The tourism spectacle of fire making at Coranderrk Aboriginal Station, Victoria, Australia–a case study
- Authors: Clark, Ian , McMaster, Sarah , Roberts, Phillip , Cahir, David (Fred) , Wright, Wendy
- Date: 2020
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Journal of Heritage Tourism Vol. 15, no. 3 (2020), p. 249-266
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- Description: This paper explores the emergence of traditional Aboriginal fire making practices as a tourism spectacle at the Coranderrk Aboriginal Station near Healesville, Victoria, Australia, in the late nineteenth century. Coranderrk was an important site where domestic and international tourism intersected with efforts of the state to Europeanise and Christianise its Aboriginal residents. It highlights the agency of Aboriginal people in this emergence. Through a survey of the myriad uses of fire in Aboriginal society, it contrasts Aboriginal methods of making fire with European methods as a way of contextualising the tourist interest in fire making demonstrations. Fire making was the perfect foil for tourism – it easily incorporated aspects of performance – such as the build, the show, the closer, and the hat. The skill of fire making was a demonstration of ‘Aboriginality’, and its appropriation by tourism was a means by which a traditional craft was maintained and sustained. © 2019, © 2019 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.
Exchange on the maritime frontier of southern Australia
- Authors: Cahir, David (Fred) , Clark, Ian , Wright, Wendy
- Date: 2019
- Type: Text , Book chapter
- Relation: The First Wave: Exploring coastal contact history in Australia Chapter 12 p. 174-192
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- Description: The intimate cross-cultural narratives that ocure when British and other European mariners maded early contacts with Australian Aboriginal people have been investigated in a number of influential historical works, including Reynolds's "The other side of the frontier", Shellam's SHaking hand on the fringe', and Clendinnen's Dancing with strangers, This chapter will draw onfrom the concepts established in these workks and explore three facets of early interculturla exchange on the maritime frontier of south-eastern Australia (1790s-1840s) through written narratives focusing on food, tools and story-telling. "From chapter".
Understanding maritime explorers and others as ngamadjidj
- Authors: Clark, Ian , Cahir, David (Fred) , Wright, Wendy
- Date: 2019
- Type: Text , Book chapter
- Relation: The First wave :Exploring early coastal contact history in Australia Chapter 3 p. 23-37
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- Description: This chapter examines Indigenous narratives of first contact in south eastern Australia with a particular focus on Victoria and draws on ethnohistory, ethnography and thick description to offer a nuanced understanding of these encounters. Early interactions were framed within an attempt to incorporate Europeans within existing cosmological and social orders. Fragments of Aboriginal accounts of their first interactions with Europeans survive in the written recordds of early settleers and public administratorsm and although they are not extensive they nevertheless provide us with glimpses of Aboriginal understanding of these initial encounters. Victorian Aboriginal perceptions of their first contact with European settlers have been studied by Clark, and Clark and Cahir.
Winda lingo parugoneit or Why set the bush on fire? Fire and Victorian Aboriginal people on the colonial frontier
- Authors: Cahir, David (Fred) , McMaster, Sarah , Clark, Ian , Kerin, Rani , Wright, Wendy
- Date: 2016
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Australian Historical Studies Vol. 47, no. 2 (2016), p. 225-240
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- Description: There is an ethnographic and historical record that, despite its paucity, can offer specific insight into various contextual matters (purpose, motivations, acknowledgement) relating to how and why fire was being used by Victorian Aboriginal people in the nineteenth century. This insight is essential to developing cross-culturally appropriate land and fire management strategies in the present and into the future. This article demonstrates the need for further research into historical accounts of Aboriginal burning in Victoria.