Sweeping Sagas discussion

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Just finished and starting part II. I liked the relationship between Patrick and Mayrah, despite some squick factor (those bugs....). I did find a lot more telling then I normally care for, but I'm not sure how Fletcher could have done it otherwise - the two can't really "talk" to each other can they? And if they did, there's not much to talk about besides sheep is there?

Interesting how this whole settlement and the "stations" came to be, let alone that anyone would want to deal with an animal like sheep anyway.

After what I read at the beginning of part II, if I had no appetite for lamb's leg (or other parts) it is permanently gone now.

Claire, don't worry about my joking about the sheep I don't have much feeling one way or the other. I've never been exposed to farms or farm animals outside of petting zoos and my family never ate game, so I never even tried lamb until I was an adult. I'm not a city girl, but not country either.

I did wonder at the convenient way Fletcher made Mayrah as light skinned as he could and wondered if it was really necessary.

I'm just in part two and their daughter (Sheila I think it is?) is definitely dark skinned and her Abo blood obvious.

I had to leave off and head for work just as Elizabeth and her husband meet the family and looking forward to how Mayrah has matured after these years living with Pat.

Agree about a male writing the *love scenes*, it would have been nice to see what a female author could have done with the same story.

Despite living close to Misfit, I'm in the country (amazing how a body of water can divide the city from the country, eh?) and have no aversion to sheep or any other animal, lol. Well, except pygmy goats. Had two of 'em and they drove us nuts. So I'm glad Australia wasn't founded on pygmy goat farming. (Wow, that was quite a digression on my part....)

Part one laid a good background. At the time I had some complaints about it, but now that I've finished the book I can see how much part one enhanced it all. The rest of the book would have been crap without it.

It says a lot, I think, of how the author "whitened" up Mayrah. Speaks of the times. But I'm not sure it was necessary. Many of the original station owners in the outback must have taken Aborigine wives. It's not as if the country was teeming with available women. I'd be curious to know how many current Australians have Aboriginal blood (however far back).

There is an Australian readers group here at GR. I don't know if you are a member or not Jill, or if this would be an appropriate question to pose.

Jill wrote: "Yes, I know about the Australian group, but I'm a member of enough. As to asking the question, probably best to find out another way. Some people can take questions like that in an offensive way."

You are correct.

I'm just curious because there are far less Americans with Native American blood than one would expect. (A result of being forced on to reservations, I can only guess.)

Since Wikipedia doesn't get offended (lol), I asked them and while I couldn't find an exact number, I did find it interesting that in the 2001 census, 69% of aboriginal adults were married to non-aboriginal spouses. I found that fascinating. Went looking for that same census with US Native Americans, but couldn't find it. I suspect it's much much lower.

So I guess my question for our Aussie readers is: how much have the aboriginal peoples assimilated into current Australian culture? (trying not to offend anyone, just too curious for my own good)

Interesting. I wonder what distinction was made with our Western settlers that didn't lead to that? Perhaps women were more available than in the Outback?

Thanks for that, Jill. I would say it's probably similar here. The Native Americans who assimilated, did. But so many still live on reservations and are very, very poor living very sub-standard lives.

This is true up in Alaska (where I'm from), as well. Mostly due to alcohol and it's ill effects.

The reservations I've driven through are all very similar, poor conditions and lots of substance abuse issues. Casinos seem to be most of their revenue, not many can make it on tourism alone.

I am behind everyone else, but will still add my two cents worth!

I found the sections with Mayrah's family quite difficult to read. I don't profess to be an expert on Aboriginal life at all, but I found the fact that the author stressed so much on the non verbal communication to be a bit unbelievable. Yes, during a hunt etc, and totally a male dominant relationship, but outside of that I found it difficult to believe that there wasn't more communication between the family other than clicking of tongues and hand signals.

Michele wrote: "Despite living close to Misfit, I'm in the country (amazing how a body of water can divide the city from the country, eh?) and have no aversion to sheep or any other animal, lol. Well, except pygm..."

Again, I am no expert, but given the population growth over the last 50 -100 years I wouldn't think it would be that high. If you look at it the other way though, there are almost no full blood aboriginals left in Australia. You might get some up in the remote far north/Australia, but not many.

I remember hearing this interesting thing once about Aboriginal ancestors. I am not going to say it is 100% fact, but it is as far as I know.

Genetically, Aboriginals are the only dark skin people who don't have a throw back gene, by which I mean that if you have two people who look white, but one of them has Aboriginal blood, then their descendants will never get a dark skin child, whereas with other dark skinned people like Africans it is possible that two ostensibly white parents can end up with a dark child. I guess I find this interesting because my son is half African.

Jill wrote: "Marg wrote: "I am behind everyone else, but will still add my two cents worth!

I found the sections with Mayrah's family quite difficult to read. I don't profess to be an expert on Aboriginal life..."

It just doesn't seem to gel with a society that places such high value on children and the family unit, as I understand to be the case with Aboriginal society as it is now.

That's the logical extension if that fact is correct, which it is as far as I know.

No I didn't see that. There's a certain irony in that being the case isn't there.

I didn't know about the emphasis placed on family....if that's the case, then Mayrah being left with Pat is ridiculous. But we don't even know what her father was thinking (ie, felt her safer with Pat? More likely to prosper?).

I can't even find a bio on Fletcher or even a photo online. Would love to know where he is from....I see Misfit's got a call-out on HFO about that.

And do tell about the Aborigine who was fired because she looked what? What the heck?

I didn't have an issue so much about her being left with Pat, because there was a trade (think dowry kind of arrangements), it was the communication between the family group that I found difficult to believe. In a way it felt like the Aboriginals were being dumbed down to non-verbal communication only for the most part.

Interesting. I did a cursory search for historical Aboriginal non-verbal communication and came up with....zip.

The Aborigines were clearly talented in the language department and evidently many were fluent in several dialects since each group had their own language. Since the Brits were too self-involved to bother learning their languages, the Aborigines learned English instead. (Figures) So the "pidgin english" part in the book is correct, but that's all I can find.

Yes, and there are still people now who will speak pidgin english.

I guess it just seemed a bit lazy to me to have the interaction be so strongly non verbal within a family group.