Beyond ‘Macassans’: Speculations on layers of Austronesian contact in northern Australia

Schapper, Antoinette

doi:10.1080/07268602.2021.2000365

Cited by 4 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 13 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…These contact stories – tangled and fragmentary because the Makassan trepang industry was in decline by the early 1880s (Mitchell, 1994: tables 3‐2) – probably reflect the fact that northern Australia has a very complex contact history, with Austronesian‐language‐speakers arriving at different times from a wide variety of locations (perhaps including Oceania). In this way, the oral traditions are consistent with linguist Antoinette Schapper's (2022) research, which suggests that the Austronesian borrow words in northern Australian Indigenous languages derive not just from Makassarese or Malay, but also from diverse language groups in Island Southeast Asia and perhaps Oceania.…”

Section: Historical Oral Traditional and Linguistic Evidence For Inte...supporting

confidence: 79%

“…A pottery sherd in deposits older than c.1100 CE at Dadirringka and Asian material culture at Marngkala Cave and Bald Rock 3 probably date to within this broad era. The identity of the voyagers is unknown, but the diverse linguistic influences on northern Australian languages and Yolŋu descriptions of pre‐Makassan voyagers may be echoes of this era (Schapper, 2022; see also Evans, 1992: 66–67). Establishing the region(s) of origin for the seafarers would require sourcing of small finds like the Dadirringka sherd, comparing these items with contemporaneous artefacts from Island Southeast Asia, the south coast of New Guinea and Torres Strait, along with geological sources from these regions (e.g., sand and clay).…”

Section: Results: Phases Of Aboriginal‐asian Interaction and Their Im...mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…At the easternmost extent of the Makassan voyaging range, the Kaiadilt language (Wellesley Islands) contains very few Austronesian influences (Evans, 1992: 52–53), which probably indicates less extensive or intensive Asian visitation. As well as Malay and Makassarese, there are unidentified Austronesian “donor languages” (Evans, 1997: 260), which Schapper (2022) has speculated could be Sama‐Bajau, Rote‐Timor, Maluku or Oceanic languages.…”

Section: Historical Oral Traditional and Linguistic Evidence For Inte...mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Anuru Bay A has long been a focal point for this research (Wesley et al., 2016; Clarke, 2000a: 325–328). Second, there is the question of whether earlier encounters took place between Aboriginal people and foreign voyagers, and what these relationships looked like (e.g., sporadic trepang fishing, chance encounters with seafarers, regular exchange visits) (Berndt & Berndt, 1954: 64; Bulbeck & Rowley 2001: 56; Clarke, 1994: 470; Schapper, 2022). Oral traditions and linguistics hint at possible layers (“stratification”) of contact between Austronesian‐language‐speaking peoples and Aboriginal Australians (see Berndt & Berndt, 1954; Evans, 1997; McIntosh, 2008, 2013; Schapper, 2022).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Second, there is the question of whether earlier encounters took place between Aboriginal people and foreign voyagers, and what these relationships looked like (e.g., sporadic trepang fishing, chance encounters with seafarers, regular exchange visits) (Berndt & Berndt, 1954: 64; Bulbeck & Rowley 2001: 56; Clarke, 1994: 470; Schapper, 2022). Oral traditions and linguistics hint at possible layers (“stratification”) of contact between Austronesian‐language‐speaking peoples and Aboriginal Australians (see Berndt & Berndt, 1954; Evans, 1997; McIntosh, 2008, 2013; Schapper, 2022). The archaeological evidence for these encounters is often more challenging to locate and identify, and ranges from rock art depicting foreign subjects (e.g., see Burningham, 1994; Taçon et al., 2010), to fortuitous recovery of ancient pottery, glass or metal in stratified deposits through excavations.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 4 more Smart Citations

Re‐assessing regional chronologies for island southeast Asian voyaging to Aboriginal Australia

Urwin,

Bradley,

McNiven

et al. 2023

Archaeology in Oceania

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

According to written histories, trepang fishers from Island Southeast Asia (“Makassans”) frequented coastal northern Australia from c.1750 to 1907 CE. Yolŋu oral traditions and old Austronesian borrow words in coastal Aboriginal languages suggest a long and complex history of foreign voyaging to northern Australia. Yet archaeological radiocarbon chronologies for the Southeast Asian trepang industry and earlier voyaging encounters are few and the dates have never been comprehensively reviewed. Only one Arnhem Land trepang fishery site has been dated extensively, and others have produced unusually old dates of c.1200–1500 CE. The Groote Eylandt rockshelter of Dadirrigka yielded an enigmatic sherd of friable earthenware above a radiocarbon date of c.1100 CE. Here we have compiled, reviewed and recalibrated all 49 radiocarbon dates directly associated with Southeast Asian contact sites, stratigraphy and rock art in northern Australia. We discuss the dates and their archaeological contexts region by region to assess their reliability. We also report for the first time Yanyuwa (southwest Gulf of Carpentaria) oral traditions which shed light on their past kinship and exchange relationships with Makassan visitors. The radiocarbon dates provide tentative support for four phases of interaction in northwest Arnhem Land and Groote Eylandt, including pre‐Makassan encounters and the organised trepang industry of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. There is a paucity of archaeological excavations and radiocarbon data from northeast Arnhem Land, the Kimberley and the southwest Gulf of Carpentaria, where historical writings, linguistics and oral traditions are still the most reliable indicators of the timing and nature of cross‐cultural interaction.

show abstract

Section: Historical Oral Traditional and Linguistic Evidence For Inte...supporting

confidence: 79%

Section: Results: Phases Of Aboriginal‐asian Interaction and Their Im...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Historical Oral Traditional and Linguistic Evidence For Inte...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 3 more Smart Citations

Re‐assessing regional chronologies for island southeast Asian voyaging to Aboriginal Australia

Urwin,

Bradley,

McNiven

et al. 2023

Archaeology in Oceania

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

Aboriginal flood narratives and the thunder complex in Southeast Asia

Brumm,

Forth

2024

Archaeology in Oceania

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The ancestors of the dingo were brought to mainland Australia around 4000 years ago by people who arrived by boat. The identity of these voyagers from the north, however, and the nature of their interactions with the Aboriginal population of Australia, are unknown. Here, we propose that Indigenous flood narratives from the Kimberley contain evidence for contact between Aboriginal people and early Asian seafarers in the form of the “thunder complex”. The latter is a very specific repertoire of taboos, rituals and stories that occurs widely among ethnographically known societies of Indonesia, the Philippines and peninsular Malaysia, but has not previously been identified in Australia. Among Southeast Asian groups, this cultural complex revolves around the idea that certain prohibited acts perpetrated against animals – especially “mocking” them by treating them as though they were human – precipitate a punitive storm and/or flooding. We show that in some oral traditions of the Kimberley region animal mockery is similarly held to be the causative agent behind disastrous flooding events that took place in the past creationary epoch. We contend that this localised Aboriginal variant of the thunder complex reflects an episode of close interaction with early Austronesian‐speaking voyagers who introduced ancestral dingoes to mainland Australia, apparently via the Kimberley coast.

show abstract

Moluccan Fighting Craft on Australian Shores: Contact Rock Art from Awunbarna, Arnhem Land

et al. 2023

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Two similar watercraft depicted in rock art at Awunbarna, Arnhem Land, Australia, are unlike the Macassan prahus and Western craft shown at other contact sites in northern Australia, but are sufficiently detailed to offer evidence for identification. Both craft appear to display triangular flags, pennants, and prow adornments indicating martial status. By comparing these two depictions with historically recorded watercraft from Island Southeast Asia, their probable origin is shown to have been eastern Maluku Tenggara in Indonesia. These motifs provide the first known direct archaeological evidence for ethnic diversity for the origins of mariners from Island Southeast Asia other than Makassar, Sulawesi. The rock-art depictions are representative of ceremonially decorated fighting craft used to lead trading voyages and raids, and may be linked to trade, fishing, resource exploitation, or slavery. This potentially unique identification of Moluccan watercraft in Arnhem Land rock art offers evidence of the elusive encounters between the Indigenous people of northern Australia and people from the archipelagos to the north, evidence with which to expand both the nature and context of Australia’s contact narrative.

show abstract

Beyond ‘Macassans’: Speculations on layers of Austronesian contact in northern Australia

Cited by 4 publications

References 13 publications

Re‐assessing regional chronologies for island southeast Asian voyaging to Aboriginal Australia

Re‐assessing regional chronologies for island southeast Asian voyaging to Aboriginal Australia

Aboriginal flood narratives and the thunder complex in Southeast Asia

Moluccan Fighting Craft on Australian Shores: Contact Rock Art from Awunbarna, Arnhem Land

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About