A genealogical falsehood becomes institutional ‘truth’: How a settler-originated myth was transformed into academic and public fact, undermining Aboriginal culture and sovereignty in the process.
Glossary of Key Terms
- Black cladding: The strategic use of Aboriginal names, symbols, or identity by non-Aboriginal individuals or organisations to access economic, political, or cultural capital.
- Epistemic laundering: The process by which unverified or false knowledge is legitimised through academic citation, institutional archiving, and cumulative repetition.
- Race-shifting: The practice by non-Indigenous individuals of self-identifying as Aboriginal without verifiable descent or community acceptance, often motivated by access to identity-based benefits.
- Settler simulation: The appropriation and imitation of Indigenous identity, culture, and authority by settlers, often under the guise of reconciliation, sustainability, or cultural revival.
- Three-part test: The legal framework for Aboriginal identity in Australia requiring (1) descent, (2) self-identification, and (3) community acceptance.
Introduction
This academic report critically investigates the origin, dissemination, institutional uptake, and epistemic consequences of the Bungaree–Sophy–Charlotte Ashby narrative. It contributes to broader work on Aboriginal sovereignty, the ethics of academic authorship, and the dangers of cultural appropriation by analysing a singular but influential case of genealogical fraud. This fabricated claim, constructed by the non-Aboriginal amateur historian Warren Whitfield, asserted that Bungaree fathered a daughter named Sophy, who in turn was the mother of Charlotte Ashby.
This narrative has served as the cornerstone of identity claims by members of the Guringai Tribal Link Aboriginal Corporation (GTLAC) and their non-Aboriginal affiliates, despite repeated and well-documented refutation by legitimate Aboriginal authorities.
Through forensic genealogical scrutiny, institutional critique, and longitudinal analysis of scholarly endorsement, this report demonstrates how this unsubstantiated settler narrative was progressively laundered into public and academic “truth.” The paper situates this case as an archetype of epistemic simulation: a settler myth that ascended to an appearance of legitimacy through recursive citation, institutional complicity, and the absence or ignorance of Indigenous verification protocols. It demonstrates how such processes undermine Aboriginal culture and sovereignty, distort community representation, and facilitate symbolic violence.
This case does not merely reflect one individual’s fraudulent genealogical claim; it exposes how cultural capital, legal ambiguity, and institutional inertia combine to sustain falsehoods with real-world consequences. It is, therefore, not simply a critique of Warren Whitfield’s invention, but of the entire academic and governmental machinery that aided a fabrication to masquerade as fact for over two decades.
Section II: Early Community Circulation
Following its invention by Warren Whitfield, the Bungaree–Sophy–Charlotte Ashby narrative began circulating widely throughout community heritage spaces and local media between 2003 and 2010. Although entirely unsubstantiated, the story was adopted and repeated by local heritage groups, family-history enthusiasts, genealogy websites, and social media platforms. These retellings often featured unverified or selectively curated content, compounding the myth’s perceived legitimacy and embedding it within the amateur historical imagination (Cooke, 2023a).
Central to this diffusion was the misidentification and deliberate misuse of visual material, particularly a photograph falsely labelled as depicting Charlotte Ashby but in reality showing Hannah Ashby, who is also not connected to Bungaree’s lineage. This image was reproduced across exhibitions, Facebook pages, and GTLAC promotional materials, where it was paired with captions asserting direct descent from Bungaree. This pairing of visual misrepresentation and fabricated genealogy constitutes a form of visual epistemic laundering: the invocation of settler-authored aesthetics to simulate Indigenous identity and gain an appearance of cultural credibility.
This strategy of settler simulation extended beyond image use. Whitfield and his collaborators strategically adopted Aboriginal naming conventions, kinship terms, and heritage motifs, presenting themselves as legitimate custodians of Country. In doing so, they enacted what scholars such as Moreton-Robinson (2015) and TallBear (2013) have described as the settler-colonial fantasy of belonging: asserting relational claims to land and culture while bypassing the legal and communal standards of Aboriginal identity. Race-shifting behaviours in this context were not merely personal but instrumental; they enabled access to grants, speaking opportunities, cultural authority, and political influence without fulfilling the three-part test of Aboriginality.
Cooke (2023a), through research on guringai.org and bungaree.org, further demonstrates that Whitfield’s version of the Ashby narrative was amplified by an ecosystem of settler enthusiasts, tourism promoters, and complicit local councils. These actors failed to verify genealogical claims and instead prioritised heritage branding, reconciliation optics, and media-friendly narratives. As a result, the fiction was not only sustained but rewarded with public funding and institutional visibility.
By 2010, the fabricated lineage had become embedded in a network of circular references and community platforms, setting the stage for its academic uptake in Ford’s master’s thesis. At this juncture, the epistemic laundering process was well underway. The groundwork had been laid for the transformation of an unverified settler narrative into what would soon be presented as academic consensus.
Section III: Academic Endorsement and the Ford Thesis
The academic laundering of the Bungaree–Sophy–Charlotte Ashby narrative formally began with the 2010 master’s thesis by Dr Geoff Ford, titled Darkiñung Recognition: An analysis of the historiography for the Aborigines from the Hawkesbury-Hunter ranges to the northwest of Sydney. Ford’s thesis, completed at the University of Sydney, uncritically incorporated Warren Whitfield’s fabricated genealogy and presented it as historical fact. He wrote that “present-day Guringai people” descend from Bungaree through a James Webb connection, despite the absence of any verified genealogical documentation or community recognition supporting this claim (Ford, 2010).
Ford’s thesis marked a pivotal moment in the elevation of settler fantasy into scholarly discourse. While initially positioned as a contribution to Darkiñung historiography, it became a reference point for non-Aboriginal identity claimants across the Central Coast, particularly those affiliated with the GuriNgai cult. Ford’s work provided a veneer of academic legitimacy to Whitfield’s invention, which was quickly seized upon by settler-simulated groups who began citing his thesis as proof of their lineage. In this way, Ford’s thesis did not simply reflect prior inaccuracies; it amplified and credentialed them.
As documented in Cooke’s “Addendum: Dr Geoff Ford” (2023b), Ford did not independently verify the claims he included. Instead, he relied on oral histories and secondhand accounts, many of which originated from Whitfield himself. The thesis contains no genealogical charts, archival birth records, or community verification statements to support its key assertions. Its power derived not from evidence but from the authority conferred by institutional affiliation and academic formatting. Once archived by the University of Sydney, the thesis became part of the epistemic machinery through which unverified identity claims could be recycled into new research, policy submissions, and legal arguments.
Furthermore, Ford’s reliance on discredited or mythologised sources such as Charles Swancott, who advanced undocumented and romanticised interpretations of coastal Aboriginal life, mirrored a broader pattern of settler historiography that privileges narrative cohesion over empirical accountability. By adopting this approach, Ford inadvertently contributed to the entrenchment of epistemic simulation as a research methodology, whereby settler-authored stories are mistaken for Indigenous truth.
The uptake of Ford’s thesis by subsequent academics, including Jim Wafer, Lawrence Paul Allen, and Ryan Stewart, illustrates the phenomenon of citation laundering: the process by which initial scholarly errors are repeated, re-cited, and entrenched until they acquire the appearance of legitimacy. Each citation compounds the original falsehood, distancing it further from its origin in Whitfield’s speculative family lore. Thus, what began as an amateur settler fabrication was repackaged through Ford’s thesis as a credible historical claim, inaugurating its journey through the institutional landscape.
Ford’s work, far from being an isolated misstep, exemplifies the dangers of uncritical historiography, particularly when dealing with matters of Aboriginal identity, land, and cultural continuity. It underscores the imperative that all academic research engaging with Indigenous identity must be grounded in genealogical evidence, community recognition, and verification protocols governed by Aboriginal communities themselves, not simply settler belief systems.
As this section has shown, the academic uptake of a fabricated genealogy through Ford’s thesis was not a neutral act of scholarly inquiry. It was an act of epistemic amplification that empowered identity fraud, displaced legitimate Aboriginal voices, and inaugurated a cycle of citation and simulation that continues to this day.
Section IV: The Normalisation of Fraudulent Descent Claims (2011–2019)
Following the academic inclusion of the Bungaree–Sophy–Charlotte Ashby narrative through Ford’s thesis, the fabricated genealogy underwent a second phase of legitimisation between 2011 and 2019. This period saw the rapid institutional normalisation of the fraud, facilitated by the uncritical repetition of its claims in academic publications, local heritage signage, museum exhibits, and public ceremonies.
One of the most consequential developments during this time was the adoption of the Ashby lineage by the Guringai Tribal Link Aboriginal Corporation (GTLAC) as a foundational genealogical pillar. GTLAC members, including Tracey Howie, Paul Craig, Rebecca Hird-Fletcher, and others, began publicly asserting descent from Bungaree through the Ashby line, relying explicitly on Ford’s thesis and Whitfield’s narrative as their source of legitimacy (guringai.org, 2023b). These claims were reproduced across websites, grant applications, government submissions, and cultural performances, many of which received institutional endorsement or funding.
This widespread uptake reflected a broader epistemic environment in which settler-authored genealogies were rarely scrutinised, particularly when they conformed to reconciliation narratives or tourism-friendly heritage initiatives. Indeed, the performative value of these identity claims appears to have far outweighed their factual accuracy. Local councils such as Northern Beaches and Hornsby Shire began incorporating GTLAC’s representations into Acknowledgements of Country, school curricula, and signage, despite clear statements from neighbouring Land Councils (Darkinjung, MLALC) and the community rejecting the legitimacy of the so-called “GuriNgai” identity.
During this period, the fabricated Ashby lineage was also normalised through symbolic performances at cultural events. GTLAC members conducted Welcome to Country ceremonies, gave public speeches as supposed “Traditional Custodians,” and participated in government consultation processes without undergoing the verification required under the three-part test. Such performances were often covered by media outlets, further amplifying the myth and creating the illusion of consensus. This era can therefore be characterised by what Cooke (2025) terms “symbolic laundering”: the repetition of unverified cultural authority in public space, which leads to its assumed legitimacy.
From 2011 to 2019, the Ashby narrative was no longer merely a circulating rumour or a single academic’s error; it had become an institutionalised fixture of regional heritage discourse. It appeared in educational programs, tourism literature, and even legal consultations related to land use and cultural heritage. Its repetition across platforms created a false epistemic consistency—a phenomenon well documented in pseudoscience studies as “consensus by citation” (Blancke et al., 2016).
Importantly, this period also saw the exclusion of legitimate Aboriginal voices from key decision-making spaces. When community members raised concerns about the veracity of the Ashby lineage or the conduct of GTLAC, they were frequently dismissed as disruptive, jealous, or “non-representative.” In this way, the myth not only displaced historical truth but actively suppressed it. As TallBear (2013) has argued, settler identity claims are not neutral—they operate within systems of power that marginalise Indigenous epistemologies.
In summary, the years 2011 to 2019 mark the full social entrenchment of the Bungaree–Sophy–Charlotte Ashby narrative. What began as a personal fiction and was elevated through academic failure now became institutionalised fact; accepted, repeated, and celebrated across regional New South Wales. This phase reveals how quickly epistemic fraud can metastasise in the absence of community-led verification protocols, and how settler simulation can convert cultural mimicry into institutional legitimacy.
Section V: Government Endorsement and Policy Capture (2020–2023)
Between 2020 and 2023, the fabricated Ashby genealogy not only remained unchallenged in non-Aboriginal government circles but was actively endorsed in policy development, funding decisions, and strategic planning documents. This period marks a dangerous threshold: the institutionalisation of a known falsehood as operational truth within local and regional governance frameworks.
Multiple local governments, including Northern Beaches Council, Hornsby Shire Council, and Central Coast Council, adopted the GTLAC version of “Guringai” identity in their official protocols. GTLAC representatives were appointed to Aboriginal advisory panels, invited to deliver cultural competency training, and consulted in heritage assessments that affected development approvals and land use. These acts of official recognition bestowed a false legitimacy upon the group, bypassing the three-part test and ignoring repeated objections by neighbouring Land Councils.
The NSW Government’s Office for Environment and Heritage, Create NSW, and Arts NSW all funded GTLAC-affiliated initiatives during this time. Grants were awarded for cultural revitalisation projects, signage, and artistic performances that embedded the Ashby lineage narrative further into public discourse. In each case, the basis for these grants included unverified claims of “Traditional Custodianship” traced back to Bungaree. No genealogical scrutiny was conducted, and no consultation was held with legitimate descendant families such as those represented on bungaree.org. The result was a bureaucratic laundering of identity fraud through grantmaking protocols.
This period also saw significant harm to Aboriginal cultural governance and data integrity. As GTLAC’s assertions were incorporated into state-funded projects and reports, official records became contaminated with false attributions. Maps, signage, and cultural heritage inventories reproduced these inaccuracies, undermining the work of legitimate Traditional Owners to assert their place-based rights. Furthermore, the inclusion of GTLAC members in consultations and public forums led to epistemic displacement, where settler-authored fictions were platformed as authentic Indigenous knowledge.
This phenomenon is not limited to NSW. As documented in Cooke’s (2025) analysis of “black cladding,” identity fraud becomes operationalised when public agencies adopt fabricated lineages as decision-making inputs. The result is policy capture: a condition where state resources, recognition, and influence are diverted away from actual Aboriginal families and toward settler-simulated identities.
The trajectory from symbolic laundering (2011–2019) to institutional capture (2020–2023) reflects a failure not only of scholarly and cultural verification, but of governmental due diligence. It demonstrates the urgent need for reform in how Aboriginal identity is verified, particularly where access to funding, influence, and authority is at stake. This period is thus a case study in the dangers of epistemic negligence and the material harm caused by institutional complicity in identity fraud.
Section VI: The Stewart Thesis and Academic Normalisation (2024–2025)
The final institutional milestone in the laundering of the Bungaree–Sophy–Charlotte Ashby narrative arrived with the 2025 doctoral thesis by Dr Ryan Stewart, titled Writing the History of Contact on the Central Coast of New South Wales. Submitted to the University of Newcastle under the supervision of scholars affiliated with the Centre for the History of Violence, Stewart’s thesis positioned the fabricated lineage as historical truth, relying heavily on the works of Dr Geoff Ford and Lawrence Paul Allen. This moment marked the culmination of two decades of epistemic laundering, embedding a demonstrably false genealogy into the fabric of academic legitimacy.
Across several chapters (particularly pp. 120–126), Stewart treated the Ashby descent line as a settled matter, describing Bungaree’s supposed daughter Sophy and granddaughter Charlotte as ancestral figures of contemporary “Guringai” people. Despite lacking primary genealogical evidence, Stewart reproduced mislabelled photographs, cited discredited authors, and failed to consult with legitimate descendants or recognised Aboriginal Land Councils. The thesis also praised the work of GTLAC and used the group’s claims as examples of “resilient cultural continuity” (Stewart, 2025), further endorsing the fabricated narrative.
What distinguishes Stewart’s thesis is not simply its repetition of error, but its framing of the Ashby narrative within a discourse of reconciliation. By presenting the invented lineage as part of a healing project aimed at confronting colonial violence, the thesis cloaked identity fraud in moral virtue. This rhetorical move, embedding settler fictions within the language of restorative justice, represents a powerful form of epistemic camouflage. As Cooke (2025) argues, it is precisely this moralisation of fraud that makes it so difficult to challenge: critique is reframed as hostility to reconciliation, and truth-telling is dismissed as divisive.
Moreover, the Stewart thesis functioned as an academic gateway through which the Ashby narrative entered Open Research Newcastle, a public academic repository. Once archived, the thesis became citable by other scholars, educators, and institutions, further entrenching the fraud. The consequences are profound: a settler-fabricated genealogy, discredited by Indigenous authorities and lacking any archival foundation, is now enshrined as a scholarly source. This is a textbook case of epistemic laundering.
The impact of the Stewart thesis is not confined to the university. As noted in guringai.org (2025), the thesis will undoubtedly be cited by community heritage programs, local councils, and cultural education materials. Its institutional authority has provided a shield for GTLAC and its affiliates, encouraging them to continue performing as “Traditional Custodians” without verification, knowledge, or cultural/community standing. Such efforts represent not merely a scholarly failure, but an active enabler of cultural displacement.
Importantly, Stewart’s work builds upon the flaws of his predecessors rather than correcting them. He cites Ford and Allen as authorities, incorporates Wafer’s unverified assertions, and perpetuates the myth of the GuriNgai identity despite its public rejection by Darkinjung, Metropolitan, and many more Local Aboriginal Land Councils, and the wider Aboriginal community. In doing so, he contributes to what TallBear (2013) describes as “settler colonial reterritorialisation through academic authority.”
In summary, the Stewart thesis completes the academic normalisation of the Bungaree–Sophy–Charlotte Ashby fiction. It transforms a discredited settler narrative into scholarly canon and enables its ongoing reproduction across institutions, policies, and public discourse. This phase of the narrative’s life cycle illustrates how powerful and enduring settler simulations can become when left unchecked by genealogical verification, Indigenous authority, and institutional accountability.
Section VII: Resistance, Refutation, and the Role of Indigenous-Led Platforms
While academic institutions and settler heritage networks progressively entrenched the Bungaree–Sophy–Charlotte Ashby narrative, Indigenous-led platforms emerged as a vital counterforce. Sites such as guringai.org and bungaree.org, both operated by legitimate Aboriginal researchers and descendants of Bungaree and Matora, have played a critical role in exposing the fabrication, documenting its harms, and restoring genealogical truth. These platforms offer not only factual corrections, but also theoretical and community-grounded frameworks for understanding settler simulation, race-shifting, and identity fraud.
The first major refutations of the Ashby narrative appeared in the form of forensic genealogical research published on guringai.org, including analyses of historical census records, birth and death registries, missionary documents, and settler-authored mythologies. These investigations definitively established that no archival evidence supports the existence of Bungaree’s daughter Sophy or her alleged child Charlotte Ashby. In fact, the key photograph often presented as “Charlotte Ashby” was confirmed to be Hannah Ashby—a different historical figure entirely (Cooke, 2023).
The work of guringai.org has not been limited to genealogical debunking. It has articulated a broader critique of what Cooke (2025) terms “settler cultic mimicry”: the ritualised simulation of Aboriginality by non-Indigenous actors through invented ceremony, fake kinship networks, and pseudolegal rhetoric. In this light, the GTLAC’s use of fabricated descent lines is not a benign misunderstanding but a deliberate act of epistemic appropriation, designed to displace Aboriginal sovereignty through the illusion of continuity.
These efforts have been complemented by community statements issued by all relevant Aboriginal Land Councils—Darkinjung, Metropolitan, and many more; formally rejecting the GuriNgai identity as false and unrecognised. Despite these clear rejections, the institutions that credentialed the Ashby narrative have yet to issue retractions, corrections, or public acknowledgments of harm.
Resistance has also taken the form of cultural production. Through media, performances, and open letters, Aboriginal voices have contested the legitimacy of the GTLAC and its affiliates, calling out identity fraud as a form of contemporary colonial violence. In one prominent instance, the performance group “Charlie Needs Braces,” headed by a non-Indigenous woman claiming descent through the Ashby line, was publicly exposed and critiqued for perpetuating this fraud under the guise of cultural celebration (Cooke, 2024).
Crucially, Indigenous-led platforms have not only exposed the fraud, but proposed structural reforms. These include stronger genealogical verification processes, the rejection of self-identification without community endorsement, and the recognition of Indigenous data sovereignty. Their work has also called upon universities, museums, local councils, and funding bodies to implement accountability protocols, revoke fraudulent acknowledgments, and centre Aboriginal authority in all matters of identity and history.
These platforms exemplify what Moreton-Robinson (2015) calls “sovereign epistemology”: knowledge produced within and accountable to Aboriginal communities, grounded in lived experience, relational ethics, and custodial responsibility. In resisting settler simulation and exposing the Ashby myth, these community-led initiatives do more than correct the historical record; they enact sovereignty in practice.
Section VIII: Epistemic Consequences and Cultural Displacement
The long-term consequences of institutionalising the Bungaree–Sophy–Charlotte Ashby narrative extend far beyond genealogical error. They represent a profound form of cultural displacement and epistemic violence. As the narrative progressed from Warren Whitfield’s invented family lore to its enshrinement in doctoral theses, government reports, and educational policy, it actively reshaped the public understanding of Aboriginal history on the Central Coast. This reshaping did not merely supplement legitimate knowledge—it substituted for it, marginalising the voices, lineages, and laws of actual Aboriginal communities.
What occurred was not a neutral misclassification but a deliberate simulation: a settler-authored mythology constructed to overwrite Indigenous truths with settler fantasies of continuity, conciliation, and harmless heritage. This is what scholars such as Cooke (2025) identify as the “simulated custodian” effect, wherein non-Aboriginal actors position themselves as inheritors and representatives of Aboriginal sovereignty, while excluding legitimate Aboriginal people from the conversation. The continued citation and institutional recognition of the Ashby line functions as what TallBear (2013) critiques as the “settler logic of descent”—a racialised and essentialist framework that allows identity fraud to pass as reconciliation.
This process of epistemic laundering undermines not only Aboriginal knowledge systems but also the integrity of academic and bureaucratic institutions. When universities credential theses that rely on discredited genealogies, and when local governments enact protocols based on fictitious lineages, they become complicit in a form of cultural erasure. These institutions lend credibility to falsehoods and silence to truth, and in doing so, they enact a new modality of settler colonialism: one that operates through the bureaucracy of inclusion.
The effects of this are measurable. Resources are misallocated, cultural programs are misdirected, and genuine Aboriginal people are pushed to the margins—often disbelieved or delegitimised when they speak against the simulation. As documented by Indigenous scholars and genealogists at guringai.org and bungaree.org, the presence of the GTLAC and its affiliates has obstructed land claims, confused school curricula, and undermined community cohesion. When cultural protocols are crafted by impostors and adopted by councils and educational institutions, they function as a false mirror: reflecting settler imagination back to itself under the guise of authenticity.
Moreover, this displacement feeds into a larger system of Indigenous identity fraud, data corruption, and statistical sabotage. When false claims of descent enter official records, they distort census outcomes, Close the Gap indicators, and funding models. As a result, Aboriginal people are made to compete with non-Aboriginal claimants for limited resources, and public policy becomes disconnected from the realities it is meant to address (Cooke, 2025).
In this sense, the Ashby narrative is not an isolated fabrication but a node in a broader epistemic crisis. It exemplifies how the settler state and its institutions remain vulnerable to simulation, particularly when their protocols for identity verification are weak, their commitments to Aboriginal sovereignty are rhetorical rather than structural, and their archival practices favour citation over truth.
The cultural displacement is not merely symbolic: it is lived. It is experienced in the loss of opportunities, the erasure of stories, and the institutionalisation of lies. Against this tide, Aboriginal communities continue to assert their truths, document their histories, and expose the mechanisms of fraud. But without institutional redress, the simulation persists—not as an error to be corrected, but as a system to be dismantled.
Section IX: Recommendations for Institutional Redress
To address the systemic failures that enabled the propagation of the Bungaree–Sophy–Charlotte Ashby narrative, institutional redress must occur on multiple levels: academic, governmental, and community-based. These recommendations emerge directly from the historical analysis and community testimony documented in this report and across Indigenous-led platforms.
First, universities must adopt rigorous Aboriginal identity verification protocols for all research, teaching, and authorship concerning Indigenous topics. These protocols must go beyond self-identification and require community recognition, documented descent, and formal confirmation. Academic theses and reports relying on Aboriginal identity must be reviewed by Aboriginal-led ethics panels and undergo formal cultural vetting prior to conferral.
Second, retrospective audits must be conducted on previously credentialed works, such as those by Allen (2021) and Stewart (2025), that relied on discredited genealogies or simulations of cultural authority. Where necessary, addenda, disclaimers, or retractions should be issued, and affected communities formally consulted and compensated. Institutional complicity cannot be addressed without accountability mechanisms and epistemic reparations.
Third, government bodies, including local councils and heritage agencies, must dismantle any partnerships, protocols, or cultural heritage acknowledgments built on false genealogies or unverified organisations. The continued involvement of impostor groups such as GTLAC in policy development, cultural education, or heritage consultation must cease immediately. Public statements acknowledging the error and outlining redress plans are essential to restore trust.
Fourth, all educational content that references or relies on the Ashby narrative or the GuriNgai/Guringai identity must be reviewed and corrected. This includes school curricula, museum exhibitions, and council websites. Resources produced by legitimate Aboriginal organisations should replace those authored or informed by impostor narratives.
Fifth, funding bodies and grant programs must implement fraud-prevention protocols to ensure that Aboriginal-identified initiatives and applicants are subject to formal identity verification. This prevents further misdirection of resources and strengthens Aboriginal data sovereignty by ensuring that funds and programs benefit those they were designed to support.
Finally, a formal public inquiry or commission into Indigenous identity fraud and settler simulation should be established. This inquiry should be Aboriginal-led, with powers to investigate, subpoena documents, and recommend policy reform across sectors. It must centre the voices of those harmed by these practices and prioritise their epistemic and material restitution.
These reforms are not punitive; they are restorative. They offer a pathway to repair the damage caused by two decades of epistemic laundering and institutional complicity. Only by acknowledging and dismantling the simulation can institutions fulfil their obligations to truth, justice, and Aboriginal sovereignty.
Section X: Conclusion – Refusing the Simulation
The trajectory of the Bungaree–Sophy–Charlotte Ashby narrative reveals more than a single genealogical fraud: it exposes a replicating structure of settler simulation. This structure enables non-Aboriginal individuals to claim Aboriginality through invented descent lines, enlists academic and institutional platforms to legitimise these claims, and deploys this false authority to obstruct, overwrite, and displace legitimate Aboriginal communities. The endurance of this simulation—despite repeated exposure, refutation, and rejection by Aboriginal Land Councils—illustrates the profound epistemic vulnerability of settler institutions to simulation, mimicry, and narrative laundering.
This report has traced the lifecycle of the Ashby myth from Warren Whitfield’s 2001 oral history to its enshrinement in the doctoral theses of Allen (2021) and Stewart (2025), the anthropological reporting of Wafer (2021), and the cultural protocols of local councils. At each stage, the simulation gained further traction, not through evidence, but through repetition, credentialing, and bureaucratic incorporation. The myth grew in stature as it migrated from community folklore to academic citation, generating a false aura of inevitability and undermining the visibility and authority of genuine Aboriginal families.
Through this case study, we confront what Cooke (2025) identifies as the settler state’s inability—or unwillingness—to distinguish between truth and simulation when it comes to Aboriginal identity. When institutions adopt impostor claims, they participate in a process of symbolic violence: replacing Indigenous custodianship with settler-authored heritage, repackaging erasure as inclusion. This is not simply an error of genealogy; it is a structural failure of recognition, ethics, and accountability.
But if the simulation was credentialed step-by-step, it can be dismantled step-by-step. This report has offered a roadmap for doing so: through identity verification reform, retrospective audits, policy corrections, curriculum repair, and the establishment of a public inquiry. Central to each recommendation is the principle of epistemic sovereignty—the right of Aboriginal people to define who they are, determine how they are represented, and govern the use of their cultural narratives.
As the work of guringai.org and bungaree.org makes clear, the task is not only to expose fraud but to restore truth. This means honouring legitimate lineages, protecting cultural integrity, and refusing to grant institutional platforms to fabricators. It means holding universities, councils, and heritage agencies to account when they fail to uphold their ethical obligations to Indigenous peoples. And it means recognising that epistemic justice is not ancillary to reconciliation—it is its precondition.
To refuse the simulation is to refuse settler fantasy, impostor authority, and the bureaucratisation of fraud. It is to stand with truth-tellers, uphold the guidance of Land Councils, and listen to communities who have long warned of the harms catalogued in this report. In doing so, we affirm a future in which Aboriginal sovereignty is not simulated but respected, where Country is spoken for by those with the right to speak.
Reference List (APA 7)
Allen, L. P. (2021). A history of the Aboriginal people of the Central Coast of New South Wales to 1874 [Doctoral thesis, University of Newcastle]. NOVA Repository.
Cooke, J. D. (2023a, July 7). Chapter 1. 2001–2003. A Long Con, Gone on Too Long. https://guringai.org/2023/07/07/chapter-1-2001-2023/
Cooke, J. D. (2023b, July 7). Addendum: Dr Geoff Ford. A Long Con, Gone on Too Long. https://guringai.org/2023/07/07/addendum-dr-geoff-ford/
Cooke, J. D. (2023c, July 31). Dr Jim Wafer hoodwinked by pretendians, race‑shifters, and frauds. A Long Con, Gone on Too Long. https://guringai.org/2023/07/31/jim-wafer-hoodwinked-by-pretendians-race-shifters-and-frauds/
Cooke, J. D. (2023d, July 15). A new perspective on Laurence Paul Allen’s thesis: A history of the Aboriginal people of the Central Coast of New South Wales to 1874. A Long Con, Gone on Too Long. https://guringai.org/2023/07/15/a-new-perspective-on-laurence-paul-allens-thesis-a-history-of-the-aboriginal-people-of-the-central-coast-of-new-south-wales-to-1874/
Cooke, J. D. (2025a, July 18). Stewart, R. (2025). Writing the history of contact on the Central Coast of New South Wales … – a review. A Long Con, Gone on Too Long. https://guringai.org/2025/07/18/stewart-r-2025-writing-the-history-of-contact-on-the-central-coast-of-new-south-wales-doctoral-thesis-university-of-newcastle-open-research-newcastle-https-hdl-handle-net-1959-13-29421701/
Ford, G. E. (2010). Darkiñung recognition: An analysis of the historiography for the Aborigines from the Hawkesbury‑Hunter ranges to the northwest of Sydney [Master’s thesis, University of Sydney]. University of Sydney Repository.
Stewart, R. (2025). Writing the history of contact on the Central Coast of New South Wales [Doctoral thesis, University of Newcastle]. Open Research Newcastle.
Wafer, J. C. (2021). Language history of the Central Coast [Consultancy report]. University of Newcastle.
Whitfield, W. (2001, September 7). Oral history interview by Rosemary Block. State Library of New South Wales (Call No. OH XXX).
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