- Title
- Understanding Ngamadjidi: Aboriginal perceptions of Europeans in nineteenth century Western Victoria
- Creator
- Clark, Ian; Cahir, David (Fred)
- Date
- 2011
- Type
- Text; Journal article
- Identifier
- http://researchonline.federation.edu.au/vital/access/HandleResolver/1959.17/65618
- Identifier
- vital:4982
- Identifier
- ISSN:1441-0370
- Abstract
- This article considers how Aboriginal people in western Victoria understood the arrival of Europeans, particularly how Aboriginal groups in that region reportedly recognised Europeans as deceased clan members who had returned to life. According to R.H. Mathews, the belief in transmigration or reincarnation was widespread during the early years of European settlement, being 'observed in every part of Australia where investigations have been made'. In western Victoria these resuscitated people were known as ngamadjidj (generally translated by linguists as 'stranger' or 'white man'). Tony Swain argues that the classification of Whites as deceased Aboriginal people have been misunderstood as merely 'a quaint instance of an aboriginal failure to comprehend novel events' reflecting a general poverty of scholarship in the area. This article will consider numerous first-hand accounts by whites identified as ngamadjidj, as well some of the more recent anthropological and historical comments on the subject, in order to make observations on what this phenomenon tells us about Aboriginal and European interpretations of one another, and how it shaped racial relationships.
- Relation
- Journal of Australian Colonial History Vol. 13, no. 1 (2011), p. 105-124
- Rights
- Copyright Authors
- Rights
- This metadata is freely available under a CCO license
- Rights
- Culturally sensitive
- Subject
- 2103 Historical Studies; Aboriginal history; Aboriginal religion; History
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