Bennelong Society Conference 2001: From Separatism to Self Respect

From Gerontocracy To Democracy: The Transition of Aboriginal Society in Australia

Stephen Davis

Introduction

Archaeologists tell us that for at least 40,000 years, and possibly 100,000 years, Aboriginal people have maintained a nomadic hunter-gatherer lifestyle. This is extraordinary, not only when we consider the changes in the environment in which they have lived, including the last Ice Age, but when we also consider that almost every other group of people on Earth has moved from nomadic hunter-gatherers, to herdsmen or agriculturalists or industrialists, with the notable exception of the San or Bushmen of the Kalahari as they are better known. Over hundreds of generations, thousands of years, societies have changed. For Aboriginal people in Australia this change has not been one of choice, and more importantly, has been required in only a few generations.

It has still been possible in recent years to talk with Aboriginal people about personal accounts of their first encounter with white people. People like Toby Pitjara of the Alyawarra tribe in western Queensland, tell of the time when he "lived like a kangaroo" before he first saw white people droving cattle across the Barkly Tablelands early last century. Ngulpurray of the Warramirri tribe in northeast Arnhem Land was among those camped on the beach at Elcho Island in the Northern Territory when Harold Shepherdson, the first European they had seen, sailed into view in 1942. In 1977, Stan Gratte brought Warri and his small Mandildjara family group out of the Gibson Desert to face their first contact with Europeans at Wiluna in Western Australia. In 1984, Jimmy Brown was one of the Western Desert Pintubi people who made their first contact with Europeans when they walked into Kiwirrkura outstation, near Lake Mackay on the Western Australia/Northern Territory border.

The encounter in each case has been a transition from nomadic hunter-gatherer to the computer-chip society in one generation, with no stops in between to become nomadic herdsmen, slash and burn agriculturalists, sedentary agriculturalists or industrialists.

The overall encounter has been abrupt.

The transition ... dramatic.

The result ... devastating.

Do we know what such a transition demands? Do we know what it costs? We can see the trauma of the individual and identify, to a limited extent, with the personal struggles. What we have failed to see is the trauma of a society in transition.

With considerable foresight and wisdom some administrators had the presence of mind to set large areas aside, such as Arnhem Land and the Central Reserve, to give Aboriginal people some breathing space and some time to encounter European society on more equitable terms. Somehow, this seems to have been forgotten, and Aboriginal people in remote communities have been insidiously fed the worst aspects of European society almost intravenously and without choice. Through our management of Aboriginal communities we have attained levels of violence, substance abuse and social disintegration far exceeding mainstream Australian society.

A January 2001 internal report by the Health Department of Western Australia found that "Aboriginal women are 10 times more likely to die from domestic violence than other women".[1] The rate of gonorrhoea among 10- to 14-year-old Aboriginals in the year 2000, was 562 cases per 100,000, compared with three cases per 100,000 for non-Aboriginals.

When confronted with such situations we invariably review the pros and cons of alcohol in communities, or bilingual education, or women's refuges, or community housing, or community councils, or work for the dole programmes such as CDEP. It is time that we thought to look at the whole picture, to step back and see what happens to societies in transition.

Societies in Transition

We have very few well-documented examples of societies in transition available to us. There are studies that have focused on one aspect of transition but not the overview. Where are the roots of society, the roots of our identity? What are the core aspects of a society? The essential elements of society must include its rules of behaviour or law, religion or belief system, social organization, and economic exchange system. What is the interplay between each of these elements when a society undergoes a massive transition?

One of the best-documented examples available to us is the record of the Hebrews moving from Egypt to Palestine almost 3,500 years ago. The documents available to us afford us an invaluable insight into the transition, highlighting the key changes that occurred in Hebrew society to successfully accommodate the change from semi-nomadic life in Egypt to a sedentary, monotheistic society in Palestine.

The exodus of the Hebrews from Egypt to Canaan, or modern-day Palestine, took a period of 40 years, around 1450 B.C.[2] Egyptian records provide very little historic documentation of the exodus from Egypt. This is to be expected, as it seems that the Egyptians had a considerable reluctance to describe any events in which they were not victorious.

From biblical records, we know that around 2000 B.C., Abraham, the patriarch of the Jewish, Islamic and Christian faiths, led his family group on a migration from Syria to the hill country of Canaan. During a period of local famine in Canaan, Abraham took his family to Egypt for a short time. Otherwise, Abraham continued his nomadic existence within the hill country. One of his sons, Isaac, appears to have lived a localised existence in the hill country of Canaan. In an effort to escape the severe effects of a later famine, Isaac's son, Jacob and his extended family, subsequently migrated to Egypt at the invitation of his son Joseph who had effectively become prime minister of Egypt. Their descendants continued to live in Egypt but their circumstances changed significantly as they came under increasingly severe oppression from successive pharaohs.

Correspondence from Canaanite town rulers to the Egyptian court in the time of Akhenaten (about 1375 B.C.) reveals a weak structure of alliances, with an intermittent Egyptian military presence and an ominous fear of people called "Habiru" ("Apiru"). The Late Bronze Age (about 1550 to 1200 B.C.) was a time of major social migrations. Egyptian control over the Semites in the eastern Nile delta was harsh; with a system of brick making quoters imposed on the labour force, often landless, lower-class "Apiru."[3]

The Egyptian economy came to depend on the Hebrew labour force to the degree that the Hebrews were enslaved. After 400 years in Egypt the Hebrews eventually escaped under the leadership of Moses.

The Hebrew tribes fled east, out of Egypt past the Egyptian system of border posts, across the lakes or reed seas, following the less frequently travelled "Way of the Sea", south-east along the eastern shore of the Gulf of Suez and into the desert of the Sinai Peninsular. This route led to the remote turquoise and copper mining regions north-west of Mt. Sinai, and avoided the main military and trade routes leading across northern Sinai.

Codifying the Law

The exodus from Egypt took place over a period of 40 years, spent largely in the Sinai Desert. This was the time in which the Hebrew people adopted a new legal code.

This code, as we know it today, is the Mosaic Law. Our legal system of civil law is based upon the Mosaic Law as given by God and scribed onto clay tablets by Moses at Mount Sinai. The Hebrews had, until this time, been a nomadic people where differences were resolved through customary law. Customary law is typified by such things as retaliation or revenge in which a blood relative is obliged to extract vengeance for a crime committed against a close kinsman. It is not unusual for such situations to lead to feuds and constant retaliations. Civil law, on the other hand, is exampled by a code of law more distanced from the individual in that it is conducted by an assembly according to a standard code of justice.

Hebrew society, in its journey to Canaan, was "a society in the process of sedentarization".[4] As part of this transition it was necessary to adopt a step intermediary between customary or tribal law and civil law such as to regulate blood feuds over manslaughter cases in order that an accused person would not be killed, but have the opportunity to stand trial before an assembly. Therefore, we read in the books of Numbers and Joshua[5] that, from among the cities and towns allotted to the priestly tribe of Levi, six strategically located cities were designated as "cities of refuge", where persons accused of manslaughter might seek refuge from blood revenge whilst they awaited a hearing of their case. That the cities of refuge were chosen from among those assigned to the priestly tribe of Levites is especially significant for it was among such cities that the new code of justice would be particularly known and honoured. The new Mosaic Law or legal code of civil law was taught and became firmly established during the 40-year period of the exodus.

Creating Civil Infrastructure

In the Hebrew conquest of this new land we have evidence of three major cities in which considerable destruction was affected. Jericho was the first major city so destroyed.[6] Obviously a land with every town in ruins would be of little benefit to the Hebrews who required a civil infrastructure in their transition to a sedentary existence with its inherent civil code, after emerging from generations of slavery and a further 40 years of semi-nomadic life in the Sinai Desert. The cities or kingdoms of Ai and Hazor were certainly sacked in the conquest of Canaan but they, like Jericho, may be considered special cases and possibly may have been focal points of opposition.[7]

Similarly we see some parallels in the culture-contact situation of Aboriginal people today. Aboriginal people were, in pre-contact times, hunter-gatherers. Contact with European society has forced them to change, like the Hebrews, from a tribal or customary legal system to a civil legal code. For Aboriginal people as a hunter-gatherer society, the adaptation to a civil code is a greater step than for nomadic or semi-nomadic herdsman such as the Hebrews.

There are other parallels that are also evident, particularly in the performance of rituals. God gave Moses instructions in ritual performance that were to be strictly adhered to by the Levite tribe who were to administer the priestly duties of the Israelite nation. Among the details was that of dress. The particular garments to be worn only by the priest including the Ephod and other elements of dress are not unlike the particular elements of body decoration used by Aboriginal people in the performance of a ritual. These rituals and ceremonies within Aboriginal culture necessitate the exact reproduction of the design on each occasion. Senior ritual leaders ensure the faithful reproduction of each design, and may correct the design if they find it erroneous.

Religious Restructuring

Through Moses, the Hebrews were provided with a structured religious system. Such a system is of greater importance in a society that does not have a strong civil code than in a society that has a civil code. Where the civil code is weak or non-existent, a structured religious system will bring order to society. For the Hebrews, a structured religious system was vital to enabling a successful transition.

In a structured religious system, order is brought principally through the clear sets of rules that prescribe behaviour. The rules may gain greater significance, to the stage that they become established as laws. Within the religious system there will be a structure defining particular roles. Most often the structure is hierarchical and it is unusual to find young people attaining the most senior positions. Rather, age and seniority within the structural religious system go hand in hand. Within the structure of the religious system, particular roles are defined and make it clear as to, for example, who has particular authority, those who participate in ceremonies, the various roles of participants in ceremonies, and the pre-requisites to obtain entry to succeeding levels of responsibility and authority within the religious system. Structured religious systems establish law and order within societies which have a weak or non-existent civil code and, where a civil code is existing, structured religious systems will strengthen and complement the civil code. The rapid and often strongly enforced change in the Aboriginal religious system contributed to the destruction of authority within Aboriginal society.

Hebrew society passed through the great patriarchs of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob before the four hundred years of seclusion in Egypt. It evolved into a new and distinctive monotheistic culture. The Hebrews had lived a semi-nomadic existence, worshipping God and pasturing their flocks as Bedouins do to this day. They restructured their religious system, bringing loosely organised clan groups into a central group under an authority, being Moses, dedicated to the worship of God.

Aboriginal society had a structured religious system. Roles and responsibilities for each person were clearly and widely known within the participating groups. Ritual knowledge was carefully guarded. Ritual performance was strictly regulated and hedged about with rules.

Many sustained encounters between Aboriginals and European settlers led to prohibitions on the performance of rituals. The replacement of the Aboriginal religious system with an alternative that failed to fulfil all the functions of the Aboriginal system was certain to precipitate associated dysfunction of authority and social fragmentation.

Some Church missions took steps to understand Aboriginal religious life before attempting to convert Aboriginal people to Christianity. Notable are Harold Shepherdson of the Methodist Church in Arnhem Land, and the Lutherans in Central Australia where many Aboriginal Lutheran pastors are also senior leaders within Aboriginal tradition. This recognition of traditional Aboriginal authority and religious life in the adoption of Christianity has resulted in one of the few strong elements of Aboriginal society in communities otherwise under siege from alcoholism, drug abuse and domestic violence.

It was in the transition of Hebrew society that literacy was required to codify the law and facilitate the recording of Hebrew traditions. The book of Joshua tells us that Joshua read from the Book of Law, possibly implying that at that time there was more than merely the record of the Ten Commandments. So it seems that codification of the civil law led also to the recording of history and culture of the Hebrews. Whilst in transition, the Hebrews codified their laws, documented their customs, prescribed their rituals and disseminated their inheritance to their children. The later exile of the Hebrews from Samaria in 721 B.C. by the Assyrian king, Sargon II, and from Judah in 597 B.C. by Nebuchadnezzar shortly before he became King of the Babylonian Empire, reinforced such recording. The return of the Hebrews to Palestine and the rebuilding of Hebrew society after the Assyrian and Babylonian deportations was, in large, possible through the earlier recording of Hebrew history, culture and religious practices.

In some instances, like the Hebrews, Aboriginal people in Australia are being returned to their land through land claims, pastoral excisions, native title claims and the joint management of national parks. Can Aboriginal people then expect to see a re-emergence of their culture? The Aboriginal people of Australia, however, have generally failed to perpetuate their traditions save for the isolated pockets of clans who were not dispossessed of their land. Without the codification of their laws and the documentation of their oral traditions, can their culture be sustained with a significant remnant of pre-contact integrity?

The case study of the Hebrews demonstrates several critical elements to the continued good functioning of a society ... religion, social structure, authority and law. How have Aboriginal people fared on these areas in their transition?

Transition Issues for Aboriginal People

The transition that Aboriginal society has undergone in its enduring contact with European settlement has reached the roots of Aboriginal being. The changes that have taken place in Aboriginal society are not merely cosmetic or superficial. They are structural and precipitate long-term, often-unintended cultural consequences. Almost every aspect of Aboriginal life has been massively impacted.

Law and order, religion, material culture, education, marriage patterns, kinship structures, customary land tenure, residential locations and patterns, have all changed dramatically for most Aboriginal people in Australia.

The concept of property has proven a potentially divisive issue over the last 25 years. Various societies may treat property in different ways. The very concept of "property" is a complex legal and social institution governing the use, access to and allocation of resources. Notions of property are, to a significant degree, reflective of, or a product of, the type of society.

In a hunter/gatherer society the focus is on use and occupation of land, the very basis of subsistence. The idea of a proprietorial interest over land and private property, in particular, is absent. There is no individual sense of rights over or possession of land. In a nomadic herdsman or shepherd society, the concept of property and proprietorial interests beyond mere occupation of land begins to emerge, as animals become objects of property. However, it is in the agriculturalist society, being a more sedentary existence, that a greater notion of property is introduced. The concept of a more permanent property in soil occurs. Societies become literate; customs become codified as laws and therein become more rigid and prescriptive.

It is in the next stage, the commercial period, that there is the extension of the notion of property. The trading activities of town dwellers and the activities of merchants and artisans hastened the decline of the feudal era in England. A system of private property began to emerge in this period that then developed into a more mature system at the time of the industrial and post-industrial society. It is in the commercial/industrial period when there is a greater competition for resources and there is the production of goods specifically for trade rather than for consumption by the producer, that customs and rules are systematised in a codified legal system, if codification has not already occurred. The concept of alienation of property begins and a property system occurs wherein territoriality and boundaries regulating access to property are formally recorded.

In Australia we have ignored the transition and attempted to match the English property system, based on individual rights, possession and private property, with Aboriginal occupation and customary use of land, subsistence activities, and obligations rather than rights. Native title is a seriously handicapped mismatch.

Aboriginal people do not exercise any choice in whether they will follow their religion. There are no written rules or laws. For pre-contact Aboriginal groups in Australia, their religion establishes all the rules and laws that govern behaviour in their society. Where there is a breach of the law, senior Aboriginal people will discuss the appropriate punishments that may be imposed. Knowledge is synonymous with authority and authority is vested in the elders. This system of gerontocracy, or rule by the old, was highly dependant on a structured system. From the earliest encounters with Europeans, however, Aboriginal authority has been undermined overtly and covertly. There are very few cases of formal recognition of traditional Aboriginal authority. Rather, an external authority was most often imposed. Any attempts, as part of the transition, to adopt intermediary steps such as a mechanism between customary or tribal law and civil law to regulate blood feuds over manslaughter cases, are not in evidence apart from isolated successes such as the Aboriginal Communities Justice Project of the 1980s in the Northern Territory.

More recently, government and contemporary administrative structures have imposed new forms of governance, administered by young Aboriginals, usually with no authority or power within the traditional system. Power and authority have been stripped away from traditional Aboriginal society.

The Woodward Commission's report on land rights in the Northern Territory led to the passing of the Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act 1976 and the Aboriginal Councils and Associations Act which provided a democratic system of election for Aboriginal people bound up in complex regulatory language that secured the place of a replacement bureaucracy beyond the practical control of the traditional system for at least a generation, by which time, irrevocable damage was to be caused to the social fabric of Aboriginal life.

Although Council members were democratically elected, this process was largely incomprehensible to remote communities used to the rule of elders. Generally, remote Aboriginal communities appointed young men to the Councils because the elders did not see that the activities of the Land Councils would have any substantial effect on Aboriginal life. The elders believed that, as in Aboriginal law, each man would speak for his own country and that authority could not be devolved to any other person or body. The Aboriginal Land Councils were largely irrelevant to the elders in remote communities.

Similarly, when ATSIC was created in 1989, its process of democratic elections process was equally meaningless to the vast majority of Aboriginals living in remote communities.

In some cases these "systems" of election have led to the establishment not of functioning democracies, but of forms of Aboriginal oligarchy run by more educated and articulate Aboriginals, but not extending authority to observance of traditional Aboriginal social structures or Aboriginal law.

Democracy is about choosing leaders, electing representatives and vesting power in the elected representatives. All these features are the antithesis of traditional or pre-contact Aboriginal society in Australia.

Government and Church administrations determined the residential locations of Aboriginal groups. Freeing up land for European settlement and commercial activities often meant removing Aboriginal groups from their traditional territories. In the vast majority of cases, Aboriginal groups were settled into a community structure in close proximity to other Aboriginal groups with whom traditionally there would be no sustained contact. These non-Aboriginal residential patterns simplified and reduced the costs of community administration.

Without ready access to their traditional territories, most Aboriginal groups became dependant on Government and Church rations. However, levels of friction soon became evident among groups within any one community. Customary practices of dispute-resolution did not sit well with European civil law. Those who were the "traditional owners" of the land on which the community had been built, often maintained a distinctive advantage over those groups estranged from their traditional territory. This inequality often commonly found expression in the more recent Aboriginal administration of communities.

The demise of pre-contact Aboriginal society was confirmed with the introduction of formal, European-based education. Within Aboriginal tradition, individuals learn or acquire knowledge without question. Children are given information rather than seeking information, and apply it through trial and error. They do not question any information of a ritual or religious nature. Rather, they accept it as it is and will in turn teach it to their children exactly as it has been given to them. The teaching process establishes strong and lifelong personal bonds. The introduction of the European school system into Aboriginal communities has obvious and significant incompatibilities with traditional Aboriginal acquisition of knowledge. It has been one of the major catalysts of breakdowns in traditional authority.

The social fabric of life in Aboriginal society has been eroded not only at the institutional level, but also at the personal or individual level. In pre-literate societies most functions have a strong social emphasis. The society puts a high value on personal relationships. Reciprocal responsibilities within Aboriginal society are a critical feature of the social system. In north-east Arnhem Land, for example, the mother's brother or maternal uncle of a boy is the person who performs the operation at the initiation of the boy who in turn has an obligation thereafter to provide support, in various ways, for his maternal uncle. The provision of food on a continuing basis by the nephew or sister's son, obliges the uncle to provide one of his daughters as a wife to his nephew. The uncle is primarily responsible throughout the boy's life for teaching him ritual knowledge and responsible for his social conduct. This type of reciprocal obligation is fundamental to the social fabric of Aboriginal society. This stands in stark contrast to European society's strong emphasis on individual responsibilities and the increasing disintegration of the family unit.

Where To Now?

So how do we reconcile traditional Aboriginal society with democracy, which above all else, is the hallmark of Australian society?

Democracy is about rights ...

The right to free choice;

The right to education;

The right to freely move about the land;

The freedom of association;

The right to choose religious affiliation or even no affiliation.

Democracy is about choosing leaders, electing representatives and vesting power in the elected representatives. All these features are the antithesis of traditional or pre-contact Aboriginal society in Australia.

Almost every aspect of Aboriginal life has been massively impacted by European settlement. Traditional social organization has been hit hard. The kinship structure has been weakened. In many areas, age-grading ceremonies have given away to adolescent crime and imprisonment as rites of passage. Personal identity has shifted with the introduction of European given names and the need for surnames to meet the need for extended community identification. Marriage practices have changed, weakening mechanisms for clan alliances, social control and succession to traditional responsibilities for clan territory and sites.

The many tragedies of Aboriginal society today are, to a significant degree, the consequences of numerous, disjointed, uncoordinated, short-sighted structural changes to a nomadic, pre-literate, animistic gerontocracy without any well planned strategy for transition to a sedentary, post-industrial, commercial, democracy.

We must not fool ourselves. Aboriginal life as it existed before European settlement will not continue. Aboriginal clan groups in remote communities and outstations are not exhibits in a cultural zoo for social anthropologists, human geographers or cultural ecologists. We cannot preserve and, no matter how much the effort, we cannot reconstruct pre-contact traditional Aboriginal culture. Aboriginal people in Australia are citizens of a democratic society, the very foundation of which fuels the demise of pre-settlement traditional Aboriginal structures and culture.

The political and bureaucratic structures imposed are indeed the clothes that make Aboriginal society look like the dominant main-stream Australian society, yet serve to perpetuate separation and inequality.

ATSIC is the replacement of a non-Aboriginal bureaucracy with an Aboriginal one. It was a masterstroke in the mould of Pontius Pilate. The formation of ATSIC effectively shifted the responsibility for Aboriginal Affairs away from the Government and put it on a contemporary pseudo-Aboriginal structure. In so doing, Gerry Hand gave Robert Tickner a dream run as a Clayton's Aboriginal Affairs Minister. Succeeding Ministers have had to work hard to ensure ATSIC's responsibility and accountability. ATSIC may have been conceived as a useful tool for transition, but has become a cul-de-sac for growth and development.

Native Title is the imposition of a proprietary interest in land and sea where there was none. The Mabo [no. 2] decision has been seen by many to validate a proprietary interest in land that is presumed to have been part of pre-European contact Aboriginal traditions. It is on this incorrect presumption that the Native Title Act 1993 was framed, as a political solution to the expectations created by the Mabo [no. 2] decision. The common law can adapt to recognise Aboriginal rights. Such an adaptation can respect both the common law and the customary law, whilst providing clear legal jurisprudence and guidance that in turn will allow for predicability and planning for all members of Australian society. Native title has been conjured up at the expense of another opportunity to accommodate Aboriginal custom.

The replacement of custodial responsibilities in land and sea, with large land councils, comes at the expense of Aboriginal traditional elders and the attendant destruction of their authority. The euphoria of winning a land claim or native title is too often lost in the despair that comes with the realization that a legal victory, fuelled by indulgent legal practices and processes, has failed to stem the tide of escalating juvenile crime, domestic violence, unemployment and substance abuse.

Whilst many Aboriginal programs are meant to integrate Aboriginal people, others seemed to be designed to keep them apart. Currently, the moral superiority of separation seems to be outweighing the objectives of integration. But this is a false dichotomy. It is the transition that should be the focus. It is in addressing the transition that we will find mechanisms for dealing with juvenile crime, domestic violence, unemployment and substance abuse that will strengthen Aboriginal identity and the social fabric of life in Aboriginal communities. The false dichotomy entrenched through the dishonesty of the political debate focused on generating power in contemporary structures and winning votes, delivers a massive blow to Aboriginal people in remote areas.

Conclusion

Bennelong was violently wrenched out of a nomadic hunter-gatherer society and confronted with a sedentary, agricultural, semi-industrialized society. We are full of praise for the manner in which he handled the transition. We rate success by the degree to which he dressed like his captors, adopted their manners and conversed with them. What evidence do we have that Bennelong made a successful transition? In the company of Governor Phillip, Bennelong voyaged to England in December 1792. In May 1793, two days after arriving in England, Bennelong was introduced to the court of King George III. Bennelong's international sojourn ended in September 1795 when, in the company of Captain Hunter, the newly appointed Governor of the Colony, he again set foot in New South Wales.

Scarcely had Bennelong returned to Port Jackson when "civilization fell off him like an unwanted cloak. With the fine clothes went the fine manners."[8] It was not long before "alcohol had taken hold of him and forced him to mischief and violence. He had forfeited all good opinion by becoming the most troublesome of drunks, the violent drunk."[9] In 1812 Bennelong died at Kissing Point, "a middle aged failure and outcast".[10]

Does Jimmy Brown's first encounter with European society, 200 years after Bennelong's encounter, hold any better prospects for success? With recent heavy rains in the Kiwirrkura area, the government and Aboriginal agencies have scattered Jimmy Brown and his people through various communities in Western Australia and the Northern Territory. Jimmy and his people have had enough of being shunted around various communities. Alcohol and violence have taken a heavy toll.[11] They want to return to their traditional country in the Western Desert, but find they no longer determine their own destiny. Jimmy Brown says his people's situation is "Like cattle being driven into a fence." And Jimmy reckons ... "That's not a good story."[12]

Endnotes

1. Liz Tickner, The West Australian, 4 September 2001, p. 26.

2. K. Barker (ed.), The NIV Study Bible, Zondervan, Grand Rapids, 1985. The exodus and the subsequent conquest of Canaan are described in the Old Testament section of the Bible from Exodus Chapter 1 to Joshua Chapter 24.

3. Ibid., p. 106

4. Ibid., p. 241

5. Numbers (Chapter 35, verses 6-34) and Joshua (Chapter 20, verses 1-9.

6. The destruction of Jericho was possibly a first offering to God in much the same way that the Hebrews ritually offered the first fruits of the land to God as a sacrifice.

7. A. Millard cited in C. Chapman, Whose Promised Land, Lion Publishing, Herts, UK, 1983, p. 105

8. Isadore Brodsky, Bennelong Profile, University Co-operative Bookshop, Sydney, 1973, p.78.

9. Ibid., pp.78--79.

10. Ibid., p.79.

11. Paul Toohey, The Weekend Australian, 28--29 July 2001, pp 19, 22.

12. Ibid., p. 22.