Aboriginal History Journal: Volume 20
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Aboriginal History Volume twenty 1996 Aboriginal History Incorporated The Committee of Management and the Editorial Board Peter Read (Chair), Rob Paton (Secretary), Peter Grimshaw (Treasurer/Public Officer), Neil Andrews, Richard Baker, Ann Curthoys, Brian Egloff, Geoff Gray, Niel Gunson, Luise Hercus, Bill Humes, Ian Keen, David Johnston, Harold Koch, Isabel McBryde, Diane Smith, Elspeth Young. Correspondents Jeremy Beckett, Valerie Chapman, Ian Clark, Eve Fesl, Fay Gale, Ronald Lampert, Campbell Macknight, Ewan Morris, John Mulvaney, Andrew Markus, Bob Reece, Henry Reynolds, Shirley Roser, Lyndall Ryan, Bruce Shaw, Tom Stannage, Robert Tonkinson, James Urry. Aboriginal History aims to present articles and information in the field of Australian ethnohistory, particularly in the post-contact history of the Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders. Historical studies based on anthropological, archaeological, linguistic and sociological research, including comparative studies of other ethnic groups such as Pacific Islanders in Australia will be welcomed. Issues include recorded oral traditions and biographies, narratives in local languages with translations, previously unpublished manuscript accounts, resumes of current events, archival and bibliographical articles, and book reviews. Editors 1996 Isabel McBryde, Editor and Luise Hercus, Review Editor Aboriginal History Monograph Series Published occasionally, the monographs present longer discussions or a series of articles on single subjects of contemporary interest. Previous monograph titles are D. Barwick, M. Mace and T. Stannage (eds), Handbook of Aboriginal and Islander History; Diane Bell and Pam Ditton, Law: the old the new; Peter Sutton, Country: Aboriginal boundaries and land ownership in Australia; and Link-Up (NSW) and Tikka Wilson, In the Best Interest of the Child? Stolen children: Aboriginal pain/white shame. Aboriginal History is administered by an Editorial Board which is responsible for all unsigned material in the journal. Views and opinions expressed by the authors of signed articles and reviews are not necessarily shared by Board members. The editors invite contributions to either the journal of monograph series for consideration; review will be commissioned by the review editor. All editorial correspondence should be addressed to Aboriginal History, Box 2837 GPO Canberra, 2601 Australia. Subscription information: ABA Solutions, fax and phone 02 6253 3603, email [email protected] Acknowledgement Aboriginal History Inc. gratefully acknowledges the support of the Department of History, The Faculties, The Australian University in the production of this volume. © Copyright Aboriginal History Inc., Canberra, Australia. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study, research, criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright Act, no part of this publication may be reproduced by any process whatsoever without the written permission of the publisher. Pagemade by Tikka Wilson Printed in Australia by ANU Printery, Canberra ISSN 0314-8769 Aboriginal History Volume 20 1996 Introduction iii Richard Broome Theatres of power: Tent boxing circa 1910-1970 1 RobAmery Kaurna in Tasmania: A case of mistaken identity 24 Philip A. Clarke Early European interaction with Aboriginal hunters 51 and gatherers on Kangaroo Island, South Australia Denis Byrne Deep nation: Australia’s acquisition of an indigenous 82 past Shayne Breen Human agency, historical inevitability and moral 108 culpability: Rewriting black-white history in the wake of Native Title Luise Hercus ‘A native died sudden at Lake Allallina’ 133 and Grace Koch Jane Lydon ‘no moral doubt...’: Aboriginal evidence and the 151 Kangaroo Creek poisoning, 1847-1849 Barry McDonald Evidence of four New England corroboree songs 176 indicating Aboriginal responses to European invasion Jack Horner A letter from Jack Horner 195 Livio Dobrez Review article: Ethnography—Who needs it? 201 Little Eva at Moonlight Creed and Other Aboriginal Song Poems by Martin Duwell and R.M.W. Dixon (eds) and Bad Aboriginal Art: Tradition, Media and Technological Horizons by Eric Michaels Reviews Fate o f a Free People by Henry Reynolds 211 Edward Koiki Mabo: His Life and Struggle fo r Land Rights 215 by Noel Loos and Koiki Mabo Colonialism ’s Culture: Anthropology, Travel and 219 Government by Nicholas Thomas ABORIGINAL HISTORY 1996 20 The Native Tribes o f South-East Australia by A.W. Howitt, 222 facsimile edition of the original 1904 edition Aboriginal Artists o f the Nineteenth Century 222 by Andrew Sayers Fighters from the Fringe by Robert A. Hall 224 Eagle and Crow: An exploration o f Australian Aboriginal 225 myth by Johanna M. Blows My Bundjalung People . by Ruby Langford Ginibi 226 The Aboriginal Tasmanians (second edition) 229 by Lyndal Ryan Scars in the Landscape: A register o f massacre sites in 231 Western Victoria 1803—1859 by Ian D. Clark King Plates: A History o f Aboriginal Gorgets 233 by Jäkel in Troy Dyirbal Song Poetry. The Oral Literature o f an Australian 234 Rainforest People by R.M.W. Dixon and Grace Koch Kie Daudai: Notes and Sketches from Cape York 236 by Edwina Toohney The Opal that Turned into Fire and Other Stories from 237 the Wangkumara compiled by Janet Mathews Essentials o f Statistical Methods, (Version 2 History and 237 Archaeology) by T.F. Hutchinson Journey in Time:The World's Longest Continuing Art 240 Tradition, the 50000 Year Story o f the Australian Rock Art of Arnhem Land by George Chaloupka Introduction Aboriginal History Volume 19 had the theme of colonial and post-colonial interaction between indigenous peoples and 'outsiders'. It compared the historical experience of people in North America, New Zealand and Australia. The papers in this volume consider similar issues but with a regional focus, concentrating on south-eastern Australia. This part of Australia, with its rich environments, experienced both the earliest and most concentrated settlement by European colonists, resulting in severe social dislocation and dispossession for its large Aboriginal populations. Given the intensity of the demographic impact and the nineteenth century assumption that such societies of 'native peoples' could not survive the colonial encounter, the culture and history of the Aboriginal communities of the south-east were long regarded as lost to all but 'salvage' ethnographic records. They remained neglected in anthropological and historical research. The anthropologists directed their studies elsewhere, to the people of the desert and the north. Both Radcliffe-Brown, and later Elkin, did fieldwork in northern New South Wales and were impressed by the strength of cultural continuity there, including language and ceremony. Yet they still sent most of their students to research elsewhere. At the same time the historians concerned themselves with questions of colonial history as social and economic 'progress'. Most ignored the 'shared experiences', the term used by editor Elspeth Young when introducing Volume 19, for the diverse interactions between indigenous and settler societies. The indigenous component was assumed to have been either 'lost' or incapable of contribution to the new Australia. So the lives and culture of the surviving societies of the south-east remained hidden historical worlds awaiting exploration. Here I adapt the term with which Deborah Bird Rose presents so eloquently her research on Aboriginal-settler encounters in northern Australia. What was ignored until recent decades, and so remained hidden to 'outsiders', included the cultural knowledge and historical memory among older people of Aboriginal communities in the rural south-east. It also included the rich historical material in official records as well as in the more traditional range of historical sources. From these sources researchers could both discover the history of encounters and reconstruct historical ethnographies, provided they asked the right questions. Those who did not ignore the people of the south-east, such as linguist Luise Hercus and anthropologists Diane Barwick and Jeremy Beckett, demonstrated not only the possibility but also the richness of the work to be done in collaboration with these communities. So we became increasingly aware of the important social history of Aboriginal lives and cultural responses to living in the new worlds of the colonial and iv ABORIGINAL HISTORY 1996 20 post-colonial south-east. These are now seen as major themes for Australian historians (Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal) concerned with colonialism, cultural history and questions of national and cultural identity. Such issues underpin the discussion of case studies in several papers in this volume (see especially that of Byrne). Collectively the papers in this volume demonstrate both the richness of recent research on the south-east, and its relevance to issues of contemporary social and historical concern. Further, the archives hold many as yet unstudied major sources for long known and oft-cited historical events (see Lydon on Kangaroo Creek). As well they provide insights into the personal realities of life on the colonial frontier (see papers by Breen, Clarke and McDonald) and in rural areas a century later (Broome and Horner). Perspectives from non-historical disciplines also bring new historical insights. Musicologists and linguists working together present to us songs and their historical context, from singers of the past (see Hercus and Koch, also McDonald). Linguistic analysis of word lists can open up the otherwise