7/8: Aboriginal justice

[Undertoad]

[IMG]pictures/aborigjustice.jpg[/IMG]

I hope Jag isn't bored by this one but we get little news of the Aussie situation with the aboriginals, and it is very interesting stuff, IMO.

This is Charlie Walapayi Tjungurrayi. He is a Pintupi elder from Kiwirrkurra, a community in the western desert. He is showing off a scar, which he got after he was "speared" through the arm and chest. He was speared by his own community after they found him making "sneaky love" to his brother's wife.

This tribal system of "payback" is central to a lot of aboriginal communities, but it's often quite different and quite against the white man's law. And here we have the clash of cultures.

As a USian, it's striking to consider the similarities between their situation and the situation that faced American settlers in the 1700s. Our answer to the problem of civilization taking over the new land was to radically, uh, KILL the savage indians at all costs. Only over the last few decades have we looked back and wondered how civilization could be so, uh, uncivil.

I suspect that we are not getting the full story and don't understand the historical mindsets that said killing the natives was the right approach. But I would love to understand it and how it came to be. And I'm thinking that the cultural clash down unda could give us a few clues.