The Brief Reach of History and the Limitation of Recall in Traditional Aboriginal Societies and Cultures

Abstract

In nativ e title cases a judge mu st dete rmine the ex tent to which the curre nt practic es o f applicants for nati ve title relate to the pra ctices of their forebears at so vereignty. It is proposed that e vidence of the continuity and preservation of trad ition from the time of so vereignty must be derived from records and/or exper t opinion. Thi s is so because brief historica l recall is institu ted in Abo rigi nal soci eties and cultures and, therefore, Abor iginal witnesses cannot testify to cont inuities that belon g to wh at, for them , is time immemorial. Relevant observa tions are cited from the literature to establish the qu iddit ies of brief recall and the editing of historie s of deviati on. Ab original hunter-gathers are then compared with the peopl es of feuding co rporatio ns, blood -debt and the heritable grudge in order to answer the question: Why in Ab original Australia is there an instituted and rapid onset of temps perdu? 'Kn ow est thou it because thou wast then born ?Or becau se the number of thy days is great?' (Job, 38:21 -Auth orised version of the Bible )In this essay I address the backward reach of time in traditional Aboriginal societies and cultures .' My reason for embarking on this course is that the depth of Aboriginal recall is relevant to the nat ive title demand that a judge, as fact finde r, will determin e the extent to which the current practice s of the applicants in a native title case relate to the practic es of their forebears at sovere ignty. More particularly, on the authority of Yorta Yorta (HC ) as set out in Yulara (FC) at 192, the native title requirements are that:The claimed native title right s and interests had their orig in in the body of norm s or the normat ive system that existed before sovereignty;The laws and customs of the indigenous people that existed at sovereignty constituted a body of normative rules that could give rise (and did give rise) to interests in land; and The pre-sovereignty normative system has had a continuous existence and vitalit y since sovereignty.

Native Title Research in Australian Anthropology

“…He makes this point more generally in his concluding argument, suggesting: 'There is a conservativeness and continuity in customary Aboriginal belief and practice, encapsulated in the Law and the Dreaming, which militates against change'. Responding directly to Sansom's (2006) argument that Aboriginal oral traditions indicate 'piety' rather than reliable 'fact', Palmer comments that claimants' typical desire to reproduce the orthodoxies of the past 'attests to fact, not piety'.…”

“…In his contribution to this collection, Palmer suggests that Sansom (2006) overstates the case for cultural discontinuity and the associated unreliability of Aboriginal oral accounts, arguing that ethnography reveals 'robust mechanisms that work toward continuity and reliability'. While agreeing that there are some limitations on the factual accuracy of Aboriginal oral statements, he does not accept that this material is thereby unreliable.…”

“…Historians have debated this matter (Paul and Gray 2003;Choo and Hollbach 2003), and the issue has prompted discussion among anthropologists who rely on fieldwork that necessarily deals with Indigenous oral testimony. Sansom (2006) raises the issue and Weiner (2007, 219) notes a tension in research between the 'objective validity of the documentary record and claimants' counterposed ''oral history''' (Weiner 2007, 219). This contrast, says Weiner, is 'political' in that it 'is used to deliberately polarise the Aboriginal and non-Indigenous positions in the national debate on Indigeneity and Indigenous rights' (Weiner 2007, 220).…”

The Aranda’s Pepa : An introduction to Carl Strehlow’s Masterpiece Die Aranda- und Loritja-Stämme in Zentral-Australien (1907-1920)

“…8 This seemed to a degree acceptable to Keen (2000) provided social change is considered alongside ancestral law and politics; though he added that 'the concept of the "clan" is perhaps the last vestige of the Radcliffe-Brown synthesis to remain' and that 'it has long been unsafe to assume a fundamental uniformity in aboriginal social arrangements' (Keen 2000: 39). Sansom (2006Sansom ( , 2007 also critiqued Keen and his 'West' is not all that much different to the 'Rest'. He was not necessarily opposing Keen's view that patriliny did not have such an exclusive position, but he thought that Keen ignored underlying social structures and norms.…”

The Social Effects of Native Title : Recognition, Translation, Coexistence

“…While admitting that such law and custom can undergo change over time, it must remain functionally and structurally recognisable as such. However, Aboriginal claims to the perdurability of the Law, its alleged unchangingness (see Sansom 2006), provide a narrower channel within which the anthropologist and historian can interpret the effects of event upon the structure of Aboriginal practices and world views. (It is hoped, of course, that both would see such attestations as themselves culturally-inflected utterances, generated from within a specific landscape of cultural, social and political positions).…”