Description:
This article examines the evidence for land succession in western Victoria and considers the fission, fusion, and extinction of some clan groups at the time of contact with non-Aboriginal people in the late 1830s and 1840s. A special study is made of the intriguing scraps of evidence surrounding Knenknenwurrung. This appears to be the case of a cluster of related clans fragmenting and being absorbed into contiguous language groups¾some into Djadjawurrung, some Jardwadjali, and the majority absorbed into Djabwurrung. Exactly when this fragmentation and fission occurred is unclear, but certainly within the living memory of Aboriginal people in the early 1840s.
Description:
In the 1960s Australian historians were criticized for being the ``high priests'' of a cult of forgetfulness, for neglecting Aboriginal history, and for excluding a whole quadrant of the landscape from their research. In this article, the authors argue that the same criticisms may be leveled at the interpretation of goldfields history. Taking the Goldfields Tourism Region in western Victoria as their focus, the authors show the richness of the Aboriginal side of the goldfields story, and show that their exclusion from this story is not due to a lack of material. On the contrary, the barriers that exclude Aboriginal experiences from goldfields tourism are based on the perception and choice of tourism agencies and managers. The practice of history of the Sovereign Hill Museums Association in Ballarat serves as a case study for this article. The authors argue that the heritage industry has a responsibility to ensure that Aboriginal experiences are not excluded from their interpretation. Just as the writing of mainstream history had for many years dispossessed Aboriginal peoples and kept them out of sight, and out of mind, it is time for the historiography of gold to reappraise its ideology and find a balance that no longer excludes Aboriginal themes that have a legitimate place in goldfields history. There are several ways that Sovereign Hill may present indigenous perspectives as it interprets the history of gold mining in Ballarat and Victoria from 1850. More information can be made available, by such means as a series of publications ranging from books to Web pages and activity sheets for children. Interpretive displays focusing on the specificity of Aboriginal people and gold, centered around the themes reviewed in this article, could be constructed. Aboriginal guides could interpret this rich heritage for visitors to the museum. Aboriginal people were present on the Ballarat goldfields, and elsewhere, in many capacities, as Native Police, as miners, guides, and gold finders, as wives and sexual partners, as farmers and entrepreneurs trading cultural items and food, and as local residents going about their everyday lives, staging corroborees and other forms of interaction with other inhabitants. Many of these interactions could be ``activated'' by Aboriginal people; for example, there is scope for activation of the corroborees staged in Ballarat in the 1850s, of the Aboriginal encounter of the traveling musical troupe as witnessed by Antoine Fauchery, of the trade between Aboriginal people and miners, and of the critical role played by the Aboriginal Native Police in maintaining law and order in Ballarat and other goldfields in the early 1850s.
Description:
In the 1960s Australian historians were criticized for being the ``high priests'' of a cult of forgetfulness, for neglecting Aboriginal history, and for excluding a whole quadrant of the landscape from their research. In this article, the authors argue that the same criticisms may be leveled at the interpretation of goldfields history. Taking the Goldfields Tourism Region in western Victoria as their focus, the authors show the richness of the Aboriginal side of the goldfields story, and show that their exclusion from this story is not due to a lack of material. On the contrary, the barriers that exclude Aboriginal experiences from goldfields tourism are based on the perception and choice of tourism agencies and managers. The practice of history of the Sovereign Hill Museums Association in Ballarat serves as a case study for this article. The authors argue that the heritage industry has a responsibility to ensure that Aboriginal experiences are not excluded from their interpretation. Just as the writing of mainstream history had for many years dispossessed Aboriginal peoples and kept them out of sight, and out of mind, it is time for the historiography of gold to reappraise its ideology and find a balance that no longer excludes Aboriginal themes that have a legitimate place in goldfields history. There are several ways that Sovereign Hill may present indigenous perspectives as it interprets the history of gold mining in Ballarat and Victoria from 1850. More information can be made available, by such means as a series of publications ranging from books to Web pages and activity sheets for children. Interpretive displays focusing on the specificity of Aboriginal people and gold, centered around the themes reviewed in this article, could be constructed. Aboriginal guides could interpret this rich heritage for visitors to the museum. Aboriginal people were present on the Ballarat goldfields, and elsewhere, in many capacities, as Native Police, as miners, guides, and gold finders, as wives and sexual partners, as farmers and entrepreneurs trading cultural items and food, and as local residents going about their everyday lives, staging corroborees and other forms of interaction with other inhabitants. Many of these interactions could be ``activated'' by Aboriginal people; for example, there is scope for activation of the corroborees staged in Ballarat in the 1850s, of the Aboriginal encounter of the traveling musical troupe as witnessed by Antoine Fauchery, of the trade between Aboriginal people and miners, and of the critical role played by the Aboriginal Native Police in maintaining law and order in Ballarat and other goldfields in the early 1850s.
Description:
This paper explores the dynamics and outcomes from a collaborative cross-cultural approach to teaching an Indigenous education elective unit in a Bachelor of Education (Primary) undergraduate degree at the University of Ballarat in 2009. The three facilitators, one non-Aboriginal and two Aboriginal were a lecturer, an Aboriginal Centre Manager and Local Aboriginal Education Consultative Group member from the Ballarat and District Aboriginal Cooperative respectively. The paper explores the open-ended and collaborative approach used to facilitate the learning, including pedagogies, activities and assessment. The paper, and the collaborative cross-cultural teaching approach it arguably embodies, is presented as a model of desirable practice with undergraduate education students, in particular for pre-service teachers undertaking a P-10 Bachelor of Education degree. As we describe later in the paper, these pre-service teachers, with some exceptions, in general had very limited and often stereotyped knowledge and experience of Aboriginal education, Aboriginal students or Aboriginal perspectives in other areas of the school curriculum. The teaching process we adopted and that we articulate in this paper attempted to address this previous lack of engagement with the subject matter of Indigenous education by actively modelling the processes of local Aboriginal consultation and collaboration that we were trying to teach.
Description:
This paper explores the dynamics and outcomes from a collaborative cross-cultural approach to teaching an Indigenous education elective unit in a Bachelor of Education (Primary) undergraduate degree at the University of Ballarat in 2009. The three facilitators, one non-Aboriginal and two Aboriginal were a lecturer, an Aboriginal Centre Manager and Local Aboriginal Education Consultative Group member from the Ballarat and District Aboriginal Cooperative respectively. The paper explores the open-ended and collaborative approach used to facilitate the learning, including pedagogies, activities and assessment. The paper, and the collaborative cross-cultural teaching approach it arguably embodies, is presented as a model of desirable practice with undergraduate education students, in particular for pre-service teachers undertaking a P-10 Bachelor of Education degree. As we describe later in the paper, these pre-service teachers, with some exceptions, in general had very limited and often stereotyped knowledge and experience of Aboriginal education, Aboriginal students or Aboriginal perspectives in other areas of the school curriculum. The teaching process we adopted and that we articulate in this paper attempted to address this previous lack of engagement with the subject matter of Indigenous education by actively modelling the processes of local Aboriginal consultation and collaboration that we were trying to teach.
Description:
This paper details a project, funded by the University of Ballarat in Victoria, which addresses a local problem of schools' lack of acknowledgement of their being positioned on traditional owners' land. In addressing this issue, I am using two texts, My Place (Wheatley and Rawlins 1987) and Who am I? The Diary of Mary Talence (Heiss 2004) to engage the participants in discussions to make visible what has been invisible; that is, the issue of traditional Indigenous Australian ownership of the land on which the school is placed. Taking up notions of deconstruction from poststructuralist theory, I have looked to these texts as ways of disrupting the taken-for-granted occupation of public space, that is, I examine the language used to position the readers and 'yield up the ideologies that inform them' (Bradford 2001, p.9).
Description:
This paper details a project, funded by the University of Ballarat in Victoria, which addresses a local problem of schools' lack of acknowledgement of their being positioned on traditional owners' land. In addressing this issue, I am using two texts, My Place (Wheatley and Rawlins 1987) and Who am I? The Diary of Mary Talence (Heiss 2004) to engage the participants in discussions to make visible what has been invisible; that is, the issue of traditional Indigenous Australian ownership of the land on which the school is placed. Taking up notions of deconstruction from poststructuralist theory, I have looked to these texts as ways of disrupting the taken-for-granted occupation of public space, that is, I examine the language used to position the readers and 'yield up the ideologies that inform them' (Bradford 2001, p.9).
Description:
This paper discusses the value of clan name research as a means of uncovering Aboriginal place names. It argues that clan names are able to provide a layer of place names that in some instances is the only source of information available to researchers of indigenous toponymy. They are an important data set that is useful in the mapping of Aboriginal spatial organization.
Description:
This paper discusses the value of clan name research as a means of uncovering Aboriginal place names. It argues that clan names are able to provide a layer of place names that in some instances is the only source of information available to researchers of indigenous toponymy. They are an important data set that is useful in the mapping of Aboriginal spatial organization.
Description:
While Computer Assisted Language Learning (CALL) is being superseded by an integrated approach to language learning and technology, it still has great potential to assist indigenous peoples in becoming print-literate in their own languages. This can also help to combat the disempowerment experienced by indigenous people as their world is penetrated by others with radically different backgrounds. This paper reports on research on an application of CALL implemented among the Kunib dji, a remote, indigenous Australian community. It focuses on the use of talking books in Ndj bbana, a language with only 200 speakers; the books were displayed on touch-screens at various locations in the community. Investigations into the roles of the computer to support language learning and cultural understanding are also reported. The computer was found to be a useful tool in promoting Kunib dji collaboration and cultural transformation.
Description:
While Computer Assisted Language Learning (CALL) is being superseded by an integrated approach to language learning and technology, it still has great potential to assist indigenous peoples in becoming print-literate in their own languages. This can also help to combat the disempowerment experienced by indigenous people as their world is penetrated by others with radically different backgrounds. This paper reports on research on an application of CALL implemented among the Kunib dji, a remote, indigenous Australian community. It focuses on the use of talking books in Ndj bbana, a language with only 200 speakers; the books were displayed on touch-screens at various locations in the community. Investigations into the roles of the computer to support language learning and cultural understanding are also reported. The computer was found to be a useful tool in promoting Kunib dji collaboration and cultural transformation.