Talk:Brisbane River

message: River's Aboriginal names
The article nominates 'Meanjin' or 'Meeannjin' as the most likely Aboriginal name for the river, based on only a single non-Indigenous source from the colonial era, written at a time when non-Indigenous journalists frequently got things like this wrong. But the weight of available evidence (see e.g. the work of historian Ray Kerkhove) suggests that Meanjin was/is actually the name for a specific location along the river near the Brisbane CBD, and that Maiwar is a more correct name for the river itself. This part of the article should be edited and updated. In conversations with both Turrbal and Jagera elders, the consensus seems to be that the river's name is Maiwar, not Meanjin.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kulpurum (talk • contribs) 21:39, 12 May 2022 (UTC)
thread_title: untitled

message: Should there be a category for the Brisbane River - to include bridges, dams, suburbs, boats etc on/next to the river?
--RobBrisbane 02:45, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Long response time I know, still I would say the category is not required. The see also section on Brisbane River isn't overflowing, major tributaries and bridge articles are expanding, and we have Talk:Brisbane_River/to_do, to help organise things. There is little overlap and a new category is probably unneeded. - Shiftchange (talk) 23:20, 13 December 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Brisbane River category 

message: I added a map I created, so I will proceed to remove the map request.
MagpieShooter 04:41, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Map added 

message: Could this page please be protected against the repeated vandalism against it.  Thanks. Figaro 23:04, 28 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Vandalism 

message: I notice there is a map drawn up by John Oxley himself that is not included with this article. I believe it would be a worthy addition, but I don't know how to load the picture or even whether copyright will allow it.
If anyone with more experience would be willing to check it out it can be viewed on the following link:
http://enc.slq.qld.gov.au/logicrouter/servlet/LogicRouter?PAGE=object&OUTPUTXSL=object_enc36ui.xslt&pm_RC=PICTQLD&pm_OI=34806&api_1=GET_OBJECT_XML&num_result=0
Thanks...looking forward to further improvement on this page! --GaryB84 (talk) 03:53, 30 October 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Oxley's hand drawn map

message: * Support: I would support a merge because the event is centered on the river and because it is not happening any more.  I could be convinced otherwise by a strong argument. - Shiftchange (talk) 02:17, 5 September 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Riverfire]] merge 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: Ref given is wrong. Cannot find any other ref. Anyone able to clear this up? Downsize43 (talk) 23:01, 10 December 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: It's genuine (see ) It seems a lot more named reaches have been added to the river from when I last checked so I am busy seeing what else may be missing. Kerry (talk) 23:04, 10 December 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: OK I've fixed that ref problem and I've added in a number of additional reaches. But I have just found a few more.  Kerry (talk) 02:36, 11 December 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Mount Ommaney Reach 

message: The 1901 source quoted in the article did not say the Aboriginal people called the river Meeanjin, but rather that they had no name for the river as a whole but did name invididual reaches and bends. As it was very poorly cited, I presume nobody checked what it said. I have added more complete citations so people can read it for themselves. Now there well may be other reliable sources that confirm there was an Aboriginal name for the river as a whole, but right now, it's not Meeanjin and the claim that it is Maiwar is unsourced. Can we find some reliable sources? Kerry (talk) 08:16, 14 July 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: There seems to be a trend in relation to matters Aboriginal to suspend the usual standards of science and rigour that apply to everything else, with a special exception to be made for matters Aboriginal. If the whole river was not given a name in the relevant Aboriginal language, it is improper to try and claim one on the article in some political signalling exercise. As Kerry Raymond has pointed out, if specific segments are named, it is appropriate to refer to that in the Etymology section.StormcrowMithrandir 10:00, 14 July 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, it's more complicated than that. There are lots of people in contemporary media providing Indigenous names for things in sources we often regard as reliable (newspapers, etc). But contemporary media is an echo chamber. Google searches throw up Wikipedia articles with Indigenous names (uncited or dubiously cited as in the case here) or one of the myriad of mirror sites of Wikipedia, a journo says the river was called Whatever by the Aboriginal people in one publication, others happily copy that or cite it from those sources. But if these folks don't provide any provenance for the name (the evidence trail from the original Aboriginal people to the document being cited), then it's pretty much anyone's guess whether it is true or not. In 1923 Meston says that Tom Petrie reported to a Parliamentary committee in 1861 that only 5 of the Brisbane tribe remained and that 20 years earlier there was around 200 of them . If that's true, it would seem that Petrie's documentation based on his interactions with Aboriginal people in that earlier period may well be the only written record we have of their language and names. And certainly any claim for an "original Aboriginal" name must show how it has been passed on from that early period. It may well be that Maiwar (or other name) might be Aboriginal in origin but from another tribe. Certainly Meston reports in some detail of the many tribes and the varying degress of similarity of their language. This then begs the question of will any Aboriginal name for a place suffice for Wikipedia's purposes or should it be the name in the language of those who lived in that area (a language which may well now be extinct)? I think in many cases the best thing we can do is to include a list of candidate Indigenous names claimed (with whatever information including citations are available) as a section of the article and discuss it there but only put in the opening sentence and/or the infobox, a name which has strong provenance. I think that is the best WP:NPOV way to deal with it. Just provide the candidate names and the evidence for them and let the reader make their own interpretation of it, rather than for us as contributors to "decide for them" by presenting only one name or presenting it without making clear what alternatives or uncertainties are present. Kerry (talk) 04:21, 15 July 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Aboriginal name for the river 

message: Riverfestival redirects to Brisbane River#Events, but neither "Riverfestival" nor "River festival" are mentioned in anywhere in Brisbane River (or Brisbane, or List of festivals in Brisbane). Could someone with local knowledge fix this anomaly please. Mitch Ames (talk) 02:55, 28 January 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: I think this is some kind of shorthand for the annual Brisbane Festival which includes Riverfire. I vaguely recollect that the one of the early Brisbane Festivals was a celebration of the river, so Riverfestival might have been used for that particular event, but I cannot find a source, so I think it's easiest to replace uses of Riverfestival with Brisbane Festival and/or Riverfire as seems appropriate and seek to then delete the Riverfestival redirect. I'm doing the replacement now. Kerry (talk) 02:36, 29 January 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Riverfestival