“Why Can't They Put Their Names?”: Colonial Photography, Repatriation and Social Memory John Bradley, Philip Adgemis & Luka Haralampou Published Online: 09 Jul 2013

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“Why Can’t They Put Their Names?”: Colonial Photography, Repatriation and Social Memory John Bradley, Philip Adgemis & Luka Haralampou

This paper explores the relationships between a particular photographic archive, Indigenous Australians and early ethnography. Colonial ethnographers, Spencer and Gillen, travelled throughout Central and Northern Australia in 1901 and 1902. Their experiences in the town of Borroloola with the local Indigenous peoples, in particular the Yanyuwa people, are contrasted to their experiences in other regions that they travelled through. While at Bor- roloola, Spencer and Gillen photographed a number of Yanyuwa men and women. In 1981, the repatriation of those images back into the community facilitated discussion about the appropriate positioning of each individual in Yanyuwa systems of kinship, and debate around the ceremonial details recorded, informing new layers of social memory. Yanyuwa elders expressed joy at viewing, naming and positioning the long deceased kin but when the identity of the person could not be recalled, responses conveyed a deep sense of loss. This paper explores the response to one of these photographs and explores in detail the reson- ances that this one photograph holds for the Yanyuwa community.

Keywords: Memory; Photography; Kinship; Indigenous Australian; Repatriation Downloaded by [ZMO Zentrum Moderner Oriente] at 04:12 27 March 2014 Introduction “He is not a very amiable looking creature…” (Gillen [1901–1902] 1968, 341): Gillen’s comment regarding Wajamara, the Yanyuwa rainmaker. In early 1981, an album of the photographs taken by Spencer and Gillen was returned to Borroloola by the Museum of Victoria. Previously, members of the Yanyuwa community viewed a number of these images as printed in Spencer and Gillen’s published works,

Correspondence to: Philip Adgemis, Monash Indigenous Centre, Monash University, JAIS, Building 55 Clayton Campus, Clayton, VIC 3168, Australia. Email: [email protected], [email protected]

© 2013 Taylor & Francis 48 J. Bradley et al. leading to an expressed desire to have more of these photos returned to them. Bradley, who at the time of repatriation had been working with Yanyuwa families for four years, negotiated with Museum Victoria for the return of an album containing all of the photos taken by Spencer and Gillen. The album was held, and is still in the possession of a senior Yanyuwa family. The photos fascinated people, these were the li-wankala, the old people, some naked, some in possum fur pubic coverings, many of them could still be named by the old people of the early 1980s, people cried over their relatives, picked them up and held them to their heads in acknowledgement of the kinship and the country. While many of the portraits were admired, there were a number of photos in the collection that arrived at a time of intense discussion. This discussion centred on the issues associated with the loss of the rainmaking tradition in the context of the Yanyuwa Law (see also Bradley 1997; Bradley and Yanyuwa Families 2010 for further information). The inten- sity of debate over the details of this tradition was heightened due to the forthcoming ceremony associated with interring the bones of the last known rainmaker, Billy Hooker Mangayi, into a hollow log cofﬁn. Billy Hooker was the classiﬁcatory paternal grandchild of a man that Spencer and Gillen had taken photographs of and also appears in one sketch in Gillen’s ([1901–1902] 1968, 84) diary. This man, another rainmaker, was lifted from the anonymity of the photograph taken at Borroloola, as the old Yanyuwa people looked at the photograph they said to each other, “Wajamara”. Waja- mara was a rainmaker, a man who possessed narnu-nyiri, powersongs. He could create and hold the power of rain as he was a kinsman to the Rain Ancestral being. Using the medium of photography, this paper is the product of relationships between photographic archive, Indigenous Australian peoples and the anthropologist. The role of colonial photography is considered, exploring colonial attitudes towards Indigenous Australians and implications for the formation of contemporary identity, as it engages memory in an evolving connectivity between the past and present. Lydon (2010, 174) beautifully describes the power of the photographic archive as having a function for Indigenous communities to become “a form of Indigenous memory that is recuperative, intersubjective and intercultural … helping to recover family and stories lost through the dislocations of colonialism”. A point of friction that we explore is when the identity of an individual in a photo cannot be determined, and what such an instance implies for both the circumstances in which it was originally taken and a broader sense of social memory as it develops in the present. Firstly, this

Downloaded by [ZMO Zentrum Moderner Oriente] at 04:12 27 March 2014 paper charts the experience of Spencer and Gillen at Borroloola, noting the differences between their work in the Southwest Gulf of Carpentaria with that of other Central and Northern parts of Australia. Secondly, it discusses Yanyuwa’s responses to both the images and ethnographic data recorded. The paper then turns to issues that surround the individual of Wajamara and how one photograph caused discussions that contin- ued into the early 2000s. Using photography as an aid to memory, drawing upon the significance of a single image, this case study is developed to demonstrate the complex- ities of collecting and repatriating anthropological information. The significance of Yanyuwa responses in recognition, or in the absence of recognition, of specific individuals depicted in the photos is a complex reflection of Spencer and Gillen’s own cultural disposition and experiences. The irony explored here is that as a product of conceptions History and Anthropology 49 of social evolutionism expressed in a colonial discourse, the images now have the potential to serve as a valuable cultural resource for Indigenous Australians. In this case, the power of the images in their “static” and “fixed” nature is realized as they are engaged in the social fluidity of the Yanyuwa historical practice. The evolving nature of Yanyuwa social memory embedded within a historical practice contests Western notions of history that predicate colonial attitudes.

Arrival in Borroloola Sir Walter Baldwin Spencer, born in England in 1860, was an influential evolutionary biologist in his home country before moving to Australia in 1886. He took a position with the University of Melbourne, where he was as a pioneering researcher and admin- istrator (Mulvaney 1990). From parents of Irish decent, Francis James Gillen was born in South Australia in 1855. Through numerous positions in public service, Gillen became renowned for his administrative prowess and as a sympathizer of the hardships suffered by Indigenous Australians due to the colonial expansion (Mulvaney 1983). Together, Spencer and Gillen conducted ethnographic fieldwork throughout Australia between 1896 and 1912, co-authoring a number of seminal anthropological works based on this research. Their time spent with the Yanyuwa was at the end of travels beginning in Oonandatta, South Australia, in March 1901, and ending in Borroloola with their eventual departure in February 1902 (Figure 1). On 2 November 1901, after travelling approximately 1900 kilometres through the arid heart lands of Australia, Spencer and Gillen arrived at Borroloola in the Southwest Gulf of Carpentaria, they were, “as the crow flies”, 1000 kilometres Southeast of Darwin and still some 60 kilometres from the sea and the Sir Edward Pellew Group of Islands (Figure 2). For the most part, Spencer and Gillen’s experiences in and around Borroloola in late 1901 and early 1902 were not pleasant. Within Gillen’s personal diary entries there are constant references to the trying hot and humid weather conditions associated with the mon- soonal season build up and the actual monsoon period. Spencer and Gillen were not completely ignorant of the environmental conditions, or what to expect of the township itself but in the words of Gillen ([1901–1902] 1968, 314), “the ghastly uninteresting reality is worse than anything we anticipated”. Spencer and Gillen were perplexed by the complicated kinship systems of the Marra and Yanyuwa people and the relative diffi-

Downloaded by [ZMO Zentrum Moderner Oriente] at 04:12 27 March 2014 culties faced in trying to gain knowledge from community members (Spencer and Gillen 1912, 481). Gillen ([1901–1902] 1968, 337) notes on 18 November 1901:

Our friends the Anula [Yanyuwa], tired of the routine of everlasting enquiry about their customs have taken the day off to go ﬁshing. It is by no means an easy matter here to keep the blacks about as food is so varied and abundant that they are quite independent of us. Even when Yanyuwa people were located on the mainland at Borroloola for a number of ceremonies, when it is thought many of the photographs were taken, the cooperation of the Yanyuwa people was difﬁcult to maintain:

Hammering away at the Anula all day. It is by no means an easy task dragging information out of them. (Gillen [1901–1902] 1968, 335) 50 J. Bradley et al. Downloaded by [ZMO Zentrum Moderner Oriente] at 04:12 27 March 2014

Figure 1. From Oonadatta to Borroloola, the path of Spencer and Gillen (Spencer and Gillen 1912). History and Anthropology 51

Figure 2. Yanyuwa Country, Southwest Gulf of Carpentaria, map courtesy of Mark Harvey.

Spencer ([1901–1902] n.d., 208) is perhaps even more forthright in regard to the difﬁculties that they encountered:

The rest of the day we spent talking to the niggers, reading, skinning birds and being lazy. These natives here are much more standoffish than any that we have yet come across and were it not for two or three of them who are very friendly we should find it difficult to obtain much information. Thanks however to them we are learning what we want to learn and can already see that there is little difference between them and the other tribes that we have recently passed through so that more than ever we are anxiously waiting for news of the steamer… It should be noted that the undeniably autocratic overtone conveyed by the use of the term “nigger” will be discussed below as the product of acceptable European discourse of the period and, in the case of Gillen, a possible indicator of his growing frustration

Downloaded by [ZMO Zentrum Moderner Oriente] at 04:12 27 March 2014 with the conditions and isolation of Borroloola. Even with the assistance of a Marra man named only as “Umbarari”, who, Gillen ([1901–1902] 1968, 314) noted was “attached to our staff” at an early point on 3 November 1901, the difficulties were evident. In 1984 and 1985 the genealogical work undertaken by Bradley could infer that “Umbarari” had a major influence on Spencer and Gillen’s ethnographic record- ings. With the help of two very old and senior Marra men, Tommy Nawurrungu and Mack Manguji and two Yanyuwa people, Tim Timothy Rakawurlma and Judy Marrn- gawi, and assisted by a senior Yanyuwa–Marra elder Mussolini, it is believed that the “Umbarari” of Gillen was a Marra man named Yambararri. This man would have been the right generational age to have been recruited by Spencer and Gillen. He was also remembered as a person who knew some English because he had worked 52 J. Bradley et al. on the early pastoral properties in the Gulf. Yambararri was also married to a Yanyuwa woman from South-West Island, which could explain why he was living at Borroloola; however, there were ceremonies being performed at Borroloola at the time of Spencer and Gillen’s visit which could also explain his presence. Yambararri’s own country is described as being Wunubarryi, or Mount Young, an important Marra site in the Limmen Bight associated with the Dugong Ancestral being and Ancestral Dugong Hunters (Bradley 1997). It is of interest that Spencer and Gillen documented the stories associated with the Dugong Ancestral being and the group of Ancestral Dugong Hunters in some detail (Gillen [1901–1902] 1968, 339–340). Thus “reading between the lines” there is a possibility that the presence of Yambararri and the information he gave may hold some clue to the difficulties that Spencer and Gillen faced in trying to talk to the Indigenous people in the area, and there are questions as to what degree Yambararri and others like him helped or consciously hindered Spencer and Gillen. Throughout their Northern Tribes journey, from its starting point up until 16 November, two men from Central Australia, Parunda and Erlikilyika, accompanied Spencer and Gillen. They provided translation services, organized ceremonial perform- ances, negotiated the trade of provisions for material culture items and in turn facilitated the flow of information. Thirteen days after the employment of Yambararri however, on 16 November, with two months of work still to be done, their services were recognized as being over. Spencer and Gillen openly outlined the difficulties they faced in the Southwest Gulf of Carpentaria, as compared to their somewhat friendly relations with Indigenous groups from the more Southern arid regions of the Northern Territory. Despite Spencer ([1901–1902] n.d.) noting the similarity of other Indigenous groups to those of the Southwest Gulf, this is an implied admission of the overt differences between central and coastal “Northern tribes”. In contrast to the work they undertook at Borroloola, Spencer and Gillen recorded Arrernte traditions extensively, their time spent among these people led Gillen to claim that he had become fluent in the Arrernte language (Spencer and Gillen 1927) and approximately a third of The Native Tribes of Central Australia (Spencer and Gillen 1899) was dedicated to them. Spencer and Gillen often successfully negotiated the opportunities available to them to record ceremonies by striking agreements with the Arrernte through the judicious trade of tobacco, knives, food and other provisions

Downloaded by [ZMO Zentrum Moderner Oriente] at 04:12 27 March 2014 (Peterson 2006). On several occasions Arrernte people were asked to carry out rituals usually performed at night, during the day, so as to accommodate their early model camera without a portable flash. Such images are accompanied in text by explanations of the specific rituals as well as other associated ethnographic data. However, when the images from the Southern parts of their journey are compared with what was taken and used “in text” from Borroloola, it highlights the difficulties that they may have faced both personally and professionally in the Gulf country. This presents somewhat of an anomaly in terms of the research output, while working with the Yanyuwa, Marra, Garrwa and Binbingka people, as compared to the Arrernte or Warramungu (Griffiths 1996; Peterson 2006). While in Borroloola, Spencer and Gillen only took photographs of one staged group, devoid of obvious ceremonial specificity which is History and Anthropology 53 usually evident in depictions of other peoples in the Northern Tribes of Central Australia (1904, 69). Of the 25 known images to have been taken by Spencer and Gillen in the Borroloola region, only eight were published in any capacity and four of which are of the same two people. This is contrary to both their personal interests in photography and the growing “significance of visual information within the emerging nature-science field work orientation” (Peterson 2006, 1) of the period. In the case of the Yanyuwa, the sections in both Across Australia (1912) and The Northern Tribes of Central Australia (1904), relating to their cultural practices and physical characteristics hold the least amount of information when compared to other language groups. Borroloola frustrated Spencer and Gillen as they struggled to “keep the blacks about” (Gillen [1901–1902] 1968, 337) resulting in a large part of their time being spent reading books from the police station library, as they waited for a boat to arrive from Port Darwin to take them back to Melbourne. During this time, much can be gleaned regarding their relationships with the local Indigenous people. Despite the large Indigenous population, it was the Chinese people present at Borroloola during this time who were their “employees” and local authorities. References to “niggers” are not uncommon, as Peterson (2006, 21) in direct reference to Spencer and Gillen remarks:

The constant use of the word “nigger” is oppressive, even though in the context of the times was routinely used without quite the same insulting connotations that it later acquired. In line with the increasingly exasperated tone of Spencer’s and Gillen’s journal entries, respectively, the use of the term “nigger” does carry implications specificto the difficulties they faced in Borroloola. Although the term is not frequent in their formal ethnographic publications, it is prevalent throughout journal entries (Spencer [1901–1902] n.d.; Gillen and Gillen [1875] 1995), seemingly used it as a casual label in similar fashion to other popularly used labels of the early colonial period, such as “savages”, “blacks” and “natives”. Particularly in Gillen’s ([1875] 1995) field journal “nigger” is the most frequent term used to refer to Aboriginal people. However, in Gillen’s ([1901–1902] 1968, 350–361) diary, after favouring the terms “natives” and “blacks” for the most part, in the last month of daily entries there is a distinct turn to the use of “nigger”. This trend is paralleled by increasingly frustrated references to issues inhibiting them from acquiring the kinds of information they desired, a late Downloaded by [ZMO Zentrum Moderner Oriente] at 04:12 27 March 2014 mail delivery, poor nights of sleep due to weather conditions and lament at the distance between themselves and their respective families for Christmas and beginning of the New Year. Unfortunately, Peterson (2006) does not outline how he developed a test to gauge the levels of implicit racism within the written word, but it would seem in the case of Gillen’s ([1901–1902] 1968) diary it does carry some additional connotations. In a broader sense, using terms which generalize groups of people who identify themselves as Yanyuwa, Garrwa, Marra and Binbingka (let alone the absence of personal names) is tantamount to negation of their identities. The normalization and casual use of such terms conveys its own implicit racism, insidiously embedded in and projected by Spencer and Gillen’s own culturally informed European 54 J. Bradley et al. predispositions. This alludes to the overarching presumption of representation, and Spencer and Gillen’s paternalistic and colonialist methods of extracting information and attempts to control their subjects. While the issues are complex, it should be noted that Spencer and Gillen saw themselves as committed individuals preserving a record of a race which was seen by them and their contemporaries as doomed for extinction (Wolfe 1999). In attempting to break down their racist rhetoric, Mulvaney (1982, x) sums up Spencer’s achievements well:

Yet Spencer was a generous man, kind to his informants and his photographs portray people of individuality. Indeed he was kinder than most, but obviously his ability to individualize Aboriginal people was selective and inhibited by an entrenched ideology of social evolutionism. In much of their works with Indigenous Australians, and more speciﬁcally in the case of Yanyuwa, Marra, Garrawa and Binbingka people who were not as willing to col- laborate as some other groups, Spencer and Gillen were prepared to allow them to be nameless native informants: no more than a component of a predetermined Aboriginal whole, anonymous and silent but for the publications of their knowledge.

Memory, History and linginmantharra In the life of contemporary Yanyuwa people, the photographs and objects collected by Spencer and Gillen, and the accompanying questions and comments by Yanyuwa elders and their families represent a localized and speciﬁc “strategy for an oppositional cultural politics of photography” (Green 1997, 9). This localized strategy, articulated in a Yanyuwa response, is in opposition to the power of subjectiﬁcation inherent in colonial representations. To this we can add a different cultural politics of material culture, though this is not the focus of this paper. In the Yanyuwa community, photographs have, over the last three decades at least, become a regular teaching tool. Their use has facilitated the sharing of memory and cultural intricacies and has meant, as Devlin-Glass (2005, 135) notes in relation to “Forget About Flinders: A Yanyuwa Atlas of the South West Gulf of Carpentaria” (Bradley, Cameron, and Yanyuwa Families 2003), that “photography is a medium that many observers see being used for community building purposes”. As such, the

Downloaded by [ZMO Zentrum Moderner Oriente] at 04:12 27 March 2014 use of the Spencer and Gillen photographs, showing as they do the images of long deceased kinsmen and women has become common place, but not a practice to be used without care. In many instances, if a long period of time has passed since the death of the person depicted within an image, the use of the photograph and the stories ensuing from its existence may be presented and engaged with for the purpose of (re)constructing and embedding memories relating to that person (Jacklin 2005). As mentioned above, a set of Spencer and Gillen’s Borroloola-derived photographs were returned to the Yanyuwa community by the Museum of Victoria in 1981. At that time Bradley and Dr Richard Baker of the Australian National University spent much time with the then senior elder owners discussing the photographs and who the various History and Anthropology 55 individuals in them might have been. While in some instances this was an easy thing for the “old people” of the 1980s, there were some individuals in the photographs who could not be indentified or there were conflicting opinions as to who they were. It was not only the faces that people looked at—scars, cicatrices, body stance and even feet, hands and body disfigurements were ways in which the individuals in the photographs were identified. However, the most common comment by far was similar to this one:

What’s wrong with these whitefellas, can’t they put a name, name these old people so we know who we are looking at, they are all family, poor things. (Don Miller, Yanyuwa elder in Bradley Field Diary 1984) This statement demonstrates the centrality of kinship and the sentiment of distress over being denied the opportunity to appropriately situate the image of an ancestor into a broader web of social meaning. It is fair to deduce that as a product of the nature- science orientation of their ﬁeldwork, Spencer and Gillen elected not to include individual names as they deemed it not important to the readership, visually representing Indigenous peoples as they would an animal species. In this way, it is possible to recon- cile their evident interest in names and naming with this exclusion; Aboriginal systems of naming are of interest only as exotic ethnographic data for European consumption. Of the hundreds of photographs and illustrations of Indigenous peoples featured in the bulk of their collective works, very few are labelled with individual names (Spencer and Gillen 1904, 1912; Gillen [1901–1902] 1968). The absence of names is at odds with Spencer and Gillen’s apparent awareness of names and systems of naming, particularly in their work with the Arrernte (Spencer and Gillen 1904, 582):

It will thus be seen that each man has (1) his personal name, (2) his secret or Churinga name, (3) sometimes a nickname, (4) the term indicating the relationship in which he stands to the person speaking to him, (5) his status term, (6) often a term of address con- nected with the initiation ceremony, (7) his class or subclass name … and (8) his totemic name. For the Binbingka, Marra and Yanyuwa, Spencer and Gillen (1904, 587) only document that for each individual “there is a single name which is of the grandfather or grandmother…” and that “[t]here is no truly sacred name”. This description is at best incomplete, as in the case of the Yanyuwa, names are usually chosen by the ’

Downloaded by [ZMO Zentrum Moderner Oriente] at 04:12 27 March 2014 father s father (murimuri) or in the absence of that person, someone who has the same classificatory relationship. Females are usually named after the most senior of her father’s sisters and males are named after their father’s father. There are four Yanyuwa clans (Wurdaliya, Mambaliya-Wawakurria, Rrumburriya, Wuyalia), and in the case where there are too many children and not enough of these relatives with the appropriate classificatory relationship, names are selected from a subset of names that are the property of the relative clan. These names may come from sacred songlines (Kujika), or in the case of women, are sometimes the name of a particular locality with the addition of the animator suffix –mara attached. Sometimes senior men will give themselves an additional restricted name that relates to their major Dreaming 56 J. Bradley et al. Ancestor, this is done in consultation with the appropriate ritual manager or guardian (jungkayi). In the case of the Yanyuwa, in comparison to their understanding of other Indigen- ous peoples, Spencer and Gillen’s understanding of names and naming is incorrect and vastly simplified. This ignorance is perhaps the product of their limited interaction and mental and physical fatigue. Not only does this emphasize the importance of dialogue and relationships in ethnographic practice, it demonstrates the impact of an anthropologist’s own subjectivity in regard to the depth of accuracy of information recorded. Despite this, the labelling of photographs with even such rudimentary information could still have facilitated identifying and positioning deceased kin. Although this absence causes distress for those Yanyuwa viewing the images, it is the unnamed and unidentified individuals in the images that are considered “poor things”. Thus the viewing of these photographs of Spencer and Gillen was a mixture of interest, excite- ment and frustration, and this is to some extent the way it still is today. The photographs of these old Yanyuwa, Garrwa, Binbingka and Marra men and women, taken on the banks of the McArthur River in 1901 are in the first instance silent, the very nature of the image allows for a reinscription, creating an opportunity for unrecorded layers of meaning to surface, and sometime for new layers to be invented. The difference it seems lies between our understandings of terms such as history and memory, wherein it is more often that history is seen as the recorder of memories. For the most part, memory is defined as the past as it is lived by social agents (Küchler 1999; Pohlandt-McCormick 2000; Ricoeur 2004). Memory, and therefore the act of remembering, are human and subjective, and construct reality rather than representing it (Said 2000; Schmidt 2008). The vitality of memory lies in the fact that it involves a process of meaning-making linked to cultural episodes that are differ- entially constructed by individuals and cultural groups. There is a vitality in the con- tinually unfolding nature of memory as is illustrated by Yanyuwa ways of remembering the individuals represented in the images taken by Spencer and Gillen at Borroloola. Social memory in this instance becomes marked by a quality of revel- ation as well as selecting and forgetting, in every act of remembering. Perhaps when confronted with an anonymous image, “new layers” and meaning-making through remembrance become characterized by a contemporary awareness of the colonial rhetoric that once implicitly affirmed European conceptions of social evolutionism. fi

Downloaded by [ZMO Zentrum Moderner Oriente] at 04:12 27 March 2014 The image of an unidenti ed kinsman, now deceased, is cast adrift in a nameless, kinless void that frustrates the act of recuperative remembrance. As stated by Lydon (2010, 174) photography served as a medium of cross-cultural dialogue, “shaping social processes of identity formation and cultural exchange”. As the product of such interactions, a number of Spencer and Gillen’s photographs deprived individuals of personal identification, influencing identity formation of their potential kin in the present. With images that could be identified as the Yanyuwa Rain Maker, discussion is a performative of kinship, orally imbued on the perpetual emergence of the social memory and cultural identity. Thus in the writing about a Yanyuwa Rain maker, history becomes memory textually manifested. In societies such as the Yanyuwa, where until the last decade the History and Anthropology 57 transmission of knowledge was completely oral, it is not surprising that there is no “real” word for what the West might equate with history (Bradley and Kearney 2006). As Clendinnen (1998) discusses with regard to revealing the memories of the Holocaust victims as they recall the events that can be found in photographs taken by Nazi soldiers, oral history can break the static barriers of text. What the silence of the image gives to the world is the motivation to speak, and it is this spoken word, this oral history which relays the testimony of personal and group experiences, the intricacies and nuances of relationships with place and others, and above all, distant memories from the “static” nature of history which can deny and conceal the origins of human experience and emotion. This denial would appear to stem from history’s power to generalize. The mass production of historical texts, written by colonial societies for their own consumption, by definition must include a history aimed at the understanding of events. This renders a popular understanding of the colonial past as a conventional narrative, devoid of the oral testimony that conveys a greater breadth of human experience. In place of “History”, Yanyuwa people substitute Yanyuwangala or the “the way of knowing and being Yanyuwa”, and this resides in the strong interconnectedness and familial nature of the Yanyuwa life and the resulting commentaries and actions that surround that which the West may call historical. History then becomes practised through memory as an intense and sometimes contested form of local expression, embedded within epistemological understandings, layers of experience, emotion and relationships, all of which can often be glossed as Law or narnu-Yuwa, or the specific Yanyuwa way of understanding how all of these things come together in an intricate web of relationships. Western ontology and epistemology style “history” as an impersonal and “exact” record of past events. In contrast, the Yanyuwa historical practice is framed by social memory, and is not bound in the past as it eventuates in “…change, innovation and becoming” (McKim 2010, 62). For people such as the Yanyuwa what we call “history” is in fact linginmantharra, or remembering. The use of this term requires that events and objects from the past be experienced from a personal and collective understanding, where memory becomes a conversation about the quality of life and the recalling of events associated with the matters under discussion. This engages “different levels of memory” (Clendinnen 1998, 35), stimulating those silent memories

Downloaded by [ZMO Zentrum Moderner Oriente] at 04:12 27 March 2014 held in a personal realm to become socially expressive within a story or an explanation of an experience. These discussions are not associated with linear or vertical senses of time; rather, the conversations about the past should be seen as sediments of narrative and sometimes action and song. These sediments are not a firm stratum but are in a constant flow as information is recalled and used, but people still have an understanding of a timeline embedded within the stratum by articulating relationships to both deceased and living kin and place. This “history”, as they term it, as sometimes used by the Yanyuwa is always fluid and not static. Thus the nature of the term linginmantharra itself should be seen as an animated form of historicity detached from any predetermined timelines of Western history. As time passes, however, this term for remembering takes on another form, 58 J. Bradley et al. linginmanthanima, to always be mindful, and interestingly when a story reaches this point in Yanyuwa narratives, the language inflects the significance with specialized verb endings (Bradley and Kirton 1992). This brief example illustrates:

Kilu-yabima na-wulka—he made a bark canoe Kilu-yabimanthaninya na-wulka—In past time he would make bark canoes. It is the sufﬁx –nthaninya that immediately draws the listener’s attention to issues of past social and cultural importance. However, it does not follow that Yanyuwa men and women fabricate whatever history suits them, stories that are history are passed down from generation to generation, as Hokari (2011, 47) elaborates in regard to the Gurindji people, which also applies to the Yanyuwa epistemology:

It’s true that the historical practice that takes place in the Gurindji country is conducted according to different rules from those of the academic mode of history. We might say they are different ways to approach the past of different historical philosophies. But that doesn’t mean that past events are fabricated at will. The photographs taken by Spencer and Gillen are now seen as a set of images of powerful times, when the Law was strong, when Yanyuwa country was under the control of Yanyuwa people, the dominant form of communication was Yanyuwa and when the history of Yanyuwa country could be understood from a very Yanyuwa-centric view. In 2013 this is not the case, much of Yanyuwa country is held up in mining leases, townships and the rights of Yanyuwa people gaining control over the country they have legitimately won back through land rights processes is contested by politicians and others. Thus in looking at the images of Spencer and Gillen in the present, Yanyuwa elders urge their children, grandchildren and great grandchildren to be mindful of where they have come from, and that they are descendants of the men and women so beautifully rendered in the black and white images. This is both factual and also romantic, as they are aware of the increasing distance between the photographs and the living kin, and the photographs take on an exotic patina.

The Rainmaker: Between Field Notes and Commentary

Downloaded by [ZMO Zentrum Moderner Oriente] at 04:12 27 March 2014 This story of the Yanyuwa rainmaker allows us the space to give a better understanding of time, memory and historical reality of the Yanyuwa people. The Yanyuwa memory and storytelling practice always describes their colonial history as the interaction between historical actors, which include Yanyuwa, non-Yanyuwa Indigenous peoples, non-Indigenous peoples and often Ancestral beings that are not human, these Dreamings have been active throughout colonial history and have been active in the lives of all people. When Gillen found out that there was a Yanyuwa rainmaker, who was prepared to demonstrate his rainmaking ritual, he was surprised and he noted, “It is rather remark- able that these people have rain ceremony at all for drought is an unknown experience for them” (Gillen [1901–1902] 1968, 339). Such a comment may of course reflect History and Anthropology 59 Gillen’s previous experience of Aboriginal life in arid lands, his Arrernte-centred understanding of Indigenous ritual, as he appears to assume that desert communities had a greater need for ceremonies designed to bring rain. Further his views are aligned with a purely environmentalist understanding of the Yanyuwa country and its needs. This understanding is devoid of a recognition that even in the tropics rain is an Ances- tral being and highly significant. Notes in Spencer’s journal ([1880–1929] n.d), written in 1901, are also revealing about both the character of the rainmakers and his supposed efficacy in making rain:

Nov 21. Camp 70. Borroloola. This morning we were paid a visit by a distinguished rain maker of the Anula tribe. He tried to describe to us how he performed the ceremony but as it is just about the time when a storm may descend at any time he kindly promised to show us the ceremony tomorrow morning. At the present moment the clouds away to the south are black & heavy and evidently rain is falling there. I shall not be surprised if we have some even without his assistance but hope that a kindly providence will hold it off until tomorrow afternoon and will also make the sky look threatening as that will be a decided encourage- ment to him. Spencer and Gillen took one proﬁle shot of the “rainmaker” and one sketch was also drawn of him (Figures 3 and 4). In his ﬁeld notes, Gillen ([1901–1902] 1968, 339) records in his entry for 21 Novem- ber 1901 (note words in square brackets are italics represent contemporary Yanyuwa spelling):

Working with the Anula [Yanyuwa]. There is no rain totem in this tribe but a ceremony for producing rain is performed by a man of the Munpaakuwaku [Manbakuwaku](Dollar bird commonly called Rain bird) totem Anula tradition states that the ﬁrst rain was ﬁrst made in the Alcheringa by the Ancestral Munpaawaku which sprung up at place called Upinchaua [Wubunjawa] a water hole now regarded as sacred (kurta kurta) [kurdu- kurdu]. No women or children are permitted to see this waterhole and only such old men as are of the Urtallia [Wurdaliya] class may drink water from it. It is the Ancestral place of origin of men of the Wauwukaria [Wawukarriya] class and Dollar Bird totem. Close by Upinchaua at Rumburwonga [Rrumburrwanga] there dwelt a snake called Nulwa[Ngulwa] who also made rain and was friend of the Dollar birds. The Rainbow (Putchimarra)[Bujimala] is caused by the Snake rising from its waterhole and spitting into the sky. Men of the Dollar bird and Snake totems sing songs to prevent too much rain falling … We are to witness the ceremony of making rain tomorrow. Downloaded by [ZMO Zentrum Moderner Oriente] at 04:12 27 March 2014 In 1984, Bradley sat with three senior men of the Wawukarriya clan, Isaac Walayung- kuma, Dinny McDinny and Pyro Dirdiyalma; they were intrigued with Gillen’s notes and the photos. This lengthy quote below demonstrates Pyro Dirdiyalma’s initial comments in response to Gillen’s comments above. These comments have been translated from Yanyuwa.

This old man (pointing to the photo) is Wajamarra, I know this, he was a rain maker, his “whitefella” name was Jack, he could talk English that old man and he used to talk to any of them white people as they came along. But maybe those white people (referring to Spencer and Gillen) couldn’t hear properly. Those white people were wrong when they said the Rain Dreaming comes from Wubunjawa, that is the Brolga 60 J. Bradley et al.

Figure 3. Jack Wajamara, Yanyuwa rainmaker. Borroloola 1901, photo courtesy of Museum Victoria.

Dreaming country, the place of origin for us old men here. That name Wubunjawa is a big name, like Sydney or Canberra, big name, but a lot of small names inside. That Rain Dreaming comes from Larrmanda, Wawurranda and Wunubanji (on the McPherson Creek), that is the proper Rain Dreaming country, it is Wawukarriya country, that old “whitefella” was right about that. That Manbakuwaku, Rain bird or Storm bird we call him in English, the proper country for that bird is Mandajanjala east of here (on the Wearyan River) it is sacred country, there are hollow log burial cofﬁns there, women and children can’t go there. Jungkayi (guardians) can go there, some of them are Wurdaliya, my mother’s family, they are boss for that place and they can drink Downloaded by [ZMO Zentrum Moderner Oriente] at 04:12 27 March 2014 that water; that old “whitefella” had that straight. All Wawukarriya clan country. Now that old “whitefella” has made me think, I forgot about that country Rrumburr- wanga, he brought it back for me, ngulwa, king brown snake, it is Dreaming there, that snake is a rainbow serpent, bujimala, he can bring rain too, but that Rain Dreaming is important old people would get really jealous for that song. Last old man to have those songs was Billy Hooker Mangayi, we are making that log cofﬁn for him now, he called Wajamara father’s brother, old Wajamara gave him (Billy Hooker) the songs, he did not give the songs to his own son Bunaja, I do not know why. Old people told us the songs were really tough to learn, maybe Bunaja couldn’t catch the words, the tune you know. That old man, this one where his bones are with us now, he was clever, really smart, lively, we all knew him, proper rainmaker, the last of them. (Pyro Dirdiyalma in Bradley Field Diary May 1984) History and Anthropology 61

Figure 4. Jack Wajamara, Yanyuwa rainmaker as sketched by Gillen, Borroloola 1901 (Gillen [1901–1902] 1968).

In the above quote, Pyro clearly moves through the difficulties that Spencer and Gillen might have had in understanding the details associated with the Rain Dreaming. Difficulties in trying to understand a landscape that they could not visit and the associated spatial politics of naming country and understanding how place names stand in relation to one and another, let alone the specific directional and political terminologies used in Yanyuwa to speak about these issues. It is also worth noting that even if Waja- mara did speak English it would have been heavily accented and reflective of Yanyuwa Downloaded by [ZMO Zentrum Moderner Oriente] at 04:12 27 March 2014 speaking patterns which no doubt would have caused Spencer and Gillen some issues, and there is no indication as to whether their Marra assistant Yambararri assisted them at all. The sketch and photograph of Wajamara fascinated these three old men. Dinny McDinny spent some time looking at the half-profiled body photograph of Wajamara (which was never published) and the sketch of him in Gillen’s ([1901–1902] 1968) diary, marked as Illustration No 84. All three men viewed carefully the image of the Wajamara performing the ritual, which was agreed to be the spring that is located near the Yanyuwa housing area at Borroloola. Dinny was eager to make additional comments about the Rain Dreaming: 62 J. Bradley et al. That Rain Dreaming is still there in our country, those songs this old man had (indicating Wajamara) were for heavy and light rain, he would sing those places Larrmanda, Wawur- randa and Wunubanji and that Rain Dreaming would get up, it would travel and rain all over the country. It would bring the floods. Old people when they made dugout canoes, they wanted those floods, they made those canoes upstream and when they were finished they would say to the old man with the songs for rain, “Alright you sing that rain now so we can bring the canoes downstream, we will pay you to do this”. So that old man would sing, the rain would come, the floods would come, the canoes could be brought downstream, they would pay that old man, maybe hair string, boomerangs, dugong and turtle meat. When the floods went down the country would be fresh, the river banks would have sandbanks so we could camp there in the cold season. That Rain Dreaming he is in the songlines too, that song line is travelling through that country, we can still sing that country, we can still sing the Rain Dreaming, this is the song line for the rain, not the power songs, no we do not have them anymore. Here is the way we sing the Rain Dream- ing in the ceremonies;

Jindingarungaru Jindiwirr rijbi rijbi The song travels deep into the Waters of Larlbangka and Wawurranda

Wundararra Bambujiyu yirringka

Rain falls, heavy rain The creeks overﬂow their banks

Lhandarri labukanga Darri darri

Rain moves over the country, Travelling within dark clouds and Flashing lighting

Diwuwulyimi Nganji ngajarranga

The country is fresh, The rain that is kin to the country, It travels with the lightning Downloaded by [ZMO Zentrum Moderner Oriente] at 04:12 27 March 2014

Mirdalarra Manji warli Larraminyaminya Nyanga nirni

White clouds billow, The rain moves over the country, The rain look back over the country Thinking about the country of Larrmanda and Wawurranda History and Anthropology 63 Mijirrmijirri Majamaja buyurrandu Mili kajbarajba

Heavy torrents of rain fall The ﬂoodwaters rise; Rain strikes the country hard

Majamaja baja Yurruyu yurruwu Kandawujbi yiban wunbiyi

Floodwaters ﬂow over the country They ﬂow on and on Floodwaters of the wet season

Wungkuwungkurru Dalinyba dalinyba Wurruyurruyu Black clouds of the wet season gather They stretch across the eastern horizon

Burrumanmala Wayarrayarra

Heavy ﬁnal rains of the wet season, They break the tall grass

Burrumanmala Wayarrayarra Kilirdarriyarni

Heavy ﬁnal rains of the wet season They break they tall grass; They ﬂatten it to the ground

Walibarrku ngirrangirra Baliwirra majumba

Rain cease, the Rain Dreaming goes back into Downloaded by [ZMO Zentrum Moderner Oriente] at 04:12 27 March 2014 The country of Larlbangka and Wawurranda. (Dinny McDinny in Bradley Field Diary May 1984) When Dinny began to sing these verses, both Pyro and Isaac joined him, they sang and the photo of Wajamarra was passed between them. They looked at the photo, sometimes tapping on it slightly as percussion to their singing. There was in this photo of Jack Wajamara as suggested by Poignant (1992, 74), “a sense in which the photograph established continuities of self and families and made biographies and genealogies visible”. The old Yanyuwa men, who discussed this photo and listened to words written about the Rain Dreaming associated with Jack Wajamara by Gillen, had 64 J. Bradley et al. reincorporated the photograph back into the discussion about the past, into the kinship structures that held him still within threads of connection between the country and the living people which also lead to discussions of loss but also of what remained (see also Bradley and Yanyuwa Families 2010). Isaac had been quiet during most of the discussion that took place in regard to these photos however in a quiet moment he said softly,

You know the power songs for rain caused a lot of trouble, people would be jealous of each other in regards to these songs, they would fight each other, so maybe it is a good thing we no longer have these power songs, maybe the songline for the Rain Dreaming is enough. This old man here (in the photo) I tell you was a “jealous old bastard”, that was what my father told me and so was this old man too (indicating the log coffin with the bones of the last known rain maker Billy Hooker Mangayi). (Isaac Walayung- kuma in Bradley Field Diary 1984) In Northern Tribes of Central Australia (Spencer and Gillen 1904, 314) there are photos of Jack Wajamara performing the actual rainmaking ceremony. These are three of the six photographs that were taken on that day (Figures 5–7). It is important to note that there are a number of discrepancies between the information in this text and Gillen’s field notes. The photograph on page 314 is entitled Figure 105: Water Inti- chiuma Ceremony, Mara Tribe. The Yanyuwa rainmaker is now Mara [Marra], and Spencer and Gillen use the Arrernte term “Intichiuma” [intetye-iweme] to recognize “increase ceremonies” relating as they do to the maintenance and promotion of natural resources employed by other Indigenous groups they encountered. The Yanyuwa have no specific term for such rituals referring to the actual action that takes place such as in this instance “kilu-yinba ki-nyirinja wabudawu”—he sings the rain with powersongs (Pyro Dirdiyalma in Bradley field note May 1981). Downloaded by [ZMO Zentrum Moderner Oriente] at 04:12 27 March 2014

Figure 5. The rainmaking ritual, Jack Wajamara, Yanyuwa rainmaker, Borroloola 1901, photo courtesy of Museum Victoria. History and Anthropology 65

Figure 6. The rainmaking ritual, Jack Wajamara, Yanyuwa rainmaker, Borroloola 1901, photo courtesy of Museum Victoria.

Although Spencer and Gillen attributed these rituals to the “Mara tribe” in their published works, in Gillen’s ([1901–1902] 1968, 340) journal only one sequence of events is recorded concerning rain rituals during their time in the Southwest Gulf of Carpen- taria, it is as follows:

Proceeded with the Anula [Yanyuwa] rainmaker to a small spring about a mile from our camp and witnessed the ceremony making rain. It is very simple. The Performer who was not painted or decorated in any way knelt over the water singing in a low reverent tone Downloaded by [ZMO Zentrum Moderner Oriente] at 04:12 27 March 2014

Figure 7. The rainmaking ritual, Jack Wajamara, Yanyuwa rainmaker, Borroloola 1901, photo courtesy of Museum Victoria. 66 J. Bradley et al. bobbing his head towards the water occasionally stooping to suck up a mouthful or two which he at once spat out again. After singing for some time he took up some water in his hollowed hands and cast it in various directions then repeated the singing and tasting the water for a few minutes and ﬁnished up by casting the water about as before. I should have mentioned that he began the ceremony by sprinkling some water over his body. On this day Gillen ([1901–1902] 1968) notes that photographs of this event were also taken, as such the series of photographs can be accurately dated as being produced on 22 November 1901. Of the event shown in the above photographs (Figures 5, 6 and 7), Spencer ([1880– 1929] n.d.) comments:

The rain man came up this morning so after treating him to breakfast Gillen & I trudged off with him to a spot not far from the river secluded from view by a dense growth of screw pines. Amongst the long grass here there are a number of small springs and after a careful look around to see that there were no lubras within sight or any other black fellows he knelt down by one of the little springs. First of all he drank some then he sang over it a low crowing kind of chant then he splashed it about in all directions after which the ceremony was complete. He told us that plenty of rain would fall in the course of a few hours and we came back again with a few photographs in a very per- spiring condition. It is now evening but not a sign of any rain, in fact the thunderstorms seem to have cleared quite away for the present. When the photos were ﬁrst shown to Dinny, Isaac and Pyro, there was some discussion as to whether these photos were to be restricted or not. Eventually, it was decided they did not have to be kept aside from women and children because there were no ceremonial body designs involved, and that the really restricted part of the rainmaking ritual was the song, and in this matter the photograph was and is completely silent. Again as this discussion took place, a constant reference was made to the nearby log cofﬁn with the bones of the last rainmaker. “There”, they said, “was the last malbu (old man) that had those songs”. On 23 November 1901, Spencer and Gillen met with the rainmaker again and in his journal Gillen comments

Our rainmaker is disappointed; yesterday he assured us that rain would fall last night. Now he reckons that the place chosen for the ceremony was not propitious. He is not a very amiable looking creature as may be seen from this drawing (plate no. 84.) Like all Anula [Yanyuwa] men he clips his beard and whiskers quite close. (Gillen [1901–1902] 1968, 341) Downloaded by [ZMO Zentrum Moderner Oriente] at 04:12 27 March 2014 Even in this exchange, no name, as is normal with so many of Spencer and Gillen’s photographs, is recorded and this experience with the rainmaker demonstrates that even within Spencer and Gillen’s understandings the identity of the rainmaker ﬂowed uncertainly between being Yanyuwa and Marra. This discussion and the accompanying photographs were of great interest to Pyro, Dinny and Isaac and in the latter part of the discussion they were joined by a very old Yanyuwa man, Tim Timothy Rakawurlma. All men stressed that the ceremony of rainmaking was Yanyuwa, it was not Marra and in fact it appeared that all four men were somewhat affronted by the suggestion that a Marra man could sing rain, they also appealed to the photographic evidence of the sketch, the side proﬁle History and Anthropology 67 photograph and the photographs of the ritual being performed. Pyro, Dinny and Isaac deferred to Old Tim Timothy Rakawurlma in regard to a deeper understanding of this matter. Old Tim commented:

That Rain Dreaming is Yanyuwa, song to bring that rain out is Yanyuwa, Wawukarriya men hold it, that is the Law for them, this song is for the wet season, it for the Wawukar- riya clan, like these dead men here and here (referring to the photograph of Jack Waja- mara and the hollow log burial cofﬁn of Billy Hooker Mangayi), but I will tell you the Winter Rain Dreaming that is different, Marra and Yanyuwa people have that song, men and women can sing that rain, but its country is over here to the west, it is for the Wuyaliya clan. (Bradley Field Diary 1984) All men however were impressed with Spencer and Gillen’s description and photographs of the ritual; it was, they said, the “proper Law”. His mention of the rainmaker sprinkling water over his body was seen as a powerful act of the singing proclaiming that he was “wirriyarra”—of the same spiritual origins as the Rain Dreaming, further the action could only be done by a man who was “nyiki-nganji ki-wabudawu”—one who is a kinsman of the Rain. In the year 2000, Isaac Walyungkuma, Dinny McDinny and Pyro Dirdiyalma all requested to see the photographs of Jack Wajamara again. Bradley took the photos to them, but also by this time had managed to locate a photo of Billy Hooker Mangayi (Figure 8) from Mr Mervyn Pattemore, the ﬁrst full-time missionary to Downloaded by [ZMO Zentrum Moderner Oriente] at 04:12 27 March 2014

Figure 8. Billy Hooker Mangayi, the last Yanyuwa rainmaker, classiﬁcatory paternal grandson of Jack Wajamara, photo courtesy of Mervyn Pattemore. 68 J. Bradley et al. reside at Borroloola from the early 1950s to the late 1960s. Also present at this meeting was the wife of Isaac, Annie Karrakayn. There was much emotion as both photos were passed around, much of what had been discussed in 1981 was discussed again and then Annie Karrakayn took both photos and pressed them together image-to-image and said:

You know these two old men are my brother-in-laws I should not look at them (laughing) but they are kinsmen for these three old men here, full kinsmen, one country; it makes me sorry the Law for the Rain Dreaming died with these two old men in the photographs, but that is the way it is, we can look now, remember them and tell their story, it is a big story and we can teach our grandchildren. (Annie Karrakayn in Bradley Field Diary 2000) Annie Karrakayn’s reaction is complex, expressing joy at positioning her kin, lamenting lost law and stating how the story of her kinsmen will be a part of how coming generations of Yanyuwa understand themselves. This is demonstrative of how powerful reactions to repatriated images can invigorate particular memories; memories that inform new layers of social meaning, inﬂuencing both an individual and collective sense of self, in the perpetual formation of identity. Jack Wajamara had a son, his name was Bunaja, but sometimes he was called Mamu- dibarrku, a name associated with the Rain Ancestral being. Bunaja had a son Ginger Bunaja, Bradley had worked with this man before his death in November 1980. He had children who are still alive, and they too have children. Jack Wajamara never gave his rain songs to either Bunaja/Mamudibarrku or Ginger Bunaja. Jack Wajamara instead chose a classiﬁcatory son called Mamurdiyatha to pass the rain songs onto, it was then passed to the son of Mamurdiyatha, Billy Hooker Mangayi and the songs died with him. It is when discussing this point that all the living people Bradley worked with fell silent, no one really knows why this happened, why did not Wajamara pass on his knowledge through his direct line? What were the politics? Or as the Yanyuwa would say “daburrdaburr awara—maybe there was trouble” or as Pyro Dir- diyalma suggested maybe Wajamara’s son Bunaja/Mamudibarrku was not intelligent enough, maybe he could not “catch” or learn the hard words. The three old men, Dinny, Isaac and Pyro, all emphasized that the words and tune were rough and repeat- edly suggested that these songs were part of a complex world of group politics. What- ever the case, these are details the photographs or dead people cannot tell us. However, as demonstrated above, the photos, and this one set of photographs in particular, were

Downloaded by [ZMO Zentrum Moderner Oriente] at 04:12 27 March 2014 the cause of much discussion, arriving as they did at a time when rainmaking powers and the people associated with them were at the forefront of discussions due to the bones of the last known rainmaker being interred in a hollow log cofﬁn. In 1981, for the men gathered on the ceremony ground as the hollow log cofﬁn was decorated, the songs sung and the dances performed, the photographs became an important link between the past and the present. As Peterson (2006, 20) suggests, the photographs taken by Spencer and Gillen can be seen as a “transcript” for the people who are descendants of those in the photographs. At no time were the Yanyuwa men and women who saw these photographs distressed because they were seeing the images of long dead people, rather emotion was generated at being able to History and Anthropology 69 see them again and tell their stories as they were remembered. There is no belief for the present generation of Yanyuwa people, at least, that these photographs had captured the shade or spirits (na-ngawulu) of the dead people. They are images of dead people, but they are also kin and that, at the end, is where the power truly lies.

Conclusion Although it is within the static, fixed nature of Spencer and Gillen’s photographs that their power resides, it is also their danger, their safety net and their potential. The photographs exist alone, as the related texts surround, rather than embed themselves within their visual form. Their palimpsestic layers, tangible in literature, when con- sumed, exist in an intangible conceptual realm that is open to movement and re- engagement. As the photographs of Jack Wajamara were studied by Yanyuwa men and women, the knowledge relating to the images become refined and also recorded. This form of historical documentation is in Yanyuwa characterized as linginmantharra, which can be seen as a remembrance which is contextualized and an inter-personal shared form memory (Bradley and Kearney 2006). In this way family members were and still are introduced to the people and places framed within the images. They are kin, country and still exist as a part of an interrelated matrix of symbiotic responsibil- ities held by the families and Yanyuwa people more generally, both past and present. The images of Wajamara, for example, are seen as “replicas” of country and of landscapes and people as Spencer and Gillen understood them to be. Within Yanyuwa read- ings however, the way that they both look at and “listen” to the photograph provides a much deeper epistemological understanding. From two different worlds, Spencer, Gillen and Jack Wajamara came together for two days on 22 and 23 November 1901. The reasons why and how Spencer and Gillen chose to photograph him, record his actions and his stories, exemplify and reiterate their understandings of the man they encountered. First of all in their camp journals and latter writings he was not Jack Wajamara, he was “not very amiable” and a component of a generic Aboriginal whole. Or, at the most specific he wavered between being either an “Anula” or “Mara” native. He was unknown enough to be part of a publication which inscribed meanings upon the bodies and landscapes of Indi- genous people. He wore no Western clothing (at least in the photographs), nor is it pre- “ ” fi Downloaded by [ZMO Zentrum Moderner Oriente] at 04:12 27 March 2014 sumed, he spoke English. He was part of the anonymous niggers not the identi ed “boys” employed as interpreters and guides. Wajamara was, according to Spencer and Gillen’s understandings, Aboriginal enough to be studied, the “other” had to remain “pure” as the “untouched wilderness” within which they lived (see also Mulvaney 1982; Wolfe 1999; Peterson 2006). Thus the “landscape” of Wajamara’s body also had to be a blank canvas, where the minds of their audience were not permitted to read the photographs without the mediation of Spencer and Gillen’s commentary. From this powerful position, Indigenous people such as the Yanyuwa were aligned with nature, not culture. And with this in mind, Spencer and Gillen saw and represented Indigenous Australian people as anonymous specimens. The representation of the “rainmaker”, who was also Wajamara, and the landscape 70 J. Bradley et al. within his photograph has an inherent connotation of control over the subject as part of a history that was recorded and preserved so that it may then be lost and forgotten.

Acknowledgements Thank you to the Yanyuwa Elders and Families for allowing us to include images of their ancestors.

References

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