By Greg Lehman
``But while actual warfare and convicts' brutality were the
direct means toward the extermination of the Aborigines, there
were other equally powerful forces at work in wiping them off the
face of the earth.'' - H. Ling Roth, 1899
By the time the second edition of Roth's The Aborigines of
Tasmania was published, it was apparent to the white population
of Tasmania that the ``Aboriginal troubles'' were over. In the
space of one lifetime, the British had overrun a sizeable part of
the island and, at great expense, removed all but a few of the
original inhabitants.
The objective of the government was simple: acknowledge the
unfortunate but necessary demise of the natives, give gentle
assistance to the process through employment of bounty hunters
and other ``men of persuasion'' such as George Augustus Robinson,
establish concentration camps for those who could be ``saved''
and let time be the judge.
In his Experience of Forty Years in Tasmania (London, 1859), H.M.
Hull reported ``that it was a favourite amusement to hunt the
Aborigines; that a day would be selected and the neighbouring
settlers invited, with their families, to a picnic ... After
dinner all would be gaiety and merriment, whilst the gentlemen of
the party would take their guns and dogs, and accompanied by two
or three convict servants, wander through the bush in search of
blackfellows. Sometimes they would return without sport; at
others they would succeed in killing a woman, or, if lucky, a man
or two.''
The actions of the early invaders set the mould for prejudices
against which the Tasmanian Aboriginal Land Council must struggle
to regain control of Aboriginal land and heritage a century
later.
Popular culture in Tasmania maintains that the apparent genocide
of indigenous people counts as little more than historic
achievement, unfortunate yet necessary. This version of history
nearly prevailed with the release in 1978 of The Last Tasmanian,
a film illustrating the theories of archaeologist and historian
Dr Rhys Jones. In this imaginative saga, Jones paints a picture
of a race on a small island where 12,000 years of isolation have
extracted an inevitable toll, and where the British invasion only
hastened an unavoidable end.
Aboriginal community outrage at this film launched a new
offensive for regaining control of our heritage. However, Jones'
public comments still act to entrench the popular view that
Aboriginal heritage is a matter of ``prehistory'' and not the
province of today's Aborigines. In fact, he claimed in the
Bulletin (June 12, 1990) that ``The reality is that Tasmanian
Aboriginal culture is an invention of the present day''!
With the state government's Aboriginal Lands Bill going into
parliament in the autumn session, the Tasmanian Aboriginal people
are within sight of the first real opportunity since invasion to
reassert our culture without threat of eviction.
However, public opinion lags behind social justice, and there are
still many who require that Aboriginal families abandon the
identity that has been forged by 300 generations of living on the
land - this from a colonial society that is largely devoid of the
spiritual and cultural links to the land which Aborigines enjoy.
While clutching with pride at being ``a fifth generation
Tasmanian'', many whites demand that if they cannot claim an
ancestry on the land further back than this, then no-one else
can. According to this logic, any claim to spiritual oneness with
a cave or island is an ``invention of the present''.
In this way, the invaders have not only stolen our land, but also
seek to claim Aboriginal heritage as theirs: a scientific
resource which becomes the property of the researcher.
The Tasmanian Aboriginal Land Council is reasserting Aboriginal
community control over the past by demanding the right of the
community not only to have a say in what happens to our land, but
to be recognised as the rightful custodians. This means gaining a
firm grip, not only on scientific research, but also on history.
Through the newly established Aboriginal Heritage Unit, the Land
Council is currently training Aboriginal site officers to work
alongside historical and archaeological researchers. Their job is
to provide clear directions on the significance and proper
treatment of cultural material and sites.
With the return of 23 areas of land on the horizon, including
mutton birding islands, rock art sites and reserves, the Land
Council is developing the resource base that will be necessary to
meet the responsibility of managing Aboriginal land and heritage
on behalf of the community. The obligation is now on research
institutions and conservation agencies to demonstrate the respect
and support demanded by a community that is asserting its
rightful role.
Greg Lehman is secretary of the Tasmanian Aboriginal Land
Council.
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Reprinted from Green Left, weekly progressive newspaper. May
be reproduced with acknowledgment but without charge by
movement publications and organisations.