Re: Aboriginal Dreamtime

Graham Knuckey (gknuckey@metz.une.edu.au)
30 Jun 1995 05:45:41 GMT

ncoutts@ozemail.com.au (Nigel Coutts) wrote:
>In article <3r8buj$bo2@ixnews6.ix.netcom.com>, vincent1@ix.netcom.com
>(Vincent DeLuca) wrote:

>> They(aborigines) accomplished very little in the 40,000 years
>> that they occupied Australia. Dreamtime annoys me.
>> Vincent1.

>In your ill thiught remarks you refer to "They(aborigines) " . To whom are
>you refering to when you speak of aborigines. Are you refering to all
>persons who have inhabited a land for all known time? Are you refering to
>all persons who have inhabited a land for a period after immigration or are
>you refering to a specific group.
>
>Secondly as others have pointed out your definition of achievement is
>clearly biased by your western eyes. You look at the worl around you and
>consider that we have achieved where the Aboriginals have not. What have we
>achieved? And before yo point to the motor car and computer consider this,
>What has our achievements done besides tie us to a capitalist system in
>which we all become slaves.
>
>If nothing else the Aboriginals managed to achieve a society in which the
>individual was something more than an ideal in the mind of a philosopher. A
>society in which all person were in the position to do as they wish.

In your response to V. De Luca, you use the term "Aboriginals" in paragraph three, line one (above).
This is even more general than the term used by De Luca€

By using it the way you have, you automatically include in your discussion every indigenous group
throughout the world.
Was that your intended purpose?

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Graham Knuckey
Archaeology and Palaeoanthropology, University of New England
Armidale, New South Wales, 2351. AUSTRALIA
WWWHP: http://www.une.edu.au/~Arch/ArchHome.html
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