University
Copyright© 2011 by Peter H. Salus
Chapter 62
Thinking
If you don't like reading, don't go to law school.
I'd been told that a dozen times over the past eighteen months. I'm in the "bore you to death" part of law school's three year cycle: scare you to death, work you to death, bore you to death. I began reading the Australian Indigenous Law Review online. Everything discussed seemed so sad. Every attitude since 1788, even the best-intentioned, seemed to be off. Each activity went awry.
The same thing could happen that happened to the American Indians, being a ward of the government was better for them short-term, but destroyed their work ethic and social structure. I suppose that's happening already.
The Linnean had a paper on Australian ethnomedicine a few years ago [V. 21 • No. 4 • October 2005]. It was good but there was so much that I knew wasn't quite right. As I recalled, it said something like:
Traditional tribal healers, called 'Nungungi' in some language groups of Central Australia, are identified as such whilst still young children and are given special education in the healing arts. Medical ethnobotany is currently practised widely by Aboriginal Australians and is a living profession. In littoral, coastal and inland communities, a sick individual will consult a family member and use local ethnobotanical remedies as the usual and normal method of treating disease symptoms. If these persist, the patient usually then consults a local healer. In the central arid regions of Australia, such healers are called "Nungungi". Their professional knowledge is extensive. In parallel Australian cities of the twenty-first century, some 60 percent of European patients also seek the advice of their local pharmacist as their first professional medical consultation for the alleviation of the symptoms of most ailments.
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