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Obituaries
Roger Llewellyn Dunmore Cribb One of the aspects of Roger that I did not 1948-2007 know was Roger the artist. Bruce, who knew Roger well, notes that his first appearance in the Many people knew Roger Cribb, or we thought published world seemed to be as an artist doing we did. Since he died on Sunday 26 August 2007 illustrations for publications by other archaeolo in Cairns, north Queensland, a variety of people gists. This artistic aspect of his person has seen have written about the Roger they knew (for his memory preserved in the National Library, example, the obituaries by his ex-wife and friend following newspaper articles and a documentary Gulcin Cribb (2007) and the Wikipedia page put of his sand sculptures on Stradbroke Island. Using together by Bruce White (2007)). The questions these skills, he partly financed his trip to Hong many of us now ask ourselves are 'How many Kong, and ultimately through China, Russia and Rogers were there?' and 'Where did the Roger we into Turkey, drawing caricatures of people. know fit in?' The AIATSIS newsletter was itself an early I was asked to write this obituary and I was beneficiary of Roger's artistic talents. As some happy to do so as I admired Roger's tenacity and long-term readers may recall, he contributed a his genuine concern for Aboriginal peoples in drawing of an automatic archaeological digging Cape York. However, I felt inadequate for the task machine (every archaeologist's dream)! on my own and so sought input from two other Roger's skills in this area contributed in a prac north Queenslanders who knew him well, Bruce tical way to his archaeological work. Many of his White and George Skeene. Bruce worked with site plans and artefact recordings are items of far Roger at Tharpuntoo Legal Service and George greater beauty than most of us produce. George is a Yirrganydji Traditional Owner with whom Skeene recalls, 'Roger was a good artist. When Roger worked on a voluntary basis over many I saw his drawings of artefacts, it was like he years, helping him to map and record the archae brought them back to life!' ological sites of his people. I didn't meet Roger until I was living and work The obituaries mentioned above present two ing in Injinoo and running the Ranger Training ends of a spectrum along the trajectory of Roger's program for the Northern Cape York cluster. I life and in the first, particularly, there are glimps think he was Roger the consultant and 'ratbag' es of a Roger that only a few would know and stirrer by then. It was about 1989 or 1990 when remember: Roger the young and passionate we first met; he was working on and off for and Roger the loving father. Many of us would, Tharpuntoo, the Aboriginal Legal Service in however, recognise Roger the idealist, who railed Cairns. During this period, Bruce remembers his against injustice, championed minorities and commitment and vigour and the intense pleasure chaffed at bureaucratic restrictions - that Roger that he derived from his work at Tharpuntoo. At remained throughout his life, vying wirh that later that time Tharpuntoo was involved in challeng persona, Roger the cynic. ing and mitigating the impacts of mining and For manyofus, we heard ofRoger before we ever development on Cape York Peninsula. Many met him. Perhaps the most widely known Roger is Cape York Peninsula researchers and other Roger the serious academic author. He produced north Queenslanders will recall, for example, the many academic papers (e.g. Cribb et al. 1988; Farndale Project and the Cape York Space Base Cribb and Minnegal 1989; Cribb 1996b), book proposals. As an example of Roger's provoca chapters (e.g. Cribb 1995); and a well-received and tive wit, Bruce recalls sitting opposite him as he scholarly book Nomads in Archaeology (1991a). pointed out to a journalist from The Australian This was the Roger of whom I first heard. Once that, having read the workplace health and safety I started working in Cape York it was inevitable requirements for constructing a refinery and that I would become familiar with Roger's work conveying material to the Weipa port, all the on the Aurukun Database Project (Cribb 1987a; Aboriginal people living at Napranum would be 1987b; Cribb and Sutton 1988; Cribb et a1.1988) required to wear hardhats should Comalco's plans and his work on the shell mounds of western Cape proceed as intended. This comment was quoted in York (Bailey et al. 1994; Cribb 1988, 1991b). The Australian and caused quite a stir.
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It was during his time at Tharpuntoo that I Roger collaborated on many projects while at asked him to come to Injinoo on the tip of Cape Tharpuntoo but Bruce recalls several that stand York Peninsula and run an archaeological field out in his memory, such as: school as a component of a module in the ranger • Tharpuntoo's combined legal, anthropologi training course. He had never been to Injinoo cal and archaeological action to mitigate and before and was surprisingly nervous, although I restrain Mitsubishi's/Cape Flattery's proposal was unsure whether that was because I (another to extend the mining of silica sands north of archaeologist) was there or because of the unfa their existing mines. This Tharpuntoo project miliar crowd. However, all the rangers found him also involved Bruce Rigsby and Leslie Deveraux easy to get along with and slightly eccentric and members of the Hopevale community, with just what they expected of an archaeologist. Roger conducting the archaeological survey. Around 1992 I moved back to Sydney with my Bruce recalls that he took everyone up and family and didn't see Roger for a while. As the down the sand dunes, identifying and mapping years passed, from time to time stories filtered sites, and documenting impacts on them from south of his escapades...the establishment of the motorbikes and buggies. Ratbag University and his often explosiv(: run • His work at Ngarrabullgan (Cribb 1993; ins with colleagues. You could almost smell the David et al. 1995). This project involved a smoke rising from the many bridges he burned! combined archaeological and anthropologi He was Roger the kamikaze pilot, spiralling out cal survey of this large, freestanding sandstone of control at times...or so many of us thought...at and conglomerate massif, with fossils scattered the mercy of his bipolar disorder, which dogged at its base and undisturbed archaeological sites him even during good times - leading to depres on its tabletop. Bruce recalls: sion and frustration on his part and inducing during that first trip in a hire car we scraped fear and rejection on the part of colleagues and the bottom out of the vehicle driving through others. country no one else would dare contemplate. Bruce White (nominated by Roger as Honorary But it was worth every bone-jarring moment! Professor of Anarchy and Chaos at the Ratbag Roger's report documented the unquestiona University) recalls: ble cultural landscape and archaeological heritage values of this monolith and its at times when Roger's world was darkest, surrounds, photographically recording the and he felt wholly disengaged from any exist impressive rock-art, and detailing the impacts ing community of scholars, he placed a box of pigs, brumbies and motorbikes on this in the centre of his table...and started writing valuable heritage. His report was submitted cards to place in the box, one idea per careL .. to the then Aboriginal and Torres Strait urging me to do the same, in a bright, ambi Islander Commission, and ultimately led to tious hope to use this system to start his own the purchase of the property for the Djungan community of scholars, idealising and cele peoples. brating anti-authoritarian and anti-colonial ideals and ideas over and above what he then • 'One lousey matchbox', a provocative discus perceived to be a prevalent, academic/schol sion paper prepared by Roger for Tharpuntoo arly mediocrity. on the Queensland Aboriginal Land Act (Cribb 1991c), which established the Aboriginal Land Bruce also recalls that Roger the rat-bag stir Tribunal. rer or comic provocateur invented a game, a kind • Roger's development and use of his own of Aboriginal heritage version of Monopoly. It geographical information systems software to was based on his overview of what was happen supplement Tharpuntoo's monitoring of 'hot ing across the Cape. Tharpuntoo Legal Service spots' around the Cape. distributed the game to all and sundry. Needless • Access for Aboriginal peoples to his genea to say, some entities did not find Roger's biting logical software 'Gentree' (developed when caricature of the processes, systems and develop working for the Central Land Council), which ment in Cape York very funny! enabled them to record their own genealogies.
Australian Aboriginal Studies 2008/1 149 Obituaries
George Skeene worked closely with Roger over Roger was a familiar sight wandering around many years as Roger helped largely on a voluntary the Cairns campus of James Cook University. He basis to map and record the many archaeological could be found pounding away on a keyboard, sites in George's Country. George recalls: compiling what he intended to be his last major work...a book sadly unfinished at the time of his Our first archaeological surface study was in 1993 at Wangetti. Over the y,~ars we did death. He was a regular attendee at our Thursday many surface studies between Port Douglas afternoon seminar series and, of course, a fixture and south of Cairns. Roger also did volunteer on the balcony afterwards; drinking wine work with us. He worked with the Yirrgan grape-stained moustache; smoking cigarettes ydji and Djabugay rangers mapping the walk nicotine-stained fingers; and yarning; surrounded ing tracks from the coast to Black Mountain. by student and academics laughing, or complain He was a regular visitor to my place and to ing (depending on the subject matter). It was the other Yirrganydji people. We had many during one such session that he told me that he cups of tea over the years and spoke mainly had decided, at some unspecified time in the past, about my Country between Cairns and Port that I could be a member of the Ratbag University. Douglas. 1 always spoke to Roger about a I think it was a compliment, but of course you campsite hidden away in the mangroves near could never be sure, with Roger it was always the airport. During July 1994, 1 received a contextual. He complained often that there phone call from Roger. He said, 'Want some good news?' 1 answered, Yes! He said, 'We were very few ratbags left in the world and that found your campsite today and it's exactly students nowadays were a lot more conservative. where you said it would be, surrounded by These discussion times revealed a Roger still full tidal waters, thick mangroves and full of of ideas, compelled to try to order his research artefacts.' We did a surface study on this old papers before he died, although somewhat over campsite during November 1994. whelmed with the magnitude of the task; a Roger who was still living life, loving and fighting. By the time 1 moved back to live in the north in 2006, it was a much frailer and more subdued In this last period of his life he no longer chose Roger who greeted me. He still had the same chal anarchy and chaos at all costs; that was never lenging sense of humour though .- knocking on the dominant Roger - that was the overlay of my open office door after years of little or no Roger the kamikaze who surfaced when his bipo contact - starting his conversation in the middle lar disorder and depression was at its peak. Sadly as if picking up on something left unfinished only for many, this was the only Roger that they got recently. No polite 'hello' or 'do you remember to experience, avoiding further interaction wher me?' - he simply stated, 'I know that name...' ever possible. Many of these people would be and launched into a series of anecdotes (not all of surprised at George's summation of Roger as 'a them particularly complimentary) about various kind and gentle man, always willing to help. He experiences with other Tamwoys! will be sadly missed by the Yirrganydji people.' While many of the other Rogers lived life at Roger had so many sometimes seemingly con break-neck pace as if they cared little for whether tradictory sides to his personality that it seems that they lived or died, this new Roger - Roger the people 'knew him' as many different personae. reflective - was conscious that life was short. Perhaps, through his obituaries and the legacy of At the front of his mind were the books as yet his work, Roger Cribb, the entire complex person, unwritten, the tasks not completed and the field will be more widely remembered. ideas that would now never be put into action. This is not to say that he had given up; he contin REFERENCES ued to work on the manuscript for his new book Cribb, Gulcin 2007 Roger Cribb 1948-2007
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BIBLIOGRAPHY places, deposited with the Australian Institute of Bailey, G, John B Chappell and Roger Cribb 1994 'The Aboriginal Studies, Canberra. origin of Anadara shell mounds at Weipa, North -- 1987b 'A preliminary report on archaeological Queensland, Australia', Archaeology in Oceania findings in Aurukun Shire, western Cape York', 29:69-80. Queensland Archaeological Research 3:133-58. Cribb, Roger 1974 Patterns of racial ideology: An -- 1988 Report to the Australian Institute of analysis in terms of the conflict theory of society, Aboriginal Studies on the results of the 1987 unpublished Master's thesis in Anthropology and Aurukun shell mound trip, unpublished report Sociology, University of Queensland, Brisbane, to the Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies, Australia. Canberra. -- 1982 The archaeological dimensions of Near -- and Peter Sutton 1988 The Aurukun data Eastern nomadic pastoralism: Towards a spatial base project, unpublished report to the Australian model of unstable settlement systems, unpublished Institute of Aboriginal Studies. Canberra. doctoral thesis, University of South Hampton, -- Rex Walmbeng, Raymond Wolmby and Charles United Kingdom. Taisman 1988 'Landscape as cultural arte -- and John Stuart Western 1983 Cribbie: Past fact: Shell mounds and plants in Aurukun, Cape community structure and the impact of resettlement York Peninsula', Australian Aboriginal Studies on the inhabitants of Cribb Island, Brisbane, unpub 1988/2:60-73. lished report to the Commonwealth Department -- and Monica M Minnegal 1989 'Spatial analysis of Transport and Communications, University of on a dugong consumption site at Princess Charlotte Queensland, Brisbane, Australia. Bay, North Queensland', Archaeology ;'1 Oceania -- 1984 'Greener pastures: Mobility, migration 24:1-12. and the pastoral mode of subsistence', Production -- 1990 Archaeology of Mount Mulligan: A quick Pastorale et Societe Paris 14:11-46. reconnaissance, unpublished report tothe Aboriginal -- 1984 'Computer simulation of herding systems as and Torres Strait Islander Commission, Canberra. an interpretative and heuristic device in the study of -- 1991a Nomads in Archaeology, Cambridge kill-off strategies' in J Clutton-Brock and G Grigson University Press, Cambridge. (eds) Animals and Archaeology: Early herders and -- 1991b 'Getting into a flap about shell mounds in their flocks, British Archaeological Reports, Oxford, northern Australia: A reply to Stone', Archaeology pp.161-70. in Oceania 26:23-5. -- 1985 'The analysis of ancient herding systems: -- 199Ic One lousey matchbox: A review of the An application of computer simulation' in G Barker Aboriginal Land Act 1991, Torres Strait Islander and G Gamble (eds) Beyond Domestication ill Land Act 1991 procedures manual: a discus Prehistoric Europe: Investigations in subsistence sion paper, unpublished paper prepared for the archaeology and social complexity, Academic Press, Tharpuntoo Legal Service, Cairns. New York, pp. 75-106. -- 1991d Aboriginal heritage in Queensland: Some -- 1986a 'A graphics system for site-based anthro suggestions on the collection, control and owner pological data', Australian Aboriginal Studies ship of data and information: A preliminary discus 1986/2:24-30. sion paper, unpublished paper prepared for the -- 1986b 'Introducing the concept of a dedicat Tharpuntoo Legal Service Aboriginal Corporation, ed spatial analysis package for archaeology', Cairns. Archaeological Computing Newsletter 9. -- 1991e Archaeological assessment of the Spalenka -- 1986c 'When the tide came in: Pleistocene Dunefield, ATP 3968M, Mining lease 1383, Cape Holocene sea-levels, archaeological catchments Flattery Silica Mines Pty Ltd, unpublished report and population change in Northern Australia' in M prepared for Hopevale Community Council and Day, R Foley and R Rukang (eds) The Pleistocene Tharpuntoo Legal Service, north Queensland. Perspective: World Archaeological Congress, -- 1992 Preliminary report on the excavation of an Southampton 1986, Allen &Unwin, London. Aboriginal midden site at Bailey's Creek mouth, -- 1986d 'Sites, people and archaeological infor unpublished report for Concrete Constructions Pty mation traps: A further transgressive episode from Ltd, Cairns. Cape York', Archaeology in Oceania 21:171-6. -- 1993 'Modelling relationships: A computerised -- 1987a Aurukun Archaeology and Plant Survey approach to Aboriginal genealogy, family history 1987, unpublished tapes and data sheets recording and kinship studies', Australian Aboriginal Studies places and local experts' descriptions of plants and 199311:10-21.
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-- 1993 Report to ANPWS and the Kuku Djungan -- 2000 The Shell Eaters [Early incomplete unpub Aboriginal Corporation on the Ngarrabullgan lished draft of a manuscript that Roger Cribb was Heritage Survey Project: 21 May - 31 August 1993, working on]. unpublished report to the Australian National Parks -- 2006 Getting around: Mobility, lifestyle and and Wildlife Service, Canberra. culture among Indigenous people, unpublished semi -- 1994 Report on Traditional Ownership and nar presented as part of James Cook University's Aboriginal heritage: Wangetti crocodile farm School of Anthropology and Archaeology Seminar project, unpublished report to the Queensland Program, Cairns. Department of Lands, Brisbane. David, Bruno, John R Grainer, Sam Wason, Earl G -- and Loyd Hollingsworth 1994 Report to the Wet Grainer, John I Grainer and Roger Cribb 1995 Tropics Authority for the Wangetti Management 'Ngarrabullgan: Archaeological sites and the Plan: Aboriginal heritage, unpublished report for management of a Kuku Djungan place' in GK the Yirrganydji Tribal Aboriginal Corporation (in Ward and LA Ward (eds) Management of Rock association with the Djbugay peoples), Cairns. Imagery: Proceedings of Symposium H, Second -- 1995 'Towards a strategy for the management International Congress of the Australian Rock Art of Aboriginal cultural heritage in the wet tropics' Research Association, Cairns 1992 (Occasional in H Fourmile, S Schnierer and A Smith (eds) An AURA Publication 9), Australian Rock Art Research Identification of Problems and Potential for Future Association, Melbourne, pp.53-60. Rainforest Aboriginal Cultural Survival and Self Sutton, Peter, David Martin, John von Sturmer, Roger Determination in the Wet Tropics, James Cook Cribb and Athol Chase 1990 Aak: Aboriginalestates University's Centre for Aboriginal and Torres Strait and clans between the Embley and Edward Rivers, Islander Participation, Research and Development. Cape York Peninsula, restricted access publication Cairns, pp.36-53. [1000 pp), South Australian Museum, Adelaide. -- 1996a An assessment of the definition of national estate boundaries for groups of shell mounds on the Weipa and Andoom Peninsulas, unpublished report Susan Mclntyre-Tamwoy, Post-Doctoral Research to Comalco Aluminium Inc, the Australian Heritage Fellow, ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies and Commission and the Cape York Land Council. School of Arts and Social Sciences James Cook University -- 1996b 'Shell mounds, domiculture and ecosystem
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