Aboriginal Studies

NATIVE MESSENGERS OF GOD IN CANADA?:
A TEST CASE FOR BAHA’I UNIVERSALISM (1996)

*** Christopher Buck, “Native Messengers of God in Canada?: A Test Case for Baha’i Universalism.” Baha’i Studies Review 6 (1996): 97–133.

*** Award for Excellence in Baha’i Studies. Association for Baha’i Studies, 1994.

EPILOGUE

Thereupon Tekanawitaˀ [Deganawida, the Peacemaker] stood up in the center of the gathering place, and then he said, “First I will answer what it means to say, ‘Now it is arriving, the Good Message.’ This indeed, is what it means: When it stops, the slaughter of your own people who live here on earth, then everywhere peace will come about, by day and also by night, and it will come about that as one travels around, everyone will be related. …

Now again, secondly, I say, ‘Now it is arriving, the power,’ and this means that the different nations, all the nations, will become just a single one, and the Great Law will come into being, so that now all will be related to each other, and there will come to be just a single family, and in the future, in days to come, this family will continue on.

Now in turn, the other, my third saying, ‘Now it is arriving, the Peace,’ this means that everyone will become related, men and also women, and also the young people and the children, and when all are relatives, every nation, then there will be peace as they roam about by day and also by night. …

Then there will be truthfulness, and they will uphold hope and charity, so that it is peace that will unite all the people, indeed, it will be as though they have but one mind, and they are a single person with only one body and one head and one life, which means that there will be unity.” …

When they are functioning, the Good Message and also the Power and the Peace, moreover, these will be the principal things everybody will live by; these will be the great values among the people.”

– Chief John Arthur Gibson, Concerning the League: The Iroquois League as Dictated in Onondaga, newly elicited, edited and translated by Hanni Woodbury in Collaboration with Reg Henry and Harry Webster on the Basis of A.A. Goldenweiser’s Manuscript. Memoir 9 (Winnipeg: Algonquian and Iroquoian Linguistics, 1992): 36–41. 

ABSTRACT

Academic and popular interest has lent prestige to native spirituality and has brought it into prominence. The United Nations proclamation of 1993 as the International Year of Indigenous People gave native peoples international recognition. A corresponding interest in native culture has “valorised” (brought respect to) native spirituality.

The National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of Canada took a position of advocacy on behalf of First Nations Canadians in its formal submission to the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples in the fall of 1993. The strong native presence in Canadian Bahá’í community life raises the question of the place of native spirituality within a Bahá’í worldview.

Homefront “pioneers” have extended Bahá’í universalism to a recognition of the richness and authenticity of native cultural values. Such recognition has been supported by local Bahá’í policy, as attested in teaching pamphlets addressed to native peoples, in which the concept of First World messengers of God has been validated. Although theoretically acknowledged, explicit recognition of native messengers of God has yet to be formalised in Bahá’í doctrine.

This study discusses the possibilities of incorporating the principle of “Messengers of God to Indigenous Peoples” within formal Bahá’í doctrine, reflecting a development that has already taken place in popular Bahá’í belief in the North American context. A hitherto under-studied Persian text of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá establishes the principle in such a way that its explicit enunciation is now possible.

The problem of historical attestation remains. The prophetic credentials of Iroquois culture hero and statesman Deganawida are critically examined as a test case. The legend of Deganawida has a kernel of historicity overlaid by hagiography, with admitted Christian influence. Nonetheless, if the Bahá’í principle of “Progressive Revelation” can assimilate the Amerindian spiritual legacy as distinct from and developmentally asynchronous with Irano-Semitic and Sino-Indic religious histories, then it might be possible to accord Deganawida a provisional status with Bahá’í prophetology, and still affirm Bahá’u’lláh’s unific role in world history, as oral cultures take their place alongside the more familiar “literate” traditions.

https://www.academia.edu/36294314/_Native_Messengers_of_God_in_Canada_1996_

"This project involved several components: a review of the national and international literature in regard to the transition to school; an analysis of quantitative data, and consultations with a range of key stakeholders including a series of case study visits to different kinds of prior-to-school education settings. The objective of these research elements was to ensure the reports and guidelines developed through the project are well grounded in practice".
The project also involved visits to a range of settings where Aboriginal children were transitioning into school that were recommended as best practice by the state and territory based education departments. These are written up as case studies within the report.

This report aims to describe and explain the place of totemism in Aboriginal culture(s) in NSW, from 1788 to the present day. It also asks whether 'totemism' is an appropriate concept to describe the social and religious affiliations Aboriginal people have towards plant and animal species. The report suggests that the concept of kinship is perhaps a better term to describe these relationships.

The report also helps organisations such as the NPWS to understand and recognise the relationship between land management and totemism. Through land management programs, the report argues that Aboriginal forms of respect for the environment can become a living reality in NSW.

The report is the result of a project funded by the NSW Biodiversity Strategy.
It is co-authored with Diana James and Christine Watson

In February 1952, the Kuomintang government of the Republic of China executed six Taiwanese aboriginal leaders for supposed collaboration with communists. Although this is just one of numerous terrible incidents during this period of Taiwan’s history, the Tang Shouren case is of particular interest as these executions effectively silenced the voices of a generation of aboriginal leaders, some of whom had recently formulated plans for aboriginal autonomy. These executions silenced all discussion of aboriginal autonomy for the next forty years. Beginning in the 1980s, but accelerating in the 1990s, Taiwanese scholars and writers returned to these victims to write about the lives and deeds of these aboriginal elites. These elites were then written into the trauma narrative that takes a special place in Taiwan’s troubled struggle with identity, the narrative of the February 28th Incident and the White Terror.

This essay examines the inclusion of aboriginal voices in the rewriting of this trauma. Of particular interest is the relation of these voices to the struggle for aboriginal autonomy today. This inclusion is of crucial significance to both the economic and political rights of aboriginals today, but must be mediated by those elites who accept strategies of cultural hybridity to engage with hegemony and efforts towards assimilation in postcolonial Taiwan. The essay focuses on the early autonomy pioneer Uyongu Yatauyungana, but also considers texts by Pasuya Poiconu, Chen Suzhen, and Walis Norgan, examining this writing in relation to the construction of Taiwan’s national narrative to reveal how aboriginal elites have both appropriated and been appropriated by this trauma narrative.

This article examines the depoliticization of violence against women in indigenous communities. It argues that there is a pressing need to examine the ways in which gen- dered violence is explained, addressed and often sanctioned in indigenous commu- nities. The article draws on Crenshaw’s concept of political intersectionality and examines responses to gendered violence in indigenous communities through two groups: Aboriginal women in Canada and Sa ́mi women in Scandinavia.

Prähistorische Astronomie und Ethnoastronomie
Der Arbeitskreis Astronomiegeschichte hat im Zusammenhang mit der Tagung der Astronomischen Gesellschaft in Würzburg ein Kolloquium veranstaltet, das am Montag, den 24. September 2007, stattfand. Aus aktuellem Anlaß – im Jahr 2007 jährte sich der Geburtstag von Heinrich Hertz (1857–1894), dem Entdecker der elektromagnetischen Wellen, zum 150. Mal – wurde für diese Herbsttagung das Thema „Astronomie in neuen Wellenlängen“ gewählt. Als weiteres Thema wurde „Prähistorische Astronomie und Ethnoastronomie“ angeboten, das bisher beim Arbeitskreis Astronomiegeschichte noch überhaupt nicht berücksichtigt wurde und großen Zuspruch fand. Die Prähistorische Astronomie betrifft die astronomischen Aktivitäten in der Zeit vor der schriftlichen Aufzeichnung. Viele vor- und frühgeschichtliche Völker beschäftigten sich mit den Geheimnissen des Kosmos und überlieferten ihre Vorstellungen in eindrucksvollen Bauwerken. Grundlagen der prähistorischen Astronomie sind archäologische Ausgrabungen oder geodätische Vermessungen von Baudenkmälern (Gräber, Kultanlagen), um deren eventuelle astronomische Ausrichtung festzustellen und mit Hilfe astronomischen Fachwissens zu deuten und in einen historischen Kontext einzuordnen. Archäoastronomie ist ein sehr interdisziplinäres Thema; Archäologie, Kulturgeschichte, Geschichte der Naturwissenschaft und Technik, besonders Astronomiegeschichte spielen eine Rolle, aber auch Ethnographie, Anthropologie, Literatur- und Religionsgeschichte, um nur einige wichtige Wissengebiete zu nennen.

Das Spektrum der Vorträge – und der Artikel in diesem Buch – reicht von Astronomie der Steinzeit (Megalithkultur des Neolithikums) und Bronzezeit zur Astronomie bei den Germanen oder Kelten.
http://www.hs.uni-hamburg.de/DE/GNT/events/wbg-archaeo07.htm
Am bekanntesten in der Steinzeit ist natürlich Stonehenge, dessen astronomische Bedeutung erstmals ausführlich von Gerald Hawkins 1963 in seinem Buch Stonehenge decoded diskutiert wurde. Es gibt aber viele weitere Kreisgraben-Anlagen und einzelne Menhire oder Alignements (z.B. Carnac und Locmariaquer, Bretagne). Ferner ist das Ganggrab in Newgrange, Irland, zu erwähnen; tief in den Hügel hinein strahlt die Sonne am am 21. Dezember, am Tag der Wintersonnenwende, symbolisch die Wiedergeburt des Jahres. Diese prähistorischen Anlagen finden sich nicht nur in England, Deutschland und Frankreich, sondern in ganz Europa bis Nordafrika (Steinkreis von Nabta, Südägypten). Nicht vergessen sollte man die Tempel-Anlagen auf Malta und Gozo. Im Pazifischen Ozean gibt es neben den Steinkolossen auf der Osterinsel die Ruinenstadt Nan Madol auf der Insel Ponape in Mikronesien.

In der Bronzezeit sind besonders die Goldhüte oder die Scheibe von Nebra zu nennen, die im Zentrum des Interesses stehen, aber man könnte auch die Kreisgrabenanlagen in Goseck und Kyhna anführen und den Sonnenwagen von Trundholm (1500 v.Chr). Es wurde auch die Ethnoastronomie mit einbezogen, ein Artikel befaßt sich mit dem Himmel bei den australischen Aboriginals, ein anderer diskutiert astronomische Beobachtungstechniken im alten Indien, ein bisher zu wenig berücksichtigster Kulturkreis.
Gudrun Wolfschmidt

When Europeans first reached Australian shores, a view developed that Australian Aboriginal people did not have houses or towns, that they occupied temporary camps, sheltering in makeshift huts or lean-tos of grass and bark. Turning this popular idea on its head, Gunyah, Goondie and Wurley explores the range and complexity of Aboriginal-designed structures, spaces and territorial behavior, from minimalist shelters to permanent houses and villages.

Whilst Gunyah, Goondie and Wurley is mainly an in-depth study of the architecture of early contact Aboriginal Australia, it also contains an overview of post-1970 collaborative architecture between white Australian architects and Aboriginal clients, as well as an introduction to the work of the first Aboriginal graduates of university-based courses in architecture.

Gunyah, Goondie and Wurley not only provides an introduction and a framework for ongoing debate and research on Aboriginal settlements but also aims to introduce and provide insights for the lay reader to the lifestyles and cultural heritage of Aboriginal peoples.

A Record in Stone is a descriptive presentation of stone-tool types from the continent of Australia, which combines Australian prehistory with lithic typology from a tutorial perspective. A unique and welcome feature is a supplemental compact disc (CD-ROM) which stores color images of the black and white illustrations in the text. The CD contains nearly 500 images of various stone tools, data tables, and images of flintknapping. The images are high-quality and include both JPEG and HTML formats; in many of the photographs, diagnostic morphological features are labeled. Such a visual format in books about prehistory is rare; it provides the reader with a quick-reference source for color images that often are too expensive to print in the text. A CD is a suitable alternative and should be considered by other authors in paleoanthropology and related disciplines.

This article first builds a normative framework for state apologies to Indigenous peoples based on meaningfulness, building on an earlier taxonomy by Canadian political scientist Matt James that assessed the authenticity of state apologies in general.  Second, it conducts a comparative assessment of apologies offered by four English-speaking settler states (United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand) using this new Indigenous specific framework.

This paper focuses on the meaning of education for reconciliation in the context of Canadian settler-colonialism. It captures an attempt to delve into the meaning of reconciliation as an experiential process, through learning on the land with the Tahltan People. We focus on reconciliation not as a theory or political discourse, but rather as a meeting point of theory and experience. We identify and discuss four main components of education for reconciliation: Land as educator, Indigenous knowledge and pedagogy, reciprocity, and sovereignty. We argue for the need to shift from superficial and theoretical discourses of reconciliation in the classrooms to deep engagement with Indigenous knowledge and ways of living on the land.

This article explores social work with Indigenous Peoples in Canada, beginning with the history of colonization and the role this profession played, as well as outlining promising approaches to helping based on Indigenous worldviews and the challenges of putting these into practice.

The Royal Proclamation of 1763 is clearly one of the key documents in Britain’s policy regarding Aboriginal peoples after the Conquest of 1760. As the Proclamation provided specific protection for Aboriginal land, it was hailed in the 19th century as the “Indians’ Charter of Rights.” The Proclamation also reflected the central view of British colonial policy regarding the Aboriginal peoples of North America: segregation. By prohibiting colonists from settling on the vast swaths of land temporarily reserved for the Aboriginal nations, the Proclamation drew a precise line of demarcation between the colonial world and that of the Aboriginal peoples. Creating this reserved land stemmed from a political desire to appease the Aboriginal peoples of the continent’s interior who had just begun to take up arms (Pontiac’s War), but it demonstrated how little importance the British at the end of the 18th century placed on integrating the Aboriginal peoples into the colonial world.
During the first half-century of Britain’s presence in Canada, the Aboriginal policy was largely shaped by strategic and military matters. The role of the Department of Indian Affairs, established in the mid-1750s during the war with France, was mainly to ensure military support from the Aboriginal peoples, or at least their neutrality. The American Revolutionary War and the subsequent rivalry between Great Britain and the United States helped maintain this policy, where the promises of protected land and annual gifts (clothing, weapons, ammunition) were a central focus. Although expensive, this policy was still essential because the Aboriginal peoples played a strategic role in North American conflicts. 
The policy, however, changed rapidly and radically in the early 19th century. The new official objective of Britain’s policy quickly became civilizing the Aboriginal peoples. “It appears to me,” wrote George Murray, Secretary of State for the Colonies, for example, “that the course which has hitherto been taken in dealing with these people, has had reference to the advantages which might be derived from their friendship in times of war, rather than any settled purpose of gradually reclaiming them from a state of barbarism, and of introducing amongst them the industrious and peaceful habits of civilized life. […] Whatever may have been the reasons which have hitherto recommended an adherence to the present system, I am satisfied that it ought not be persisted in for the future.”
This article will analyze the evolution of Britain’s Aboriginal policy in Canada, focusing particularly on the period during which the Aboriginal civilization program emerged. It will situate the economic, political and military factors that initiated the change and influenced its specific form. Among the factors that played a role in this reform was the decline of the Aboriginal peoples’ military importance after the War of 1812, the final conflict between Great Britain and the United States. After this war, the British authorities prescribed a major overhaul of Aboriginal affairs management, particularly to reduce the costs of this administrative branch. The yearly gifts given to the Aboriginal nations, which were the largest portion of the Indian Affairs’ budget, were increasingly criticized. They came to symbolize Aboriginal dependence, which could only be overcome through civilization.
The appearance of new economic realities also led to a thorough review of the Aboriginal policy. The fur trade, which provided the Aboriginal peoples front-line economic importance, became less important in the colonial economy as of the 19th century. At the same time, the forestry industry, stimulated by the Empire’s needs, was rapidly expanding, leading to the colonization of areas that had previously only been populated by nomadic Aboriginal groups. As a result, Upper and Lower Canada experienced intense demographic growth, thus increasing the colonists need for land. The Aboriginal peoples’ subsistence economy, which relied largely on fishing and hunting, became more precarious. Consequently, talk of promoting their civilization fell on fertile ground: if they didn’t want to be wiped out by colonization, the Aboriginals peoples must imitate the “Whites” and adopt their ways.
The civilization program was also partly inspired by movements in London that were concerned about the fate of the Aboriginal peoples in the British colonies. For example, in 1836, the Aborigines Protection Society was founded in England. It quickly became an powerful pressure group that was particularly concerned with the progression and civilization of the indigenous populations in the British Empire. By casting themselves as the promoters of the grand civilizing design the British inherited, these liberal, philanthropic movements influenced the redefinition of the Aboriginal policy. The link between civilization and responsibility toward the Aboriginal peoples was clearly stated in 1837 by the Select Committee on Aborigines, a special committee established by the British government to address the question of the Empire’s Aboriginal peoples.
The analysis of the context and factors that led to the emergence of this new Aboriginal civilization policy will integrate the sometimes discordant views of the metropolitan and colonial actors. Indeed, the implementation of the civilization project took place amongst intense discussions between the metropolitan and colonial authorities. Colonial inquiry commissions were charged with examining the administration of Aboriginal affairs and making recommendations, which would have critical influence on the concrete implementation of the project. The increasingly direct interventions by the colonial authorities in defining the Aboriginal policy in Canada would, in fact, lead to the official transfer of responsibility of this issue from London to the colony, in 1860.
The article will also examine the ambiguities within the civilization project. Although the three main elements of the project—sedentarism, education and Christianization—were initially intended to fully integrate the Aboriginal peoples into the colonial world, the new program, as it was implemented in the 19th century, instead upheld segregation. The reserves are a fitting illustration, as one of the symbols of the new Aboriginal policy in the 18th century. Originally designed as areas of temporary transition that would promote integration into the colonial world, the reserves rather became, somewhat like the land reserved by the Royal Proclamation of 1763, spaces of segregation where new Aboriginal identities were forged but still distinct from those of the colonial world.
The analysis will encompass the essential period of 1815 to 1857. The first date is when the first questions regarding the Aboriginal policy were raised in Canada. In the beginning, these questions were financial in nature, but they quickly opened the door to the earliest drafts of a civilization policy. The second date is when the Parliament of the United Provinces of Canada formalized the civilization project as law, qualifying it from emancipation. Not only did the law define for the first time the inferior legal status of the Aboriginal peoples, it also established the criteria to escape this condition—criteria that shed light on the ambiguities in the new Aboriginal policy that came into effect in the 19th century.

The advent of the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) provides opportunities for people living with a disability to make more informed choices about how they live their life, with their family members and friends treated as full partners. The advocated people-centred approaches are intended to allow people living with a disability quality of life, community presence, participation and social inclusion. There is a high prevalence of disability in the Indigenous population. While the Australian Bureau of Statistics reports that 50% of the Indigenous population live with a disability, the Australian Government Productivity Commission and other bodies estimate that the rate of disability is much higher due to underreporting. The level of need for assistance among Indigenous Australians, in 2009, was more than twice that among non-Indigenous Australians and members of the Indigenous community living with a disability are at least twice as likely to need help with a core activity ...

Leanne Betasamosake Simpson (Michi Saagiig Nishnaabeg) has accomplished an amazing feat in her forthcoming book, "As We Have Always Done." She confronts colonialism from the perspective of Indigenous nationhood, but goes beyond arguing for changes in politics, writing in a way that enacts changes in our thinking about politics. Simpson articulates Indigenous nationhood as "a radical and complete overturning of the nation-state's political formations." This reiterates what others have found when they dig to the roots ['radical' comes from Latin 'radix': root]: Indigenous reality in and of itself challenges Western modes of thinking and acting. Simpson deploys the content of this insight in the process of her writing. She writes—rather than writes about—Indigenous nationhood.

Based on extensive ethnographic fieldwork undertaken since 2006, the book addresses some of the most topical aspects of remote Aboriginal life in Australia. This includes the role of kinship and family, relationships to land and sea, and cross-cultural relations with non-Aboriginal residents. There is also extensive treatment of contemporary issues relating to alcohol consumption, violence, and the impact of systemic ill health. This richly detailed portrayal provides a nuanced account of everyday endurance and social intensity on Mornington Island.

Four stars in the night sky have been formally recognised by their Australian Aboriginal names. The names include three from the Wardaman people of the Northern Territory and one from the Boorong people of western Victoria. The Wardaman star names are Larawag, Wurren and Ginan in the Western constellations Scorpius, Phoenix and Crux (the Southern Cross). The Boorong star name is Unurgunite in Canis Majoris (the Great Dog). They are among 86 new star names drawn from Chinese, Coptic, Hindu, Mayan, Polynesian, South African, and Aboriginal Australian cultures.

In 2002, the Federal Court in Canada v. Misquadis ruled that Human Resources and Skills Development Canada (HRSDC) had discriminated against the urban Aboriginal community, a decision upheld on appeal (Ardoch Algonquin First Nation v. Canada (Attorney General), 2003). The court determined that Aboriginal political organizations can represent urban Aboriginal interests, and that the HRSDC must provide funding for the infrastructure required to deliver services and establish representative governance. In doing so, the court defined off-reserve Aboriginal people as a group of self-organized, self-determining, and distinct communities, analogous to a reserve community. While reinforcing the political connection between on- and off-reserve Aboriginal people, the court more importantly created an Aboriginal community separate from the reserve. This essay will revisit Misquadis and explore the underlying assumptions about urban Aboriginal communities upset by this ruling.

We present 25 accounts of comets from 40 Australian Aboriginal communities, citing both supernatural perceptions of comets and historical accounts of bright comets. Historical and ethnographic descriptions include the Great Comets of 1843, 1861, 1901, 1910, and 1927. We describe the perceptions of comets in Aboriginal societies and show that they are typically associated with fear, death, omens, malevolent spirits, and evil magic, consistent with many cultures around the world. We also provide a list of words for comets in 16 different Aboriginal languages.

In spite of the evidence of the Wounded Knee Massacre, after which many of the Lakota rejected the Ghost Dance Movement, the Ghost Dance phenomenon, among many tribal groups, served as a source of ritual and community revitalization in terms of:
- a rebuilding of a sense of community after the desolation of disease and cultural upheaval suffered by the Plains Peoples
- a reconfiguration of ritual experience – using both Christian and Aboriginal symbology – after the deaths of so many elders before they could pass their spiritual knowledge on to the next generation
- a communication of a sense of hope for the future among many despondent communities.

We explore about fifty Australian Aboriginal accounts of lunar and solar eclipses to determine how Aboriginal groups understood this phenomenon. We summarise the literature on Aboriginal references to eclipses, showing that many Aboriginal groups viewed eclipses negatively, frequently associating them with bad omens, evil magic, disease, blood and death. In many communities, Elders or medicine men were believed to have the ability to control or avert eclipses by magical means, solidifying their role as provider and protector within the community. We also show that many Aboriginal groups understood the motions of the sun-earth-moon system, the connection between the lunar phases and tides, and acknowledged that solar eclipses were caused by the moon blocking the sun.

Background:
This document was hand written sometime in the first two decades of the twentieth century based on the recollections of the mid nineteenth century childhood and adult experiences (living among and around the Warndandi for most of his later adult life) of my great grandmother's uncle Alfred ‘Jack’ Bussell. I grew up with my grandmothers stories about this document, and in the 2000s found copies of it both in a collection in  the Battye Library in Perth Western Australian, and in the possession of an extended family member of Bussell decent.
Jack grew up with his siblings at the traditional Wardandi-Bibbulmin campsite of Meekadarrabee in a dwelling co-constructed by his parents, Alfred (Noongar name: Mundle) and Ellen Bussell, and the local Wardandi community, at a location known as Ellensbrook to Europeans.  The Wardandi very generously shared the location and co-habitation of the Meekadarrabee campsite and it's rare fresh water spring with the teenage newlyweds Alfred and Ellen, with whom they had a strong positive relationship.
For most of Jack and his siblings’ childhoods they lived at Ellensbrook/Meekadarrabee with no day to day contact with other European children, growing up and playing with wardandi coolarng (children).  The only European presence in their daily lives outside of the immediate family were the tutors employed by Alfred and Ellen to educate their children, an education offered to any Noongar children that had the inclination to learn spoken English, reading and writing. The two best known Wardandi-Bibbulmin children to make use of this opportunity were Sam Isaacs and Ngilgi.

Authorisation and Permission:
The transmission of Wardandi Bibbulmin culture in this document and the cultural accuracy of the contents therein has explicitly authorised by my cousin and Wardandi elder Bill Borung Walger Webb. Jack was never an initiated male, and Bill has confirmed there is no privileged knowledge or culture within this document.

This document includes:
* Traditional Wardandi Bibbulmin Noongar name lists
* Traditional Wardandi-Bibbulmin Noongar language grammatical guide.
* Guide to the placement of the tongue to pronounce Wardandi-Bibbulmin Noongar language correctly.
* Accounts of the geographic extent of Noongar family ties and travel.
* Descriptions of the traditional Wardandi-Bibbulmin Noongar distinction between oral history stories and creation/dreaming stories, including a historical Pama-Nyungan language origin story.
* Jack’s perspective of traditional Wardandi-Bibbulmin Noongar life prior to widespread European occupation of the Wardandi-Bibbulmin territory.

I have transcribed this document from records and family documents and created this revision edited for grammar, spelling, intended meaning where clear, consistent phonetic spelling of Noongar words, and consistent section headings & structure in an attempt to make it’s contents as accessible as possible to the contemporary Noongar community.  Todd Griffiths

For the past years, the treaties between the Aboriginal Peoples of Eastern Canada and the British, at the fall of New France, have been arousing a great deal of interest, on a legal point of view, because they could possibly bear specific rights for the Natives. This article tries to define the terms of the agreement negotiated at Oswegatchie, the 30th of August 1760, by the Seven Nations representatives and William Johnson, British superintendent of Indian Affairs. In order to be able to identify the commitments that were agreed on at that moment, we have to rely on the native oral tradition that have been collected during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, because there is no existing written documents related to that agreement. After confronting that oral source with what we know about the British policies concerning the Native allies of the French at the end of the Seven Years war, it is possible to make the general frame of the talks of Oswegatchie emerge, and its four central concerns: the absence of reprisals; the free exercise of the catholic religion; the protection of existing rights and privileges during the French Regime; and the protection of the Aboriginal lands and possessions.

The 1838 Myall Creek Massacre is remembered for the brutality of the crime committed by white settlers against innocent Aboriginal men, women and children, but also because eleven of the twelve assassins were arrested and brought to trial. Amid tremendous controversy, seven were hanged. Myall Creek was not the last time the colonial administration sought to apply the law equally to Aboriginal people and settlers, but it was the last time perpetrators of a massacre were convicted and hanged. Marking the 180th anniversary of the massacre, this book brings together leading writers, historians and artists to explore the significance of one of the most horrifying events of Australian colonialism. Thoughtful and fearless, it challenges us to look at our history without flinching as an act of remembrance and reconciliation.

The frontier of nineteenth-and twentieth-century Australia was a place in which colonists routinely lived in fear of retaliation by the Aboriginal peoples whose traditional lands they had forcibly dispossessed. It has been suggested this concern manifested itself in domestic architecture, in both active and passive defensive strategies designed to afford protection against various forms of potential attack. Yet there remains a lack of substantive research to support such assertions. In this article, we present an analysis of accounts drawn from a range of sources of 97 domestic structures across Queensland with claims for defensive features. Although suggesting that fortified domestic structures were more common than previously envisaged, our review indicates that defensive features were usually minimal-holes in walls and barrable doors, windows or other ports of entry-reflecting the often expedient nature of the structures themselves. First-hand accounts of these buildings are rare, although not entirely absent, with most written accounts being reminiscences told in hindsight by later descendants, resulting in both distortions and myth-building. Accounts of fortified domestic structures peak in the decades following Federation and through both World Wars as the newly minted Australian nation explicitly engaged in nation-building and constructing the 'glorious pioneer' narrative.

Anishinaabe White Earth Ojibwe Gerald Vizenor in the 1990's repurposed an old legal term — "survivance" — to define a combination of survival and resistance of Native Peoples. Vizenor deployed the term in conjunction with a new phrase of his own making — "postindian"— to mount an assault on conventional discourse about Native Peoples. He proposed that the dominant discourse about Native Peoples is a discourse of domination. He attacked "Indian" as a rhetorical trope inextricably tied to subjugation, assimilation, and simulation, which he called "manifest manners."
With these thoughts in mind, let us look at the project to decolonize Native Studies discourses and, by extension, discourses emanating beyond classrooms. I suggest four arguments every student in Native Studies must encounter if we are to continue to move away from manifest manners and toward survivance, struggle, resistance, and innovation. The arguments focus on "INDIAN", "TRIBE", "GENOCIDE", and "NATIVE RIGHTS / CIVIL RIGHTS".

Traditional decision-making is based on a respectful process that attempts to find balance and process.
Whatever the decision may be, the process always has to be consistent so that the people feel that there is balance and constancy in their life.
Consensus is a process where a final, unanimous decision is made organically, rather than by some kind of structure or organisational process lead or set out by a leader.
All voices are valuable, valid, respected and necessary (from child to Elder). A common voice or opinion comes out from the process of talking around the circle. This can take a very long time for complicated issues, but is a necessary process. As people speak they watch each other and see through eye contact and body language where people stand on issues. Gradually a consensus emerges through compromise and understanding of all levels of the issue from each person’s perspective.

In terms of poverty in Sri Lanka, the gemstone mining community in the country, is considered to be living in poverty experiencing chronic or transient poverty in most parts of their lifespan. This was an explanatory research which has tried to build up a profile of gemstone mining laborers including their current social, economic and educational statuses. Two villages situated in Pelmadulla area, Jayanthipura and Kattange villages were the research field of this research and 20 gemstone mining laborers were selected under the purposive sampling as respondents. Questionnaires and unstructured interviews were used to collect data and in data analysis same weight was given to both quantitative and qualitative analysis. The specificity of this research is marked with the use of Experimental Livelihood Security Index (ELSI) which is a logical and scientific framework that is used to measure the poverty and vulnerability degrees of specific communities formulating a mathematical line distinguishing vulnerable households and better-off households. The findings of the research are as follows. In the contemporary context, main source of income of most gemstone mining households is mining and most of the households are Samurdhi recipients. It was evident that the youngsters of the gemstone mining households are less likely to be involved in mining. Most gemstone mining laborers are middle-aged men and they are lacking adequate education. Most of them have learned up to O/L. It was evident that if alternative jobs are available most of gem mining workers are more likely to quit the mining and find out less risky and less laborious formal or informal jobs as the mining is not satisfactory job in terms of income as the mine workers get only 2% of the total income of the mine.

Keywords: Poverty; Vulnerability; Culture of Poverty; Culture of Dependency; Culture of Deprivation; Gemstone Mining Laborer

'The fighting Gunditjmara' tells the story of the Gunditjmara people from western Victoria, who have fought for country and for nation, from frontier wars to world wars. The article looks at how Aboriginal servicemen and servicewomen serving in the Australian military forces have often spoke of being part of a long-standing, continuous warrior tradition that embodies deep respect for their forebears who fought for their traditional lands. Such sentiments were encapsulated by Captain Reg Saunders, a Gunditjmara man,  "I would have fought the war my forefathers fought because I think we were right. We were fighting for survival." One of the most famous Australian soldiers of the Second World War, Saunders was the first identifiable Aboriginal to be commissioned as an officer in the Australian Army. He is from a long line of Gunditjmara men and women - who have earned the reputation 'the fighting Gunditjmara' - who have served in the Australian military.

Descriptions of natural events, such as fireballs, and meteorite impacts, are found within Indigenous Australian oral traditions. Studies of oral traditions demonstrate that they extend beyond the realm of myth and legend; they contain structured knowledge about the natural world (science) as well as historic accounts of natural events and geo-hazards. These traditions could lead to the discovery of meteorites and impact sites previously unknown to Western science. In addition to benefiting the scientific study of meteoritics, this study can help social scientists better understand the nature and longevity of oral traditions and further support the growing body of evidence that oral traditions contain historical accounts of natural events. In a previous study led by the author in 2009, no meteorite-related oral traditions were identified that led to the discovery of meteorites and/or impact craters. This article challenges those initial findings.

Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission called for the doctrine of discovery to be removed from Canadian law and for Canada to adopt the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. These calls conflict with the doctrine of Aboriginal title, including the Supreme Court of Canada’s recent decision of Tsilhqot’in Nation v British Columbia. This decision has justifiably been hailed as an important step toward repairing relationships with Indigenous peoples, even though its potential for furthering reconciliation is compromised by its reliance on the doctrine of discovery, a doctrine from the colonialist past. Tsilhqot’in also represents the future, because it implicitly recognizes the sovereignty and territories of Indigenous nations. When combined with the Supreme Court’s recognition of Indigenous sovereignty in other contexts, this points the way to the nation-to-nation relationship and partnership envisaged by the Prime Minister and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

A lecture given at the Bergen Academy of Art and Design, Norway, on 23 November 2015. The analysis of the "legendary" French 1989 exhibition Magiciens de la Terre and its reenactment in 2014; the globalization defined as a world-wide spreading of neo-liberal economy and ideology.

Aboriginal Australians have been observing the stars for more than 65,000 years, and many of their oral traditions have been recorded since colonisation. These traditions tell of all kinds of celestial events, such as the annual rising of stars, passing comets, eclipses of the Sun and Moon, auroral displays, and even meteorite impacts. But new research, recently published in The Australian Journal of Anthropology, reveals that Aboriginal oral traditions describe the variable nature of three red-giant stars: Betelgeuse, Aldebaran and Antares. This challenges the history of astronomy and tells us that Aboriginal Australians were even more careful observers of the night sky than they have been given credit for.