Will Lose the Next Election

Will the Labour Government mess up the new broadband investment like it has the roof insulation scheme, new housing for Aboriginals and building of new medical clinics? There was no mention of the planned new broadband network in the budget. Worse than this there was a "secret" hit in the budget on those who use liquid gas to run their cars.

The roofing scheme was a disaster. The Government ignored knowledge from New Zealand about installers being electrocuted when putting in foil insulation. Why did they do it? It seems Kevin Rudd just decides to have something done and then delegates. An efficient leader follows through and monitors what he instigates.

Aboriginal housing is another area not monitored. Only a few houses have been built despite millions already spent. And Aboriginals dearly need housing, with many sleeping under the night sky in the outback.

Medical clinics is another problem where a lot has been spent and little has been done. Only two clinics have been constructed. In rural regions people need medical services now. not in two years time.

It looks like Kevin Rudd is about to make history - a party losing office after only one term in government. He has himself to blame. In the last election he promised so much. Yet, he has not performed. The opinion polls show what people perceive is happening. The country is like a ship drifting on the high seas with the captain sleeping off a drinking session below deck. Furthermore, the new tax on mineral companies is a mistake. It will not change the way polls are going. Australians know how important the exportation of ore is to the overall economy. Rather than gaining support people are "ho humming" this tax grab. It is certainly perceived as a tax grab because people do not see mineral companies as rip off merchants. They provide works and help the balance of payments position.

Kevin Rudd can announce that he is hurt by having to postpone the Emissions Trading Scheme, but he chose to put it on ice. The Government could have tried to get it through the Senate again. It seem Kevin Rudd has shot himself in the foot by promising much and delivering little.

Julia Gillard should be preening herself and getting ready. Soon the Labor leadership and possibly control of the country's future could be in her hands. Unfortunately, she will have to spend some time in opposition first.
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