The missing Macassans: Indigenous sovereignty, rock art and the archaeology of absence

Abstract

The contact period rock art of northern Australia provides unprecedented insights into Aboriginal cross-cultural experiences during the last few hundred years. Northwest Arnhem Land, Australia, has an extensive rock art assemblage and a complicated history of interactions between Aboriginal communities and island South East Asians (Macassans), colonists, explorers, missionaries, buffalo shooters, and more. This contact period rock art offers a unique opportunity to explore a variety of questions relating to cross-cultural interactions and artistic responses to new people, objects and ideas. In this paper we argue that a dichotomy exists in the number of European and south-east Asian themed rock art motifs. We suggest that there is an underlying theme in the proliferation of European related imagery relating to threats to Indigenous sovereignty. Our findings suggest that rock art illustrates the Aboriginal community's responses to both groups and their experience of the existential threat posed by European intruders. The apparent lack of rock art relating to south-east Asian interactions, although perplexing, may in fact provide circumstantial evidence for a very different type of interaction between some northern Australian and southeast Asian communities.

Archaeology of animate ancestors and entanglement at Mayarnjarn in the Wellington Range region, Northern Territory

“…Moreover, based on perspectives prominent amongst contemporary Traditional Owners, artefacts may echo attempts to mediate between outsiders and ancestors during dangerous periods of contact (see section on 'archaeologists at Mayarnjarn' ). This observation is reminiscent of a recent interrogation of an apparent dichotomy between large numbers of European as opposed to Southeast Asian themed rock art motifs in the Wellington Range (May et al., 2021). According to May et al.…”

“…This observation is reminiscent of a recent interrogation of an apparent dichotomy between large numbers of European as opposed to Southeast Asian themed rock art motifs in the Wellington Range (May et al, 2021). According to May et al (2021): p. 127), this "may in fact provide circumstantial evidence for a very different type of interaction between some northern Australian and Southeast Asian communities", with Europeans posing a far greater threat to north-west Arnhem land communities (May et al, 2021: p. 127, 139). This pattern, albeit reputedly dissimilar to the situation on the Gove Peninsula (Howard Morphy pers.…”

“…Moreover, based on perspectives prominent amongst contemporary Traditional Owners, artefacts may echo attempts to mediate between outsiders and ancestors during dangerous periods of contact (see section on 'archaeologists at Mayarnjarn' ). This observation is reminiscent of a recent interrogation of an apparent dichotomy between large numbers of European as opposed to Southeast Asian themed rock art motifs in the Wellington Range (May et al, 2021). According to May et al (2021): p. 127), this "may in fact provide circumstantial evidence for a very different type of interaction between some northern Australian and Southeast Asian communities", with Europeans posing a far greater threat to north-west Arnhem land communities (May et al, 2021: p. 127, 139).…”

“…According to May et al. (2021): p. 127), this “may in fact provide circumstantial evidence for a very different type of interaction between some northern Australian and Southeast Asian communities”, with Europeans posing a far greater threat to north‐west Arnhem land communities (May et al., 2021: p. 127, 139). This pattern, albeit reputedly dissimilar to the situation on the Gove Peninsula (Howard Morphy pers.…”

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

“…When JJB's research began in 1980, no senior Yanyuwa people, especially those that had direct interaction with, and/or memories of Makassan visits, pointed out any rock art in Yanyuwa Country as being a marker of Makassan contact (cf. May et al, 2021). Many of these senior men and women were born and raised on the islands and as they would say, they "knew the old people".…”