Talk:Forrest River massacre

comments

The interesting thing about this massacre is that we really don't know if it did or did not occur. A Royal Commision concluded that it did, however the subsequent trial of the alleged killers failed to find fact that it ever did. There's also allegations about the persons involved in the crime and the reporter of the crime. A book written in the 1990's alleging it did not happen, and a extremist right wing organisation the IPA making a fuss over the book in their magazine Quadrant. I'm not a very well practised editor, so I hope that others can fill outthis article NPOV of course better than I.petedavo 01:15, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

I have just read this entry for the first time. It remains extremely unbalanced in terms of the space given to the revisionist/denialist/IPA narrative. Unless anyone objects I am going to load the attached photo to inject a little realism into the article. It shows the '20 or 30 Aboriginal men' brought to Forrest River mission in chains by the posse. It has been reproduced in numerous publications without any attribution of ultimate ownership, so I am assuming it can be considered to be in the public domain? Prosopon (talk) 02:11, 15 March 2016 (UTC). Brief delay while I dig into provenance.Prosopon (talk) 03:06, 15 March 2016 (UTC)

counterpoint

See Neville Green: 'The Forrest River Massacres' (1993) for a far better treatment of the history of these events. Rod Moran's distortions and false claims are dealt with briefly in Bryce Moore's comments on Graham Milner's post of February 20th, 2005 to Marxmail, concerning Moran's political evolution. See also Ron Brunton's 1999 article in IPA (Institute of Policy Affairs)journal. Moore's and Brunton's pieces may be found by Googling 'Rod Moran'. 21:51, 2 September 2007 graham milnerPreceding comment added by petedavo 13:51, 5 September 2007 (UTC). I have now added the full links to those references within the article now. petedavo 13:51, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

WPBiography

The subjects - gribble and his contemporaries are now deceased - however writers of the articles/books/arguments are living - however the wpbiography tag is for subjects of the article. So the living tag is specifically for the subject - however in a readers perception Moran and Green are considered subject of the article as well- any comments to clarify appreciated SatuSuro 14:03, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Both Moran and Green have had two critiques each within Quadrant of each others works and the article is probably by default an article about that debate by default, however there is absolutely no reason to have any living nor bi tag associated with this article. PS The redundant links you took off are different articles within Quadrant than the two in the references. All told there should be four different Quadrant links not two.petedavo 14:20, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Beg to differ re WPBio - the article mentions writers (living people) and subjects (Gribble and Hay). - will revert the edit re the quadarnt links - it all looks the same :) SatuSuro 14:26, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

I bunged them in references and fixed their order. The bio thingy I don't think is important as the article is not a bio of either author nor deals with the authors other than to cite their work and opinions. Would be like having a bio tag on an article about physics beause it might cite Steve Hawking etc.petedavo 14:43, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Lumbia's testimony

The reason for Hay's assault is unknown as neither Lumbia nor the women with him could speak English. Hay had previously "used" one of the women (with Lumbia's permission) and it was believed that Hay had returned to get her as he was far from where he was supposed to be (the men who found his remains thought he must have been taking a short cut instead of following his assigned route). It was speculated that he became angry after she had refused to go with him this time. Lumbia himself originally believed Hay objected to him camping on the boundary of the property. The cattle killing and rape only came up at trial. It is inconsistent to include those where they are in the History section as they occured after the events and should be placed elsewhere.Wayne (talk) 10:04, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

The fact that the 'alleged' victims almost invariably spoke an aboriginal mopther-tongue which few, if any outsiders, could access at the time, constitutes one of the systemic biases which historians, save Windshuttle and a few others, must take into account in writing of these events. It's a bit like the Gypsies of Europe with the holocaust. They simply didn't have a culture of writing and recording, and though half of them appear to have been exterminated, evidence for the fact is extremely difficult to establish, so that figures run from 200,000 to 1.5 million. See Porajmos Nishidani (talk) 12:55, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

The History section now states at the top: "Although the reasons for the assault remain unclear two accounts survive, either Lumbia objected to Hay taking one of his women or that Hay objected to Lumbia camping so close to the property." 2 accounts survive? At the bottom of the same section it mentions that: "At trial, Lumbia testified that Hay had attacked him because Hay believed he had butchered one of the station's cattle." And in the section on the Royal Commission it mentions the rape claim made by Gribble. So, is it 2 accounts that survive or 3 or 4? I can see why the rape claim by Gribble can sensibly left for the section it is in, it was raised by Gribble at the RC and immediately discredited. Is there any good reason why the other 3 (not 2) accounts of the attack are not dealt with in the same paragraph in the History section? Webley442 (talk) 06:08, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

A couple of further points. Hay was co-owner of the Nulla Nulla station not a boundary rider and his body was found when they backtracked his horse, found covered in blood. The tracks of the horse lead them to a butchered cow with Hay's body being found nearby. As co-owner of the station, Hay had every reason to be investigating cattle-killing and any claim that Lumbia didn't know why Hay attacked him has to be considered in the light of the fact that the butchered cow and Hay's body were in close proximity. Lumbia was hardly likely to admit to the police or in court that Hay may have caught him red-handed, butchering the cow. Webley442 (talk) 10:40, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

According to Elder the first two explanations were the only ones given before the trial although the source does say there could be other reasons but the truth may never be known. Hay was riding the boundary and a search was organised when he didn't return that night. Hays horse returned without him in the early hours of the morning while the station hands were saddling their own horses. The source claims the station hands left at dawn and followed the route Hays was supposed to have been following but couldn't find him. Late in the afternoon they saw crows circling which they investigated, finding the remains. They speculated that he must have been using a shortcut back to the station after finishing his inspection. Elder states the women were collecting lilly roots growing by the billabong while Lumbia was in his camp. There is no mention of a butchered cow so it cant be considered reliable enough to include in surviving accounts unless we can find some other reliable source.Wayne (talk) 16:11, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

Elder, a journalist, may not mention in his book that there was a butchered cow, however, Moran, another journalist, states on on page 3 of his book which focusses entirely on the Forrest River massacre and is based on his study of the source documents, the available accounts including the records of the Commission of inquiry, that the party backtracked Hay's horse, found the butchered cow, about 250 metres away they found blood on the ground and a little further on, Hay's body. So, why is the broader, more general book by Elder, a journalist, a reliable source and the book specifically about the massacre by Moran, a journalist, not a reliable source? Or are you simply unaware of the content of Moran's book? I'm getting the impression that I'm the only one here to have actually read Moran's book.

The fact that 2 explanations are supposed to have been raised before the trial and one at the trial is not a good reason to put 2 of them at the start of the History section and the other, the one that Lumbia testified to when on trial for his life, as an afterthought at the end of the section. Webley442 (talk) 22:13, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

I looked into the cow butchering. Apparently the cow was killed on May 18 and the police were already searching for the mob that had killed it. Also no cattle had been butchered at all, it seems that an Aboriginal mob from outside the area were spearing them and only taking the hearts and tongues which was the main problem as because of the drought it was almost accepted that some would be butchered for food but these were being left to rot. Lumbia was attacked on May 23 and was not a suspect. Outside of the compromised court records I can not find any other account of a cow connected to Lumbia. I did try to check out Morans book but found that it is in the reserved section of the university library which means I cant take it out.Wayne (talk) 10:06, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

Moran

Per WP:UNDUE is there any need for an entire section on one journalists opinion when it's contrary to that of the historians? It might warrant coverage if many people noticed, but as it is it's only sourced to his book. Misarxist (talk) 12:35, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

Oops, ok Loos has responded specifically, but still can it just be cut down to mentioning it? Misarxist (talk) 12:39, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

Moran's book, and he appears to be a 'denialist', since he is cited as dismissing other 'alleged massacres' that is, massacres that are just vaguely alluded to in contemporary white documentation but recalled in Aboriginal oral history, is mainly important for the influence it had on Windshuttle. But still, he did write a full book on the massacre to which this page is dedicated. There's room for improvement and finessing, clearly. His conclusions as they were cited, were cited as though they were objectively established facts. That was the problem.Nishidani (talk) 12:50, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

Hmm yes, that was the impression I got, didn't know he'd inspired Windy though. (Can you guess where I stand in that debate?;) The publisher ([1]) appears to be more or less a self-publishing outlet, and explicitly disclaims any responsibility for fact-checking. So possibly the whole thing can go unless it has to be mentioned (via 3rd party sources) as "there has been some controversty" etc? Misarxist (talk) 13:01, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

Didn't check that. If it is a self-published book, one could raise that at WP:RS. Technically I dislike anything on wikipedia that doesn't come from quality presses or the specialist literature, i.e. things that, to get published, have to survive peer review. Encyclopedias are not supposed to be written from news reports. I think you are right that this sort of stuff should be accessed via secondary literature therefore, namely works by specialists who refer to his analysis. Loos is one such source.Nishidani (talk) 13:27, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

Morans views are not accepted by most historians and should be confined to the section discussing the claims in his book. Interjecting his refutation of every claim throughout the artical makes it almost unreadable and implies that the account is significantly in dispute. Wayne (talk) 14:44, 7 August 2010 (UTC)

As I had not read his book I was prepared to give Moran some credibility but the more I read the more it seems Moran is not a reliable source at all. Some of his claims are ambiguous at best and others are refuted by the very records he cites. I'm now more inclined to treat him as another David Irving and limit the false claims section to maybe two paragraphs at most. Comments?Wayne (talk) 11:24, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

If that's the case then it probably shld be treated as you (I think) said below with mainly others talking about his claims. Certainly agree it needs cutting down. I'll have a look at the Studies in Western Australian History volume maybe tomorrow or within the week, it might be useful on that score as it seems to be more about the Moran kerfuffle than the massacre itself. Misarxist (talk) 12:18, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

He cannot be treated on a par with professional historians, since strong doubts exist that he is RS, and in any case, in arguing against a solid academic consensus, his view verges on fringe on this specific incident, and thus must come under WP:Undue. I.e. a brief synthesis of his general theory and claims in a paragraph, at most two. One would appreciate it if Misarxist or anyone else can get to a library, and comb relevant bibliographic surveys and the volume he cites, to get further imput on academic work on the massacre, and academic responses to Moran's book.Nishidani (talk) 15:39, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

I'm currently mentoring a student going for his masters in Indiginous studies and Anthropology so I'll let him do the leg work and see what he can dig up for me.Wayne (talk) 04:14, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

Massacre Myth is briefly reviewed (along w/ Browns work) at [2] pp 145-7 not critical but observes Moran relies on ignoring oral history. It's slammed by Ron Brunton in a newspaper review [3]. Other reviews are ABR 2000, and I assume more usefully Aboriginal History 1999. Summary of newspaper pieces before book publication [4] pp 35-40. Windshuttle rather likes it, I couldn't be bothered collecting the refs. Will check the WA History thing within the week, sorry. Misarxist (talk) 09:32, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

You beat me to a few of those sources lol. One thread that is common is that Moran, Windschuttle et al require beyond reasonable doubt evidence to the exclusion of balance of probabilities. This source is quite good. Biased but it discusses some excellent issues. Wayne (talk) 15:26, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

Summarising Moran

Wayne has proposed [5] to deal with Moran, given the almost complete academic consensus (except for one person noted, Flood working out of her field of expertise) it seems to be along the right lines. Note Choo above even refers to Moran's work as "apologetics" and the kindest thing anyone else has to say is Bolton observing that a sane person could accept Moran's work. I don't see why there shouldn't be a short summary of Moran from his own work, but the quote from Bolton about standards of proof is irrelevant as history doesn't use such a (legal) standard anyway. Misarxist (talk) 09:03, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

Noble's testimony at Commission

I've restored the text "However, during the Royal Commission, conducted in the first half of 1927, the Rev. James Noble was asked (Question 1417 in the Commission record) by Commissioner Wood if "any of the natives told you about blacks being shot and burnt?" Noble replied that no-one had told him and said he had "merely heard the news brought into the station". Similarly, when". It is not irrelevant, in fact it is some of the most relevant text on the page. Immediately prior to this text is a long statement (recounted from memory in 1986) about things that were supposedly told to Noble, his wife and Gribble in 1926. How can it not be relevant that Noble, when expressly asked while under oath in 1927 about anyone telling him about Aborigines being shot and burnt, said that no-one did. It is a good example of how unreliable these tales told many years later are. Webley442 (talk) 23:26, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

Nowhere in the artical is it claimed that an Aboriginal told Noble. It specifically says that his wife told him and that he then passed it on to Gribble. When Noble replied to Wood that "no one had told him" he was refering to Wood's question of if "any of the natives told you about blacks being shot and burnt?" which is made clear when Noble said in the same sentence that he had "merely heard the news brought into the station" ie: witness - interpreter - wife - Noble. To add the "disclaimer" is pointless, uneccessarily lengthens the artical and implies that he only heard unsourced rumours rather than a documented path to him from an eyewitness.Wayne (talk) 04:25, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

Well, (a) his wife, Angelina Noble, was an Aborigine as was Noble himself: (b) I don't think it can seriously be argued that Noble, when specifically asked about being told about Aborigines being shot and burnt, is likely to have said that 'no-one told him' if the true answer was "My wife told me about just that kind of thing and she told me that she heard it from ....." It stretches credibility well beyond breaking point to suggest that anyone would have left that kind of crucial information out of their testimony unless they were deliberately trying to mislead the Commission and there is no reason to believe that Noble was; (c) the account that we have in the article is what someone is supposed to have told a reporter 60 years after the event. No-one has presented what Thomson is supposed to have recorded in the mission records, if it ever existed at all; and (d) saying that you heard a bit of news about the station is a long way distant from the kind direct path from an alleged eyewitness that you are talking about.

Leaving this sort of information, sworn testimony at the Commission, out of the article on the basis of it 'unnecessarily lengthening the article' while including a long rambling statement about a supposed eyewitness told 60 years after the event looks more like suppressing information inconvenient to a particular version of the story than keeping the article at a particular length. Webley442 (talk) 09:55, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

In the "Wood Royal Commission and subsequent trials" section it states: "Although the medical officer in Wyndham stated that some of the bone fragments from the three sites were human" and appears to cite a Quadrant article by Neville Green as the source for that. That article does not make the claim that the unnamed medical officer in Wyndham thought some of the bone fragments were human. Wyndham was a small place in 1926. There was a resident doctor, Adams, and it is extremely unlikely that there was anyone else there acting as medical officer except for Adams. Dr Adams is reported as being unable to say anything definite about the bone. So unless there is another source for the statement it should be removed. As far as I can tell, the only people who thought that any of the bone found was human were laymen, Gribble in particular but also at least one of the police officers. I am aware of a number of cases where police officers began murder investigations based on bones that had been dug up or otherwise found, only to be told by the medical experts that they were investigating the death of a dog, sheep, kangaroo or, as in one case, a wombat. People mistake animal bones for human all the time. Webley442 (talk) 23:50, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

Even Moran admits that some human remains were found and explains them as having fallen out of trees from Aboriginal burials which he would know was very unlikely if he understood Indigenous tree burial practices. Even laymen can recognise human teeth and both expert witnesses at the Royal Commission admitted the teeth may be human but said that as they were damaged they couldn't make a determination. Much of the bone collected (ie: Douglas) was never examined by them because the commission was limited to three sites.Wayne (talk) 04:39, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

Well, it is questionable how many laymen could tell the difference between a human tooth and an animal one and even more so if the teeth are damaged. A lot of people would never have seen an intact extracted human tooth and because we have a range of teeth, molars, incisors, etc with different shapes and sizes, people really do have a hard time recognising certain animal teeth as non-human even when intact.

Moran's explanation for the possibly human teeth isn't the only one. Aborigines did their own dental work which usually involved ripping a throbbing tooth out by the roots. Teeth can and do get knocked out in non-lethal conflict, say an internal fight in an Aboriginal group, and it is also a known practice for extracted teeth to be retained and carried around as a form of jewellry (until lost or discarded).

The problem is that no bone that were examined by any kind of medical person was identified as human by the experts, just by laymen. None. I can't see how if they found anything big enough and human-looking enough, they wouldn't have brought it in for examination as their killer piece of evidence. They were certainly eager enough to try and make a case, though Douglas, in particular, who seems to have started out a true believer, seems to have become increasing sceptical as he realised how far listening to Gribble had lead him astray from a cool, analytical approach to the evidence.

Along with the absence of human remains as evidence, they also didn't find bullets or melted lead amongst the supposed human bone fragments or on the sites of the fires, no cartridge cases unless I'm remembering incorrectly, just one bullet in a tree which could have been fired at any time by anyone. It is the total lack of any convincing physical evidence that I find striking. It would have had to been the most diligent clean up of a crime scene or multiple crime scenes ever. Webley442 (talk) 10:47, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

I've changed where it says "Kate Auty has shown that the date carved into a tree...." to "Kate Auty has argued ....." 'Shown' implies that this is proved, which it isn't, it is merely an argument she makes. For all anyone knows, after carving the date into the tree and showing his handiwork to the others in the party, one of the others may have commented: "Very nice work, pity you've got the date wrong, you are one day off, you idiot." Purely hypothetical, of course, but this sort of thing does happen. Webley442 (talk) 00:11, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

Please note, per the previous section, that Moran specifically is an unreliable source as effectively self-published and not an academic historian. He therefore shouldn't be used at all for matters of fact on the massacre or the commission, trial or reputations of anyone involved. His opinions only need to be noted in the 'questions' section at the end; and that should be done through secondary sources. More generally the article shouldn't use primary sources such eg. the commission report to establish interpretations of the events. Everything should sourced to reliable secondary sources (ie academic historians) and go no further than the interpretations they make. Misarxist (talk) 11:02, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

I note your use of the term 'effectively' when referring to 'self-published' because WP:RS doesn't.

The link that you provided in the previous section regarding Access Press takes us to a page where it states quite bluntly that "Access Press is not a vanity press nor does it offer "Self Publishing" services." and also "Access Press chooses the books they publish very carefully because they must be able to sell them" as opposed to operations which will print anything because the author has to sell the books. Moran is not the only author cited on this page that has used Access Press (i.e. Brown Cavan) and he is not the only non-academic cited here (i.e. Elder). Wikipedia policy on the use of non-academic sources and non-academic historians is also broader than you suggest, if it wasn't no-one would be able to use material from non-academic writers of history books like Churchill. The fact is that Rod Moran is acknowledged as an expert on this area; virtually every paper or article written about Forrest River since has had to deal with the material he has put in the public domain. If Moran's work could not be used, while the work of Neville Green, principle historian on the opposite side, is used, we would wind up with a very unbalanced article and strong grounds for suspicion that information inconvenient to a particular version of the story is being suppressed.Webley442 (talk) 13:29, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

"Rod Moran is acknowledged as an expert" is laughable. Moran has been discredited on almost every point he has made in his book. For example, Moran stated he was able to account for all but one as not being killed in the massacre, from mission and police records. The police were charged with the murder of Boondung at Dala but there were in fact four Aboriginals with that name living in the area of which three were missing and one still living on the mission. No one today knows which Boondung was killed. Another problem with names was that culturally, Aboriginals were forbidden to identify the names of dead people which is why Gribble's list was the only one available. Relatives of the Forrest River victims are only refered to them as "uncle of..." or "father of.." etc. Then we have Morans ridiculous claim that there was not enough timber in the area to burn bodies and that even if there was a body could not be reduced to the small fragments found. In 2004 veterinarian Dr John Auty cremated a bull completely to ash using one tonne of dry timber collected in the area. He stated that "the same amount of firing would have disposed of five human bodies" (Quadrant Nov 2004). Another interesting point is that one of the government experts who testified that the bone fragments were not human retracted this statement and swore on oath at St Jack and Regan's trial that the bone may be human and that the teeth were human. Now we have your statement They were certainly eager enough to try and make a case. The year before the massacre Hays leading hand was charged with attempted murder and the multiple rapes of Aboriginals. Despite overwhelming evidence he was found not guilty. Chief Inspector Douglas later wrote to the superintendant that after the verdict one of the jurors told him that the verdict had been arranged two months before the trial began. One result of the trial though was that Hay's station lost their Aboriginal permit and were no longer allowed to use them as workers which meant that as it was a cotton farm it was no longer financially viable. The leading hand also had an order put on him that any station that employed him in future would automatically lose their permit as well.Wayne (talk) 16:50, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

Whether Rod Moran is acknowledged as reliable source or an expert or not is an issue that I’m perfectly happy to take to arbitration, if you like. Generally I am not personally keen on most journalists’ attempts at writing history because they tend to read a few secondary sources and regurgitate a version of what they have read, making broad claims about issues they are not experts in. It seems to be a vanity thing, seeing their names on a ‘serious’ book rather than on the pages of a newspaper that winds up in the recycling bin.

Moran, however, didn’t write that kind of history. He investigated one incident in depth and went back to source documents to see if the evidence actually supported the claims being made. The facts that he wrote one of the two books specifically on the events at Forrest River, that the historian who wrote the opposing view has responded directly to him on more than one occasion rather than simply dismissing him as you do, that other historians have commented on or used what he has written (I have multiple citations for this), all support his work as a reliable source in Wikipedia terms. The fact that there are opposing points of view doesn’t undermine that. There are differing points of view and schools of thought on a lot of things. The mere existence of a different point of view is not proof that Moran is wrong and it does not make him an unreliable source in terms of Wikipedia policy. Wikipedia isn't here to airbrush points of view that some editors may not like out of existence.

I think the fact that you say: “Moran has been discredited on almost every point he has made in his book” is a good indicator that you haven’t read the book. If you had, you should be aware that much of what he wrote in the book has never been responded to. Many of his strongest points of evidence and argument simply haven’t been mentioned in critiques by his opponents. Instead, the now standard tactic of picking up on a few of the weaker points which can be disputed and not even mentioning the existence of stronger evidence and arguments has been employed. The tactic is designed to give the uninformed reader the impression that the weaker evidence and arguments are all there is as well as give intellectually dishonest supporters, who are aware of the stronger evidence and arguments but choose to disregard them, something that they can claim ‘proves’ the other side wrong.

As for “They were certainly eager enough to try and make a case”, Gribble, for one, was very eager to make a case against the police, so much so that he personally collected, or had Aborigines from the mission collect for him, bone fragments. If he had seen anything that he could have presented for examination that could have been identified as human, he would have done so. Douglas too would have presented anything he had to make the case. He was, as I said before, a true believer that there had been a massacre at first. It was only as the Commission hearing went on and he observed how poor the evidence really was in the cold light of day that he started to ask increasingly sceptical questions. It’s pretty clear that by the end of the Commission hearings Douglas had realized that he’d been ‘had’ by Gribble.

Lastly, “No one today knows which Boondung was killed” is something of an overstatement. No one today knows if any person named Boondung was killed, or if they were killed, whether it was by the police party, someone else or by the influenza epidemic raging at the time. And “may be human” is not “is human”.Webley442 (talk) 03:14, 7 August 2010 (UTC)

If you take it to WP:RS I think you will find that standard practice is for this kind of material, self-published by a non-historian, can only be quoted via reliable secondary sources discussing its thesis. There are numerous, are there not, secondary sources by historians who discuss his work, and therefore validate reference to it here, only however in so far as it is discussed in those sources. Direct quotation from him would run close to WP:OR.Nishidani (talk) 17:57, 7 August 2010 (UTC)

Yes, well "would run close to WP:OR" isn't WP:OR. Once again, I repeat, not 'self-published', just some editor(s) arguing that it is "effectively" self-published. Wikipedia does NOT have a strict policy of accepting only material from academic historians and of rejecting anything from a non-academic. It would be ludicrous for it to do so as many of the major works of historical literature have been written by non-academics, see my comment about Churchill above. It is disingenious to suggest that it does have such a policy. So, not WP:RS either. The idea that history has to be written by someone with a Ph.D in the subject is a very late 20th century fallacy.

As I remarked above, much of the evidence and arguments Moran has included in the book has been quite deliberately omitted from the discussion by the historians who oppose his thesis, no doubt because they have no real answer for it, for example - the claims by Green that Hay demanded sex from and then raped one of Lumbia's wives in front of him stem entirely from an uncorroborated 1934 memoir entry by Gribble, a proven liar and fantasist, and are directly contradicted by the recorded statements of Lumbia and both wives taken in 1926. No mention of that is made because the only way to prove Moran wrong on that would be to prove that the records of interview do mention the sexual assault. Since they don't, no 'historian' wants to stick his neck out by falsely claiming that they do, so they just don't mention the issues they can't address at all and instead pretend that they are proving Moran wrong by picking on weaker, more disputable points in his case.

Try reading Moran's book as well as Green's instead of relying on what someone else tells you is in one or the other.Webley442 (talk) 03:37, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

You're dodging the problem. 'Anyone can create a website or 'pay to have a book published' which is the case here, since one pays to be published by Access Press. Secondly it has no peer review process. The author is essentially responsible for what he writes. 'self-published media—whether books, etc. . are largely not acceptable.

Access Press, while disclaiming it is a vanity press, has no conditions for peer review, and essentially stipulates that it chooses books only if they judge they can be sold. You have to pay to be published there, to cover their costs. You only have Access own self-serving declaration that it is not a variety of vanity press.

The exception is that largely, which is qualified thus:

'Self-published material may, in some circumstances, be acceptable when produced by an established expert on the topic of the article whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable third-party publications. Self-published sources should never be used as third-party sources about living persons, even if the author is a well-known professional researcher or writer'.

If Moran's book has been previously published by reliable third-party publications' he can be used. If not, you're on very shaky grounds, since this is a vexed history topic, and he is not an historian.

I quoted one academic specialist/historian of the subject who simply judged that Moran had essentially recycled the defence's case. Anyone can do that are make an appearance of being serious. If you can find competent area specialists who review, appraise and cite his work, then you can use them, not Moran directly. That is the rule for quality editing, especially on a controversial topic. There are academics who work on this, and when you have such peer-reviewed sources, you should not prefer journalistic books.Nishidani (talk) 07:56, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

Just an afterthought, but it would be extremely interesting to see what would happen if you did try to get a 'ruling' that history books by non-academic historians can't be used as sources. I suspect that those on high in Wikipedia would descend upon such an attempt like a ton of bricks. It would turn Wikipedia into a laughstock if it actually had such a policy and thus excluded the works of every non-academic historian as a reference, i.e. most of the works of recorded history for the past several thousand years. Webley442 (talk) 05:10, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

Check my record. That is almost invariably precisely what I do, and I don't think the articles I and a few others who subscribe to the highest aims of the encyclopedia are thought of as slack jobbers patching up articles that are laughing-stocks, i.e. Barasana, Franz Baermann Steiner, Taboo, Shakespeare Authorship Question etc,etc. Controversy rages precisely on those articles where haggling over the use of poor sources occurs. And edit warring is avoided by sticking to quality, peer-reviewed, mainstream sources, where the chances of just nitpicking material agreeable to one's POV are drastically reduced.Nishidani (talk) 07:56, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

No one is saying you cant include material. You just need to place it appropriately. See the 911 artical for a similar example, what the majority of experts accept is the majority of the article with minority alternate views given their own section and summarised rather than presented in detail. If you feel you need to give more detail then do as was done for the 911 article....make a new page specifically for the alternative view. In this case there might not be enough support for Morans views to justify it's own article as it should already be in the history wars article.Wayne (talk) 07:47, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

Summary: The Moran work is not a reliable source because it contradicts what the academic historians say about the massacre and it's effectively self-published (Access Press explicitly denies any responsibility for fact checking, "Will not take responsibility for the accuracy or validity of written work" [6].) Three other users agree with this straight-forward application of WP:RS, if you (Webley) still disagree with you you can try taking it to the reliable sources notice-board. Per Wayne just above it can be discussed in the relative section, personally not convinced, but everyone else thinks that's ok. On the other sources, yes, I think the other Access Press source should go too. But re Elder's Blood on the Wattle, unconvincing; from memory that book was well received, though may now be outdated and of course we should primarily use the historians. (Note the argument against Moran does not rely simply on his being a journalist.) Misarxist (talk) 08:10, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

Style

It is grossly inappropriate to make bald statements of 'truth'in the text like "The Kimberley prosecutor refused to mention Lumbia's defence as, with the exception of the Rev. Gribble, no one wanted it known that Hay had raped a child." and "Gribble had expected the Inspector of Aborigines, E. C. Mitchell, to give the court Lumbia's account of the rape of Anulgoo on his behalf but he to had decided, along with the prosecutor, to suppress the claim stating to Gribble that he would keep anything unpleasant out of the evidence "for the sake of the fair name of my native state"." when there is only one source for it, which is Gribble's uncorroborated statement in his memoir related via Neville Green and particularly where a claim has been directly contradicted.

Mitchell protested a statement that Gribble had made to the Commission about Mitchell trying to keep out anything 'unsavoury' and wrote to the Commissioner wanting it struck from the record and Wood agreed with his point of view. He was extremely indignant about it as he knew from the interviews with Lumbia and his wives that Gribble had invented the rape claim. He wrote to A.O. Neville and directly accused Gribble of lying to the Commission. Any such statement in the text should be prefaced with something along the lines of "Historian Neville Green claimed that..." and in an honest representation of the facts where something is as strongly disputed as Green's claims are, the counter claims should be in the very next paragraph, not tucked away at the bottom of the article.Webley442 (talk) 05:00, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

Several points come to mind. Whether the actual claim itself was true or not is irrelevant as it was documented. You cant delete claims just because some say the event didn't occur. The second point it that you must remember that Mitchell hated Gribble and went to great lengths to discredit him. When inspecting the massacre sites he intially dismissed them much as Moran does until he had no option but to finally admit something had happened. As for the wording. It was Mitchells job to defend Lumbia which should have been done by presenting the translations of his initial confessions. He didn't do this but went along with the prosecution claim of Lumbia spearing cattle which even the police didn't except until the Royal Commission was called because they knew for a fact that Lumbia was not involved in the spearing of Hays cattle, Lumbia may in fact have been involved but the police didn't even suspect him of it as they were searching for members of another mob that had been identified by their trackers. Wayne (talk) 08:05, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

If Neville Green has to be constantly qualified as a historian, which he is, with a doctorate, I suppose, were he an acceptable source, Rod Moran's views would have to be always qualified as 'journalist and poet Rod Moran', on your reasoning above, Webley?Nishidani (talk) 08:15, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

Nishidani, would you prefer that we simply say Rod Moran and Neville Green and leave out all references to historian and journalist? I use the descriptors for the sake of accuracy but I can go with the alternative if you like.

Mitchell couldn't present statements about the rape if they didn't exist. Just the contrary, Mitchell was outraged by Gribble's behaviour and false statements because he KNEW that the claim of rape wasn't in the witness statements. All the evidence that I have seen indicates that the translations of the original confessions along with the statements of Lumbia's wives make absolutely no mention of a claim of a demand for sex followed by Hay stripping and raping Lumbia's wife. That claim, by all known evidence, comes solely from Gribble's 1934 journal and isn't contained in any of the other source material, ie the mission logs or the witness statements. The only person crying rape was Gribble. Webley442 (talk) 08:46, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

One further point. I didn't propose that the claims be deleted, just that they be qualified and presented for what they are: claims made by one historian that are strongly disputed. And that where a claim is so strongly disputed the counter arguments and evidence should be in an adjacent paragraph. A reader should not have to go all the way through to the very end of the article to find out that there are strong reasons to believe that what he/she read at the very beginning of the article is highly questionable. Webley442 (talk) 09:01, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

Webley it's just a personal point, but try and imagine a conservative Japanese historian, in the aftermath of a counterfactual victory, reconstructing the Sandakan Death Marches from Indonesian and Australian testimony. I think of this because I think Moran's uncle died there, (as did, by the way Paul Keating's). In the Japanese wiki the death toll is put at 1,000, in the English wiki, including both Allied POWs and Indonesians, it is set at 6,000. The Japanese version scants the Indonesian death toll. Qualified and long practiced historians always take into account the systematic biases of the material that, often by arbitrary ways, survives for their perusal. Moran apparently doesn't. If he wrote a history of the Sandokan death march using official Japanese sources, he'd probably wake up to the problematical way he selectively privileges one version, and discounts those of the victims. But journalists, if they are not Robert Fisks, rarely trouble themselves in this regard. It doesn't make good copy. Nishidani (talk) 09:22, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

I am well aware of the arguments regarding overcoming the bias inherent using archival documents and what has been passed down by the 'winners' in any conflict. Many historians do try to compensate for these biases by using 'other' material, including oral traditions, etc. The problem in this approach is always that while it may feel good to give a 'voice to the those silenced' and so forth, it does not magically make inherently unreliable 'evidence' reliable. Consider this: Ernest Gribble was a proven liar and fantasist. He was caught out repeatedly making false claims about Aborigines and their mistreatment and he seems to have been a person with an unreasoning hatred of the police. Not only that but he influenced others; many of the claims made by Aboriginal witnesses for example, were only made after Gribble, the big man at the Mission, had made those claims to them first. All the evidence indicates that Gribble is the source of the claims of rape and that his claims contaminated the later stories told by others, particularly in the Aboriginal groups who visited the Mission. Now if that was the only evidence available, then fine, maybe you have to base your history on what he said. But when those claims are directly contradicted by statements taken from the witnesses in the presence of and translated by Angelina Noble, how much reliance would a responsible historian put on anything Gribble wrote in his memoirs. Bear in mind that Moran pointed out the existence and location of the original records in 1999 and directly criticised Green for using only Gribble's memoirs as a source. It is now 2010 and no-one that I am aware of, including Neville Green, has said Moran's portrayal of what is in the records of the interviews is not accurate. Now that is what we call confirmation or assent by silence. Webley442 (talk) 09:54, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

'Consider this: Ernest Gribble was a proven liar and fantasist'

You are entitled to repeat here what Moran believed, but his ipsissima verba are not, as your phrasing suggests, the truth. The Royal Commission thought otherwise and they have stricter criteria than that used by a journo and poet. It is a minority view not entertained by academic experts.

You are not entitled to edit a minority (WP:Undue) slant on the subject, by a journalist with no qualifications as an historian, from his self-published, un-peer reviewed book, as though it held equal weight with what academic area specialists, authorities in frontier and aboriginal history generally conclude, and their conclusions are those of the Royal Commission. If you wish to challenge the results of a Royal Commission, you need to be more than a journalist writing in part at the request of the son of one of the men fingered by that royal commission as involved in the killings. Leading academics historians or qualified historians (Neville Green has 2 Phds in aboriginal history), such as Green, Noel Loos, Christine Halse, Richard Broome, and Henry Reynolds are not only unpersuaded by Moran, whose work consists in denying, by personal review, the way a Royal Commission assessed the evidence for the defence while endorsing Gribble's charges, esp. when in reaction to his book, some of them saw no reason to think that Gribble was a 'proven liar' and 'fantasist' on this. Noel Loos thought Moran was 'grasping at straws' in his key attempt to undermine Gribble by alleging that Gribble 'was a monster who would send two young men to the gallows to protect his position as missionary superintendent, his reputation as the saviour of Aboriginal people, and his enormous ego’. Loos thinks of Gribble as having many bad traits, but does not accept that he was lying.

For these reasons, if any regular in here thinks this should be sorted out by requesting wider input about Moran as RS used in violation of WP:Undue, I will argue there that, while he can be used, on tolerance, his work is best referred to as a minority perspective, and as cited in academic sources. Nishidani (talk) 10:58, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

OK, I can see that this is going no-where so I'll be taking the issue of your opinions on academic vs non-academic historians and your claims that a press that expressly states that it will not provide a self-publishing service is a self-publishing service (it says it doesn't fact check, nor do a great many major publishing houses in reality) for resolution elsewhere. I think that the exclusion or restriction of the use of a non-academic historian's work (and I use the term in the true sense not the current pretence of someone who has a PH.D in the subject) is an important issue for Wikipedia. But a final point. Check your facts, the Royal Commission that you put so much faith in rejected the claims of rape that now feature so heavily in the Background section. Read Green's book if that is the one you prefer. No-where will you find in it a claim that the Commission actually endorsed Gribble's claims of rape. It was barely able to endorse the claims of killing by ignoring the fact that it hadn't been presented with convincing evidence that a single Aborigine had died, which is why the case failed at trial. Webley442 (talk) 12:34, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

It hadn't been presented with evidence because, to cite one of several reasons, Tommy Doort in the meantime had been bumped off. Nishidani (talk) 13:12, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

Tommy Doort would never have been a witness with regard to the rape claims so it is irrelevant what he might have testified to if he hadn't disappeared, possibly killed by Overheu, possible killed by Aborigines who already wanted him for his involvement in the deaths of Blui-nua, Minnie-walla and her baby, possibly having left the area to escape punishment for those crimes or possibly having died in the influenza epidemic.

And actually, the claims that Hay raped Lumbia's wife were presented to the Commission, Wood's subsequent correspondence with Mitchell indicates that Wood had it deleted from the record as unsupported hearsay slandering a dead man and contradicted by the evidence that Mitchell referred to, i.e. the statements by Lumbia and his wives. Mitchell was attempting to get Gribble's statement regarding himself concealing 'unsavoury' matters removed also and Wood acknowledged in his reply to Mitchell that it was supposed to have been deleted also but wasn't, purely through an oversight.Webley442 (talk) 13:44, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

'Although he recorded several such reports as having been made to him, he denied having any record or knowledge of who made the reports'

That's from Moran. When Tommy Doort was known to have reported to Gribble, he was 'disappeared', i.e., murdered before his evidence could be heard. Does Moran think it unlikely that Gribble, with his background, would have, with this precedent, then named other aborigines and put them to risk, before a community, and before police, some of whom were involved in the massacre, and one of whom killed an earlier witness, as soon as he had been identified? It's okay to cite this, but investigating magistrates know the immediate contexts that explain certain behaviour, and Gribble's here is not evidence he couldn't name anyone, but simply evidence he would not name anyone, etc.etc.etc. Nishidani (talk) 16:57, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

So your position is that Gribble, an ordained minister, when under oath at the Commission and earlier when making his claims to Mitchell and Douglas, LIED when he said that he had 'no records of' and could not 'recollect' the name of any witness whose evidence would have been vital to securing a conviction.

Exactly how did he think that he was going to get 'justice' for the many people he claimed to be convinced had been murdered, when the bones he claimed to have recognised as human were declared by the medical experts to either definitely not human or too damaged to determine, if he didn't provide the means to obtain the only possible evidence, the names of witnesses? By the way, if the man had had any principles, wouldn't he have said "I will not name these people unless guarantees of their safety can be provided." rather than say that he had no recollection and no records?Webley442 (talk) 11:01, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

I don't have a position. Every Australian I've known who's lived in the outback, or told me of their fathers' or relatives' experiences, knows rape and murder were commonplace. It seems hard to get this through to people raised in modern suburbs. From what I've read of Moran's account, uniquely, in the Kimberleys, the rough tough hard (often admirably so) pioneer cattlemen and their rouseabouts were sticklers for the highest principles of Aristotelian or Judeo-Christian ethics. Pull the other one, pal. Frontier societies are invariably violent, and don't attract prissy wimps, be they clergy or cattlemen.

I merely pointed to the kind of contextual understanding an historian or even a magistrate might have in those circumstances. No one knows the truth, and wiki is not interested in it, but only in using material verifiable from reliable sources. But if you want to know, yes, if I were in Gribble's position, in those circumstances, I would use the 'I don't remember' gambit in order to withhold the names of natives who, were their identity known, would run a high risk of being murdered, as was Tommy Doort, either before the trial or, once concluded, afterwards. And I would in no way think I was 'lying'. He didn't apparently trust the system that was supposed to 'guarantee' the safety of Tommy Doort and for good reason. In religious cultures, there are some things that, though one is obliged to reveal in civil law, one cannot reveal, except under exceptional circumstances. What is told in confession is not rendered to the police. It's not at all a matter of 'lying' (on lying Wood came away with a strong impression those implicated lied through their teeth). It's a matter of ethnical responsibility for the consequences of one's acts. You're reading Gribble as if he were Bill Clinton equivocating about whether a blow job was sex. No one was a risk, except himself there. In Gribble's case, others were at risk. It was a different world, culture and situation back then.Nishidani (talk) 12:56, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

You don't have a position? First you cite a number of historians as seeing no reason to believe that Gribble lied and that his 'bad traits' didn't include lying. When it becomes obvious that he had to have lied under oath, then suddenly it's not really lying. And suddenly you are implying that he was required to conceal the names because of the seal of the confessional (only he wasn't a Catholic priest and there is zero evidence that anyone demanded that he keep their identity quiet). No, you don't have a position, you don't stand still long enough to have one, except whatever is convenient at the time.Webley442 (talk) 13:58, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

I don't have a position on the ultimate truth, unlike yourself. I thought that self-evident. History is the study of likelihood, as every serious historian since Thucydides (τὸ εἱκὀς) has always known. 'Historians' or students of history who think otherwise and throw their absolute certainties at the past, should find another hobby or profession, in religion or politics.Nishidani (talk) 14:25, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

Who is talking about the 'ultimate truth'. I'm talking about the credibility of one man, caught out lying so many times and known to tell fantastic stories (like being able to recognise a substance by sight as being dried human saliva, not just any saliva but specifically human saliva). There comes a point that you have to say that someone with a 'history' like that is not a reliable source for a historian to base his work on.Webley442 (talk) 23:47, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

Historians, who are trained to evaluate probabilities, as opposed to a journo, disagree with you.Nishidani (talk) 07:04, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

Historians also make use of similar fact evidence where evidence is ambiguous. Green is particularly reliable as he has discredited several other Aboriginal massacres after his own investigations revealed they were unlikely to have happened (ie:Rottnest Island).Wayne (talk) 08:26, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

Josephine Flood agrees with me - Josephine Flood BA Camb MA PhD A.N.U., recipient of the Centenary Medal and former director of the Aboriginal Heritage Commission who has “published a number of books on Australian archaeology and history, including the influential Archaeology of the Dreaming and The Riches of Ancient Australia” Flood: “Moran’s disassembly of evidence establishes that Wood’s findings were a travesty.” ... “However, the myth of a Forrest River massacre lives on, although its historian Neville Green now sees it as neither proven nor unproven but merely as ‘probable...given the violent history of the Kimberley’ [FYI she's citing Green's own words here]. The extent of the violence in this region is uncertain, pending detailed studies but Moran’s research on this and two other alleged massacres shows it may have been exaggerated.” p113, The Original Australians: Story of the Aboriginal People. Webley442 (talk) 11:07, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

Yes. It doesn't check facts, i.e., there is no peer review or preliminary control on the reliability of the use of sources. Try to get a manuscript published at Yale or Chicago or Oxford, or many other Uni presses. It's quite a gruelling experience. You get questioned on every para by one and sometimes two editors. On controversial historical issues, that sort of process or its equivalent, academic peer review, must attend any sources that we use to make out articles.Nishidani (talk) 13:10, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

All very interesting, however Green's book wasn't published at Yale or Chicago or Oxford either. It was published by Fremantle Arts Centre Press - I copied the following from their website:

"Sometimes clients want their entire project managed from unedited text and raw images through to delivery of finished books; others only require print management, marketing and distribution assistance."

"What does it cost? Costs vary based on the scope of the project required. Publishing is costly but Fremantle Press provides competitive rates based on industry standards. For a no obligation quote, contact....." and "Book distribution is undertaken on a consignment-only basis and attracts a distribution fee."

In other words, Green used a publisher who for a fee will publish a book without all this wonderful editorial fact-checking or peer review (which from my experience anyway, usually involves you nominating a few of your close friends for the publisher to send the manuscript to so they can write back saying how wonderful it is).Webley442 (talk)

Simon Leys published his recent book on Stendhal with Black Inc.Publishing, a small press in Collingwood Melbourne. One could question this as citable on the Stendhal page at RS, on technical grounds, but the challenge would fail because Leys' qualifications cancel out that factor. As they would fail against any attempt to challenge Greene because of his Freemantle Arts Centre Press imprint. He has two doctorates in aboriginal history. Moran has zilch. In other words, he has no formal training, under academic experts in the historical method, in the careful sifting of archival materials in order to weigh up as objectively as possible the probable lay of the historical record. He has written a partisan-political polemic, recycling the case for the defence. That is all, and citing it, because of these lacunae, means violating WP:Undue weight.Nishidani (talk) 13:20, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

One last point. I don't intend to use as a criticism the fact that Green chose a publisher with whom he could, if he wished, publish without going through an editorial fact-checking or peer review process; I'm just using it as a comparison with Moran's publisher. A lot of academics these days are choosing to use such publishers whenever they can because they are sick of some know-nothing editor trying to rewrite their work to conform with the editor's predilections and prejudices. Some people prefer to just put their work out there and let it stand on its own merits, the way it used to be before the obsession with overscrutinising books before publication began. Some don't have the choice because their Universities insist upon using certain publishers. Green's huge mistake was to base his work so heavily on a memoir and journals created by a man whom a later writer has be able to show (with very convincing evidence, if you take the trouble to get your hands on his book and read it) was a total ding-a-ling.Webley442 (talk) 12:34, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

Actually, the quality of editing at major publishers, (apart from the universities I mentioned and several others) is generally shocking. In a book I wrote for a major publisher, the editors introduced numerous errors, which, when corrected, were replaced with dozens of others. When it went to print, 116 remained or had been reinvented. Established authors use, as you say, other outlets because computerized checks on a PC can do what expensive in-house editors do (and can introduce as many errors through their programmed ignorance of individual style and word-context choice, huge numbers of howlers. But the writer can check this as he runs a spell-check). As to your repeated hits at Gribble, Loos dismisses Moran's hatchetjob. It's tabloid smearing by simplification of the records concerning a very complex and tormented man in an extremely difficult frontier world. Nishidani (talk) 13:20, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

Loos may dismiss Moran's work, Josephine Flood, as I mentioned above, doesn't and she's is not the only historian who concurs with Moran's assessment. So, who is right? The fact that Loos bases his argument on claiming that Moran merely recycled the defence case is telling. As I said above, it is now a standard defensive tactic to take issue with a few of the weaker points which can be disputed and not even mention the existence of stronger evidence and arguments. Moran produced a large amount of evidence that the defence didn't access to or wasn't aware of, including documents that came into existence after the end of both the Royal Commission and the attempted prosecution of the police officers. Nairn would have been delighted to have had the material that Moran has located. Perhaps people should just read the book and find out for themselves. The notion that you need a Ph.D to assess evidence is pure snobbery. Webley442 (talk) 13:45, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

It is not a matter of who is right, but of getting the best sources on the specifics of an article, and by the way Josephine Flood is not a frontier historian, as is Loos or Reynolds or several others. Loos doesn't base his argument on just the recycling thesis. He is also an authority on missions and missionaries, which again Josephine Flood is not. If you talk about 'standard defence tactics' you just invite editors to reply about 'standard attack tactics'. The 'snobbish' notion that you need a Ph.D to assess evidence is not mine: my argument was simply that someone with two doctorates in history knows more about the severe criteria governing the evaluation of partial evidence on incidents lost in prejudice and time, than a journo working for a Westralian newspaper. I'll convert this, The idea that any manjack journo can revise the on-site investigations of that Royal Commission, and of the mainstream historical consensus among frontier historians, and completely vindicate men who, fresh from Gallipoli, barged into Aboriginal land, and raped and shot, by assuming they, and a lot of other hard 'bushwhackers', as you call them 'Downunder', behaved like utter gentlemen while driving the original owners off, hews close to the presuppositions that fuel racist cant while straining our white-eyed credulity. To cite an appropriate authority the Morans, Floods and Windshuttles of this world would do well to read:

“The historian’s task is not to disrupt for the sake of it, but it is to tell what is almost always an uncomfortable story and explain why the discomfort is part of the truth we need to live well and live properly.” Tony Judt, in William Grimes, ‘Tony Judt, Chronicler of History, Is Dead at 62,’ NYT 7 August 2010

But I'm not going to argue this any more. I have registered my technical reservations about extensive use of Moran, and will back those arguments if they are challenged, in any wiki forum. Good night.Nishidani (talk) 16:20, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

It's been entertaining.Webley442 (talk) 02:32, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

“The best historians of later times have been seduced from truth, not by their imagination, but by their reason. They far excel their predecessors in the art of deducing general principles from facts. But, unhappily, they have fallen into the error of distorting facts to suit general principles. They arrive at the theory from looking at some of the phenomena, and the remaining phenomena they strain or curtail to suit the theory.” Thomas Babington Macaulay, "On History," as first published in the Edinburgh Review, May, 1828 and as apt as ever.

Read the whole essay, not a cherrypicked quote. It is a polemic in d defence of the retention of the imagination in historical writing since 'facts are the mere dross of history', and the 'abstract truth' he believes to be embedded in the mush of facts is angled up by the exercise of that empathetic faculty which Moran and Windshuttle have in a tellingly maimed form. They empathize with their race, and cannot imagine the defeated victim's world, since law reports know nothing of it.Nishidani (talk) 10:18, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

I have read the full essay and I think you are misinterpreting Macauley but let's not open another debate. Webley442 (talk) 11:21, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

What Windschuttle has described in the field of Australian Aboriginal History: the groupthink, the cherry-picking of evidence, the distortion of evidence to fit a pre-conceived theory...it has happened before. True scholars have to be constantly aware of this and try to ensure that they look at all the available evidence first and then derive their theory; and when fresh evidence is presented, true scholars don't defend the existing theory as sacred and inviolate, they examine the 'new' evidence and adjust the theory as required. No-one is arguing that the Aborigines of the Kimberleys were not subjected to violence and dispossession, Moran expressly agrees that they were. But he does argue that this particular incident seems to be traceable back to the imagination of Ernest Gribble and that a responsible historian would not have relied so heavily on him when there was so much other evidence about the incident available. Webley442 (talk) 02:32, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

Oh naive youth, or complacent middle age! 'True scholars have to be constantly aware of this and try to ensure that they look at all the available evidence first and then derive their theory'. I suggest you do a course in epistemology. No one in the 20-21th century worth his salt believes this artless Lockean premise that the 'true' historian or thinker comes to the mass of his archival documents with a mental 'tabula rasa' untainted by the pressures of the personal and impersonal culture he or she grew up in.Nishidani (talk) 10:18, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

I don't think anyone has ever has truly thought that historians don't come without their own inherent flaws and biases. What true scholars do however is try to be self-aware, to accept that they are inherently flawed and then try to rise above that, and that is hard work. To try to examine evidence as dispassionately as they can. To ask themselves why do I consider this to be reliable evidence and that not reliable? Is that judgment defensible? Are my conclusions valid and based on the evidence and not my prejudices? He or she may never be able to be 100% certain that they achieve that goal, they may never actually achieve it. But they will come closer than those who don't even try. The failed scholar is the one who doesn't try to derive his theories and his conclusions from the evidence but instead decides that his beliefs, his ideology, his goals however 'noble' or humanitarian are more important and distorts the evidence to suit his conclusions. It is naive to think that anyone who operates on this basis will produce anything of lasting importance because sooner or later someone will come along and point out their fraud. And I thought you weren't going to engage with me anymore? Webley442 (talk) 11:21, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

Windschuttle is not a reliable source and Moran is being given undue weight. Both in fact overlook that many people (Mitchell for example) were aware of some of the massacre claims before Gribble which undermines it being an invention of Gribble. This was not a single incident but a series of events that as a whole comprise the Forrest River massacre. It is undeniable that the Durragee Hill incident occurred as some of the bodies were recovered and there were self incriminating admissions by some involved. It is undeniable that the patrol members lied to the commission. Is it likely that these same people after finding Hay would now decide to treat the Aborigines humanely? Something happened and the controversy is only how many died.Wayne (talk) 05:14, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

It seems that the idea of a reliable source is something of a movable feast here. First you have to publish with a press that fact-checks your work and has it peer reviewed UNLESS you have a Ph.D in which case you CAN use a publisher who doesn't fact-check or use peer review. But even if you have a Ph.D and have spent a pretty much an entire career specialising in Aboriginal History (Flood) you still aren't good enough because you aren't a 'frontier historian'. What's next? Are you going to ask Wikipedia to publish on the policy pages a list of names of appropriately politically correct persons who are to be considered reliable sources? No others need apply?

'Frontier historians' seem to comprise a relatively small group holding hands and singing in chorus that all claims regarding massacres are true and alternating that with chanting "What do we want? Massacres! When do we want them? Whenever we say so!".

As for a suitably vague 'many people' including Mitchell,being aware of the massacre claims before Gribble, do you have a reliable source for that? Because the evidence that I have seen, including Green's and Moran's work, indicates that the first thing Mitchell knew of alleged killings by the police patrol was when Gribble contacted him to pass on a communication to A.O. Neville about it. All roads lead to Gribble in terms of rumours of killings by the police patrol. And it is highly deniable that the patrol members lied to the Commission. Webley442 (talk) 05:58, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

Webley, like a good many ideological posters, you only answer the one single point you think you can work to advantage, and read for intent badly. As I said, I won't engage you, because you don't listen.Nishidani (talk) 06:52, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

My only ideology here is a firm belief in accuracy. I am pro-evidence, pro-verifiability, pro-honest argument. When I see others misrepresenting the case or if I see editors wikilawyering to keep opposing views out of an article, it bothers me. Unfortunately in this and related pages it has largely put me on one side of the argument because it is those on the other side doing the misrepresenting or wikilawyering. No need to engage with me again, Nishidani. my post above was in response to Wayne. I do listen but when I hear BS I don't give it much regard. Webley442 (talk) 07:14, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

'My only ideology here is a firm belief in accuracy.' Yes the conservative suburban Lockean's confident belief that 'ideology' is what other people, adversaries, think.Nishidani (talk) 10:18, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

Although he was aware of incidents earlier, the very first report to officials that Gribble made was on July 30. At the Royal Commission Mitchell admitted he was told by Aborigines on July 21 that police were killing Aborigines for Hays murder but he didn't report it. The patrol members must have lied because they gave contradictory testimony so they couldn't all be telling the truth. The account St Jack gave in 1927 was significantly different from the official patrol report he gave to the police commissioner. When questioned on this he said the Commission evidence he gave was correct because he had "had time to brush up".Wayne (talk) 07:01, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

I accept that Mitchell said that, it rings a bell vaguely and I'm not going to reread Forrest River Massacres and Massacre Myth to try to disprove it when I am confident that you wouldn't say so if it wasn't true, but even if Gribble did listen to vague rumours of killings of Aborigines and then passed them on as fact when others like Mitchell initially discounted them as bush gossip or alternatively if Gribble was the source of the original rumours that the Aborigines then passed on, which I consider much less likely, where does it get you? Rumours of massacres aren't evidence that the rumours are true. And as for contradictory evidence before the Commission by the police, I have friends in the legal profession who would happily tell you that the fact that people's recall of events differ and that they change over time, that one person will get dates or the sequence of events muddled up while others will get them right, helps them out no end when they are representing the other side. A rushed report given immediately after an event may well differ from what a witness tells later when they have had time to reread what they had written earlier and recognise that they had made misstatements or remember what they hadn't recalled earlier. Webley442 (talk) 07:43, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

Once more, re your above exchange w/ Nishidani, Moran is not a reliable source for three reasons: he's self-published, has no relevant qualifications & (most importantly) almost all the reliable sources disagree with him. You can take this to WP:RSN if you feel so strongly about it; but please quit with the mischaracterisations of what other editors are saying. Two further problems: your original research just above & throughout your talk-posts is irrelevant, we only want conclusions (and reasons for them where appropriate) stated in the secondary sources. Secondly your section on Moran's opinions is arguably too long already (see WP:UNDUE & WP:FRINGE). Misarxist (talk) 09:23, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

One: "has no relevant qualifications" is your opinion, others might feel that a career as a journalist does qualify him to research and report accurately on what he finds. There is no strict requirement in Wikipedia policy for everything to be sourced from Ph.Ds. Two: as to "almost all reliable sources disagree with" Moran. Some do agree with him and the fact that Green engaged with him and in response to what Moran has written, now clearly states that the alleged massacre at Forrest River is probable not proven as the article seems to portray it, indicates that his opinions and evidence are worthy of representation in Wikipedia. Three: whether I said above is a mischaracterisation of what other editors say is, once again, your opinion. Four: I don't consider using personal experience as a means to illustrate what should be the 'bleedin' obvious' to be 'original research' and this is a discussion page, not the article itself. Five: the section on Moran's work is arguably now close to being sufficient to accurately and honestly portray the alternate point of view on the events. Webley442 (talk) 10:11, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

An alternate view should be presented as a summary not as a detailed account which, if sufficiently notable, should have its own page.Wayne (talk) 12:15, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

Thin evidence

I don't want to get involved in what's going on above, but I do want to comment that some of what is being presented as evidence is pretty thin. For example, because Hays gun was found with a spent cartridge in it, it's evidence that he shot at someone? At that time it was pretty much standard practice to carry revolvers with only five live rounds and a spent cartridge under the hammer for safety. U didn't want a live round under the hammer because if U dropped the gun or it knocked up against something while U were riding or walking through the bush, the hammer could strike teh cartridge and shoot yourself or your horse. A spent cartridge was used rather than leaving the chamber empty because letting a hammer drop on an empty chamber can damage the hammer. It might mean something if there were 2 spent cartridges. The evidence of empty cartridge boxes is meaningless because it was standard practice to transfer cartridges from boxes to bandoleers or pouches asap. Boxes are awkward things to load from on horseback. The amount of ammunition taken is also meaningless as when U divide it up between the number of people with guns, it is about right for the standard amount carried per man on police and military patrols, specially if they supplemented rations with fresh game. Cheers. Pistol Pete. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.202.43.54 (talk) 06:44, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

We can of course comment here on what our own impression are, which all have done. But unless these comments find a sourced basis in the relevant literature by qualified experts, they can't influence the way the page is edited. As to ammo, rules are rules. The rule was, account for ammunition, and the responsible authority ignored his duty, in a way that aroused justifiable suspicions. That is what the sources say.Nishidani (talk) 10:17, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

pastoralist

what's a pastoralist? i begin to get distracted when trying to read this article, from encountering that in the first sentence. then it is used many times. A shepherd? A poet? --doncram (talk) 17:10, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

I've given a provisory link to clarify, but note that the wiki page on the subject is defective, since it omits to note that pastoralism was the term used in Britain's overseas colonies for free range cattle and sheep raising.Nishidani (talk) 17:33, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

Should Rod Moran's arguement that the massacre did not occur be reduced from 28% of the article content to a summary of his views

This article contains a section (2536 words) detailing the research of journalist Rod Moran. His self-published research is often cited by historian Keith Windschuttle as part of the History wars debate. Is it appropriate to reduce this section to a summary of his views? Wayne (talk) 08:59, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

A previous discussion by involved editors on the reliability of Moran as a source can be found here.Wayne (talk) 09:16, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

70% plus of the article, now virtually 100% covers the work of 1 other author and it doesn't even accurately reflect his opinion. There are only two books specifically written about the history of this issue and you want to exclude virtually all material from one of them. Neville Green is on record as saying that the massacre is PROBABLE not proven. The article treats it as proven. Your statement that Moran is self-published does not conform to Wikipedia's definition of self-published. I raised this on the Reliable Sources Noticeboard.([7])Aside from comments by an involved editor unfortunately there were only 2 uninvolved editors who made comments. 1 basically said it was too long and complicated for him to bother to read. The other agreed that Moran is a reliable source. Oh and yes that editor is someone I know and who has agreed with positions that I and others took in other articles. Something like the 3 editors working together to establish 'consensus' on this page.

This reeks of keeping information out of the article which shows up the errors and problems in the 'academic' position. As one example, the article now contains this as part of Green's evidence for his case: "An example was cited by Wood, Regan's patrol (and Murnane) had originally stated they first joined St Jack's patrol north of Nulla Nulla while St Jack and Overheu said they met at the homestead (where they met had an important bearing on the alleged killings by St Jack and Overheu before Regan's party joined them). Testifying before the commission, with the exception of Murnane who repeated his earlier statement, all the white members of the patrol now repeated St Jacks version. An angry Wood concluded this was due to Nairne only having 15 minutes to speak to Murnane before he testified and added him to the list of witnesses he believed were prepared to lie to the commission"

Moran pointed out that Wood had made an elementary error of semantics. Wood failed to clarify with the witnesses when they were available why there were differences in their statements. If he had he would have found that the term Nulla Nulla covered a wide area including the homestead and particular location Jowa where they did meet up. Removing text that shows that looks like you are trying to conceal evidence that is inconvenient to your preferred story.Webley442 (talk) 11:02, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

Please note the one other author claim is incorrect, every other historian (see bibliography) agrees that the massacre took place, the only disagreement among the historians is over how many people were killed. The quote from Green to the effect that a legal standard of proof can't be met is irrelevant, historians simply don't use such a standard of proof for obvious reasons. Misarxist (talk) 11:08, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

A handful of historians have commented on this particular issue. One historian, Keith Windschuttle agrees with Moran. Josephine Flood, whom you are at pains to point out is an archaeologist and not part of the arcane speciality of frontier historians, but who has written highly recommended and well-reviewed books on Aboriginal history agrees with Moran. How many have been cited on the other side? 3? 4? Basically you have been trying to define dissenting opinions out of existence. You have made it clear that if someone who writes a history book doesn't have a Ph.D and aren't part of the tiny group of frontier historians, and doesn't agree with your preferred position, you want their material censored out of Wikipedia. Well, works by non-academic historians have been cited elsewhere in Wikipedia, they are used as standard texts in University history courses and the only other book specialising in the events at Forrest River should be cited here, at length. Webley442 (talk) 11:20, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

From WP:UNDUE: Neutrality requires that each article or other page in the mainspace fairly represents all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources, in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint, giving them "due weight". It is important to clarify that articles should not give minority views as much or as detailed a description as more widely held views; generally, the views of tiny minorities should not be included at all. Moran/Winschuttle's views are a minority but we have agreed to mention them to show that a dissenting view, however minor, does exist as this work is cited in the History Wars to support dissident views. Historians do not consider them a significant viewpoint. Moran's book is not only not a standard text in Universities but it is kept in the restricted section of the library. Some of his research is good but much of his work is his own interpretation (original research) of the evidence which largely contradicts the interpretation of the very same evidence by mainstream historians. Wayne (talk) 13:52, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

Cite a source other than yourself that says anything that resembles: "Historians do not consider them (in this case, Moran) a significant viewpoint." Neville Green considered Moran's work significant enough to address it himself in two articles and discuss it in the new edition of his book. Loos considered it significant enough to be worth including commentary on it in his work. But your idea of 'mentioning' Moran's work is to remove all but a couple of sentences about it from the article? And especially anything that makes very clear the flaws in the arguments made by Green? It doesn't look like you have any concept of what NPOV is about. It is very obvious that this is about removing material that you don't agree with from the article and using your own personal interpretations of WP:UNDUE as a tool to do so.

Note I didn't say Moran's book was used as a standard text in any University course, I said works by non-academic historians are used as standard texts in University history courses. No doubt Moran's book is in the restricted section of the library because, due to a limited print run, it would be hard to replace if someone borrowed and lost it.Webley442 (talk) 15:23, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

Books denying the holocaust are cited in the secondary literature. This does not make them significant, except that serious historians think it worthwhile to examine 'stuff', esp. from journalists, that tends to be read by the public more than the austere work of academics.

That Green, Loos and others mention Moran's book, for the purposes of wikipedia, means simply that what Moran, as a fringe self-published source argues, can be summarized from Green and Loos, who are experts. This is the usual way fringe self-published books are handled, i.e., their perspectives are given when reliable secondary source academic literature troubles itself to glance at them. Your argument is a self-goal, since it means we should not be citing Moran directly, but only through competent RS.Nishidani (talk) 15:44, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

• Classic example in my view of WP:UNDUE. We give weight in these matters to expert scholars and peer-reviewed publications. While as others have said it's important to note that the narrative is not uncontested, the sort of extended rant as is reproduced by Nishidani below has no place in a Wikipedia article - it almost borders on promotional, in fact (i.e. trying to sell more copies of the book). Orderinchaos 02:51, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

Is your idea of an "expert scholar" limited to someone with formal qualifications? You really don't accept that there can be self-made, self-taught experts, say a local historian who has studied a particular incident to the point where he/she knows more about it than all the Ph.Ds in the ivory towers?

The material would have made easier reading if the two accounts were interspersed, eg with Moran's commentary on the supposed discrepancies on the patrol's movements following Green's but the other users insisted that that wasn't going to happen and that Moran's work had to have it's own little ghetto, which has since been reduced to rubble. The section grew as more and more material from Green's book was 'dumped' into the article, as another editor commented, and I added a fraction of the corresponding relevant material from Moran. I'm not interested in 'promoting' anything but where an issue is disputed, where there are alternate points of view, Wikipedia fails if it doesn't provide adequate mention of it.Webley442 (talk) 03:25, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

Someone with formal expertise has two advantages over the lay scholar you describe - firstly they know the broader picture of anthropology and history and hence have a more reliable means of establishing a framework upon which to rest their observations and ideas; and secondly they have a base of professional colleagues against whom they can check questionable formulations. I myself am a "self-made, self-taught expert" at several things, I probably could publish books on some areas of my interest (psephology, local government, history of WA politics) and it's sometimes been suggested that I should, but I'd be no more a reliable source in doing so than anyone else with an informed opinion.

But this is all a distraction - as all of these "verifiability vs 'truth'" arguments tend to end up. (The album title "This is my truth, tell me yours" comes to mind.) Really everything you're saying is trying to justify a multi-paragraph rant by your favourite author whose research has been critiqued and found wanting by several experts in the field espousing a fringe view you happen to agree with, and you're really not going to accept any other outcome and will throw up every furphy and rabbit trail to attempt to "win". I've seen this many a time before on here with such "scholars" (for some reason, often on issues of Aboriginals or race - don't know why that topic attracts so many) and no doubt will see much more in the future. Orderinchaos 04:35, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

So someone finally played the racism card. After all, it’s not like journos ever write books about investigations of famous crimes, wait a minute…….. they do……… all the time. Give up Webley, they’ll scrape the bottom of the barrel desperately looking for excuses to keep the Moran book out of the article. No doubt you see the parallels with the History Wars, the academic historians never criticise each other, but get together to attack any outsider who dares show them up.203.202.43.53 (talk) 02:30, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

It's not "scraping the bottom of the barrel" to insist on reliable scholarship by expert scholars - it's in fact the rules that exist in this place. Wikipedia is not meant to advance novel arguments by fringe scholars, it's meant to document what can be reasonably established based on the consensus of mainstream published sources. We occasionally have difficulties with people who seem to think otherwise, and the truth is that the majority of such disputes on Australian history articles are about one single editor denigrating Aboriginals based on dodgy sources in some self-ordained "culture warrior" role. Orderinchaos 05:22, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, and it's you and a few others defining what is a reliable source and what is a fringe position and who are culture warriors by using your own idiosyncratic interpretations, going way beyond what the Wiki rules are, just so you can exclude opinions you don't like. Wikipedia has no rule excluding works by people like Moran. It's only that it suits you to do so. You are the only one making this about race. Moran, from what I've seen so far has written about the evidence' evidence that's been left out of the other book.203.202.43.54 (talk) 06:20, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

the academic historians never criticise each other,

Well if ever evidence were required that you have never studied at tertiary level . . . Nishidani (talk) 07:53, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

That last gave all my colleagues a good laugh. But seriously, I remember dozens of disputes and mediations arising in pretty much every school on campus every year, over internal criticism of books and articles. The exception was the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies Unit, they never seemed to find any faults, though they were excessively prone to squabbling over resources. Perhaps their books and articles were all perfect? But enough. I told someone a while ago I'm abandoning Wikipedia as a failed experiment, not worth the waste of time, time to stick to that plan.203.202.43.53 (talk) 03:31, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Ah! Playing to the gallery at Woopwoop College? Well, looks like another absence will cause a grievous black hole in the wiki cosmos. Best wishes.Nishidani (talk) 06:17, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Contested section

Moran's book, which is not peer-reviewed, and is self-published, the work of a journalist with no qualifications in history and frontier history, occupied almost a third of the text. That is a gross violation of WP:Undue, especially given it is dubious in terms of WP:RS. It can be briefly summarized, but a point by point extensive summary is out of the question. I have pasted in the removed text below. Output from external editors has been, in the meantime, requested. It should be noted that Moran's work belongs to the 'denialist' tradition of Australian history, and therefore dismissing Ross's edit as 'ideological' is ironic, since Moran's work is itself embedded ideologically in the larger history wars controversy, where he sides wholly with the white man's whitewashing by the use of criteria most mainstream authorities on indigenous history dismiss as ruling out the very evidence that would contest the 'official' colonial accounts. Nishidani (talk) 09:23, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

The account produced by Neville Green, in which Green claimed that Hay had demanded sex from one of Lumbia's wives and had raped her, was strongly criticised by journalist Rod Moran in his book Massacre Myth, as being based almost entirely on unsubstantiated claims made in a memoir written in 1934 by the Rev. Ernest Gribble and as being directly contradicted by the actual records of the interviews with Lumbia and his wives. Moran states that in the records of the interviews, conducted with Mrs Angelina Noble acting as interpreter, Lumbia did not mentioned rape or any other sexual aspect with regard to the killing stating clearly that "I killed Bill Hay because he hit me in the face and beat me". Moran reports that the records show neither of Lumbia's wives made any claims of sexual assault. Moran further states that the testimony of all three agreed that Hay never got off his horse from his arrival on the scene or while attacking Lumbia but fell off after being speared. Hay was then stripped by Lumbia who took Hay's clothes away with him. All claims of rape originated from Gribble and were corroborated by none of the witnesses.

Moran reports that the Commission received evidence from a surprising source indicating that Hay and Overheu treated Aborigines relatively well. When asked about the reason why Aborigines had been migrating into the district around the partners’ property, the Rev. Gribble stated that: "I think it was owing to the fact that in the previous year Hay and Overheu had a cotton crop and got a lot of natives to pick it. Hay and Overheu looked after them well and killed beef for them." Moran cites Dr Christine Halse’s doctoral dissertation, a biography of Gribble entitled Gribble and Race Relations, on the state of relations between the owners of Nulla Nulla station and the Mission. Halse says trouble between Hay, Overheu and Gribble began soon after Gribble’s arrival stemming from the fact that "many Aborigines found station life more appealing than Gribble’s mission". Gribble began a stream of complaints about the station, some 'justified', some 'false' and some based on 'unsubstantiated rumours'. She also notes that Gribble "relished retelling the events of 1926-27 and with little regard for the truth, embroidering the saga by fostering the myth that he defended the Aborigines while being opposed to all. No-one escaped his accusations – not even the Western Australian Government which he falsely accused of destroying all copies of Wood’s report to suppress his findings."

Moran states that Neville Green's claims regarding the conduct of the prosecutor and Mitchell are also solely based on Gribble's memoir and reports instead that Inspector Mitchell wrote to the Royal Commissioner saying: "I desire to state Sir! that I am prepared to support Mr Gribble in every attempt he makes to ameliorate the conditions of the Aborigines of West Australia, but when the Rev. Gribble attempts to fix a crime upon a dead white man, which that man did not commit, then I shall oppose the Rev. Gribble whilst I have a voice and can take action." and also that "I cannot let the matter rest where it is, the facts show that Hay did not molest Lumbia's woman, they were in the pool gathering bulbs and Hay was on horseback when Lumbia speared him." Moran further reports that Mitchell wrote to A.O.Neville, Chief Protector of Aborigines, on 1 August 1928, and directly accused Gribble of lying to the Royal Commission when Gribble made the following statement, recorded in the Commission records: "It seemed to me that efforts were made to make it into a cattle killing affair. The Inspector of Aborigines [Mitchell] was present on behalf of Lumbia and even he seemed anxious to keep out anything unsavoury." Mitchell wanted this statement struck from the record as a lie. Neville agreed with Mitchell on this point as did Royal Commissioner Wood who indicated that he had directed that the reference be removed but that this had not happened through an oversight. The Commissioner wrote back to Mitchell saying "I wish to say that you would not be guilty of suppressing any evidence either savoury or unsavoury and regret that any such suggestion should be made."

Moran's arguments included the fact that no eyewitnesses to, or survivors of, a massacre ever testified. Moran commented "Instead of eyewitnesses, there are only rumours of eyewitnesses." He reports that when Commissioner Wood asked if anyone present had met any Aborigines who were witnesses, he received a reply from Detective Sergeant Manning: "I suppose one of the cleverest people at the Mission is the wife of the Rev. James Noble; she speaks the language and is a good English linguist. I questioned her. She talks to the different tribes and understands what they say. I asked her if throughout all her inquiries she had heard of any natives who had seen anything, or were in a position to give first-hand evidence. She replied in the negative. She said that she did not know of any natives who had seen anything actually happen."

Moran also reports that Gribble allegedly had a history of making false claims about the murder and mistreatment of Aborigines and was known to have had a history of mental illness. Moran raises multiple issues with regard to the credibility of the Rev. Ernest Gribble.

In July 1922, Gribble, a Protector of Aborigines, reported a massacre of a large number of Aborigines at Durack River to A.O. Neville, Chief Protector of Aborigines. A.O. Neville testified that the report was investigated and it was found that shots had been fired but the ‘natives had not been killed’.

It was raised at the Royal Commission that on 12 August 1923, Gribble had reported that a pastoralist named Siddon had murdered an Aborigine named Nunjune. Gribble had also claimed that he had gathered together 200 Aborigines of the district including Nunjune’s wife and that they were all "emphatic" that Nunjune had been murdered. Nunjune turned up alive and well some time later, having ‘gone bush’ for a few months.

Moran notes that Gribble dated a report in the mission log referring to the killing of Aborigines by the police patrol as having been received on 27 May 1926, a second report that Aborigines had been killed was dated as received on 30 June and in a third entry dated 3 July 1926, Gribble wrote: "Heard today that some natives had been wounded and shot by police before they arrived here last week." Gribble later wrote to A.O. Neville, reporting a threat that he alleged one of the special constables had made to him on 6 July 1926, the day they brought Lumbia into Wyndham as a prisoner, and also claiming that: “At that time I had not heard of any shooting of natives by the police whilst in search of the native responsible for the death of Hay.” Either Gribble lied to A.O. Neville or his log entries were later fabrications. Moran also notes that Gribble, having claimed to have received reports of the murder of Aborigines by the police patrol as early as 27 May 1926, did not report them to A.O. Neville or anyone else until 30 July 1926, although he was the local Protector of Aborigines with precisely that responsibility.

Moran argues that the evidence-gathering party found no graves but retrieved a large quantity of bones from three of the five alleged massacre sites, and that of the bones found, some were too damaged to be forensically identified as either human or animal (using the methods available at the time). Those bones intact enough to be identifiable were all animal bones. Of the people listed as missing by Gribble, Moran stated he was able to account for all but one as not being killed in the massacre, from mission and police records. One woman had been killed by her husband before the Hay killing and another was listed twice, once under the name Marga and again under another name she was known by, as Warrawalla.

Moran also points to problems with the conduct of the Royal Commission by Wood. Funds had been raised to pay for legal representation for the Australian Board of Missions and the Forrest River Mission. Sir Walter James, an eminent Perth lawyer, was consulted and gave advice to the ABM and the Rev. Gribble. For an unknown reason, Sir Walter did not offer to appear at the Commission and, also for unknown reasons, no other counsel was obtained. Wood commented that the absence of counsel representing Gribble and the ABM, who were the principle accusers in the case, imposed a difficult burden on him and Moran reports that this appears to have resulted in Wood acting more like a prosecuting counsel than as a dispassionate Royal Commissioner. At one point, in breach of established legal principle, Wood demanded that Nairn did not consult with one of his clients, Murnane, before he was questioned by the Commission. When Nairn went ahead and spoke to Murnane as he was legally entitled to, Wood stated that this would “affect his attitude” to Murnane’s testimony. Wood also read into the record of the Commission private telegrams sent to raise funds for a defense by one of the police party, which had already been accused of mass murder, as though this was evidence of guilt. Although Wood wrote into the Commission’s report that “…I agree with counsel for the parties implicated that no evidence had been adduced before the Commission that would justify a prosecution on a charge of murder…”, he still made a finding that 11 Aborigines had been murdered.

Commissioner Wood complained that witnesses would ‘not stand to their statements’ however Moran notes that he was referring to verbal statements that Gribble alone claimed various parties had made. Moran reports that Wood did not seem to consider the possibility that the reason alleged witnesses did ‘not stand to’ such statements may have been that the statements were fictions invented by Gribble. .

Gribble had claimed that Murnane had described the patrol as ‘worse than the war’ to one Mr Banks. Banks, when interviewed, denied this. Murnane described it as a lie and challenged whoever had made the claim to make it publicly at the hearing before him. Moran notes that Gribble remained silent and that Wood did not ask him to explain. Moran reports several instances in which Gribble, J.C. Thomson and Sulieman made disputed, dishonest or inaccurate statements or contradicted themselves at the hearings and that Wood let these pass without any comment. Sulieman, for example, made two contradictory statements, one saying that one of the Aboriginal members of the patrol had killed an Aborigine and another saying that there had been no such killing. .

Moran argues that Wood’s approach seems to been either that of someone who had made up his mind before hearing the evidence or that of someone who had been given ‘political’ orders to deliver a particular result. Moran notes that Wood seemed to ignore or failed to notice major discrepancies and even obvious dishonesty in the ‘prosecution’ case and, in particular, in the testimony of Gribble, J.C. Thomson and Sulieman. He also reports that Wood treated any discrepancies in the statements of the members of the patrol as proof that they had lied, even when reasonable explanations for the discrepancies were in evidence before him or should have been obvious. .

Wood placed great importance in his report on what he saw as discrepancies about where it was said that one section of the patrol under Constable Regan joined up with the section under Constable St. Jack, and treated these discrepancies as evidence that the patrol members had lied about their movements. Regan initially said that they had met north of the Nulla Nulla homestead however at the hearings he said that they had met at Nulla Nulla. O’Leary said in his first statement that they met at Jowa camp and at the hearings he said that they had met at Nulla Nulla. St Jack and Jolly said that they met at Nulla Nulla and Murnane said that they had met at Jowa, about 12 miles from the Nulla Nulla homestead. Neville Green attributes the fact that Murnane was the only one to say at the hearing that they had met at Jowa to there not having been enough time for Nairn to brief him before Wood questioned him. Moran, however, notes that Wood failed to make it known during the hearings that he considered the issue important and failed to clarify the apparent discrepancies by questioning the witnesses. If he had, it would have become obvious that none of the statements were contradictory and there were no discrepancies. Nulla Nulla was the name for the cattle station and the locality. Jowa, 12 miles north of the Nulla Nulla homestead, was on Nulla Nulla Station as was the homestead. The term Nulla Nulla Station had also been used when referring to the Nulla Nulla homestead.

Noel Loos replies that Moran has simply reargued the same case made by the pastoralists' defence lawyer, Walter Nairn, in 1927, believing the police evidence while repeating Nairn's attempt to discredit the evidence and character of the main witness, Ernest Gribble, who had been impugned before the Royal Commission by Walter Nairn, for treating the Aborigines "as the equal of whites," Neither the Aboriginal witnesses, nor the missionaries were provided, at the time, with legal counsel. No attempt was made to obtain evidence from the large number of Aborigines who might have witnessed police attacks. The Senior Stipendiary Magstrate George Wood had concluded that a 'conspiracy of silence' existed at the time, and that the evidence of the whites had been fabricated. Kate Auty has argued that the date carved into a tree by police at one of the alleged massacre sites, Wodgil, which Gribble singled out as the base for their operations, indicates they stayed there two nights, not, as they asserted in their depositions, one night, and suggests the extra time would have allowed them to kill the Aborigines and burn their bodies.

Note the above text seems to be creating some confusion. It's user Webley's version of the massacre based on Moran, it was removed from the article on the grounds that it gives undue weight to a minority point of view (please discuss this in the above section, the Rfc). Nishidani simply posted it above for convenience. Misarxist (talk) 11:34, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

Outside Reader's Perspective

I came here looking for info after I saw a reference to this event on-line. What I found appears to be some sort of contest as to who can get the most refs. The article is way to long, and is drowning to death (i.e. hard to read) in minor and/or trivial details. I am all for detail, especially when it comes to historical events, but I think this article should provide more of an overview and general breakdown of what happened, and let the reader go to the linked sources for the minor details. The Eskimo (talk) 17:01, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

A problem we have is that a handful of fringe historians refute that the event took place so more detail is required than would be normal if everyone was in agreement. It can be rewritten and trimmed down quite a bit now that a substantial amount of fringe material has been removed. Wayne (talk) 18:54, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

In agreement with both of the above. Orderinchaos 06:16, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

Likewise I would have to agree with the above comments. Dan arndt (talk) 03:12, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

Agreed also. Perhaps a split to Forrest River massacre investigations and Royal Commission. Try to keep the main article to the point. –Moondyne 06:15, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

I'll have a look at trimming probably after the weekend and will see how the article can be split if I cant shorten it enough. Wayne (talk) 06:37, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

I finally got around to splitting the article. The new article is Forrest River massacre: Investigations and Royal Commission. This has reduced this article from 8700 words to around 5700. The new article is around 5500 words. The extra words are due to some neccessary duplication but feel free to modify as required. Wayne (talk) 10:17, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

External links modified

Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 2 external links on Forrest River massacre. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:

• Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20070905174157/https://www.quadrant.org.au/php/archive_details_list.php?article_id=350 to http://www.quadrant.org.au/php/archive_details_list.php?article_id=350
• Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20070904212302/http://www.quadrant.org.au/php/archive_details_list.php?article_id=237 to http://www.quadrant.org.au/php/archive_details_list.php?article_id=237

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This message was posted before February 2018. After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{source check}} (last update: 5 June 2024).

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Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 07:16, 4 October 2017 (UTC)

referencing

This is a referencing mess, to speak of a minor problem. The whole article requires working over recontrolling every source, with the principle that a generic Elders pp.. repeated over and over, without a specific page indication for each point is useless as tits on a bull.Nishidani (talk) 14:33, 16 January 2018 (UTC)