Dark Emu

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 victors - or in this case - the colonists. For as long as Australian history has been written, the Aboriginals have been described as Stone-aged man depicted as subsistence hunters, who live is temporary shelters. Pascoe uses the original colonists and explorer's diaries which describe what they found as they moved through remote parts of Australia. Pascoe has organised his evidence into chapters titled Agriculture; Aquaculture; Population and Housing; Storage and Preservation; Fire; The Heavens, language and Law; The Australian Agricultural Revolution; Accepting history and Creating the Future.

I found much of what Pascoe has set out in this book compelling, although I do think he brought all his best work at the beginning, and it faded out towards the end. Pascoe has a very fair point that Western civilisation makes the criteria against which cultures are assessed. Australia's colonial history was brutal, and land was taken at will, converted to grazing land and it's inhabitants effectively chased away. It suits the colonists narrative that the Aboriginal were fully nomadic, had no ties to the land, had no organised tribal structure - it makes it so much easier to justify the occupation of these lands. This all makes sense.

The various descriptions of agriculture, land management, waterways management, periodic controlled burning of undergrowth and building of structures is very compelling - extensive quotations from multiple and varied sources. A large part of Pascoe's narrative is that the history writers were selective in the information they used, and the specific wording used was all tailored to justify the way the Aboriginals were treated.

So far so good, but I have a few concerns with this book, which I will briefly outline below.

1 - I have concerns that Pascoe could be guilty of what he accuses history writers of - careful section of quotations from source material. What I mean here, is if historians took only the parts of writing which described aboriginals as stone-aged, is Pascoe taking only the quotations that suit his own narrative?

2 - I worry that Pascoe overplays his assertions. For example, I have no doubts about elaborate fish and eel traps, waterway and well management and construction of dams. Even the management of fishstocks - traps which allow smaller fish to pass through, capturing only mature fish. However I was less convinced with the evidence of cultivating fish and breeding to complete the ‘aquaculture' component.

3 -Pan-Continent Government - the back of the book claims that it is demonstrated that the Aboriginals had organised this. The detail, however, is that there was no evidence of violent change - to me this doesn't appear to be the same thing. Cooperation and organisation between adjacent tribes sharing lands etc - yes, but I am not sure I was convinced on a pan-continent government.

5 - Gavin Menzies. Pascoe almost had me convinced until he resorted to referencing Menzies and his 1421 book. Now there is a book to be skeptical about - amateur historian with lots of ideas and a lack of evidence.

For me the agricultural section was the most interesting. The symbiotic relationship between the Aboriginals and the land was clearly demonstrated - the scale of some of the agricultural claims I think would need further verification. And there is no doubt that some of the traditional Aboriginal foods are now becoming popular - you only need to casually view Australian Masterchef to see that has developed even further since this book was published.

So overall, I found this incredibly interesting, and while I have not rushed off to do my own research and check sources as Pascoe's detractors recommend, I am no historian, and I read for entertainment, so I probably won't, although I happily read explorers tales so will know what to keep and eye out for!

4 stars.