tag:theconversation.com,2011:/id/topics/indigenous-history-8695/articlesIndigenous history – The Conversation2024-03-27T20:52:22Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2236172024-03-27T20:52:22Z2024-03-27T20:52:22ZUpdated U.S. law still leaves Indigenous communities in Canada out of repatriations from museums<p>A new amendment to the United States’ <a href="https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2023/12/13/2023-27040/native-american-graves-protection-and-repatriation-act-systematic-processes-for-disposition-or">Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA)</a> came into effect in January 2024. The amended law now has some teeth to penalize museums who have thus far been <a href="https://theconversation.com/museums-are-returning-indigenous-human-remains-but-progress-on-repatriating-objects-is-slow-67378">very slow to engage</a> with Indigenous communities. It puts pressure on them to create and share inventories of the remains and artifacts they hold.</p>
<p>NAGPRA regulates the repatriation of Native American human remains, funerary and sacred objects, and objects of cultural patrimony from federally funded agencies to lineal descendants, Indian Tribes and Native Hawaiian Organizations. </p>
<p>Museums must now get prior and informed consent from Indigenous communities before displaying and studying cultural objects. They must also <a href="https://theconversation.com/kennewick-man-will-be-reburied-but-quandaries-around-human-remains-wont-59219">incorporate Native American traditional knowledge</a> in the storage, treatment and handling of remains and cultural items. The act now gives museums and other federal agencies five years to “<a href="https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2023/12/13/2023-27040/native-american-graves-protection-and-repatriation-act-systematic-processes-for-disposition-or">consult and update inventories of human remains and associated funerary objects</a>.”</p>
<p>NAGPRA is an important step in a long history of Indigenous Peoples’ struggle to govern their heritage. However, its authority stops at the U.S. border.</p>
<p>We are First Nations historians and professors working in Canada. Our communities are also impacted by the loss of cultural patrimony to museums in the U.S. and the laws covering repatriation. Mary Jane Logan McCallum is a member of the Munsee Delaware Nation and Susan M. Hill is a Haudenosaunee citizen and resident of the Grand River Territory.</p>
<p>The U.S. law provides Indigenous communities in lands claimed by Canada no legal or financial support to repatriate human remains, funerary and sacred objects and objects of cultural patrimony held in U.S museums. These institutions <a href="https://www.mqup.ca/object-lives-and-global-histories-in-northern-north-america-products-9780228003984.php">hold many items</a> purchased or obtained by anthropologists and others from communities north of the border.</p>
<h2>NAGPRA</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.doi.gov/ocl/nagpra">NAGPRA became law in 1990</a>, after decades of lobbying from hundreds of Indigenous communities. The law states that museums and institutions receiving federal funding must produce detailed inventories of their collections and notify Native American tribes regarding items connected to their communities.</p>
<p>While those who called for the legislation were undoubtedly aware of the daunting task it would mandate, it is unlikely any would have predicted the extremely slow pace at which it has progressed in the three decades since.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, some museums have unilaterally decided to <a href="https://www.amnh.org/about/statement-new-nagpra-regulations">cover or close displays</a>. This is intended as a first step towards repatriation, however with ongoing limited resources, it is also a tactic to remain compliant with the law and avoid having funding cut.</p>
<p>The newly revised law still upholds inherent inequities in the relationships between Indigenous people and the agencies holding our materials. There is a lack of consistent and adequate funding for Indigenous communities wishing to repatriate items. There is also a lack of expert knowledge of the holdings of museums across the U.S. and human resources and infrastructure for long-term handling of repatriated objects. </p>
<p>In this context of ongoing inequity, museums can continue to hold Indigenous objects, but away from public view, and inadvertently create a narrative of history centred on white stories and white voices with little or no Indigenous content.</p>
<h2>Indigenous communities outside the U.S.</h2>
<p>For Indigenous communities outside of the U.S., the act does not compel museums and institutions to work in good faith to facilitate repatriations, regardless of how much evidence Indigenous communities are able to provide supporting the origins and sacredness of those items. </p>
<p>Indigenous communities in Canada are impacted by the law because these items are important to community-based research of material culture and its connection to intellectual, social and political histories of our nations.</p>
<p>Museums make platitudes about strong commitments to <a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/article-as-museums-grapple-with-repatriation-a-cultural-historian-warns-of/">working with and educating about Indigenous Peoples and cultures</a>. However, they are still the ones choosing what gets displayed without consultation with Indigenous communities. Meanwhile, <a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/repatriation-native-american-remains_n_64b97d77e4b0ad7b75f7dd15/amp">the burden is placed on tribes to make requests and pay for repatriation</a>.</p>
<p>As a result, the public loses important opportunities to learn about Indigenous Peoples and the colonial legacies that dispossessed them of the land upon which museums are built and the artifacts they house.</p>
<h2>Indigenous labour</h2>
<p>A further issue with NAGPRA is that it perpetuates an assumption that <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/amp/1.7109072">Indigenous labour should be discounted or free</a> and reasserts the inequity faced by Indigenous people when dealing with government.</p>
<p>Small, piecemeal grants covering costs like transportation are available through NAGPRA, but are restricted to federally recognized tribes in the U.S. and Indigenous people are responsible for finding and applying for them.</p>
<p>In Canada, community-based Indigenous scholars can apply for federal funding from the <a href="https://www.sshrc-crsh.gc.ca/funding-financement/index-eng.aspx">Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada</a>, however grant applications can be long and difficult, funds received are administered by universities and the grants often do not provide enough money.</p>
<p>Museums have full-time paid staff to make inventories and seek descendant individuals and communities. On the other hand, the Indigenous labour, knowledge and skill that goes into identifying and making meaning of lost cultural patrimony, often goes unpaid and unappreciated. </p>
<p>In addition, those doing this hard work <a href="https://histanthro.org/notes/decolonizing-or-recolonizing/">contend with the anti-Indigenous racism and white supremacy that dominate museums and other cultural institutions</a>. Some museums have prioritized hiring Indigenous staff, but they have not made structural changes that address ongoing systemic racism and colonialism nor made space for Indigenous people. As a result, several have left or <a href="https://www.aptnnews.ca/investigates/decolonizing-museums-museum-decolonization-part-2-investigations/">resigned in protest</a>. </p>
<p>In 2022, the <a href="https://museums.ca/uploaded/web/TRC_2022/Report-CMA-MovedToAction.pdf">Canadian Museums Association delivered a report</a> that acknowledged Indigenous cultural heritage professionals are often required to work for free or at a very low cost through one-off honorariums. It recommended that museums take on the legal and financial responsibility of new positions for those undertaking this work. We have yet to see this in practice. </p>
<p>The new U.S. regulations still do not address another form of theft from Indigenous people — this time not of Indigenous cultural patrimony, but of Indigenous labour. This should be considered by the <a href="https://osi-bis.ca/">Office of the Independent Special Interlocutor for Missing Children and Unmarked Graves and Burial Sites associated with Indian Residential Schools</a> as it considers a new federal legal framework that will govern the treatment of graves and burial sites.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/223617/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>U.S. laws on the repatriation of Indigenous artifacts and remains still uphold inequities in the relationships between Indigenous people and the agencies holding their materials.Mary Jane Logan McCallum, Professor of History, University of WinnipegSusan M. Hill, Director of the Centre for Indigenous Studies; Associate Professor, Indigenous Studies and History, University of TorontoLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2154182023-11-21T13:22:20Z2023-11-21T13:22:20Z‘Time warp’ takes students to Native American past to search for solutions for the future<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/560486/original/file-20231120-22-litds7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=51%2C8%2C5699%2C3819&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Students become more emotionally engaged with history when it's presented in an interactive way, research shows.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/hispanic-elementary-students-using-computer-in-royalty-free-image/503690720?phrase=classroom+students+slides&adppopup=true">SDI Productions via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The eyes of the fifth graders in Ms. Evans’ class widened as they saw a dazzling light on the classroom smartboard and the phrase, “Let’s do the Time Warp!”</p>
<p>Ms. Evans, who teaches at a large suburban school in central Ohio, told her students that they were about to take a trip to a Native American community as it existed in the 19th century.</p>
<p>“We are now traveling back in time to Florida in the 1800s to visit a village of the Seminole,” Ms. Evans told her class excitedly as she began to read aloud the story of Seminole leader <a href="https://www.tribalnationsmaps.com/store/p1512/Native_American_Heroes%3A_Osceola%2C_Tecumseh_%26_Cochise_-_-_Grades_%3A_3_-7_-_GIFT_SHOPS_ONLY_%285_books%29.html">Osceola</a>. </p>
<p>In the story, Osceola says, “The white man wants our groves of orange trees, our fine harbors, our full forests, and warm fertile lands. But they are ours. Here are our fish and birds and animals, the graves of our fathers, the grounds of our children.”</p>
<p>Immediately, a beautiful village appears on their Chromebooks. The students are welcomed by the Seminole before they engage with a series of interactive slides. They are introduced to the foods the Seminole eat, the clothes they wear and their daily experiences. They are invited to stay and live with the Seminole while they visit. However, on this first day of the history unit, students do not yet know that soon Osceola will face captivity by U.S. troops, who trick him into meeting for a truce. </p>
<p>The experience exemplifies the kinds of social studies lessons that our research group – <a href="http://digitalciviclearning.com/">Digital Civic Learning</a> – has been developing since 2020 to enable students to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/13548565231199967">use immersive storytelling</a> to better understand different perspectives on complex historical issues, as well as current social ones. We’ve been working with elementary school teachers from several school districts in Ohio.</p>
<h2>Overcoming a narrow view of history</h2>
<p>Whereas other curricula may emphasize <a href="https://woodrow.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/WW-American-History-Report.pdf">memorization of facts and dates</a>, our approach emphasizes dialogue among students to make learning history more exciting. </p>
<p>In <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=Awl0ddQAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">our view</a> as <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=ON0HRQoAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">educational psychologists</a>, the need for such an approach is made clear by national data, which shows that American teenagers’ <a href="https://www.nationsreportcard.gov/">knowledge of U.S. history</a> has been <a href="https://www.nationsreportcard.gov/highlights/ushistory/2022/">declining for the past decade</a>. </p>
<p>Some of the history curricula currently used in schools are rooted in <a href="https://eric.ed.gov/?redir=http%3a%2f%2fwww.societyforhistoryeducation.org%2fpdfs%2fF19_Krueger.pdf">settler colonialism</a>, which focuses on the <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/settler_colonialism#:%7E:text=Settler%20colonialism%20can%20be%20defined,with%20a%20new%20settler%20population.">displacement of Indigenous populations</a> with new settlers, and often minimizes the perspectives of underrepresented populations. </p>
<p>Our approach integrates technology, immersive learning – such as an up-close look at the daily lives of the Seminole – and collaborative small-group discussions into daily social studies instruction.</p>
<p>The interactive experiences that students have with the Seminole were created using <a href="https://www.wikihow.com/Create-a-Presentation-Using-Google-Slides">Google Slides</a>. The slides consist of illustrations, story narrations, easy-to-read texts and interactive activities developed by our team. Beyond history, we also created units in geography, government and economics. Each unit was designed for upper elementary school students and delivered to students over two weeks. </p>
<h2>Discussing dilemmas</h2>
<p>Students actively participate in <a href="https://bpspsychub.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/bjep.12442">small-group discussions</a> on the third and ninth day of each unit.</p>
<p>In our Seminole example, students are asked to reflect on the <a href="https://dos.fl.gov/florida-facts/florida-history/seminole-history/the-seminole-wars/">Treaty of Payne’s Landing</a>, signed in 1832. The treaty required the Seminole to give up their land in Florida in exchange for new land in the West.</p>
<p>They discuss the dilemma that Osceola faced when deciding whether to accept the treaty in order to maintain peace, or to refuse to agree to the new treaty so that the Seminole could stay on their land.</p>
<p>Our approach to teaching history also emphasizes connections with current events, such as the <a href="https://daplpipelinefacts.com/">Dakota Access Pipeline</a>. The construction of the pipeline will help the economy by creating jobs and making the U.S. less dependent on foreign oil. However, the pipeline will be built on land owned by Native Americans who are deeply concerned that the pipeline will lead to contamination of <a href="https://americanindian.si.edu/nk360/plains-treaties/dapl">groundwater and soil</a>.</p>
<p>Students learn about a related situation in which the federal government has been debating whether to approve the construction of <a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/pipeline-battle-brews-in-minnesota-between-indigenous-tribes-and-a-major-oil-company">another pipeline in Minnesota</a> that would go directly through Native American land. Working in groups, students come up with reasons for being either for or against the construction of the pipeline.</p>
<p>Based on our <a href="http://www.proquest.com/dissertations-theses/enriching-civic-learning-experiences-elementary/docview/2864853496/se-2?accountid=9783">analysis of student discussions and essays over the course of this unit</a>, we’ve found that through these immersive learning and interactive practices, students work more collaboratively and are more likely to consider multiple perspectives in civic debates.</p>
<p>Surveys also found that students who participated in the curriculum became <a href="https://aera22-aera.ipostersessions.com/Default.aspx?s=9E-F9-32-3D-E1-BC-2B-6B-84-59-77-28-08-61-DA-5D">more emotionally engaged with learning history</a> – in part by making emotional connections with story characters – as they developed a deeper understanding of how historical events affect people’s lives.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/215418/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Eric M. Anderman receives funding from The Institute of Education Sciences.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tzu-Jung Lin does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Rather than have students memorize names and dates, this history curriculum invites students to grapple with real-life issues faced by people from the past.Eric M. Anderman, Professor of Educational Psychology and Quantitative Research, Evaluation, and Measurement, The Ohio State UniversityTzu-Jung Lin, Professor of Educational Psychology, The Ohio State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2149492023-11-02T22:49:19Z2023-11-02T22:49:19ZIn the 1800s, colonial settlers moved Ballarat’s Yarrowee River. The impacts are still felt today<p>The discovery of gold in Ballarat in 1851 transformed its landscape to a staggering degree. Within days, and despite the news being initially suppressed, hundreds of men had gathered along the Yarrowee River. </p>
<p>They sluiced the clay and soil, turning the once pristine waters into what writer William Bramwell Withers <a href="https://catalogue.nla.gov.au/catalog/2937612">described</a> as</p>
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<p>liquid, yellow as the yellowest Tiber flood, and its banks grew to be long shoals of tailings.</p>
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<p>Over the next few weeks, the waterways of the Yarrowee River and of Gnarr Creek were diverted into water courses to support the search for gold.</p>
<p>The river was moved to make way for the town population boom, which was driven by a lust for gold. The end result was that the original, serpentine path of the river – originally across floodplains equipped to handle the natural ebb and flow of water and seasonal flooding – eventually came to be a much straighter line. Part of the river now runs underground through a tunnel.</p>
<p><iframe id="tc-infographic-953" class="tc-infographic" height="400px" src="https://cdn.theconversation.com/infographics/953/c2d23cd95a72326c661068837565617ee1bd0f41/site/index.html" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p>Our new interactive map, <a href="https://yarrowee.cerdi.edu.au/">Yarrowee River History: Peel to Prest</a> (which takes its name from the two streets that serve as borders for the mapping), interrogates the long-term effects of this water diversion on community and Country.</p>
<p>A collaboration between Federation University, the Wadawurrung Traditional Owners Aboriginal Corporation and the city of Ballarat, our project overlays historical maps with Google Maps to illustrate how the area changed.</p>
<p><iframe id="tc-infographic-952" class="tc-infographic" height="400px" src="https://cdn.theconversation.com/infographics/952/5616d6e1226fe77e975d562937b50a1c71283eee/site/index.html" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/victorias-gold-rush-ended-in-the-19th-century-so-why-are-people-still-finding-so-much-gold-202846">Victoria’s gold rush ended in the 19th century. So why are people still finding so much gold?</a>
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<h2>‘We inherit the scars of this trauma’</h2>
<p>In Ballarat, water is deeply significant to the culture of the area’s First Nations inhabitants, the Wadawurrung people, who stewarded these lands and waterways for millennia.</p>
<p>So we wanted people using our interactive map to ponder the cultural significance of these gold rush impacts to the Wadawurrung people and the environment.</p>
<p>For the Wadawurrung people, the watercourse now known as the Yarrowee River carries profound historical meaning. </p>
<p>This river bore the names Yaramlok and Narmbool, and these names were used interchangeably to reference different segments of the Yarrowee. </p>
<p>The river wasn’t merely a physical entity – it was a symbol of spiritual and cultural significance, the life force which flows through Country.</p>
<p>It supported fishing, agriculture and food gathering. It symbolised the deep and harmonious connection with dja (Country) and the precious resource of ngubitj (water). </p>
<p>The river diversion affected the Wadawurrung profoundly. As two of us (Shannen Mennen and Kelly Ann Blake) write on the <a href="https://yarrowee.cerdi.edu.au/">Yarrowee River History: Peel to Prest</a> site:</p>
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<p>Colonisation and mining in Ballarat led to devastation and destruction of Wadawurrung dja, including the Yarrowee River. Settlement was built upon our living spaces and as a result Wadawurrung people were displaced. </p>
<p>The withholding of cultural rights and obligations further increased the dispossession of our people, who were unforgivingly forced to adapt to change. Still today we inherit the scars of this trauma.</p>
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<p>Colonial settlers altered the river</p>
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<p>in a way which excluded the knowledge Wadawurrung people had built upon for many thousands of years […] The habitat surrounding the Yarrowee was removed or altered, damaging animal, fish and insect populations.</p>
<p>The destruction of the waterway continues to impact our people today. However, the spirit of this land remains within us and we continue as Wadawurrung people to live alongside the Yarrowee whilst working to restore its health and vitality.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The Wadawurrung people involved in this project hope it fosters interconnectedness between the waterway, our human ancestors, creator beings and all living things. </p>
<p>It is also crucial in working towards reconciliation by helping people understand the devastating environmental destruction wrought by the gold rush for the First Nations people of the region and the deep connection between culture, heritage and the landscape.</p>
<h2>Effluent, flooding and typhoid</h2>
<p>When one looks at the sheer scale of the transformation of Ballarat and district wrought by the gold rush, the level of environmental destruction is almost beyond comprehension.</p>
<p>Vast forested tracts of land were felled of trees, the topsoil dug up and blown away, the earth ripped open by deep tunnelling. Imported sheep began to harden the soil (disrupting native plants) and consuming the Murrnong plants, whose roots were a staple of the Wadawurrung people.</p>
<p>Moving the river made the area prone to disastrous flooding as water was diverted away from floodplains. Land was polluted by effluent and chemical residue from mining. This led to multiple outbreaks of disease. As one contributor to the Ballarat Star wrote at the time:</p>
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<p>The smell from this creek for a quarter of a mile on each side is most frightful — the bed of the creek looking and smelling like the refuse pigs’ droppings mixing with their liquid manure. Nearly one-half of the children, and even adults, have been swept off between the Gnarr Creek and the Cemetery, from typhoid fever.</p>
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<p>This project aims to draw attention to the absolute centrality of the waterways to Australia’s history and continual sustainable environmental management. </p>
<p>Mapping the transformation of Australia’s waterways since colonisation is crucial to understanding the long term effects of changes we make to our environment.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/flashers-femmes-and-other-forgotten-figures-of-the-eureka-stockade-20939">Flashers, femmes and other forgotten figures of the Eureka Stockade</a>
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<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/214949/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kelly Ann Blake works for Wadawurrung Traditional Owners Aboriginal Corporation as a Biodiversity Project Officer.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Shannen Mennen works for Wadawurrung Traditional Owners Aboriginal Corporation as a Project Officer.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Waldron does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The river wasn’t merely a physical entity – it was a symbol of spiritual and cultural significance, serving as the life force which flows through Country.David Waldron, Senior Lecturer in History, Federation University AustraliaKelly Ann Blake, Gherrang/Biodiversity Project Officer, Wadawurrung Traditional Owners Aboriginal Corporation, Indigenous KnowledgeShannen Mennen, Project Officer Wadawurrung Traditional Owners Aboriginal Corporation, Indigenous KnowledgeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2135562023-10-12T02:48:26Z2023-10-12T02:48:26ZFor generations, killer whales and First Nations hunted whales together. Now we suspect the orca group has gone extinct<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/548727/original/file-20230918-21-qfq7hs.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C4%2C3243%2C1784&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Whalers and Old Tom on the hunt </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c5/Killer_whale_%28Old_Tom%29_and_whalers_-_original.jpeg">Charles Eden Wellings/WIkimedia Commons</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>For generations, the Thaua people worked with killer whales to hunt large whales in the water of Twofold Bay, on the southern coast of New South Wales. Killer whales – commonly known as orcas – would herd their giant prey into shallower waters where hunters could spear them. Humans would get the meat, but the killer whales wanted a delicacy – the tongue.</p>
<p>After colonists dispossessed the Thaua, Europeans began capitalising on this longstanding partnership. From around 1844, commercial whalers worked with employed Thaua and killer whales to hunt these giants. The pods of killer whales would find a prized <a href="https://au.whales.org/whales-dolphins/what-is-baleen/">baleen whale</a>, herd it closer to shore and signal the whalers, who lived in the town of Eden.</p>
<p>The partnership has no parallel anywhere in the world: the top predator of the oceans working with the top predator on land.</p>
<p>One killer whale, Old Tom, <a href="https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/running-ponies/the-legend-of-old-tom-and-the-gruesome-law-of-the-tongue/">became legendary</a> due to his active role in the hunts for at least three decades. He was seven metres long and weighed six tonnes. </p>
<p>In 1930, he was found dead at a local beach – the last of his group in Eden. You can see his body preserved in Eden’s <a href="https://killerwhalemuseum.com.au/">Killer Whale Museum</a>. But questions have lingered. Do Old Tom’s descendants still roam the oceans, or did they die out? </p>
<p>Our <a href="https://academic.oup.com/jhered/advance-article/doi/10.1093/jhered/esad058/7308443">new research</a> suggests these famous killer whales are likely to be extinct.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/548733/original/file-20230918-27-y38zuy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="killer whales of Eden, australia" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/548733/original/file-20230918-27-y38zuy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/548733/original/file-20230918-27-y38zuy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=454&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/548733/original/file-20230918-27-y38zuy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=454&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/548733/original/file-20230918-27-y38zuy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=454&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/548733/original/file-20230918-27-y38zuy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=570&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/548733/original/file-20230918-27-y38zuy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=570&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/548733/original/file-20230918-27-y38zuy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=570&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The killer whales of Eden, including Old Tom at top right.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Eden Killer Whale Museum</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Old Tom’s origins</h2>
<p>Adaptability, cultural traditions and female-led societies have made killer whales the ultimate ocean predator. These intelligent marine mammals are the world’s largest dolphin, and the only species known to successfully hunt adult <a href="https://esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ecy.3875">great white sharks</a> and the world’s largest living animal – <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/mms.12906">blue whales</a>. </p>
<p>But different groups can live <a href="https://www.norwegianorcasurvey.no/about-orcas">very different lives</a>. Some are constantly on the move, while others stay living in a particular region. Some feed exclusively on one type of prey, while others feed on many. Across the globe, killer whale vocalisations differ greatly, with different dialects and languages unique to families and regions. </p>
<p>To find out where these killer whales of Eden came from, we drilled into one of Old Tom’s teeth and analysed the resulting powder to sequence his DNA. We used the same methods used to extract DNA from Neanderthal remains and million-year-old mammoths. </p>
<p>When we compared Old Tom’s DNA to a global data set of killer whales, his genome was most similar to those of modern New Zealand killer whales. He shared a most recent common ancestor with killer whales from the northern Pacific, northern Atlantic, and Australasia. </p>
<p>But there was no sign of any recent descendants in our modern killer whales data set. Old Tom’s DNA is mostly distinct from modern populations. That suggests the famous <a href="https://danielleclode.com.au/killers-in-eden">killers of Eden</a> may have died out. </p>
<h2>Whale brothers</h2>
<p>The ancestors of Steven Holmes, a Thaua Traditional Owner, had close ties to both the killer whales and to the colonist whalers. Steven has worked with us to give the Thaua perspective. His advocacy helped <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/sep/30/nsw-renames-national-park-over-pastoralist-ben-boyds-links-to-slavery-in-pacific">change the name</a> of Eden’s Ben Boyd National Park to Beowa, which is Thaua for killer whale. Ben Boyd was a whaler as well as a notorious slaver, forcing Pacific people onto boats and into indentured labour. </p>
<p>Steven told us: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>In Twofold Bay, the coastal Thaua people, part of the Yuin nation, had a connection with the killer whales through the Dreaming. Their long relationship was highly valued by the Thaua, who depended on the ocean for food and other resources. They considered the killer whales their brothers. When a Thaua died, they were believed to be reincarnated as killer whales. That way, the Thaua always remained one mob – whether whale or man.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Thaua people used specialised hunting strategies that encouraged killer whales to herd baleen whales, such as humpbacks, closer to shore for them to kill. After a successful kill, the killer whales were rewarded with the tongue while the Thaua got the rest of the carcass. This became known as the “Law of the Tongue”. </p>
<p>After colonisation, white whalers capitalised on this relationship. They hired many skilled First Nations whalers. </p>
<p>When killer whales found a whale, some would slap their tails in front of the whaling station to alert the whalers. Some killer whales would herd the target into shallower water, while others would harry and tire it out. Eventually, the whalers would harpoon the exhausted whale, following it with the killing lance to pierce vital organs. </p>
<p>Old Tom was active in these hunts, reported to grab the lines of the boat to pull the whalers out faster, or tug on the line to drive the harpoon deeper and speed up the whale’s death. </p>
<p>The whalers left the carcass on a buoy for up to two days to allow the killer whales to eat the tongue and lips.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/548731/original/file-20230918-15-8qik2n.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="whalers and killer whales hunting whales together`" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/548731/original/file-20230918-15-8qik2n.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/548731/original/file-20230918-15-8qik2n.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=380&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/548731/original/file-20230918-15-8qik2n.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=380&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/548731/original/file-20230918-15-8qik2n.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=380&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/548731/original/file-20230918-15-8qik2n.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=477&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/548731/original/file-20230918-15-8qik2n.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=477&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/548731/original/file-20230918-15-8qik2n.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=477&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">European whalers and killer whales on a hunt towards the end of whaling in Eden, some time between 1910 and 1920.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Eden Killer Whale Museum</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Where did they go?</h2>
<p>Eden’s whaling station did not process any whales after 1928, as whale numbers had plummeted. The killer whales had already begun to vanish. </p>
<p>Why did they leave? We don’t know for sure, but hypotheses include a lack of other food or even a breach of the Law of the Tongue by whalers. </p>
<p>What we do know is the group has never returned, and our new DNA evidence suggests that Old Tom’s group does not have any descendants in our oceans today.</p>
<p>Since they left, there have been <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-04-28/killer-whale-pod-spotted-off-nsw-far-south-coast/101012770">only a handful</a> of killer whale sightings off Eden. </p>
<p>While they are gone, they are not forgotten. The legacy of the killer whales of Eden lives on among Thaua people and local communities.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/213556/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>On New South Wales’ southern coast, First Nations groups and European whalers hunted alongside orcas. But what happened to this unusual group?Isabella Reeves, PhD Candidate, Flinders UniversitySteven Holmes, Traditional knowledge holder, Indigenous KnowledgeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2137562023-10-12T02:05:43Z2023-10-12T02:05:43Z3 key moments in Indigenous political history Victorian school students didn’t learn about<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/552706/original/file-20231009-15-5i6241.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=385%2C0%2C4999%2C3039&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/elderly-high-teacher-conducting-lesson-classroom-2268629467">shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><blockquote>
<p>I never learned about this in school!</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This is an all-too familiar response from those learning Indigenous histories in Australia. </p>
<p>The recent take-up of false claims – such as that a Voice to Parliament would result in “<a href="https://theconversation.com/there-are-two-sides-to-the-no-campaign-on-the-voice-who-are-they-and-why-are-they-opposed-to-it-212362">special privileges</a>” — suggests large gaps in public understanding of the Indigenous political movements that preceded the Voice.</p>
<p>Considering what children have learnt in our schools in the past, this should not surprise us.</p>
<p><a href="https://findanexpert.unimelb.edu.au/scholarlywork/1815069-does-curriculum-fail-indigenous-political-aspirations%3F-sovereignty-and-australian-history-and-social-studies-curriculum">Our research</a>, soon to be published in the <a href="https://journals.ub.umu.se/index.php/njedh/index">Nordic Journal of Educational History</a>, shows that for over 100 years, the Victorian school curriculum has failed to give generations of students the chance to learn about Indigenous political movements.</p>
<h2>What we did</h2>
<p>Given Australia didn’t have a national curriculum until 2010, we looked at Victorian curriculum documents from the past 120 years to get a sense of what children have been taught over this time. We compared this with what Indigenous political campaigns were expressing at the time.</p>
<p>We found Indigenous political movements were largely missing from Victorian curriculum materials.</p>
<p>When they were included, it was in very limited ways that did not accurately reflect the diversity and depth of Indigenous standpoints, methods, and objectives. </p>
<p>We found the Victorian curriculum had routinely failed to grapple with Indigenous sovereignty.</p>
<p>In particular, we noticed there were three key moments in Indigenous political history that were missing.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-1881-maloga-petition-a-call-for-self-determination-and-a-key-moment-on-the-path-to-the-voice-197796">The 1881 Maloga petition: a call for self-determination and a key moment on the path to the Voice</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>1. 1880s Coranderrk Campaign</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.coranderrk.com/our-history">Coranderrk</a> was an Aboriginal reserve established by the colony of Port Philip in 1863 on Wurundjeri land.</p>
<p>The Wurundjeri community at Coranderrk, which also included people from other Kulin nations, cultivated a highly successful farm. Because this farm was coveted by settlers, they pressured the colonial government to shut down the reserve and sell the land. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Coranderrk Aboriginal Station sketch." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/552468/original/file-20231006-29-8jj01t.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=14%2C14%2C613%2C189&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/552468/original/file-20231006-29-8jj01t.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=192&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552468/original/file-20231006-29-8jj01t.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=192&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552468/original/file-20231006-29-8jj01t.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=192&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552468/original/file-20231006-29-8jj01t.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=242&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552468/original/file-20231006-29-8jj01t.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=242&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552468/original/file-20231006-29-8jj01t.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=242&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Coranderrk Aboriginal Station, 1889 sketch. Wikimedia Commons.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The Coranderrk community staged a sustained <a href="http://www.minutesofevidence.com.au/the-coranderrk-story/">public campaign</a> to protect their land. They wrote letters and petitions to ministers and newspapers and sent deputations to Melbourne. </p>
<p>Their efforts culminated in the <a href="http://www.minutesofevidence.com.au/the-coranderrk-story/#:%7E:text=The%201881%20Parliamentary%20Coranderrk%20Inquiry%20marked%20the%20only%20occasion%20in,to%20give%20evidence%20on%20matters">1881 Parliamentary Coranderrk Inquiry</a>.</p>
<p>The inquiry drew sustained attention to Aboriginal peoples’ aspirations for land and for the end of policies of “protection”. While ultimately unsuccessful, the inquiry and campaign created a lasting public record of Aboriginal activism and testimony. The Coranderrk campaign is crucial for understanding Aboriginal experiences of political processes.</p>
<p>Yet we found the Coranderrk campaign was not included at all in the historical Victorian curriculum documents we examined. </p>
<p>Instead, curriculum documents from this period tended to depict Aboriginal people as a “dying race”. They tended to justify settler violence as a “natural” response to adverse conditions on the colonial frontier.</p>
<h2>2. 1960s-ending assimilation</h2>
<p>The momentum of Aboriginal political movements grew in the post-war era. </p>
<p>There was the 1965 <a href="https://aiatsis.gov.au/explore/1965-freedom-ride">Freedom Ride</a> (modelled on those in the US) through New South Wales, and the fight to retain the sole remaining Aboriginal reserve at <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-12-21/lake-tyers-history-piece/5170896">Lake Tyers</a> in Victoria in the same year. These exposed how assimilation legislation that claimed to enable Aboriginal people’s access to economic and social “equality” in fact only denied them those rights. </p>
<p>The modern land rights movement was born when in 1966, <a href="https://www.nma.gov.au/defining-moments/resources/wave-hill-walk-off">Vincent Lingiari</a> – a Gurindji man upon whose lands the Wave Hill cattle station was located – led a strike in protest of the poor working conditions the Gurindji people endured. This came to be known as the Wave Hill Walkoff.</p>
<p>It became a struggle for control over the land. The Gurindji people who were strikers remained for seven years as illegal “occupiers” of their own Country.</p>
<p>We found these growing aspirations for rights and land were not reflected in the curriculum. Through the mid-20th century until the late 1960s, the curriculum focused mainly on British history. </p>
<p>We found celebratory narratives of figures like Captain Cook, William Dampier and Major Mitchell, and the growth of industry and the Australian “nation”.</p>
<p>Where Indigenous people were present in the curriculum, they were presented as relics of the past rather than political agents in their own right.</p>
<h2>3. 1988 Treaty campaign</h2>
<p>On January 26 1988, as Australia celebrated the 200th anniversary of the arrival of the first fleet into Kamay (now Botany Bay), over 40,000 people <a href="https://deadlystory.com/page/culture/history/The_1988_Bicentenary_Protest">marched</a> through the streets of Sydney with red, black and yellow protest banners and chants of “White Australia has a black history”.</p>
<p>A few months later, on Jawoyn country east of Katherine in the Northern Territory, the Northern and Central Land Councils presented the <a href="https://aiatsis.gov.au/explore/barunga-statement">Barunga Statement</a> to then-prime minister Bob Hawke. It called for a treaty between the Commonwealth and Indigenous nations, and for the recognition of sovereignty. </p>
<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/before-the-barunga-declaration-there-was-the-barunga-statement-and-hawkes-promise-of-treaty-206613">Hawke committed</a> to work towards a treaty, but recognising prior Indigenous sovereignty proved a major stumbling block. </p>
<p>A later <a href="https://catalogue.nla.gov.au/catalog/7832149">Senate Standing Committee</a> tasked with investigating the feasibility of a treaty recommended focusing on education and attitudinal change first.</p>
<p>Unfortunately this history was not well represented in the curriculum material we studied. This history is crucial for understanding how national representation and treaty have long been a part of Indigenous demands for political change. After the bicentenary protests, <a href="https://www.theage.com.au/education/the-great-history-debate-20040209-gdx9x8.html">curriculum shifted</a> to include more Indigenous perspectives, but this was followed by backlash known as the “<a href="https://www.mup.com.au/books/the-history-wars-paperback-softback">history wars</a>” (a divisive public debate about whether or not acknowledging past violence against Aboriginal people represented a “black armband view” of history).</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1703764849979785586"}"></div></p>
<h2>Is Australia’s curriculum changing?</h2>
<p><a href="https://v9.australiancurriculum.edu.au/">A new version</a> of the Australian curriculum (which is used by the states to guide their own curricula), was released in 2022 and will be implemented in coming years. </p>
<p>It includes a focus on “truth-telling” within the broader history of Australia. This could signal an important shift from past practices. (Unfortunately, this shift will occur after the Voice referendum).</p>
<p>But it may address some of the failings our research identified.</p>
<p>The new Year 10 course in the national curriculum suggests class discussion of the <a href="https://aiatsis.gov.au/explore/day-of-mourning">Day of Mourning</a>, the <a href="https://pilbarastrike.org/">Pilbara strike</a>, the Wave Hill walk off, the <a href="https://theconversation.com/a-short-history-of-the-aboriginal-tent-embassy-an-indelible-reminder-of-unceded-sovereignty-174693">1972 Tent Embassy</a>, and more.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://v9.australiancurriculum.edu.au/f-10-curriculum/learning-areas/history-7-10/year-10/content-description?subject-identifier=HASHISY10&content-description-code=AC9HH10K10&detailed-content-descriptions=0&hide-ccp=0&hide-gc=0&side-by-side=1&strands-start-index=0&subjects-start-index=0&view=quick">revised content</a> also lists for discussion key historical individuals, organisations, and the <a href="https://v9.australiancurriculum.edu.au/f-10-curriculum/learning-areas/history-7-10/year-10/content-description?subject-identifier=HASHISY10&content-description-code=AC9HH10K11&detailed-content-descriptions=0&hide-ccp=0&hide-gc=0&side-by-side=1&strands-start-index=0&subjects-start-index=0&view=quick">methods used</a> to campaign for change.</p>
<p>While highlighting Indigenous political movements can help build understanding of Indigenous aspirations, the curriculum still does not directly grapple with Indigenous sovereignty as a concept. </p>
<p>This is why organisations such as the <a href="https://www.niyec.com/">National Indigenous Youth Education Coalition</a>, through the <a href="https://learnourtruth.com/">Learn Our Truth campaign</a>, have called for schools to reflect on what Indigenous sovereignty means and to teach the history of colonisation.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/213756/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mati Keynes receives funding from the Australian Centre.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Archie Thomas receives funding from the Australian Centre.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Beth Marsden receives funding from the Australian Centre.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Samara Hand receives funding from the Australian Centre and is also a co-founder and director at the National Indigenous Youth Education Coalition.</span></em></p>For over 100 years, the Victorian school curriculum has failed to give generations of students the chance to learn about Indigenous political movements.Mati Keynes, McKenzie Postdoctoral Research Fellow, The University of MelbourneArchie Thomas, Chancellor's Research Fellow, University of Technology SydneyBeth Marsden, Postdoctoral Research FellowSamara Hand, PhD Candidate - UNSW Law & Justice, UNSW SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2150502023-10-09T19:10:18Z2023-10-09T19:10:18Z‘I can’t argue away the shame’: frontier violence and family history converge in David Marr’s harrowing and important new book<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/552213/original/file-20231004-27-2g2mzv.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=35%2C5%2C3952%2C2988&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Drawing by an Aboriginal boy, Oscar, of a Native Police operation c.1897 near Camooweal.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Oscarnativepolice.jpg">National Library of Australia, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Cultural capital is a rare and precious commodity. It is earned by doing – with wit, rigour and imagination. Being born to privilege may help in its accumulation, but that is not sufficient. These days, especially, privilege can be an impediment. </p>
<p>The advantages of David Marr’s birth proved more complicated than they first seemed, but attuned him to hypocrisy and made him a better observer. For five decades, he has honed his skills as an eloquent writer, dogged researcher and witty interlocutor with a strong moral core. </p>
<p>As a journalist and author of acclaimed biographies of <a href="https://www.allenandunwin.com/browse/book/David-Marr-Barwick-9781741147209">Sir Garfield Barwick</a> and <a href="https://www.penguin.com.au/books/patrick-white-9780143790860">Patrick White</a>, he has become a trusted guide in the endless quest for public sense-making. His journey from a privileged son of upper middle class Sydney to wise national witness is captured in the 567 pages of <a href="https://www.blackincbooks.com.au/books/my-country">My Country</a>, the compelling collection of a “few” of his speeches and articles. </p>
<p>Over a lifetime, Marr has earned a fortune in cultural capital. He has now decided to spend some of it. </p>
<hr>
<p><em>Review: Killing for Country – David Marr (Black Inc.)</em></p>
<hr>
<p>The release of his harrowing and important book <a href="https://www.blackincbooks.com.au/books/killing-country">Killing for Country</a> was timed to influence the nation-defining referendum on October 14. Four years ago Marr discovered another complication of his privilege: his forebears’ role in murdering scores of First Peoples during the land grabs that preceded the creation of Australia. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/552199/original/file-20231004-26-8uwgi8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/552199/original/file-20231004-26-8uwgi8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/552199/original/file-20231004-26-8uwgi8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=918&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552199/original/file-20231004-26-8uwgi8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=918&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552199/original/file-20231004-26-8uwgi8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=918&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552199/original/file-20231004-26-8uwgi8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1153&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552199/original/file-20231004-26-8uwgi8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1153&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552199/original/file-20231004-26-8uwgi8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1153&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>When Marr learned of this history, it was as though he had stepped into quicksand. Killing for Country is not the generic “why weren’t we told?” cry that has echoed around the continent for decades, and still resonates, but something personal. And as Marr discovered over years of painstaking research, the truth was much more brutal than he could have imagined. “I can’t argue away the shame that overcame me,” he writes. </p>
<p>Like most Australians of his generation, Marr grew up in a family and a nation that were good at secrets. Making your own life was a virtue, curiosity about those who came before was neither encouraged nor rewarded. In this, as he writes, “my blindness was so Australian”.</p>
<p>The killings that soaked the Great South Land with blood were documented in official memoranda tied with ribbon and shipped back to London, reported extensively in the press, and described in diaries and letters. They were the subject of periodic court cases and public inquiries. </p>
<p>Yet these records were persistently ignored. Many were destroyed. The public inquiries were rarely acted upon. Diligent historians like <a href="https://www.austlit.edu.au/austlit/page/A112549">Noel Loos</a>, <a href="https://www.austlit.edu.au/austlit/page/A34772">Henry Reynolds</a> and <a href="https://www.britannica.com/contributor/Raymond-Evans/9835864">Raymond Evans</a> were undertaking important work, scrolling through old newspapers in obscure country towns, but for most such a task was impossibly daunting. As a result, the trail died with time. </p>
<p>Crucially, many of the descendants of those First Peoples who survived and remembered often also chose to try to forget. The weight of the horror was too great.</p>
<p>This was perfect terrain for the myth of a dying race to take root and flower. And so it did. The newly minted Australians of the 20th century convinced themselves the killings that had once filled the pages of newspapers, and even became the subject of bestselling novels, were either necessary or not that bad, really. A <a href="https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/86180397">poem</a> that featured in many newspapers a decade before Federation included the lines:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>We have no record of a bygone shame<br>
No red-writ histories of woe to weep.<br></p>
</blockquote>
<p>At the time, the killings in northern Australia were ferocious.</p>
<p>Secrecy and denial were baked into the founding of the nation, from the shame of convict origins to the violence of settlement. Australia was shaped with bloodshed and trauma.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/552444/original/file-20231006-29-oizrxv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/552444/original/file-20231006-29-oizrxv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/552444/original/file-20231006-29-oizrxv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=482&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552444/original/file-20231006-29-oizrxv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=482&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552444/original/file-20231006-29-oizrxv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=482&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552444/original/file-20231006-29-oizrxv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=606&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552444/original/file-20231006-29-oizrxv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=606&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552444/original/file-20231006-29-oizrxv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=606&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A skirmish between mounted police and Indigenous people near Creen Creek, Queensland, 1876.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Skirmish_near_Creen_Creek.jpg">Ebenezer and David Syme, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Historical quicksand</h2>
<p>Marr found himself sinking into the historical quicksand of the violent reality after he tried to answer a question from an elderly uncle about his great grandmother Maud. There seemed to be a connection to the Queensland Native Police, and Jim Graham turned to his brilliant nephew to learn more. It seemed that Maud’s father Reg Uhr and his brother D’arcy had been vigilant members of the force. That fact was in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_native_police">Wikipedia</a>, but there was much more to learn. </p>
<p>As Marr soon discovered, the scale and details were mind boggling. </p>
<p>The Blackfella Films series <a href="https://www.sbs.com.au/ondemand/tv-series/the-australian-wars">The Australian Wars</a> for SBS brought some of this to our screens last year and is now finding global audiences, scooping national and international awards. The violence of the Queensland frontier was even more vicious and protracted than in Tasmania. Native Police had first been used in New South Wales, but the unprecedented violence in Queensland was applied across northern Australia</p>
<p>In the last decade, scholars including <a href="https://www.britannica.com/contributor/Raymond-Evans/9835864">Raymond Evans</a>, <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/queensland-review/article/abs/robert-orstedjensen-frontier-history-revisited-colonial-queensland-and-the-history-war-brisbane-lux-mundi-2011-isbn-9-7814-6638-6822-278-pp-2700/D50A7BE77FAB32F8D28DBD863CA63957">Robert Orsted-Jensen</a>, <a href="https://www.uqp.com.au/books/the-secret-war-a-true-history-of-queenslands-native-police">Jonathan Richards</a>, <a href="https://www.arc.gov.au/news-publications/media/making-difference-publication/story-outback-native-mounted-police">Heather Burke</a>, <a href="https://archaeologyonthefrontier.com/the-team/lynley-wallis/">Lynley Wallis</a>, <a href="https://cairnshistory.com.au/media-release-dr-timothy-bottoms-publishes-results-of-extensive-research/">Timothy Bottoms</a> and others, have reassessed the number of lives lost. </p>
<p>The 442 officers and 927 troopers of the Queensland Native Police are now considered responsible for <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2467836">the deaths</a> of 41,040 Indigenous people in that colony between 1859 and 1897, and approximately 3,500 in the decade before Queensland became a separate colony.</p>
<p>If the 20,640 Aboriginal people killed by private sorties, using guns and poison, and the estimated 1,500 colonisers killed by Aboriginal attacks are added, a horrifying tally of 66,681 is reached – in Queensland alone. At federation, its settler population was <a href="https://www.britannica.com/place/Queensland-state-Australia/Federation-and-the-state-of-Queensland">498,129</a>. It is now estimated that the Indigenous population of Queensland before the colonialists arrived was at least 350,000.</p>
<p>Developing a narrative of the role one’s forebears played in this murderous business is not a task to be taken on lightly. These stories mess with the heads of even the most experienced and detached researchers. If it is your own family, even if they were people you never knew, it has an even more troubling quality. An Indigenous colleague put it simply: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Your mob wrote down the colonial records, the diaries, and newspapers. You do the work. You tell that story. It’s your story.</p>
</blockquote>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-australian-war-memorial-must-deal-properly-with-the-frontier-wars-203851">The Australian War Memorial must deal properly with the frontier wars</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Republic of newspapers</h2>
<p>In many ways, the newspapers hold the key. They are a dominant source in Marr’s long, eloquent and detailed book. Using them is the perfect match of author and subject.</p>
<p>As a journalist, Marr is alert to the limits of his profession. His retelling of the battle to maintain the integrity of the Gazette – one of the several important early papers in Sydney – by Anne Howe, the widow who inherited it in 1829, glistens on the page. </p>
<p>In the 19th century, the colonies that later became a nation were distinguished by the vigour of their newspapers. The production of newspapers went hand in glove with the establishment of towns and regions. Most towns had at least one. Their owners were often prominent businessmen with local authority. The print culture was so vibrant that one British observer, R.E.N. Twopeny, described antipodean society in his influential report <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/16664/16664-h/16664-h.htm">Town Life in Australia</a> as a “land of newspapers”.</p>
<p>The newspapers of the day were often partisan, never shy of a fight. They could be eloquent and sarcastic. They were ready to settle scores, advance the interests of their owners, and blacklist journalists like <a href="https://halloffame.melbournepressclub.com/article/carl-feilberg">Carl Feilberg</a> and <a href="https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/data/UQ_269444/ff4_3_2009_p18_21.pdf?Expires=1696643581&Key-Pair-Id=APKAJKNBJ4MJBJNC6NLQ&Signature=b5Q%7EUe-P3NDvJ7Fqc8waCi2K72BMJUp%7ETtW8ZKpBa7wqEqx-PUP2Ui0c2ljas1yau4txHIqOWFI%7E-hgoSB5Bgy5xSXlLeA%7EAP6leLCZQAlH6O-xal72w%7EQNaxpF%7EEcLVJL6HsA7vagbXCUT52Mp%7EJO00lLNjxoxzaKjIDxN71vy-I7OreUqxkYb%7EP59WHobrSpvmS5tgEiME%7E4mdLZmsIwrJMukNXsi7nMukWxZn4e4WbVxmio01un4qI8FqD-iL5dygFsCuBugtvGXHzE0fBprojVpA0s%7EL7zXCb3EJvoxi5NfjIIgdEolzRxTeCLKvZOcDspPV2ctNSpAsNU1cow__">Arthur Vogan</a> who challenged the prevailing established viewpoint. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/552441/original/file-20231006-17-o6ad33.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/552441/original/file-20231006-17-o6ad33.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/552441/original/file-20231006-17-o6ad33.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=744&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552441/original/file-20231006-17-o6ad33.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=744&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552441/original/file-20231006-17-o6ad33.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=744&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552441/original/file-20231006-17-o6ad33.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=935&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552441/original/file-20231006-17-o6ad33.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=935&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552441/original/file-20231006-17-o6ad33.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=935&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Carl Feilberg (1884).</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Carl_Adolf_Feilberg_(1844-1887)_c1884.jpg">Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But the newspapers also reported what was happening in unflinching language. Marr has drawn on this to recreate the business of claiming land, filling it with sheep and cattle, establishing towns and businesses, and “dispersing” (killing) those who had always been there. </p>
<p>Marr acknowledges the role his partner Sebastian Tesoriero played in finding and testing many of these sources. As archives closed during the COVID years, Tesoriero scoured Trove and became expert in tracing and interpreting the events reported in their pages. Trove keeps the focus tight. The digitised records of old newspapers, searchable in many ways, makes the task of following the story more straightforward than it was in the days of yellowing collections of bound newspapers or infuriatingly wobbly microfiche. </p>
<p>Killing for Country reverberates with details like <a href="https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/3144022">this one</a>, from the Brisbane Courier in 1874, about Native Police assaults at Skull Camp on the Palmer River goldfields: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>A day or so after the murders [of three members of the Straher family] had been committed, Mr Inspector Coward, with Sub Inspectors Townshend and Douglas, came upon the black vagabonds and “quietly dispersed” them.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Killing for Country bristles with similar snippets from newspapers that not only provide insights into the thinking of the time, but underline the point that this was not happening in secret. In the land of newspapers, anyone who was paying attention knew what was going on in their name. The secrecy came later.</p>
<p>Marr supplements newspaper reports with diary entries and official reports, drawing on the support of a team of skilled archivists. But Killing for Country is very much a bottom-up, close-focus history, driven by story and character. It is primarily the story of Marr’s forebears. This provides him with a powerful field of vision, though it sometimes means the reader needs to deduce the wider context. </p>
<p>The machinations in official circles are rarely foregrounded, but they are there, shaping the way his protagonists behave. This is a deliberate and effective technique. There are many reports of the snide judgements of officials who were critical of the squatters, but who invariably eventually acquiesced to their demands. </p>
<p>Marr notes changing policies from London, their interpretation by local officials, and the efforts of the squatters to ensure their interests prevailed. As this is primarily a rich work of narrative, not analysis, readers are invited to draw their own conclusions.</p>
<p>Queensland was a violent place, less a product of London than the other colonies. In 1867, the Port Denison Times <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/cambridge-world-history-of-genocide/nineteenthcentury-frontier-genocides/519F4DA6B00BD883FCFCCE645D10CAED">advocated</a> that for every white life lost “we take, say fifty”. The Native Police in the new colony were given a mission, headed by Commissioner David Seymour, who also ran the constabulary police for nearly 30 years. They were led by privileged white men who had little training, and were often fuelled by alcohol. They used Aboriginal men from distant communities, enticing them into service with money, guns, food and horses. </p>
<p>Fine words from officials were of little consequence in such circumstances. Raymond Evans has highlighted this in <a href="https://aiatsis.gov.au/sites/default/files/docs/digitised_collections/remove/92144.pdf">an exchange between a Catholic missionary and the Minister for Lands in 1876</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Sometimes this [struggle] is styled war, although mere disparity of forces, especially of weapons and the helplessness of the black in such a contest suggests “massacre” as the appropriate term.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>It is little wonder that many of the officers died young, drank to excess and that the periods of service of those on the ground in these ferociously hot and remote areas were often short. As Jonathan Richards has documented, <a href="https://www.academia.edu/1576321/The_Native_Police_of_Queensland">mass desertions by Aboriginal troopers were common</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/552257/original/file-20231005-29-jqtpoy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/552257/original/file-20231005-29-jqtpoy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/552257/original/file-20231005-29-jqtpoy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=276&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552257/original/file-20231005-29-jqtpoy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=276&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552257/original/file-20231005-29-jqtpoy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=276&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552257/original/file-20231005-29-jqtpoy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=347&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552257/original/file-20231005-29-jqtpoy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=347&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552257/original/file-20231005-29-jqtpoy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=347&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Native Police detachment at Musgrave, Queensland, c.1898.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Nativepolicemusgrave.jpg">Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-a-slave-state-how-blackbirding-in-colonial-australia-created-a-legacy-of-racism-187782">Friday essay: a slave state - how blackbirding in colonial Australia created a legacy of racism</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>On-the-ground colonialism</h2>
<p>Marr’s account is no ordinary exercise in family history, not a simple who-do-you-think-you-are in search of a few skeletons and the odd black sheep. It develops into a monumental study of the on-the-ground nature of colonisation in New South Wales and Queensland, revealed through the stories of settlers who came in search of fortune for themselves and their extended families. </p>
<p>The complicated family genealogy Marr uncovers reveals a rich cast of individuals who grabbed the chances the new colony offered: buying and selling, whaling, importing shiploads of sheep to fill the vast acres they claimed, working their way into the centres of political and commercial power, making and losing fortunes. </p>
<p>A key character is Richard Jones, a self-interested man who arrived in New South Wales in 1809 as a clerk. He thrived, learning how to use his power for self-advancement, becoming a member of the Legislative Council and president of the Bank of NSW. Sometimes his pragmatic Christianity helped him draw the line, but he had no sympathy for Aboriginal people. As Marr writes, </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Many dismissed him in his own day as pious and penny pinching. But Richard Jones was a great white carp in the colonial pond, half-hidden in the weeds, always feeding and always dangerous.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Marr’s forebears, the Uhrs, became part of Jones’ world through marriage. The links are clear, but the narrative includes a lot of people across several generations often with similar names. At times, I wished for a sketch of a family tree to help keep the characters in place and supplement the maps and fine drawings of individuals.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/552212/original/file-20231004-19-nvrrdc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/552212/original/file-20231004-19-nvrrdc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/552212/original/file-20231004-19-nvrrdc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552212/original/file-20231004-19-nvrrdc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552212/original/file-20231004-19-nvrrdc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552212/original/file-20231004-19-nvrrdc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552212/original/file-20231004-19-nvrrdc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552212/original/file-20231004-19-nvrrdc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">David Marr.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.blackincbooks.com.au/authors/david-marr">Lorrie Graham/Black Inc.</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>When Jones was declared bankrupt in Sydney in 1843, with debts of more than £48,000, he evaded most of his creditors. He set up shell companies and made his way north. Before he left, he secured his brother-in-law, “Edmund Blucher Uhr of Brisbane River Moreton Bay”, the position of Magistrate of the Territory and its Dependencies in 1845. It was typical of the way he used his personal capital to benefit his family. When times got tough, Jones and the Uhrs were always ready to use the special pleading their status bequeathed them to seek the security of a government job – as a magistrate, sergeant at arms, and as officers in the Native Police. </p>
<p>Before long, Jones had built another empire. His extended family claimed land and established businesses that depended on removing the people who had always been there. Their role in the violent creation of Maryborough is captured with an unflinching eye. </p>
<p>At the core of this narrative is a simple truism of colonialism: land is the ultimate commodity, the raw material of wealth. They were among the 450 squatters who had seized an area larger than Victoria before Queensland’s separation in 1859.</p>
<p>By the time the Native Police were disbanded, decades after Reg Uhr died and D’arcy had moved on to other battles in the Northern Territory and Western Australia, the land-owning squatters had lost much (but not all) of their power. By federation most of the properties claimed with such brutal force were owned by enterprises based in Sydney, Melbourne and London.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/in-the-australian-wars-rachel-perkins-dispenses-with-the-myth-aboriginal-people-didnt-fight-back-190967">In The Australian Wars, Rachel Perkins dispenses with the myth Aboriginal people didn't fight back</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Australian secrecy</h2>
<p>Killing for Country begins with Marr’s quest to learn more about his great grandmother – an old lady with a crumpled face whom he last saw when he was eight, even though she lived for another decade. But she remains mysterious. </p>
<p>We learn that Maud’s grandmother appealed to the Colonial Secretary for her father Reg – who, after leaving the Native Police, had become a disreputable Cloncurry police magistrate and drunk for 20 years – to be transferred south. She wrote, </p>
<blockquote>
<p>he has three children whom he is anxious to have Educated but he cannot afford to send them down here to school, so I do earnestly trust you will have him removed as soon as opportunity offers for my sake as well as his.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Reg died of a stroke a few days later, in August 1888, at just 44. The Western Champion described him as “a white man in every sense”.</p>
<p>What became of Maud and her siblings remains a mystery. How did she land in Sydney? What did she know of her father’s and uncle’s activities? Marr writes that no one told stories about her. She became invisible and silent. </p>
<p>This is the bedrock of Australian secrecy. Thousands of little stories that never made the newspapers or official reports. The First Peoples of this continent have, despite the catastrophic ruptures of forced relocation and child removal, nurtured their ancient and family storytelling; those who came later failed to even tell their stories to their children. This fostered a century of silence that made it possible for myths to flourish unchallenged, as the referendum “debate” has demonstrated in recent months.</p>
<p>Killing for Country does brilliantly for one group of families and a vast swathe of Queensland and New South Wales what a robust, locally grounded truth-telling process might do for the whole nation: it shines a light into the dark shameful corners of our collective national experience. What we will find when we look and listen won’t be pretty, but it is necessary to confront – not to be captives of history, but to learn from it and transcend it. </p>
<p>The Yolngu word is <em><a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-08-10/makarrata-explainer-yolngu-word-more-than-synonym-for-treaty/8790452">Makaratta</a></em>: to come together after struggle.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>An earlier version of this article mistakenly referred to Professor Heather Burke as Helen Burke.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/215050/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Julianne Schultz is working with Blackfella Films on the SBS series The Idea of Australia.</span></em></p>Killing for Country does brilliantly for one group of families what a robust, locally grounded truth-telling process might do for the whole nation.Julianne Schultz, Professor Emeritus of Media and Culture, Griffith University, Griffith UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2104672023-08-31T20:00:16Z2023-08-31T20:00:16ZFriday essay: traps, rites and kurrajong twine – the incredible ingenuity of Indigenous fishing knowledge<p>Standing on a ferry chugging across Sydney Harbour, it’s still possible to imagine the city as it was in 1788 – before the span of the bridge, before the marinas and yachts, before buildings were planted onto that sloping, rocky landscape. Pockets of bush still reach down towards the water, where gums and angophoras curl around sandstone coves carved out by the sea water.</p>
<p>Ferries stop at Mosman, Manly and Milsons Point, where fishers share the wharf with boats and commuters. They perch on folding chairs next to white buckets of bait, or they plonk down on the wooden beams, rod in hand, their legs dangling over the edge as they sit.</p>
<p>Yet these places were also occupied, named and fished, long before “Sydney” appeared on any charts. And it’s at one of these harbour places, at Kay-ye-my, or perhaps Goram Bullagong (present-day Manly Cove and Mosman Bay), that our first story of Indigenous fishing is set. (After all, Kiarabilli or Kiarabily – the site of present-day Milsons Point and Kirribilli – is believed to translate into English as “good fishing spot”.)</p>
<p><em>Malgun</em> – the amputation of the joint of a young girl’s left little finger – is one of many Aboriginal fishing rites that took place and was practised along much of the east coast of what’s now known as Australia. Across the continent, diverse and adaptable fishing practices, recipes and rituals were a cornerstone of Indigenous life at the time of first contact – and many remain so to this day.</p>
<p>Like <em>keeparra</em> (the knocking out of teeth) and scarification, <em><a href="https://dictionaryofsydney.org/entry/daringa">malgun</a></em> is a custom rich with significance, an offering to the spirits. In this case, the little girl would be forever linked with the fish she had literally fed. And as these girls grew into women, that connection to the underwater world was thought to offer good fortune and prowess with a fishing line. </p>
<p>It’s thought that <em>malgun</em> was also about the practicalities of fishing, since a shorter left pinky could apparently wind a hand line in more nimbly. The practice was observed among Aboriginal communities along the eastern seaboard of Australia (and featured around the country in various forms). But its meaning was frequently misunderstood in early colonial encounters and is still open for speculation.</p>
<p>To make the line, or <em>currejun/garradjun</em>, Gadigal fisherwomen used the bark or the tender fibres of young kurrajong trees, which they soaked and pounded or sometimes chewed, scraping off the outer layers with a shell. The pliable strands were then worked into <a href="https://aiatsis.gov.au/publication/35662">fine strong thread</a>. The women cast out their handlines and quickly drew them back in on the strike, hand over hand, before the fish could shake off the hook.</p>
<p>I like to picture the women sitting on a beach or around a fire as they made their string, humming, singing and chatting. They rolled the fibres along their thighs methodically, slowly turning them into lengths of delicate but durable fishing twine. Even the name of this beautiful and distinctive tree provides a valuable historical link to a time when fishing dominated the physical, social and cultural life of coastal Aboriginal peoples. What they sang and nattered about, while swatting mosquitoes and shooing away curious children, we can only guess.</p>
<p>At the end of these lines, elegant fishhooks, or <em>burra</em>, made from carved abalone or turban shells were dropped over the side of their canoes, or nowies. In other parts of Australia, hooks made from a piece of tapered hardwood, bird talon or
bone have also been found. These “nowies were nothing more than a large piece of bark tied up at both ends with vines”, described the British officer Watkin Tench in his <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/3534/3534-h/3534-h.htm">account of early Sydney</a>.</p>
<p>Despite the nowies’ apparent flimsiness, the fisherwomen were master skippers. They paddled across the bays and out through the Heads, waves slapping at the sides of their precarious little vessels. That mobility was essential for Aboriginal communities around the harbour – such as the Gadigal, Gayamaygal, Wangal, and Darramurragal – who needed to chase shoals and find new grounds if the fishing was quiet at particular times of the year. Small fires were lit in the nowie on a platform of clay and weed before the craft was launched into the water from a snug harbour cove. </p>
<p>Then the fisherwoman perched inside and paddled to a favourite spot or two, often with a baby cradled in her lap and an infant on her shoulders or crouched beside her. Out on the water, she chewed crustaceans and shellfish, spitting some out into the water before jigging her pearlescent hook up and down like a lure. </p>
<p>This sort of berleying was practised all around Australia in the hope of generating a bit more action – thousands of years before punctured tins of cheap cat food dropped off the back of a tinnie to attract fish became the norm. When the fisherwoman threw the line overboard, she waited for that strike and tug from a whiting, dory or snapper, which would be quickly hauled aboard and charred on the waiting fire. And she sang as she fished, as <a href="https://www.allenandunwin.com/browse/book/Grace-Karskens-Colony-9781742373645">Grace Karskens</a> describes in her wonderful book on colonial Sydney, her voice carrying across the bays and inlets and down through the water to the fish below. </p>
<p>Those fishing songs also captured the attention of colonists, such as the colonial judge advocate <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/12565/12565-h/12565-h.htm">David Collins</a>, who described seeing Carangarang and Kurúbarabúla (the sister and wife of Bennelong, respectively) return from a canoe trip “to procure fish” and they “were keeping time with their paddles, responsive to the words of a song, in which they joined with much good humour and harmony”.</p>
<p>Some, like the French explorer Louis de Freycinet, were so transfixed by the songs they overheard bouncing over the water they attempted to write them down in <a href="https://www.sydney.edu.au/paradisec/australharmony/checklist-indigenous-music-1.php#005-2">musical notation</a>.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-on-listening-to-new-national-storytellers-61291">Friday essay: on listening to new national storytellers</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
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<h2>Fishing archives</h2>
<p>While women were the anointed shellfish gatherers in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities, as well as line fishers in the areas where that was practised, spearfishing was largely the preserve of men – and this continues to be the case today. Hunters stalked the water’s edge or stood in a canoe, looking for the telltale shadow of a dusky flathead or the flash of silver from a darting bream.</p>
<p>When the water was calm and clear enough, Aboriginal men around Warrane-Sydney Harbour and Kamay-Botany Bay were frequently seen lying across their nowies, faces fully submerged, peering through the cool blue with a spear at the ready. “This they do with such certainty, as rarely to miss their aim,” wrote the painter and engraver John Heaviside Clark in 1813. </p>
<p>At night, Aboriginal fishermen took the canoes out onto the water with their flaming hand torches held aloft. The <a href="https://catalogue.nla.gov.au/catalog/114667">light lured the fish to the boat’s side</a>, where they were speared by a barbed prong whittled out of bone, shell or hardwood. In the muddy mangroves of northern Australia, fires were sometimes lit on creek banks to attract barramundi, which swam towards the light and suffered the same fate. </p>
<p>Beautiful images from the early days of the colony demonstrate the country we can still see traces of today: folds in the landscape as it stretches out across the horizon, the bush reaching right down to the water’s edge, protected sandy coves perfect for camping and fishing. They also show us the centrality of fishing to
First Nations communities. These sources depict how Aboriginal people fished and what they caught, like a juicy snapper flailing on the end of a spear, or a fisherwoman managing both an infant and a fishing line in her nowie. The skill of these fishers and the abundance of fish are lasting impressions from these visual records.</p>
<p>While early colonial sketches and paintings give wonderful snapshots of Aboriginal fishers, they do so from a European perspective. Written accounts are similarly revealing, and we can be grateful for the faithful record of fishing practices and
winning catches they’ve produced. But we can’t forget that these people viewed First Nations societies through a distinctly colonial lens.</p>
<p>The early colonial view of Australia was mostly curious and enlightened, and colonists were often captivated by the extraordinary skills of Aboriginal fishers, as well as their depth of knowledge about their Country. Yet they were also
people of their time, who saw the British expansion in Australia as inevitable, and viewed Country as a resource awaiting exploitation.</p>
<p>Sometimes, vital Indigenous perspectives creep in. Scars on the mighty trunks of river red gums, or canoe trees, along the banks and flood plains of the Murray River reveal an Aboriginal presence long before any European record. Enormous
engravings of whales, fish and sharks etched into sandstone platforms around Sydney and into the rugged iron ore of Murujuga-Burrup Peninsula in Western Australia have a provenance thousands of years older than any colonial etching or
journal entry. Elaborate fish traps across the continent and the Torres Strait demonstrate intricate knowledge of seasonal and tidal fish aggregations.</p>
<p>Paintings in smoke-stained caves across northern Australia show equally distinctive Aboriginal readings of fishy feats and feasts. And the remnants of literally millions of seafood meals can be seen in middens around the continent
that cascade through dirt, sand and mud at the water’s edge. </p>
<p>These Indigenous archives give us a glimpse into fishing before European colonisation. They also reveal the ingenuity of pre-industrial First Nations communities, long before fish finders, weather apps and soft plastics.</p>
<p>Remnants of vast, curving fish traps, or Ngunnhu, made from river stones still lie near Brewarrina in central New South Wales. (There were even more Ngunnhu once, until they were pushed aside to make way for paddle-steamers taking the wool clip down to Adelaide in the late 19th century.)</p>
<p>In the early spring or during a large flow of fresh water after heavy rains, enormous numbers of fish would travel upriver, swelling the eddies and currents with a mass of writhing tails and fins. Aboriginal fishers – men and women from the Ngemba, Wonkamurra, Wailwan and Gomeroi nations – kept watch from grassy embankments above the river and, as soon as enough fish had entered the labyrinth of traps, they rolled large rocks across the openings, ensnaring them for a <a href="https://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-756525252/view?partId=nla.obj-756525911#page/n0/mode/1up">seasonal fish feast</a>. </p>
<p>These traps and weirs were also an early form of fisheries management – well before government regulations and research organisations – and remnants can be seen right across central and western New South Wales. Juvenile fish were carried in curved wooden coolamons and released behind the barriers on the smaller tributaries as a way of boosting stocks and ensuring fish for seasons to come.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.budjbim.com.au/">Budj Bim</a> eel traps at Lake Condah in southwest
Victoria were designed, built and maintained by the Gunditjmara people, who operated the series of channels, locks and weirs. Built at least 6,600 years ago, the traps have been redeveloped several times over several centuries, and they
demonstrate an ecologically sustainable management of this freshwater eel fishery that was adapted and lasted for thousands of years. What’s more, they can still be seen today.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-detective-work-behind-the-budj-bim-eel-traps-world-heritage-bid-71800">The detective work behind the Budj Bim eel traps World Heritage bid</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
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<p>Other traps were less permanent, but just as effective. When particular waterholes were low in the Baaka-Barwon–Darling river system in New South Wales, Barkindji people living along the river used wooden stakes, logs and sometimes stones to build shallow pens that trapped fish, yabbies and eels for easy pickings.</p>
<p>The ill-fated explorer William John Wills described a similar “arrangement for catching fish” somewhere north of Birdsville around the Georgina River, where he camped with Robert O’Hara Burke and the rest of their party in January 1861. The
trap consisted of “a small oval mud paddock about 12 feet by 8 feet, the sides of which were about nine inches above the bottom of the hole,” he wrote. The “top of the fence” was “covered with long grass, so arranged that the ends of the blades overhung scantily by several inches the sides of the hole.”</p>
<p>Periods of drought and seasonal dry weather could change rivers from torrential, turgid flows to the most meagre trickle – a chain of muddy holes through the landscape. Across northern Australia, seasons of wet and dry charged the landscape with weather cycles that pushed water across the floodplains of the northern savanna in great sheets, and then inevitably dried them out again.</p>
<p>But even low water could mean good fishing, since the fish would be forced to aggregate in particular waterholes, where they could be readily trapped and caught. While the grass might be parched and brittle up on the banks, the water
below was teeming with life; that was the time when Aboriginal people walked along the creek bottom, muddying the water and forcing the fish to rise and take in air where they were easily speared, clubbed or netted. </p>
<p>In the <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books/about/Gunanurang.html?id=I2CaNAAACAAJ&redir_esc=y">Kimberley</a>, when the dry season came and the floodwaters finally receded, rolls of spinifex were used to entangle fish that had been trapped in the
remaining waterholes. </p>
<h2>Fishing objects and artefacts</h2>
<p>Artefacts such as spears, hooks and nets also help reconstruct some of the changing ways and means of Indigenous fishing that predate European colonisation and continue to be used and modified long after it. These relics are as beautiful
as they were effective. </p>
<p>Kangaroo tail tendon was used to bind fishhooks in northern Australia. The prongs of spears (fish gigs or fizgigs) were hardened and polished and then attached to the long shaft using pieces of thread daubed with resin.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, nets made from lengths of finely twisted twine were so carefully knotted together that when <a href="https://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks/e00101.html">Governor Phillip</a> showed them to the white women in the colony, the elegant loops reminded them of English lace. Those nets came in all shapes and sizes and were highly prized possessions. To strengthen the nets’ fishing powers, Aboriginal people sang to them: their music and words, literally singing in the fish, were like charms for the Dreaming that cascaded through the weave. </p>
<p>In the area of what’s now known as Sydney, coastal tribes used small hoop nets to pick up lobsters, which hid in underwater crevasses on the edge of the harbour and along the beachside cliffs. Catch-and-cast nets trapped small numbers of fish in creeks and waterholes near the coast and could also be used to carry a feed of fish as families walked back to their camps along the well-worn walking tracks.</p>
<p>Further inland, Aboriginal people made large woven river nets, which could be held by hand or propped up along the bank. Once fixed in place, groups of people waded through the murky water, loudly beating the surface and driving the startled
fish into the mesh. </p>
<p>The nets were usually about four metres long and one metre deep – sizeable enough, considering every strand was gathered, spun and woven by hand. But one extraordinary account from the explorer Charles Sturt described how his exploration party on the Wambuul-Macquarie River in western New South Wales discovered a fishing net some 90 metres long in a Wiradjuri village they came across.</p>
<p>Other fishing methods have been recorded and described in oral histories, or they’ve been passed down and are practised still. These practices are a form of embodied or “living archives”, which is how we know about them today. Stories
of women diving deep underwater for shellfish, walking out across the rocks at low tide pulling off abalone, or wading through billabongs to pick up turtles, are common in accounts from the time and these practices are still maintained by many
Indigenous communities around Australia and the Torres Strait Islands. </p>
<p>Given such longstanding fishing connections, “sea rights” have been increasingly recognised by governments in legislating fisheries management. Back on the beach or riverbank, a fire is inevitably on the go in anticipation of a <a href="https://www.environment.nsw.gov.au/resources/cultureheritage/20120945CoastalHistory.pdf">fresh catch</a>. The fish is usually chucked on whole and eaten.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-moon-plays-an-important-role-in-indigenous-culture-and-helped-win-a-battle-over-sea-rights-119081">The Moon plays an important role in Indigenous culture and helped win a battle over sea rights</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Some of the environmental knowledge used by Traditional Owners seems astonishing in today’s context of mass-produced fishing lures and frozen bait from the local servo. <a href="https://catalogue.nla.gov.au/catalog/114667">One account from northern Australia</a> described a particularly large Golden Orb spider carefully killed to preserve its abdomen, which was then gently squeezed to milk its adhesive goo. Small fish, attracted to the carcass, would then get stuck to the dead spider before being delicately lifted ashore by nimble
hands. </p>
<p>Fish poisoning, using various berries, roots, leaves and stems, was also common throughout Australia. In the Kimberley around the Goonoonoorrang-Ord River in
Western Australia, Traditional Owners such as the Miriuwung, Kuluwaring, Gajerrabeng used crushed leaves from the freshwater mangrove (malawarn) to poison their prey, sweeping branches through the water until stunned fish started floating belly up. </p>
<p>Along the east coast it was wattle leaves that did the damage. The sunny, fragrant puffballs of two common acacias (<em>Acacia implexa</em> and <em>Acacia longifolia</em>) belie their potency as a fish poison. Once absorbed through the gills, antigens from the bruised leaves were quickly catastrophic for fish in little waterholes and
billabongs. <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books?id=QvwrAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false">There are even accounts</a> of eels gliding out of the water and into the bush along the Clarence River in northern New South Wales (known as Boorimbah to the Bundjalung and Ngunitiji to the Yaygir) in an attempt to escape poisoning from Aboriginal fishers. </p>
<p>Although these poisoning methods apparently had no effect on the edibility of the fish, the trick was to carefully manage the immersion of these toxic branches in the water – giving just enough poison to stun the fish , but not enough to knock out the whole waterhole. </p>
<p>That intimate knowledge and understanding of Country and its seasons wasn’t readily apparent to the early colonists. Watkin Tench was so perplexed by the unpredictability of fishing in Australia that he complained about spending all night out on Sydney Harbour for little result. The “universal voice of all professed fishermen”, he lamented in the 1790s in A Complete Account of the Settlement at Port Jackson, was that they had “never fished in a country where success was so precarious and uncertain”.</p>
<p>It was knowledge that came slowly to the colonists, over several generations. William Scott, the New South Wales colonial astronomer from 1856 to 1862, observed how the Worimi people were able to anticipate fishing seasons around Port Stephens on the New South Wales Mid North Coast. “By some unerring instinct the blacks knew within a day when the first of the great shoals [of sea mullet] would appear through the heads,” he explained.</p>
<p>For the Yolŋu in Arnhem Land, flowering of stringybark trees coincides with the shrinking of waterholes, where fish can be more readily netted and speared, or poisoned. And when the <a href="https://aiatsis.library.link/portal/Dharawal--seasons-and-climatic-cycles-compiled/8ypS2t3XXEc/">Dharawal people</a> of the Kamay and Shoalhaven region in New South Wales see the golden wattle flowers of the <em>Kai’arrewan (Acacia binervia)</em>, they know that the fish will be running in the rivers and prawns will be schooling in estuarine shallows. </p>
<p>In Queensland the movement and population of particular fish species have their own corresponding sign on land. The extent of the annual sea-mullet run in the cool winter months can be predicted by the numbers of rainbow lorikeets in late
autumn; if magpies are scarce in winter, numbers of luderick will also be low; and when the bush is ablaze with the fragrant sunny blooms of coastal wattle in early spring, surging schools of tailor can be expected just offshore. Although climate
change may shift these fishing markers in the natural world.</p>
<p>This knowledge was acquired by Australia’s Indigenous peoples through generations of observation and practice. What’s more, that deep understanding was as much about the spirit world as the natural. Neither can be properly comprehended
without reference to the other – although our own contemporary insights are often sketchy, since the sporadic observations of colonists are frequently the only available historical sources we have of Indigenous fishing practices, which had been developed over millennia.</p>
<p>Practical understanding was intimately entwined with spiritual readings of the land. First Nations Dreamings are systems of cultural values and observations: they created the world and are reflected in day-to-day observations of that life. These “<a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/233438480_Saltwater_People_spiritscapes_maritime_rituals_and_the_archaeology_of_Australian_indigenous_seascapes">spiritscapes</a>”, as the archaeologist Ian McNiven has called them, infused Country with cosmology. The natural and spirit worlds were one and the same. Country wasn’t inanimate – it
could feel and do. And for many Aboriginal people to this day, that knowledge remains a shaping, dynamic belief system.</p>
<p>There are accounts on the South Australian coastline of Aboriginal people ritually singing in dolphins or sharks to herd fish into man-made or natural enclosures on the Eyre and Yorke Peninsulas. In <a href="https://catalogue.nla.gov.au/catalog/1756993">Twofold Bay</a>, on Yuin Country in southern New South Wales, dolphins were similarly used to herd fish, and a totemic bond between killer whales and Aboriginal people was also observed and documented. </p>
<p>Why did Aboriginal communities around Sydney avoid eating sharks and stingrays? The water was full of them, but they were only ever eaten during times of food scarcity. William Bradley, a first lieutenant on the First Fleet, observed Aboriginal people catching “jew fish, snapper, mullet, mackerel, whiting, dory, rock cod and leatherjacket” throughout the summer, but they didn’t keep the sharks or rays. “There are great numbers of the sting ray and shark, both of which I have seen the natives throw away when given to them and often refuse them when offered”, he noted.</p>
<p>In Lutruwita-Tasmania, <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/24046726">archaeological excavations of middens</a> suggest Palawa people mysteriously avoided eating finfish altogether for the 3000 years prior to colonisation, hunting mammals and scavenging shellfish instead. Was it spiritual? A response to some sort of poisoning event? Or an economic decision to harvest easier resources (such as seals and abalone)? Did the community lose their knowledge of fishing, as some have argued? Or did they perhaps dispose of the bones somewhere else? No one really knows. </p>
<p>Some forms of Indigenous fishing inevitably became lost as Traditional Owners were dispossessed and disenfranchised of their lands and fisheries following the expansion of the colonial frontier post-1788. Many Indigenous practices were eventually superseded by new technologies. Other Indigenous fishers became active in the establishment of the commercial fishing industry in Australia, maintaining strong links to traditional knowledges, as well as adapting to modern fishing approaches and technologies.</p>
<p>Indigenous peoples have played and continue to play a prominent role in the history of Australian fishing. </p>
<p>Despite the ruptures of colonisation, the cultural and social cleavages wrought by disease, as well as frontier violence and dispossession, they remain a visible and vital part of Australian fishing culture as commercial and recreational fishers, industry partners and Traditional Owners of the vast natural resource that is Australia’s fisheries.</p>
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<p><em>This is an edited extract from <a href="https://www.penguin.com.au/books/the-catch-9781761342202">The Catch: Australia’s Love Affair with Fishing</a> by Anna Clark (Penguin).</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/210467/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Anna Clark has received funding from the Australian Research Council and is a member of the Recreational Fishing NSW Advisory Council. </span></em></p>Across the continent, diverse, adaptable fishing practices, recipes and rituals were a cornerstone of Indigenous life at the time of first contact – and many remain so to this day.Anna Clark, Professor in Public History, University of Technology SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2047562023-05-22T20:05:48Z2023-05-22T20:05:48ZStan Grant’s new book asks: how do we live with the weight of our history?<p>This month, journalist and public intellectual Stan Grant published his fifth book, <a href="https://www.harpercollins.com.au/9781460764022/the-queen-is-dead/">The Queen is Dead</a>. And last week, he abruptly stepped away from his career in the public realm, <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-05-19/stan-grant-media-target-racist-abuse-coronation-coverage-enough/102368652">citing</a> toxic racism enabled by social media, and betrayal on the part of his employer, the ABC. </p>
<p>“I was invited to contribute to the ABC’s coverage as part of a discussion about the legacy of the monarchy. I pointed out that the crown represents the invasion and theft of our land,” <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-05-19/stan-grant-media-target-racist-abuse-coronation-coverage-enough/102368652">he wrote</a> last Friday. “I repeatedly said that these truths are spoken with love for the Australia we have never been.” And yet, “I have seen people in the media lie and distort my words. They have tried to depict me as hate filled”. </p>
<p>Grant has worked as a journalist in Australia for more than three decades: first on commercial current affairs – and until this week, as a main anchor at the ABC, where he was an international affairs analyst and the host of the panel discussion show Q+A. The former role reflects his global work, reporting from conflict zones with esteemed international broadcasters such as CNN. His second book, <a href="https://www.harpercollins.com.au/9781460751985/talking-to-my-country/">Talking to my Country</a>, won the Walkley Book Award in 2016.</p>
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<p><em>Review: The Queen is Dead – Stan Grant (HarperCollins)</em></p>
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<p>In this new book, Grant yearns for a way to comprehend the forces, ideas and history that led to this cultural moment we inhabit. The book, which opens with him grappling with the monarchy and its legacy, is revealing in terms of his decision to step back from public life.</p>
<p>Released to coincide with <a href="https://theconversation.com/coronation-arrests-how-the-new-public-order-law-disrupted-protesters-once-in-a-lifetime-opportunity-205328">the coronation</a> of the new English monarch, Charles III, The Queen is Dead seethes with rage and loathing – hatred even – at the ideas that have informed the logic and structure of modernity. </p>
<p>Grant’s work examines the ideas that explain the West and modernity – and his own place as an Indigenous person of this land, from Wiradjuri, Kamilaroi and Dharawal country. That is: his work explores both who he is in the world and the ideas that tell the story of the modern world. He finds the latter unable to account for him.</p>
<p>“This week, I have been reminded what it is to come from the other side of history,” he writes in the book’s opening pages. “History itself that is written as a hymn to whiteness […] written by the victors and often written in blood.”</p>
<p>He asks “how do we live with the weight of this history?” And he explains the questions that have dominated his thinking: what is <a href="https://theconversation.com/whiteness-is-an-invented-concept-that-has-been-used-as-a-tool-of-oppression-183387">whiteness</a>, and what is it to live with catastrophe?</p>
<h2>The death of the white queen</h2>
<p>In his account, his rage is informed by the observation that the weight of this history was largely unexplored on the occasion of Queen Elizabeth II’s death last September. The death of the white queen is the touchpoint always returned to in this work – and the release of the book coincides with the apparently seamless transition to her heir, now King Charles III. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/527406/original/file-20230522-29-dcc0ot.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/527406/original/file-20230522-29-dcc0ot.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/527406/original/file-20230522-29-dcc0ot.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=917&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527406/original/file-20230522-29-dcc0ot.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=917&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527406/original/file-20230522-29-dcc0ot.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=917&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527406/original/file-20230522-29-dcc0ot.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1152&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527406/original/file-20230522-29-dcc0ot.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1152&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527406/original/file-20230522-29-dcc0ot.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1152&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption"></span>
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<p>In the lead-up to the coronation, “long live the king” echoed across the United Kingdom. Its long tentacles reached across the globe where this old empire once ruled, robbing and ruining much that it encountered. The death of the queen and the succession of her heir occurred with ritual and ceremony. </p>
<p>Small tweaks acknowledged the changing world – but for the most part, this coronation occurred without revolution or bloodshed, without condemnation – and without contest of the British monarchs’ role in history and the world they continue to dominate, in one way or another. </p>
<p>Grant argues the end of the 70-year rule of Queen Elizabeth II should mark a turning point: a global reckoning with the race-based order that undergirds empire and colonialism. Whereas the earlier century confidently pronounced the project of <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-power-of-yindyamarra-how-we-can-bring-respect-to-australian-democracy-192164">democracy</a> and liberalism complete, it seems time has marched on. </p>
<p>History has not “ended”, as Francis Fukuyama <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-end-of-history-francis-fukuyamas-controversial-idea-explained-193225">declared</a> in 1989 (claiming liberal democracies had been proved the unsurpassable ideal). Instead, history has entered a ferocious era of uncertainty and volatility. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-end-of-history-francis-fukuyamas-controversial-idea-explained-193225">The End of History: Francis Fukuyama's controversial idea explained</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Grant reminds us that people of colour now dominate the globe. Race, <a href="https://theconversation.com/racism-is-real-race-is-not-a-philosophers-perspective-82504">as we now know</a>, is a flexible and slippery made-up idea, changing opportunistically to include and exclude groups, to dominate and possess. </p>
<p>Grant examines this with great impact as he considers the lived experience of his white grandmother, who was shunned when living with a black man, shared his conditions of poverty with pluck and defiance, then resumed a place in white society without him. </p>
<p>And writing of his mother, the other Elizabeth, Grant elaborates the complexity of identity not confined to the colour of skin, but forged from belonging to people and kinship networks, and to place – which condemns the pseudoscience of <a href="https://humanrights.gov.au/about/news/speeches/power-identity-naming-oneself-reclaiming-community-2011">blood quantum</a> that informed the state’s control of Aboriginal lives. This suspect race science has proved enduring.</p>
<p>Grant’s account of the death of the monarch is a genuine engagement with the history of ideas to contemplate the reality of our 21st-century present.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/527467/original/file-20230522-27-ts8u8f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/527467/original/file-20230522-27-ts8u8f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/527467/original/file-20230522-27-ts8u8f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527467/original/file-20230522-27-ts8u8f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527467/original/file-20230522-27-ts8u8f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527467/original/file-20230522-27-ts8u8f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527467/original/file-20230522-27-ts8u8f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527467/original/file-20230522-27-ts8u8f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Grant argues the end of the queen’s 70-year rule should mark ‘a global reckoning with the race-based order that undergirds empire and colonialism’.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Yui Mok/AP</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/racism-is-real-race-is-not-a-philosophers-perspective-82504">Racism is real, race is not: a philosopher's perspective</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Liberalism and democracy = tyranny and terror</h2>
<p>In several essays now, Grant has engaged with the ideas of mostly Western philosophers and several conservative thinkers to explain the crisis of liberalism and democracy. Grant argues that, like other -isms, liberalism and democracy have descended into tyranny and terror. </p>
<p>The new world order, dominated by <a href="https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-stan-grant-on-how-tyrants-use-the-language-of-germ-warfare-and-covid-has-enabled-them-204183">China</a> and people of colour, is in dramatic contrast to the continued rule of the white queen and her descendants.</p>
<p>In this, perhaps more than his other books and essays, Grant moves between big ideas in history – the <a href="https://theconversation.com/criticism-of-western-civilisation-isnt-new-it-was-part-of-the-enlightenment-104567">Enlightenment</a>, modernity and democracy – to consider himself, his identity, and his own lived experience of injustice, where race is an undeniable organising feature. </p>
<p>In this story he explains himself, as an Indigenous person, “an outsider, in the middle”; “an exile, living in exile, struggling with belonging”; living with the “very real threat of erasure”. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-power-of-yindyamarra-how-we-can-bring-respect-to-australian-democracy-192164">The power of yindyamarra: how we can bring respect to Australian democracy</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Love, friendships, family, Country</h2>
<p>In the final section of the book, Grant’s focus switches to the theme of “love”, and to friendships, family and Country. He speculates that his focus on these things is perhaps a mark of age. </p>
<p>Now, he accounts for the things in life that are truly valuable – and this includes deep affection for the joy that emanates from Aboriginal families. Being home on his Country, paddling the river, he finds quiet and peace. </p>
<p>The death of the monarch of the British Empire, who ruled for 70 years, should speak to the history of empire and colonial legacy and all its curses – especially in settler colonial Australia. Yet her passing – which coincides with seismic change in the global economic order with China’s ascendance and the decline of the United States and the UK, the global cultural order and the racial order – has been largely unexamined in public discourse in Australia. </p>
<p>The history of colonisation and of ideas that have debated ways to comprehend the past have been a feature of Grant’s intellectual exploration, including on the death of the queen. As he details in his new book, the reaction from some quarters to this conversation has exposed him to unrelenting and racist attack. </p>
<p>In this work and in others, exploration of the world of ideas to understand the past and future sits alongside accounts of the everyday; of the always place-based realities of Aboriginal accounts of self. </p>
<p>The material deprivations and indignities, the closely held humility that comes with poverty and powerlessness - shared socks, a house carelessly demolished, burials tragically abandoned – are countered by another reality: the intimacy of most Aboriginal lives, characterised by deep love, affection, laughter and belonging. These place-based, “small” stories Grant shares sit alongside the bigger themes of modern history, such as democracy and freedom. </p>
<p>In this latest work, Grant details his sense of “betrayal” at the discussion he sought about the monarch’s passing and the discussion that was actually had, the history of ideas and his own place in this. </p>
<p>And now, of course, he has announced his intention to exit the public stage. Racism, we are reminded, is an enduring feature of the modern world – a world yet to allow space for an unbowing, Wiradjuri-Kamilaroi-Dharawal public intellectual.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/204756/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Heidi Norman does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Stan Grant’s new book, The Queen is Dead, is revealing in terms of his decision to step down from public life. ‘I have been reminded what it is to come from the other side of history,’ he writes.Heidi Norman, Professor, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, University of Technology SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2016632023-03-21T19:12:22Z2023-03-21T19:12:22ZTrans people aren’t new, and neither is their oppression: a history of gender crossing in 19th-century Australia<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/516521/original/file-20230320-24-18kei4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=140%2C2%2C1634%2C994&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Portrait of De Lacy Evans and his wife (1870)</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">State Library Victoria</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>This article contains references to anti-trans, colonial and institutional violence, and includes information about an Aboriginal person who died in the early 20th century.</em></p>
<hr>
<p>Anti-transgender hatred is on the rise. Driven by pseudoscience and backed by <a href="https://www.crikey.com.au/2023/03/10/anti-trans-disinformation-australia-transphobia/">well-funded far-right pressure groups</a>, part of the premise of the anti-trans “gender critical” movement is that trans people are new and unnatural. History shows us this is not the case.</p>
<p>The “trans” prefix emerged in 1910 with Magnus Hirschfeld’s research on “<a href="https://www.transgendermap.com/politics/sexology/magnus-hirschfeld/">transvestism</a>” (initially a medical term). Hirschfeld was a gay German Jewish doctor whose research centre, the <a href="https://magnus-hirschfeld.de/ausstellungen/institute/">Institut für Sexualwissenschaft</a>, has been called the world’s first trans clinic. The institute was destroyed by Nazis in 1933. You might be familiar with this image of Nazi book-burning – the books in question were Hirschfeld’s research.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/516274/original/file-20230320-24-huskfx.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/516274/original/file-20230320-24-huskfx.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/516274/original/file-20230320-24-huskfx.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=436&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/516274/original/file-20230320-24-huskfx.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=436&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/516274/original/file-20230320-24-huskfx.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=436&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/516274/original/file-20230320-24-huskfx.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=548&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/516274/original/file-20230320-24-huskfx.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=548&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/516274/original/file-20230320-24-huskfx.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=548&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A uniformed member of the Nazi SA and a student of the Academy of Physical Exercise examine materials plundered from the library of Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld, director of the Institute for Sexual Science in Berlin on May 6, 1933.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In the 1800s, people who crossed gender categories were not understood to be “transvestites” or transgender, but were referred to as “masqueraders”, “impersonators”, “men-women” and “freaks”. As such, I consider my research to be a work of shared queer and trans history, but not necessarily a history of trans people. I am not interested in how people in the past might have identified today, but in how they lived and how their communities responded to them.</p>
<h2>Gender variance in First Nations communities</h2>
<p>Far from being new, gender variance on this continent predates Europeans’ arrival in Australia. </p>
<p>Several Aboriginal nations have traditions of <a href="https://www.transhub.org.au/trans-mob">culturally specific gender categories</a>. In 2015 the organisation Sisters and Brothers NT noted the terms “Kwarte Kwarte” in Arrernte, “Kungka Kungka” in Pitjantjatjara and Luritja, “Yimpininni” in Tiwi, and “Karnta Pia” in Warlpiri, which can be interpreted as “like a girl”, while “Kungka Wati” in Pintipi and “Girriji Kati” in Waramungu literally mean “woman/man”. </p>
<p>Sandy O’Sullivan, a Wiradjuri trans scholar and professor, notes that the imposition of European gender norms on First Nations peoples was part of a broader colonial project that sought to eliminate Indigenous cultures and kinship systems.</p>
<h2>Gender transgression in colonial Australia</h2>
<p>In colonial Australia, gender transgression was structurally managed via carceral systems such as lunatic asylums, police and prisons. </p>
<p>Although there was no formal legislation against cross-dressing or gender-crossing, people were often charged with vagrancy, fraud, sodomy, impersonation or indecent behaviour. A lot of Australian legislation was inherited from or influenced by British legislation, including the 1533 Buggery Act and the 1885 Criminal Law Amendment Act, also known as “An Act to make further provision for the Protection of Women and Girls”, which strengthened existing legislation against homosexuality and sex work.</p>
<p>In the 19th century there was no formal or medical process for gender transition. When people crossed gender categories, they did so socially, sometimes for their entire lifetimes.</p>
<p>On a local level, gender crossers were frequently accepted in their communities if they met certain conditions. People were more likely to be accepted if they were white, transmasculine, and contributing to the productive workforce. People who were socially marginalised or lacking in support from family and friends were more likely to have hostile interactions with the law and with medicine.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/a-place-to-dance-and-a-place-to-cry-pride-r-evolution-is-an-authentic-exhibition-for-queer-communities-201659">'A place to dance and a place to cry': Pride (R)evolution is an authentic exhibition for queer communities</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Madness, medicalisation, and criminalisation</h2>
<p>Gender transgression over years or decades was often interpreted as evidence of insanity. There were cases such as Tom Hurly, institutionalised in Parramatta Lunatic Asylum in 1861, and Edward de Lacy Evans, institutionalised in Bendigo Hospital and Kew Asylum in 1879. Edward Moate – referred to in the press as “another De Lacy Evans” – was institutionalised in Beechworth Asylum in 1884. </p>
<p>The lunatic asylum was a structure that maintained and restored the colonial order. To be discharged and re-enter the community, patients had to demonstrate that their insanity had been “cured”, which for gender transgressors generally meant being forced to detransition. </p>
<p>Edward de Lacy Evans was made to return to dressing as a woman and was discharged only a few months after his admission. Edward Moate, on the other hand, refused to provide a female name or reassume a female gender expression, and died in the asylum three years later, still under the name Edward Moate.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/516522/original/file-20230320-26-civ0ma.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/516522/original/file-20230320-26-civ0ma.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/516522/original/file-20230320-26-civ0ma.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=920&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/516522/original/file-20230320-26-civ0ma.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=920&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/516522/original/file-20230320-26-civ0ma.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=920&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/516522/original/file-20230320-26-civ0ma.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1157&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/516522/original/file-20230320-26-civ0ma.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1157&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/516522/original/file-20230320-26-civ0ma.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1157&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Portrait of Edward De Lacy Evans (1870)</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">State Library Victoria</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Vagrancy charges were the most common way of criminalising gender crossing. This was frequently applied to people who lived as women, who were more likely to be seen as dangerously deviant than tolerably eccentric. In 1863, Ellen Maguire was charged with vagrancy in Melbourne for “personating a woman”. Officially, the vagrancy charge was one of “having no visible means of support”, despite most of the court trial focusing on her employment as a sex worker and her supposed deception of her male clients. She was eventually convicted of sodomy and died in prison after six years.</p>
<p>Sometimes the twin modes of medicalisation and criminalisation were applied simultaneously. In 1896, the Warengesda Aborigines’ Mission reported an Aboriginal (probably Wiradjuri) youth named H Paroo for “masquerading in the garb of a man”. </p>
<p>Paroo was ordered to leave the station, but refused to comply. The station wrote a letter to the Aborigines’ Protection Board asking if Paroo could be removed, either by being “given in charge as a vagrant” or “as not fit to be at large” (that is, as a “wandering lunatic”).</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/516309/original/file-20230320-28-eovuqm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/516309/original/file-20230320-28-eovuqm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/516309/original/file-20230320-28-eovuqm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=382&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/516309/original/file-20230320-28-eovuqm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=382&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/516309/original/file-20230320-28-eovuqm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=382&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/516309/original/file-20230320-28-eovuqm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/516309/original/file-20230320-28-eovuqm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/516309/original/file-20230320-28-eovuqm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Kew Asylum in the 19th century, where Edward De Lacy Evans was sent.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Full and authentic lives</h2>
<p>Not everyone who was exposed in the press was vilified or incarcerated as a result. Some people lived full lives in their chosen gender categories, and were only outed after their deaths. </p>
<p>In 1893, a farmer named Jack Jorgensen died in Elmore, near Bendigo, and was promptly exposed in the press as yet “another De Lacy Evans”. Jorgensen had suffered an injury at work but refused to go to Bendigo Hospital. He signed his will as Johann Martin Jorgensen, and died at home under the care of his housemates, who knew about his gender but kept the secret until after his death.</p>
<p>These stories are important because they show that the criminalisation and pathologisation of gender transgression is not a new phenomenon. Medicine and the justice system have a long history of being weaponised against trans people and anyone trespassing from the gendered status quo. </p>
<p>If we are to work towards trans liberation in the present, we must reckon with these histories and address their structural legacies.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/201663/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Robin Eames does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>In the 19th century there was no formal or medical process for gender transition. When people crossed gender categories, they did so socially, sometimes for their entire lifetimes.Robin Eames, History PhD candidate, University of SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1989812023-02-23T19:03:26Z2023-02-23T19:03:26ZFriday essay: ‘killed by Natives’. The stories – and violent reprisals – behind some of Australia’s settler memorials<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/510232/original/file-20230215-18-n18u61.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=41%2C29%2C3952%2C1964&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>First Nations people please be advised this article contains distressing imagery of a retaliatory shooting.</em></p>
<p>Some commemorations across this continent, despite their original intentions, inadvertently testify to the fact that Aboriginal peoples did, in fact, “fight back” and that colonisation was, in fact, violent. These commemorations typically consist of graves, memorial monuments and even place names, and they are dedicated to white settlers who were “killed by Natives”.</p>
<p>These commemorations serve to uphold the pioneer legend that honours the brave settler and the characteristic representation of the “Natives” as being savage and vengeful, and their attacks unmotivated and unpredictable. </p>
<p>Typically, the events are decontextualised; there is no account of what led up to an incident, what actions by the settlers prompted the attacks made by Aboriginal peoples on them. </p>
<p>There is also usually no account of the retaliatory attacks that followed, where settlers sought retribution through the indiscriminate brutal massacre of Aboriginal peoples that went <a href="https://journals.openedition.org/erea/5821">unpunished and largely undocumented</a>. </p>
<p>In Port Lincoln, South Australia, there stands a monument that states:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>ERECTED BY PUBLIC SUBSCRIPTION THROUGH THE PORT LINCOLN PROGRESS COMMITTEE IN MEMORY OF FRANK HAWSON AGED 10 YEARS WHO WAS SPEARED BY THE BLACKS OCTOBER 5TH 1840, BURIED IN TRAFALGAR ST 1840 <br>
RE-INTERRED UNDER THIS MONUMENT MARCH 30 1911. <br>
ALTHOUGH ONLY A LAD HE DIED A HERO. <br>
GONE. BUT NOT FORGOTTEN.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Frank’s remains were re-interred with a new monument when it was noticed that his grave was in a neglected state. Public subscriptions were invited so as to erect a more suitable monument, and particularly <a href="https://hawsonstory.wordpress.com/frank%E2%80%90hawson/">targeted school children</a> “to whom the story of the lad’s end has been made known through a school publication”.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/509956/original/file-20230214-20-rpgcnn.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/509956/original/file-20230214-20-rpgcnn.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/509956/original/file-20230214-20-rpgcnn.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=490&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/509956/original/file-20230214-20-rpgcnn.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=490&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/509956/original/file-20230214-20-rpgcnn.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=490&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/509956/original/file-20230214-20-rpgcnn.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=616&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/509956/original/file-20230214-20-rpgcnn.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=616&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/509956/original/file-20230214-20-rpgcnn.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=616&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A 1911 photograph of the erection of the Frank Hawson monument.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">State Library of South Australia</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This was an opportunity to further the agenda of Black erasure and white permanence – to romanticise the frontier, to perpetuate the pioneer legend and demonise Aboriginal peoples as the murderers of innocent settler children.</p>
<p>So how did poor Frank die a hero? While the details are sketchy and vary depending on the source, an account <a href="https://trove.nla.gov.au/%20newspaper/article/30589406">published in a newspaper</a> almost 100 years later states that Frank was left alone guarding a shepherd’s hut on the Hawson family’s station while his older brother Edward rode to Port Lincoln. </p>
<p>A group of “Natives” appeared, asking for food, and despite Frank giving them all that was on hand, they were not satisfied and tried to enter the hut. Despite firing a gun and wounding one of the attackers, Frank ended up with two spears embedded in the chest, which, once the attackers fled, Frank tried to remove by cutting and sawing the shafts, but to no avail. Frank then attempted to walk the four miles to Port Lincoln, but this proved too excruciating.</p>
<p>Frank returned to the hut and set the shafts in the fire in an attempt to burn them, which is where Edward, having returned, found the injured child. Edward sawed off the shafts and took Frank to Port Lincoln on horseback, to be attended by a doctor and a surgeon. </p>
<p>Upon noting the two barbed spears, one of which had passed through to Frank’s back, they both agreed that removal would be highly traumatic and would result in instant death. Instead, they chose to leave the spears in place and permit Frank, who allegedly claimed not to be afraid of death, “to die a lingering, but not a painful death in preference to a hasty and violent one”.</p>
<p>While <a href="https://trove.nla.gov.au/%20newspaper/article/30589406">this 1940 account</a> makes no mention of the events that led up to the attack on Frank, it does note, interestingly, that Frank’s was the first murder of a settler on the Eyre Peninsula, and the shock of it was so profound that the governor, fearing “indiscriminate punitive measures”, felt it necessary to issue a proclamation against retaliation. Although this may have staved off any initial reprisal attacks, massacres of Aboriginal peoples in the region were to come later that decade. </p>
<h2>The massacres that followed</h2>
<p>Irene Hogan, a historian and descendant of the Hawson family, has managed to lend the legendary tale some balance by exploring what may have provoked the attack on Frank. On a <a href="https://hawsonstory.wordpress.com/frank%E2%80%90hawson/">website</a> dedicated to the history of the Hawson family, Hogan notes that while early relations between the British colonists and local Aboriginal peoples appeared smooth, violent clashes soon erupted as a result of the British taking over land and preventing Aboriginal access to hunting and other food sources.</p>
<p>It is only in recent decades that recognition has been given to events that led up to Aboriginal attacks on white settlers, and notably to the reprisal massacres that followed. </p>
<p>Two particular Aboriginal attacks on white settlers, the Hornet Bank Massacre and the Wills Massacre, have been notorious for the role of the Aboriginal attackers. However, the notoriety has steadily shifted to those responsible for retaliatory attacks that followed: as historians have brought to light preceding and subsequent events surrounding the massacres, it has become apparent that surely the “massacre” is what followed.</p>
<p>The Hornet Bank Massacre, as it is known today, refers to the 1857 killing of 11 white settlers, eight of whom, including adults and children, were members of the Fraser family. A memorial at the grave site was erected at Hornet Bank in Taroom, Queensland, on the centenary of the massacre. </p>
<p>The attack was carried out by the Iman people of the region (also referred to as the Yeeman, Yiman, Eoman and Jiman), who <a href="https://catalogue.nla.gov.au/Record/2374720">had suffered numerous attacks</a> by the settlers, including poisonings and shootings.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/509948/original/file-20230214-22-w5i76x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A stone memorial in a field." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/509948/original/file-20230214-22-w5i76x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/509948/original/file-20230214-22-w5i76x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/509948/original/file-20230214-22-w5i76x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/509948/original/file-20230214-22-w5i76x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/509948/original/file-20230214-22-w5i76x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/509948/original/file-20230214-22-w5i76x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/509948/original/file-20230214-22-w5i76x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Fraser family grave site and memorial Hornet Bank.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">State of Queensland: Queensland Heritage Register</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>One of the Fraser children, aged 14, was injured but survived the attack. An older brother, William, who was away from the station at the time, “<a href="https://catalogue.nla.gov.au/Record/2374720">became obsessed with revenge and reprisal</a>”. </p>
<p>William was joined by numerous other settlers in the region and, together with the Native Police, set out on a series of bloody and indiscriminate killing sprees. He was actively supported by the judicial system, and together their exploits were highly approved of by many other settlers on the frontier, which saw them promoted to hero status. </p>
<p>By March 1858 it was estimated that up to 300 Iman had been killed, and Aboriginal academic Eva Fesl <a href="https://catalogue.nla.gov.au/Record/2374720">has claimed</a> the number was closer to 500.</p>
<p>Although it was believed that by the 1880s the Iman had been totally wiped out, this has been disputed, and descendants of this group <a href="https://www.couriermail.com.au/news/queensland/chinchilla/a-place-to-call-home-native-title-granted-to-iman-people-over-lands-surrounding-taroom-and-wandoan/news-story/d575fb347d908fcfe41aa069146541f0">have recently been recognised</a> by the High Court of Australia as the original custodians of the land surrounding Taroom.</p>
<p>In 2012, research blogger Ingrid Piller highlighted that the reprisals following the Hornet Bank Massacre were more of a massacre than the event itself. </p>
<p>Piller noted that Wikipedia had an entry for “Hornet Bank Massacre” but none for “Iman Massacre” or similar, but it does appear in a “list of massacres of Indigenous Australians”. At the time of writing, the <a href="https://www.monumentaustralia.org.au/">Monument Australia website</a> lists no memorials to the massacre of the Iman, but does list the Hornet Bank Massacre memorial.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/509949/original/file-20230214-24-q1lply.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Black and white painting depicting a massacre." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/509949/original/file-20230214-24-q1lply.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/509949/original/file-20230214-24-q1lply.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=369&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/509949/original/file-20230214-24-q1lply.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=369&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/509949/original/file-20230214-24-q1lply.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=369&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/509949/original/file-20230214-24-q1lply.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=463&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/509949/original/file-20230214-24-q1lply.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=463&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/509949/original/file-20230214-24-q1lply.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=463&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A 1925 sketch in The Daily Mail of the retaliation after the Hornet Bank Massacre.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>William Fraser, who died in 1914, was still held in high regard despite being reported to have personally killed more than 100 Aboriginal people, yet he is <a href="https://researchers.mq.edu.au/en/publications/yiman-does-not-have-a-word-for-massacre">not listed</a> among Australia’s mass murderers.</p>
<h2>Repercussions and reprisals</h2>
<p>The Wills Massacre refers to the 1861 killing of 19 white settlers by the Gayiri people on Cullin-La-Ringo Station near Springsure, Queensland – the largest recorded massacre of white settlers by Aboriginal people in Australian history. A sign to the entrance of the Cullin-La-Ringo historic site erected in 2009 states:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>THIS IS THE SITE OF THE MASSACRE OF 19 PEOPLE BY A LOCAL ABORIGINAL TRIBE ON 17 OCTOBER 1861</p>
<p>THE PEOPLE KILLED WERE IN A PARTY LED BY HORATIO WILLS AND WERE RESTING IN THE EARLY AFTERNOON WHEN THE TRIBE MOVED INTO CAMP AND KILLED THE TEN MEN, TWO WOMEN AND SEVEN CHILDREN</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The sign fails even to name the Gayiri people and provides no context as to why the massacre occurred, <a href="https://catalogue.nla.gov.au/Record/6976621">nor what happened after</a>. White settlers <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14443058009386807">had taken over precious water supplies</a>, interrupted native animals and other food sources, and had disturbed sacred sites. </p>
<p>The Gayiri had suffered an attack by Native Police as punishment for allegedly stealing sheep – an accusation that proved to be false, as the sheep were found later. Unfortunately, Horatio Wills resembled the owner of the adjoining station, Jesse Gregson, who had joined with the Native Police in a series of massacres of Gayiri and is presumed to have been the actual target of their retaliation.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/509951/original/file-20230214-22-ztqi8g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/509951/original/file-20230214-22-ztqi8g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/509951/original/file-20230214-22-ztqi8g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=427&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/509951/original/file-20230214-22-ztqi8g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=427&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/509951/original/file-20230214-22-ztqi8g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=427&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/509951/original/file-20230214-22-ztqi8g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=536&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/509951/original/file-20230214-22-ztqi8g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=536&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/509951/original/file-20230214-22-ztqi8g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=536&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">T. G. Moyle, The Wills Tragedy, 1861, held at the State Library of Queensland.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In response to the Wills Massacre, the colonial Queensland government reacted by sending seven Native Police detachments to the district. It is <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-10-10/wills-massacre-marked-turning-point-australian-history/7919894">estimated</a> that 300-400 Aboriginal people were killed, and further tens of thousands died as a result of the repercussions sparked by the government’s response. </p>
<p>The Wills Massacre is also seen as an important Aboriginal victory in the struggle against the settlers – it resulted in a <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14443058009386807">dramatic setback</a> for settler occupation of Aboriginal Country. Interestingly, Horatio’s child Cedric Wills blamed the massacre squarely on the actions of Gregson, the neighbouring station owner who had attacked the Gayiri.</p>
<p>Horatio’s other child, Tom Wills, who was away when the family was massacred, has until recently been recorded as having had no interest in participating in any retributions. </p>
<p>Instead, Wills went on to coach an Aboriginal cricket team from western Victoria that became the first “Australian” cricket team to tour England and became known as the pioneer of the Australian Football League game. However, <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-09-18/suggests-afl-pioneer-tom-wills-participated-indigenous-massacres/100463708#:%7E:text=A%20startling%20discovery%20by%20a,la%2Dringo%20massacre%20of%201861.">recent research by sports history researcher Gary Fearon</a> has unearthed a Chicago Tribune article from 1895 in which the author claims Wills spoke of his participation in reprisal massacres.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/509950/original/file-20230214-16-snnk84.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/509950/original/file-20230214-16-snnk84.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/509950/original/file-20230214-16-snnk84.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=553&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/509950/original/file-20230214-16-snnk84.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=553&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/509950/original/file-20230214-16-snnk84.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=553&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/509950/original/file-20230214-16-snnk84.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=695&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/509950/original/file-20230214-16-snnk84.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=695&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/509950/original/file-20230214-16-snnk84.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=695&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Australian cricket coach and AFL pioneer Tom Wills, circa 1863.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Testimonies of resistance</h2>
<p>In some cases, commemorations to settlers “killed by Natives” have gained social significance for Aboriginal communities. In Northam, Western Australia, Noongar Country, a memorial grave tablet states:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>CENTENARY OF WESTERN AUSTRALIA 1929 SACRED TO THE MEMORY OF PETER CHIDLOW AGED 35 YEARS AND EDWARD JONES AGED 30 YEARS WHO WERE KILLED BY NATIVES 15TH JUNE 1837. <br></p>
<p>IN THE MIDST OF LIFE, WE ARE IN DEATH<br></p>
</blockquote>
<p>Chidlow and Jones had been working on a property that later became known as Katrine, when it is believed a group of Aboriginal warriors, angered by the arrest of some of their group, approached and demanded food. This resulted in an altercation, ending with both Chidlow and Jones being speared to death. </p>
<p>The tablet was erected in 1929 in celebration of the centenary of WA, but today is also revered by the local Aboriginal community for what it inadvertently represents – a testimony of Aboriginal resistance.</p>
<p>Other such testimonies are scattered across the continent. At Esk, Queensland, a stone cairn reads:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>CAPTAIN PATRICK LOGAN</p>
<p>This plaque was erected in remembrance of Patrick Logan, an enthusiastic and energetic explorer of Southern Queensland.</p>
<p>Captain Logan made two expeditions up the Brisbane and Stanley Rivers, and visited the group of hills located to the east of this plaque naming them “Irwin’s Range”. This range includes the high rocky outcrop of “Glen Rock” located north-east of this plaque, and the peak of Mount Esk may be seen to the east from Glen Rock.</p>
<p>It is said that Captain Logan may have climbed Glen Rock the afternoon before he was attacked and murdered by Aborigines whilst camped at Logan Creek on 18 October, 1830.</p>
</blockquote>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/509953/original/file-20230214-24-2fv5ga.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/509953/original/file-20230214-24-2fv5ga.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/509953/original/file-20230214-24-2fv5ga.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=704&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/509953/original/file-20230214-24-2fv5ga.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=704&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/509953/original/file-20230214-24-2fv5ga.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=704&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/509953/original/file-20230214-24-2fv5ga.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=885&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/509953/original/file-20230214-24-2fv5ga.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=885&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/509953/original/file-20230214-24-2fv5ga.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=885&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Patrick Logan.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The erection of this cairn and plaque was proposed and funded by Douglas Jolly, a person keenly interested in the history of Queensland, and a member of the Royal Historical Society of Queensland. He unveiled this plaque on October 28 1984.</p>
<p>Many people, possibly including Jolly who funded the cairn, regard Logan as the true founder of Queensland. The wording of the plaque suggests that the motivation behind erecting the cairn was certainly to record and honour Logan and his achievements, despite the fact <a href="https://redflag.org.au/node/5970">Logan was also reportedly</a> “hated by convicts and the Aboriginal population alike for his violence” and thereby “met a just end”, upon which “the jailed convicts celebrated with joyful singing for days”. </p>
<p>The cairn also now serves as a record of Aboriginal resistance.</p>
<p>At a place called “Chippers Leap”, formerly known as “Chipper’s Leap” (it’s all about the apostrophe), in Greenmount, WA, there is a heritage-listed commemoration consisting of a plaque on a rock that states:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>CHIPPER’S LEAP ON THE 3RD OF FEBRUARY 1832, JOHN CHIPPER AND REUBEN BEACHAM A BOY OF FOURTEEN, WHILE DRIVING A CART FROM GUILDFORD TO YORK WERE ATTACKED BY NATIVES NEAR THIS SPOT. <br></p>
<p>BEACHAM WAS KILLED BUT CHIPPER, ALTHOUGH SPEARED, ESCAPED AND LEAPED FROM THIS ROCK NOW KNOWN AS CHIPPER’S LEAP, AND EVENTUALLY REACHED GOVERNOR STIRLING’S HOUSE AT WOODBRIDGE. <br></p>
<p>THIS TABLET WAS PLACED HERE BY THE WESTERN AUSTRALIA HISTORICAL SOCIETY. 1930.<br></p>
</blockquote>
<p>In 1932, on the centenary of this incident, <a href="http://nla.gov.au/nla.%20news%E2%80%90article206643943">an article in the Swan Express</a> criticised the erection of the commemoration, highlighting that Reuben Beacham had, in fact, been only 11 years of age and noting:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The story itself has no claim on public recognition, and is not of a nature to be handed down through the ages. The sooner it is forgotten the better. A strong, big boned, active man, Chipper was practically in the position of a father to the boy in the circumstances, yet he made not the least effort to save the child, but left him to his fate. In his official report, Chipper states that he heard the screams of the boy behind him, while he ran for his life. The boy was 11 years of age — a little chap he could have tucked under his arm! </p>
<p>The record is of interest only as a picture of early life in the State, and the boy Beacham is more worthy of recognition on the tablet. The work of the W.A. Historical Society is highly appreciated and the State is grateful to this body for its labors, but while so many deeds of self-sacrifice and bravery are left unrecorded, the story of Chipper is not one that should be told to our children.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The article concluded with a note that a “Mrs Cowan”, vice-president of the historical society, perhaps anticipating that not everyone would treat the commemoration with the respect the society felt it deserved, urged all present to combat vandalism.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/509980/original/file-20230214-26-iupsgu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/509980/original/file-20230214-26-iupsgu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/509980/original/file-20230214-26-iupsgu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/509980/original/file-20230214-26-iupsgu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/509980/original/file-20230214-26-iupsgu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/509980/original/file-20230214-26-iupsgu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/509980/original/file-20230214-26-iupsgu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/509980/original/file-20230214-26-iupsgu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Chippers Leap approached from the west.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Chippers Leap was acknowledged as a site of significance during the 1988 Australian bicentennial commemorations, being included in the state’s Heritage Trail Program.</p>
<p>However, Elliott Chipper, the great-great-great-grandson of John Chipper, has acknowledged that this commemoration is an open attempt by the WA Historical Society to perpetuate the pioneer legend and foster a sense of pride in settler history.</p>
<p>Elliott Chipper <a href="http://thehistorydiaries.blogspot.com/2013/03/my-own-personal-western-australian.html">identifies two stories</a> that have been omitted from the plaque. One is that of Beacham — why is it not called “Beacham’s Rock”? He surmises this is because the image of a child dying on the side of the road just does not inspire a romantic sense of pride in the brave pioneer battling all manner of hostilities.</p>
<p>The other story is that of the Noongar people who were also involved in this event. Elliott Chipper <a href="http://thehistorydiaries.blogspot.com/2013/03/my-own-personal-western-australian.html">notes that</a> after John Chipper made it to Governor Stirling’s house, a large group of people were assembled to retrieve the child’s body and enact revenge on the Noongar people.</p>
<p>It was documented that 12 Aboriginal people were caught and hanged from the trees as punishment for the attack.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/new-research-shows-was-first-governor-condoned-killing-of-noongar-people-despite-proclaiming-all-equal-under-law-165871">New research shows WA's first governor condoned killing of Noongar people despite proclaiming all equal under law</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>‘May your spirits live on and walk beside your people’</h2>
<p>Over recent years, various communities have erected their own unofficial monuments commemorating the Frontier Wars. In Orford, Victoria, just metres from the town’s war memorial, is what is known as the Orford Aboriginal Memorial, which states:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>IN MEMORY OF THE HUNDREDS OF ABORIGINAL MEN, WOMEN AND CHILDREN WHO LOST THEIR LIVES IN THIS AREA MAY YOUR SPIRITS LIVE ON AND WALK BESIDE YOUR PEOPLE NOW REST IN PEACE WUWUURK<br></p>
</blockquote>
<p>The Aborigines of Port Phillip monument at Sorrento, Victoria, states:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>In memory of Aborigines who were killed or wounded during the first British visits to Port Phillip Bay under the command of Lieutenant John Murray in 1803.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This was a breach of official British policy, which was to avoid conflict with Aboriginal people. At least one Aboriginal person, Bunja Logan, still bore old gunfire wounds when permanent settlers came to Port Phillip Bay in 1835.</p>
<p>At Woodford Bay, Longueville, New South Wales, the site of the first recorded meeting in the Lane Cove area between the Cameraygal people and the British in 1790, the Cameraygal Resistance monument in part states:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>MEMORIAL PLAQUE TO HONOUR AND RECOGNISE THE CAMERAYGAL PEOPLE WHO DEFENDED THEIR COUNTRY BY RESISTING BRITISH INVASION</p>
</blockquote>
<p>In Nunawading, Victoria, Wurundjeri-Balluk Country, the Year of Mourning Garden has a plaque that states:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>IN MEMORY OF ALL KOORIE MEN, WOMEN AND CHILDREN MURDERED BY THE INVADER; KOORIE WOMEN & CHILDREN WHO WERE SEXUALLY ABUSED; KOORIE CHILDREN WHO WERE ABDUCTED AND NEVER FOUND THEIR PARENTS; KOORIES WHO WERE ENSLAVED AND THOSE WHO DIED THROUGH MALNUTRITION, POISONING AND INTRODUCED DISEASES. YEAR OF MOURNING 1988.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>In 2007, in an area now known as the Murrup Brarn Yarra Flats Billabongs, just a few hundred metres from the Yarra Glen township in Victoria, Wurundjeri Country, a boulder with two plaques commemorates what is known today as the Battle of Yering. The memorial was <a href="http://nationalunitygovernment.org/content/plaques-unveiled-confrontation-between-wurundjeri-and-border-police">organised by</a> the Friends of the Yarra Flats Billabongs in conjunction with Yarra Ranges Friends in Reconciliation and Nillumbik Reconciliation Group. The plaques describe the battle:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“THE BATTLE OF YERING” </p>
<p>On the 13th of January 1840 an armed conflict took place on William Ryrie’s Yering Station between some 50 Wurundjeri clansmen and troopers of the Border Police led by Captain Henry Gisborne who had been dispatched from Melbourne by Superintendent Charles Joseph La Trobe to capture the charismatic Wurundjeri leader, Jaga Jaga.</p>
<p>Upon learning of Jaga Jaga’s capture the Wurundjeri approached the homestead with muskets and spears, whereupon Gisborne and his troopers mounted a counterattack, during which several shots were exchanged, forcing the Wurundjeri to retreat into the nearby billabong.</p>
<p>Having thus successfully drawn the troopers away from their imprisoned leader, others of the clan sped up to the homestead to quickly secure his release.</p>
<p>-Unveiled by Wurundjeri Ngurungaeta, Murrundindi, on the 13th January 2007.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>At the unveiling, Wurundjeri Ngurungaeta (head person) Murrundindi noted <a href="http://nationalunitygovernment.org/content/plaques-unveiled-confrontation-between-wurundjeri-and-border-police">the importance of acknowledging the events of the past</a> and that while these events cannot be changed, they can be acknowledged and recognised.</p>
<p>In 2002, through community consultation and considerable effort from numerous Aboriginal peoples and their supporters, including the local reconciliation group Projects for Reconciliation, and with funding from Reconciliation NSW, a memorial garden at the St John of God Hospital in North Richmond, New South Wales, was <a href="https://nit.com.au/12-11-2019/832/dharug-massacre-memorial-site-teaches-young-aboriginal-students-about-colonial-history">created to commemorate the Battle of Richmond Hill</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/509973/original/file-20230214-24-95l74z.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/509973/original/file-20230214-24-95l74z.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/509973/original/file-20230214-24-95l74z.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=1120&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/509973/original/file-20230214-24-95l74z.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=1120&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/509973/original/file-20230214-24-95l74z.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=1120&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/509973/original/file-20230214-24-95l74z.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1407&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/509973/original/file-20230214-24-95l74z.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1407&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/509973/original/file-20230214-24-95l74z.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1407&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The Battle of Richmond Hill is described by John Connor in the book <a href="https://unsw.press/books/australian-frontier-wars-1788-1838/">The Australian Frontier Wars 1788–1838</a> as possibly the first frontier war on this continent and the first recorded battle between Aboriginal people and settlers. According to Connor, it took place in an area the settlers had named Richmond Hill, along what they called the Hawkesbury-Nepean River, in May-June 1795.</p>
<p>The land belongs to the Dharug peoples, and the arrival of more than 400 settlers in the area in 1794 resulted in numerous crimes, including the destruction of native food sources, stealing Dharug children to work as unpaid labour and holding them against their will, the murder of Dharug people, and <a href="https://unsw.press/books/australian-frontier-wars-1788-1838/">even the torture of a Dharug child</a>.</p>
<p>The Dharug responded by killing settlers, raiding farms and taking corn. Raiding was so intense that Lieutenant-Governor William Paterson perceived it to be a serious threat to the future of the Hawkesbury settlement and ordered a detachment of the New South Wales Corps to kill any Dharug they found and hang their bodies on public display as a warning to others. The conflict <a href="https://unsw.press/books/australian-frontier-wars-1788-1838/">that resulted</a> took lives from both sides, even of children. </p>
<p>A permanent garrison was deployed to the region, the corps was expanded and troops were distributed among the farms to regularly seek out and kill Dharug. The Dharug became the <a href="https://unsw.press/books/australian-frontier-wars-1788-1838/">first Aboriginal people to develop tactics for use specifically in frontier warfare</a>, responding with a sustained campaign of raiding that lasted until 1805 and included stealing corn, attacking farmhouses, and using fire to destroy structures and crops.</p>
<p>Dharug knowledge-holder Chris Tobin, who was involved in establishing the Battle of Richmond Hill memorial, <a href="https://nit.com.au/12-11-2019/832/dharug-massacre-memorial-site-teaches-young-aboriginal-students-about-colonial-history">saw it as a step towards truth-telling</a> and correcting common myths that there was no Aboriginal resistance to colonisation and that settlement was peaceful.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/509957/original/file-20230214-24-bs9x99.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/509957/original/file-20230214-24-bs9x99.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/509957/original/file-20230214-24-bs9x99.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=786&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/509957/original/file-20230214-24-bs9x99.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=786&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/509957/original/file-20230214-24-bs9x99.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=786&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/509957/original/file-20230214-24-bs9x99.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=988&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/509957/original/file-20230214-24-bs9x99.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=988&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/509957/original/file-20230214-24-bs9x99.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=988&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>For youth who today are walking in the footprints of those who fought in the Battle of Richmond Hill, Tobin feels it is vital they learn about the efforts of those who came before them. </p>
<p>These were people who fought valiantly for their Country, who stood up for what was right, and their stories are something in which Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and settlers can find pride. For Tobin, <a href="https://nit.com.au/12-11-2019/832/dharug-massacre-memorial-site-teaches-young-aboriginal-students-about-colonial-history">just knowing the memorial is there</a> means the town is easier to live in.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>This is an edited extract from <a href="https://shop.aiatsis.gov.au/products/monumental-disruptions">Monumental Disruptions</a>: Aboriginal people and colonial commemorations in so-called Australia by Bronwyn Carlson and Terri Farrelly (Aboriginal Studies Press).</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/198981/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Across Australia, there are memorials to white people ‘killed by Natives’. But there is a silence about what led to these attacks, or the reprisal massacres that typically followed.Bronwyn Carlson, Professor, Indigenous Studies and Director of The Centre for Global Indigenous Futures, Macquarie UniversityTerri Farrelly, Adjunct Fellow, Department of Indigenous Studies, Macquarie UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1980642023-02-19T19:09:36Z2023-02-19T19:09:36ZLong before the Voice vote, the Australian Aboriginal Progressive Association called for parliamentary representation<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/508005/original/file-20230203-19611-85lvkb.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=113%2C11%2C3778%2C1982&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">John Maynard</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised this article contains names and/or images of deceased people.</em></p>
<p>The most startling point on the referendum for a Voice to parliament is the fact the majority of people in this country have no idea of history. And I mean both Black and white people. </p>
<p>Australian history, as written for nearly two thirds of the 20th century, glorified discoverers, explorers, settlers, and Gallipoli. We as Aboriginal people had been conveniently erased from the historical landscape and memory. Most Australians gave Aboriginal people little or no consideration.
The majority of Aboriginal people were trapped in a historical vacuum through the fact that great numbers of our people had been confined to heavily congested and controlled missions and reserves.</p>
<p>As part of this confinement, we were encouraged to forget our past. Everyday decisions were removed from people; they were told what to eat, what to wear, who you could marry, and their movement was severely restricted. There was a process of historical erasure and memory. </p>
<p>We were to be severed from any sense of past or inspiration. We could not participate in ceremonies, speak our language, tell our stories, practice songs and dances or conduct our everyday hunting and living experiences. Over time our people could only remember the controlled life on the reserve. It became the pattern of misery.</p>
<p>In his 1968 Boyer lecture, <a href="https://www.austlit.edu.au/austlit/page/C695416">After the Dreaming</a>, anthropologist W.E.H. Stanner exposed Australia’s failure to regard, record or acknowledge Aboriginal people in the country’s history. Australian history, he said, had been constructed with:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>a view from a window which had been carefully placed to exclude a whole quadrant of the landscape.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>What is critically important in history understanding is that the call for a Voice to parliament is not a new initiative. Aboriginal activists nearly 100 years ago first called for a voice to parliament as part of their political platform and demands during the 1920s.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1410897711633616898"}"></div></p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-1881-maloga-petition-a-call-for-self-determination-and-a-key-moment-on-the-path-to-the-voice-197796">The 1881 Maloga petition: a call for self-determination and a key moment on the path to the Voice</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>The Australian Aboriginal Progressive Association</h2>
<p>The first Aboriginal political organisation, the <a href="https://www.nma.gov.au/defining-moments/resources/formation-of-the-aapa">Australian Aboriginal Progressive Association</a> (AAPA), was formed in Sydney in 1924 and led by my grandfather Fred Maynard. </p>
<p>It advocated several key demands in protecting the rights of Aboriginal people, centring on:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>a national land rights agenda</p></li>
<li><p>protecting Aboriginal children from being taken from their families</p></li>
<li><p>a call for genuine Aboriginal self-determination</p></li>
<li><p>citizenship in our own country</p></li>
<li><p>defending a distinct Aboriginal cultural identity</p></li>
<li><p>and the insistence Aboriginal people be placed in charge of Aboriginal affairs. </p></li>
</ul>
<p>The call for Aboriginal rights to land was explicit. Leader Fred Maynard <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/24046334">declared</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The request made by this association for sufficient land for each eligible family is justly based. The Australian people are the original owners of the land and have a prior right over all other people in this respect.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The association’s conference in Sydney was front page news in the Sydney Daily Guardian. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/507778/original/file-20230202-5920-1iaiaf.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C263%2C1914%2C931&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/507778/original/file-20230202-5920-1iaiaf.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C263%2C1914%2C931&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/507778/original/file-20230202-5920-1iaiaf.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=682&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/507778/original/file-20230202-5920-1iaiaf.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=682&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/507778/original/file-20230202-5920-1iaiaf.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=682&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/507778/original/file-20230202-5920-1iaiaf.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=858&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/507778/original/file-20230202-5920-1iaiaf.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=858&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/507778/original/file-20230202-5920-1iaiaf.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=858&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The AAPA’s first conference front page news in Sydney.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Image supplied by John Maynard.</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Over 200 Aboriginal people attended this conference held at St David’s Church and Hall in Riley Street, Surry Hills.</p>
<p>In the space of six short months the Australian Aboriginal Progressive Association had expanded to 13 branches, four sub-branches and a membership in excess of 600.</p>
<p>Its established offices in Crown Street, Sydney and a state-wide network of information regarding Aboriginal people.</p>
<h2>Calls for direct representation in parliament</h2>
<p>Late in October 1925, the association held a second conference in Kempsey, New South Wales. It ran over three days with over 700 Aboriginal people in attendance. </p>
<p>It was noted in press coverage of the conference that </p>
<blockquote>
<p>pleas were entered for direct representation in parliament.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Two years later in 1927, the Australian Aboriginal Progressive Association produced a manifesto. It was delivered to all sections of government – both state and federal – and published widely across NSW, South Australia, Victoria, and Queensland.</p>
<p>One of the significant points was for an Aboriginal board to be established under the Commonwealth government, and for state control over Aboriginal lives be abolished. It envisioned:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The control of Aboriginal affairs, apart from common law rights shall be vested in a board of management comprised of capable educated Aboriginals under a chairman to be appointed by the government.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This board would not be comprised of government-selected or handpicked individuals but would be Aboriginal elected officers. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"867677727121326080"}"></div></p>
<p>This push for an Aboriginal board or place in parliament continued in 1929, when Fred Maynard spoke to the Chatswood Willoughby Labour League in NSW on Aboriginal issues. A report in the The Labor Daily newspaper in February that year mentioned his call for:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Aboriginal representative in the federal parliament, or failing it, to have an [A]boriginal ambassador appointed to live in Canberra to watch over his people’s interests and advise the federal authorities.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Surveillance, threats, intimidation, abuse</h2>
<p>The Australian Aboriginal Progressive Association disappeared from public view in late 1929. </p>
<p>There is strong <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/24046334">evidence</a> the organisation was effectively broken up through the combined efforts of the NSW Aborigines Protection Board, missionaries, and the police. </p>
<p>The state government and the Protection Board had been embarrassed by the exposure of their unjust policies in the media and wanted the organisation broken up.</p>
<p>Fred Maynard, in a newspaper interview in late 1927 in The Newcastle Sun revealed the level of surveillance, threat, intimidation, and abuse he and the other Aboriginal activists were subjected to. The report noted:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>He said that he had been warned on many occasions that the doors of Long Bay were opening for him. He would cheerfully go to jail for the remainder of his life, he declared if, by so doing he could make the people of Australia realise the truly frightful administration of the Aborigines Act. He knew cases where children had been torn from their mothers and sent into absolute slavery.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>When one ponders upon the legacy of the Australian Aboriginal Progressive Association the sad reality is that if the demands of these early activists had been met nearly a century ago, we would not be suffering the severe disadvantage that hovers over Aboriginal lives still today.</p>
<p>Imagine if enough land for each and every Aboriginal family to build their own economic independence had been granted.</p>
<p>Or that we would not have suffered another five decades of Aboriginal child removal and the shocking impact of that policy on generations of Aboriginal lives. </p>
<p>If the demand to protect a distinct Aboriginal cultural identity had been taken up, we would not today be working to piece together the shattered cultural pieces of language, stories, songs, and dances. </p>
<p>And finally, if Aboriginal people had been placed in a position to oversee Aboriginal policy and needs, the history of our people would have been vastly different. </p>
<p>The reality today is we continue to fight for the demands that the Australian Aboriginal Progressive Association established nearly 100 years ago.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/capturing-the-lived-history-of-the-aborigines-protection-board-while-we-still-can-46259">Capturing the lived history of the Aborigines Protection Board while we still can</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/198064/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>John Maynard received funding from the Australian Research Council (ARC) grants program examining Aboriginal political protest back in 2003-2010.</span></em></p>The sad reality is that if the demands of these early activists had been met nearly a century ago, we would not be suffering the severe disadvantage that hovers over Aboriginal lives still today.John Maynard, Director/Chair of Aboriginal History - The Wollotuka Institute, University of NewcastleLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1920972023-01-10T03:41:27Z2023-01-10T03:41:27ZVince Copley had a vision for a better Australia – and he helped make it happen, with lifelong friend Charles Perkins<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/503740/original/file-20230110-20-f2g4xr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=5%2C0%2C3988%2C2000&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Clockwise from left: Curramulka Community Club, St Francis House, book cover (ABC Books), Flinders University, State Library of New South Wales</span> </figcaption></figure><p><em>Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised this article contains names and images of deceased people.</em></p>
<p>In his memoir’s final chapter, Vince Copley wonders: if the first legal marriage of an Aboriginal woman and a white man had been socially accepted in the 1850s, would his own wife have been spared being pushed to the end of the 1970s bank queue because she was with him, a blackfella? Would that real estate agent have considered their application instead of throwing it straight in the bin? Would their daughter have been spared the schoolyard bullying and their son the name-calling? </p>
<p>Copley is descended (through his grandmother Maisie May Edwards, nee Adams) from <a href="https://theconversation.com/hidden-women-of-history-kudnarto-the-kaurna-woman-who-made-south-australian-legal-history-185390">Kudnarto</a>, the Kaurna woman who married shepherd Thomas Adams on 27 January 1848, in South Australia’s first legal marriage between an Aboriginal woman and a colonist. His ancestral connections included Ngadjuri, Narungga, and Ngarrindjeri.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>Review: The Wonder of Little Things – Vince Copley and Lea McInerney (ABC Books)</em></p>
<hr>
<p>Readers of <a href="https://www.harpercollins.com.au/9780733342448/the-wonder-of-little-things/">The Wonder of Little Things</a> (2022) will find it hard to think of Vince Copley in the past tense. Crafted from oral storytelling of around about 300 recollections, Copley’s voice in this first-person memoir brings you close, almost as if you are sitting at a table with him, drinking his fabled cups of tea. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/503730/original/file-20230110-12-chvss7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/503730/original/file-20230110-12-chvss7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/503730/original/file-20230110-12-chvss7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=361&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503730/original/file-20230110-12-chvss7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=361&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503730/original/file-20230110-12-chvss7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=361&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503730/original/file-20230110-12-chvss7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=453&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503730/original/file-20230110-12-chvss7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=453&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503730/original/file-20230110-12-chvss7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=453&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Vince with Lea McInerney, co-writer of his memoir.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">ABC Books</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>A humble man who met kings, queens and heroes</h2>
<p>Born on a government mission in 1936, Vince died at home on January 10 2022, aged 85, after the complete manuscript he had prepared with writer Lea McInerney was written and the publisher had despatched questions for final revision. His beloved wife Brenda had passed in 2020 and it was she who had lovingly “bullied” him into telling the story of his life, so their kids would know what he had done. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/503731/original/file-20230110-21-xy6ds0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/503731/original/file-20230110-21-xy6ds0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/503731/original/file-20230110-21-xy6ds0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=917&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503731/original/file-20230110-21-xy6ds0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=917&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503731/original/file-20230110-21-xy6ds0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=917&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503731/original/file-20230110-21-xy6ds0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1153&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503731/original/file-20230110-21-xy6ds0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1153&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503731/original/file-20230110-21-xy6ds0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1153&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The book is dedicated to his children, Kara and Vincent. Many generations appear within its covers – the book itself now an important part of family storytelling and knowledge. Lea McInerney is recognised for her dedication to Copley’s voice and vision; Copley said “I’m the storyteller, you’re the writer, and this is our book”. </p>
<p>There were many other pre-publication readers too, all of them thanked in the book’s acknowledgements. Reconstituting this life story was its own winding journey. Copley’s niece Kath’s documenting of that journey through photos and video could be considered as the basis for another form of media about the making of this memoir. </p>
<p>The inclusion of photographs and further reading, including a well-researched timeline of significant events in Australian and Indigenous history, enhances the book’s educational appeal.</p>
<p>But what might you find in The Wonder of Little Things? </p>
<p>A man who met the King of Jordan, the <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-queen-has-left-her-mark-around-the-world-but-not-all-see-it-as-something-to-be-celebrated-190343">Queen of England</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/muhammad-ali-rewrote-the-rule-book-for-athletes-as-celebrities-and-activists-60513">Muhammad Ali</a>; a man of humble origins who travelled the world and whose greatest joy seemed to be returning home and eventually knowing more of his own Country. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/503742/original/file-20230110-18-1hgvej.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="man looking at engraved large rock" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/503742/original/file-20230110-18-1hgvej.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/503742/original/file-20230110-18-1hgvej.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503742/original/file-20230110-18-1hgvej.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503742/original/file-20230110-18-1hgvej.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503742/original/file-20230110-18-1hgvej.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503742/original/file-20230110-18-1hgvej.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503742/original/file-20230110-18-1hgvej.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Vince Copley at the engraved stone that acknowledges the Ngaduri people as the original custodians of the land, at Sevenhill, near Clare.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Lea McInerney</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Towards the end of the book, there is a moment where Copley reads his own Country, standing near an ancient Ngadjuri rock engraving, seeing other sites he’d visited in the distance. It’s told in understated fashion, so it could be easy to miss the significance of this among the other recollections quilted together in the book. </p>
<p>Connection to Country is widely understood to be a key <a href="https://www.sahealth.sa.gov.au/wps/wcm/connect/public+content/sa+health+internet/about+us/about+sa+health/health+in+all+policies/public+health+partner+authorities/the+department+of+environment+water+and+natural+resources+dewnr/connection+to+country">determinant</a> in health and wellbeing; it can also be difficult to maintain. Indeed, this phase in Copley’s life was initiated from a chance encounter with archaeologists!</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/hidden-women-of-history-kudnarto-the-kaurna-woman-who-made-south-australian-legal-history-185390">Hidden women of history: Kudnarto, the Kaurna woman who made South Australian legal history</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Riding shotgun through Australian history</h2>
<p>Through the prism of Copley’s life story, we ride shotgun on some of the most important moments in Indigenous – and therefore Australian – history. We see the movement of Aboriginal people from missions into towns and cities, and the hardship (but also the opportunities) encountered. </p>
<p>Aboriginal people weren’t allowed to drink or be served in hotels then, but the women found ways to socialise. Vince’s mum married his stepfather in 1942; he recalls “Mum’s photo on the front page of a newspaper called The Truth and that not very nice things had been written about her”. </p>
<p>Some family members applied for and received exemption from the restrictive provisions of the Aborigines Act, which meant less control of their every movement, and was granted to Aboriginal people who <a href="https://aboriginalexemption.com.au/">were deemed to be</a> “worthy”. (If <a href="http://www.hass-sa.asn.au/files/1415/5442/9962/Timeline_of_legislation_affecting_aboriginal_people.pdf">not exempted</a>, Aboriginal people could not open a bank account, buy land or legally drink alcohol. However, exempted people were not supposed to have contact with non-exempt Aboriginal people any more.) Vince’s mum’s 1946 exemption certificate appears in the book. </p>
<p>Voluntarily living at <a href="https://www.stfrancishouse.com.au/">St Francis House</a> in Adelaide, a boys’ home where Aboriginal kids from remote areas could get an education in the city, was a striking example of the opportunity afforded by urban movement. Much later, in 2014 in the same city, Vince was presented with the Member of the Order of Australia by then-governor of South Australia, Hieu Van Le. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/503735/original/file-20230110-24-zqkpb5.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="schoolboys on their way to school" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/503735/original/file-20230110-24-zqkpb5.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/503735/original/file-20230110-24-zqkpb5.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=432&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503735/original/file-20230110-24-zqkpb5.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=432&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503735/original/file-20230110-24-zqkpb5.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=432&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503735/original/file-20230110-24-zqkpb5.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=543&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503735/original/file-20230110-24-zqkpb5.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=543&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503735/original/file-20230110-24-zqkpb5.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=543&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">St Francis House boys in 1950, on their way to school. Left to right: Laurie Bray, Desi Price, Kenny Hampton, Richie Bray, Malcolm Cooper, Gordon Briscoe, Ron Tilmouth, Vince Copley, Gerry Hill and Wilf Huddleston.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">St Francis House</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>As a young man, Vince spent time living and working in country towns where the racism took the breath away. (For example, travelling for work to buy a grain elevator, Vince had to leave Wee Waa without the equipment because he could not get a white person to speak to him, let alone give him directions.) </p>
<p>And then there was Curramulka, on South Australia’s Yorke Peninsula, where Vince was recruited to play football, and initially worked as a shearer. He came and went over the years, boarding with a family, the Thomases (whose members included his future wife Brenda), on a farm just outside the town. He lived with the Thomases, “all up”, for 13 or 14 years.</p>
<p>“The Currie” holds a very special place in Vince’s heart: he became his own man here and he experienced a different social life from the one he’d been used to. In the Currie, Vince was invited to dinner at white folks’ homes. He could ask a woman to dance and not be rebuffed. He became coach and captain of the local AFL team, which he took to premierships in 1957, 1958, and 1959. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/503733/original/file-20230110-18-mrta08.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="a football team, an Indigenous man smiling in front row, holding a ball" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/503733/original/file-20230110-18-mrta08.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/503733/original/file-20230110-18-mrta08.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503733/original/file-20230110-18-mrta08.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503733/original/file-20230110-18-mrta08.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503733/original/file-20230110-18-mrta08.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=629&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503733/original/file-20230110-18-mrta08.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=629&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503733/original/file-20230110-18-mrta08.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=629&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Vince Copley, aged 21 (pictured holding the ball, front-row centre) with the Curramulka A Grade Premiers AFL team, in his second year as captain-coach.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Curramulka Community Club</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The footy-mad towns of country South Australia found themselves in a dilemma only some of them could overcome: racist stereotyping couldn’t hold itself together if an Aboriginal person could live up close and be seen as fully human. Copley tells us his life, and through it we get to see the fabric of Australian life forming. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/charles-perkins-forced-australia-to-confront-its-racist-past-his-fight-for-justice-continues-today-139303">Charles Perkins forced Australia to confront its racist past. His fight for justice continues today</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Lifelong friendships</h2>
<p>Copley tells of a lifelong friendship with Charles Perkins, which began when they were both residents of the <a href="https://www.wakefieldpress.com.au/product.php?productid=1477">St Francis Home for Boys</a>. </p>
<p>There are other St Francis boys he also calls family: academic and activist <a href="https://ia.anu.edu.au/biography/briscoe-gordon-17784">Gordon Briscoe</a> (the first Indigenous person to be awarded a PhD from an Australian university), <a href="https://moriartyfoundation.org.au/people/john-moriarty/">John Moriarty</a> (co-owner with wife Ros Moriarty of Balarinji, the design studio that created the Wunala and Nalanji Dreamings painted on two Qantas jumbos and the first Aboriginal player selected to play soccer for Australia), Wilf Huddleton, Richie Bray, Malcolm Cooper, Kenny Hampton, Ron Tilmouth and more. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/503737/original/file-20230110-22-chvss7.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/503737/original/file-20230110-22-chvss7.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/503737/original/file-20230110-22-chvss7.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=423&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503737/original/file-20230110-22-chvss7.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=423&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503737/original/file-20230110-22-chvss7.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=423&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503737/original/file-20230110-22-chvss7.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=532&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503737/original/file-20230110-22-chvss7.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=532&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503737/original/file-20230110-22-chvss7.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=532&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">One of many reunions of the St Francis boys, for Vince’s son VIncent’s baptism in 1976. From left to right: Desi Price, John Moriarty, Charles Perkins, Vince Copley, Mrs Smith, Father Smith (founder of St Francis Home for Boys), Les Nayda and Gordon Briscoe.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.stfrancishouse.com.au">Courtesy of the P. McD. Smith MBE and St Francis House Collection</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The friendship with Perkins, though, is what shapes much of Copley’s working life through the 1970s, 80s and 90s. Many times, he mentions Charlie would ask him to step in for him when he couldn’t make a meeting, a conference or a trip. Thus, Copley was there at the formation of key organisations and movements in the contemporary Aboriginal world. </p>
<p>These include: rights organisation the <a href="https://dictionaryofsydney.org/entry/federal_council_for_the_advancement_of_aborigines_and_torres_strait_islanders">Federal Council for the Advancement of Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders</a>, the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Council_for_the_Advancement_of_Aborigines_and_Torres_Strait_Islanders">National Aboriginal and Islander Liberation Movement</a>, the first federal Department of Aboriginal Affairs, the <a href="https://catalogue.nla.gov.au/Record/2000081">Aboriginal Development Commission</a>, the <a href="http://www.kooriweb.org/foley/images/history/1970s/nacc74/naccdx.html">National Aboriginal Consultative Committee</a>, <a href="https://www.ahl.gov.au/">Aboriginal Hostels Limited</a>, the inaugural Barunga Festival and the <a href="https://deadlystory.com/page/culture/history/Barunga_Statement">Barunga Bark Petition</a>, the <a href="https://www.naidoc.org.au/">National Aboriginal and Islander Day of Celebration</a> (NAIDOC), inaugural co-chair of Cricket Australia’s <a href="https://www.ntcricket.com.au/news/vale-vincent-copley/2022-01-17">National Indigenous Cricket Advisory Council</a>, inaugural chair of <a href="https://www.tandanya.com.au/">Tandanya National Aboriginal Cultural Institute</a>, and more.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/503728/original/file-20230110-14-q0phr5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/503728/original/file-20230110-14-q0phr5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/503728/original/file-20230110-14-q0phr5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=407&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503728/original/file-20230110-14-q0phr5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=407&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503728/original/file-20230110-14-q0phr5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=407&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503728/original/file-20230110-14-q0phr5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=512&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503728/original/file-20230110-14-q0phr5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=512&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503728/original/file-20230110-14-q0phr5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=512&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Charles Perkins, fourth from left, on the Freedom Ride in 1965.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Mitchell Library State Library of NSW</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It would be a mistake to think Copley’s influence was defined by Perkins: he too had magnetism, his own charisma and intelligence, his own vision for a better Australia and vision for better lives for his own people.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-who-owns-a-familys-story-why-its-time-to-lift-the-berndt-field-notes-embargo-94652">Friday essay: who owns a family's story? Why it's time to lift the Berndt field notes embargo</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Loss and a long life</h2>
<p>It’s hard to see how Vince Copley could have fitted any more into his life, but he does recall in The Wonder of Little Things some regret that he didn’t get to know more about his paternal grandfather Barney Waria. (Warrior in the book, matching Vince’s father, Frederick Warrior – the name <a href="https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-who-owns-a-familys-story-why-its-time-to-lift-the-berndt-field-notes-embargo-94652">was anglicised</a> at some stage). </p>
<p>His memoir deals with the contentious issue of <a href="https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-who-owns-a-familys-story-why-its-time-to-lift-the-berndt-field-notes-embargo-94652">the 30-year embargo</a> on the field notes of anthropologists Catherine and Ronald Berndt, which include information about and from Barney Warrior. As we keep moving into a future of democratised archives and changed power relationships in all aspects of life, one wonders if that embargo created unnecessary missed opportunity and heartache for Vince Copley. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/503736/original/file-20230110-448-breuxu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/503736/original/file-20230110-448-breuxu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/503736/original/file-20230110-448-breuxu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503736/original/file-20230110-448-breuxu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503736/original/file-20230110-448-breuxu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503736/original/file-20230110-448-breuxu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503736/original/file-20230110-448-breuxu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503736/original/file-20230110-448-breuxu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Vincent Copley with his son Vincent Copley junior. They are holding Ngadjuri book, with their grandfather and great-grandfather, Barney Waria, on the cover.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Flinders University</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Vince Copley knew loss. His mother died when he was 15 and before that, four other members of his immediate family had also died prematurely, including his beloved big brother, Colin. We meet Colin on the opening page: Vince is four and Colin six years older than him. It’s clear that Vince is in awe of his brother, a “really fast runner”, and by page three (set in “the 1940s”), Colin is dead of an untreated infection from tearing his knee on barbed wire. </p>
<p>“The closest hospital is ten miles away in Maitland, but that’s taboo for us – they don’t take Aboriginal people,” Copley writes. The next-closest hospital is 50 miles away, in Wallaroo, but the family can’t access a car and the quickest route to a hospital is by bus, to Adelaide. When they arrive, “the infection’s set in too far”.</p>
<p>Vince, too, could have died early (at the age of 15) of appendicitis, if not for the third hospital he visited, in Wallaroo, which admitted and treated him after hospitals in Ardrossan and Maitland refused to. Vince writes: “Later they told me that if my appendix had burst, I would have been history.” </p>
<p>From an early sporting and very physical working life, Copley became a bureaucrat in this new and emerging Australia – he was often in cars and planes, sitting in meetings, smoking, and eating out. He attributes his need for open-heart surgery at the age of 45 to that lifestyle, and this proves yet another turning point in the life of this incredibly interesting person, whose humility and passion were hallmarks of a long life, lived well. </p>
<p>While the St Francis boys who as men were central to Copley throughout his life, he also often refers to the strong women in his family – his sisters Josie and Winnie and his Aunty Glad (Aboriginal community leader <a href="https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/elphick-gladys-12460">Gladys Elphick</a>, whose achievements included founding the Council of Aboriginal Women of South Australia and the Aboriginal Medical Service). He is loving about his mother, whose life was cut so cruelly short. </p>
<p>We see a man of his time and we might wonder how he would have managed without his courageous and loyal wife Brenda at home, holding down the fort and raising their beautiful children. But Copley provides a sense of a man who knows the worth of women and who could never deny their strength, intelligence, and significance to the making of the world – to the making of his world. </p>
<p>There is so much story told – and waiting to be read and heard – from the pages of The Wonder of Little Things. It would be a shame for readers to miss out. </p>
<hr>
<p><em>Associate Professor Sandra Phillips is guest editing, with Associate Professor Corrinne Sullivan, a special issue of international, peer-reviewed open access journal, Genealogy. Dedicated to Indigenous Auto/Biographies, the <a href="https://www.mdpi.com/journal/genealogy/special_issues/0W8FNRL13Y">call for papers</a> is open until 30 April, 2023.</em></p>
<p><em>Correction: this article originally stated that Vince Copley took the Curramulka AFL team he coached and captained to premierships in 1957, 1958, and 1950, but it was in 1957, 1958 and 1959; this has now been amended.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/192097/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sandra Phillips receives funding from the Australian Research Council. </span></em></p>Vince Copley lived a long, impressive life, helping to make a better world for Aboriginal people. Born on a mission in 1936, he died aged 85, just after finishing his memoir, on 10 January 2022.Sandra Phillips, Associate Professor of Indigenous Australian Studies, School of Humanities and Communication Arts, Western Sydney UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1936952022-11-13T12:46:29Z2022-11-13T12:46:29ZHow community-engaged archaeology can be a pathway to reconciliation<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/493381/original/file-20221103-26-ljrt07.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C3264%2C2448&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Neighbours from Tla’amin, K’omoks, Qualicum and Tsimshian Nations gather around the newly
erected plaque on Xwe’etay honoring the ancestral Indigenous people of the island.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Kathy Schulz)</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>We are standing in a circle on an expansive beach in front of an ancient rock-walled fish-trap — one of many archaeological sites on the <a href="https://www.lasquetiarc.ca/about">small island of Xwe’etay (Lasqueti)</a> in the Salish Sea between Vancouver Island and the British Columbian mainland. </p>
<p>We are joined by about 80 island locals who clambered over slippery rocks to hear about the archaeological heritage of the island and to meet members of the Tla’amin Nation, who have historical ancestral interests on Xwe’etay. </p>
<p>This is the first time any of the islanders have met their northern Coast Salish neighbours and the first time these Tla’amin community members have visited these ancestral lands. </p>
<p>Together we sound out the ancestral name of the island: <a href="https://www.lasquetiarc.ca/language">“wha-et-tai” — the northern Coast Salish term for yew tree</a>. It doesn’t matter that most of us said it wrong. What matters is the saying of it — and in doing so, acknowledging another people’s history and place on the island. </p>
<p>This one collective gesture illustrates the power of community-engaged archaeology to build bridges, contribute to scientific understanding, and advance the process of reconciliation.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/494246/original/file-20221108-21-fc5bfm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A group of people gather in a circle while a man speaks to them." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/494246/original/file-20221108-21-fc5bfm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/494246/original/file-20221108-21-fc5bfm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/494246/original/file-20221108-21-fc5bfm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/494246/original/file-20221108-21-fc5bfm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/494246/original/file-20221108-21-fc5bfm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/494246/original/file-20221108-21-fc5bfm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/494246/original/file-20221108-21-fc5bfm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Tla’amin Nation Guardian Watchmen, Bryce McKenzie, leading Lasqueti islanders in saying ‘Xwe’etay.’</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Ken Lertzman)</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Our work on the <a href="https://www.lasquetiarc.ca/">Xwe’etay/Lasqueti Archaeology Project (XLAP)</a> is founded on the belief that archaeology can be a powerful catalyst for cross-community conversations about deep Indigenous connections to their lands and seas. These connections include the less visible teachings which shape the cultural practices that celebrate these connections.</p>
<h2>Archaeology on Xwe’etay</h2>
<p>Many archaeologists understand that practicing archaeology comes with a responsibility to descendant communities whose history, cultural identity, and health are embedded in the archaeological record. This recognition often arises from Indigenous People’s desire to take charge of managing the stewardship of their traditional territories. It has motivated many archaeologists to create meaningful partnerships with Indigenous communities. </p>
<p>Far less common, however, is for archaeologists to deeply engage with settler communities whose past may not be reflected in the archaeological record. These communities, nonetheless, feel either a connection to the land, hold private property rights associated with sites, or feel connected to the archaeological record in scientific or personal ways.</p>
<p>Modern Lasqueti Island is a microcosm of the <a href="https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/industry/natural-resource-use/archaeology">Indigenous heritage found elsewhere in British Columbia</a> and beyond. Indigenous history is evident in a rich and varied archaeological record. Over the last eight or more decades, this record has slowly and continuously been eroded by small-scale development. At the same time, the settler island community of Lasqueti has developed their own connections to the land on which they live, and the community of which they are a part.</p>
<p>No Indigenous descendants of the land have lived on the island for two centuries because of a myriad of <a href="https://islandstrust.bc.ca/document/discussion-paper-the-islands-trust-object-past-present-and-future-mar-2021/">intentional colonial impacts</a>. Today, at least 13 Northern Coast Salish, Coast Salish, and Kwakwakaʼwakw Nations claim varying interests in the island’s land and sea.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/493382/original/file-20221103-19-c69wo4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A group of people digging in a forested area." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/493382/original/file-20221103-19-c69wo4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/493382/original/file-20221103-19-c69wo4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/493382/original/file-20221103-19-c69wo4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/493382/original/file-20221103-19-c69wo4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/493382/original/file-20221103-19-c69wo4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/493382/original/file-20221103-19-c69wo4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/493382/original/file-20221103-19-c69wo4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Islanders and community members from Tla’amin Nation exploring a backdirt pile from a previously disturbed archaeological site.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Eroding Canadian myths</h2>
<p>There are at least two ways that the XLAP team engages actively with the vast potential of archaeology to bring communities together. First are the many on-going discussions with island landowners and other residents about Indigenous heritage. These discussions involve sharing information about our archaeological findings and talking about the <a href="https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/industry/natural-resource-use/archaeology/private-commercial-or-development-property">ethical and legal responsibilities of landowners regarding archaeological sites</a> on their property. </p>
<p>Second, our island-wide exploration of archaeological heritage has provided chances for the island’s current inhabitants and the project’s Indigenous partners to get their hands dirty screening and excavating. Touching the past in this way is a powerful way for people to see the land differently and to rethink their responsibility towards it.</p>
<p>Through our engaged archaeological work, we are slowly eroding the Canadian myth that has facilitated the destruction of Indigenous heritage and other <a href="https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/indian-act">intentional policies</a> of cultural genocide. As one settler resident of the island said:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“…sifting through the layers of time and lives. What an opening of my eyes to the extent of Native settlement on Lasqueti — and the whole coast. I could almost hear the clatter of the Victorian-patterned curtains on my eyes fall away to learn that the "middens,” which the colonial narrative has regarded as the rubbish heaps, are actually carefully built house floors of excellent drainage materials. There goes another myth of the wild B.C. coast.“</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Myths such as these have served to shield settlers from the reality that <a href="https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/aboriginal-people">Indigenous connection to the land goes back hundreds of generations</a>, rooted in flood and creation stories. So far, our oldest radiocarbon dated archaeological site on Xwe’etay is 3,800 years old.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/494247/original/file-20221108-8958-lgzr0y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="People stand near a shoreline in front of a curved line of rocks. A woman stands behind the rocks speaking to the people." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/494247/original/file-20221108-8958-lgzr0y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/494247/original/file-20221108-8958-lgzr0y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=129&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/494247/original/file-20221108-8958-lgzr0y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=129&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/494247/original/file-20221108-8958-lgzr0y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=129&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/494247/original/file-20221108-8958-lgzr0y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=163&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/494247/original/file-20221108-8958-lgzr0y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=163&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/494247/original/file-20221108-8958-lgzr0y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=163&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A fish trap engineered by the ancestral peoples of Xwe’etay.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Kathy Schulz)</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Bringing communities together</h2>
<p>Community-engaged archaeology offers a visceral jolt to the process of reconciliation. You can’t unsee a landscape with terraced slopes that were shaped over generations by Indigenous settlements and on which today’s settlers have built their homes. You can’t unsee the fish traps and clam gardens that reflect the extensive engineering and management of the intertidal zone. And, you can’t unsee the archaeological sites lining the shoreline that are composed of layers of shells and evidence of past lives lived.</p>
<p>Accepting these truths about Indigenous connections to the land provides a foundation to begin healing past wrongs and for creating bridges. As said by Kim Recalma-Clutesi, whose brother, Mark Recalma is the hereditary chief of the Pentlatch (Qualicum) Nation territory that includes Xwe’etay: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>"You know, we’ve been fighting for a long time. And we’ve been advocates for a long time… It’s time for us to hear your kind words and your gestures. To hear it and embrace it. But it’s also time for you to put the guilt down. Because they’re both debilitating… And our path forward is working together. We don’t give you permission to [feel guilt]. We give you permission to move forward and do more of what you’ve done.”</p>
</blockquote>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/494248/original/file-20221108-21-48fhal.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="People gather in front of a shoreline. A small island can be seen in the distance." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/494248/original/file-20221108-21-48fhal.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/494248/original/file-20221108-21-48fhal.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/494248/original/file-20221108-21-48fhal.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/494248/original/file-20221108-21-48fhal.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/494248/original/file-20221108-21-48fhal.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/494248/original/file-20221108-21-48fhal.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/494248/original/file-20221108-21-48fhal.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Gathering on the intertidal for drumming, singing, speeches, and appreciations of communities in the past and in the present.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Gord Ohms)</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Project advisor and archaeologist Christine Roberts from Wei Wai Kum Nation adds, “I think this is a really unique situation you guys have here and I think it’s really cool because all of the archaeology that you’re finding adds to the story — which becomes your story.”</p>
<p>We have witnessed the social transformations that are brought about through people’s interest and curiosity about the past. The archaeology of Xwe’etay is extensive and remarkable. Recording and recognizing it as we are doing in XLAP provides a chance to honor the deep Indigenous history it represents. </p>
<p>For Indigenous communities, community-engaged archaeology facilitates connecting with their ancestral practices and places. For settlers, it can be a way to imagine the diversity and richness of past lives in the places that they now call home.</p>
<p>Recognizing the richness of that history can evoke a variety of emotions. These include fear for some, but also humility and awe, as well as a deepening of their own connections to those places. It is through many small conversations and mutual respect for past and present inhabitants of these lands that reconciliation may begin.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/193695/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dana Lepofsky receives funding from SSHRC</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sean Markey receives funding from SSHRC.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Christine Roberts and Oqwilowgwa Kim Recalma-Clutesi do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>One project on a small island in B.C. is demonstrating how archaeology can bring communities together and serve as a basis for reconciliation.Dana Lepofsky, Professor in Archaeology, Simon Fraser UniversityChristine Roberts, Archaeologist from the Wei Wai Kum First NationOqwilowgwa Kim Recalma-Clutesi, Contributor to the special issue on Ethnobiology Through Song/CEO Ninogaad Knowledge Keepers Foundation/Board of Directors APTNSean Markey, Professor, School of Resource and Environmental Management, Simon Fraser UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1847492022-07-03T19:52:53Z2022-07-03T19:52:53ZRediscovering the art of Tracker Nat: ‘the Namatjira of carving’<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/467948/original/file-20220609-22-fwy2pa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=6%2C0%2C4041%2C3143&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Tracker Nat, holding his hat on the far left, with Paul Hasluck standing next to him, holding Nat's shield in this picture from 1958. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">National Archives of Australia. NAA: A1200, L28199. </span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised this article contains names and images of deceased people.</em></p>
<hr>
<p>On June 5 1960, the Darwin paper The Sunday Mirror reported: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>A tribal painter, said to be more famous than the late <a href="https://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/collection/artists/namatjira-albert/">Albert Namatjira</a>, has just died at Warrabri welfare settlement, near Tennant Creek. He was Nat Warano, of whose skill few white men had heard.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Locally, Warano is remembered as Tracker Nat.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/467951/original/file-20220609-25-72nbeo.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/467951/original/file-20220609-25-72nbeo.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/467951/original/file-20220609-25-72nbeo.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=1182&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/467951/original/file-20220609-25-72nbeo.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=1182&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/467951/original/file-20220609-25-72nbeo.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=1182&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/467951/original/file-20220609-25-72nbeo.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1486&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/467951/original/file-20220609-25-72nbeo.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1486&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/467951/original/file-20220609-25-72nbeo.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1486&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Tracker Nat, painted shield, c1958.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Born in the 1880s, Nat worked as a drover during the 1930s, before becoming a police tracker. He was also a leader and diplomat of the Warumungu people during a tumultuous period of their history. </p>
<p>During the 1940s and 1950s Nat was a prolific carver of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coolamon_(vessel)">coolamons</a>, spearthrowers, shields and water carriers, painting them with men dancing in ceremonial dress and body paint, as well as men hunting with boomerangs and spears.</p>
<p>This style of painting scenes of Warumungu life onto carvings was unique. The details of animals, vegetation and weapons show both a personal style and a deep knowledge of what he was painting.</p>
<p>As well as selling painted carvings, he gifted artefacts and drawings to missionaries, teachers and government officials so as to draw them into the Warumungu system of a <em>ngijinkirri</em>, a mutual gifting that implicates the giver and receiver into a relationship of obligation.</p>
<p>Yawalya Elder Donald “Crook Hat” Thompson explains:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Ngijinkirri is like paying back, might be tucker, like a kangaroo or an object. Everyone, all tribe from all around practise this. Like when a school teacher gives you knowledge, you owe them. Maybe pay you with a full kangaroo, pay you with an emu, but no money.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>During the 1950s, Nat made hundreds of carvings. Today, many of these are likely to be lying unidentified in people’s homes and in museum basements.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/paddy-compass-namadbara-for-the-first-time-we-can-name-an-artist-who-created-bark-paintings-in-arnhem-land-in-the-1910s-180243">Paddy Compass Namadbara: for the first time, we can name an artist who created bark paintings in Arnhem Land in the 1910s</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Extending authority</h2>
<p>A surviving photograph of Nat shows him at the official opening of the Warrabri settlement, now <a href="https://www.barkly.nt.gov.au/communities/ali-curung">Ali Curung</a>, in 1958. </p>
<p>He stands next to the federal minister for Territories, Paul Hasluck, who holds a shield with Nat’s distinctive motifs painted upon it. An unidentified man holds a second shield painted in Western Desert style, with roundels and dots, probably made by Engineer Jack, standing to his left.</p>
<p>Since the 1890s, the Warumungu had been shuffled from one settlement to another, from ration station to reserve to mission. The local Aboriginal population boomed after the <a href="https://www.commonground.org.au/learn/coniston-massacre">Coniston Massacre</a> of 1928 sent people in search of a safe place to live, and the Warumungu people opened up their country to Warlpiri, Kaytetye and other refugees from frontier violence. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-how-the-mens-painting-room-at-papunya-transformed-australian-art-79909">Friday essay: how the Men's Painting Room at Papunya transformed Australian art</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Jack and Nat, the senior men for the Warumungu and Warlpiri respectively, worked together to keep the peace and on ceremonial matters, and it was these men who were tasked with talking to the government about moving the community to Warrabri. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/467953/original/file-20220609-22-3lbq01.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/467953/original/file-20220609-22-3lbq01.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/467953/original/file-20220609-22-3lbq01.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/467953/original/file-20220609-22-3lbq01.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/467953/original/file-20220609-22-3lbq01.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/467953/original/file-20220609-22-3lbq01.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/467953/original/file-20220609-22-3lbq01.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/467953/original/file-20220609-22-3lbq01.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Tracker Nat, detail of weapons on a water carrier with signature visible, year unknown.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Private collection</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Phillip Creek was running out of water, which was the reason for the move, but Nat was also concerned that Phillip Creek was too close to sensitive cultural sites.</p>
<p>The gifting of the shield to Hasluck was Nat’s way of extending his authority into white society. </p>
<h2>A modern artist</h2>
<p>Nat also made drawings, the earliest of which can be dated to 1929. Some are of his time working on cattle stations, with detailed depictions of long horned cattle. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/467950/original/file-20220609-16-s5nb4c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/467950/original/file-20220609-16-s5nb4c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/467950/original/file-20220609-16-s5nb4c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/467950/original/file-20220609-16-s5nb4c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/467950/original/file-20220609-16-s5nb4c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/467950/original/file-20220609-16-s5nb4c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=565&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/467950/original/file-20220609-16-s5nb4c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=565&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/467950/original/file-20220609-16-s5nb4c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=565&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Tracker Nat, drawing of stockman on a horse, collected by Annie Lock at Barrow Creek, c1932.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">South Australian Museum archives series AA184</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Like so many Aboriginal carvers of this era, Nat’s name was forgotten after his work was collected by people making trips to remote Australia. </p>
<p>This is a tragedy not only for Nat and his family but the greater story of Australia, in which Aboriginal elders played significant roles negotiating on behalf of their communities, using art to forge a middle ground with settler Australia.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/467955/original/file-20220609-22-cfat83.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/467955/original/file-20220609-22-cfat83.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/467955/original/file-20220609-22-cfat83.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=272&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/467955/original/file-20220609-22-cfat83.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=272&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/467955/original/file-20220609-22-cfat83.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=272&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/467955/original/file-20220609-22-cfat83.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=342&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/467955/original/file-20220609-22-cfat83.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=342&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/467955/original/file-20220609-22-cfat83.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=342&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Joseph Yugi Williams, untitled, painted shield, private collection, 2020.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>We rediscovered Nat’s work after discovering a newspaper essay about his drawings, and seeing a pair of his shields come up for auction. Since then we have been looking for them, and have found several carvings in public and private collections.</p>
<p>One of the authors of this paper, Joseph Yugi Williams, is Nat’s grandson and a contemporary artist. He has been re-enacting Nat’s work with a series of shields inspired by his artefacts.</p>
<p>We hope to find more Tracker Nat works in the future and plan to have an exhibition in the next couple of years that showcases his originality as an artist and his significance for Warumungu people.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/184749/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Darren Jorgensen receives funding from the Australian Research Council.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>This piece was written with Levi McLean, who is currently an Honours student in art history at the University of Western Australia, based at Ali Curung in the Northern Territory.</span></em></p>During the 1950s, Nat made hundreds of carvings. Today, many of these are likely to be lying unidentified in people’s homes and in museum basements.Darren Jorgensen, Senior lecturer in art history, The University of Western AustraliaJoseph Yugi Williams, Artist and Men’s Art Facilitator, Nyinkka Nyunyu, Indigenous KnowledgeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1812402022-05-04T20:07:12Z2022-05-04T20:07:12Z65,000 years of food scraps found at Kakadu tell a story of resilience amid changing climate, sea levels and vegetation<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/460525/original/file-20220429-26-gdije7.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C6%2C4608%2C3035&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">May Nango sharing stories about Mamukala wetlands with her grandson, in 2015.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Anna Florin (courtesy of GAC)</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>For 65,000 years, Bininj – the local Kundjeihmi word for Aboriginal people – have returned to Madjedbebe rock shelter on Mirarr Country in the Kakadu region (in the Northern Territory). </p>
<p>Over this immense span of time, the environment around the rock shelter has changed dramatically. </p>
<p>Our paper, <a href="https://authors.elsevier.com/a/1ezuT-4PS2FMJ">published last week</a> in Quaternary Science Reviews, uses ancient scraps of plant foods, once charred in the site’s fireplaces, to explore how Aboriginal communities camping at the site responded to these changes. </p>
<p>This cooking debris tells a story of resilience in the face of changing climate, sea levels and vegetation.</p>
<h2>A changing environment</h2>
<p>The 50-metre-long Madjedbebe rock shelter lies at the base of a huge sandstone outlier. The site has a dark, ashy floor from hundreds of past campfires and is littered with stone tools and grindstones. </p>
<p>The back wall is decorated with vibrant and colourful rock art. Some images – such as horsemen in broad-brimmed hats, ships, guns and decorated hands – are quite recent. Others are likely many thousands of years old. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/460929/original/file-20220503-19-bm7449.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/460929/original/file-20220503-19-bm7449.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/460929/original/file-20220503-19-bm7449.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/460929/original/file-20220503-19-bm7449.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/460929/original/file-20220503-19-bm7449.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/460929/original/file-20220503-19-bm7449.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/460929/original/file-20220503-19-bm7449.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">May Nango sharing cultural knowledge about bim (rock art) with Djurrubu rangers Axel Nadjamerrek, Amroh Djandjomerr and Cuisak Nango at Madjedbebe.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Lynley Wallis (courtesy of GAC)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Today, the site is situated on the edge of the Jabiluka wetlands. But 65,000 years ago, when sea levels were much lower, it sat on the edge of a vast savanna plain joining Australia and New Guinea in the supercontintent of Sahul. </p>
<p>At this time, the world was experiencing a glacial period (referred to as the Marine Isotope Stage 4, or <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0277379118305067">MIS 4</a>) . And while Kakadu would have been relatively well-watered <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41559-020-01379-8">compared with other parts of Australia</a>, the monsoon vine forest vegetation, common at other points in time, would have retreated.</p>
<p>This glacial period would eventually ease, followed by an interglacial period, and then another glacial period, the Last Glacial Maximum (MIS 2).</p>
<p>Cut to the Holocene (10,000 years ago) and the weather became much warmer and wetter. Monsoon vine forest, open forest and woodland vegetation proliferated, and sea levels rose rapidly. </p>
<p>By 7,000 years ago, Australia and New Guinea were entirely severed from each other and the sea approached Madjedbebe to a high stand of just 5km away. </p>
<p>What followed was the rapid transformation of the Kakadu region. First the sea receded slightly, the river systems near the site became estuaries, and mangroves etched the lowlands. </p>
<p>By 4,000 years ago, these were partially replaced by patches of freshwater wetland. And by 2,000 years ago, the iconic Kakadu wetlands of today were formed.</p>
<h2>Unlikely treasure</h2>
<p>Our research team, composed of archaeologists and Mirarr Traditional Owners, wanted to learn how people lived within this changing environment. </p>
<p>To do this, we sought an unlikely archaeological treasure: charcoal. It’s not something that comes to mind for the average camper, but when a fireplace is lit many of its components – such as twigs and leaves, or food thrown in – can later transform into charcoal.</p>
<p>Under the right conditions, these charred remains will survive long after campers have moved on. This happened many times in the past. Bininj living at Madjedbebe left a range of food scraps behind, including charred and fragmented fruit, nuts, palm stem, seeds, roots and tubers.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/461213/original/file-20220504-14-kb15tm.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/461213/original/file-20220504-14-kb15tm.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/461213/original/file-20220504-14-kb15tm.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=488&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/461213/original/file-20220504-14-kb15tm.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=488&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/461213/original/file-20220504-14-kb15tm.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=488&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/461213/original/file-20220504-14-kb15tm.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=613&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/461213/original/file-20220504-14-kb15tm.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=613&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/461213/original/file-20220504-14-kb15tm.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=613&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A scanning electron microscope image of charred waterlily (Nymphaea sp.) stem found at Madjedbebe.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Anna Florin (courtesy of GAC)</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Using high-powered microscopes, we compared the anatomy of these charcoal pieces to plant foods still harvested from Mirarr Country today. By doing so, we learned about the foods past people ate, the places they gathered them from, and even the seasons in which they visited the site. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/burnt-ancient-nutshells-reveal-the-story-of-climate-change-at-kakadu-now-drier-than-ever-before-152760">Burnt ancient nutshells reveal the story of climate change at Kakadu — now drier than ever before</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/460367/original/file-20220428-14-605qf8.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/460367/original/file-20220428-14-605qf8.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/460367/original/file-20220428-14-605qf8.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/460367/original/file-20220428-14-605qf8.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/460367/original/file-20220428-14-605qf8.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/460367/original/file-20220428-14-605qf8.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/460367/original/file-20220428-14-605qf8.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Researchers worked hard to collect comparative reference material, including the fruit of andjalbbirdo (white bush plum, <em>Syzygium eucalyptoides</em> subsp. <em>bleeseri</em>) near Mudjinberri, on Mirarr Country, 2018.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Elspeth Hayes (courtesy of GAC)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Ancient anme</h2>
<p>From the earliest days of camping at Madjedbebe, people gathered and ate a broad range of anme (the Kundjeihmi word for “plant foods”). This included plants such as pandanus nuts and palm heart, which require tools, labour and detailed traditional knowledge to collect and make edible. </p>
<p>The tools used included edge-ground axes and grinding stones. These were all found in the oldest layers at the site – making them the oldest axes and some of the earliest grinding stones in the world.</p>
<p>Our evidence shows that during the two drier glacial phases (MIS 4 and 2), communities at Madjedbebe relied more on these harder-to-process foods. As the climate was drier, and food was probably more dispersed and less abundant, people would have had to make do with foods that took longer to process.</p>
<p>Highly prized anme such as karrbarda (long yam, <em>Dioscorea transvera</em>) and annganj/ankanj (waterlily seeds, <em>Nymphea</em> spp.) were significant elements of the diet at times when the monsoon vine forest and freshwater vegetation got closer to Madjedbebe – such as during wetland formation in the last 4,000 years and earlier wet phases. But they were also sought from more distant places during drier times.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/460371/original/file-20220428-26-1mv68h.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/460371/original/file-20220428-26-1mv68h.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/460371/original/file-20220428-26-1mv68h.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/460371/original/file-20220428-26-1mv68h.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/460371/original/file-20220428-26-1mv68h.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/460371/original/file-20220428-26-1mv68h.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/460371/original/file-20220428-26-1mv68h.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">May Nango following the vine of a karrbarda (long yam, <em>Dioscorea transversa</em>) to dig for its yam near Djurrubu, on Mirarr Country, 2018.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Anna Florin (courtesy of GAC)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>A change of seasons</h2>
<p>The biggest shift in the plant diet eaten at Madjedbebe occurred with the formation of freshwater wetlands. About 4,000 years ago, Bininj didn’t just start to include more freshwater plants in their diet, they also began to return to Madjedbebe during a different season.</p>
<p>Rather than coming to the rock shelter when local fruit trees such as andudjmi (green plum, <em>Buchanania obovata</em>) were fruiting, from Kurrung to Kunumeleng (September to December), they began visiting from Bangkerrang to Wurrkeng (March to August). </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-the-seasonal-calendars-of-indigenous-australia-88471">Explainer: the seasonal 'calendars' of Indigenous Australia</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>This is a time of year when resources found at the edge of the wetlands, now close to Madjedbebe, become available as floodwaters recede. With the emergence of patchy freshwater wetlands 4,000 years ago, communities changed their diet to make the best use of their environments. </p>
<p>Today, the wetlands are culturally and economically significant to the Mirarr and other Bininj. A range of seasonal animal and plant foods feature at dinner time, including magpie geese, turtles and waterlilies.</p>
<h2>The burning question</h2>
<p>It’s likely the First Australians not only responded to their environment but also shaped it. In the Kakadu region today, one of the main ways Bininj modify their landscape is through cultural burning. </p>
<p>Fire is a cultural tool with a multitude of functions – such as, hunting, generating vegetation growth, and cleaning up pathways and campsites. </p>
<p>One of its most important functions is the steady reduction of wet season biomass which, if left unchecked, becomes fuel for dangerous bushfires in Kurrung (September to October), at the end of the dry season.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/460770/original/file-20220502-19-zkvimp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/460770/original/file-20220502-19-zkvimp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/460770/original/file-20220502-19-zkvimp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/460770/original/file-20220502-19-zkvimp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/460770/original/file-20220502-19-zkvimp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/460770/original/file-20220502-19-zkvimp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/460770/original/file-20220502-19-zkvimp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Djurrubu rangers Amroh Djandomerr and Deonus Djandomerr burning Mirarr Country, not far from the Madjedbebe site, in 2019.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Lynley Wallis (courtesy of GAC)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Our data demonstrates the use of a range of plant foods at Madjedbebe during Kurrung, throughout most of the site’s occupation, from 65,000 to 4,000 years ago. </p>
<p>This points to an ongoing practice of cultural burning, as it suggests communities managed fire-sensitive plant varieties, and reduced the chance of high-intensity bushfires by practicing low-intensity cultural burns before the hottest time of the year. </p>
<p>Today, the Mirarr still return to Madjedbebe. Their knowledge of local anme is passed down to new generations, who continue to shape this incredible cultural legacy. </p>
<hr>
<p><em>Acknowledgment: we would like to thank the Gundjeihmi Aboriginal Corporation, the Mirrar, and especially our co-authors May Nango and Djaykuk Djandjomerr.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/181240/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Anna Florin received funding from the Australian Research Council, the Wenner-Gren Foundation, the Australian Institute of Nuclear Science and Engineering, and the Dan David Foundation for this research. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Andrew Fairbairn receives funding from Wenner-Gren and AINSE for this research</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Chris Clarkson has received funding from the Australian Research Council (ARC) and the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO). </span></em></p>The Kakadu region has gone through immense transformation throughout history. How can archaeological food scraps tell us about how the First Australians adapted?Anna Florin, Research fellow, University of CambridgeAndrew Fairbairn, Professor of Archaeology, The University of QueenslandChris Clarkson, Professor in Archaeology, The University of QueenslandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1714792021-12-02T15:12:26Z2021-12-02T15:12:26ZFriday essay: Indigenous afterlives in Britain<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/434853/original/file-20211130-25-1358jmj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=263%2C251%2C7594%2C4642&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Breastplate, of metal, engraved ‘McIntyre King of Mannilla’, c.1860–1874. ‘King’ McIntyre (c.1814–74) . Donated by A.W. Wilkins to Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery, 1930.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Readers are advised this article contains content relating to violent colonial practices and deceased Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, which some may find distressing.</em></p>
<p>Ancestors of Indigenous Australians are represented in Britain not only by the objects they made. The Ancestral Remains of Aboriginal people still lie in museums or in graves, marked and unmarked.</p>
<p>A number of Aboriginal people who travelled to Britain in the late 18th and 19th century died there. These include Yemmerrawanne, who visited with Bennelong in 1793; William Wimmera, whose mother was killed by colonists in northwest Victoria and who was subsequently brought by the Reverend Septimus Lloyd Chase to Reading, where the lad died in 1852; and Bripumyarrimin, “King Cole”, a member of the 1868 Aboriginal cricket team who died in London in the same year.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/433812/original/file-20211125-27-1wejb5r.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/433812/original/file-20211125-27-1wejb5r.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/433812/original/file-20211125-27-1wejb5r.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/433812/original/file-20211125-27-1wejb5r.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/433812/original/file-20211125-27-1wejb5r.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/433812/original/file-20211125-27-1wejb5r.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=533&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/433812/original/file-20211125-27-1wejb5r.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=533&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/433812/original/file-20211125-27-1wejb5r.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=533&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The 1868 Aboriginal cricket team in England.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Indirect evidence of Aboriginal visitors to Britain and their agency in collecting specimens is also evident in some museum collections. The Natural History Museum, for instance, has plant specimens collected by botanist George Caley in New South Wales. His field collecting was greatly assisted by “Dan”, referring to Daniel Moowattin, an Aboriginal man from the Parramatta region, who came to London with Caley in 1810–11 to work on naturalist Joseph Banks’s collection. </p>
<p>The collecting of Ancestral Remains was a practice that began in the earliest days of the colony in Sydney and continued well into the 20th century. A number of the remains collected were of well-known individuals killed in frontier violence, whose heads became trophies. Throughout most of the 19th century, there was a particular interest in obtaining Tasmanian Aboriginal remains as the people were then believed to be becoming “extinct”.</p>
<p>Both their bones and hair were keenly sought after. While there are large numbers of unidentified Ancestral Remains in British collections, traces of named individuals can be found.</p>
<p>Collectively, they illustrate the violence of the colonial frontier and the wide-ranging medical and other networks of 19th-century collectors reaching from Britain to Australia.</p>
<h2>Heads lost and found</h2>
<p>Joseph Banks, who visited Australia once as part of Cook’s first voyage, used his extensive contacts in Sydney to <a href="https://meanjin.com.au/essays/the-field-of-golgotha/">seek out both Aboriginal artefacts and Aboriginal human remains</a>. In the early 1790s, Governor Arthur Phillip sent Banks two Aboriginal skulls from “New Holland”, that were destined for Johann Friedrich Blumenbach at the University of Göttingen, Germany. </p>
<p>In ensuing frontier violence, the resistance of <a href="https://www.nma.gov.au/defining-moments/resources/pemulwuy">Pemulwuy</a>, from the Botany Bay region, resulted in Governor Philip Gidley King issuing an order for his capture in November 1801, and in June 1802 Pemulwuy and another man were shot dead. Pemulwuy’s head was preserved in spirits and was among the “desiderata” sent back by King to Banks in the ship Speedy.</p>
<p>In 1802, the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons in London noted a gift of “two heads” at that time, although erroneously labelled as coming from Tahiti. Banks’s acquaintance with surgeon John Hunter (whose collections were the foundation of the museum) was likely why the heads arrived at the Royal College of Surgeons.</p>
<p>In August 1818, British artist James Ward, <a href="https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/term/BIOG50337">a prolific painter of people and animals</a>, was granted permission by the College of Surgeons to “make Drawings from the two heads in the Museum of Natives of New South Wales”. His journal (October 24 1818) notes: “Begin a study at the College of Surgeons from 2 heads of Botany Bay men”. </p>
<p>Ward’s sketches were exhibited at his house in Newman Street, London, in 1822, and described as:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>No. 8. A Native of New South Wales. This order of men is considered as the lowest of human species. The head from which this specimen is taken is preserved in spirits in Surgeon’s College. He was a distinguished chief of a tribe of troublesome marauding predators, a kind of Three-fingered Jack of Botany Bay, which rendered it necessary to put a price upon his head. No. 32 is another view of the same head, with another of the same tribe.</p>
</blockquote>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/433813/original/file-20211125-17-30muuz.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/433813/original/file-20211125-17-30muuz.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/433813/original/file-20211125-17-30muuz.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=748&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/433813/original/file-20211125-17-30muuz.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=748&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/433813/original/file-20211125-17-30muuz.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=748&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/433813/original/file-20211125-17-30muuz.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=940&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/433813/original/file-20211125-17-30muuz.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=940&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/433813/original/file-20211125-17-30muuz.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=940&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Portrait of James Ward, circa 1835.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In 1829, these works appear to be listed for sale again in an auction catalogue from Christie’s. In recent decades, numerous attempts have been made to find Pemulwuy’s remains but without success. </p>
<p>The Royal College of Surgeons was bombed in World War II and the head, which had been preserved in spirit and so perhaps kept only as a skull, may have been destroyed then.</p>
<p>Heads of recently and naturally deceased Aboriginal people were also obtained through institutions’ and surgeons’ interests. John Shinall (c.1809–39) lived much of his life with a white family near Hobart in Tasmania and worked as a farm labourer. After his death his body was mutilated and his severed head preserved in alcohol. </p>
<p>Dr John Frederick Clarke, Inspector General of Hospitals in Hobart, presented it to the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons in Dublin about 1845–6. It was later photographed and published in 1899 in Henry Ling Roth’s The Aborigines of Tasmania. After tracking it down and seeing it displayed in Dublin in 1985, the Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre negotiated to have Shinall’s head returned and he arrived home in 1990.</p>
<p>Yagan was a Nyungar man from the Swan River (Perth) region of Western Australia who, like Pemulwuy on the other side of the continent, had resisted the settlers. He was once captured but escaped from custody. In 1833, a price was offered for his head after two settlers were killed following the shooting of a group of his own Nyungar people. </p>
<p>Yagan was subsequently killed and his head was taken to England in the luggage of Lieutenant Robert Dale, who tried to sell it. It was displayed for 12 months by Thomas Pettigrew, a surgeon and antiquarian interested in <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/phrenology">phrenology</a>. Dale later gave it to the Liverpool Royal Institution, in the town where he lived.</p>
<p>In 1964 it was disposed of, among other remains, as it was badly deteriorated. Following decades of searching by Nyungar people, in 1993 it was identified in an unmarked grave in Liverpool and eventually <a href="https://www.noongarculture.org.au/yagan/">returned by Aboriginal Elders to WA</a> in 1997.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/433806/original/file-20211124-25-1kubiia.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/433806/original/file-20211124-25-1kubiia.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/433806/original/file-20211124-25-1kubiia.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/433806/original/file-20211124-25-1kubiia.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/433806/original/file-20211124-25-1kubiia.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/433806/original/file-20211124-25-1kubiia.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/433806/original/file-20211124-25-1kubiia.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/433806/original/file-20211124-25-1kubiia.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Yagan Square in Perth, WA.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Richard Wainwright/AAP</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>A ‘trophy’</h2>
<p>The Bunuba people of the Wunaamin Milliwundi Ranges (previously named the King Leopold Ranges) region of northwestern WA are still looking for <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/local/audio/2011/08/08/3288204.htm">Jandamarra</a>. In the 1890s, he worked for some time as a tracker for the police but later led a rebellion against European colonists. He was eventually tracked down and killed with help from another Aboriginal man in 1897.</p>
<p>As Bunuba woman June Oscar stated in 2015, the carnage of Aboriginal people at that time devastated Bunuba society. After his death, Jandamarra’s head was taken to England, and was last seen in the 1960s, displayed as a trophy in Greener’s gun factory in Birmingham, which had a museum housing birds, animals and objects relating to shooting. </p>
<p>The factory subsequently relocated and the whereabouts of Jandamarra’s skull today remains unknown.</p>
<p>An anonymous cranium, likely that of a prisoner from the East Kimberley region of WA, was among the collection of 38 Aboriginal objects obtained by Dr James Albert Wetherell of Stokesley and donated to the Dorman Museum in Middlesbrough in 1904. The skull has a handwritten label attached stating </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Skull of West Australian aboriginal Native. Observe contracted low, retreating forehead denoting diminished intellectual faculties.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Born in Middlesbrough in 1862, Wetherell trained in medicine at Edinburgh, graduating in 1886. He arrived in WA in 1892 and registered as a doctor, working at Bridgetown and Bunbury before being appointed in June 1892 as a justice of the peace and resident magistrate of the East Kimberley. As Chris Owen has discussed in his book <a href="https://uwap.uwa.edu.au/products/every-mothers-son-is-guilty-policing-the-kimberley-frontier-of-western-australia-1882-1905">Every Mother’s Son is Guilty</a>, this was an era when police could be disciplined for not shooting Aborigines. </p>
<p>In early 1893, in his capacity as resident magistrate, Wetherell sent out an expedition to punish “savage outlaws” after the attempted spearing of a policeman. He resigned in late 1894 and eventually returned to live in Hull. Newspapers reported that he failed to take care of prisoners in the gaol with many dying, the food he provided being unfit for consumption.</p>
<p>Those released from prison were forced to walk over 200 kilometres home to their country without provisions, some dying on the road. Newspaper accounts relate that Wetherell performed autopsies just outside the gaol in view of the prisoners and kept portions of bodies as curios. </p>
<p>As the other objects in his collection came from the Kimberley region, the cranium likely originated in the Wyndham police district and possibly from an autopsy he carried out. In 2019, the Dorman Museum took steps to initiate its return to the Kimberley.</p>
<h2>Fanny Smith’s hair</h2>
<p>In mid-to late 19th-century Britain, issues of racial origins and human evolution were hotly debated. In this context, not only human remains but also hair samples of different peoples were valued specimens for study and exchange. </p>
<p>Samples from Tasmania were highly sought after, particularly after the death of Trukanini (or “Truganini”) in 1876, who was then often erroneously referred to as “the last Tasmanian”. A hair sample from an unknown Tasmanian was bought by Dr Malcolm of the Wellcome Historical Medical Museum in London from Dr Richard Berry in Bristol for £25 in 1930. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/433033/original/file-20211122-13-v2euca.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=11%2C88%2C1889%2C2866&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/433033/original/file-20211122-13-v2euca.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=11%2C88%2C1889%2C2866&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/433033/original/file-20211122-13-v2euca.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=921&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/433033/original/file-20211122-13-v2euca.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=921&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/433033/original/file-20211122-13-v2euca.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=921&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/433033/original/file-20211122-13-v2euca.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1157&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/433033/original/file-20211122-13-v2euca.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1157&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/433033/original/file-20211122-13-v2euca.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1157&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Container for a sample of Tasmanian Aboriginal hair. Bought by Dr. Malcolm from Prof. R.A..J. Berry, Bristol, in 1936.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wellcome Collection</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-truganini-and-the-bloody-backstory-to-victorias-first-public-execution-129548">Friday essay: Truganini and the bloody backstory to Victoria's first public execution</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Written in ink on the label of the container is “V Luschan”, indicating an association with Vienna-based doctor and ethnographer Felix von Luschan, who amassed a large collection of human remains. </p>
<p>Trained in Edinburgh, Berry also had a huge collection of Aboriginal Ancestral Remains and while at the University of Melbourne had studied crania robbed from graves in Tasmania, before moving to work in Bristol in 1930. </p>
<p>There he was associated with the eugenics movement, proposing a lethal chamber for “low grade defectives”. The hair sample he sold to the Wellcome Museum has since been returned to Tasmania, as part of a long campaign by the Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre for the return of Ancestral Remains.</p>
<p>The skeleton and hair of my grandmother’s grandmother, Fanny Smith, were objects of desire for anthropologist and collector Henry Ling Roth of Halifax while she was still alive. In the 1880s and 1890s, it was debated whether Fanny was in fact the “last” Tasmanian Aborigine, and she was particularly noted for her recording of Aboriginal songs on wax cylinders.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/433035/original/file-20211122-23-owsuem.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/433035/original/file-20211122-23-owsuem.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/433035/original/file-20211122-23-owsuem.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=453&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/433035/original/file-20211122-23-owsuem.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=453&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/433035/original/file-20211122-23-owsuem.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=453&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/433035/original/file-20211122-23-owsuem.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=569&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/433035/original/file-20211122-23-owsuem.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=569&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/433035/original/file-20211122-23-owsuem.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=569&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Fanny Smith depicted here surrounded by photographer J.W. Beattie, graphophone proprietor Mr Fisher, SubInspector of Police John Cook, museum curator Alex Morton, solicitor and historian James Backhouse Walker, her grandson Gus (erroneously noted as her nephew) and Tasmanian government statistician R.M. Johnstone.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Photo: National Library of Australia.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Ling Roth sought help in Tasmania from Quaker James Backhouse Walker and Edinburgh-born photographer and antiquarian James Watt Beattie of Hobart to obtain a photograph of Fanny and a lock of her hair. </p>
<p>Backhouse Walker wrote to Ling Roth on December 20 1891 indicating he “believes Fanny Cochrane Smith is a ‘half-caste’” and advising he might be able to get photographs of her and would ask for a sample of hair, but added, that he “doubts her husband would allow her dissection in the event of her death”. </p>
<p>Fanny lived at a distance from Hobart and there was ongoing difficulty in obtaining the photograph and hair, which was not given up by Fanny until 1894. It was then dispatched by Beattie to Ling Roth.</p>
<p>In 1908, at the request of anatomist Sir William Turner of the University of Edinburgh, Ling Roth sent this sample to him where its physical appearance was discussed along with hair samples from Trukanini and others in a paper concerning “the classification of races based on the colour and characteristics of the hair”. </p>
<p>In the 1990s, following much correspondence between the Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre and the Anatomical Museum at the University of Edinburgh, which had told the centre to “desist from further correspondence”, the hair sample was eventually located and returned.</p>
<h2>Traces of Australian ‘kings’: ‘King’ McIntyre and ‘King’ Tiger</h2>
<p>As Aboriginal societies had important leaders but no “kings” or singular “chiefs”, European settlers and officials sometimes gave breastplates or “king” plates to chosen individuals in their district, as a means of enlisting their help in dealing with other Aboriginal people. </p>
<p>The earliest example noted was given to Bungaree in Sydney in 1815, and by the 1820s they were in common use. Due to the history of collaboration with settlers, such “king” or “queen” plates elicit mixed feelings among Aboriginal people today. </p>
<p>Perhaps surprisingly, few such plates are in British collections. National Museums Scotland in Edinburgh has one given to “Sandy, King of Coringori Australia” and another in Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery belonged to “King” McIntyre, a senior man of the Manilla region in northern NSW.</p>
<p>A newspaper account in 1874 suggests the reason McIntyre was given the plate was due to his twice saving the life of Mr Thomas Hoskisson of Bareeba Station. He and his family were consequently “made life pensioners, to the extent of a full ration daily”.</p>
<p>“Tiger, King of Mines Lawn Hills” was a senior man living at or near Lawn Hills Station, a place of copper mining inland from Burketown in northwest Queensland in the early 1900s. </p>
<p>One report suggests he died circa 1930 when he was about 60 to 70 years old by drinking water from a can once containing poison. Subsequently his grave was desecrated and breast plate removed by the station owner of Gregory Downs.</p>
<p>His skull and his king plate were sent to the Wellcome Historical Medical Museum in 1935 by Agnes Dorothy Kerr, matron of the Burketown Hospital. Born in England, Kerr had trained as a nurse and worked in New Zealand before serving in the first world war in Egypt and Serbia.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/434955/original/file-20211201-25-1uipgnx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/434955/original/file-20211201-25-1uipgnx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/434955/original/file-20211201-25-1uipgnx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=848&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434955/original/file-20211201-25-1uipgnx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=848&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434955/original/file-20211201-25-1uipgnx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=848&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434955/original/file-20211201-25-1uipgnx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1066&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434955/original/file-20211201-25-1uipgnx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1066&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434955/original/file-20211201-25-1uipgnx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1066&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Judy Watson, page 17 from artist’s book skullduggery (2021).</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Courtesy Judy Watson, digital image Michael Phillips.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Interested in anatomy from her nursing training she sent a number of human remains from northwest Queensland to Sir Henry Wellcome for his collection in London. In 1936, she received a letter indicating Sir Henry would be very glad to have this plate, making a valuable addition to his collections. </p>
<p>The theft of Tiger’s cranium and breastplate and associated correspondence with Kerr was the inspiration for an artwork and publication titled “skullduggery” by Waanyi artist Judy Watson in 2021, bringing attention to the Ancestral Remains and artefacts still abroad. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/433809/original/file-20211124-15-vgmg61.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/433809/original/file-20211124-15-vgmg61.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/433809/original/file-20211124-15-vgmg61.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/433809/original/file-20211124-15-vgmg61.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/433809/original/file-20211124-15-vgmg61.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/433809/original/file-20211124-15-vgmg61.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/433809/original/file-20211124-15-vgmg61.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/433809/original/file-20211124-15-vgmg61.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Judy Watson, title page from artist’s book skullduggery (2021).</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Courtesy Judy Watson, digital image Michael Phillips.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The return to Country of Ancestral Remains is a continuing aspiration for Aboriginal people and Torres Strait Islanders across Australia. Some museums in Britain still retain Aboriginal human remains but work to return them is ongoing.</p>
<p>Two cremation ash bundles from Tasmania were returned by the British Museum in 2006; it still retains two modified crania requested by Torres Strait Islanders but refused for return by the museum trustees in 2012. </p>
<p>This work is emotionally difficult for those Aboriginal people and Torres Strait Islanders involved, but programs of repatriation continue, albeit sometimes slowly.</p>
<p><em>This is an edited extract of an essay published in <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/57699445-ancestors-artefacts-empire">Ancestors, artefacts, empire: Indigenous Australia in British and Irish Museums</a>, edited by Gaye Sculthorpe, Maria Nugent and Howard Morphy (British Museum Press).</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/171479/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Gaye Sculthorpe receives research funding from the Australian Research Council through an agreement with the Australian National University and the British Museum. The British Museum is the publisher of the book in which the full version of this article appears.</span></em></p>The Ancestral Remains of Aboriginal people still lie in British museums or in graves, marked and unmarked.Gaye Sculthorpe, Curator & Section Head, Oceania, The British MuseumLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1660022021-10-06T12:30:40Z2021-10-06T12:30:40ZAfrofuturism and its possibility of elsewhere: The power of political imagination<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/423661/original/file-20210928-20-lsm24a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=24%2C27%2C2020%2C1201&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Afrofuturist's work is rooted in the desire to transform the present for Black people. Here actor Mouna Traoré in 'Brown Girl Begins' (2017) directed by Sharon Lewis set in a post-apocalyptic version of Toronto.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Urbansoul Inc</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Pay attention to the visions for the future put forward in today’s world by politicians, intellectuals and scientists: </p>
<p>The development of technologies to <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/feature/planting-an-ecosystem-on-mars">sustain human life on other planets</a>; <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2018/12/10/artificial-intelligence-and-the-future-of-humans/">new digital realities</a>; the <a href="https://stanmed.stanford.edu/2018winter/CRISPR-for-gene-editing-is-revolutionary-but-it-comes-with-risks.html">altering of human DNA</a>. </p>
<p>Who is this future for? </p>
<p>What is not recognized as possible in our future is equally telling: No substantial strategy to tackle climate change; <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/15/world/europe/coronavirus-inequality.html">few equitable responses to the COVID-19 pandemic</a>; no end to the ongoing <a href="https://theconversation.com/indigenous-land-defenders-dont-call-me-resilient-ep-6-156632">dispossession of Indigenous lands</a> from <a href="https://www.npr.org/2019/06/17/733497808/25-years-after-apartheid-ended-south-africas-land-rights-problem-is-boiling-over">South Africa</a> to Canada to <a href="https://yellowheadinstitute.org/2021/05/21/canada-and-israel-partners-in-the-settler-colonial-contract/">Palestine</a>; no basic services to those who live daily without food or clean drinking water, even in the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-021-23898-z">world’s richest countries</a>. </p>
<p>Progress, it seems, is measured by technological breakthroughs and not social uplift. Many of the “big visions” on offer for our future overlook those who wear the persistent wounds of slavery, genocide, colonialism and capitalist exploitation. </p>
<h2>Political potential</h2>
<p>Of course, there are those who have been doing the work of imagining revolutionary futures. Speculative fiction and philosophy, especially those works coming from Afrofuturists, focus on this imbalance of future propositions. Afrofuturists powerfully imagine “elsewhere” beyond our present alienation. Their work is rooted in the desire to transform the present for Black people. To do so, they imagine a reality in which Black people are the agents of their own story, countering those histories that discount and dismiss their contributions. </p>
<p>Cultural theorist Kodwo Eshun <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1353/ncr.2003.0021">defines Afrofuturism</a> as a practice to establish the historical character of Black culture by bringing African peoples into a global history denied to them.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/423672/original/file-20210928-15-15zhbwi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/423672/original/file-20210928-15-15zhbwi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/423672/original/file-20210928-15-15zhbwi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=373&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423672/original/file-20210928-15-15zhbwi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=373&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423672/original/file-20210928-15-15zhbwi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=373&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423672/original/file-20210928-15-15zhbwi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=468&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423672/original/file-20210928-15-15zhbwi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=468&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423672/original/file-20210928-15-15zhbwi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=468&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Selwyn Hinds wrote the script for ‘Replay’ an episode for Jordan Peele’s ‘The Twilight Zone,’ starring Sanaa Lathan and Damson Idris (2019). He is a guest on our podcast, Don’t Call Me Resilient, EP 7 about Afro and Indigenous futurism.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The recent mainstreaming of Afrofuturistic stories like <em>Black Panther</em> and those by science fiction writers like N. K. Jemisin and Nnedi Okorafor have garnered critical praise for their inclusive and creative content. Yet the mainstreaming of Afrofuturism has, for the most part, glossed over its political potential. </p>
<p>Today, questions of agency and who exactly the future is built for are urgent political matters. In Canada, the federal government’s recent acknowledgement of historic atrocities committed against <a href="https://www.canada.ca/en/canadian-heritage/campaigns/emancipation-day.html">Black</a> and <a href="https://www.canada.ca/en/department-national-defence/maple-leaf/defence/2021/07/federal-statutory-holiday-national-day-for-truth-and-reconciliation.html">Indigenous</a> peoples is testament to the growing political dissent against the present and historical narratives on offer. </p>
<h2>Looking back to move forward</h2>
<p>The work of imagining alternate futures is also about imagining alternate pasts. Pasts in which Black and Indigenous people feature as more than just passive observers. It is about rewriting the narrative on agency and action and it is deeply political. </p>
<p>This desire to uncover the past is increasingly necessary today, particularly as a means of challenging systems of capitalism and white supremacy. The idea of an “elsewhere” represents possible histories as possible futures, those that <em>could have</em> been. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/423063/original/file-20210924-21-2xzjvu.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Cover of the book Fledgling by Octavia Butler." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/423063/original/file-20210924-21-2xzjvu.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/423063/original/file-20210924-21-2xzjvu.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=843&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423063/original/file-20210924-21-2xzjvu.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=843&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423063/original/file-20210924-21-2xzjvu.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=843&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423063/original/file-20210924-21-2xzjvu.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1059&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423063/original/file-20210924-21-2xzjvu.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1059&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423063/original/file-20210924-21-2xzjvu.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1059&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Octavia Butler’s books grapple with the legacies of slavery in America.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In <a href="https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20200317-why-octavia-e-butlers-novels-are-so-relevant-today">Octavia Butler’s dystopian novels</a> like <em>Parable of the Sower</em> written in 1993, she grapples with legacies of slavery in America as well as with misogyny and class struggle. But beyond this, she built new worlds. She imagined different ways of relating to others. Her work explored the undesirable possibilities for the future, those that disrupt the narrative of our historical progress. She imagined not simply what was possible in the future, but <em>who</em> was possible. </p>
<p>Butler’s work demonstrates the power of creative re-imagining. Her body of work reminds us that the untold stories of the marginalized represent new possibilities for liberation.</p>
<h2>New possibilities</h2>
<p>In Canada, growing political dissent has called for <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/protest-ottawa-arrests-day-of-action-for-anishinabeg-1.5811276">solidarity among oppressed groups</a>. This dissent represents a shift in what is considered possible today. </p>
<p>Polls conducted in 2020, in the aftermath of George Floyd’s murder found that 67 per cent of Canadian respondents had <a href="https://globalnews.ca/news/7356841/black-lives-matter-canada-poll/">a favourable view of the Black Lives Matter</a> movement. That same year, 51 per cent of Canadians were in favour of <a href="https://www.ipsos.com/en-ca/news-and-polls/Canadians-Divided-On-Whether-To-Defund-Police">defunding the police</a>, with younger people voicing even stronger support. </p>
<p>This year, 89 per cent of Canadians said they <a href="https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2021/08/05/canadians-want-a-wealth-tax-and-are-willing-to-vote-for-it.html">want a wealth tax</a> because they are increasingly dismayed by the gap between rich and poor as evidenced throughout the pandemic. </p>
<p>After the mass graves of Indigenous children on residential school grounds were uncovered this summer, a <a href="https://www.afn.ca/years-after-release-of-trc-report-most-canadians-want-accelerated-action-to-remedy-damage-done-by-residential-school-system-says-poll/">majority of Canadians want to see immediate action on First Nations priorities</a>. </p>
<p>But despite these shifts in public consciousness, conversations of what comes next are few and far between. The work of visualising alternate futures, and possibilities beyond our present conditions requires moving beyond the current way of seeing struggle and trauma — as a source of the strength of one’s character, invoking the language of “resilience” to explain the survival of marginalized populations. Instead, our aim should be to recognize the work of the historically neglected to imagine elsewhere both in their past and present.</p>
<h2>Finding elsewhere</h2>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/381818/original/file-20210201-13-1g0n3ld.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/381818/original/file-20210201-13-1g0n3ld.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/381818/original/file-20210201-13-1g0n3ld.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/381818/original/file-20210201-13-1g0n3ld.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/381818/original/file-20210201-13-1g0n3ld.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/381818/original/file-20210201-13-1g0n3ld.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/381818/original/file-20210201-13-1g0n3ld.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://theconversation.com/ca/podcasts">Click here to listen to Don’t Call Me Resilient</a></span>
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<p>Those who continue to be deliberately neglected in the present are constantly generating new possibilities for our collective future through creative dissent. These are communities who have always attempted find an “elsewhere” by revisiting the past and imagining new futures in what was forgotten. </p>
<p>Through their creative imaginings, the lesson we should glean from Afrofuturists is the aim to shift our understanding of what is possible; to help us build worlds from the seeds of our own social, political and philosophical traditions.</p>
<iframe height="200px" width="100%" frameborder="no" scrolling="no" seamless="" src="https://player.simplecast.com/add6ca9a-00ee-4443-b95b-e20204f36a6f?dark=true"></iframe>
<p><iframe id="tc-infographic-572" class="tc-infographic" height="100" src="https://cdn.theconversation.com/infographics/572/661898416fdc21fc4fdef6a5379efd7cac19d9d5/site/index.html" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/166002/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lina Nasr El Hag Ali does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Afrofuturist’s work is rooted in the desire to transform the present for Black people. To do so, they imagine a reality in which Black people are the agents of their own story, countering histories that discount and dismiss them.Lina Nasr El Hag Ali, Lecturer, OCAD UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1640712021-08-26T02:28:33Z2021-08-26T02:28:33ZBook review: Fatal Contact is a timely account of how epidemics devastated our First Peoples<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/417761/original/file-20210825-27-1f9o8i6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Wybalenna, Flinders Island: the Aboriginal settlement 1847. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Courtesy of Libraries Tasmania</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Review: Fatal Contact: How Epidemics Nearly Wiped Out Australia’s First Peoples by Peter Dowling (Monash University Publishing)</em></p>
<p><em>Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised this article contains images and names of deceased people.</em></p>
<hr>
<p>As Peter Dowling reminds us in his introduction to <a href="https://publishing.monash.edu/product/fatal-contact/#:%7E:text=This%20book%20is%20about%20the,the%20British%20colonists%20in%201788.">this book</a>, violence on the colonial frontier accounted for many thousands of deaths among the First Peoples — a truth unremembered in a process of historical amnesia labelled the “great Australian silence” by anthropologist W. E. H. Stanner. </p>
<p>Australia’s sense of its past in collective memory, Stanner said in his famous 1968 Boyer lectures, was: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>a view from a window which has been carefully placed to exclude a whole quadrant of the landscape […] a cult of forgetfulness practised on a national scale.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>A great deal has shifted in our understanding of the past since Stanner shocked the historical profession into a halting engagement with the truth of Australia’s settlement. </p>
<p>Yet, as historian <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/sep/24/we-brought-the-disease-will-the-pandemic-shift-australias-historical-imagination">Billy Griffiths pointed out</a> in the anthology Fire, Flood and Plague, a key part of the “great Australian silence” has been our continued willingness to see pandemic disease that eliminated the great majority of the First People as “inevitable and apolitical”.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-the-great-australian-silence-50-years-on-100737">Friday essay: the 'great Australian silence' 50 years on</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>In the face of the current pandemic, playing out on a global stage, Griffiths writes, we can observe that “it is not only about microbes; it is also about culture, politics and history”. The radically different consequences of this pandemic as experienced by different peoples has shown us we cannot blithely assume spread of disease is without responsibility.</p>
<p>This is what Dowling would have us understand in his timely and meticulous account of “the greatest human tragedy in the long history of Australia”. He examines the recurring outbreaks of fatal epidemics of smallpox, measles, syphilis, influenza and tuberculosis (TB), which “nearly wiped out Australia’s First Peoples”. </p>
<h2>Catastrophic impact</h2>
<p>At the time of colonisation, these diseases were so endemic in Britain that a high degree of immunity existed in the population, as well as medical strategies to control epidemic spread. But in the virgin-soil communities of Australia’s First Peoples, everyone was susceptible, with no-one spared. So there was no-one to provide basic needs for the sick. </p>
<p>The impact was catastrophic, as illustrated in the multiple accounts of the smallpox outbreak at Sydney Cove in 1789. This is widely known about now, but a wave of epidemics, including smallpox, continued to decimate the First Peoples well into the 20th century.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/417763/original/file-20210825-27-1dhdv2b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/417763/original/file-20210825-27-1dhdv2b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/417763/original/file-20210825-27-1dhdv2b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=417&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/417763/original/file-20210825-27-1dhdv2b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=417&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/417763/original/file-20210825-27-1dhdv2b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=417&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/417763/original/file-20210825-27-1dhdv2b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=523&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/417763/original/file-20210825-27-1dhdv2b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=523&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/417763/original/file-20210825-27-1dhdv2b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=523&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">West view of Sydney Cove taken from the Rocks, at the rear of the General Hospital, 1789.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Courtesy of Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Alongside smallpox, syphilis also reached epidemic proportions in the Sydney region in the first few decades of settlement, gradually extending into every corner of the continent. </p>
<p>The scourge of syphilis was apparent in the early colony in Tasmania and a major contributor, along with influenza, to the rapid mortality that had all but eliminated the peoples of the south-eastern quadrant of the island by 1830. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/417764/original/file-20210825-19-ui1oof.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/417764/original/file-20210825-19-ui1oof.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/417764/original/file-20210825-19-ui1oof.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=846&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/417764/original/file-20210825-19-ui1oof.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=846&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/417764/original/file-20210825-19-ui1oof.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=846&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/417764/original/file-20210825-19-ui1oof.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1063&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/417764/original/file-20210825-19-ui1oof.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1063&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/417764/original/file-20210825-19-ui1oof.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1063&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Women and children at Corranderk in Victoria.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Courtesy of State Library of Victoria.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It was in Victoria where the magnitude of the disease was most apparent. In 1839, a cohort of Aboriginal Protectors were appointed to various districts across Victoria. They all reported overwhelming syphilis infection, accounting for as many as “nine out of ten” of the many sick and dying. </p>
<p>One reported of the First People in his district “the most extensive ravages […] will render them extinct within a few years”. </p>
<p>Another despairingly complained “no medicine has been placed at my disposal”.</p>
<h2>Worst in camps</h2>
<p>Epidemics reached into isolated First People’s communities well out of sight of authorities — the Spanish Flu of 1918 managed to spread its deadly tentacles into communities of the Western Desert. However, outbreaks were much more likely in the government-supervised camps, reserves, missions and stations, where dispossessed First Peoples were forcibly relocated.</p>
<p>Uniformly, these places of concentration had overcrowded and inadequate housing, low nutritional diets and bad water supply, combined with individual distress and depression — conditions favourable to the incubation and spread of diseases.</p>
<p>The First People’s high susceptibility to disease, Dowling argues, was probably a consequence of chronic untreated TB among those forced into camps and settlements.</p>
<p>He examines the settlement on Flinders Island in Tasmania between 1832 and 1847, which became infamous for its horrendous death rate, mythologised by the colonists who had expelled these people simply due to their “pining away”. </p>
<p>The records examined by Dowling show these people actually died of either TB itself or an associated respiratory illness worsened by TB’s immunosuppressant effects.</p>
<p>TB was also known to have been an efficient killer in the Victorian settlements at Lake Hindmarsh and Coranderrk: the attributed cause of more than 30% of recorded deaths in those places between 1876 and 1900. At these same settlements, a measles epidemic in 1874-5 killed 20% of people.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/417762/original/file-20210825-21-15rhufe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/417762/original/file-20210825-21-15rhufe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/417762/original/file-20210825-21-15rhufe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=463&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/417762/original/file-20210825-21-15rhufe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=463&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/417762/original/file-20210825-21-15rhufe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=463&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/417762/original/file-20210825-21-15rhufe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=582&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/417762/original/file-20210825-21-15rhufe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=582&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/417762/original/file-20210825-21-15rhufe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=582&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A group of Aboriginal men at Coranderrk Station, Healesville.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Courtesy of State Library of Victoria</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It is no coincidence this was the same story as at the notorious concentration camps for dispossessed Boers the British created in South Africa at the end of the 19th century, where various epidemic diseases were allowed to rage.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-covid-19-crisis-in-western-nsw-aboriginal-communities-is-a-nightmare-realised-166093">The COVID-19 crisis in western NSW Aboriginal communities is a nightmare realised</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>As I write, I am acutely aware most <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-08-20/indigenous-vaccination-rates-to-increase/100390900">communities of First Peoples</a> have the lowest vaccination rates in the nation — even though the government has assured us repeatedly vaccination for these most vulnerable communities was their highest priority. </p>
<p>In despair, I repeat the mantra: the past is not even past.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/164071/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Cassandra Pybus receives funding from the Australia Council</span></em></p>Smallpox, tuberculosis, measles, syphilis … a new book describes how recurring epidemics nearly wiped out Australia’s First Peoples.Cassandra Pybus, Adjunct Professor in History, University of TasmaniaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1467542021-06-17T20:11:46Z2021-06-17T20:11:46ZFriday essay: how our new archaeological research investigates Dark Emu’s idea of Aboriginal ‘agriculture’ and villages<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/406372/original/file-20210615-3808-15xljrp.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=868%2C286%2C4177%2C2785&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">An aerial view of an Aboriginal stone arrangement in the Channel Country of Central Australia. Such arrangements may be associated with initiation ceremonies and exchange of marriage partners, as well as trade. The main structure is around 30 metres long. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Mithaka Aboriginal Corporation</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Bruce Pascoe’s Dark Emu is in the news again, with the publication of <a href="https://theconversation.com/book-review-farmers-or-hunter-gatherers-the-dark-emu-debate-rigorously-critiques-bruce-pascoes-argument-161877">a new book</a> critiquing Pascoe’s arguments. Dark Emu builds on an earlier, less known work by archaeologist <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rupert_Gerritsen">Rupert Gerritsen</a>, who argued a number of regions across Australia should be considered centres of Aboriginal agriculture. </p>
<p>Historians <a href="http://press-files.anu.edu.au/downloads/press/n4634/pdf/article02.pdf">Billy Griffiths and Lynette Russell</a>, and now anthropologist Peter Sutton and archaeologist Keryn Walshe, <a href="https://www.mup.com.au/books/farmers-or-hunter-gatherers-paperback-softback">have argued</a> Pascoe has fallen into a trap of privileging the language of agriculture above hunter-gatherer socioeconomic systems. </p>
<p>We have been working in a landscape that provides an important test of the Dark Emu hypothesis. In partnership with the Mithaka Aboriginal Corporation, who occupy the Channel Country in Central Australia, we have begun investigating Aboriginal settlement sites, pit dwelling huts (known as gunyahs) and quarries.</p>
<p>Our landscape study, <a href="https://doi.org/10.15184/aqy.2021.31">published in the journal Antiquity</a>, has found over 140 quarry sites, where rock was excavated to produce seed grinding stones. We have also developed a method to locate traces of long-lost village sites. </p>
<p>Were First Australians farmers or hunter-gatherers? Contemporary archaeological research suggests it’s not such a simple dichotomy. Understanding the Mithaka food production system may well tell us whether such terms are a good fit for defining socio-economic networks in Aboriginal Australia. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/403756/original/file-20210601-19-z1aj0j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/403756/original/file-20210601-19-z1aj0j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/403756/original/file-20210601-19-z1aj0j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=659&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/403756/original/file-20210601-19-z1aj0j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=659&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/403756/original/file-20210601-19-z1aj0j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=659&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/403756/original/file-20210601-19-z1aj0j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=828&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/403756/original/file-20210601-19-z1aj0j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=828&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/403756/original/file-20210601-19-z1aj0j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=828&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The location of Mithaka country within the trade network of Pituri. Pituri leaves (some of which are from the Mulligan river region) are a narcotic and highly valued. This map shows the direction of trade and market centres and also the location of other important items of exchange.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Illustration by Nathan Wright</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>An extraordinary landscape</h2>
<p>The Channel Country spreads across the Lake Eyre Basin, found in parts of Queensland, Northern Territory and South Australia. It is the world’s last unregulated desert channel system (meaning there has been no intensive irrigation or damming) and one of Australia’s richest beef cattle areas. The meandering channels are fed infrequently by monsoonal rains from the north, which transform large sections of the desert into a lush, green landscape. </p>
<p>In 2017, Mithaka Elder George Gorringe led a small expedition to an ancient clay-pan (an old lake bed) where one of us had recorded a burial site some years before. But the plan dramatically changed when monsoonal rains in the tropics flooded the land, diverting the expedition from north to the south. </p>
<p>The extensive flood plains turned green as life-giving water irrigated native grasses and other plant species. George led the expedition to a series of sites he knew about from his father, Bill Gorringe, and from his previous work on numerous stations and as a council road works foreman. They included massive sandstone quarry sites, stone arrangements and the remains of Aboriginal pit dwelling huts (gunyahs): excavated structures with branches constructed over the top. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/406013/original/file-20210613-27-13r0pts.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/406013/original/file-20210613-27-13r0pts.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/406013/original/file-20210613-27-13r0pts.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/406013/original/file-20210613-27-13r0pts.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/406013/original/file-20210613-27-13r0pts.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/406013/original/file-20210613-27-13r0pts.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/406013/original/file-20210613-27-13r0pts.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/406013/original/file-20210613-27-13r0pts.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A gunyah, believed to be from the 19th century, on the floodplains.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Nathan Wright</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This largely intact archaeological landscape has the largest seed grinding quarry sites in the country. Archaeologist Mike Smith <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/archaeology-of-australias-deserts/50C399077C1A0AA43922030129972436">has discussed the importance of seed grinding implements</a> for the economy of this region. Grinding stones were used to process native grasses and produce a form of bread. Axes scattered across the area also indicate trade with the Kalkadoon people from the Mount Isa quarries in the north.</p>
<p>It became clear from this first trip that this extraordinary landscape had enormous potential to investigate questions relating to Aboriginal trade and exchange, settlements systems and food production. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/406042/original/file-20210613-77790-1rcnjbu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/406042/original/file-20210613-77790-1rcnjbu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/406042/original/file-20210613-77790-1rcnjbu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/406042/original/file-20210613-77790-1rcnjbu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/406042/original/file-20210613-77790-1rcnjbu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/406042/original/file-20210613-77790-1rcnjbu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/406042/original/file-20210613-77790-1rcnjbu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/406042/original/file-20210613-77790-1rcnjbu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Excavating a quarry site known as the Ten Mile.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Michael Westaway</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Reconstructing the past</h2>
<p>When Europeans first stumbled across this landscape in the 1870s, as historian Ray Kerkhove discovered in the archives, they observed “civilised blacks” living in villages and maintaining intensive fishing industries. In 1871, for example, a sub inspector of the Queensland Native Police, James Gilmour, came across a “village” of 103 huts at the southern end of Thunderpurty lagoon while looking for evidence of the missing explorer <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Ludwig-Leichhardt">Ludwig Leichardt</a>.</p>
<p>History also records practices in the region including cultivation associated with ceremony, and fish trap and storage systems equating to aquaculture. </p>
<p>This landscape was very different to other areas in arid Australia well documented by historians and modern anthropologists. Unlike the more marginal desert environments in the centre, Channel Country could support large numbers of cattle. This indicated it was also able to support larger populations of Aboriginal people. </p>
<p>Higher population numbers and the economic value of Channel Country to European pastoralists resulted in significant conflict, devastating the traditional Mithaka economic system. Archaeology thus plays a prominent role in reconstructing the past here.</p>
<p>Some cultural stories from Mithaka country were documented from the early 1900s by amateur ethnographer Alice Duncan Kemp, who lived on Mooraberrie Station until the late 1920s. An innovative researcher, trusted and respected by senior Aboriginal informants, Alice provides an important account of the complexity of the Mithaka social system, tying it into the landscape.</p>
<p>We have started to document this through <a href="https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/c33fd50ffb8c4656855afe8231661c59">cultural mapping</a>, with the Duncan Kemp family. The Mithaka have designed a framework to help guide researchers in <a href="https://mithaka.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/mithaka-aboriginal-corporation_research-framework_web-version-72dpi1.pdf">ethically telling the story of their landscape</a>.</p>
<p>We are now using drones to record in 3D enormous quarries, which appear to be on an industrial scale. Archaeologist Doug William’s excavations, supported by the work of <a href="https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/1-4020-2656-0_12">dating</a> expert Justine Kemp, show quarrying at one site may have begun more than 2,000 years ago.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/406039/original/file-20210613-25-1fh5y3r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/406039/original/file-20210613-25-1fh5y3r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/406039/original/file-20210613-25-1fh5y3r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/406039/original/file-20210613-25-1fh5y3r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/406039/original/file-20210613-25-1fh5y3r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/406039/original/file-20210613-25-1fh5y3r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/406039/original/file-20210613-25-1fh5y3r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/406039/original/file-20210613-25-1fh5y3r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Josh Gorringe, a trained helicopter pilot, operates a small quadcopter drone over quarry sites at Glengyle. A range of fixed wing and smaller drones have enabled documentation of the cultural landscape .</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Michael Westaway</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>If this is the case, the transcontinental trade system referred to by pioneering Australian archaeologist John Mulvaney as the “<a href="https://books.google.com.au/books/about/The_Chain_of_Connection.html?id=6R89ngAACAAJ&redir_esc=y">Chain of Connection</a>” (extending from the Gulf of Carpentaria to the Flinders Ranges) may be at least twice as old as previously thought.</p>
<p>Could this trade system have played a role in the development of more intensified quarrying activity and more sedentary settlement systems? We are working on understanding the relationship between the archaeology and this remarkable social and economic network. </p>
<h2>Seasonal or permanent village sites?</h2>
<p>We have investigated eroding burial sites to see if the remains of the Mithaka ancestors themselves can provide clues to the past. </p>
<p>Limited analysis so far provides evidence of bio-mechanical stress to the upper limbs, likely a result of intense seed grinding. By studying geochemical signatures (isotopes) in human teeth we hope to establish if people maintained a large foraging range or were more sedentary, living in more restricted clan boundaries.</p>
<p>We have built a background <a href="https://theconversation.com/where-did-you-grow-up-how-strontium-in-your-teeth-can-help-answer-that-question-112705">isotopic map</a> to help us understand people’s mobility in the past. When people live in a landscape they ingest its isotope signature. Investigating the mobility of the Mithaka populations through isotopes will be an important test of whether documented village sites were seasonal or permanent. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/where-did-you-grow-up-how-strontium-in-your-teeth-can-help-answer-that-question-112705">Where did you grow up? How strontium in your teeth can help answer that question</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>One logical place to start an investigation of past food production systems is to look where people once lived. Early historic accounts record large village sites, so we have developed a methodology to find these places. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/406375/original/file-20210615-3808-q8u28h.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/406375/original/file-20210615-3808-q8u28h.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/406375/original/file-20210615-3808-q8u28h.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/406375/original/file-20210615-3808-q8u28h.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/406375/original/file-20210615-3808-q8u28h.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/406375/original/file-20210615-3808-q8u28h.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/406375/original/file-20210615-3808-q8u28h.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/406375/original/file-20210615-3808-q8u28h.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Kelsey Lowe identifies a series of magnetic anomalies during her geophysical survey of the Ten Mile quarry site.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Michael Westaway</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Geoarchaeologist Kelsey Lowe has used a magnetometer, designed to detect magnetic anomalies beneath the earth surface, to search for signs of ancient houses (gunyahs). By investigating standing gunyahs, dating back to the 19th century, we have detected distinct magnetic signatures for these dwellings. </p>
<h2>Fish and plants</h2>
<p>Archaeobotanists Nathan Wright and Andrew Fairbairn are carefully sifting through deposits to identify wood charcoal and evidence of plant use. Expertise in recovering not only ancient seeds and plant remains, but importantly, burnt plant remains in ancient fireplaces will play a key role in telling the past economic story. </p>
<p>Zooarchaeologist Tiina Manne has begun a study of recovered animal bones, which also include the inner ears (otoliths) of fish (yellowbelly). These may provide insights into past aquaculture systems hinted at in the historical record. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/406014/original/file-20210613-64042-1p707h.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/406014/original/file-20210613-64042-1p707h.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/406014/original/file-20210613-64042-1p707h.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/406014/original/file-20210613-64042-1p707h.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/406014/original/file-20210613-64042-1p707h.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/406014/original/file-20210613-64042-1p707h.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/406014/original/file-20210613-64042-1p707h.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/406014/original/file-20210613-64042-1p707h.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Archaeologist Jason Kariwiga and archaeobotanist Nathan Wright discuss the excavation of the gunyah site.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Cemre Ustunkaya</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>We have started to document fish traps in the landscape. And geoarchaeologist Mike Morley has taken molds of excavation pits to analyse microscopic evidence of hut floors and the areas in front of the gunyahs. </p>
<p>Botanist Jen Silcock is working with Mithaka Elders to understand more about plant use. Important food and medicinal plants such as native millet, sorghum and different species of desert shrubs will be investigated by plant geneticist Robert Henry. He will see if we can find evidence of people deliberately moving plants and identify traits of domestication within the genomes of important species. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.britannica.com/science/palynology">Palynologist</a> Patrick Moss has taken cores from lake sediments to recover ancient pollen sequences associated with known village site locations. He will examine how the environment changes over time and whether he can detect any shifts in pollen, which may represent more intensified use of plants.</p>
<p>Historian Tom Griffiths, meanwhile, has begun to <a href="https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/c33fd50ffb8c4656855afe8231661c59">investigate the history of conflict in the landscape</a>, as Europeans and Native Police raged a war with the traditional owners of Mithaka country in the late 1800s. </p>
<p>This is important to understand because elsewhere in the country, archaeologists have suggested the development of village settlements may have been a response to colonial violence, rather than representing a traditional settlement system. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-unearthing-queenslands-native-police-camps-gives-us-a-window-onto-colonial-violence-100814">How unearthing Queensland's 'native police' camps gives us a window onto colonial violence</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>New, important stories</h2>
<p>For one of us (Michael), the ideas generated through Gerritsen’s research and Pascoe’s popularised account have inspired and stimulated a different way of thinking about Aboriginal food production systems, and how we might investigate an archaeological record for Aboriginal village settlements.</p>
<p>And for the other (Josh), Dark Emu provides a different account of the Aboriginal past, written by an Aboriginal person outside of the academy, which challenges us to think differently about how we might define Aboriginal people. Josh believes it is up to archaeologists now to test Pascoe’s hypothesis.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/406022/original/file-20210613-73723-hudv6f.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/406022/original/file-20210613-73723-hudv6f.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/406022/original/file-20210613-73723-hudv6f.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=510&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/406022/original/file-20210613-73723-hudv6f.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=510&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/406022/original/file-20210613-73723-hudv6f.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=510&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/406022/original/file-20210613-73723-hudv6f.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=641&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/406022/original/file-20210613-73723-hudv6f.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=641&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/406022/original/file-20210613-73723-hudv6f.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=641&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Elder Betty Gorringe and archaeobotanist Andy Fairbairn survey a complex of eight mound sites and numerous earth ovens in a landscape rich with artefacts.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Michael Westaway</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Hidden in the Mithaka landscape is a cultural narrative with great power to tell new and important stories. Multidisciplinary research involving traditional owner knowledge, even when fragmented by the ravages of past conflict and displacement, can re-energise landscapes.</p>
<p>It can provide a context for a richer, more nuanced and more comprehensive understanding of ancient Australia, creating a space for cultural learning, education and respect. </p>
<p><em>Participants in the Mithaka field research project include: Doug Williams (Austral Archaeology and Griffith University), Kelsey Lowe (University of Queensland), Nathan Wright (University of New England), Ray Kerkhove (University of Queensland), Andrew Fairbairn (University of Queensland), Tiina Manne (University of Queensland), Mike Morley (Flinders University), Tom Griffiths (Australian National University), Justyna Miszkiewicz (Queensland University of Technology), Justine Kemp (Griffith University), Patrick Moss (University of Queensland) and Robert Henry (University of Queensland).</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/146754/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michael Westaway receives funding from the Australian Research Council. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Joshua Gorringe works for Mithaka Aboriginal Corporation (MAC) a registered native title body corporate. MAC has received funding from the QLD state government through the Looking after Country grant scheme to fund field research and conservation. </span></em></p>We have found 140 quarry sites, where rock was excavated to make seed grinding stones, in the Channel Country of Central Australia. It’s part of a major project testing Bruce Pascoe’s hypothesis.Michael Westaway, Australian Research Council Future Fellow, Archaeology, School of Social Science, The University of QueenslandJoshua Gorringe, General Manager Mithaka Aboriginal Corporation, Indigenous KnowledgeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1542632021-04-29T20:09:35Z2021-04-29T20:09:35ZWe mapped the ‘super-highways’ the First Australians used to cross the ancient land<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/397750/original/file-20210429-14-ymshqj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=646%2C0%2C2658%2C2000&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Author provided/The Conversation</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>There are many hypotheses about where the Indigenous ancestors first settled in Australia tens of thousands of years ago, but evidence is scarce. </p>
<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/fifty-years-ago-at-lake-mungo-the-true-scale-of-aboriginal-australians-epic-story-was-revealed-98851">Few archaeological sites</a> date to these early times. Sea levels were much lower and Australia was connected to New Guinea and Tasmania in a land known as Sahul that was 30% bigger than Australia is today.</p>
<p>Our <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-021-01106-8">latest research</a> advances our knowledge about the most likely routes those early Australians travelled as they peopled this giant continent.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-first-australians-grew-to-a-population-of-millions-much-more-than-previous-estimates-142371">The First Australians grew to a population of millions, much more than previous estimates</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>We are beginning to get a picture not only of <a href="https://theconversation.com/an-incredible-journey-the-first-people-to-arrive-in-australia-came-in-large-numbers-and-on-purpose-114074">where those first people landed in Sahul</a>, but how they moved throughout the continent.</p>
<h2>Navigating the landscape</h2>
<p>Modelling human movement requires understanding how people navigate new terrain. Computers facilitate building models, but they are still far from easy. We reasoned we needed four pieces of information: (1) topography; (2) the visibility of tall landscape features; (3) the presence of freshwater; and (4) demographics of the travellers. </p>
<p>We think people navigated in new territories — much as people do today — by focusing on prominent land features protruding above the relative flatness of the Australian continent.</p>
<p>To map these features, we built the most complete digital elevation model for Sahul ever constructed, including areas now underwater.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/384382/original/file-20210216-16-1gyswkf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A map showing the landmass of Australia connected to New Guinea and Tasmania" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/384382/original/file-20210216-16-1gyswkf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/384382/original/file-20210216-16-1gyswkf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=642&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/384382/original/file-20210216-16-1gyswkf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=642&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/384382/original/file-20210216-16-1gyswkf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=642&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/384382/original/file-20210216-16-1gyswkf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=807&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/384382/original/file-20210216-16-1gyswkf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=807&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/384382/original/file-20210216-16-1gyswkf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=807&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">How the Sahul landmass would have looked more than 50,000 years ago.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>We used this digital elevation model to understand what was visible to early travellers. Essentially, from each point in the continent we asked “what can you see from here?” This moving window calculates the largest “viewshed” map ever created. When our virtual travellers move, they reorient based on visible terrain everywhere they go. The figure above shows the prominence of features across the continent as increasingly yellow shades against the blue background.</p>
<p>You can clearly make out features such as the the New Guinea Highlands, the Flinders Ranges in South Australia, the Great Dividing Range in the east, and the Hamersley Range in the Pilbara region of Western Australia.</p>
<p>But navigation using prominent landscape features isn’t enough to tell us where the most commonly travelled routes were. </p>
<p>For this we also need to take into account other factors, such as the physiological capacity of people travelling on foot, how difficult the terrain was to traverse, and the distribution of available freshwater sources in a largely arid continent.</p>
<h2>Billions and billions of routes</h2>
<p>We put all these different bits of information together into a mega-model, known as From Everywhere To Everywhere (<a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305440312001379" title="Geospatial modeling of pedestrian transportation networks: a case study from precolumbian Oaxaca, Mexico">FETE</a>), and created more than 125 billion possible pathways from everywhere on the continent to everywhere else. Each route represents the most efficient way to move from one location to another. This was the largest movement simulation of its kind ever attempted.</p>
<p>This gives us an idea of the relative ease or difficulty of walking across all of Sahul.</p>
<p>We cannot possibly examine every metre of the 125 billion pathways we created, so we needed a way to weight the relative importance of likely pathways. To do this, we compared all plausible pathways with the distribution of the oldest known archaeological sites in Sahul, providing weighted probabilities for each path.</p>
<p>This provided a scale going from the “most likely” to the “least likely” chosen paths.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/2zLcYePhCW4?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Super-highways of the initial peopling of Sahul, with known archaeological sites older than 35,000 years indicated by the grey dots. Megan Hotchkiss Davidson, Sandia National Laboratories (map) and Cian McCue, Moogie Down Productions (animation).</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The most likely pathways in the map above are what we are calling the “super-highways” of Indigenous movement. The next most likely paths are marked by dotted lines.</p>
<p>This allows us to discard many of the billions of paths as less likely to be chosen, helping us focus on those that were the most probable.</p>
<p>We now have a first glimpse into where Indigenous Australians likely travelled tens of thousands of years ago.</p>
<h2>Pathways well trodden</h2>
<p>These super-highways might have been more than just routes used for the initial peopling of Sahul.</p>
<p>Several of the super-highways our models identified echo well-documented Aboriginal trade routes criss-crossing the country. This includes Cape York to South Australia via Birdsville in the trade of <a href="http://entheology.com/plants/duboisia-hopwoodii-pituri-bush/">pituri</a> native tobacco, and the trade of Kimberley <a href="https://www.dpaw.wa.gov.au/management/marine/marine-parks-wa/fun-facts/402-baler-shell">baler shell</a> into central Australia.</p>
<p>There are also striking similarities between our map of super-highways and the most common trading and stock routes used by early Europeans. They followed already well-known routes established by Aboriginal peoples.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/384384/original/file-20210216-22-izoenn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="An old map showing routes across Australia." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/384384/original/file-20210216-22-izoenn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/384384/original/file-20210216-22-izoenn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=466&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/384384/original/file-20210216-22-izoenn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=466&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/384384/original/file-20210216-22-izoenn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=466&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/384384/original/file-20210216-22-izoenn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=585&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/384384/original/file-20210216-22-izoenn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=585&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/384384/original/file-20210216-22-izoenn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=585&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Early routes of European explorers in Australia.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Courtesy of Universal Publishers Pty Ltd</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>These Aboriginal exchange routes and the relatively recent trade routes of early Europeans cannot be used directly to validate a map from tens of thousands of years ago. But there are strong similarities that might suggest an extraordinary persistence of routes across the entire time period of human occupation of Australia.</p>
<p>Our findings also point to the <a href="https://theconversation.com/in-a-first-discovery-of-its-kind-researchers-have-uncovered-an-ancient-aboriginal-archaeological-site-preserved-on-the-seabed-138108">now-submerged continental shelves</a> of Sahul as important conduits for human movement.</p>
<p>We infer that early populations spread across the broad plains on the western and eastern margins of the continent (now under water) and through the region that now forms the Gulf of Carpentaria, which connected Australia to New Guinea.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-ancient-aboriginal-star-maps-have-shaped-australias-highway-network-55952">How ancient Aboriginal star maps have shaped Australia's highway network</a>
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</em>
</p>
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<p>It is worth noting these early people traversed and lived in all environments of Australia, ranging from the tropics to the arid zone. The ease of adaptation to all ecosystems is remarkable and one of the reasons for the success of the human species across the globe today.</p>
<p>Professor <a href="https://research.monash.edu/en/persons/lynette-russell">Lynette Russell</a> (Deputy Director of the ARC <a href="http://EpicAustralia.org.au">Centre of Excellence for Australian Biodiversity and Heritage</a> and Co-Chair of its Indigenous Advisory Committee), who was not involved directly in the study, noted:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>[This] modelling establishes the infrastructure for detailed local and regional studies to engage respectfully with Indigenous knowledges, ethnographies, historical records, oral histories, and archives.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The fundamental rules we described apply even to questions about how the first migrations of people out of Africa might have occurred, and how people ultimately proceeded to inhabit the rest of the planet. </p>
<p>This work might even have implications for humanity’s future, if climate scenarios require large-scale migrations. Learning from those who have been present in Sahul from more than 60,000 years ago could help us anticipate migration patterns in the future.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/154263/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alan N Williams is an associate director for EMM Consulting Pty Ltd, an Australian employee-owned environmental consulting firm. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Corey J. A. Bradshaw receives funding from the Australian Research Council.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Frédérik Saltré receives funding from the Australian Research Council</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sean Ulm receives funding from the Australian Research Council.
</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Devin White and Stefani Crabtree do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>We now have a glimpse into where early Indigenous Australians likely travelled all those tens of thousands of years ago.Stefani Crabtree, Assistant Professor for Social-Environmental Modeling @ Utah State University and Associate Investigator ARC Centre of Excellence for Australian Biodiversity and Heritage and ASU-SFI Biosocial Complex Systems Fellow, Santa Fe InstituteAlan N Williams, Associate Investigator, ARC Centre of Excellence for Australian Biodiversity and Heritage, UNSW SydneyCorey J. A. Bradshaw, Matthew Flinders Professor of Global Ecology and Models Theme Leader for the ARC Centre of Excellence for Australian Biodiversity and Heritage, Flinders UniversityDevin White, R&D Manager for Autonomous Sensing & Perception (Sandia National Laboratories) and Research Assistant Professor of Anthropology (UTK), University of TennesseeFrédérik Saltré, Research Fellow in Ecology for the ARC Centre of Excellence for Australian Biodiversity and Heritage, Flinders UniversitySean Ulm, Deputy Director, ARC Centre of Excellence for Australian Biodiversity and Heritage, James Cook UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1551182021-04-08T20:11:28Z2021-04-08T20:11:28ZFriday essay: truth telling, Return to Uluru and reckoning with the sins of fathers<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/393733/original/file-20210407-17-158s5k7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=81%2C135%2C5912%2C3875&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Lukas Coch/AAP</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/56883955-return-to-uluru">Return to Uluru</a> is the latest book from respected historian Mark McKenna. It is one of a few history books <a href="https://www.booktopia.com.au/truth-telling-henry-reynolds/book/9781742236940.html?source=pla&gclid=CjwKCAjwjbCDBhAwEiwAiudBy5-q8122xsCDk7ZO8gwd9cUt3Ul0l_Tue_HxeC9upElRD30Z15uNPxoCCgkQAvD_BwE.">published recently</a> that explicitly engage with the <a href="https://ulurustatement.org/">Uluru Statement from the Heart</a> and its demand for a nationwide process of truth telling — one that <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/1031461X.2018.1523838?casa_token=Dyj2N00ozr4AAAAA:XauA8TcQCQ5jZCi_dWkZ2TfipfpYv8FDkm1qH644jbc6YDc_QVjH3PJ4Wdm9hxUyI1lv1GUBN1BRJA">some key advocates</a> insist should be pursued locally and pluralistically. Not one truth, but many truths. </p>
<p>McKenna has already responded to the Uluru statement in his searching Quarterly Essay, <a href="https://www.blackincbooks.com.au/books/moment-truth">Moment of Truth</a> (2018). Amid that wide-ranging discussion of politics, history and Australian futures, he paused to consider a single street sign in the down-at-heel suburb of Kurnell on Botany Bay’s southern shore, where, in 1770, the Endeavour crew had spent a listless week.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-uluru-statement-is-not-a-vague-idea-of-being-heard-but-deliberate-structural-reform-142820">The Uluru statement is not a vague idea of 'being heard' but deliberate structural reform</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Through reconstructing a history of a worn out sign announcing Kurnell as the “birthplace of modern Australia”, McKenna traced the changing significance of this site, and the strange politics of foundational myths. This revealing vignette seemed like a chapter-in-the-making, with Kurnell poised to be added to the itinerary of vantage points from which he showed his readers ways to view past, present and future differently.</p>
<p>But it was a tease. McKenna’s next book — this one — turns its back on the coastal fringes and faces inwards, gingerly and then confidently venturing into terrains, actual and abstract, he had not yet traversed. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/393909/original/file-20210407-19-zjvzez.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/393909/original/file-20210407-19-zjvzez.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/393909/original/file-20210407-19-zjvzez.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393909/original/file-20210407-19-zjvzez.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393909/original/file-20210407-19-zjvzez.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393909/original/file-20210407-19-zjvzez.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393909/original/file-20210407-19-zjvzez.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393909/original/file-20210407-19-zjvzez.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Mark McKenna.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">goodreads</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In Return to Uluru, McKenna continues his journey in search of alternative sites of national foundations — or, national sites of alternative foundations. This quest had begun with <a href="https://www.booktopia.com.au/looking-for-blackfellas-point-mark-mckenna/book/9780868406442.html">Looking for Blackfellas’ Point</a>, subtitled An Australian History of Place, published two decades ago in 2002. </p>
<p>Searching for a satisfying way to intervene in the heat of the history wars, he turned his focus to what had become his own backyard: a bend in the Towamba river in southeastern NSW known in the local vernacular as Blackfellas’ Point, where he had purchased eight acres (3.2 hectares) of land.
From there, McKenna’s vista spanned outwards to the far south coast region, reaching backwards to its frontier past and forwards to its racial present. </p>
<p>McKenna then detoured via his magisterial biography of Manning Clark, <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11431660-an-eye-for-eternity">An Eye for Eternity</a>, a suitable byway for a historian deeply interested in place and the redemptive power of narrative. By the early 2010s, he resumed his Australian journey by essaying four coastal locations. In <a href="https://www.mup.com.au/books/from-the-edge-paperback-softback">From the Edge: Australia’s Lost Histories</a> (2016), he explored the peripheral histories of the long stretches of beach of southeast Australia from Gippsland to Sydney; Port Essington on the Cobourg Peninsula in west Arnhem Land; Murujuga in the Pilbara in the northwest and Gangaar (Cooktown) in Far North Queensland.</p>
<p>These off-centre places were offered as viable and lively alternatives to the moribund, foundational myths of single moments of bloodless and benign possession.
Such myths are gradually reaching their use by date, although still hanging on as <a href="https://theconversation.com/250-years-since-captain-cook-landed-in-australia-its-time-to-acknowledge-the-violence-of-first-encounters-132098">last year’s commemoration of Cook and the Endeavour</a> proved. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/a-failure-to-say-hello-how-captain-cook-blundered-his-first-impression-with-indigenous-people-126673">A failure to say hello: how Captain Cook blundered his first impression with Indigenous people</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/393744/original/file-20210407-15-c2ves0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/393744/original/file-20210407-15-c2ves0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/393744/original/file-20210407-15-c2ves0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393744/original/file-20210407-15-c2ves0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393744/original/file-20210407-15-c2ves0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393744/original/file-20210407-15-c2ves0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393744/original/file-20210407-15-c2ves0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393744/original/file-20210407-15-c2ves0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Uluru Statement from the Heart is seen as a backdrop as Midnight Oil perform during a warm-up show ahead of their Makarrata Project tour in Sydney on February 25.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Dan Himbrechts/AAP</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Redemption</h2>
<p>And so, Return to Uluru sees McKenna venture inland — for the first time. Heading inwards, he makes use of those stories of discovery and exploration, with which settler Australians (particularly those of a certain age) are familiar, to insert himself into a practised way of encountering the mythologised space of the continent’s heart. The opening section of the book has the quality of re-enactment; it is hard to know how ironic it is. This is a history approached from the outside in. </p>
<p>But the explorer narrative makes sense since it turns out McKenna is a rare creature — someone who had not yet made the pilgrimage to Uluru and the fabled Centre. And so, the “return” in the book’s title is initially a puzzle: Who then, if not the author, is making a return to Uluru? What is returning — or being returned? </p>
<p>It takes the remainder of the book — which is part travelogue, part detective story, part historical narrative and part political treatise — to appreciate in all dimensions this powerful metaphor of return. </p>
<p>With the Centre reached, the second section of the book, called Lawman, focuses on a policeman, Bill McKinnon, who murdered an Aboriginal man, Yokununna, in 1934. McKinnon is reasonably well-known in scholarship on the Northern Territory. His killing of Yokununna, an Anangu man arrested on suspicion of being responsible (along with others) for the death of an Aboriginal stockman, is likewise amply documented since it was the subject of a federal government inquiry. This part of the book provides a narrative retelling of episode — a seamless weaving together of the official story and its obfuscations and competing interests. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/393727/original/file-20210407-19-1162m20.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/393727/original/file-20210407-19-1162m20.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/393727/original/file-20210407-19-1162m20.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=718&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393727/original/file-20210407-19-1162m20.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=718&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393727/original/file-20210407-19-1162m20.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=718&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393727/original/file-20210407-19-1162m20.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=902&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393727/original/file-20210407-19-1162m20.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=902&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393727/original/file-20210407-19-1162m20.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=902&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Constable Bill McKinnon with his daughter, Susan, approx. 1941.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Library & Archives NT, Northern Territory Archives Service, NTRS 234, Photographic proof-sheets, 1979–1985, CP 426).</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Reading this part is a reminder the audience for this book is not the critical historian who is wondering when the debates about policing in the NT or the contradictions of government policy will be canvassed. The archive holds secrets and stories, and this is an “archive story”, which requires little critical commentary. </p>
<p>If the four “off-the-beaten-track” coastal sites of From The Edge were chosen for the ways they lent themselves to the work of revelation — of hidden histories or discarded truths — Uluru provides McKenna scope for the work of redemption. </p>
<p>In this case, redemption comes through the belated admission of a sin that was denied — or covered up — for which the perpetrator avoided punishment, even as he lived out his life knowing that he had dissembled. That is the Uluru to which McKenna returns through his historical scholarship.</p>
<p>As with all his books, the work of historical reckoning that McKenna pursues through the poetic telling of history operates simultaneously at a series of scales: the individual, the family, the local, and the national. It is the same rhetorical move that originally allowed McKenna’s own land on the NSW south coast to become a space of imagining on a national scale. And now, Uluru speaks again to the nation’s unfinished business.</p>
<p>This time it is a single site (a cave near Uluru), a singular episode (a newly-minted territory policeman chasing accused Aboriginal men), and a split second (when the policeman’s bullet kills one of them) that becomes the viewfinder for seeing past, present, future anew. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/393729/original/file-20210407-15-1muany6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/393729/original/file-20210407-15-1muany6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/393729/original/file-20210407-15-1muany6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393729/original/file-20210407-15-1muany6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393729/original/file-20210407-15-1muany6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393729/original/file-20210407-15-1muany6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1006&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393729/original/file-20210407-15-1muany6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1006&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393729/original/file-20210407-15-1muany6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1006&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Sammy Wilson, the grandson of one of the men arrested at the same time as Yokunnuna, pointing at the spot where Yokunnuna was killed.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Mark McKenna</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Ethical questions</h2>
<p>Explaining its emphasis on the “micro”, the book begins with an epigram from the Swiss artist and sculptor, Alberto Giacometti: “By doing something a half centimetre high, you are more likely to get a sense of the universe than if you try to do the whole sky”. </p>
<p>But we are left with the question of whether a focus on the microcosmic is a productive model for this urgent and difficult work of national truth telling? Might it be a problem that a string of episodes — but not structures — are revisited and revised?</p>
<p>By the book’s third section, the power of the quest begins again — and here we are not only travelling to the Centre or into the past through the surviving official record. We are also jumping on a plane to Brisbane to meet with policeman McKinnon’s family. Here, we delve into other archives — those boxes of papers and other detritus of one’s life, which in Australia are less likely to be found in attics than in garages or, in Brisbane, in that evocative space known as “under the house”. </p>
<p>At this juncture, as the story spins from past to present, from the official memory to family memory, from public archives to private ones, the ethical stakes seem to grow ever greater.</p>
<p>While McKenna is flicking nonchalantly through McKinnon’s personal papers, he finds treasure — “a copious archive of Australia’s frontier” — including the notebook in which the policeman admits he had fired to hit Yokununna. Meanwhile, a curator in a museum in South Australia is searching records and finding the remains of McKinnon’s victim. </p>
<p>Our archives and collections — both public and private — still contain plenty of damning evidence to hold the past to account. These secret stashes. This murky memory-work. </p>
<p>Archaeologist Denis Byrne <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF03376593">has described</a> the “ethos of return”, in which the flow of things and knowledge is reversing, coming home — perhaps to haunt, perhaps to heal. This is another kind of redemption. A powerful section of the book deals with the urgent work of taking Yokununna’s remains home — a process interrupted by COVID-19 and still playing out. </p>
<p>So far, the two families at the heart of this story — McKinnon’s and Yokununna’s — are travelling on parallel journeys; the reckoning will come, as it has powerfully at Myall Creek and other places, when families on opposite sides of a violent past come face to face.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-can-we-achieve-reconciliation-myall-creek-offers-valuable-answers-60198">How can we achieve reconciliation? Myall Creek offers valuable answers</a>
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</p>
<hr>
<p>Such a future meeting is not yet guaranteed, but it hangs as a possibility. The <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-can-we-achieve-reconciliation-myall-creek-offers-valuable-answers-60198">Myall Creek memorial</a> was shepherded by local churches and communities. Here, it seems, it will be museum curators and historians who are the nursemaids for re-membering — creating communities around common but differently experienced pasts. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/393735/original/file-20210407-13-1f5udtj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/393735/original/file-20210407-13-1f5udtj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/393735/original/file-20210407-13-1f5udtj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393735/original/file-20210407-13-1f5udtj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393735/original/file-20210407-13-1f5udtj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393735/original/file-20210407-13-1f5udtj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393735/original/file-20210407-13-1f5udtj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393735/original/file-20210407-13-1f5udtj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A bronze plaque commemorating the Myall Creek Massacre.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>What are we to do?</h2>
<p>At the height of the history wars in the 1990s, the anthropologist Gillian Cowlishaw <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/10314610608601210?casa_token=AMrHkf-Pvr4AAAAA:cU5I2-ADEKtBzdc6B-ryqkPxjkMHGY5UfKzljm-R872NMLQjrtD20RJzWfXW62Doqtmg1VFFKqq7">expressed surprise</a> at how readily some Australians were prepared to condemn their own ancestors rather than try to understand them. </p>
<p>She saw this as symptomatic of the polarising tenor of the furore — a failure of collective imagination to apprehend the complexities and contradictions of frontier lives. McKenna’s book (and inquiry) seeks to avoid such simplification and easy distancing from the fraught pasts we inherit. </p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-its-time-for-a-new-museum-dedicated-to-the-fighters-of-the-frontier-wars-155299">Friday essay: it's time for a new museum dedicated to the fighters of the frontier wars</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>He nudges his readers to see McKinnon and his crime for what it was: violent, illegal, excessive, irrational, and unconscionable, even if he was exonerated. No-one was found guilty of the killing, although the inquiry’s finding was that the “shooting of Yokununna […] though legally justified, was not warranted”. </p>
<p>McKenna does this not by swift damnation from the comfortable distance of the present, but by paying attention to the chinks in McKinnon’s own conscience. The fact that he held onto a piece of evidence that would expose him even as he spent his long retirement contributing occasionally to myth-making about himself and other police on the NT frontier. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/393731/original/file-20210407-21-o3eph1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/393731/original/file-20210407-21-o3eph1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/393731/original/file-20210407-21-o3eph1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393731/original/file-20210407-21-o3eph1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393731/original/file-20210407-21-o3eph1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393731/original/file-20210407-21-o3eph1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1006&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393731/original/file-20210407-21-o3eph1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1006&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393731/original/file-20210407-21-o3eph1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1006&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Bill McKinnon, on top of Uluru, 1984.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(McKinnon collection).</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But McKenna also has to deal with the implications for cherished family memories and pride when it becomes clear the generosity and hospitality extended to him by McKinnon’s doting daughter (who is slipping into dementia) is the path to the evidence that exposed her father. </p>
<p>And, indeed, the shadow of memory loss — the cruel play of remembering and forgetting — falls over the whole sorry episode. What happens when the distant frontier takes up residence in the family home? How will we remember our flawed ancestors then? </p>
<p>McKenna shares a story of a difficult meeting with McKinnon’s grandchildren, who understand the gravity of the situation, and articulate their commitment to reconciliation. They are prepared to do what needs to be done to come to terms with their unexpected inheritance; what that will be remains to be seen. </p>
<p>The book ends – surprisingly, jarringly, uncomfortably – with a sympathetic portrait of McKinnon, sitting atop an overturned box playing a violin. The context of the photograph is explained (McKinnon took it and annotated it). But we are left with the question: What do we do with these benign and romantic images of men who murdered and got away with it because the racial structures of Australian society ensured they would?</p>
<p>Is this the challenge of a much anticipated process of truth telling? Not that we will return to the big historical truths that in some ways, we all already know, but that we will have to revise our own and others’ family myths and treasured memories, finding a way to reconcile or hold in tension our love of — and our abhorrence for — the sins of the fathers? </p>
<p>This is the redemptive strain in McKenna’s work — that quest for grace — which perhaps has echoes of his biographical subject Manning Clark and his belief in the moral purpose of the historian’s craft. </p>
<p><em>Return to Uluru, by Mark McKenna, is published by Black Inc.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/155118/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Maria Nugent does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>What happens when the distant frontier takes up residence in the family home? How are we to remember our flawed ancestors? A new book grapples with these questions.Maria Nugent, Co-Director, Australian Centre for Indigenous History, Australian National UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1541812021-02-21T19:05:59Z2021-02-21T19:05:59ZThis 17,500-year-old kangaroo in the Kimberley is Australia’s oldest Aboriginal rock painting<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/384954/original/file-20210218-21-jge2dg.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C72%2C6016%2C3935&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Damien Finch</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In Western Australia’s northeast Kimberley region, on Balanggarra Country, a two-metre-long painting of a kangaroo spans the sloping ceiling of a rock shelter above the Drysdale River.</p>
<p>In a paper published <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-020-01041-0">today</a> in Nature Human Behaviour, we date the artwork as being between 17,500 and 17,100 years old — making it Australia’s oldest known in-situ rock painting.</p>
<p>We used a pioneering radiocarbon dating <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.quageo.2019.02.007">technique</a> on 27 mud wasp nests underlying and overlying 16 different paintings from 8 rock shelters. We found paintings of this style were produced between 17,000 and 13,000 years ago.</p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/at-last-the-arts-revolution-archibald-winners-flag-the-end-of-white-male-dominance-146832">At last, the arts Revolution — Archibald winners flag the end of white male dominance</a>
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<p>Our work is part of Australia’s largest rock art dating <a href="https://rockartaustralia.org.au/what-we-do/our-approach/rock-art-dating/">initiative</a>. The project is based in the Kimberley, one of the world’s premier rock art regions. Here, rock shelters have preserved galleries of paintings, often with generations of younger artwork painted over older work.</p>
<p>By studying the stylistic features of the paintings and the order in which they were painted when they overlap, a <a href="https://rockartaustralia.org.au/rock-art/rock-art-sequence/">stylistic sequence</a> has been developed by earlier researchers based on observations at thousands of Kimberley rock art sites. </p>
<p>They identified five main stylistic periods, of which the most recent is the familiar <a href="https://www.creativespirits.info/aboriginalculture/arts/what-are-wandjinas">Wanjina</a> period.</p>
<h2>Styles in rock art</h2>
<p>The <a href="https://rockartaustralia.org.au/rock-art/rock-art-sequence/naturalistic/">oldest style</a>, which includes the kangaroo painting we recently dated, often features life-sized animals in outline form, infilled with irregular dashes. Paintings in this style are said to belong to the “Naturalistic” stylistic period.</p>
<p>The ochre used is an iron oxide in a red-mulberry colour. Unfortunately, no current <a href="https://doi.org/10.1006/jasc.2001.0711">scientific dating method</a> can determine when this paint was applied to the rock surface. </p>
<p>A different approach is to date fossilised insect nests or mineral accretions on the rock surfaces that happen to be overlying or underlying rock art pigment. These dates provide a maximum (underlying) or minimum (overlying) age range for the painting. </p>
<p>Our dating suggests the main period for Naturalistic paintings in the Kimberley spanned from at least 17,000 to 13,000 years ago.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/OpizrMPHfhM?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<h2>The oldest known Australian rock painting</h2>
<p>Very rarely, we’ll find mud wasp nests both overlying and underlying a single painting. This was the case with the painting of the kangaroo, made on the low ceiling of a well-protected Drysdale River rock shelter.</p>
<p>We were able to date three wasp nests underlying the painting and three nests built on top of it. With these ages, we determined confidently the painting is between 17,500 and 17,100 years old; most likely close to 17,300 years old.</p>
<p>Our quantitative ages support the proposed stylistic sequence that suggests the oldest Naturalistic style was followed by the Gwion style. This style featured paintings of decorated human figures, often with headdresses and holding boomerangs.</p>
<h2>From animals and plants to people</h2>
<p>Research we <a href="https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/6/6/eaay3922">published last year</a> shows Gwion paintings flourished about 12,000 years ago — some 1,000-5,000 years after the Naturalistic period.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/382864/original/file-20210207-24-106nv5j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/382864/original/file-20210207-24-106nv5j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=467&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/382864/original/file-20210207-24-106nv5j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=467&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/382864/original/file-20210207-24-106nv5j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=467&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/382864/original/file-20210207-24-106nv5j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=587&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/382864/original/file-20210207-24-106nv5j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=587&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/382864/original/file-20210207-24-106nv5j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=587&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">This map of the Kimberley region in Western Australia shows the coastline at three distinct points in time: today, 12,000 years ago (the Gwion period) and 17,300 years ago (the earlier end of the known Naturalistic period).</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Illustration by Pauline Heaney, Damien Finch</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>With these dates, we can also partially reconstruct the environment in which the artists lived 600 generations ago. For example, much of the Naturalistic period coincided with the end of the last ice age when the environment was cooler and drier than now. </p>
<p>During the Naturalistic period, 17,000 years ago, sea levels were a staggering 106 metres below today’s and the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.quascirev.2017.11.030">Kimberley coastline</a> was about 300 kilometres further away, more than half the distance to Timor. </p>
<p>Aboriginal artists at this time often chose to depict kangaroos, fish, birds, reptiles, echidnas and plants (particularly yams). As the climate warmed, ice caps melted, the monsoon was re-established, rainfall increased and sea levels rose, sometimes rapidly. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/382862/original/file-20210207-23-k84e6w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/382862/original/file-20210207-23-k84e6w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/382862/original/file-20210207-23-k84e6w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/382862/original/file-20210207-23-k84e6w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/382862/original/file-20210207-23-k84e6w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/382862/original/file-20210207-23-k84e6w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/382862/original/file-20210207-23-k84e6w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Traditional Owner Ian Waina inspecting a painting of a kangaroo that we now know is more than 12,700 years old, based on the age of overlying mud wasp nests. INSET: an artist’s recreation of the in-situ rock painting.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Photo by Peter Veth / Balanggarra Aboriginal Corporation. Illustration by Pauline Heaney.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>By the Gwion period around 12,000 years ago, sea levels had risen to 55m below today’s. This would undoubtedly have prompted long-term adjustment to territories and social relations. </p>
<p>This is when Aboriginal painters depicted highly decorated human figures, bearing a striking resemblance to early 20th-century photographs of <a href="http://davidmwelch.com.au/pdf%20Files/Welch_Bradshaw_Kimberley.PDF">Aboriginal ceremonial dress</a>. While plants and animals were still painted, human figures were clearly the most popular subject.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/all-things-will-outlast-us-how-the-indigenous-concept-of-deep-time-helps-us-understand-environmental-destruction-132201">'All things will outlast us': how the Indigenous concept of deep time helps us understand environmental destruction</a>
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<h2>Reaching into the past</h2>
<p>While we now have age estimates for more paintings than ever before, more work is continuing to find out, more accurately, when each art period began and ended.</p>
<p>For example, one minimum age on a Gwion painting suggests it may be more than 16,000 years old. If so, Gwion art would have overlapped with the Naturalistic period but further dates are required to be more certain.</p>
<p>Moreover, it’s highly unlikely the oldest known Naturalistic painting we dated is the oldest surviving one. Future research will almost certainly locate even older works. </p>
<p>For now, however, the 17,300-year-old kangaroo is a sight to marvel at.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>Acknowledgements: we would like to thank the Balanggarra Aboriginal Corporation, the Australian National Science and Technology Organisation, Rock Art Australia and Dunkeld Pastoral Co for their collaboration on this work.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/154181/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Damien Finch receives funding from the Australian Research Council, Rock Art Australia, an Australian Postgraduate Award and the Australian Institute of Nuclear Science and Engineering . </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Andrew Gleadow receives funding from the Australian Research Council, Rock Art Australia, and AuScope Ltd under the National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy. He is a Director of Rock Art Australia.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Janet Hergt receives funding from The Australian Research Council. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sven Ouzman receives funding from the Australian Research Council and Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.</span></em></p>Some 17,000 years ago, Aboriginal artists often depicted kangaroos, fish, birds, reptiles, echidnas and plants — especially yams.Damien Finch, Postdoctoral Researcher, The University of MelbourneAndrew Gleadow, Emeritus Professor, The University of MelbourneJanet Hergt, Redmond Barry Distinguished Professor, The University of MelbourneSven Ouzman, Senior Lecturer in Archaeology and Centre for Rock Art Research + Management, The University of Western AustraliaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1552992021-02-18T19:13:33Z2021-02-18T19:13:33ZFriday essay: it’s time for a new museum dedicated to the fighters of the frontier wars<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/384677/original/file-20210217-12-1qslomp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=35%2C37%2C961%2C593&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Group of Aboriginal people with shields and spears, by Joseph Lycett, circa 1820.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">National Library of Australia</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised this article contains images of deceased people.</em></p>
<p>Historical research of the last 20 years has confirmed the central importance of the killing times. They lasted far longer and were much more deadly than generations of Australians were led to believe. </p>
<p>For many years the truth was either deftly avoided or consciously suppressed. Aboriginal families kept alive their own memories of those terrible times, even if they were not necessarily aware of the broader national story. </p>
<p>A pioneer Queensland pastoralist who had worked for years with Indigenous stockmen came to appreciate the continuing legacy of the violent early years, or what he termed “the remembrance of the blood red dawn of their civilisation”.</p>
<p>Once anthropologists and linguists began to work in First Nations communities in the 1930s and 1940s, they too learnt how vigorously alive were memories of historical violence. They should perhaps have known more about it but often didn’t. Their education had let them down.</p>
<p>The violence, the “line of blood”, was well known in colonial society. It had been discussed and argued about from the earliest years in New South Wales and Tasmania. The central points of contention still confront us.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/of-course-australia-was-invaded-massacres-happened-here-less-than-90-years-ago-55377">Of course Australia was invaded – massacres happened here less than 90 years ago</a>
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<p>Was it an inescapable companion of colonisation? Was it a case of forced appropriation or none at all? Were all the colonists, including those with no experience of the frontier, complicit by remaining in Australia? Did the new societies bear a collective moral burden? Or was it necessary to distinguish the culpability of free settlers from that of the convicts and the Australian-born children?</p>
<p>“This right to Australia is a sore subject with many of the British settlers”, <a href="https://catalogue.nla.gov.au/Record/786453">a Victorian pioneer noted in the 1840s</a>, “and they strive to satisfy their consciences in various ways”.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/384623/original/file-20210217-21-p05uhc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Albumen silver photograph" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/384623/original/file-20210217-21-p05uhc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/384623/original/file-20210217-21-p05uhc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=795&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/384623/original/file-20210217-21-p05uhc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=795&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/384623/original/file-20210217-21-p05uhc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=795&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/384623/original/file-20210217-21-p05uhc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=998&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/384623/original/file-20210217-21-p05uhc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=998&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/384623/original/file-20210217-21-p05uhc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=998&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">No title (Aboriginal man holding a gun) c. 1873. No. 18 from the Australian Aboriginals portfolio, photogaph by JW Lindt.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>At much the same time, <a href="https://catalogue.nla.gov.au/Record/2827857?lookfor=subject:%22Settlement%20and%20contacts%20-%20Colonisation%20-%201788-1850.%22%20%7Bdecade:1840%7D&offset=3&max=4">the South Australian settler Francis Dutton</a> thought that the claims of the blacks were “superior to ours”, although his contemporaries were “too eager on all occasions … to persuade ourselves that such is not the case”. </p>
<p>The Aboriginal question “gave rise to more argument” than any other matter in Queensland in the 1860s according to the editor of the Rockhampton Bulletin. </p>
<p>Running close to the colonial debate about the morality of settlement was the unavoidable question of frontier conflict. Was it a form of warfare even if of quite a distinctive kind? Or were the pioneer settlers murderers? Were they heroic pathfinders or criminals?</p>
<p>There were very few court cases where such questions might have been assessed and therefore publicised. On the other hand, war and homicide were matters widely understood, each with their own place in the popular mind. So there was no consensus, no resolution that has been passed down to us. We have to resolve the matter ourselves.</p>
<h2>Our most important war</h2>
<p>There were always settlers who opted for warfare as the way out of the moral quandary of colonisation. And many of the military men who lived and worked in NSW and Tasmania talked openly of war. Many of them were career officers with battle experience. </p>
<p>It is not surprising therefore that many of the historians who have rewritten the history of frontier conflict over the last 40 or so years have followed in their wake. More to the point is that since at least 1990, Australia’s professional war historians have both accepted and promoted the idea that frontier conflict must be considered alongside Australia’s overseas wars.</p>
<p>But that can only be the start of a significant transformation in the way we think about both the frontiersmen and the warriors of the First Nations who confronted them all over the continent.</p>
<p>Rigorous truth-telling will be of critical importance here, but that can only be part of the required transformation. The telling must be heard and treated with gravity. Changes in traditional accounts of national history will have to be accepted. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/384624/original/file-20210217-15-shk531.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Woman stares straight to camera. She wears a necklace of shells." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/384624/original/file-20210217-15-shk531.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/384624/original/file-20210217-15-shk531.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=943&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/384624/original/file-20210217-15-shk531.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=943&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/384624/original/file-20210217-15-shk531.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=943&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/384624/original/file-20210217-15-shk531.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1185&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/384624/original/file-20210217-15-shk531.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1185&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/384624/original/file-20210217-15-shk531.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1185&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Portrait of Truganini, a member of The Freedom Fighters, c 1866, photographed by CA Woolley.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">National Library of Australia</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-truganini-and-the-bloody-backstory-to-victorias-first-public-execution-129548">Friday essay: Truganini and the bloody backstory to Victoria's first public execution</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Above all, we must bring together the ways we think about and commemorate the two forms of national war-making … the many overseas campaigns on the one hand and the war fought in Australia for the ownership and control of the continent on the other. </p>
<p>The truth-telling will have achieved its ultimate purpose when Australian children are able to consider that the long-running and widespread conflict that accompanied Australian life for 140 years was arguably our most important war.</p>
<h2>Aboriginal people on the frontier</h2>
<p>But how can two such disparate narratives be spliced together? It will clearly take time and will need steady and persistent commitment. Many small threads will have to be engaged. Complexity will have to replace simple sagas of heroic settlement. For instance, few people appreciate that Aboriginal people participated from the earliest years in the outward thrust of the frontier. </p>
<p>The first expeditions that pushed out into the interior were invariably accompanied by Aboriginal escorts who acted as guides and diplomats. They were able to find their way across country, discover water, track straying horses, hunt and gather food. They could quickly construct temporary shelters and simple bark rafts to ford rivers.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/384626/original/file-20210217-21-1n6co1r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Two ben on horses." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/384626/original/file-20210217-21-1n6co1r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/384626/original/file-20210217-21-1n6co1r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=365&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/384626/original/file-20210217-21-1n6co1r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=365&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/384626/original/file-20210217-21-1n6co1r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=365&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/384626/original/file-20210217-21-1n6co1r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=458&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/384626/original/file-20210217-21-1n6co1r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=458&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/384626/original/file-20210217-21-1n6co1r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=458&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Aboriginal police trackers Woodley and Gordon in the Kimberley, 1920.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">State Library Western Australia</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Their value was so obvious that it became a settled custom for expeditions, both private and official, to recruit young men and women to act as valued auxiliaries. When the squatters surged out into the interior of NSW, Aboriginal people went with them and quickly developed the skills that made them valued and competent stockmen and women. </p>
<p>Children, often enough kidnapped, were taken along as personal servants and eventually sexual partners. Once the vast savannah lands of the tropical north were occupied, local Aboriginal people became the mainstay of the workforce, given the scarcity, cost and unreliability of white labour.</p>
<p>They were an essential component of the successful establishment of the northern pastoral industry and, consequently, the principal claim the settler Australians could make to prove they were in effective occupation of as much as a quarter of the continent.</p>
<p>The same skills made young Aboriginal men ideal troopers for native police forces in Victoria, NSW and particularly Queensland. Their bushcraft was essential to the success of the northern force in crushing the resistance of the First Nations over a vast area of the colony. They were also much cheaper to maintain than a comparable force of European troopers.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/384625/original/file-20210217-23-px14mw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Photograph of nine men." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/384625/original/file-20210217-23-px14mw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/384625/original/file-20210217-23-px14mw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/384625/original/file-20210217-23-px14mw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/384625/original/file-20210217-23-px14mw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/384625/original/file-20210217-23-px14mw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=500&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/384625/original/file-20210217-23-px14mw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=500&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/384625/original/file-20210217-23-px14mw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=500&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Queensland Native Mounted Police contingent sent to Victoria to help hunt the Kelly Gang, 1879.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Queensland Police Museum</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">CC BY-NC-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>There seems to be no precise record of the number of Aboriginal young men who served in the force. In his history of the Native Police, <a href="https://www.booktopia.com.au/the-secret-war-jonathan-richards/book/9780702236396.html">The Secret War, Jonathan Richards</a> listed just over 250 white officers who spent varying periods of time out in the field. But he provided no estimate of the equivalent number of Indigenous troopers. </p>
<p>There must have been hundreds and possibly as many as a thousand. The conclusions that follow from this are compelling. The troopers almost certainly killed more Aboriginal people than the settlers.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-unearthing-queenslands-native-police-camps-gives-us-a-window-onto-colonial-violence-100814">How unearthing Queensland's 'native police' camps gives us a window onto colonial violence</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>In total, they may have been responsible for up to a quarter of all deaths in the frontier wars all over Australia. This too has to be part of our truth-telling.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/384615/original/file-20210217-19-1vd66fl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/384615/original/file-20210217-19-1vd66fl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/384615/original/file-20210217-19-1vd66fl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=428&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/384615/original/file-20210217-19-1vd66fl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=428&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/384615/original/file-20210217-19-1vd66fl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=428&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/384615/original/file-20210217-19-1vd66fl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=538&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/384615/original/file-20210217-19-1vd66fl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=538&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/384615/original/file-20210217-19-1vd66fl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=538&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Native Police, Rockhampton, 1864.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The response of many people when this matter is raised is to express amazement that the troopers could shoot their own people and assume they must have been coerced into killing. But the critical point is that the idea that the First Nations were members of one race or one people was a European one and had little bearing on the situation on the ground.</p>
<p>The young troopers were invariably campaigning far from their own homeland in country previously unknown among people foreign to them. And the locals were people to be feared. If the troopers were caught away from their detachment they would almost certainly have been killed, and this kept them together as much as the discipline imposed by white officers.</p>
<p>So whether as paramilitary troopers, workers, trackers, guides, servants and sexual partners, many hundreds of Aboriginal Australians were participants in the outward thrust of the frontier.</p>
<p>The implication is inescapable. Many Indigenous families have ancestors who were pioneers in the precise meaning of that term, both black and white, whether recognised and acknowledged or not.</p>
<h2>White fear</h2>
<p>Truth-telling allows us to weave new stories and to make old ones richer while, at the same time, more complex. This is particularly true when it comes to our understanding of frontier warfare. The common view is that the Aboriginal peoples were, for much of the time, passive victims of European brutality.</p>
<p>Such ideas help explain the one-time common view that the Aboriginal peoples were quite unable to put up a spirited resistance of the kind seen in New Zealand and North America, that they were “pathetically helpless” in their response to the invaders of their homelands.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/384628/original/file-20210217-15-4eka4r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Etching of a muscular man in a boat." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/384628/original/file-20210217-15-4eka4r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/384628/original/file-20210217-15-4eka4r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=482&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/384628/original/file-20210217-15-4eka4r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=482&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/384628/original/file-20210217-15-4eka4r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=482&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/384628/original/file-20210217-15-4eka4r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=605&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/384628/original/file-20210217-15-4eka4r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=605&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/384628/original/file-20210217-15-4eka4r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=605&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Pemulwuy was a significant figure in the resistance to colonisation. This is believed to be the only picture of him, drawn in 1803, a year after his murder.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">State Library Victoria</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Such opinions, common among professional historians until the 1960s, underpinned the idea that we had a uniquely peaceful history. Since then, the violence of the frontier has flooded back into the national story. But the overwhelming idea of Aboriginal people as victims of irresistible violence has lived on as a powerful political weapon, readily mobilised to assault the conscience of white Australia. Still, as is often the case, good politics makes bad history.</p>
<p>A few days’ research among the documentary records of the colonies would dispel these ideas. It was understood at the time that white fear was overwhelmingly important. The brave frontiersmen were terrified of the Aboriginal people. The evidence for this will be found everywhere. </p>
<p>A Sydney Morning Herald journalist who toured North Queensland in the 1880s concluded that “mere wanton slaughter would be unknown if the natives were not feared so much”. </p>
<p>Some years later, on the other side of the continent, the government resident at Roebourne reported that the “fears of whites are more the cause of disorder than the aggression of blacks”. </p>
<p>This should come as no surprise. In most frontier districts the invading force was spread very thin. The small parties were almost everywhere outnumbered by resident bands. They were in country they knew little about. It looked, felt and smelt dangerously exotic. They had no maps and had no idea where Aboriginal parties periodically disappeared to. </p>
<p>The people they were displacing had a profound knowledge of their own land. They were in many cases taller, stronger and better nourished than the Europeans, who got by on a very limited diet. And they were hunters trained from childhood. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/384670/original/file-20210217-16-1szvuku.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=440%2C429%2C2593%2C1818&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/384670/original/file-20210217-16-1szvuku.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=440%2C429%2C2593%2C1818&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/384670/original/file-20210217-16-1szvuku.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=470&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/384670/original/file-20210217-16-1szvuku.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=470&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/384670/original/file-20210217-16-1szvuku.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=470&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/384670/original/file-20210217-16-1szvuku.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=590&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/384670/original/file-20210217-16-1szvuku.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=590&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/384670/original/file-20210217-16-1szvuku.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=590&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Print depicting formal Aboriginal combat scene from the time of the Baudin voyage, c1825.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>They could track the intruders and stalk them without being seen or heard, and throw their spears with lethal force and accuracy. Guns were important, particularly late in the 19th century when men on the frontier carried revolvers and high-powered repeating rifles. </p>
<p>But it was the horse that had tipped the balance in the invaders’ favour. Their power, speed and endurance made all the difference on the vast open plains of inland Australia.</p>
<p>When speaking in their own defence, frontiersmen insisted that they acted in response to Aboriginal aggression. A typical argument was advanced by the editor of the Hodgkinson Mining News who wrote in 1877: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>It is not the rule that the white men are the aggressors. The first settlers came peaceably onto the land they had got by right from the Crown, and no sooner had they done so than the hostilities of the natives compel them to adopt not merely defensive but offensive measures.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>It was special pleading but there is no doubt the frontiersmen, like invaders anywhere, would have preferred to achieve a bloodless usurpation.</p>
<p>The editor’s comment nudges us, however, towards an enhanced understanding of the frontier wars. It was Aboriginal resistance that determined where and when conflict broke out and for how long it lasted. And that was clearly the result of innumerable political decisions, made often at band level, about how to respond to the white men.</p>
<p>Initially there was a choice of attempting to accommodate the intruders, avoiding them altogether or spying on them in order to gather information about them. The fateful decision to begin forceful resistance often took some time. </p>
<p>It may have begun with a compelling desire to carry out a revenge mission aimed at a particular individual for what would have been a crime in traditional society — the kidnapping and rape of a kinswoman, for instance.</p>
<p>From that point on, violence spiralled out of control. Attacks on vulnerable white men were often combined with the killing of sheep, cattle and horses; the burning of huts and crops; and the pillaging of undefended camp sites. </p>
<p>The fighting continued until the Aboriginal bands decided that the cost they were paying was too high. Once again there must have been intense and urgent debate about how to bring the merciless killing to an end. </p>
<p>And even then, the question of how to negotiate a capitulation must have occupied time and thought. But everywhere, sooner or later, the survivors were, in the victors’ words, “let in” to pastoral stations, mining camps or rudimentary townships. </p>
<p>Not everyone was willing to surrender, and small parties of what the white men called myalls continued to live independently in remote areas of their homeland.</p>
<h2>‘We are at war with them’</h2>
<p>The explorer Edward Eyre was one of the people who was able to look beyond the conventional view that the warriors were dangerous but lacking martial virtue. <a href="http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks/e00048.html">He observed that</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>It has been said, and is generally believed, that the natives are not courageous. There could not be a greater mistake … I have seen many instances of an open manly intrepidity of manner and bearing, and a proud unquailing glance of eye, which instinctively stamped upon my mind the conviction that the individuals before me were very brave men.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>From an admiration of Aboriginal bravery it required a further step to regard the warriors as heroic patriots defending their homelands, although that was one too demanding for most colonists. It required an even-handed approach difficult to sustain in times of conflict and that threatened to undermine the legal and moral foundations on which the Australian colonies rested. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/384668/original/file-20210217-22-4rn7cx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C1599%2C869&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Bullock team and cart with two prisoners, prison guards and a crowd outside the gaol" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/384668/original/file-20210217-22-4rn7cx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C1599%2C869&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/384668/original/file-20210217-22-4rn7cx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=357&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/384668/original/file-20210217-22-4rn7cx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=357&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/384668/original/file-20210217-22-4rn7cx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=357&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/384668/original/file-20210217-22-4rn7cx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=449&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/384668/original/file-20210217-22-4rn7cx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=449&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/384668/original/file-20210217-22-4rn7cx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=449&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">‘The First Execution’, drawn by W. F. E Liardet c, of the execution of Tunnerminnerwait and Maulboyheenner.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">State Library Victoria</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It was the war in Tasmania in the 1820s that produced one of colonial Australia’s most provocative manifestos. It was printed in a Launceston newspaper at the very end of five years of conflict. The author J.E., assumed to be the young surveyor <a href="https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/calder-james-erskine-1865">James Erskine Calder</a>, posed what he called some solemn questions about the islands’ Aboriginal peoples. He declared: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>We are at war with them: they look upon us as enemies – as invaders – as their oppressors and persecutors – they resist our invasion. They have never been subdued, therefore they are not rebellious subjects, but an injured nation, defending in their own way, their rightful possessions, which have been torn from them by force.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Given the time that it was written that was provocative enough. But J.E. followed the logic of his position much further arguing:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>What we call their crime is what in a white man we should call patriotism. Where is the man amongst ourselves who would not resist an invading enemy; who would not avenge the murder of his parents, the ill-usage of his wife and daughters, and the spoliation of all his earthly goods, by a foreign enemy, if he had an opportunity? He who would not do so, would be scouted, execrated, nay executed as a coward and a traitor; while he who did would be immortalised as a patriot. </p>
<p>Why then shall deny the same feelings to the Blacks? How can we condemn as a crime in these savages what we should esteem as a virtue in ourselves? Why punish a black man with death for doing that which a white man would be executed for not doing?</p>
</blockquote>
<p>They were challenging questions then. They remain so today.</p>
<h2>Warriors as patriots</h2>
<p>I came across J.E.’s letter years ago and have used it in several books. I have also read it to audiences in many parts of Australia. In almost all cases people have found it a complete surprise. They are amazed that a colonist would publish such an enlightened letter almost 200 years ago. They correctly assess that his questions still confront and challenge us. </p>
<p>Can we, by which I mean Australia as a nation, regard the First Nations’ warriors as patriots? Can we immortalise their heroic defence of their homelands? We have a great deal of experience when it comes to remembering and commemorating our citizens who have died in conflict. No expense is spared. The phrase “Lest We Forget” is surrounded by a sacred penumbra. </p>
<p>But do we want to allow the heroes of the First Nations to join the chosen ones? Do we want to extend to them the honours we award to the war dead from all our overseas engagements?</p>
<p>Do we want to honour them with a place in the nation’s pantheon? Do we want to share the honours we have hitherto preserved for our warriors who fought on foreign soil? See it as a national priority? If the answer is yes, what would be required?</p>
<p>Memorials to our overseas wars can be found all over the continent, even in the smallest and most isolated villages. In his book <a href="https://www.booktopia.com.au/sacred-places-war-memorials-in-the-australian-landscape-k-s-inglis/book/9780522854794.html">Sacred Places</a>, Ken Inglis estimated that there are more than 4,000 war memorials of one kind or another. </p>
<p>And then there are the tens of thousands graves cared for by the War Graves Commission in Australia and many places overseas. During the carnival of first world war commemoration we witnessed between 2014 and 2018, old monuments all over the country were refurbished and avenues of honour replanted. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.smh.com.au/world/europe/100m-monash-centre-to-form-entry-point-to-france-s-western-front-20180413-p4z9cg.html">A new museum costing $100 million</a> was built in northern France to commemorate the achievements of the AIF. Meanwhile the Australian War Memorial had achieved an unparalleled place in national life. Visiting schoolchildren are taught that it is where they must go to understand what it means to be an Australian. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/384618/original/file-20210217-21-f77zyg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Hallway of the Australian War Memorial decorated with poppies." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/384618/original/file-20210217-21-f77zyg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/384618/original/file-20210217-21-f77zyg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/384618/original/file-20210217-21-f77zyg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/384618/original/file-20210217-21-f77zyg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/384618/original/file-20210217-21-f77zyg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/384618/original/file-20210217-21-f77zyg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/384618/original/file-20210217-21-f77zyg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Australian War Memorial.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It is now described by the director of the institution as the “<a>soul of the nation</a>”, a view endorsed by Defence Minister Linda Reynolds, who has said the memorial embodies “<a>the soul and the psyche of Australians</a>”. The government has recently granted it half a billion dollars for a <a href="https://canberraweekly.com.au/australian-war-memorial-defends-500-million-upgrades/">highly controversial building program</a>.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/gargoyles-and-silence-our-story-at-the-australian-war-memorial-38829">Gargoyles and silence: 'our story' at the Australian War Memorial</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>The memorial’s apotheosis has been achieved during the years when many aspects of Australian history were transformed and in particular our new understanding of the magnitude of the frontier wars.</p>
<p>But rather than embrace the new historiography, the memorial has turned its back on it, despite the highly relevant research and writing of many of the Canberra-based war historians, some of whom have actually worked inside the institution. </p>
<p>The reason for this recalcitrance has never been convincingly outlined. The most common explanation is that while frontier conflict has been accepted as part of the national story, it should come under the aegis of the National Museum rather than the War Memorial. </p>
<h2>A new national museum</h2>
<p>The War Memorial’s implicit disrespect for the warriors of the First Nations represents a case of profound moral failure. It has let us all down. It was made worse by a parallel political failure as a consequence of the complete lack of interest in the subject from all sides of the federal parliament. </p>
<p>The problem could have been resolved so easily. One formal ceremony would have woven the two traditions together. The placing of a tomb for the unknown warrior in the heart of the memorial next to the grave of the unknown soldier would have been an event of immense national importance, a symbol of respect, inclusion and reconciliation. What a difference that would have made to the way we feel about ourselves!</p>
<p>There seems little chance now that this will ever happen. We will have to persist with two separate stories of war. The inescapable implication is that the nation itself is deeply divided, its soul bifurcated and located in different places. </p>
<p>But if the two histories are to be told in different ways and in distinctive institutions, they must be given equal resources to not only continue the truth-telling, called for in the <a href="https://ulurustatement.org/">Uluru Statement from the Heart</a>, but to enable the truth to be proclaimed and illustrated in a compelling way.</p>
<p>The call must be: “If not inclusion then equality”.</p>
<p>What is clearly required is a new national museum dedicated to the frontier wars and supported with the same level of funding that is received by the War Memorial. </p>
<p>It will be expensive, but if $100 million can be lavished on building a museum dedicated to a few years of fighting in France, that is the least that should be expected to establish an institution here dedicated to the story of the conflict experienced in all parts of the continent over 140 years. </p>
<p>The new institution could then provide advice and encouragement to regional organisations to consider ways to research and commemorate the war fought within their own traditional boundaries. </p>
<p>Not every community would necessarily respond, but the variety of the chosen manner and form would likely provide an exhilarating experience for locals and visitors alike. In some places the descendants of the white pioneers might be invited to participate in the commemoration.</p>
<p>Museums and monuments are important instruments to both remember the past and to engage in truth-telling. </p>
<p><em>This is an edited extract from <a href="https://www.newsouthbooks.com.au/books/truth-telling/">Truth-Telling: History, Sovereignty and the Uluru Statement</a> by Henry Reynolds, New South Books.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/155299/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Henry Reynolds does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The widespread conflict that accompanied Australian life for 140 years was arguably our most important war. We need a museum telling this story, funded on a par with The Australian War Memorial.Henry Reynolds, Honorary Research Professor, Aboriginal Studies Global Cultures & Languages, University of TasmaniaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1544752021-02-09T19:08:01Z2021-02-09T19:08:01ZHow historically accurate is the film High Ground? The violence it depicts is uncomfortably close to the truth<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/382893/original/file-20210207-14-1shv6c1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Jacob Junior Nayinggul (left) and Simon Baker in High Ground (2020).</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Maxo, Bunya Productions, Savage Films</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The Australian film <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9286908/?ref_=ttpl_pl_tt">High Ground</a>, set mostly at a mission in Arnhem Land in the 1930s, <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/culture/movies/people-weren-t-ready-australian-massacre-aired-at-berlin-premiere-20200224-p543r9.html">blends stories</a> (and languages) from Indigenous Nations across the region.</p>
<p>It is a <a href="https://thelatch.com.au/high-ground-movie/">fictionalised story</a>, inspired, says director Stephen Maxwell Johnson, by “true history”. At times, the film resembles a shoot-em-up Western. But it gets a lot right.</p>
<p>High Ground was written by Chris Anastassiades and co-produced by Witiyana Marika, (a founding member of Yothu Yindi), who appears in a supporting role as Grandfather Dharrpa and was the film’s <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2021/feb/09/i-did-this-for-my-family-how-high-ground-used-a-both-ways-approach-to-tell-australias-story">senior cultural advisor</a>. It tells of a police massacre of Aboriginal people and the repercussions that follow.</p>
<p>Massacres at the hands of police and settlers were tragically common through northern Australia. The opening scene, depicting a massacre beside a waterhole in 1919, echoes the 1911 <a href="https://c21ch.newcastle.edu.au/colonialmassacres/detail.php?r=715">Gan Gan Massacre</a> in which mounted police killed more than 30 Yolngu people in a “punishment expedition”.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/WL-G4oCoDF0?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<h2>The mission</h2>
<p>In the film, a young boy, Gutjuk, who survives the massacre of his family, is taken to a mission. The <a href="https://www.findandconnect.gov.au/guide/nt/YE00010">Roper River Mission</a> (now Ngukurr), established in 1908 and run by the Church Missionary Society, really did take in Aboriginal children who had either lost kin, or been forcibly removed from their families. </p>
<p>By the 1920s, there were so many children at Roper River that the society established a <a href="https://www.findandconnect.gov.au/guide/nt/YE00011">new mission</a> just for them on Groote Eylandt. Another mission opened at <a href="https://www.findandconnect.gov.au/guide/nt/YE00012">Oenpelli</a> (now Gunbalanya) in 1925, the subject of <a href="https://press.anu.edu.au/publications/series/aboriginal-history/bible-buffalo-country">our recent book</a>. </p>
<p>Parts of High Ground were shot in the vicinity of Oenpelli, which likely inspired the mission in the film.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/382961/original/file-20210208-15-f3dztb.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/382961/original/file-20210208-15-f3dztb.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/382961/original/file-20210208-15-f3dztb.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=320&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/382961/original/file-20210208-15-f3dztb.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=320&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/382961/original/file-20210208-15-f3dztb.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=320&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/382961/original/file-20210208-15-f3dztb.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/382961/original/file-20210208-15-f3dztb.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/382961/original/file-20210208-15-f3dztb.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Jacob Junior Nayinggul as Gutjuk, who survives a massacre.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Maxo, Bunya Productions, Savage Films</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The real station</h2>
<p>Before it was a mission, Oenpelli was a cattle station and buffalo shooters’ camp run by a man named Paddy Cahill. In the film, a young woman, Gulwirri, who fights to defend her people, has worked as a “house girl” on a station and speaks of the violence she experienced. </p>
<p>Cahill had a <a href="https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-76231-9_5">reputation for brutality</a>. He wrote of chaining Aboriginal people by the neck. The community remembers how he used to shoot people’s dogs, and his son was known to give workers a “hiding”. There are rumours, too, that Paddy was involved in a massacre. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/382138/original/file-20210203-13-prxarz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Gurrhwek Mangiru (left) with baby Gurrhwek Mangiru (left) Albert Balmana, and unidentified woman and baby (right), Oenpelli, Northern Territory Archives Service." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/382138/original/file-20210203-13-prxarz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/382138/original/file-20210203-13-prxarz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=421&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/382138/original/file-20210203-13-prxarz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=421&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/382138/original/file-20210203-13-prxarz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=421&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/382138/original/file-20210203-13-prxarz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=529&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/382138/original/file-20210203-13-prxarz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=529&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/382138/original/file-20210203-13-prxarz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=529&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Gurrhwek Mangiru (left) with baby Albert Balmana, and unidentified woman and baby (right), Oenpelli, c.1925.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Northern Territory Archives Service</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Provoked by his behaviour, traditional owners instigated a plot to take out Cahill and his household. In 1917, strychnine was mixed into the family’s butter, killing their dog, and making Paddy’s wife Maria and two Aboriginal housemaids, Marealmark and Topsy seriously ill. Punishment for those Cahill suspected to be responsible was swift and violent. </p>
<p>In High Ground, the police officers’ earlier experience as soldiers fuels their bloody tactics. After Cahill left Oenpelli in 1922, caretaker Don Campbell managed the station until missionaries arrived. Campbell, too, was a returned serviceman, described as violent. Incoming missionary, Rev Alf Dyer <a href="https://press-files.anu.edu.au/downloads/press/n7284/pdf/book.pdf">wrote</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>There are plenty [of Aboriginal people] about. Mr. Campbell said he had about 300 last Christmas. His policy has been to hunt them, because of the cattle killing; as you read between the lines you will see plenty of problems for the Superintendent of Oenpelli — we will have an uphill fight.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>The real missionaries</h2>
<p>In High Ground, the mission is run by a young brother and sister team. The latter, Claire, speaks the local language.</p>
<p>The original missionaries at Oenpelli were an older, socially awkward couple with prior experience: Alf and Mary Dyer. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/382137/original/file-20210203-13-lvzz9u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Alf and Mary Dyer, c.1930" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/382137/original/file-20210203-13-lvzz9u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/382137/original/file-20210203-13-lvzz9u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=476&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/382137/original/file-20210203-13-lvzz9u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=476&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/382137/original/file-20210203-13-lvzz9u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=476&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/382137/original/file-20210203-13-lvzz9u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=598&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/382137/original/file-20210203-13-lvzz9u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=598&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/382137/original/file-20210203-13-lvzz9u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=598&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Alf and Mary Dyer, c.1930, Northern Territory Archives Service.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Some have questioned whether a missionary woman would have learned language in the 1930s. But the character of Claire resembles the real figure of Nell Harris, who arrived at Oenpelli in 1933, aged 29. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-dreaming-of-a-white-christmas-on-the-aboriginal-missions-88381">Friday essay: dreaming of a 'white Christmas' on the Aboriginal missions</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Thanks to her Aboriginal teachers, Harris quickly began learning Kunwinkju and, together with local women Hannah Mangiru and Rachel Maralngurra, translated the Gospel of Mark.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/382856/original/file-20210207-20-zx5rf5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Outside the Church at Oenpelli, c.1930, Northern Territory Archives Service." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/382856/original/file-20210207-20-zx5rf5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/382856/original/file-20210207-20-zx5rf5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/382856/original/file-20210207-20-zx5rf5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/382856/original/file-20210207-20-zx5rf5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/382856/original/file-20210207-20-zx5rf5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/382856/original/file-20210207-20-zx5rf5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/382856/original/file-20210207-20-zx5rf5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Outside the Church at Oenpelli, c.1930.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Northern Territory Archives Service</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The real Gutjuk</h2>
<p>In the film, Gutjuk (played as an adult by Jacob Junior Nayinggul), grows up at the mission. He uses this affiliation to work for the interests of his kin in defending themselves against the police, who come looking for his uncle, Baywara, a warrior and survivor of the 1919 massacre. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/382859/original/file-20210207-13-fovbdo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/382859/original/file-20210207-13-fovbdo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/382859/original/file-20210207-13-fovbdo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=973&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/382859/original/file-20210207-13-fovbdo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=973&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/382859/original/file-20210207-13-fovbdo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=973&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/382859/original/file-20210207-13-fovbdo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1223&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/382859/original/file-20210207-13-fovbdo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1223&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/382859/original/file-20210207-13-fovbdo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1223&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Nipper Marakarra Gumurdul standing behind seated man. Frank ‘Naluwud’ Girrabul on crutches.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Northern Territory Archives Service</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This reminds us of a real historical figure, Narlim. Narlim was eldest son of senior traditional owner of the land at Oenpelli — Nipper Marakarra. Narlim was born in 1909, making him around the same age as the fictional Gutjuk. </p>
<p>Narlim grew up at the mission because, after working for Cahill, Nipper saw strategic value in an alliance with missionaries. He also wanted his children to learn to read and speak English. This alliance was a way to ensure continued life on Country and to maintain sovereignty as traditional owners.</p>
<p>But, as in the film, missionary cooperation with police was disastrous for Narlim. When a policeman visited in the late 1930s, he found Narlim had an infectious disease. The policeman handcuffed Narlim, intending to chain him with a group of others to be sent to Darwin.</p>
<p>The missionaries said the chains were unnecessary as Narlim “would behave”, but they did not save him. Narlim was exiled from the mission and his country under police escort, baby daughter on one shoulder and spears on the other, never to return. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/382139/original/file-20210203-23-1dfcs78.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Narlim, stock-worker, c.1929’" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/382139/original/file-20210203-23-1dfcs78.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/382139/original/file-20210203-23-1dfcs78.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=736&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/382139/original/file-20210203-23-1dfcs78.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=736&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/382139/original/file-20210203-23-1dfcs78.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=736&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/382139/original/file-20210203-23-1dfcs78.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=925&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/382139/original/file-20210203-23-1dfcs78.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=925&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/382139/original/file-20210203-23-1dfcs78.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=925&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Narlim, stock-worker, c.1929.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Northern Territory Archive Services</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>His daughter, Peggy eventually came home and became a strong community leader.</p>
<h2>The real ‘punishment’ and ‘peace’ expeditions</h2>
<p>In 1932, Yolngu warriors killed a party of Japanese pearlers trespassing on their country. Constable Albert McColl was sent in; he too was speared. So police proposed a “punishment expedition”, not unlike those depicted in High Ground. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-dr-g-yunupinu-took-yolnu-culture-to-the-world-81676">How Dr G.Yunupiŋu took Yolŋu culture to the world</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>After a humanitarian outcry, the society proposed a “peace expedition” instead. The expedition went unarmed to the Yolngu warriors. Unlike events depicted in the film, three were convinced to come to Darwin for trial. The men were found guilty but eventually released. Yet one, Dhakiyarr, disappeared after his release. The open secret in Darwin was that Dhakiyarr was <a href="https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/dhakiyarr-wirrpanda-12885">drowned in the harbour</a> in an extra-judicial police killing.</p>
<p>The film gets right the ambiguous missionary relationship to violence. Missions were meant to be a refuge from inter-tribal and settler violence. Missionaries understood their humanitarian and evangelistic work as seeking to atone for the bloodshed of colonisation. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/382895/original/file-20210207-15-oc83vk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/382895/original/file-20210207-15-oc83vk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/382895/original/file-20210207-15-oc83vk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=335&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/382895/original/file-20210207-15-oc83vk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=335&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/382895/original/file-20210207-15-oc83vk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=335&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/382895/original/file-20210207-15-oc83vk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=421&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/382895/original/file-20210207-15-oc83vk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=421&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/382895/original/file-20210207-15-oc83vk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=421&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">An attempt at negotiation on the mission in High Ground. Claire and her brother are on the right, Grandfather Dharrpa seated on the left.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Maxo, Bunya Productions, Savage Films</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But they also relied upon and enabled the ongoing violence of settler authorities. As “Aboriginal Protectors” missionaries functioned as local sheriffs and carried guns. Missionaries would send Aboriginal people for trial in Darwin, or else implement their own punishments.</p>
<p>As portrayed in the film, missionaries joined expeditions to capture supposed lawbreakers. Alf Dyer, for instance, led the so-called “peace expedition” to convince Yolngu men to face trial in white courts.</p>
<h2>The historical record</h2>
<p>High Ground also shows how self-conscious white authorities were creating a historical record. </p>
<p>The chief of police, played by Jack Thompson, seems to be always directing a photographer to take portraits. These images were good for fund raising, for impressing officials. They do not reflect the full story of the community. But they do give us a glimpse of the complex relationships in Arnhem Land in the 1930s.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/382140/original/file-20210203-19-jeeq9b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Group of girls at the Oenpelli Mission c.1930, Northern Territory Archives Service" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/382140/original/file-20210203-19-jeeq9b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/382140/original/file-20210203-19-jeeq9b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=414&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/382140/original/file-20210203-19-jeeq9b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=414&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/382140/original/file-20210203-19-jeeq9b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=414&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/382140/original/file-20210203-19-jeeq9b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=520&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/382140/original/file-20210203-19-jeeq9b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=520&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/382140/original/file-20210203-19-jeeq9b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=520&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Group of girls at the Oenpelli Mission c.1930, Northern Territory Archives Service.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Northern Territory Archive Services</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>High Ground, of course, is a highly dramatised piece of art. But, as the filmmakers have said, it’s closer to <a href="https://thelatch.com.au/high-ground-movie/">uncomfortable historical truths</a> than we might expect. By showcasing such stories, the film will hopefully encourage broader reflection on Australia’s violent history, and its enduring legacies.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/154475/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Laura Rademaker receives funding from the Australian Research Council.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sally K. May receives funding from the Australian Research Council. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Julie Narndal Gumurdul does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>In depicting brutal massacres and mission life, this film gets a lot right. And the model for its central protagonist may well be a young man called Narlim, exiled from his country in the late 1930s.Laura Rademaker, Postdoctoral Research Associate, Research Centre for Deep History, Australian National UniversityJulie Narndal Gumurdul, Senior Traditional Owner, Gunbalanya community, Western Arnhem Land, Indigenous KnowledgeSally K. May, Senior Research Fellow, Griffith UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1480042020-12-17T19:08:45Z2020-12-17T19:08:45ZFriday essay: how a long-lost list is helping us remap Darug place names and culture on Dyarubbin, the Hawkesbury River<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/372749/original/file-20201203-21-1qddzwb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Darug women Leanne Watson, Rhiannon Wright and Jasmine Seymour at Dorumbolooa. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Avryl Whitnall</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In 2017, I came across an extraordinary document in Sydney’s Mitchell Library: a handwritten list of 178 Aboriginal place names for Dyarubbin, the Hawkesbury River, compiled in 1829 by a Presbyterian minister, the Reverend John McGarvie. I was stunned. I stared at the screen, hardly believing my eyes.</p>
<p>After years of research, <a href="https://www.allenandunwin.com/browse/books/academic-professional/cultural-studies/People-of-the-River-Grace-Karskens-9781760292232">my own</a> and others, I thought most of the Aboriginal names for the river were lost forever, destroyed in the aftermath of invasion and dispossession. Yet, suddenly, this cache of riches.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/373489/original/file-20201208-23-evuvjo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/373489/original/file-20201208-23-evuvjo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/373489/original/file-20201208-23-evuvjo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=404&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/373489/original/file-20201208-23-evuvjo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=404&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/373489/original/file-20201208-23-evuvjo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=404&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/373489/original/file-20201208-23-evuvjo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=507&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/373489/original/file-20201208-23-evuvjo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=507&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/373489/original/file-20201208-23-evuvjo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=507&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A page from Rev McGarvie’s 1829 list of Aboriginal names for places on Dyarubbin, the Hawkesbury River.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>I could see McGarvie had taken a lot of care with this list, correcting spelling and adding pronunciation marks. The names appear in geographic order, so they also record where he and his Darug informant/s travelled along the riverbanks. Perhaps most important of all, McGarvie often included locational clues, like settlers’ farms, creeks and lagoons. </p>
<p>An extraordinary idea dawned on me: what if we could restore these names to their places on the river? And then: what if these beautiful, rolling words — like <em>Bulyayorang</em> and <em>Marrengorra</em> and <em>Woollootottemba</em> — came back into common usage?</p>
<h2>Naming Country</h2>
<p>Place names have enormous significance in Aboriginal society and culture. As in all societies, they signal the meanings people attach to places, they encode history and geography, they are way-finding devices and common knowledge. Place names are crucial elements of shared understandings of Country, history, culture, rights and responsibilities. </p>
<p>Often place names are parts of larger naming systems — they name places on Dreaming tracks reaching across Country. Singular names can also embed the stories of important events and landmarks involving Ancestral Beings in places and memory. Anthropologist and linguist <a href="https://www.newcastle.edu.au/profile/james-wafer">Jim Wafer</a> points out their use in songs, which are memory devices, or “audible maps … travelling song cycles that narrate mythical journeys”.</p>
<p>Dyarubbin, the Hawkesbury River, flows through the heart of a vast arc of sandstone Country encircling Sydney and the shale-soil Cumberland Plain on the east coast of New South Wales. The river has a deep human history, one of the longest known in Australia. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/373492/original/file-20201208-21-c9gwjm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/373492/original/file-20201208-21-c9gwjm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/373492/original/file-20201208-21-c9gwjm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/373492/original/file-20201208-21-c9gwjm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/373492/original/file-20201208-21-c9gwjm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/373492/original/file-20201208-21-c9gwjm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/373492/original/file-20201208-21-c9gwjm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/373492/original/file-20201208-21-c9gwjm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Axe grinding grooves on Dyarubbin.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Joy Lai</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The ancestors of Darug, Darkinyung and Gundungurra people have lived in this region for around 50,000 years. Their history, culture and spirituality are inseparable from their river Country. A mere two centuries ago, ex-convict settlers took land on the river and began growing patches of wheat and corn in the tall forests. Darug men and women resisted the invasion fiercely and sometimes successfully. </p>
<p>Between 1794 and 1816, Dyarubbin was the site of one of the longest frontier wars in Australian history. Invasion and colonisation kicked off a slow and cumulative process of violence, theft of Aboriginal children, dispossession and the ongoing annexation of the river lands. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/373495/original/file-20201208-17-6shxrq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/373495/original/file-20201208-17-6shxrq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/373495/original/file-20201208-17-6shxrq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/373495/original/file-20201208-17-6shxrq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/373495/original/file-20201208-17-6shxrq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/373495/original/file-20201208-17-6shxrq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/373495/original/file-20201208-17-6shxrq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/373495/original/file-20201208-17-6shxrq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Jasmine Seymour, Women of Dyarubbin.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Jasmine Seymour</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Yet despite this sorry history, Dyarubbin’s people managed to remain on their Country, and they still live on the river today.</p>
<p>McGarvie’s list contrasts strikingly with the modern landscapes of the Hawkesbury and Western Sydney. Once, every place on this river and its tributaries had an Aboriginal name. Now only a handful survive on maps and in common usage.</p>
<p>With some important exceptions, the Traditional Owners, the Darug, rarely see themselves represented in key heritage sites, or in the everyday reminders and triggers of public memory – like place names.</p>
<p>Yet Western Sydney is now home to one of the biggest populations of Darug and other Aboriginal people in Australia. Could McGarvie’s list be a way to begin to shift the shape of our landscapes towards a recognition of Darug history and culture?</p>
<h2>Living on Country</h2>
<p>This idea stayed with me, so I contacted Darug knowledge-holders, artists and educators Leanne Watson, Erin Wilkins, Jasmine Seymour and Rhiannon Wright: the response was instant and enthusiastic. We designed the project together and were thrilled when it won the NSW State Library’s <a href="https://www.sl.nsw.gov.au/about-library/fellowships/coral-thomas-fellowship">Coral Thomas Fellowship</a> </p>
<p>The project’s Darug researchers want most of all to research, record and recover environmental and cultural knowledge and raise awareness of Darug presence and history in the wider community.</p>
<p>Because the Darug history of Dyarubbin is continuous, the project includes an oral history component, recording 20th century Darug voices and stories of the river. </p>
<p>Looking back, it seems uncanny that McGarvie’s list reappeared when it did — after all, we are in the midst of an extraordinary period of Aboriginal cultural renewal and language revitalisation.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-state-of-australias-indigenous-languages-and-how-we-can-help-people-speak-them-more-often-109662">The state of Australia's Indigenous languages – and how we can help people speak them more often</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>It was obvious that McGarvie’s words could be more than a list of names: it could be the key to a bigger story about the Dyarubbin, the Darug history that was lost, submerged below what historian Tom Griffiths calls <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books?id=xQMK8c82OQ8C&q=white+noise#v=snippet&q=white%20noise&f=false">“the white noise of history making”</a>. </p>
<p>But to do this, we needed to put the words in their wider context: we needed to see the river whole. So, besides reconnecting the list to Traditional Owners, the project explores Dyarubbin’s history, ecology, geography, archaeology and languages. </p>
<p>Early maps showing the old river farms helped us work out where the Darug place names belong and digitally map them. They also record long-lost landscapes of swamps, lagoons and creeks — important places for Aboriginal people that have since been modified or disappeared altogether. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/373491/original/file-20201208-15-3ao7cp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/373491/original/file-20201208-15-3ao7cp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/373491/original/file-20201208-15-3ao7cp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=591&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/373491/original/file-20201208-15-3ao7cp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=591&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/373491/original/file-20201208-15-3ao7cp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=591&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/373491/original/file-20201208-15-3ao7cp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=743&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/373491/original/file-20201208-15-3ao7cp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=743&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/373491/original/file-20201208-15-3ao7cp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=743&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Brown’s Lagoon Wilberforce 1844.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">NSW State Archives and Records</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The <a href="https://search.records.nsw.gov.au/primo-explore/fulldisplay?docid=ADLIB_RNSW111304527&context=L&vid=61SRA&lang=en_US&search_scope=Everything&adaptor=Local%20Search%20Engine&tab=default_tab&query=any,contains,Returns%20of%20Natives&offset=0">“Returns of Aboriginal Natives”</a> are lists of Aboriginal people living in New South Wales in the 1830s, including the groups who lived on various parts of Dyarubbin and its tributaries. Reverend McGarvie’s diaries show he knew many of these Darug people. </p>
<p>The letters and journals of Hawkesbury settlers are thoroughly colonial-centred, yet they contain hints about the ways Darug people continued to live on their Country throughout the 19th century.</p>
<p>For example, they befriended some of the settlers, like the Hall family at Lilburndale, and cultivated these relationships over generations. <a href="https://search.sl.nsw.gov.au/primo-explore/fulldisplay?docid=ADLIB110359597&context=L&vid=SLNSW&lang=en_US&search_scope=MOH&adaptor=Local%20Search%20Engine&tab=default_tab&query=any,contains,Hall%20family%20%20Hawkesbury&offset=0">The Hall family papers in the Mitchell Library</a> hold some powerful and poignant traces: store receipts for goods Darug people were purchasing from them, and lists of the work they did at Lilburndale.</p>
<p>The archaeological record for this region is astonishingly rich. Dyarubbin and its tributary Gunanday (the Macdonald River) are part of a much larger archaeological zone, reaching from the Blue Mountains and the Wollemi in the west, up to the Hunter Valley and Lake Macquarie in the north. Many of the major recorded archaeological sites have sacred, spiritual and ceremonial significance, especially those located on high places. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/372751/original/file-20201203-23-4wl0dr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/372751/original/file-20201203-23-4wl0dr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/372751/original/file-20201203-23-4wl0dr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/372751/original/file-20201203-23-4wl0dr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/372751/original/file-20201203-23-4wl0dr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/372751/original/file-20201203-23-4wl0dr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/372751/original/file-20201203-23-4wl0dr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/372751/original/file-20201203-23-4wl0dr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Gunanday (the Macdonald River).</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Joy Lai</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Closer to the river, Paul Irish’s archaeological mapping has revealed how much Darug cultural landscape survives today, within the “settler” landscape. </p>
<p>From Richmond in the south to Higher Macdonald in the north, the river corridors alone are lined with more than 200 archaeological sites, including engravings, grinding grooves and rock shelters, some with scores or hundreds of images in ochre, white clay and charcaol. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/373490/original/file-20201208-17-rwtyra.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/373490/original/file-20201208-17-rwtyra.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/373490/original/file-20201208-17-rwtyra.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/373490/original/file-20201208-17-rwtyra.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/373490/original/file-20201208-17-rwtyra.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/373490/original/file-20201208-17-rwtyra.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/373490/original/file-20201208-17-rwtyra.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/373490/original/file-20201208-17-rwtyra.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Darug women Jasmine Seymour and Rhiannon Wright visit a painted rockshelter.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Joy Lai</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Perhaps the most important aspect of the project are the field trips — getting out on Country, following in the footstep of McGarvie and his Darug friends, to see how all of this comes together. For Aboriginal people especially, visiting Country is a spiritual experience: they sense past and present converging, and the presence of their Ancestors.</p>
<h2>Words for Country</h2>
<p>What about the words on McGarvie’s list? What can they tell us? Linguist Jim Wafer and I worked with the Darug team members on a glossary, scouring dictionaries of seven local and adjacent Aboriginal languages for glosses, or meanings.</p>
<p>Many of these remain tentative; some words have two possible glosses. This project is, after all, only the beginning of what will hopefully be a much longer journey of discovery.</p>
<p>Nevertheless, McGarvie’s list has unlocked a wealth of information as well as intriguing and suggestive patterns — the place names open a marvellous word-window onto the Darug world of Dyarubbin in late 1820s. </p>
<p>They can be roughly grouped in four interrelated and often overlapping categories: the natural world of plants and creatures, geography and landforms, stone and earth, salt and fresh water; the social world of corroboree and contest grounds, camps and places to source materials for tools and implements; a metaphoric pattern — using words for parts of the body (mouth, arm, finger, eyes) for places on the river; and names with spiritual meanings, signifying sacred places.</p>
<p>Are there larger patterns in McGarvie’s list of place names? Here again, mapping the names, relocating them on Country, revealed something about how Darug people thought of Dyarubbin: as a series of zones, each which particular characteristics. </p>
<p>For example, on the west side of the river between Sackville and Wilberforce are 16 named lagoons or words meaning lagoons, including four different words which appear to signify different types of lagoons: <em>Warretya</em>, <em>Warang</em>, <em>Warradé</em>, <em>Warrakia</em>.</p>
<p>It was <em>Warretya</em> (lagoon) Country. Rich in birdlife, fish, turtles, eggs and edible plants, lagoons were very important places for Darug people, especially women, who harvested the edible roots and shoots of water plants such as cumbungi, water ribbon and common nardoo.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/373500/original/file-20201208-23-6kwaue.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/373500/original/file-20201208-23-6kwaue.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/373500/original/file-20201208-23-6kwaue.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/373500/original/file-20201208-23-6kwaue.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/373500/original/file-20201208-23-6kwaue.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/373500/original/file-20201208-23-6kwaue.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/373500/original/file-20201208-23-6kwaue.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/373500/original/file-20201208-23-6kwaue.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Aunty Edna Watson, Yellamundi.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Aunty Edna Watson</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>There were lagoons on the opposite side of the river, too, but here the series of place names around Cattai Creek tell us that this was <em>Dugga</em> (thick brush/rainforest) Country. </p>
<p>Massive Riverflat forest once lined all of Dyarubbin’s alluvial reaches; in sheltered gullies this forest graded into rainforest. Other place names in this area suggest the tree species which grew in these forests: <em>Boolo</em>, coachwood, <em>Tamangoa</em>, place of Port Jackson figs, <em>Karowerry</em>, native plum tree, <em>Booldoorra</em>, soft corkwood. And there are places named for implements, like clubs (<em>Kanogilba</em>, <em>Berambo</em>), and fish spears (<em>Mating</em>), which may have been fashioned from the fine, hard timbers of some of these trees. </p>
<p>These <em>Dugga</em> place names suggest something significant about Dyarubbin’s human and ecological history, too. The settler invasion is often assumed to have completely destroyed earlier landscapes, converting the bush to cleared, farmed fields. But these tree and forest names suggest that parts of the great forests survived for over three decades, and that Darug people went on using them.</p>
<p>Perhaps most significant and evocative are the place names which signal sacred zones on Dyarubbin. There are two different words meaning “rainbow”: <em>Dorumbolooa</em> and <em>Gunanday</em>.</p>
<h2>The great Eel Being</h2>
<p>Both are located in places with dramatic cliffs and sharp river bends. These words are probably linked with Gurangatty, the great Eel Being, who is associated with rainbows, and who created the river and its valley in the Dreaming, leaving awesome chasms and sinuous bends in his wake. McGarvie’s list reconnects us with the sacred river.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/373498/original/file-20201208-13-1yf79fi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/373498/original/file-20201208-13-1yf79fi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/373498/original/file-20201208-13-1yf79fi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=668&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/373498/original/file-20201208-13-1yf79fi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=668&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/373498/original/file-20201208-13-1yf79fi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=668&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/373498/original/file-20201208-13-1yf79fi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=840&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/373498/original/file-20201208-13-1yf79fi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=840&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/373498/original/file-20201208-13-1yf79fi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=840&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Leanne Watson, Big Eel.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Leanne Watson</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Such words remind us of something obvious, and profound. If Aboriginal people are to be at the centre of their own stories, we need to look beyond European history and landscapes, beyond European knowledge and ways of thinking, and towards an Aboriginal sense of Country — the belief that people, animals, Law and Country are inseparable, that the land is animate and inspirited, that it is a historical actor.</p>
<p>Leanne Watson’s painting Waterholes, inspired by the project, expresses this sense of Country. Her painting represents the beautiful lagoons around Ebenezer near Wilberforce and all the nourishment and materials they offered people. Now we can name some of those lagoons: <em>Boollangay</em><em>, Marrumboollo</em>, <em>Kallangang</em>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/372752/original/file-20201203-17-1tcuicl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/372752/original/file-20201203-17-1tcuicl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/372752/original/file-20201203-17-1tcuicl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=496&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/372752/original/file-20201203-17-1tcuicl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=496&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/372752/original/file-20201203-17-1tcuicl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=496&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/372752/original/file-20201203-17-1tcuicl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=623&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/372752/original/file-20201203-17-1tcuicl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=623&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/372752/original/file-20201203-17-1tcuicl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=623&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Leanne Watson, Waterholes.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Leanne Watson</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>What now? Two exhibitions are planned for 2021: one at the State Library of NSW, and the other at Hawkesbury Regional Gallery. Staff at NSW Spatial Services/the NSW Geographic Names Board have generously offered their skills and time to create a digital Story Map, which will allow readers to virtually explore Darug Dyarubbin. </p>
<p>A series of illustrated essays, or “story cycle”, to be published on the online <a href="https://home.dictionaryofsydney.org/">Dictionary of Sydney</a> at the State Library of New South Wales, will present more in-depth narratives. Ultimately, we plan to launch dual naming projects, which will restore these names to Dyarubbin Country.</p>
<p>These are truth-telling projects: they will tell the story of invasion, dispossession and frontier war. But they will also explore Darug history, culture, places and names, and the way Dyarubbin and its surrounding high lands still throb with spiritual meaning and power, and the <a href="https://ulurustatement.org/the-statement">“ancient sovereignty”</a> of Aboriginal people.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/148004/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Grace Karskens received funding from the Coral Thomas Fellowship administered by the State Library of New South Wales.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Erin Wilkins, Jasmine Seymour, Leanne Watson, and Rhiannon Wright do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>It was once thought the Aboriginal names for the Hawkesbury had been lost forever. But after a remarkable find in the Mitchell Library, almost 100 place names will be restored to Dyarubbin Country.Grace Karskens, Emeritus Professor of History, UNSW SydneyErin Wilkins, Aboriginal Cultural Educator, trainer and facilitator, Indigenous KnowledgeJasmine Seymour, Artist, writer, illustrator, primary school teacher, Indigenous KnowledgeLeanne Watson, Artist, educator, book illustrator, Indigenous KnowledgeRhiannon Wright, Aboriginal Education Officer, Indigenous KnowledgeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.