Dark Emu: Aboriginal Australia and the birth of agriculture

by Bruce Pascoe

History has portrayed Australia's First Peoples, the Aboriginals, as hunter-gatherers who lived on an empty, uncultivated land. History is wrong.

In this seminal book, Bruce Pascoe uncovers evidence that long before the arrival of white men, Aboriginal people across the continent were building dams and wells; planting, irrigating, and harvesting seeds, and then preserving the surplus and storing it in houses, sheds, or secure vessels; and creating elaborate cemeteries and manipulating the landscape. All of these behaviours were inconsistent with the hunter-gatherer tag, which turns out to have been a convenient lie that worked to justify dispossession.

Using compelling evidence from the records and diaries of early Australian explorers and colonists, he reveals that Aboriginal systems of food production and land management have been blatantly understated in modern retellings of early Aboriginal history, and that a new look at Australia's past is required - for the benefit of us all.

Dark Emu, a bestseller in Australia, won both the Book of the Year Award and the Indigenous Writer's Prize in the New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards.

• ISBN10: 1911344781
• ISBN13: 9781911344780
• Publish Date: 10 May 2018 (first published 3 March 2014)
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: GB
• Imprint: Scribe Publications
• Format: Paperback (UK Trade)
• Pages: 288
• Language: English

Reviews

[HekArtemis]

This book is honestly infuriating. I could rant for days about Australia and Aboriginals, it's best saved for a blog or something, if I ever start a new one. Until then, I will keep this simple. This book is infuriating, because it shows the many ways in which we have been lied to about our own history. I say "we" because it's not just those of us with extensive European ancestry that have been lied to, but it's also those with extensive Aboriginal ancestry. Any of us with even a sprinkling of Aboriginal ancestry should be angry by all of this, our history has been hidden from us - deliberately. Our ability to connect to the very land we live on has been taken from us - how can we connect to a land we know nothing about? We know more about Euro and American animals, plants, and even the sky, than we do about the Aussie ones. But even if you have no Aboriginal ancestry, you should also be angry, because you too have been disconnected from this land, and the people who live here, all of us.

One thing Pascoe said in the book, is that the lies that have been told have created a view of the Aboriginals that changes our perspective of them as a people, how we see them and feel about them. The idea of them being savages who know nothing at all, it makes us feel superior, but also it make us feel pity for them. Especially when you add in the more modern stereotypes like alcoholism and the like. But when you learn the truth about our history, when you see what the Aboriginal mobs were doing before Europeans came, when you know what they were capable of, your perspective could change from pity and charity - to pride. What a great thing it would be if we all felt TRUE pride in our country, our people, and our history (except for the genocidal parts anyway). I wonder how much it might reconnect us to each other and the land if we began to feel pride for the Aboriginal peoples. We have so much pride and love for Ned bloody Kelly, the criminal idiot who wore a pot on his head - but we don't feel any pride for the people who lived here and thrived for 40,000 plus years. If only we did. I don't think it would cure anything, but it's an important part of the process.

I do take a bit of issue with the way Pascoe presents Aboriginal peoples as seemingly perfect though. It's not that he is necessarily wrong in some of his views of Aboriginals being better in many ways, socially or culturally or sustainability wise. But they were not perfect, and we do know that. He didn't need to include examples of the bad parts of Aboriginal society, those exist aplenty, but the book could've done with a bit less rose tintedness. But in the end it wasn't a huge issue and I can understand why the book was the way it was, so it is not enough for me to drop my rating or anything. I simply wanted to note it so I remember that it's in there. To add, again mostly for my own use - a man may see something as perfect that a feminist such as myself will not see as perfect at all.

I loved this book, a lot. Yes it is infuriating, even in the introduction you face that moment where you wonder what the hell is wrong with people and that continues throughout. But the information provided by the book is amazing too. I think this book, and perhaps several of those Pascoe referenced (eg. The Biggest Estate) are extremely important books and not only do I highly recommend and suggest reading them, I also think they should almost be mandatory reading. In high school perhaps. I own Young Dark Emu as well, and the classroom book, I homeschool my kids.... so. yeah. I also plan to read much more extensively on this topic, and on Aboriginal history, culture, and lore in general.

Read this book. Read. It.

[Ace]

If you haven't read this get your hands on it yesterday. It's such an eye opening piece of work.