Aboriginal History Volume 25 2001 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 the Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders. 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 Issues include recorded oral traditions and biographies, narratives in local languages with translations, previously unpublished manuscript accounts, resumés of current events, archival and bibliographic articles, and book reviews.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 2001, but is published in 2002. 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 2001 Managing Editors, Ingereth Mcfarlane and Ian Howie-Willis; Reviews Editor, Luise Hercus; Copy Editor, Bernadette Hince. Aboriginal History Monograph Series Published occasionally, the monographs present longer discussions or a series of articles on single subjects of contemporary interests. Previous monograph titles are: D. Barwick, M. Mace and T. Stannage (eds), Handbook of Aboriginal and Islander History; Diane Bell and Pam Ditton, Law: The old and the new; Peter Sutton, Country: Aboriginal boundaries and land ownership in Australia; Link-Up (NSW) and Tikka Wilson, In the Best Interest of the Child? Stolen Children: Aboriginal pain/white shame; Jane Simpson and Luise Hercus, History in Portraits: Biographies of nineteenth-century South Australian Aboriginal people; Diane Barwick, Rebellion at Coranderrk, Dennis Foley and Ricky Maynard, Repossession of Our Spirit: Traditional Owners of Northern Sydney; Ann Jackson-Nakano, The Kamberri: A History from the Records of Aboriginal Families in the Canberra–Queanbeyan District and Surrounds 1820–1927, and Historical Overview 1928–2001. Contacting Aboriginal History All correspondence should be addressed to Aboriginal History, Box 2837 GPO Canberra, 2601, Australia. Sales, orders and subscriptions: T Boekel, email: [email protected], tel or fax: +61 2 6230 7054, PO Box 57, O’Connor ACT 2602. Acknowledgement Aboriginal History Inc. gratefully acknowledges the support of the School of Humanities, History, The Australian National University. © 2002 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. Typesetting: Tikka Wilson Printed in Australia by ANU Printing, Canberra ISSN 0314-8769 Aboriginal History Volume 25 2001 Special section: ‘Genocide’?: Australian Aboriginal history in international perspective Ann Curthoys & Introduction – Genocide: definitions, questions, 1 John Docker settler-colonies Colin Tatz Confronting Australian genocide 16 Tony Barta Discourses of genocide in Germany and Australia: 37 a linked history Andrew Marcus Genocide in Australia 57 Anna Haebich ‘Between knowing and not knowing’: public knowledge 70 of the Stolen Generations A. Dirk Moses Coming to terms with genocidal pasts in comparative 91 perspective: Germany and Australia Rosanne Kennedy Stolen Generation testimony: trauma, historiography 116 and the question of ‘truth’ Larissa Behrendt Genocide: the distance between law and life 132 Deborah Rose Aboriginal life and death in Australian settler 148 nationhood Bain Attwood The Stolen Generations and genocide: Robert 163 Manne’s In Denial: The Stolen Generations and the Right Aboriginality in southeastern Australia Ian Keen Introduction 173 Gaynor Macdonald Does ‘culture’ have ‘history’? Thinking about continuity 176 and change in central New South Wales Marilyn Wood The journey to ‘Forked Mountain’ 200 iv ABORIGINAL HISTORY 2001 VOL 25 Rod Hagen Ethnographic information and anthropological 216 interpretation in a Native Title claim: the Yorta Yorta experience Stephanie Anderson French anthropology in Australia, the first fieldwork 228 expedition: Francois Peron’s anthropological contributions to Baudin’s ‘Voyage of Discovery to the Southern Hemisphere’ (1800–04) John Morris The Tiwi and the British: an ill-fated outpost 243 Notes and documents Ian Howie-Willis Invitation to contribute to an issue on Aboriginal 262 historiography Obituaries Mary Laughren Kenneth Hale 265 Luise Hercus, Harold Stephen Wurm 276 Koch, Michael Walsh Book reviews The Captive White Woman of Gippsland by Julie Carr 279 The Traditional Settlement Patterns in Southwest Victoria 280 Reconsidered by Rupert Gerritsen Talking about Celia by Jeanie Bell 281 Sister Girl by Jackie Huggins 281 Crossed Purposes: The Pintubi and Australia’s Indigenous 282 Policy by Ralph Folds At a Crossroads: Archaeology and First People in Canada 288 by George Nicholas and Thomas Andrews David Unaipon’s Legendary Tales of the Australian 289 Aborigines by Stephen Mueke and Adam Shoemaker The Papers of George Augustus Robinson, Chief Protector, 292 Port Phillip Aboriginal Protectorate, Vol. 2 by Ian Clark Burning Bush: A Fire History of Australia by Stephen Pyne 294 An Indelible Stain by Henry Reynolds 295 Rabbit-proof fence: a true story, now a major film by 297 Phillip Noyce. By Doris Pilkington / Nugi Garimara. Flem edition. Contributors 299 Introduction Genocide: definitions, questions, settler-colonies Ann Curthoys and John Docker Genocide is … a composite of different acts of persecution or destruction. Raphaël Lemkin, Axis rule in occupied Europe1 … we need far more, not fewer, serious comparative studies. Ward Churchill, A little matter of genocide2 The idea for this collection of essays on ‘Genocide’? came originally from our reading of Marcia Langton’s comment in Australian Humanities Review in mid-2000. She said that Aboriginal writing, scholarship, and research are taking on the feel of Holocaust studies in the sense that Aboriginal people write, read, and research ‘to try to understand the terrible, inexplicable past’. She expressed disgust at ‘those who do not want what hap- pened to us and our ancestors remembered into “history”’. She did not use the word ‘genocide’. We thought the questions she raised, of how to come to terms with terrible pasts, and to what degree one can use insights from one history to interrogate another, deserved further thought. The unresolved issue for us was whether the notion of geno- cide could be fairly applied to Australian history. The Human Rights Commission’s Bringing Them Home report of 1997, which investigated the history and effects of Abo- riginal child removal in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, had controversially argued that Australian child removal practices fell within the definition of genocide used in the UN 1948 Genocide convention. In other words, Australia had its own his- tory of genocide. This aspect of the report horrified many Australians of quite varying political views. Many people, including historians, rejected the notion that child removal could be reasonably described as ‘genocide’. We did not know where to stand in this debate. Was the term genocide applicable to Australian history in relation to the Stolen Generations? Did it apply to other aspects of the past, such as Australia’s history of massacres and violence on the frontiers of set- 1. Lemkin 1944: 92. 2. Churchill 1997: 75. 2 ABORIGINAL HISTORY 2001 VOL 25 tlement? Ought not Australians to be more aware of the international debates, as a way of clarifying our thinking? We approached the editorial board of Aboriginal History (of which Ann is a mem- ber) and offered to edit a collection of essays entitled ‘“Genocide”? Australian Aboriginal History in International Perspective’. After some soul-searching, the board agreed to take up our offer. In July 2000, we approached some possible contributors, more than actually appear in this volume, and asked them to ‘address Australian and/ or international debates around concepts such as genocide, Holocaust, trauma, guilt, and apology, and their applicability or otherwise in the Australian context’. We sought authors with knowledge of international debates and at the same time a desire to con- tribute to increased understanding of Australian Aboriginal history. Our main purpose was, and remains, to see the issues canvassed in a serious and scholarly manner, and we assured the board that ‘we seek neither false analogy on the one hand, nor