Reflections on the Preparation and Delivery of Carl Strehlow's Heritage
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Introduction
Introduction The subjects of ethnographies, it should never be forgotten, are always more interesting than their authors. —R.J. Smith (1990) In the autumn of 2016, I met with two Arrernte men, Shaun and Martin, who had flown from the remote township of Alice Springs, in the center of Australia, to meet with me at my office in the Melbourne Museum. The purpose of their visit was to discuss the potential return of sacred ritual objects to central Australia. I had known both of these men for a number of years, but Shaun and I had a particularly long association. We had worked together at an Aboriginal youth service in Alice Springs over a decade earlier, and as we struck up a friendship he had taken me on a hunting trip for kangaroo on his homelands at Arewengkwerte. Our paths had diverged over the years, but we had once again come together as professionals in the Indigenous museum and heritage sector. Shaun now worked as a researcher at the Strehlow Research Centre in Alice Springs, and I had returned to my home city of Melbourne where I worked in the museum’s Indigenous Cultures Department. Over a number of days, Shaun and I looked into the history of these sacred objects, with Shaun’s uncle Martin providing prudent counsel, pon- dering how they came to be in the possession of a museum 2,300 kilometers from their place of origin. Our research and discussions meandered along a path that eventually led us back to questions about the degree of agency exhibited by central Australian men in the production of collections such as this. -
German Lutheran Missionaries and the Linguistic Description of Central Australian Languages 1890-1910
German Lutheran Missionaries and the linguistic description of Central Australian languages 1890-1910 David Campbell Moore B.A. (Hons.), M.A. This thesis is presented for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy of The University of Western Australia School of Social Sciences Linguistics 2019 ii Thesis Declaration I, David Campbell Moore, certify that: This thesis has been substantially accomplished during enrolment in this degree. This thesis does not contain material which has been submitted for the award of any other degree or diploma in my name, in any university or other tertiary institution. In the future, no part of this thesis will be used in a submission in my name, for any other degree or diploma in any university or other tertiary institution without the prior approval of The University of Western Australia and where applicable, any partner institution responsible for the joint-award of this degree. This thesis does not contain any material previously published or written by another person, except where due reference has been made in the text and, where relevant, in the Authorship Declaration that follows. This thesis does not violate or infringe any copyright, trademark, patent, or other rights whatsoever of any person. This thesis contains published work and/or work prepared for publication, some of which has been co-authored. Signature: 15th March 2019 iii Abstract This thesis establishes a basis for the scholarly interpretation and evaluation of early missionary descriptions of Aranda language by relating it to the missionaries’ training, to their goals, and to the theoretical and broader intellectual context of contemporary Germany and Australia. -
Alice Springs TOWN COUNC
Agenda item 11.1 Alice Springs TOWN COUNC TO: The Elected Members DATE: 11 November 2018 FROM: Acting Director Corporate & Community Services - Biggi Gosling RE: desertSMART EcoFair 2018 Event Report Dear Elected Members, Please find the attached event report and certificate of appreciation for the desertSMART EcoFair 2018 received 15 October: Attachment A - desertSMART EcoFair 2018 event report Attachment B - Centralian Advocate Double Page Spread Attachment C - Certificate of Appreciation iggf Gosling ACTING DIRECTOR CORPORATE & COMMUNITY SERVICES ATTACHMENT A desertSMART ECOFAIR Climate Council CEO Amanda McKenzie being Thursday 9th - Sunday 12th August 2018 interviewed at the 783 ABC Outside Broadcast In 2018 desertSMART EcoFair celebrated its on workshops on the issues of energy, water, 10th birthday, with thousands of people over the land management, climate, health, science last decade having enjoyed high profile speakers, and technology. With workshops by Engineers engaging panels, workshops, and films. Without Borders Australia, Australian American Fullbright Commision, Ekistica, Museum and Art desertSMART EcoFair is organised by the Arid Gallery NT, Alice Springs Desert Park, Central Lands Environment Centre and aims to educate, Australian Aboriginal Congress, NT Parks & inspire and activate the community around Wildlife, Land for Wildlife, Olive Pink Botanic science and sustainability issues. desertSMART Garden and National Rural Health Students EcoFair not only provides great learning Network. This event was supported by the opportunities for local community members, Northern Territory Government. it also profiles Central Australian initiatives to travelling visitors and a national audience through Friday 10th August its partnership with Inspiring Australia and 783 ABC Outside Broadcast National Science Week. @ Olive Pink Botanic Garden Community members were invited to test their The 2018 event spanned across 4 days, and science trivia skills at the Great Science Quiz engaged hundreds of people. -
A Demanding and Uncertain Adventure
2011 THE JAMES BACKHOUSE LECTURE A demanding and uncertain adventure Exploration of a concern for Earth restoration and how we must live to pass on to our children – and their children, and all living things – an Earth restored THE JAMES BACKHOUSE LECTURES The lectures were instituted by Australia Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) on its establishment in 1964. They are named after James Backhouse who, with his companion, George Washington Walker, visited Australia from 1832 to 1838. They travelled widely, but spent most of their time in Tasmania. It was through their visit that Quaker Meetings were first established in Australia. Coming to Australia under a concern for the conditions of convicts, the two men had access to people with authority in the young colonies, and with influence in Britain, both in Parliament and in the social reform movement. In meticulous reports and personal letters, they made practical suggestions and urged legislative action on penal reform, on the rum trade, and on land rights and the treatment of Aborigines. James Backhouse was a general naturalist and a botanist. He made careful observations and published full accounts of what he saw, in addition to encouraging Friends in the colonies and following the deep concern that had brought him to Australia. Australian Friends hope that this series of Lectures will bring fresh insights into the Truth, and speak to the needs and aspirations of Australian Quakerism. This particular lecture was delivered at The Innovations Centre adjoining Wollongong East Campus, New South Wales in January 2011. Maxine Cooper Presiding Clerk Australia Yearly Meeting 2011 THE JAMES BACKHOUSE LECTURE A demanding and uncertain adventure Exploration of a concern for Earth restoration and how we must live to pass on to our children – and their children, and all living things – an Earth restored ROsemary (ROwe) MOrrOW © The Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) in Australia, 2009. -
Australian Studies Journal 31/2017
Regina Ganter Griffith University Too hot to handle A German Missionary’s Struggle with Ethnography in Australia Pastor Georg Reuther (1861–1914) was the Lutheran missionary in charge of Bethes- da mission at Lake Killalpaninna for eighteen years, from 1888 to 1906, precisely during the three decades when Germany joined the ranks of colonial empires with its own external acquisitions (1884–1915).1 Reuther and his junior colleague Pastor Carl Strehlow accomplished the first Bible translation into an Aboriginal language, the Dieri of the Coopers Creek area of South Australia – also known as Diari, or Dyari. Reuther then continued to engage with Dieri language and customs, pro- ducing a massive manuscript that became a translation of Dieri religious texts into German, rather than the other way around. He was quite unaware that this move from missionary translator to ethnographic interpreter represented a paradigm shift: from teacher to learner, from cultural innovator to conserver of tradition. It was the ultimate faux pas of a colonizer, a form of ‘going native’, but of course Pastor Reuther could not conceive of himself as a colonizer – he was a saver of souls, an idealist consumed with the metaphysical, in his own estimation truly the opposite of a self-interested colonial settler. Reuther struggled with ethnography, both in the sense of his engagement with the body of knowledge that he was trying to map, and in the sense of his relation- ships with significant others in his discipline: his employers, colleagues, the academ- ic gatekeepers, and his Indigenous informants. Reuther’s material legacy is so vast and, in fact, so half-finished that it is still largely untapped, except that his register of place-names has been published, and the intrepid linguist Luise Hercus (2015), now in her nineties, has been “looking at the detail” of his language records. -
IV. the Making of a Masterpiece
IV. The Making of a Masterpiece The publication of Die Aranda- und Loritja-Stämme in Zentral-Australien was the result of the collaboration between Carl Strehlow and his editor and friend, Moritz von Leonhardi.1 Although his editor understated his contribution in the making of this masterpiece, his contemporaries N.W. Thomas (1909), P.W. Schmidt (1908), Émile Durkheim and Marcel Mauss2 were aware of his involvement. Durkheim remarked that it would be ‘proper to add to Strehlow’s name that of von Leonhardi, who played an important role in the publication. Not only was he responsible for editing Strehlow’s manuscripts, but also, by judicious questions on more than one point, he led Strehlow to specify some of his observations’ (Durkheim 1995: 89, fn. 21 quoted in Kreinath 2012: 408). Von Leonhardi carefully studied Carl Strehlow’s manuscript, compared it with all other literature available on the subject, compiled long lists of questions, added references, had Australian animals, insects and plants classified, inserted their Latin names into the text and, finally, went yet again through the arduous work of reading the proofs. But most importantly he never tired emphasising empiricism and displaying scepticism when Strehlow’s field results seemed inconsistent. The research at Hermannsburg was driven by von Leonhardi’s never-ending desire for empirical data and the precise questioning of what it really was that Strehlow encountered daily at his mission station. Armchair- researching the cultures of central Australian Aboriginal people in Germany, he had noticed gaps, contradictions and broad generalisations in the existing material. He wanted to know what the different researchers had exactly observed in different parts of the continent and why their research yielded different results. -
Endangered by Desire T.G.H. Strehlow and The
ENDANGERED BY DESIRE T.G.H. STREHLOW AND THE INEXPLICABLE VAGARIES OF PRIVATE PASSION By S. j. Hersey THESIS Presented as a thesis for the fulfilment of the degree of Doctorate of Philosophy (Ph.D.) School of Communication Arts, the University of Western Sydney, Werrington Campus. 2006 The author declares that the research reported in this thesis has not been submitted for a higher degree at any other university or institution. Information acquired from the published or unpublished work of others has been acknowledged in the text and a list of references is provided. Shane jeffereys Hersey ………………………………………………………………………… University of Western Sydney Abstract ENDANGERED BY DESIRE T.G.H. STREHLOW AND THE INEXPLICABLE VAGARIES OF PRIVATE PASSION By Shane Hersey Supervisor: Associate Professor Hart Cohen Co-supervisor Dr Maria Angel School of Communication Arts This thesis is about the depth of colonisation through translation. I develop an analytic framework that explores colonisation and translation using the trope of romantic love and an experimental textual construction incorporating translation and historical reconstruction. Utilising both the first and the final drafts of “Chapter X, Songs of Human Beauty and Love-charms” in Songs of Central Australia, by T. Strehlow, I show how that text, written over thirty years and comprised of nine drafts, can be described as a translation mediated by the colonising syntax and grammar. My interest lies in developing a novel textual technique to attempt to illustrate this problem so as to allow an insight into the perspective of a colonised person. This has involved a re-examination of translation as something other than a transtemporal structure predicated on direct equivalence, understanding it instead as something that fictionalises and reinvents the language that it purports to represent. -
Hermannsburg Historic Precinct
Australian Heritage Database Places for Decision Class : Indigenous Item: 1 Identification List: National Heritage List Name of Place: Hermannsburg Historic Precinct Other Names: Hermannsburg Historic Village Place ID: 105767 File No: 7/08/013/0003 Primary Nominator: 104271 Nomination Date: 12/09/2004 Principal Group: Aboriginal Historic/Contact Site Status Legal Status: 20/09/2004 - Nominated place Admin Status: 25/11/2005 - Assessment by AHC completed Assessment Assessor: Recommendation: Place meets one or more NHL criteria Assessor's Comments: Other Assessments: : Location Nearest Town: Alice Springs Distance from town (km): 140 Direction from town: west Area (ha): 3 Address: Larapinta Dr, Hermannsburg, NT 0872 LGA: Unicorporated NT NT Location/Boundaries: About 3ha, 140km west of Alice Springs on Larapinta Drive, comprising Lot 196 (A) township of Hermannsburg as delineated on Survey Plan S2000/59. Assessor's Summary of Significance: Hermannsburg Mission was established by German Lutheran missionaries in 1877 following an arduous 20 month journey from South Australia, at the forefront of pastoral expansion in central Australia. It was managed by Lutheran missionaries and the Lutheran Church from 1877-1982, and is the last surviving mission developed by missionaries from the Hermannsburg Missionary Society in Germany under the influence the German Lutheran community in South Australia. This community was established in 1838 supported by the South Australia Company, and in particular George Fife Angas. The mission functioned as a refuge for Aboriginal people during the violent frontier conflict that was a feature of early pastoral settlement in central Australia. The Lutheran missionaries were independent and outspoken, playing a key role in attempting to mediate conflict between pastoralists, the police and Aboriginal people, and speaking publicly about the violence, sparking heated national debate. -
STEP Newsletter March 2019
STEP Newsletter March 2019 Rytidosperma bipartitum, Leafy Wallaby Grass From the President At the time of writing (late February) I am much relieved that the horrendous days of extreme heat appear to be behind us. The dryness continues to be a concern even though we have had some sporadic falls of rain. A slow and steady soaking would be at the top of our wish list. The new shed project is very exciting (see article). I would like to extend sincere thanks to all who were able to give donations to help us with the fitout of the shed and allow for more projects later in the year. The Arboretum has been very generous in its support of the shed construction also. Thanks must go to Terry Murphy, Bill Handke and Ross Dalton (Treasurer) for their work in bringing this project to fruition. Soon we will have a “Fair Dinkum” shed at Forest 20. Invitations are being sent out to STEP members for the Soiree to celebrate 10 years since the planting of the first eucalypts at Forest 20. Thursday working bees have been focussed on ensuring that STEP will look its best for that occasion. Please ensure you send your rsvp to [email protected] by 18 March for catering purposes. In addition to our usual activities, David Shorthouse has been very busy furthering our contact with CIT (see article) and promoting STEP as an “in the field” leaning space for a range of CIT courses. I hope you enjoy the content of this Newsletter and that I get to meet some of you at our Soiree. -
The Strehlow Collection of Sacred Objects
The Strehlow collection of sacred objects A large collection of sacred objects were amassed over decades by anthropologist Ted Strehlow. They are the cultural and intellectual property of the CLC’s constituents. By Dr John Morton A large collection of sacred objects were amassed over decades by anthropologist Ted Strehlow. The story began in 1933 when Strehlow, who was brought up at the Hermannsburg mission west of Alice Springs, returned to Alice Springs as an anthropologist. The custodians, said to be fearful of the rapidly changing times and of desecration of their sacred objects by souvenir hunters, entrusted Strehlow with their safe keeping. However, this act of trust by Aboriginal people was to lead to one of the most bitter controversies in the world involving sacred objects and their repatriation to their rightful owners. Central Land Council employees spend a lot of time working with Aboriginal people out bush. This often involves visits to sacred sites, some of which are traditional storehouses for men’s secret–sacred objects – objects known throughout Australia by the Arrernte word atywerrenge (sometimes spelt ‘churinga’ or ‘tjurunga’). The caves and other places which have housed atywerrenge since time immemorial are often, though not always, empty. When asked about the whereabouts of the missing objects, Aboriginal people chant a familiar refrain – ‘I think Strehlow been take ’em’. They also often say that they would like to have those objects back for their ceremonies. But who was Strehlow? By what right could he have taken these things? And where do they now belong? Theodore George Henry Strehlow was born in 1908 at Nthariye (or Hermannsburg) in the traditional homelands of Western Arrernte people. -
German Ethnography in Australia
10 ‘Only the best is good enough for eternity’: Revisiting the ethnography of T. G. H. Strehlow Jason Gibson1 In September 2006, I sat with one of the few men still alive who had performed, in 1965, for the films of Theodor George Henry (T. G. H.) Strehlow (1908–78). We watched an hour-long silent colour film that depicted more than 27 different Anmatyerr ceremonies and included the participation of up to 10 individuals. The film had never been publicly screened before and had certainly never been viewed by Aboriginal people in the four decades since its making. I became fascinated with the manner in which films like this had been made and curious as to the intellectual style, theoretical agenda and methodological processes that drove this ethnographic project. Though plentiful analyses of Strehlow’s moral character and his intriguing life abound (Hill 2002; Morton 1993; McNally 1981), there have been very few attempts to interrogate the theoretical influences and motivations that shaped his ethnographic practice. One exception is Philip Jones’s 1 Harold Payne Mpetyan, Ken Tilmouth Penangk, Max Stuart Kngwarraye (deceased), Paddy Willis Kemarr, Archie Mpetyan, Ronnie Penangke McNamara, Malcolm Heffernan Pengart and Huckitta Lynch Penangk were particularly generous in their memories of ‘Strehlow-time’. I am grateful to the Monash Indigenous Centre and the Strehlow Research Centre for making the fieldwork and archival research for this chapter possible. 243 GERMAN ETHNOGRAPHY IN AUSTRALIA (2004) discussion of the young Strehlow’s ‘mentors’, although this analysis is deliberately contained to the earliest stages of his career. Others have touched on his theoretical framework (Rowse 1992) and some of his contributions to Australian anthropology (Morton 1997; Austin- Broos 1997; Dousset 1999; Kenny 2004), but in-depth examinations of Strehlow’s methods and achievements as an ethnographer are not particularly well developed. -
Rusty & Wendy -- Australia and New Zealand Trip January/February
Rusty & Wendy -- Australia and New Zealand Trip January/February 2013 January 26: Arrived in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. Rockford Darling Harbour Hotel. Orientation to the city. January 27: Intro to Australia and Sydney's pre colonial and colonial past. Tour of Sydney Opera House. Strolling the city. January 28: Sydney's Eastern suburbs coach tour, Bondi Beach, The Gap. Sydney Harbour cruise. Lunch at Scarlett's in The Rocks. Strolling again in the rain! January 29: Sydney. Opal Discovery Center. Taronga Park Zoo. Circular Quay. Opera House for evening performance. January 30: Sydney Domestic Airport for flight to Melbourne, Victoria. Royal Botanic Gardens for lunch. Shrine of Remembrance. Eureka 88 SkyDeck for views of city. Swanston Hotel Grand Mercure in CBD. January 31: Melbourne. Presentations on Australia's economy and health care. Tram to Queen Victoria Market for lunch. Coach to Phillip Island, supper at pub, viewing parade of little penguins. February 1: Melbourne. National Gallery of Victoria. Met family friends for Colonial Tram Restaurant lunch and tour of State Library. Tram to supper in Fitzroy district. February 2: Flight to Alice Springs, Northern Territory. Chifley Alice Springs Resort. School of the Air; Royal Flying Doctor Service. BBQ at Olive Pink Botanical Gardens. February 3: Alice Springs Desert Park. Western MacDonnell Ranges, Simpsons Gap. Aboriginal culture center. Aboriginal bush foods supper. February 4: Coach to Uluru with camel ride and scones along the way. Lunch Ininti Cafe, Uluru- Kata Tjuta National Park Cultural Center. Two hikes at baseof Uluru. Sunset viewing of Uluru. Outback Pioneer Lodge overnight. February 5: Hike into Kata Tjuta.