• Killing off the case for Terra Nullius • International – gas vs. heritage in Navajo country • Yorta Yorta update • Secrecy on Land Rights denied • High Court cruelling Native Title - Pearson • Noonkanbah battle recalled The Newsletter of the Indigenous Social Justice Association Djadi – Dugarang Volume: 5 Issue:2 November 2003 Land Rights? … or … Land Wrongs? September 2003 A Non-Corporate View Editorial Australia's Indigenous A History of Invasion and WELCOME to the second Peoples lived the latter life Genocide that continues to this issue of Volume 5. In this style. War, for the purposes of day. "Oh, not the Black Newsletter we will be looking obtaining Land from another Armband View again," I hear at the subject of Land. The Tribe or Nation was unknown. someone sigh. This was brought about by the Traditional Lands of the No my Friend, more of the Traditional Owners. Always single fact that coveting the Lands of others was Culturally White Blindfold View and Was, Always Will Be, another fine example of the Aboriginal Land. And Torres inappropriate. Put simply, the Spirits of your Land are not Constructed Silences exampled Strait Islander Land also. Land in the previous that was, and remains, Stolen. mine. They must of course be respected but they have no Newsletter. This period of the Like our Children, like our Black and White Relationships bearing on my Culture or Wages, like our Culture. has been termed 'The Culture Everything Stolen. Spirituality. That can only be found on my Land. Land, Wars.' Windschuttle is Historically, and Culturally, regardless of which Tribe or currently the newest of those Land has been viewed, used Nation owned it, was also to be who feel the great need to and abused differently by shared by others outside of the rewrite the real Joint History. It different Peoples in different Tribe or Nation using that matters not what they say, the times. The so-called Land. For example, during use Truth remains inviolate. Civilisations of Europe adopted of the Trade Routes which The first article comes from a culture whereby Land criss-crossed Australia. From Henry Reynolds looking at the became wealth to the North to South, from East to Windschuttle fabrication of individual who professed West. Those using the Trade History and especially that part ownership of it. Land was just Routes who died were allowed dealing with the Ownership of another commodity to be to be buried with all due Land by the Traditional bought and sold, the end being Custom and Respect of their Owners. to become even richer by the own Lands. Children born were purchase or the use of it. given the appropriate Cultural Other articles deal with the Territorial wars were fought , necessities also. The Lands British atomic tests 50 years and still continue to this day. were shared, not owned. These ago that were similar to the The Falklands War procedures were not, of course, American tests up at Bikini between England and unique to the mainland of Atoll, whereby the health and Argentina is but one example Australia. Historically, the safety of the locals were of this. Torres Strait Islanders had an criminally not fully considered. extensive Trade Route system. Noel Pearson considers the Land to those living in a latest decisions of the High more "primitive" culture either Ownership of Land just was Court, including the disgraceful followed the European Way or not an issue and sadly only decision made against the shared the Land within their became a destructive issue for Yorta Yorta Peoples. We have own Tribal groupings. Land the Cadigal/Eora People of the analysis of that decision also. was never to be individually greater Dharrug Nation on 26 owned but became as one with January, 1788. When Captain Tony Abbott harangues the the individual and collectively Phillip and his human cargo Traditional Owners for not with the Tribe or Nation. The came ashore and raised the totally embracing Capitalism in Land was to be respected by all British flag on behalf of mad their Culture. and shared by all, along with its King George, then the rot, We look also at the current relevant resources, by all. The literally, set upon us. fashion of Land negotiations only areas of recognition were being entered into outside of the Sites for Men and Women's The rest as they say, is History. the High Court. Very much a Business and those Sites sacred case of 'damned if you do, to both or either. VOLUME 5 I SSUE 2 D J A D I - D U G A R A November 2003 N G damned if you don't.' Ms. throats – not warriors or Tasmanian Aboriginal Jackie Huggins gives us her patriots. linguistics published in the important view of the Native 20th century. But leaving that Title Act of 1993. Much then turns on this aside, two points should be question. Remove this building made. We have no idea at all of We revisit Noonkanbah in block and much of the what percentage of total the Kimberley's and look at the argument in The Fabrication of Aboriginal vocabularies were issues of today. We 'walk' the Aboriginal History collapses. It ever recorded - particularly by Country reading Reports of is not possible, as some the informants whose work is current Land Rights struggles reviewers have wished, to cast reprinted in Roth. and compare and contraire doubt on Windschuttle's vision what is happening here to what of terra nullius while leaving A modern authority has is occurring in Canada and the the rest untouched. The written: "Only limited and United States to the First soundness of argument and generally quite unreliable notes Peoples Nations. evidence in this area are all- and materials, mostly word lists important. and some sentence materials, We also report on the had been collected in the ongoing struggles of the Torres He begins at a high level of Tasmanian languages, from Strait Islanders to continue to generalisation. Unless it can be which only a superficial picture build upon the Mabo High proved to the contrary, it must of them can be obtained. Those Court decision. be assumed that hunters and few short texts that are gatherers have no sense of land available are of dubious value, All this and more, so let us ownership. It is a heroic claim, proceed. as they were compiled by which flies in the face of 200 Europeans, with, it seems, little Killing off the case for years of jurisprudence and at real knowledge of the terra nullius least 150 years of ethnography. languages." Other scholars Windschuttle provides no support this proposition. So THE AGE evidence, no references to while we know how many August 23, 2003 ground this heroic proposition. THERE is no doubt about words were listed by European We are expected to receive it as witnesses, we have no idea of Keith Windschuttle's ambition. an axiom that is beyond how many were not. He seeks to bring the concept argument. But it is not a good of terra nullius back to life. start. And things get worse. N.J.B. Plomley, the doyen of That is a central feature of The Tasmanian Aboriginal Fabrication of Aboriginal The most powerful scholarship, observed that "we History. He tells us that the proposition we are presented are quite ignorant of the range notions of the exclusive with is that the Aborigines did of Aboriginal thought because possession of territory and the not have a word for property. so few topics were explored in defence of it either by law or This argument has caught the conversation with them". All force "were not part of the public's eye and has been Windschuttle can legitimately repeated numerous times in Aborigines' mental universe". say is that words for land do In short, the Tasmanians "did reviews. Clearly it has been not appear in the vocabularies not own the land". The concept seen to be a clincher - an printed in Roth. That is a of property was "not part of argument of great discursive much-diminished claim. their culture". power. But the most serious Much follows from this But we should begin with problem with the Windschuttle assertion. The incoming Windschuttle's own words: position is that he did not Europeans were not taking land "The Aborigines did not even consult the most important have a word for it. None of the belonging to someone else. contemporary work on They introduced tenure to a four vocabularies of Tasmanian Tasmanian languages - place where none had Aboriginal language compiled Plomley's 1976 book, A Word previously existed. Aboriginal in the 19th century, nor any of List of the Tasmanian attacks on the settlers had the lists of their phrases, Aboriginal Languages. The nothing to do with resisting sentences or songs, contained result of 26 years' research in encroachments on their land the word 'land'. Nor did they Australia and Europe, it because they had no sense of have words for 'own', 'possess' represents a benchmark in or 'property' or any of their trespass. relevant scholarship - an derivatives." In the absence of such authority that cannot lightly be motivation, they must have The source for these claims dismissed. So how does been spurred to violence by is a series of appendices in the Plomley's work help us to baser, more personal motives - 1899 book, The Aborigines of pursue the question of land by the desire for vengeance and Tasmania, by H. Ling Roth. ownership? At first sight, it for plunder. Therefore, the Given the great significance of would appear to support the Tasmanians were not at war the linguistic evidence, it is Windschuttle position.