In 1838, amidst French imperial aggression in Tahiti, the reigning Indigenous monarch Queen Pomare wrote the first of many letters as a 'sister Queen' to Britain's Queen Victoria. In it she asserted her and her people's right to seek the protection of the British government who, after all, had brought colonisation to her shores. Two years later, Wurundjeri elder Billibellary, counselled a gathering of his clanspeople on a newly selected site of residence in Narre Narre Warren, a few miles remote from the burgeoning British settlement of Melbourne. Following his reportedly spirited address, he and other residents walked off the Narre Narre Warren station in a sovereign withdrawal of cooperation with colonial authorities. Earlier that same year, a few thousand miles to the east of Melbourne at Waitangi in Aotearoa New Zealand, a gathering of Maori chiefs walked out on treaty negotiations with a British delegation. Although some would eventually sign what became known as the Treaty of Waitangi, others permanently withdrew their consent and refused the British appropriation of full sovereignty over Maori land and its inseparable people. This article argues that these seemingly isolated moments of protest constitute the observable tip of a wider process underway within many indigenous communities in the late 1830s and 1840s.
{"title":"Imperial literacy and indigenous rights: Tracing transoceanic circuits of a modern discourse","authors":"T. B. Mar","doi":"10.22459/AH.37.2013.01","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.22459/AH.37.2013.01","url":null,"abstract":"In 1838, amidst French imperial aggression in Tahiti, the reigning Indigenous monarch Queen Pomare wrote the first of many letters as a 'sister Queen' to Britain's Queen Victoria. In it she asserted her and her people's right to seek the protection of the British government who, after all, had brought colonisation to her shores. Two years later, Wurundjeri elder Billibellary, counselled a gathering of his clanspeople on a newly selected site of residence in Narre Narre Warren, a few miles remote from the burgeoning British settlement of Melbourne. Following his reportedly spirited address, he and other residents walked off the Narre Narre Warren station in a sovereign withdrawal of cooperation with colonial authorities. Earlier that same year, a few thousand miles to the east of Melbourne at Waitangi in Aotearoa New Zealand, a gathering of Maori chiefs walked out on treaty negotiations with a British delegation. Although some would eventually sign what became known as the Treaty of Waitangi, others permanently withdrew their consent and refused the British appropriation of full sovereignty over Maori land and its inseparable people. This article argues that these seemingly isolated moments of protest constitute the observable tip of a wider process underway within many indigenous communities in the late 1830s and 1840s.","PeriodicalId":42397,"journal":{"name":"Aboriginal History","volume":"15 12 1","pages":"1"},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2013-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"86986682","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
His journal of this voyage, under the full title Voyages dans les deux oceans Atlantique et Pacifique, 1844 a 1847, Bresil, Etats-Unis, Cap de Bonne-Esperance, Nouvelle-Hollande, Nouvelle-Zelande, Taiti, Philippines, Chine, Java, Indes Orientales, Egypte (326 pp), was published in Paris by A Franck, Libraire, 69 rue Richelieu, in 1848. On page 51 of this volume he says, when crossing the Equator on 19 October 1844, that he was 'recrossing this for the fifth time'. He was thus already a well-seasoned traveller, although this was his first visit to Australia.
{"title":"The Aboriginal people in Sydney as seen by Eugene Delessert, December 1844 to August 1845","authors":"C. Dyer","doi":"10.22459/ah.37.2013.05","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.22459/ah.37.2013.05","url":null,"abstract":"His journal of this voyage, under the full title Voyages dans les deux oceans Atlantique et Pacifique, 1844 a 1847, Bresil, Etats-Unis, Cap de Bonne-Esperance, Nouvelle-Hollande, Nouvelle-Zelande, Taiti, Philippines, Chine, Java, Indes Orientales, Egypte (326 pp), was published in Paris by A Franck, Libraire, 69 rue Richelieu, in 1848. On page 51 of this volume he says, when crossing the Equator on 19 October 1844, that he was 'recrossing this for the fifth time'. He was thus already a well-seasoned traveller, although this was his first visit to Australia.","PeriodicalId":42397,"journal":{"name":"Aboriginal History","volume":"208 1","pages":"93-110"},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2013-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"76106795","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Late on Thursday afternoon, 18 April 2013, Uncle Tom Trevorrow the Ngarrindjeri elder who worked tirelessly to create a just and equitable future for his community, and in the process brought countless black and white people together over more than a quarter of a century, sat down to continue working in the office of his beloved Camp Coorong, near Meningie, South Australia. He had just completed an interview for an international documentary on endangered languages with Ernie Dingo. Moments later this remarkable statesman suffered a heart attack just two weeks before his 59th birthday. His sudden passing left his family, many friends and the Aboriginal community across Australia, and internationally, bereft and in deep shock. For many it was, and still is, difficult to imagine a world without Tom.
{"title":"Challenging the moral issues of his time: Proud Ngarrindjeri man of the Coorong, Thomas Edwin Trevorrow (1954-2013)","authors":"K. Hughes","doi":"10.22459/AH.37.2013.06","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.22459/AH.37.2013.06","url":null,"abstract":"Late on Thursday afternoon, 18 April 2013, Uncle Tom Trevorrow the Ngarrindjeri elder who worked tirelessly to create a just and equitable future for his community, and in the process brought countless black and white people together over more than a quarter of a century, sat down to continue working in the office of his beloved Camp Coorong, near Meningie, South Australia. He had just completed an interview for an international documentary on endangered languages with Ernie Dingo. Moments later this remarkable statesman suffered a heart attack just two weeks before his 59th birthday. His sudden passing left his family, many friends and the Aboriginal community across Australia, and internationally, bereft and in deep shock. For many it was, and still is, difficult to imagine a world without Tom.","PeriodicalId":42397,"journal":{"name":"Aboriginal History","volume":"27 1","pages":"111"},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2013-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"79661635","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The late Percy Haslam, a noted journalist and scholar of Newcastle, had a long, continued and significant association with Aboriginal peoples within the Newcastle and Hunter Valley regions. The language, culture and history of the Awabakal became his obsession and life's work. Haslam died some 25 years ago and dozens of boxes of his papers and work were deposited with the archive section at the Auchmuty Library of the University of Newcastle. In 2001, with funding from an Australian Research Council (ARC) Indigenous Research Development Scheme Grant I set out to not only examine the works of Haslam but also reveal an understanding of the man behind the material. In saying that, I am not attempting a theoretical analysis of Haslam's work here but rather I offer an introductory biographical overview of the man by those that knew him intimately in the hope of stimulating further questions for research. Who was he? Where did he come from? What drove his insatiable interest in Aboriginal culture in particular the Awabakal? Purist and professional academics do tend to denigrate amateur ethnographers - where does this situate Haslam, his work and legacy?
{"title":"Awabakal voices: The life and work of Percy Haslam","authors":"J. Maynard","doi":"10.22459/AH.37.2013.04","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.22459/AH.37.2013.04","url":null,"abstract":"The late Percy Haslam, a noted journalist and scholar of Newcastle, had a long, continued and significant association with Aboriginal peoples within the Newcastle and Hunter Valley regions. The language, culture and history of the Awabakal became his obsession and life's work. Haslam died some 25 years ago and dozens of boxes of his papers and work were deposited with the archive section at the Auchmuty Library of the University of Newcastle. In 2001, with funding from an Australian Research Council (ARC) Indigenous Research Development Scheme Grant I set out to not only examine the works of Haslam but also reveal an understanding of the man behind the material. In saying that, I am not attempting a theoretical analysis of Haslam's work here but rather I offer an introductory biographical overview of the man by those that knew him intimately in the hope of stimulating further questions for research. Who was he? Where did he come from? What drove his insatiable interest in Aboriginal culture in particular the Awabakal? Purist and professional academics do tend to denigrate amateur ethnographers - where does this situate Haslam, his work and legacy?","PeriodicalId":42397,"journal":{"name":"Aboriginal History","volume":"8 1","pages":"77"},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2013-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"89884583","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
In early August 1802, botanist Robert Brown had a problem. He had secured a bounty of plants while exploring Port Curtis, today's Queensland town of Gladstone on the coastal fringe of Australia's tropical north-east, when he and his party were attacked by some local Aboriginal people. Brown wrote that 'The attack was made with a war woop and discharge of stones: I was at this moment employ'd in putting specimens of Plants in paper and had scarcely time to collect my scatter'd paper boxes andc and make a hasty retreat.' Brown was accompanying Matthew Flinders on this survey of the region, having departed northwards from Port Jackson two weeks earlier. The plants had been collected and the task now was to package them securely, ready for the long journey back to the imperial centre. In this way, they became transformed from being parts of living ecosystems into botanical specimens for the enhancement of growing scientific and natural history collections.
{"title":"Encountering Aboriginal knowledge: Explorer narratives on north-east Queensland, 1770 to 1820","authors":"Michael Davis","doi":"10.22459/AH.37.2013.02","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.22459/AH.37.2013.02","url":null,"abstract":"In early August 1802, botanist Robert Brown had a problem. He had secured a bounty of plants while exploring Port Curtis, today's Queensland town of Gladstone on the coastal fringe of Australia's tropical north-east, when he and his party were attacked by some local Aboriginal people. Brown wrote that 'The attack was made with a war woop and discharge of stones: I was at this moment employ'd in putting specimens of Plants in paper and had scarcely time to collect my scatter'd paper boxes andc and make a hasty retreat.' Brown was accompanying Matthew Flinders on this survey of the region, having departed northwards from Port Jackson two weeks earlier. The plants had been collected and the task now was to package them securely, ready for the long journey back to the imperial centre. In this way, they became transformed from being parts of living ecosystems into botanical specimens for the enhancement of growing scientific and natural history collections.","PeriodicalId":42397,"journal":{"name":"Aboriginal History","volume":"61 1","pages":"29"},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2013-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"76683327","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
In 1936 a flurry of newspaper reports alleged widespread prostitution of Aboriginal women and girls to Japanese pearlers. The claims had a dramatic impact. Within weeks of them being printed a report was placed before the Department of the Interior. A vessel was commissioned to patrol the Arnhem Land coast. The allegations were raised at the first meeting of State Aboriginal protection authorities. Cabinet closed Australian waters to foreign pearling craft and a control base was established in the Tiwi Islands. Japanese luggers were fired upon with machine guns and a crew detained in Darwin. These escalating events occurred within five years of a series of attacks on Japanese by Aborigines (culminating in the infamous Caledon Bay spearing of five trepangers, along with the killings of two white men and one policeman on Woodah Island), and only five years before Australian and Japanese forces waged war. Much ink was spilt over the course of this print scandal, and while reports made use of established language such as 'vice' and 'outrage', a telling omission was the commonly known phrase 'Black Velvet'. The lapse could be considered a deliberate attempt to mask the expression's explicit reference to the tactile sensations associated with illicit white contact with racialised genitals. However tracing its use reveals that the phrase exclusively pertained to white men's sexualisation of Aboriginal women. Aboriginal women were not 'Black Velvet' to Japanese men, indicating this colloquial language played a role in establishing settlers' sense of proprietorial ownership of Aboriginal women's bodies - quite literally, for whom Aboriginal women were out-of-bounds.
{"title":"'Black velvet' and 'purple Indignation': Print responses to Japanese 'poaching' of Aboriginal women","authors":"Liz Conor","doi":"10.22459/AH.37.2013.03","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.22459/AH.37.2013.03","url":null,"abstract":"In 1936 a flurry of newspaper reports alleged widespread prostitution of Aboriginal women and girls to Japanese pearlers. The claims had a dramatic impact. Within weeks of them being printed a report was placed before the Department of the Interior. A vessel was commissioned to patrol the Arnhem Land coast. The allegations were raised at the first meeting of State Aboriginal protection authorities. Cabinet closed Australian waters to foreign pearling craft and a control base was established in the Tiwi Islands. Japanese luggers were fired upon with machine guns and a crew detained in Darwin. These escalating events occurred within five years of a series of attacks on Japanese by Aborigines (culminating in the infamous Caledon Bay spearing of five trepangers, along with the killings of two white men and one policeman on Woodah Island), and only five years before Australian and Japanese forces waged war. Much ink was spilt over the course of this print scandal, and while reports made use of established language such as 'vice' and 'outrage', a telling omission was the commonly known phrase 'Black Velvet'. The lapse could be considered a deliberate attempt to mask the expression's explicit reference to the tactile sensations associated with illicit white contact with racialised genitals. However tracing its use reveals that the phrase exclusively pertained to white men's sexualisation of Aboriginal women. Aboriginal women were not 'Black Velvet' to Japanese men, indicating this colloquial language played a role in establishing settlers' sense of proprietorial ownership of Aboriginal women's bodies - quite literally, for whom Aboriginal women were out-of-bounds.","PeriodicalId":42397,"journal":{"name":"Aboriginal History","volume":"2 1","pages":"51-76"},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2013-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"88092102","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The excerpt is a transcription of fieldwork footage filmed during the Carols by Candlelight festivities in December 2004 in the Lutheran Australian Aboriginal community of Hopevale, Northern Queensland. It documents the speech given by local Indigenous Pastor George Rosendale in which he reflected on the Lutheran heritage of the former Northern Queensland Hopevale Mission.2 He urged local Indigenous people to seek support in their Lutheran religious heritage of three generations suggesting it might encourage them to reflect on the level of alcohol misuse in the community and alter their ways. He stated that the excessive drinking habits of many local Indigenous people is a negative way in which they seek to imitate white Anglo-Australian culture. As an alternative, Pastor Rosendale advocated that not only should Hopevalians seek support in their Lutheran faith, but that they should also consider Indigenising it through re-introducing the practice of singing Christian songs in their local Indigenous language Guugu Yimithirr, as opposed to English. He also referred to the German heritage of the Lutheran faith and suggests that the loss of faith and the increasing loss of language competency in Guugu Yimithirr amongst the local population are causing a loss of pride. This is because, Pastor Rosendale believes, the singing of hymns in the local language is more meaningful and speaks to the heart as people are better able to understand how they are worshipping.
{"title":"'We are Lutherans from Germany': Music, language, social history and change in Hopevale","authors":"M. S. Reigersberg","doi":"10.22459/AH.36.2013.05","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.22459/AH.36.2013.05","url":null,"abstract":"The excerpt is a transcription of fieldwork footage filmed during the Carols by Candlelight festivities in December 2004 in the Lutheran Australian Aboriginal community of Hopevale, Northern Queensland. It documents the speech given by local Indigenous Pastor George Rosendale in which he reflected on the Lutheran heritage of the former Northern Queensland Hopevale Mission.2 He urged local Indigenous people to seek support in their Lutheran religious heritage of three generations suggesting it might encourage them to reflect on the level of alcohol misuse in the community and alter their ways. He stated that the excessive drinking habits of many local Indigenous people is a negative way in which they seek to imitate white Anglo-Australian culture. As an alternative, Pastor Rosendale advocated that not only should Hopevalians seek support in their Lutheran faith, but that they should also consider Indigenising it through re-introducing the practice of singing Christian songs in their local Indigenous language Guugu Yimithirr, as opposed to English. He also referred to the German heritage of the Lutheran faith and suggests that the loss of faith and the increasing loss of language competency in Guugu Yimithirr amongst the local population are causing a loss of pride. This is because, Pastor Rosendale believes, the singing of hymns in the local language is more meaningful and speaks to the heart as people are better able to understand how they are worshipping.","PeriodicalId":42397,"journal":{"name":"Aboriginal History","volume":"12 1","pages":"99"},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2013-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"84198894","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
One fine and warm winter morning in May 1942, the Poonbar, a medium-sized coastal vessel, steamed into the Endeavour River at Cooktown, North Queensland, and berthed at the town's wharf. After she tied up, over 200 Aboriginal people carrying a small amount of personal possessions emerged from a cargo shed on the wharf. The people were herded by about a dozen uniformed Queensland police as they boarded the boat. The loading, completed in just over an hour, was supervised by three military officers, two senior police and a civilian public servant. As the ship cast off, the public servant, who boarded the boat with the Aboriginal people, threw a coin to a constable on the wharf and shouted 'Wire Cairns for a meal!' Unfortunately, the wire did not arrive at Cairns in time, and as a result the party of Aboriginal people was given little food until they reached their destination, 1200 kilometres and two day's travel away.
{"title":"'What a howl there would be if some of our folk were so treated by an enemy': The evacuation of Aboriginal people from Cape Bedford Mission, 1942","authors":"Jonathan Richards","doi":"10.22459/AH.36.2013.04","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.22459/AH.36.2013.04","url":null,"abstract":"One fine and warm winter morning in May 1942, the Poonbar, a medium-sized coastal vessel, steamed into the Endeavour River at Cooktown, North Queensland, and berthed at the town's wharf. After she tied up, over 200 Aboriginal people carrying a small amount of personal possessions emerged from a cargo shed on the wharf. The people were herded by about a dozen uniformed Queensland police as they boarded the boat. The loading, completed in just over an hour, was supervised by three military officers, two senior police and a civilian public servant. As the ship cast off, the public servant, who boarded the boat with the Aboriginal people, threw a coin to a constable on the wharf and shouted 'Wire Cairns for a meal!' Unfortunately, the wire did not arrive at Cairns in time, and as a result the party of Aboriginal people was given little food until they reached their destination, 1200 kilometres and two day's travel away.","PeriodicalId":42397,"journal":{"name":"Aboriginal History","volume":"54 2 1","pages":"67-98"},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2013-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"83231352","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
In recent decades historians have been turning from a national towards a transnational framework to examine the patterns and processes of colonial governance. This paper aims to contribute to those debates by examining the roles and outcomes of ration distribution as an institutionalised tool of Aboriginal governance on the nineteenth century settler frontiers of colonial Australia and north-west Canada. In so doing it is not our aim to rehearse established scholarship on the history of rations policy in specific times and localities,2 but to consider the degree to which the evolution of rationing policies reflects shared administrative goals and dilemmas in Aboriginal governance across different colonial contexts. To date, there has been little attention to the role of rationing policy across Australia's colonies, let alone in comparison with other jurisdictions of British settlement. In some key respects, Australia from the 1840s and western Canada from the 1870s represent two ends of a spectrum in shared colonial policy across British settler colonies. On the one hand, they shared a set of similarities in the issues and problems their governments faced with the rapid expansion of settlement after the mid-nineteenth century, of securing Aboriginal people's amenability to British rule, and of approaching the management of Aboriginal populations through a mixture of conciliatory and coercive measures. On the other hand, administrative approaches to Aboriginal peoples in these two jurisdictions evolved in light of some crucial differences.
{"title":"Food and governance on the frontiers of colonial Australia and Canada's North West Territories","authors":"A. Nettelbeck, R. Foster","doi":"10.22459/AH.36.2013.02","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.22459/AH.36.2013.02","url":null,"abstract":"In recent decades historians have been turning from a national towards a transnational framework to examine the patterns and processes of colonial governance. This paper aims to contribute to those debates by examining the roles and outcomes of ration distribution as an institutionalised tool of Aboriginal governance on the nineteenth century settler frontiers of colonial Australia and north-west Canada. In so doing it is not our aim to rehearse established scholarship on the history of rations policy in specific times and localities,2 but to consider the degree to which the evolution of rationing policies reflects shared administrative goals and dilemmas in Aboriginal governance across different colonial contexts. To date, there has been little attention to the role of rationing policy across Australia's colonies, let alone in comparison with other jurisdictions of British settlement. In some key respects, Australia from the 1840s and western Canada from the 1870s represent two ends of a spectrum in shared colonial policy across British settler colonies. On the one hand, they shared a set of similarities in the issues and problems their governments faced with the rapid expansion of settlement after the mid-nineteenth century, of securing Aboriginal people's amenability to British rule, and of approaching the management of Aboriginal populations through a mixture of conciliatory and coercive measures. On the other hand, administrative approaches to Aboriginal peoples in these two jurisdictions evolved in light of some crucial differences.","PeriodicalId":42397,"journal":{"name":"Aboriginal History","volume":"32 1","pages":"21"},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2013-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"74950778","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Through My Eyes (1978) was among the first Aboriginal women's narratives available to a mainstream audience. Ella Simon, a prominent Biripi woman from Taree on the mid north coast of New South Wales, made oral recordings of her life story in 1973. She was determined that her resultant autobiography would prove to Aboriginal and white readers alike that 'white and black can live together; that they've got a lot in common'. Ella Simon believed that publishing her life story would provide a forum for her complex and then controversial views on assimilation. This article contests, on the contrary, that the editorial process that transformed Simon's oral recordings into a written text did not respect nor accurately convey Ella Simon's views on how 'white and black' could 'live together'. By examining transcripts of Simon's original oral recordings, I demonstrate how lack of cultural literacy amongst her non-Aboriginal collaborators led to the prioritisation of monocultural understanding of assimilation, to the detriment of Simon's more pluralist views.
{"title":"Assimilation discourses and the production of Ella Simon's 'through my eyes'","authors":"J. Jones","doi":"10.22459/AH.36.2013.01","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.22459/AH.36.2013.01","url":null,"abstract":"Through My Eyes (1978) was among the first Aboriginal women's narratives available to a mainstream audience. Ella Simon, a prominent Biripi woman from Taree on the mid north coast of New South Wales, made oral recordings of her life story in 1973. She was determined that her resultant autobiography would prove to Aboriginal and white readers alike that 'white and black can live together; that they've got a lot in common'. Ella Simon believed that publishing her life story would provide a forum for her complex and then controversial views on assimilation. This article contests, on the contrary, that the editorial process that transformed Simon's oral recordings into a written text did not respect nor accurately convey Ella Simon's views on how 'white and black' could 'live together'. By examining transcripts of Simon's original oral recordings, I demonstrate how lack of cultural literacy amongst her non-Aboriginal collaborators led to the prioritisation of monocultural understanding of assimilation, to the detriment of Simon's more pluralist views.","PeriodicalId":42397,"journal":{"name":"Aboriginal History","volume":"20 8 1","pages":"1"},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2013-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"80668755","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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