ABORIGINAL HISTORY

Contains Special Section: Asian Aboriginal History, on Indigenous-Asian historical relations. The editors of the section are Dr Christine Choo and Dr Peta Stephenson

Edited by Dr Shino Konishi and Dr Maria Nugent

Volume 34 is a diverse collection. The articles share an interest in exploring cross-cultural interactions and negotiations between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people, through both intimate and public relations and through knowledge production, be it cultural or political. The articles admirably demonstrate how these key themes can be explored through the historical archive, whilst also revealing the sheer diversity of the archive which includes material culture, still and moving images, language sources and performances. Some of these articles also illustrate the rich research produced through working collaboratively with Indigenous communities in order to reinterpret and historicise archival images or objects, or meticulously track changes in language use. Other authors have emphasised Indigenous performativity. They have teased out the delicate and complex negotiations Aboriginal people have engaged in, either willingly or under duress, in order to satisfy demands from audiences for expressions of culture and identity, while also using those opportunities for self-expression. Volume 34 reflects Aboriginal History's continuing commitment to exploring diverse aspects of Indigenous Australian history in original ways. Many of the contributors have uncovered new histories and sources, while others have re-interpreted more familiar sources in fresh and innovative ways. All of the articles offer new insights into the Aboriginal past and present.

Preface
Mitchell Rolls: Why didn’t you listen: white noise and black history
Felicity Jensz: Controlling marriages: Friedrich Hagenauer and the betrothal of Indigenous Western Australian women in colonial Victoria
Ann McGrath: Shamrock Aborigines: the Irish, the Aboriginal Australians and their children
Meg Parsons: Defining disease, segregating race: Sir Raphael Cilento, Aboriginal health and leprosy management in twentieth century Queensland 
Pamela Faye McGrath and David Brooks: Their Darkest Hour: the films and photographs of William Grayden and the history of the ‘Warburton Range controversy’ of 1957
Martin Thomas: A short history of the 1948 Arnhem Land Expedition
Sylvia Kleinert: Aboriginal Enterprises: negotiating an urban Aboriginality
Jessie Mitchell: ‘It will enlarge the ideas of the natives’: Indigenous Australians and the tour of Prince Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh
Petter Naessan: The etymology of Coober Pedy, South Australia

Book Reviews 

Tripping over Feathers: Scenes in the Life of Joy Jananka Wiradjuri Williams, by Peter Read
Anna Cole
Daisy Bates, Grand Dame of the Desert by Bob Reece
Paul Monaghan
Donald Thomson, the Man and Scholar, edited by Bruce Rigsby and Nicolas Peterson
Nancy Williams
Between Indigenous Australia and Europe: John Mawurndjul: Art Histories in Context edited by Claus Volkenandt and Christian Kauffman
Ian McLean
Pemulwuy: The Rainbow Warrior by Eric Willmot
Emma Dortins
Arrernte Present, Arrernte Past: Invasion, Violence, and Imagination in Indigenous Central Australia by Diane Austin-Broos
James Warden
Palm Island: Through a Long Lens by Joanna Watson
Jonathan Richards
Aboriginal Business: Alliances in a Remote Australian Town, by Kimberly Christen
Petronella Vaarzon-Morel
Yuendumu Everyday: Contemporary Life in Remote Aboriginal Australia by Yasmine Musharbash
Mary Laughren
Dog Ear Cafe: How the Mt Theo Program Beat the Curse of Petrol Sniffing by Andrew Stojanovski
Jane Simpson
Murray River Country: an Ecological Dialogue with the Traditional Owners by Jessica K Weir
Mary-Anne Gale

Also forthcoming
Special section: Asian Aboriginal History

Part of a forthcoming issue will contain a section on Indigenous-Asian historical relations. The editors of the section are Dr Christine Choo and Dr Peta Stephenson.

In her recent magisterial history of early Sydney, Grace Karskens mused on a critical distinction in emphasis between settler history and Aboriginal history: ‘in settler history we seem to be searching constantly for beginnings’, she notes, ‘but in Aboriginal history in the colonial period so often the search is for endings’. This preoccupation with endings especially haunts the ‘storywork’ surrounding Woollarawarre Bennelong, one of the best known but least understood Aboriginal men of the early colonial era. Most of this storywork has figured Bennelong as a tragic soul – caught between two worlds, reconciled to neither, the victim of an addiction that was his only means of enduring the fall. Despite some variations in the telling of his life with the British colonists, the tragedy of his end usually dominates the overall tone.

A reconsideration of one of the most significant Aboriginal figures in colonial history invites us to move away from the search for endings. It suggests a fresh start for the life of Bennelong. It also suggests a fresh start for the meaning of Bennelong in Australia’s modern imagination. If Bennelong’s life stands for any greater truth, it is that indigenous people begin new relations when history demands them as frequently and as variously as any other folk.

Contents

Notes and documents

Kate Darian-Smith: Oral histories of childhood and playlore: the Aboriginal Children’s Play Project, Museum Victoria
Christina Eira: Not tigers – sisters! Advances in the interpretation of historical source spellings for Dhudhuroa and Waywurru
Ann Curthoys launches Transgressions: Critical Australian Indigenous Histories
Susan Upton launches Culture in Translation: The Anthropological Legacy of RH Mathews
John Williams: A tribute to Colin Campbell, an elder of the Ngaku clan and the Dhunghutti nation (1942–2008)
Bob Reece: Lois Joan Tilbrook (1943–2006)

Review

Ann McGrath: Papunya Art

Book reviews