LEAVING REMOTE
COMMUNITIES
THE CULTURAL FACTOR
Dr. A.B. Kelly 10 March 2006
ABSTRACT
The Aboriginal culture forges a
binding relationship between Aborigines and their traditional locations. The
Dreamtime stories of each group preserve practical local knowledge. They bind
Aborigines to their traditional locations and fill their life with meaning.
Removal of Aborigines from their traditional locations destroys their culture
and renders their lives meaningless.
If we want a workable Aboriginal
Policy we have to abandon the belief that all people are the same. Aborigines
are not the same as other Australians. They are a special case. The Aboriginal
cultural and cognitive difference has to be taken into account as it was before
the 1960’s.
The policy of treating Aborigines
differently worked because it was based on a practical acceptance of the
Aboriginal cultural and cognitive difference. That effective policy was
abandoned when ideological assumptions replaced practical knowledge 40 years
ago.
I was struck by the cultural and
cognitive difference of Aborigines when I worked closely with them in the
1950’s. I subsequently sought to understand the origin of this difference in my
Postgraduate research. In my Thesis I showed the importance of culture in the development
of humans since the evolution of Homo sapiens. Cultures are processes of human
self-creation. Humans make cultures and cultures make the people of the
culture, to a significant extent.
While Homo sapiens evolved as a new
species, humans as such do not evolve. Homo sapiens gradually made themselves
more human, through their cultures. Beginning as a new species of Hominid they
gradually develop into communities of people. As they develop their cultures
they develop their cognitive abilities.
As a result of 60,000 years of
cultural isolation Australian Aborigines are still a Palaeolithic people with
Palaeolithic minds. They cannot adapt to our Western cultural environment.
Exposing them to our cultural environment, without adequate protection, condemns
them to death. Part-Aborigines can adapt to the Western cultural environment.
UNDERSTANDING THE
CULTURAL FACTOR
We have had
nearly Forty years of disastrous Aboriginal Policies, all based on the same unstated but fallacious assumption that Aborigines are the
same as we are, only a different colour. That assumption has its origin in a
misunderstood theological doctrine. Christian doctrine teaches that all people
are equal in the sight of God. Christian doctrine does not teach that all
people are the same, or equal in any other way.
It may be
charitable to believe that all people are the same, but it is stupid to
continue to base policies that do not and cannot work, on that belief. All
people are not the same. Pretending that Aborigines are just like us has been
killing them since the new policies began in the 1960’s.
The
Aboriginal difference was initially a shock to me. I had believed that all
people were very much the same. I held that belief until I first encountered
Aborigines in 1950. It took me some time to get my head around the reality.
I worked
closely with Territory Aborigines in the 1950’s. I was impressed by their
commitment to their culture and its belief-system. I experienced at first hand
the significant cultural and cognitive difference between Aborigines and other
Australians. That difference was accepted and accommodated in official policy
in the 1950’s. The 1950’s policy actually worked. Aborigines were generally
long-lived and healthy.
Before the
Policy changes in the 1960’s most Northern Territory Aborigines were able to
preserve their ancient culture. As a result they were generally happy, and
healthy. Their culture made their lives meaningful. This is the basic role of a
culture. Ideally a culture tells its members what the world is all about and
what their role in the world is. The Aboriginal culture went even further and
told Initiated men not only what they were but who they were.
The changes
made to Aboriginal policy in the 1960’s appear to have been made by people who
had no direct knowledge of Aborigines, and no adequate understanding of the
Aborigines’ particular cultural and cognitive context. The previous policies
had been made by people who knew Aborigines to be different from other
Australians. They recognised that this difference warranted their protection,
even though they may not have understood why the Aborigines were so different.
As a result
of Policy changes the prohibition of the supply of alcohol to Aborigines was
removed in the 1960’s, and Aboriginal workers on Cattle Stations were made
eligible for Award wages. The Cattle Station camps, which had provided
Aborigines with a means of maintaining their culture beyond the Aboriginal settlements,
were disbanded. Aborigines moved into Towns where alcohol and “sit-down” money
was available.
The new
policies did not recognise Aboriginal difference. Without a shred of evidence
they assumed that Aborigines were not significantly different from other
Australians. If the present and proposed policies are maintained they will
inevitably lead to the extinction of full-blood Aborigines.
I knew that
Aborigines were different but I did not know how the difference had come about.
In 1985 I entered
The Bible
tells us that humans are a special creation.
Michelangelo
portrays this event on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel – God and Adam’s
fingers meeting. It was not like that. But it still was exceptional. Homo
sapiens gradually made themselves human through their cultures. Beginning as a
new species of Hominid they gradually developed themselves into human
communities. Humans make themselves, both individually and through their
cultures.
It is
self-evident that cultures are processes of human self-creation. People make
cultures and cultures make the people of the culture. Cultures only change when
the people of that culture change themselves and their culture.
To understand
the cognitive difference between Aborigines and other Australians we have to
understand the role of culture in human development. Cognitive differences are
a product of different cultures. Human mental hardware does not change, but our
human cognitive software is a cultural product that can be passed on
genetically, despite a common assumption to the contrary.
HUMAN
CULTURAL AND COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT
Our species,
Homo sapiens, evolved as a new species of animal some 160,000 years ago. Like
some earlier Hominids, Homo sapiens also began to develop cultures. This
development may have been necessary because they lacked the range of instincts
of other animal species. In developing cultures they gradually changed
themselves, from being animals in a habitat to becoming persons in a community.
Homo sapiens
have not changed physically since evolving, but they have changed cognitively.
The degree of change varies significantly from culture to culture. People in
different cultures have the same brains but can have different minds with
different cognitive abilities.
Humans
develop their cognitive abilities by coping with challenges. Individual human
cognitive development is ultimately able to be reflected in cultural
development. Cultures are processes of human self-creation. Humans make
cultures and cultures, to a significant extent, make the humans of those
cultures.
Brain
hardware does not change but the culturally-developed human cognitive software
can vary radically from culture to culture. These cognitive developments are
not reflected in human morphology, except apparently in the genes. In the
absence of available genetic material, ancient cognitive changes can only be
indicated by physical evidence of changes in culture, including changes in
behaviour and activities.
Cognitive
changes appear to become encoded in human genes. A recent example of this is
the I.Q. increase of about 10% per generation in problem-solving societies
since the first I.Q. Tests began in the early 1900’s. The increase is found in
the problem-solving aspects of the I.Q. Tests. This phenomenon is known as the
“Flynn Effect”.
There is even
more direct evidence of a genetic effect on the cognitive development of
part-Aborigines. This is shown in a paper by M.M. de Lemos,
republished in “The Psychology of Aboriginal Australians” (1973) Kearney &
Os. The paper records a series of tests, based on the work of Piaget, that were
carried out by de Lemos in the 1960’s at
Hermannsburg, the Central Australian Aboriginal Mission.
In the group
of 80 children tested, half were Aborigines and the other half were seven-eights Aboriginal, each having had a white
great-grandfather. The tribal and Mission environment of all the children
tested was identical. The children with a trace of European ancestry showed
markedly better performance in the tests. The only difference between the two
groups was their different genetic inheritance.
De Lemos found the general standard of the full-blood
Aboriginal children implied: “an inability to form logical concepts or to apply
logical operations to the organization and systematisation of concrete data . .
. affecting the level of logical thinking in all areas.” The cognitive
difference between the two groups could only be Genetic.
There is also
substantial evidence of the cognitive development of Homo sapiens over time.
The earliest evidence of such a development was the Palaeolithic Revolution of
40,000 years ago.
This
revolution was characterized by the development of new tool-making technology,
the use of new materials for tools, and the use of tools to make tools. It took
some 120,000 years after their evolution for Homo sapiens to reach this point.
The Palaeolithic Revolution did not occur among Aborigines, who were isolated
from all external cultural and cognitive developments.
The beginning
of horticulture, agriculture, mining and the establishment of towns and cities
were all the result of cognitive advances by individuals, which affected and
were transmitted by their cultures. Beyond
The first
directly recorded cognitive change in the ancient world is to be found in the
writings of the Pre-Socratic Philosophers in the Sixth Century BC. Prior to
this the Greeks had accepted mythological explanations of the world. A similar
cognitive change had also occurred in the Jewish culture, whose focus was on
Theology rather than Philosophy. Intellectual pursuits appear to cause the most
significant cognitive developments.
Before 1788
people beyond
A further
factor limiting Aboriginal cognitive development was the uniformity of the
Dreamtime belief-system. While the Aboriginal language broke up into some 300
different language groups, the belief-system was remarkably uniform, indicating
that it was still the belief-system they entered the Continent with 60 to 80
Thousand years ago. Prior to 1788 the belief-system provided a complete
explanation of the world and of the place of Aborigines in the world. It was
never internally challenged. It was only contradicted by reality in 1788 and
has been since then by every extension of contact between Europeans and
Aborigines. Despite being contradicted by reality the Aboriginal belief-system
has never been modified.
Any
Aboriginal Policy that ignores the difference between the cognitive development
of Aborigines and of other Australians is bound to fail. Cognitive development
is not a complex topic but neither is it a familiar one. I will give a short
outline.
THE STAGES OF COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT
Bernard Lonergan is noted
for his work on human cognitive development. He analysed
the four stages that can apply in each of the many different fields of human
cognition. These stages are Experience, Understanding, Judgment and
Evaluation-Action.
Every living thing has some form of Experience, the
first stage. Humans are the only stage that moves from simply experiencing the
world to developing an explanation of that experience. This is the stage of
Understanding, the second stage of the cognitive process. It achieves an
explanation of the world of experience, but not necessarily a correct
explanation. Initially all cultures express their understanding of the world in
Myths.
The next stage of human cognitive development is
Judgment. At this stage the initial understanding of the world is subjected to
critical examination, involving reflection, doubt and the weighing of evidence.
Knowledge is only achieved when an initial Understanding is subjected to
Judgment. The Pre-Socratics illustrate this stage.
The fourth stage Evaluation-Action is reached when
ideas are tested as to their correspondence with the understanding of reality.
The first Atomic test is an example of the application of this stage in
Physics.
The sequence of stages is the same regardless of the
field to which they are applied. In their application to practical matters,
people in all cultures move through all these stages. Aboriginal weapon
developments, particularly Woomeras and Boomerangs,
provide an example of the application of all four stages in such practical
matters.
However in their culture and belief-system Aborigines
did not pass the second stage, the stage of forming an Understanding. In the
Dreamtime stories they had a total explanation of the world and of their place
in it. Everything in their world was explained by reference to this
belief-system.
In relation to the Dreamtime stories Aborigines never
felt the need to move to the next cognitive stage, the stage of Judgment. In
this stage their beliefs would have to be be
critically examined. In the many contacts between Europeans and Aborigines the
difference between the cultures has been so extreme that nothing could be done
by Aborigines to bridge the cognitive divide.
European Civilization is founded on the stage of Judgement, the Third
cognitive stage. The Jews and the Greeks were the first people to reach this
stage. Their transition to this stage began during the first millennium BC, as
Bruno Snell demonstrates in “The Discovery of Mind” (1953). Alexander the Great
brought the Greek and the Jewish cultures into contact and the rest is History.
The fourth stage, Evaluation-Action, began to be
applied in Western cultures with the development and application of Science. It
is this most modern cognitive stage that we seek to impose on Aborigines,
despite the fact that Aborigines have not yet reached the cognitive stage of
the Palaeolithic Revolution. The cognitive gap
produced by thousands of years of cultural development in other cultures cannot
be bridged by Aborigines in a few generations.
The Palaeolithic Revolution
was a development within the stage of Understanding, the second of the four
stages. It was not a move to the third cognitive stage. From the Palaeolithic Revolution it was a further 37,000 years
before the third cognitive stage, Judgment, was achieved in any culture.
A policy distinction has to be made between Aborigines
and part-Aborigines, based on the distinctiveness of Aboriginal thought
patterns. Part Aborigines have been shown to inherit the cognitive development
of their non-Aboriginal progenitors.
Real Aborigines are in need of specifically tailored
policies that take account of their cognitive development. Their cultural base
is still essentially Palaeolithic in both material
and cognitive terms.
Any successful policy has to take into account the
real differences that exist between Aborigines and all other Australians, as
Aborigines cannot assimilate to our culture. Any cognitive change they may
develop in time has to originate within their existing culture. For this
development ever to occur their existing culture has to be protected and
maintained.
That is not to say that there should not be
appropriate policies for disadvantaged part-Aborigines, but because the
circumstances and cognitive abilities of Aborigines and part-Aborigines are so
different, the policies that apply to part-Aborigines should be different.
My views are
not just academic waffle. In the 1950’s I was OIC Finke Police District, the
area from just South of Alice Springs to the South Australian Border, from
Despite my
close contacts I found the Aborigines, and their culture, difficult to
understand. In 1985 I entered
Some may
consider that I am overstating the deterioration in Aboriginal health and life
expectancy over the last 50 years. I find support in Richard Trudgen’s “Warriors lie down and die” (2,003) At page 7 he
says: “In 1948 an American-Australian Scientific Expedition carried out medical
research in three major communities in Arnhem Land. Concerning the people’s
health they stated: ‘The general build is athletic . . . Carriage, posture and
gait are excellent . . . In no instance was an obese adult encountered.’
50 years
later Trudgen observes “scabies are endemic. Other
diseases like diabetes, high blood pressure, heart attacks, stroke, cancer,
renal failure and obesity are decimating the people.’ Aborigines
‘are now dying in their early to mid forties or even younger, and at such a
rate that life seems to lurch from one funeral to another.”
These
failures are the direct result of trying to treat Aborigines as if they are the
same as other Australians. This mistake is made by people who have no direct
knowledge of Aborigines, as both Trudgen and I have,
and who rely on assumptions that appear to them to be “natural”.