Aboriginal use of fire as a weapon in Colonial Victoria : a preliminary analysis
- Authors: Clark, Ian , Cahir, David (Fred) , Wilkie, Benjamin , Tout, Dan , Clark, Jidah
- Date: 2023
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Australian Historical Studies Vol. 54, no. 1 (2023), p. 109-124
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- Description: The use of fire as an offensive and defensive weapon on the colonial frontier in Australia has received little scholarly attention. This article aims to build on insights from current historiography about the customary use of fire by Aboriginal peoples within the borders of Victoria, Australia. Specifically, our aim is to highlight the historically significant role Aboriginal peoples’ use of fire played in resisting the colonists in Victoria during the colonial period. By closely scrutinising documentary records it is possible to demonstrate that Aboriginal people used fire, both offensively and defensively, against the colonists. © Editorial Board, Australian Historical Studies 2023.
The Importance of the koala in Aboriginal society in nineteenth-century Queensland (Australia) : a reconsideration of the archival record
- Authors: Cahir, David (Fred) , Schlagloth, Rolf , Clark, Ian
- Date: 2022
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Anthrozoos Vol. 35, no. 1 (2022), p. 75-89
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- Description: The principal purpose of this study was to gain a greater understanding of the utilitarian and symbolic significance of koalas for Aboriginal communities in Queensland, Australia as recorded by colonists during the early period of colonization and the early twentieth century. It does this primarily through a close examination of the nineteenth-century and early twentieth-century archival records and contemporary publications that relate to Queensland Aboriginal peoples’ associations with koalas. This paper is the third in a series investigating the historic and cultural importance of the koala according to the location in Australia. It likewise employs the historical method approach, which relies on identifying historical sources, evaluating their relative authority, and combining their testimony appropriately in order to construct an accurate and reliable picture of past events and environments. Through a critique of the published historical sources, the distribution of and the etymology of “koala” are briefly discussed before an examination is made of the animal’s spiritual importance, associated cultural traditions, and simultaneous utilitarian role. Mirroring previous studies published by the authors on Victoria and New South Wales, we confirm that the predominately non-Aboriginal historical records reveal that koalas were hunted for food and their skin in some Queensland regions. It shall be seen that the ethno-historical records are inconclusive about the koala’s distribution in Queensland, whether they were hunted across all of the state at the point of colonization and whether they were considered an integral food source in some regions. Furthermore, this study demonstrates that the extent to which they were used varied across regions and between language groups and was subject to certain rules, and that their spiritual significance can be traced directly to epic creation stories. The implications of this paper are consistent with the earlier New South Wales and Victorian studies: regional variations exist in Queensland in relation to the (pre-colonial, colonial and post-colonial) historic relationship between Aboriginal communities and koalas and that close consultation with Aboriginal communities needs to be taken into consideration when planning conservation measures relating to koalas. © 2021 International Society for Anthrozoology (ISAZ).
Aboriginal interactions and associations with the hospitality industry in colonial Victoria, 1835-70
- Authors: Clark, Ian
- Date: 2020
- Type: Text , Book chapter
- Relation: Colonialism, Tourism and Place Chapter 4 p. 44-57
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- Description: This paper is concerned with the emergence of hospitality in Colonial Victoria, and is part of ongoing research into understanding Victoria’s ‘tourism era of discovery’, which focuses on the embryonic or emergent phase in which the tourism and hospitality industry is coming into being. Travellers’ accounts and other contemporary sources are used to provide insights into Victoria’s nascent hospitality - through them we should be able to see the various places that were emerging as settlements in the colonial space. It offers a social history of Aboriginal interactions and associations with bush inns including camping sites; cultural performances; alcohol consumption; restrictions on serving alcohol to Aboriginal people; and sites of violence. In the pre-gold period, accommodation responded to the needs of pastoral travellers and reflected physical discontinuities such as river crossings, which were logical places to stop and rest. These discontinuities also became opportunities for interactions with Aboriginal peoples
Colonialism, tourism and place global transformations in tourist destinations
- Authors: Linehan, Denis , Clark, Ian , Xie, Phillip
- Date: 2020
- Type: Text , Book
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- Description: This unique book examines the vital and contested connections between colonialism and tourism, which are as lively and charged today as ever before. Demonstrating how much of the marketing of these destinations represents the constant renewal of colonialism in the tourism business, this book illustrates how actors in the worldwide tourism industry continue to benefit from the colonial roots of globalisation.
Introduction
- Authors: Linehan, Denis , Clark, Ian , Xie, Phillip
- Date: 2020
- Type: Text , Book chapter
- Relation: Colonialism, Tourism and Place p. 1-11
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- Description: The vital and contested connections between colonialism and tourism are as lively and charged today as they ever were. From staged weddings in Mauritius, curated walks through the Medina of Tunis, surfing off the high-rise hotel development at Waikiki or riding on an Elephant Safari Tour in Himachal Pradesh, much of the marketing of these kinds of destinations represent the constant renewal of coloniality in the tourism business. Actors in the worldwide tourism industry continue to benefit from the colonial roots of globalisation. The ownership of tourist infrastructures, for example, airlines, hotel booking systems and resorts, are restructured by a neo-colonial order. Colonialism is echoed in the imaginations of tourists, in the marketing of destinations and in the production of touristified landscapes. Whether found on bespoke tours, or at resorts or tourist attractions, strategies to package the colonial past have arguably become more sophisticated through the situated and exciting offers encountered variously through specialist accommodation, architecture, food, stories and design. The growth in tourism and its intensi- fication and expansion into new markets has amplified the encounters with history and memory. Hélène Cixous’s (2004: 55) aphorism ‘everything passes, except the past’ presents a potent guide in commencing our thinking on these issues. As much as time is receding, the colonial past is growing in influence. Many societies find themselves cast into situations where they variously elide, exploit and re-negotiate their relationships to their colonial experience (Strachan, 2002) "From introduction"
The historic importance of the koala in Aboriginal Society in New South Wales, Australia : an exploration of the archival record
- Authors: Cahir, David (Fred) , Schlagloth, Rolf , Clark, Ian
- Date: 2020
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Ab-original Vol. 3, no. 2 (2020), p. 172-191
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- Description: Abstract The principal aim of this study is to provide a detailed examination of nineteenth- and early twentieth-century archival records that relate to New South Wales Aboriginal peoples' associations with koalas and gain a greater understanding of the utilitarian and symbolic significance of koalas for Aboriginal communities as recorded by colonists during the early period of colonization. Anthropological discussions about the role and significance of koalas in Australian Aboriginal society have been limited, some sources are unreliable and interpretation is at times divisive. Many scholars have previously highlighted how using only historical sources as its reference point it is difficult to discern with great specificity that Aboriginal peoples in other regions of New South Wales commonly ate the koala and used its skin. Through a critique of historical sources, we demonstrate that the ethno-historical evidence is inconclusive as to whether they were an integral food source for much of the time period covered by this paper in the area now called the state of New South Wales. Furthermore, this study demonstrates that the extent of their use varied across regions and between tribal groups and was likely to have been traditionally associated with lore specific to certain cultural groups, and may have involved dreaming stories, and gendered roles in hunting and resource use, and other aspects of spiritual belief systems.
Volcanism in Aboriginal Australian oral traditions : ethnographic evidence from the newer volcanics province
- Authors: Wilkie, Benjamin , Cahir, David (Fred) , Clark, Ian
- Date: 2020
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Journal of Volcanology and Geothermal Research Vol. 403, no. (2020), p. 1-11
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- Description: This article collects and presents nineteenth-century ethnographic evidence from the Newer Volcanics Province of Australia and explores how volcanism was recorded and understood in Aboriginal oral traditions. It investigates whether Aboriginal Australian oral traditions can be understood as persistent eyewitness accounts of volcanic eruptions in the Newer Volcanics Province, how andwhat kind of geological and volcanological knowledge was embedded within Aboriginal Australian oral traditions, and considers what value the ethnographic evidence has for understanding both the socio-cultural and geological histories of the Newer Volcanics Province.
'Of one blood': An appreciation of the life of Yarley Yarmin
- Authors: Clark, Ian
- Date: 2019
- Type: Text , Book chapter
- Relation: Pay Dirt Chapter 3 p.
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Corroborees in Goldrush Victoria
- Authors: Cahir, David (Fred) , Clark, Ian
- Date: 2019
- Type: Text , Book chapter
- Relation: Pay dirt! : Ballarat and other gold towns Chapter 2 p.
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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.
Aboriginal biocultural knowledge in South-eastern Australia : Perspectives of early colonists
- Authors: Cahir, David (Fred) , Clark, Ian , Clarke, Philip
- Date: 2018
- Type: Text , Book
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- Description: Indigenous Australians have long understood sustainable hunting and harvesting, seasonal changes in flora and fauna, predator-prey relationships and imbalances, and seasonal fire management. Yet the extent of their knowledge and expertise has been largely unknown and under-appreciated by non-Aboriginal colonists, especially in the south-east of Australia where Aboriginal culture was severely fractured. Aboriginal Biocultural Knowledge in South-eastern Australia is the first book to examine historical records from early colonists who interacted with south-eastern Australian Aboriginal communities and documented their understanding of the environment, natural resources such as water and plant and animal foods, medicine and other aspects of their material world. This book provides a compelling case for the importance of understanding Indigenous knowledge, to inform discussions around climate change, biodiversity, resource management, health and education. It will be a valuable reference for natural resource management agencies, academics in Indigenous studies and anyone interested in Aboriginal culture and knowledge.
From amiability to acrimony: William le souëf and his relationships with george augustus robinson and charles joseph la trobe
- Authors: Clark, Ian
- Date: 2018
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: La Trobeana: Journal of the C.J. La Trobe Society Inc Vol. 17, no. 2 (2018), p. 22-32
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- Description: William Le Souëf 1 was the fifth and final person to be appointed an assistant protector in the Port Phillip Aboriginal Protectorate when he replaced James Dredge in the Goulburn River District in July 1840. Despite some procrastination by Chief Protector, George Augustus Robinson, but with the urging of Superintendent Charles Joseph La Trobe, Le Souëf filled the vacancy created by Dredge’s resignation. Yet by the end of the year, those in authority were in agreement that he was unfit for service. This paper is the first detailed exploration of William Le Souëf and his relationships with both Robinson and La Trobe.
Healing
- Authors: Clark, Ian
- Date: 2018
- Type: Text , Book chapter
- Relation: Aboriginal biocultural knowledge in South-Eastern Australia Chapter 12 p. 209-228
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- Description: Plants feature prominently in Aboriginal remedies chiefly used to relieve symptoms such as fever, congestion, headache, skin sores, tired or swollen aching limbs and digestive problems. Treatment can involve drinks, washes, massages and aromatherapies. The drinks are made by heating water with plant additives, and in Aboriginal English are commonly referred to as ‘tea’. Since European colonisation, washes are prepared by boiling plants, with the cooled liquid applied externally to the body. Some plants are heated, then rubbed or massaged into swollen parts of the patient’s body. The aroma of plants is generally transferred to the patient through contact with steam and smoke (Clarke 2008b, pp. 12– 13).
Introduction: Aboriginal Bio-cultural Knowledge in Southeast Australia
- Authors: Clarke, Philip , Cahir, David (Fred) , Clark, Ian
- Date: 2018
- Type: Text , Book chapter
- Relation: Aboriginal Biocultural Knowledge in South-Eastern Australia Introduction p. xv-xxiv
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The disputatious protector - William le Souëf : A history
- Authors: Clark, Ian
- Date: 2018
- Type: Text , Book
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- Description: This book is the first detailed biography of William Le Souef and, amongst other things, explores his relationships with Aboriginal people and with his superiors - Robinson and La Trobe - when he was employed as assistant protector. It does this using the qualitative research methodologies of interpretive biography and thick description. It makes use of contemporary publications, protectorate records, personal diaries, familty records, and newspaper articles.
The importance of the Koala in Aboriginal society in nineteenth-century Victoria (Australia) : A reconsideration of the archival record
- Authors: Schlagloth, Rolf , Cahir, David (Fred) , Clark, Ian
- Date: 2018
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Anthrozoos Vol. 31, no. 4 (2018), p. 433-441
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- Description: The principal aim of this study was to provide a close examination of nineteenth-century archival records that relate to Victorian Aboriginal people’s associations with koalas, in order to gain a greater understanding of the utilitarian and symbolic significance of koalas for Aboriginal communities, as recorded by colonists during the early period of colonization. The etymology of “koala” is discussed, before an examination is made of the animal’s spiritual importance, associated cultural traditions, and simultaneous utilitarian role. At the time of European colonization in 1788, koalas were probably found in coastal and lowland forests and woodlands across southern, central and north-eastern Victoria.
Bunyip, Bunjil and mother-in-law avoidance : New insights into the interpretation of Bunjils Shelter, Victoria, Australia
- Authors: Clark, Ian
- Date: 2017
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Rock Art Research Vol. 34, no. 2 (2017), p. 189-192
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- Description: Bunjils Shelter in the Black Range near Stawell, Victoria, Australia, is generally regarded as one of the most significant rock art sites in Victoria. However, its provenance has been marked by nagging doubts about its authenticity, and for a short period of time it was delisted from the site register of the Victoria Archaeological Survey. A 1925 newspaper article by Rev. John Mathew based on information he obtained from a Wimmera Aboriginal woman at Lake Tyers Aboriginal station in 1924 has the potential to augment the interpretive significance of the site. We now know that the site is commemorative of a major clash between Bunjil and Bunyip and is interwoven with the principle of mother-in-law avoidance. This paper briefly revisits the history of the provenance of the site before discussing the 'new' interpretation.
Onomastic palimpsests and Indigenous renaming : Examples from Victoria
- Authors: Clark, Ian
- Date: 2017
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Names: A Journal of Onomastics Vol. 65, no. 4 (2017), p. 215-222
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- Description: This paper is concerned with onomastic palimpsests in Victoria, Australia, focusing in particular on the 1870s, when the deliberate erasure of colonial names and their replacement with Indigenous names was at the forefront of government policy. In contextualizing this reinstatement of Indigenous toponyms, the paper highlights the agency of parliamentarian and government minister Hon. Robert Ramsay. The primary sources of data are newspaper articles and official government reports. The methodology used is “thick description”. The findings reveal that the government’s efforts were grounded in the collection and collation of place names and vocabulary from Aboriginal people in the previous decade by district surveyors and other local officials. Consistent with recent campaigns in Victoria, the sustained efforts by governments in the 1870s were driven by a desire to remove duplication, erase inappropriate non-Aboriginal place names, and preserve Aboriginal place names. The campaign is unparalleled in the history of Victoria’s toponymic administration.
‘Aboriginal people and frontier violence: The letters of richard hanmer bunbury to his father, 1841-1847’
- Authors: Clark, Ian
- Date: 2017
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: La Trobeana: Journal of the C.J. La Trobe Society Inc Vol. 16, no. 1 (01/01 2017), p. 25-40
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- Description: In 1841, twenty‑eight year old Richard Hanmer Bunbury, a veteran of service in the Royal Navy, which left him with only one hand, arrived in the Port Phillip District of New South Wales, gripped by an ‘epidemical rage for colonisation’. Through close relationships with officials such as Charles Joseph La Trobe, he lost no time in pursuing squatting interests in the Grampians (Gariwerd) district. This paper examines his relationships with the Djab Wurrung Aboriginal people1 of Mount William (Duwil), and publishes extracts from his correspondence with his father on Aboriginal matters. It reveals that although he made many perceptive observations of Aboriginal lifeways, he accepted the view, common on the frontier, that Europeans should be armed at all times, and that Aboriginal people could not be trusted around stations.