By: Don Martin
Re: Aboriginal justice

    A book I am presently enjoying, David Quammen, _The Song
of the Dodo_. New York: Scribner; 1996. ISBN 0-684-80083-7,
deals with island biogeography, including the displacements
of native poulations of all sorts by exotic ones.

    One such example is the replacement of the Tasmanian
Aboriginal humans by Europeans in the 19th century: the last
Aboriginal, a woman named Truganini, died in 1876. For the
most part, the natives were shy hunter and gatherers, but
after a decade or so of encroachments by the invaders, the
made some attempt to strike back:

    . . . in 1923 a band called the Laremairremener, of the
    Oyster Bay tribe along the northeast coast, killed a
    pair of stock keepers. Four months later, the same band
    struck again, killing two more whites. The
    Laremairremener leaders who had incited these raids were
    captured, put on trial, _forbidden to testify because
    they weren't Christians_, and sentenced to hang.
    [emphasis mine]

    Later the British government offered a bounty, "five
pounds per adult and two pounds per child," for captured
Aborigines, though the rules of engagement specified that
they were not to be captured "while interacting amicably"
with white people.

    Another scheme proposed to "Christianize and civilize"
the Abos in a "model village" where

    Nomadic foraging would be out, farming would be in;
    kangaroo robes would be out, trousers and dresses in;
    and for Truganini and the other women, consorting with
    low life British sealers and whalers would definitely be
    out, if [the porposer of the scheme] had his way. He
    meant to create rough facsimilies of decent English
    peasant families. Oddly, one of his first steps toward
    creating these families was separating Aborigine
    children from their parents, so that the children could
    be indoctrinated more thoroughly.

    It didn't work, because confinement in the model village
promoted the spread of European diseases that started
killing off the Abos, who wisely got out of town.

... Through a Jaundiced Eye Darkly--Rheum With a View
               (don@balt-rehab.med.va.gov)

 * Origin: Nerve Center - Where the spine is misaligned! (1:261/1000)