Tag Archives: Aboriginal Australians

Secondary school textbooks teach our kids the myth that Aboriginal Australians were nomadic hunter-gatherers

Secondary school textbooks teach our kids the myth that Aboriginal Australians were nomadic hunter-gatherers

In his book Dark Emu, Bruce Pascoe writes that settler Australians wilfully misunderstood, hid and destroyed evidence of Aboriginal Australians’ farming practices. My analysis of secondary school textbooks shows this behaviour isn’t restricted to the past — it is ongoing. In Australia, pre-invasion Aboriginal peoples tend to be portrayed as nomadic hunter-gatherers. For example, a 1979 textbook titled Australia’s frontiers: […] … learn more→