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My guess based on context is that "FNP" refers to the indigenous people of Australia [maybe 'First Nations People?' -- however that term is more generally used in North America, to my knowledge], but that acronym isn't present in the article. Would you clarify for our benefit please?

It does indeed refer to the indigenous people of Australia, and is a general term used by many indigenous people who were displaced by colonisation in Australia, the USA and Canada. Australian Aboriginal People use this term freely - I believe it is politically leveraged in a contemporary context to indicate alignment with other displaced peoples around the world. Euro-Australians are generally not as content with the use of this phrase, since it indicates a path to sovereignty and serves as a reminder of Australia's rough past.

However, from the FNP-side, it is considered better than the phrases "Aborigine" or "Indigenous", since these phrases can be used to refer to the condition of various flora and fauna, and thus de-humanizes the subject. The FN people in my family prefer that I refer to them thus as FNP.

There is a better guideline for how this should be addressed, because as you no doubt can understand, its a sensitive issue:

https://www.actcoss.org.au/sites/default/files/public/public...

"Similarly to above ('First Australians'), 'First Nations' recognises Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people as the sovereign people of this land. It goes further than 'First Australians' as it recognises various language groups as separate and unique sovereign nations. It is widely used to describe the First Peoples in Canada and other countries across the globe. Over recent years, the use of this term has grown in popularity. It is a better choice than many outdated and offensive terms described above."

I haven't once heard 'First Nations People' used on the ground other than by visiting speakers (usually from overseas). Indigenous & Koorie are the most common terms used here (I live in the Northern Rivers - Bundjalung country).

The "first nations" phrase is used frequently on aboriginal radio in perth (Noongar fm 100.9) At least half the people they talk to are from the eastern states, so I don't think that the phrase is unusual (at least among the sort of people who get interviewed on radio stations).

Sure, I'm just saying I don't hear it 'on the street' where I live. I honestly find the whole officially-approved nomenclature issue a bit overblown anyway. I'm completely happy to use whatever people prefer, but have known enough rednecks who can inflect racism into entitrely innocuous language, to feel that 'correct' word choice is a pretty small determinant of what's communicated. At least beyond the twitterverse.

Well, I learned it from my FNP relatives, who much prefer it over "Aborigine" or "Indigenous" - as these terms have become very loaded, and there is the desire to indicate that the people who were displaced by European colonisation were indeed the first sovereign nation on the continent. YMMV.

> We (Europeans) can hardly do it for 200 years ..

It's hard to compare because fundamentally writing changed everything. Not just in Europe, but everywhere writing became common, oral histories more or less ceased. Photography and later the internet is changing this again.

And by way of corollary, if you have a strong and resolute oral tradition that can stand the test of 10's of thousands of years, writing systems seem entirely inefficient.

Seems to me that even with strong oral history tradition, writing for documenting (and in case of dispute, providing evidence for) the content of nonpublished private agreements and certain other use cases has compelling advantages.

Indeed, and of course its all about the media. One could see how Gabarnmung is a very, very old library .. with distinct advantages.

seems like selection bias. we’ve no idea how much has been lost. or whether or not the oral historians of X thousand years ago would be satisfied with how their tales have made it down the ages.

Their stories were essential for survival in finding food and their way across 1000's of miles of open land to different reaources. If they were wrong they would die.

I met and sat and talked with indiginous people in fitzroy crossing who walked in from Adelaide across the centre of Australian deserts by the use of their stories.

uh. not sure what claim you're trying to imply here? you've provided what I see as an even more profound example of selection bias.

the folks who needed an oral tradition to stay alive, and were failed by said oral tradition _died_ and weren't here for you to meet.

All literature is subject to the bias you seem to think invalidates these peoples' right to determination. "All lost knowledge is invalid, or else it would have persisted" is, essentially, an imperialist perspective. Knowledge lost because of invasion isn't made less valuable to those who perpetuated it before they were wiped out by colonialists.

> All literature is subject to the bias you seem to think invalidates these peoples' right to determination.

You're clearly very passionate on this subject, though you appear to be arguing against claims that aren't being made.

First, your claim that oral tradition seems inefficient compared to writing is extremely hard to defend. The accuracy, scope, density, longevity, and reproducibility of written information has clear advantages over speech-based transmission.

Second, I don't see that sigstoat was claiming Australian aborigines have no right to determination. I read the observation at face value -- if you have two groups of people, both relying on oral tradition to pass on information necessary for survival, and only one group is around today -- this does not indicate that all oral tradition was effective, only that some subset / subgroup was. (Naturally this ignores OCP's.)

> "All lost knowledge is invalid, or else it would have persisted" is, essentially, an imperialist perspective.

Quoting something that wasn't actually said by the person you're responding is misleading.

In any case, no one is claiming this.

There's a regrettable abundance of 'knowledge' (literature, oral traditions, customs, etc) that have persisted across every society or culture, that by all rights should not have.

> The accuracy, scope, density, longevity, and reproducibility of written information has clear advantages over speech-based transmission.

37,000 years of oral tradition versus .. 5,000 years (?) of written? The jury is still out.

> 37,000 years of oral tradition versus .. 5,000 years (?) of written? The jury is still out.

Recency of invention is not synonymous with inefficiency.

Consider that you're trying to assert oral tradition is more efficient than writing systems ... in a written format on a construct accessed by hundreds of thousands of people around the world over many years rather than demonstrating the validity of your claim to a half dozen people around a fire.

I don't disagree with your position on the strengths of written media - I'm after all a major user of the media - but I do think that there is great value in recognising that 37,000 years ago, someone told a story - and here we are, still discussing it. That's not something that we in the West can predict will happen, or not, too soon - especially given the immense amount of material that has been lost, even in our lifetimes, because it was written and forgotten.

> They had a form of crypto key exchange which guaranteed peace between the tribes.

Could you expand on this?

Its related to the kinship system:

https://sydney.edu.au/about-us/vision-and-values/our-aborigi...

There is a recent paper which dives into this in more detail and reveals the surprising alignment with modern crypto principles based on a more rigorous analysis, but I can't seem to find it at the moment. It is frustratingly difficult topic to search for...

Essentially, clans and tribes would teach their representatives (usually children) specific stories (key) and kinship of their own tribes, then send them to be integrated into other clans - whenever members of the clans would meet, they would exchange stories - and they would recognise unfamiliar clan members by the stories and kinship they would announce, as per knowledge of the original representatives. This was used to keep the peace between tribes, and recognise newcomers to the resources of the area.

If I find the recent paper, I will follow up with a link .. its an immensely fascinating discovery.

As a software developer and crypto enthusiast with a degree in cultural anthropology, I would love to read that paper.

It's pure aggrandisation to compare such rudimental human behaviour with crypto key exchange.

Do you know anything about Australian civilisation, or is your comment derived purely from industrial era superstitions?

Well, that's certainly a considered opinion, however there has been serious scientific and academic attention given to the subject, and the conclusion is that things were a lot more advanced than we modern Euro-Australians are willing to admit. It certainly would invalidate the contemporary narrative of them being 'a primitive peoples' ..