More Than Lust in the Dust: M.C. William Willshire’s writings and frontier journey as a demonstration of traditional culture Masters by Research 2020 Neil Anthony Boyack Student # s4576321 Moondani Balluk – Victoria University Senior Supervisor - Dr Gary Foley Secondary Supervisor – Professor David McCallum Initial Secondary Supervisor – Dr Edwina Howell Warning: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers please note - the following work contains names and images of deceased peoples. 1 Table of Contents: Student Declaration P3 Dedications P4 List of Images P5 Abstract P6 Introduction P8 Part 1 - Exegesis 1) Prologue: Boots on the Ground and Spirits in the Sky: Boggy Hole Northern Territory (South Australia) January th, 1890 P23 2) Death, a Way of Life: the Alice, danger, chaos and colonisation in action P32 3) Aboriginal Police in a Time of War: foreign objects and a changing Aboriginal consciousness P46 4) Keep Your Enemies Closer: cultural management and incorporation of feral species and a policeman P75 5) From a Social Darwinist Mist the Australian Self Emerges: the bushman disperses, fleeces, and forgets the native whilst indigenising himself P97 6) Truth in Fiction: love and sex in a time of colonisation P126 7) Conclusion: Space is the Place: what is gained from Willshire’s writings? P151 References P159 Part 2 – Creative Project 8) The Abattoir at Night P171 1: Code Travels Ancestor Space 2: Secret Patrol 3: Purity Monologues 4: The Abattoir at Night 2 3 …colonization and decolonization are simply a question of relative strength Frantz Fanon - The Wretched of the Earth …to get in the way of settler colonization, all the native has to do is stay at home. Deborah Bird Rose ‘I happen to know that there is no creature so relentless as an old man in pursuit of a young woman’ M. C. William Willshire, 1896. 4 List of Images: P20 Map of Study Area (not to scale) P21 Ancestral Myth Map I P22 Ancestral Myth Map II P45 Heavitree Gap Police Station- circa 1890’s P45 Aboriginal constables at the Alice Springs (Heavitree Gap Police Station) P71 Members of the Queensland Native Mounted Police P71 Native Police Encampment, Ballarat 1853, P72 The Native Mounted Police sent after the Kelly Gang P72 Mounted Police and Native Constables Far North South Australia, P73 Port Phillip Native Police - ‘Cohunguiam [and] Munight’ [with mustachios] P73 Port Phillip Native Police in formation P74 Native Police, P94 Two Men on Donkeys, P94 Men on Donkeys- Diamantina area P95 Aboriginal family with wagon and donkeys – North Australia Patrol P95 Water carting with camel and cart – Mid North Flinders ranges P96 Young Aboriginal people donkey riding P109 Walter Baldwin-Spencer / Frank Gillen / Carl Strehlow / RH Mathews P120 Wild Australia! P121 Portrait of A.J. Vogan, P121 The Black Police (cover art) P121 Archibald Meston with spear, P121 Archibald Meston with boomerang P122 Favenc’s ‘ancient, partly civilised race’ P123 Tableau for promotion of Meston’s Wild Australia Show P123 A Christmas postcard from the Wild Australia Show P124 Meston’s Arch P124 Vogan’s slave map of Australia P125 Dina’s Flogging P132 Black trackers in Camp with Police, Central Australia (tableau) P133 Erldunda recreation (tableau I) P133 Erldunda recreation (tableau II) P149 Willshire with Aboriginal associates at Boggy Hole P149 JM Wendt - Presentation ink stand, P150 Arrernte Moieties P191 A Thrilling Tale of Real Life in the Wilds of Australia (cover art) P192 The Aborigines of Central Australia (cover art) P193 The Land of the Dawning (cover art) P194 Mounted Constable William Willshire Timeline of Occurrences 5 Abstract: My research investigates and analyses the four published works (between 1888-1896) of South Australian Policeman, Mounted Constable William Willshire (1852-1925). This Masters by Research thesis project will include a theoretical exegesis, based on the written works of Mounted Constable William Willshire, as well as a creative, fiction component based on Willshire’s life, his writings and history. Previous research on this colonial character almost exclusively focuses on Willshire the rogue policeman, the murderer, however there is little understanding of the role Willshire played as an early contact figure, observer of Aboriginal people, or novice anthropologist; nor is there clarity around his relationships with the Aboriginal men, women, and the clans he worked and fraternised with. I have focussed my research and energy on the cultural information Willshire compiled in written form, in conjunction with structures connected with Aboriginal Law, traditional culture, kinship and Country. Through these filters I evidence and speculate on the traditional roles and responsibilities Willshire adopted, the new technology and materialism that came with him, as well as the need for Aboriginal colleagues to culturally respond to the presence of Willshire, the stranger, the policeman, the male, the writer. It is vital to acknowledge that Willshire learned culture and language on-Country as an initial black-white contact point and in somewhat reciprocal relationships, over significant periods of time and on datelines that predate anthropologists Walter Baldwin-Spencer, Frank Gillen and Carl Strehlow. Using Willshire’s texts as a central focus I explore other actors and enablers connected to Aboriginal cultures and Country common to Willshire within the study timeframe. Taking note of Willshire’s haphazard methodologies in approaching the collection of anthropological information and storytelling I will enquire into his contemporaneous influences, and the overarching frameworks that manifested in his attitudes to the Aboriginal and political world he enters as a policeman. This will support a sense of environment and dimension belonging to the study period, as well a sense of public thought and understanding about Aboriginal people in a time where Social Darwinism was as much an enabler for a brutal colonisation as it was an influencer of government policy, fuelling grass roots racial stereotyping that is still pervasive. I provide three likely, public, literary figures of the study period and 6 compare their written work, their impact, and their influence on Willshire and mainstream culture. It will also be important to explore the operation and behaviour of early Australian anthropologists such as Baldwin-Spencer, Gillen and Strehlow. These men were peers and fellow Central Australian community members at one time or another with Willshire. They had relationships within Aboriginal clans and cultures well known to Willshire. The trends, themes, and narratives in Australian literature and writing, in the lead-up to and during the study period are also important factors in shaping this timeline, as they assist in fuelling Willshire’s fantasies of becoming a writer, a legend, a man of importance, and this mindset accompanies Willshire throughout his adventures, journeys and relationships with Aboriginal women. The creative exegesis element of my thesis will allow me to explore and speculate on the mental state of characters, their actions, dreams, experiences, motivations, and emotions as they respond to, and exert, the pressures of invasion and radical cultural change. Importantly the fiction element of the project adds another creative process to the breadth of the thesis. As a white writer and researcher, I am sensitive to my place in the ongoing life of a modern colonial society. At no time will I be assuming an Aboriginal standpoint. Willshire will be the vessel for the fiction, yet the Willshire character remains a strong conduit to and from Aboriginal actors, as well as an imposing, deadly symbol of settler colonial society. Whilst based on historical fact, and on Willshire’s rambling writings, I note the variables and fallibilities involved in fictional speculation such as interpretation and assumption. These are counterbalanced however with a detailed historical archive that demands respect for Indigenous epistemology, and documented frontier lives. The complexities at the heart of this fictional element revolve around defining and rebuilding the relationships between Willshire and his Aboriginal colleagues; and reimagining and applying them in a way that engages, and weaves a strong narrative about an important period on the Aboriginal timeline. 7 Introduction – Neil Boyack, 2020. Others who have written about Mounted Constable William Willshire, such as Professor Amanda Nettelbeck, Professor Robert Foster, Peter Vallee, Professor Sam Gill, and Professor Richard (Dick) Kimber are varying in their treatment of him, usually citing his police record as a basis for their work and comment. Nettelbeck and Foster are particularly scathing of Willshire, using his ugly, brutal service record, and his murder trial as the basis for their outstanding, thoroughly researched 2007 book In the Name of the Law: William Willshire and the policing of the Australian Frontier (Wakefield Press). Nettelbeck and Foster focus on Willshire’s crimes against Aboriginal people, his bloody place in history, his ego, his unpredictable behaviour and his writings connected to his police service; yet they avoid the visceral cultural connections between Willshire, Aboriginal colleagues and communities. Peter Vallee’s 2008 book God, Guns and Government (Restoration Press) offers a slightly broader focus unearthing esoteric photographical material, whilst to some extent exploring Willshire’s relationships with Aboriginal men and women. Vallee confirms Willshire is a “combo” (a white