Exploring the Legacy of the 1948 Arnhem Land Expedition
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Exploring the Legacy of the 1948 Arnhem Land Expedition Exploring the Legacy of the 1948 Arnhem Land Expedition Edited by Martin Thomas and Margo Neale A book developed from the National Museum of Australia’s 2009 symposium Barks, Birds & Billabongs: Exploring the Legacy of the 1948 American–Australian Scientific Expedition to Arnhem Land. THE AUSTRALIAN NATIONAL UNIVERSITY E PRESS E PRESS Published by ANU E Press The Australian National University Canberra ACT 0200, Australia Email: [email protected] This title is also available online at: http://epress.anu.edu.au/arnhem_citation.html National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry Title: Exploring the legacy of the 1948 Arnhem Land expedition / edited by Martin Thomas and Margo Neale. ISBN: 9781921666445 (pbk.) 9781921666452 (eBook) Subjects: American-Australian Scientific Expedition to Arnhem Land (1948) Aboriginal Australians--Northern Territory--Arnhem Land. Arnhem Land (N.T.)--Discovery and exploration. Dewey Number: 919.4295 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher. Cover design and layout by Gaye Reid, Let’s Create Printed by Griffin Press This edition © 2011 ANU E Press Contents Foreword . ix Prologue . xi Acknowledgments . xv 1 . Expedition as Time Capsule: Introducing the American–Australian Scientific Expedition to Arnhem Land . 1 Martin Thomas Part I. Engagements with Aboriginal Cultures 2 . Inside Mountford’s Tent: Paint, politics and paperwork . 33 Philip Jones 3 . Nation Building or Cold War: Political settings for the Arnhem Land Expedition . 55 Kim Beazley 4. A Robinson Crusoe in Arnhem Land: Howell Walker, National Geographic and the Arnhem Land Expedition of 1948 . 73 Mark Collins Jenkins 5 . Birds on the Wire: Wild sound, informal speech and the emergence of the radio documentary . 87 Tony MacGregor 6 . From Kunnanj, Fish Creek, to Mumeka, Mann River: Hunter-gatherer tradition and transformation in Western Arnhem Land, 1948–2009 . 113 Jon Altman 7 . Making a Sea Change: Rock art, archaeology and the enduring legacy of Frederick McCarthy’s research on Groote Eylandt . 135 Anne Clarke and Ursula Frederick 8. Ecology and the Arnhem Land Expedition: Raymond Specht, a botanist in the field . 157 Lynne McCarthy v 9. Piecing the History Together: An overview of the 1948 Arnhem Land Expedition . 171 Sally K. May Part II. Collectors and Collections 10. The String Figures of Yirrkala: Examination of a legacy . 191 Robyn McKenzie 11 . The Forgotten Collection: Baskets reveal histories . 213 Louise Hamby 12. Hidden for Sixty Years: The motion pictures of the American–Australian Scientific Expedition to Arnhem Land . 239 Joshua Harris 13. The Responsibilities of Leadership: The records of Charles P . Mountford . 253 Denise Chapman and Suzy Russell 14. Beneath the Billabongs: The scientific legacy of Robert Rush Miller . 271 Gifford Hubbs Miller and Robert Charles Cashner 15. An Insider’s Perspective: Raymond Louis Specht’s oral history . 283 Edited and introduced by Margo Daly Part III. Aboriginal Engagements with the Expedition 16 . The American Clever Man (Marrkijbu Burdan Merika) . 313 Bruce Birch 17 . Missing the Revolution! Negotiating disclosure on the pre-Macassans (Bayini) in North-East Arnhem Land . 337 Ian S. McIntosh vi 18. Aural Snapshots of Musical Life: The 1948 recordings . 355 Linda Barwick and Allan Marett 19. Unpacking the Testimony of Gerald Blitner: Cross- cultural brokerage and the Arnhem Land Expedition . 377 Martin Thomas 20. The Forbidden Gaze: The 1948 Wubarr ceremony performed for the American–Australian Scientific Expedition to Arnhem Land . 403 Murray Garde 21 . Epilogue: Sifting the silence . 423 Margo Neale Contributors . 437 Index . 453 vii viii Foreword This publication is one enduring result of the first major event dedicated to exploring and re-evaluating the legacy of the 1948 American–Australian Scientific Expedition to Arnhem Land. The symposium Barks, Birds & Billabongs was organised and hosted by the National Museum of Australia in November 2009. The National Museum was ideally placed to undertake this collaborative venture. Initially, the Australian Institute of Anatomy, which had sent a team of biomedical researchers on the Expedition, had custodianship of the Commonwealth’s share of the Arnhem Land Expedition collection. In 1984, some 270 ethnographic objects from this collection were transferred to the National Museum. With the opening of the Museum in March 2001, objects from the collection could be displayed. In 2009, the Museum ventured into a closer examination of the complex cross- cultural, multidisciplinary dimensions of the 1948 Arnhem Land Exhibition. In mounting Barks, Birds & Billabongs, the National Museum worked closely with the Smithsonian Institution and the National Geographic Society—original partners on the Expedition (with the Australian Government). This symposium was designed to recapture something of the collaborative spirit of the Expedition that was a watershed event in Australia’s cultural and scientific history. This publication has been undertaken by the Australian National University, our neighbour and natural collaborator on projects of intellectual significance. The Museum is well positioned culturally to engage in this project, with its strong commitment to Indigenous programs and collections. Indeed the Museum’s collection has built on the original base and includes an extensive, magnificent and historically significant collection of bark paintings. Our commitment to Indigenous agency and voice informs the management of our Indigenous collection, exhibitions and employment practices. The Museum’s continued emphasis upon and dialogue with Indigenous Australia resonates with the strong Indigenous community participation and focus of this international symposium. Exploring the Legacy of the 1948 Arnhem Land Expedition draws upon the Museum’s research commitment. Northern Australia is an area where the Museum has had a long research involvement. The expertise of our staff covers Indigenous and environmental histories, the history of science, biography, ix Exploring the Legacy of the 1948 Arnhem Land Expedition archaeological research in the region, the history of conservation and national park programs, and the emergence of a thriving contemporary Aboriginal art movement. From the perspective of the National Museum of Australia, Barks, Birds & Billabongs was a project that ideally combined our research interests, our deepened understanding of our collection and our capacity and willingness to enter into fruitful partnerships across Australia and internationally. Andrew Sayers Director, National Museum of Australia Project Director, Margo Neale, Council of the National Museum of Australia Chairman, Daniel Gilbert, and the Governor-General of Australia, Quentin Bryce, meeting Manikay performers (left to right) Djangirrawuy Garawirrtja, Manimawuy Dhamarrandji, Djombala Dhamarrandji and Gordon Lanyipi at the Barks, Birds & Billabongs symposium, 2009 Photograph by George Serras x Prologue The triumphs and travails of the American–Australian Scientific Expedition to Arnhem Land were front-page news back in 1948. In the decade that followed, the release of the official film productions, the widespread display of art, craft and scientific collections in museums and galleries, and high-level coverage in National Geographic ensured that a global audience numbering millions of people was exposed to aspects of the Arnhem Land venture. From this high point, its profile inevitably diminished with the passing of the years, to the extent that the Expedition became known for the most part only by specialists. Scholars in fields ranging from ornithology to ethnomusicology would advance their particular projects by making use of the rich collections and documentation assembled in 1948, some only dimly aware that a greater story lay behind the objects. The transnationalism of the Expedition, which did so much to boost its profile in the first instance, now weighed against it. For someone trying to understand the event in its totality, the dispersal of collections, photographs and documents across Australia and the United States presented logistical challenges of a high order. The extent of these challenges—and the exciting prospects they signalled— became evident to the three of us as we established the steering committee for Barks, Birds & Billabongs, the National Museum of Australia symposium that was the stimulus for this book. Although we had trodden somewhat different paths, we had come to a common conviction that the cross-cultural engagement that distinguished the Arnhem Land Expedition was of enduring significance. Margo Neale, a curator of Aboriginal art, became intrigued by the remarkable paintings on bark and paper amassed by the Expedition, many of which were acquired by Australia’s six state art galleries in 1956. They were foundational to the major collections of Aboriginal art that subsequently developed. As an archaeology student in the 1990s, Sally K. May picked up on another thread of the story when she investigated the often fraught politics that influenced the dispersal of the Expedition’s ethnographic collections between Australia and the United States. For Martin Thomas, a historian long interested in photography and broadcasting, the Expedition’s electronic recordings of Aboriginal