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Dark Emu: Black seeds agriculture or accident?
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Dark Emu puts forward an argument for a reconsideration of the hunter-gatherer tag for precolonial Aboriginal Australians. The evidence insists that Aboriginal people right across the continent were using domesticated plants, sowing, harvesting, irrigating and storing – behaviours inconsistent with the hunter-gatherer tag. Gerritsen and Gammage in their latest books suppor
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Kindle Edition
Published
April 7th 2014
by Magabala Books
(first published January 1st 2014)
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This book ought to be made compulsory reading for every Australian. There is a Ted talk by Bruce Pascoe that covers some of the ground covered here (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fqgrS...) but this book goes into much more detail.
The standard understanding of Australia prior to white settlement, even in the kindest versions, is that the Australian Aboriginals were trapped in a land without domesticable plants or animals. This meant they had to live the nomadic lives of hunter-gatherers, and it ...more
The standard understanding of Australia prior to white settlement, even in the kindest versions, is that the Australian Aboriginals were trapped in a land without domesticable plants or animals. This meant they had to live the nomadic lives of hunter-gatherers, and it ...more

Jun 09, 2019
Manny
rated it
really liked it
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
australia,
history-and-biography
Check your conspiracy theories! A free cut-out-and-keep guide
Quickly read the following stories. For each one, decide whether you believe version A or version B.
_____________________
The Shoah
Version A: Between 1941 and 1945, the Nazi German government systematically arrested, interned and murdered about six million Jews.
Version B: Reports of the so-called "Holocaust" were greatly exaggerated by the international Jewry in order to further their Zionist aims. The so-called "death camps" had no gas ...more
Quickly read the following stories. For each one, decide whether you believe version A or version B.
_____________________
The Shoah
Version A: Between 1941 and 1945, the Nazi German government systematically arrested, interned and murdered about six million Jews.
Version B: Reports of the so-called "Holocaust" were greatly exaggerated by the international Jewry in order to further their Zionist aims. The so-called "death camps" had no gas ...more

5★
“Imagine you are riding beside the explorer and surveyor Major Thomas Mitchell (1792-1855). He’s an educated and sensitive man and would have been great company, if a little eccentric.”
I’ll say! Pascoe has written often about Aboriginal history, but this is the first book of his I’ve read. He has included extensive references to original diaries and papers as well as to research. There are several photos, but the ones I’ve included here are from other sources.
I’ve read some of this information ...more
“Imagine you are riding beside the explorer and surveyor Major Thomas Mitchell (1792-1855). He’s an educated and sensitive man and would have been great company, if a little eccentric.”
I’ll say! Pascoe has written often about Aboriginal history, but this is the first book of his I’ve read. He has included extensive references to original diaries and papers as well as to research. There are several photos, but the ones I’ve included here are from other sources.
I’ve read some of this information ...more

Pascoe tries to paint Aborigines as some kind of rustic, pastoral race, ignoring overwhelming amounts of evidence (found in the journals of explorers like Sturt) that they actually invented differential calculus, built gothic cathedrals full of esoteric symbolism (Europeans simply ripped these off), and even had the first intergalactic civilisation, before evil white supremacists like Pascoe conspired to cover up the full, awe-inspiring scale of their achievements.

I have been looking for a copy of this book for a long while now, and was lucky enough to be gifted a voucher recently, so I bit the bullet and bought it new (rare for me).
First published in 2014, (and reprinted a lot!) then revised in 2018, I have a copy of the slightly longer revised edition.
This is a fascinating book, with extensive references and bibliography which clearly spells out all Pascoe's source material.
The quick overview is (not Pascoe's words), that history is written by the vict ...more
First published in 2014, (and reprinted a lot!) then revised in 2018, I have a copy of the slightly longer revised edition.
This is a fascinating book, with extensive references and bibliography which clearly spells out all Pascoe's source material.
The quick overview is (not Pascoe's words), that history is written by the vict ...more

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. There is no proof of Pascoe's claims in this book.
Much worse, with minor effort at checking his claims I was able to immediately prove that he had entirely misrepresented the diaries of the explorers he had quoted. These range widely. The most egregious examples I noted were:
1. Misrepresenting a report of wild grasses growing along a creek for nine miles and evidence of hunter-gathering to be nine miles of harvested agricultural land.
2. Stating ...more
Much worse, with minor effort at checking his claims I was able to immediately prove that he had entirely misrepresented the diaries of the explorers he had quoted. These range widely. The most egregious examples I noted were:
1. Misrepresenting a report of wild grasses growing along a creek for nine miles and evidence of hunter-gathering to be nine miles of harvested agricultural land.
2. Stating ...more

When world-famous Australian rapper Iggy Azalea was asked on a US radio show about Aboriginal people in her country, she replied: "The thing about Aboriginal people is they don't believe in living in enclosed structures, houses... They all want to live under the stars because that's their culture, even now... The government build houses and the Aboriginal people trash them and take the beds outside cos they don't believe in houses and they want to live under the stars." Perhaps the rapper - who
...more

People, why are you all signing up to Pascoe's fantasy? If you truly want to know what the early explorers observed, go to Project Gutenberg. There you'll find many copies of early explorers journals. After downloading them and thoroughly reading the eyewitness accounts, come back here and write a knowledgeable review based the real evidence of those early explorers, not Pascoe's fabrications and wishful thinking.
...more

Update 06/09/20: Increased rating from 3 to 3.5. I had some concerns about the historical accuracy of this text due to some controversy regarding a lack of primary and verifiable sources. I have since come across statements from a number of respected individuals who have thrown their support behind the work and also discovered that a lot of the pushback against it is likely political.
3.5 ⭐
‘Dark Emu’ is Bruce Pascoe’s impassioned plea for further research into the history of Australia’s indigeno ...more
3.5 ⭐
‘Dark Emu’ is Bruce Pascoe’s impassioned plea for further research into the history of Australia’s indigeno ...more

This book proves that there is a need for a more comprehensive coverage of this subject of Aboriginal Australians and their pre colonial agriculture. At 156 pages of text far too short so therefore not as in depth as I would have thought possible.
None the less fascinating. Recommended.
None the less fascinating. Recommended.

I debated for a long time on whether or not I should properly review this. I didn’t really feel like I could adequately review a book of non-fiction being that most of my reading is based in fiction. But this work explores a lot of really important issues about Aboriginal culture and land pre-colonisation and I think it’s really important that people are at least aware that this knowledge exists and is publicly available.
In saying that however, 1) I haven’t rated it and, 2) it’s going to be fair ...more
In saying that however, 1) I haven’t rated it and, 2) it’s going to be fair ...more

Jun 04, 2019
Marianne
rated it
it was amazing
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
borrowed-copy-returned
4.5★s
Dark Emu: aboriginal Australia and the birth of agriculture is a non-fiction book by lecturer, researcher and award-winning author, Bruce Pascoe. Pascoe is of Bunurong and Tasmanian Aboriginal heritage. In this book, he tries to convey a wealth of information about Australia’s indigenous population before white settlement with which many readers will be unfamiliar.
Contrary to previously accepted belief that the Australian aboriginals were hunter-gatherers, Pascoe details evidence of agricu ...more
Dark Emu: aboriginal Australia and the birth of agriculture is a non-fiction book by lecturer, researcher and award-winning author, Bruce Pascoe. Pascoe is of Bunurong and Tasmanian Aboriginal heritage. In this book, he tries to convey a wealth of information about Australia’s indigenous population before white settlement with which many readers will be unfamiliar.
Contrary to previously accepted belief that the Australian aboriginals were hunter-gatherers, Pascoe details evidence of agricu ...more

A very interesting exploration of the narratives around Aboriginal Australian's that cast them as a hunter-gatherer culture. I think this is more persuasive than necessarily informative (though of course, Pascoe cites his evidence) but in some sections, I thought Pascoe could have explored more in-depth. I felt sometimes the content moved on too quickly from each point being made (this is a very short book). That said, I think this was still excellently written and certainly interesting and defi
...more

The book is persuasive rather than informative, and at times inaccurate. For example Bruce puts a photo of a Meriam Island House (Torres Strait) in his section on Arnhem Land 'dome houses'. He also quotes from Mitchell, Sturt, and Dawson very selectively, leaving out all the parts that contradict his argument. Read these primary sources and you get a different picture to the one Bruce paints. His mention of stone houses is exaggerated, because the location he discusses (lake Condah) while certai
...more

Few books have the explosive power to blast the lumbering train of widely accepted history off its tracks.
Dark Emu is one of those books.
Australians have long believed a number of convenient myths about the indigenous inhabitants of our nation, stories that have both consciously and unconsciously justified the theft of an entire continent from the people who had lived up on it for tens of millennia.
The accepted story is that Australian Aboriginals were hunter-gatherers. Nomads. They had no perma ...more
Dark Emu is one of those books.
Australians have long believed a number of convenient myths about the indigenous inhabitants of our nation, stories that have both consciously and unconsciously justified the theft of an entire continent from the people who had lived up on it for tens of millennia.
The accepted story is that Australian Aboriginals were hunter-gatherers. Nomads. They had no perma ...more

While only 1/3 the way through the book I've seen enough to let me know that Pascoe has failed to come to grips with the material he is working with.
Some examples: Quotes frequently don't match up with the sources. Important claims often have no source given for them, or the source is unavailable and Pascoe won't give a quote. There is no critical engagement with his material: There is no attempt to question or contextualise his historical sources - Pascoe treats them literally and as though th ...more
Some examples: Quotes frequently don't match up with the sources. Important claims often have no source given for them, or the source is unavailable and Pascoe won't give a quote. There is no critical engagement with his material: There is no attempt to question or contextualise his historical sources - Pascoe treats them literally and as though th ...more

Jan 20, 2020
Chris Oliver
rated it
did not like it
·
review of another edition
Recommends it for:
Someone who wants to know what bogus history-writing looks like.
A few things of the many things I didn't like about Dark Emu.
1) Pascoe starts from the false premise that hunter-gatherers didn't/don't thresh wild grass seeds or dig for tubers or live in fairly settled communities close to their fish traps, close to their main sources of food. When humans start threshing seed they start influencing the process natural selection - for instance, seeds that cling to the stem and seeds with thick outer shells that are harder to grind or digest tend not to be eaten ...more
1) Pascoe starts from the false premise that hunter-gatherers didn't/don't thresh wild grass seeds or dig for tubers or live in fairly settled communities close to their fish traps, close to their main sources of food. When humans start threshing seed they start influencing the process natural selection - for instance, seeds that cling to the stem and seeds with thick outer shells that are harder to grind or digest tend not to be eaten ...more

Sep 03, 2019
Nick Grammos
rated it
it was amazing
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
australian_afstralya,
history
The diaries and journals of early Australian explorers and settlers tell a different story of Aboriginal settlement than the later historians and especially contemporary conservatives and politicians. That is, the land was managed for hunting, fishing, agriculture. Some newcomers described the landscape as a kind of park, not unlike the managed estates of English gentry, open fields, woods and farms. Those diaries therefore tell us that the premise of Australia's settlement, ie, the rights of Br
...more

Jun 23, 2014
Jenny Schwartz
rated it
it was amazing
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
2014,
non-fiction
In "Dark Emu" the author, Bruce Pascoe, refers to some other books discussing land use in Australia pre-European intrusion. I've read Bill Gammage's "The Biggest Estate on Earth" and thoroughly enjoyed its challenge to read our landscape differently.
Bruce Pascoe has Bunurong/Tasmanian Heritage and brings a more overtly political and personal approach to the question of how humans have managed and lived in the Australian country through the millennia.
The book isn't long, and I'm not going to try ...more
Bruce Pascoe has Bunurong/Tasmanian Heritage and brings a more overtly political and personal approach to the question of how humans have managed and lived in the Australian country through the millennia.
The book isn't long, and I'm not going to try ...more

Sep 08, 2021
April (Aprilius Maximus)
rated it
it was amazing
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
aussie-indigenous
an absolute MUST READ.
"It seems improbable that a country can continue to hide from the actuality of its history in order to validate the fact that having said sorry, we refuse to say thanks." ...more
"It seems improbable that a country can continue to hide from the actuality of its history in order to validate the fact that having said sorry, we refuse to say thanks." ...more

This Christmas I visited a friend who gave me two precious things: a copy of Bruce Pascoe’s book Dark Emu and an envelope of seeds from the daisy yam, Microsceris lanceolata, known as “murnong" in the Boonwurrung language.
Dark Emu begins by challenging the received historical wisdom about Australian Aboriginal peoples which says that they were hunter-gatherers who lived opportunistically in a kind of harsh subsistence at the hands of nature. Pascoe argues that this description suited early settl ...more
Dark Emu begins by challenging the received historical wisdom about Australian Aboriginal peoples which says that they were hunter-gatherers who lived opportunistically in a kind of harsh subsistence at the hands of nature. Pascoe argues that this description suited early settl ...more

This beautifully researched survey of Australian indigenous agriculture is jam-packed with fascinating information about some very sophisticated land management, infrastructure-building and primary production practices. Pascoe's innovative approach combines archaeological evidence from contemporary fieldwork with meticulously researched archival accounts of the earliest white colonisers, whose observations of the local peoples they encountered reveal much more now than they did to 18th- and 19th
...more

I am IMMENSELY sceptical (well, full stop, by default) because of a couple of things: 1) Pascoe's dubious and controversial claiming of Aboriginal heritage; 2) the notion that a settled agricultural society would be somehow more... deserving of respect? I guess, as opposed to a more nomadic lifestyle (just saying, take a look at steppe populations), and thus trying to retrofit something about which we simply do not have sufficient evidence so that it more closely aligns with "desirable" cultural
...more

I can't take seriously a book which draws its content from selectively edited accounts of early white settlers. There are no accounts from Aboriginal people past and present about their lifestyle or culture in this book. The author provides no physical evidence that the culture he describes even existed when Europeans set foot on this country.
Really disappointing. ...more
Really disappointing. ...more

An amazing journey, well-written and researched.

Sep 23, 2015
Sammy
rated it
really liked it
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
australian,
non-fiction
A rather important, worthwhile read for all Australians. "Dark Emu" is one of several recent books (another being the comprehensive "The Greatest Estate on Earth" - a superior and more objective read, if I'm honest) seeking to shatter the many misconceptions about the way Aboriginal Australians lived before their land was taken over by the white man.
"Arguing over whether the Aboriginal economy was a hunter-gatherer system or one of burgeoning agriculture is not the central issue. The crucial poi ...more
"Arguing over whether the Aboriginal economy was a hunter-gatherer system or one of burgeoning agriculture is not the central issue. The crucial poi ...more

I don’t claim to know a lot about Aboriginal history—I’d say I know the very basics. The extent of my high school education was essentially ‘we screwed up, but we said sorry!’. Now that I’m a good few years out of school, I’ve been working on changing that which is what led me to pick up this book.
And boy, was it an eye-opening read!
I never thought that I’d be interested in a book about agriculture, but this was surprisingly engaging. It should absolutely be required reading. In fact, I believe ...more
And boy, was it an eye-opening read!
I never thought that I’d be interested in a book about agriculture, but this was surprisingly engaging. It should absolutely be required reading. In fact, I believe ...more

This is a brilliant summary of the evidence that Indigenous Australians had much more developed societies than we were taught about in school. Farming, aquaculture, stone houses and more - all described by early colonial explorers, but lost in the broader narrative of terra nullius. The writing's pretty dry, but this is an important and necessary piece of work, with major implications for Australia today.
...more

Pascoe argues convincingly for a different style of Indigenous life in Australia before English arrival. He puts forward his case for how the land was, about agriculture, baking (yes - baking), burning off methods, fishing methods, constructed houses and storage of foodstuffs. I hope this kicks off a lot more research into the history and culture of Australia before English arrival.
topics | posts | views | last activity | |
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Do Bruce Pascoe’s sources support his argument | 10 | 110 | Nov 27, 2019 01:20AM | |
Win a copy of this book! | 2 | 20 | Jan 05, 2019 04:39AM |
Bruce Pascoe was born of Bunurong and Tasmanian Aboriginal heritage in the Melbourne suburb of Richmond and graduated from the University of Melbourne with a Bachelor of Education. He is a member of the Wathaurong Aboriginal Co-operative of southern Victoria and has been the director of the Australian Studies Project for the Commonwealth Schools Commission.
Bruce has had a varied career as a teach ...more
Bruce has had a varied career as a teach ...more
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“colonial settlers ignored the Aboriginal method, and that contemporary Australians still suffer from the result. The Aboriginal methods of land management were not just practical, but aesthetically pleasing.”
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“Aboriginals engaged in seed propagation, irrigation, harvest, storage, and the trade of seed across the region.”
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