Was the Dingo Born to Be Wild?
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
Two potential reasons for this:
- Sensitivity to the way the aboriginals were treated by the british colonists (which is using overly 'polite' terminology)
- Sensitivity to the 'populated by criminals' stereotype of Australia.
Or the supposed threat from Sicilians when death is on the line.
In fact, a good friend of mine works there: https://iocane.com.au
One of those sentences is true.
But isn't that documentary using First Australians to refer to the Aboriginals, rather than those on the First Fleet:
> The 1788 arrival of the First Fleet in Sydney results in cautious friendships being formed between the First Australians and the British Empire. Yet within three years, relations sour as settlers spread out across the land.
But it does make sense. In the place we now call Australia, they were here First. We could even use First Nations as the Canadians do; there were things we would (now, belatedly, apologetically) recognise as nations here before we butchered them all and made a mess of their civilisation.
Sidenote to your sidenote: I like the thing that we're doing now of calling Perth by it's Noongar name: Boorloo. More of this, please, Australia.
Sadly, I feel most of name change is simply virtue signaling, but not all. Perth itself likely has multiple names due to its size, although I guess you need to settle one one. There are factors of multiple tribes, multiple timelines, appeasing one group likely pisses off another, but thats a different problem.
And yeah, I suspect that Boorloo is one choice of many. But I think we let the Elders work that one out.
It also of course depends on what you mean buy "we"; given the presence of other ancient hominids we could interbreed with in the region, it's not impossible others were there first by many millennia with nothing to show for it. We've got to keep in mind how incredible sparse the archeological record is for anything that far back - we didn't know a single thing about the existence of Homo floresiensis (itself very, very close to the ancient Sahul continent) and still wouldn't if it weren't for the discovery of a single site in 2003.
Unfortunately, the importance of accepting the Aboriginals as "first" has likely politicized the science here and is so important as a fundamental tenet of some political claims that it will tinge future evidence one way or another.
Agree about the politics, though. It would be nice if we could get past all the virtue signaling and agree that everyone has the best motives, etc, and just look at the evidence.
Nope.
I've been here for 60 years, my father's still kicking and he's been here since 1935, we're both agreed you're talking out of your rear end.
Some Australians might, most would not.
Your own documentary link disagrees with you and explicitly refers to the indigenous people as the First Australians
Furthermore why would a thoroughly American 72 year old journalist be using an "odd Canadianism" in The New York Times ?
That, or he's takin' the piss.
I'm not saying hunting is smarter, but "dingos breakfast" is a common saying in Australia because they often are starving.
Whether or not a dingo or swaggie starves rests more on the season and their ability to see and exploit food resources.
That ability notwithstanding Waltzing Matilda remains the unofficial national anthem for many reasons not least an abundance of sheep.
It's a transnational sentiment: https://www.wearethemighty.com/mighty-culture/first-marines-...