Aboriginal History Volume 26 2002 Aboriginal History Incorporated The Committee of Management and the Editorial Board Peter Read (Chair), Rob Paton (Secretary), Peter Grimshaw (Treasurer/Public Officer), Richard Baker, Gordon Briscoe, Ann Curthoys, Brian Egloff, Julie Finlayson, Geoff Gray, Niel Gunson, Luise Hercus, David Johnston, Harold Koch, Isabel McBryde, Ingereth Macfarlane, Francis Peters-Little, Deborah Bird Rose, Gary Shipp, Ian Howie-Willis, 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, Lyndall Ryan, Bruce Shaw, Tom Stannage, Robert Tonkinson, James Urry. Aboriginal History is a refereed journal that aims to present articles and information in the field of Australian ethnohistory, particularly in the 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, will be welcomed. Issues include recorded oral traditions and biographies, narratives in local languages with translations, previously unpublished manuscript accounts, resumés of current events, archival and bibliographic articles, and book reviews. This volume of the journal is formally dated 2002, but is published in 2003. 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 authors to submit contributions to either the journal or monograph series for consideration; reviews will be commissioned by the reviews editor. Editors 2002 Managing Editor, Ingereth Macfarlane; Deputy Editor, Ian Howie-Willis; Reviews Editor, Luise Hercus; Copy Editor, Jenny Jefferies. Contacting Aboriginal History All correspondence should be addressed to Aboriginal History, Box 2837 GPO Canberra, 2601, Australia. Sales and orders for journals and monographs, and journal subscriptions : T Boekel, email: [email protected], tel or fax: +61 2 6230 7054, www.aboriginalhistory.org Acknowledgment Aboriginal History Inc. gratefully acknowledges the support of the School of Social Sciences, History, The Australian National University. © 2003 Aboriginal History Inc, 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. Cover image: ‘The Yarra Tribe Starting for the Acheson 1862’ (H 13881/14), Page 5, album ‘Australian Aborignies Under Civilization’, State Library of Victoria, La Trobe Picture Collection, LTA 807. Typesetting: Tikka Wilson Printed in Australia by ANU Printing, Canberra ISSN 0314-8769 Aboriginal History Volume 26 2002 Introduction v Peter Read Commemoration of Carol Kendall vii Laurent Dousset Politics and demography in a contact situation: the 1 establishment of Giles Meteorological Station in the Rawlinson Ranges, West Australia Geoffrey Gray Dislocating the self: anthropological field work in the 23 Kimberley, Western Australia, 1934–1936 Peter Read The stolen generations, the historian and the court 51 room Melinda Hinkson Exploring ‘Aboriginal’ sites in Sydney: a shifting 62 politics of place? Jane Lydon The experimental 1860s: Charles Walter’s images of 78 Coranderrk Aboriginal Station, Victoria Kevin Blackburn Mapping Aboriginal nations: the ‘nation’ concept of 131 late nineteenth century anthropologists in Australia Corinne Manning The McLean Report: legitimising Victoria’s new 159 assimilationism Barry J Blake and The Dhudhuroa language of northeastern Victoria: a 177 Julie Reid description based on historical sources Notes and Documents Sir William Deane Address on the occasion of the launch of Ann 211 Jackson-Nakano’s book The Kamberri Ann Jackson-Nakano Weereewaa History Series Volumes I & II 214 Grant Austin Discovering my Aboriginal identity 217 Jilda Simpson Report from the White–Barwick scholar 219 Jeanette Covacevich First formal Australian record of a tree kangaroo: 220 Aboriginal, not European Review article Niel Gunson Reality, history and hands-on ethnography: the 224 journals of George Augustus Robinson at Port Phillip 1839–1852 iv ABORIGINAL HISTORY 2002 VOL 26 Book reviews Mission Girls: Aboriginal women on Catholic Missions in 238 the Kimberley, Western Australia, 1900–1950 by Christine Choo It’s not the money it’s the land: Aboriginal stockmen and 240 the equal wages case by Bill Bunbury Papunya Tula: genesis and genius, edited by Hannah 242 Fink and Hetti Perkins Rethinking Indigenous education: culturalism, colonialism 245 and the politics of knowing by Cathryn McConaghy Phyllis Kaberry and me: anthropology, history and 250 Aboriginal Australia by Sandy Toussaint A Gumbaynggir Language Dictionary, Muurrbay 252 Aboriginal Language and Culture Cooperative, Steve Morelli (comp.) Rednecks, eggheads and blackfellas: a study of racial power 254 and intimacy in Australia by Gillian Cowlishaw Colonial photography and exhibitions: representations of 257 the ‘native’ and the making of European identities by Anne Maxwell The cultivation of whiteness: science, health and racial 259 destiny in Australia by Warwick Anderson Bitin’ Back by Vivienne Cleven 262 We won the victory: Aborigines and outsiders on the north- 265 west coast of the Kimberley by Ian Crawford Through silent country by Carolyn Wadley Dowley 267 A terribly wild man: a biography of the Rev Ernest Gribble 270 by Christine Halse Introduction With this volume, number 26, the journal enters its second quarter century of publish- ing in the rich cross-cultural, inter-disciplinary, interactive field of ‘Aboriginal history’. We have also entered the 21 st century, with the establishment of our web page at www.aboriginalhistory.org The papers which have been submitted to the journal over the past year share sev- eral broad features. In a number of them there is a concern with forms of representation of Indigenous people by self and by others. This is a theme which is to be explored fur- ther in volume 27 of the journal. Jane Lydon provides a valuable contribution to the literature of representation in her detailed study of the social construction and reception of the photographic works of Charles Walter at Coranderrk, by both Indigenous and non-Indigenous people. She writes an ethnography of the local dynamics and looks at its interplay with a global ‘visual economy’. Melinda Hinkson considers the presentation of the Aboriginal past in public places of contemporary Sydney. She finds evidence for an emerging shift away from previously common interpretative narratives that saw these places as ‘pure products’ 1 to more complex inter-cultural presentations of the past. Peter Read, a key participant in the Stolen Generations debates, sets out examples from his experiences as an expert historical witness in courts of law which make clear the frustrations and complexities which arise when attempting to represent past social contexts in a legal framework. Geoff Gray looks at the policies and politics of anthropological practice, focussed through the lens of Phyllis Kaberry’s experiences in the 1930s. This involves trying to understand what was allowable or desirable for anthropologists to record at that time, and why, with ‘traditional custom’ constructed in opposition to the contemporary dynamics of ‘actual life-conditions’. Laurent Dousset considers a case study of Indigenous people’s responses to the installation of the Giles meteorological station in the western desert in the 1950s, and considers their choices within the incoherencies of assimilation era government policy and practice. Corrine Manning’s study of governance and policy in mid 20 th century Victoria also reviews vacillations in government policy between segregation and assimilation. Kevin Blackburn takes the changing usage of the term ‘nation’ by nineteenth cen- tury anthropologists such as RH Mathews and Howitt as a way into the history of understandings, or mis-understandings, of Indigenous social structure and sover- eignty, especially in southeastern Australia. Continuing the studies of nineteenth century Victoria, Barry Blake and Julie Reid’s paper makes accessible the word lists collected by RH Mathews and others from the language spoken by the people of northwestern Victoria, and their analysis of the lan- 1. Byrne, Denis 1996–7, ‘The Archaeology of disaster’, Public History Review, Vol 5/6. vi ABORIGINAL HISTORY 2002 VOL 26 guage. Niel Gunson provides an informed review of Ian Clark’s massive six volume undertaking of publishing the journals of George Augustus Robinson, Chief Protector in Victoria. We are also pleased to present the text of a speech given by Sir William Deane, former Governor General, recently described as ‘a natural champion of values and causes he saw as essentially decent and essentially Australian’ who ‘in addition to hold- ing up a mirror to the nation, challenged the nation to live up to its self image’ 2 He displayed all of these qualities in launching Volume I of Weereewaa, a local community history of Aboriginal families in the ACT region by Ann Jackson-Nakano. He suggests the recognition of this history in the reassertion of Weereewaa,