Aboriginal History
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ABORIGINAL HISTORY Volume 35, 2011 ABORIGINAL HISTORY Volume 35, 2011 THE AUSTRALIAN NATIONAL UNIVERSITY E PRESS Published by ANU E Press and Aboriginal History Incorporated Aboriginal History 35 This title is also available online at: http://epress.anu.edu.au Aboriginal History Incorporated Aboriginal History is administered by an Editorial Board which is responsible for all unsigned material. Views and opinions expressed by the author are not necessarily shared by Board members. The Committee of Management and the Editorial Board Peter Read (Chair), Rani Kerin (Monographs Editor), Maria Nugent and Shino Konishi (Journal Editors), Robert Paton (Treasurer and Public Officer), Ann McGrath (Deputy Chair), Isabel McBryde, Niel Gunson, Luise Hercus, Harold Koch, Tikka Wilson, Geoff Gray, Dave Johnson, Ingereth Macfarlane, Brian Egloff, Lorena Kanellopoulos, Richard Baker, Peter Radoll. Copy Editor Geoff Hunt, Book Review Editor Luise Hercus. About Aboriginal History Aboriginal History is a refereed journal that presents articles and information in Australian ethnohistory and contact and post-contact history of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. Historical studies based on anthropological, archaeological, linguistic and sociological research, including comparative studies of other ethnic groups such as Pacific Islanders in Australia, are welcomed. Subjects include recorded oral traditions and biographies, narratives in local languages with translations, previously unpublished manuscript accounts, archival and bibliographic articles, and book reviews. WARNING: Readers are notified that this publication may contain names or images of deceased persons. Contacting Aboriginal History All correspondence should be addressed to the Editors, Aboriginal History, ACIH, School of History, RSSS, Coombs Building (9), ANU, ACT, 0200, or [email protected] or [email protected] or [email protected]. Sales and orders for journals and monographs, and journal subscriptions: Thelma Sims, email: [email protected], tel or fax: +61 2 6125 3269, www.aboriginalhistory.org Contacting ANU E Press All correspondence should be addressed to: ANU E Press, The Australian National University, Canberra ACT 0200, Australia. Email: [email protected], Website: http://epress.anu.edu.au Aboriginal History Inc. is a part of the Australian Centre for Indigenous Studies, Research School of Social Sciences, The Australian National University and gratefully acknowledges the support of the School of History RSSS and the National Centre for Indigenous Studies, The Australian National University. Cover design: by ANU E Press Cover image: Islander track-layers positioning the 360 foot rail over sleepers on the standard-gauge railway line, Upper Swan, Western Australia, February 1965, © The West Australian. Printed by Griffin Press. Aboriginal History Inc and ANU E Press, Canberra, Australia. Apart for 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. This edition © 2011 ANU E Press and Aboriginal History Inc ISSN 0314-8769 (print) ISSN 1837-9389 (electronic edition) Contents Preface . .vii Red coat, blue jacket, black skin: Aboriginal men and clothing in early New South Wales . 1 Grace Karskens Making history: Torres Strait Islander railway workers and the 1968 Mt Newman track-laying record . 37 Leah Lui-Chivizhe The stolen veteran: institutionalisation, military service, and the Stolen Generations . 57 Noah Riseman The Convincing Ground Aboriginal massacre at Portland Bay, Victoria: fact or fiction? . 79 Ian D Clark Special section: Indigenous Australian and Asian histories Introduction . 113 Peta Stephenson and Christine Choo The view from Marege’: Australian knowledge of Makassar and the impact of the trepang industry across two centuries . 121 Campbell Macknight ‘The privilege of employing natives’: the Quan Sing affair and Chinese-Aboriginal employment in Western Australia, 1889–1934 . 145 Victoria Haskins A double exile: Filipino settlers in the outer Torres Strait islands, 1870s–1940s . 161 Anna Shnukal Indigenous Australian-Indonesian intermarriage: negotiating citizenship rights in twentieth-century Australia . 179 Julia Martínez v Book Reviews Digging up a Past by John Mulvaney . 199 An Appreciation of Difference: WEH Stanner and Aboriginal Australia edited by Melinda Hinkson and Jeremy Beckett . 203 The Many Worlds of RH Mathews: In Search of an Australian Anthropologist by Martin Thomas . 205 Aboriginal Darwin, A Guide to Exploring Important Sites of the Past and Present by Toni Bauman and Aboriginal Sydney: A Guide to Important Places of the Past and Present by Melinda Hinkson . 207 Urbanizing Frontiers: Indigenous Peoples and Settlers in 19th-Century Pacific Rim Cities by Penelope Edmonds . 211 Singing Saltwater Country: Journey to the Songlines of Carpentaria by John Bradley with Yanyuwa families . 215 Mari Nawi: Aboriginal Odysseys by Keith Vincent Smith . 219 Singing the Coast by Margaret Somerville and Tony Perkins . 221 Coming to Terms: Aboriginal Title in South Australia edited by Shaun Berg . 225 Indigenous Participation in Australian Economies: Historical and Anthropological Perspectives edited by Ian Keen . 227 Aboriginal Family and the State: The Conditions of History by Sally Babidge . 233 The Secret War: A True History of Queensland’s Native Police by Jonathan Richards . 237 The Aborigines of Victoria and Riverina by Peter Beveridge . 239 Great Central State: The Foundation of the Northern Territory by Jack Cross . 243 Nharangga Wargunni Bugi-Buggillu: A Journey Through Narungga History by Skye Krichauff . 245 Rethinking the Racial Moment: Essays on the Colonial Encounter edited by Alison Holland and Barbara Brookes . 247 Contributors . 249 Information for authors . 251 vi Aboriginal History Monograph Series . 253 Preface We are pleased to present Volume 35 of Aboriginal History. Since becoming editors last year, Shino Konishi and I have had reason to reflect on the history of the journal and its relationship to the broader field of Indigenous history in Australia. Earlier this year, my thoughts on this were further fuelled when I attended a conference here at the Australian National University (ANU) marking 30 years of Subaltern Studies, a field that in many ways parallels the development of Australian Aboriginal History. Indeed, both began to develop around the same time and in the same place. In his paper for the conference, which traced interconnections between Subaltern Studies and Aboriginal History, Bain Attwood noted that the names ‘Aboriginal History’ and ‘Subaltern Studies’ had initially referred to publications more so than schools. The journal Aboriginal History and the series Subaltern Studies, both of which are still in press, were established within a few years of each other. Aboriginal History published its first volume in 1977; the first volume ofSubaltern Studies appeared in 1982. Both were based at ANU, and in particular closely associated with its Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies (now the College of Asia and the Pacific). In each case, these publishing ventures were foundational to the development of the fields that go by these names. A generation on, Aboriginal History and Subaltern Studies can publish only a small sample of the large and ever-expanding body of scholarship produced in their respective fields. Importantly, though, each publishes work that not only reflects elements of the original, and to some extent shared, visions for these fields, but which also continues to stretch interpretive possibilities, subjects and themes, and methodological approaches. In their different ways, as Attwood noted, the fields of Aboriginal History and Subaltern Studies expanded the horizons of historical scholarship and writing to represent the perspectives and experiences of people hitherto excluded from conventional, national histories. In both instances, this involved adopting a multidisciplinary approach, as well as drawing on a wide range of sources, including oral testimony, visual images, and vernacular writings. This volume of Aboriginal History, now in its 35th year, demonstrates the ways in which this vision for an expanded horizon of history continues to furnish new insights into and interpretations of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people’s experiences, while sometimes also continuing to push the limits of history-writing. In her article, Grace Karskens extends her cross-cultural research on early colonial New South Wales by focusing on the uses of European clothing by Aboriginal men. Using methods drawn from visual analysis, material culture studies, and ethnographic history, she teases out possible meanings that Aboriginal men ascribed to clothes, especially military coats. In the process, her study reveals a dense and complex social world of relations shaped by exchange and trade, diplomacy and hierarchy. vii ABORIGINAL HISTORY 2011 VOL 35 In their contributions, Leah Lui-Chivizhe and Noah Riseman use oral testimony to tell important new histories. Lui-Chivizhe describes the participation of Torres Strait Islander men in railway construction work in Western Australia. Riseman focuses on the life of one man to explore intersections between the experience of institutionalisation as a member of the Stolen Generations and later as a member of the Australian armed forces. Both