Dark Emu or Dark Elephant in the room?

Wow! What a book! Bruce touched on so many truths thats it was enlightening but also extremely disappointing. A book full of opportunities that were once denied to Aboriginal people. One great for the mind, not so much for the heart.

Little Black Duck review

At school, our history lessons and books would have you believe only the white man as the educated and skilled. Because that is what we are taught. It is what we are, quite frankly, brainwashed to believe.

It is not our fault as individuals. We put our faith into a system that is supposed to educate us and our children. But the teachings are already skewed. They were skewed from the moment the first white foot stepped onto Australia's shoreline.

Our education sustem is unwittingly (in most cases) leading our children to believe white people are superior. If the truth were told and correct history shared, telling of Aboriginal engineering, agricultural and aquacultural practises, that are simply ingenious, allowing people to live in one with the land for generations instead of exhausting the land with the unilateral view of profiteering, then maybe our kids would have people of colour to look up to, to feel that they are a very important part of history, our now shared history.

Our ancestors have been scientifically proven, time and time again, to be invaluable resources that the world (and especially Australia) should take notes from, when it comes to farming practises etc.

Sadly, we cannot rewrite history, but we can educate ourselves. By doing so, we can change the dialogue we have been taught.

Aboriginal people were more then just hunter-gatherers. They were highly skilled engineers. They were farmers. They were intelligent fishermen AND women. And they were entrepreneurs. If only these people were the people in our schools history books. People who didn't take what wasn't theirs, people who were in tune with the land and the waterways for their survival. People who were willing to share and live as one. These are our ancestors. These are the people i want all kids to be taught about in school. These are who i will look up to, proudly.

I can only imagine how Australian society may be different now if this was what generations before us were taught.

So, what did i learn from Dark Emu, Black Seeds: agriculture or accident?

Our school history books were wrong. Still are.

Dark Emu educated me. It made me both angry and frustrated but also sad at times. This book opened my eyes to a truth i have never seen in any history book.

Using photographic evidence and the writings of 'prolific' white explorers, this book provides an insight into what they witnessed upon arrival and it was not what we have been led to believe.

Aboriginal people were highly skilled engineers with exquisite buildings suited to each terrain, built to shelter their families- all year round.

They were entrepreneurial. With an economy to boot. Swapping local, seasonal produce at gatherings that they had farmed using ingenious agricultural and aquacultural practises. Both men and women.

All in tune with the land. Taking only what they needed and letting the rest flourish.

They were not just surviving. They were living. Peacefully.

Now, when you think of what you have been taught about Aboriginal people in history, does this match?

No. Didnt think so.