Illawarra Aboriginal Heritage & Culture conference 2016

The conference will feature talks on the following topics: Aboriginal foods and medicines; Aboriginal rock art and use of stone tools and ground-edge axes; Emeritus Professor Iain Davidson’s work on Aboriginal culture; A paper on Kings and Queens of Illawarra, 1815-1880; * Dharawal astronomy; A book launch on Saturday 9 July, 2.50 pm - A History of Aboriginal Illawarra before Colonisation, by Dr. Mike Donaldson and Les Bursill.

Five Islands Aborigines circa 1815 (State Library of New South Wales)

In association with NAIDOC Week.

When: 10am - 4pm, Saturday and Sunday 9 & 10 July 2016.

Where: Panizzi Room, Ground Floor, Library, University of Wollongong. 

Further Information:

Les Bursill – mobile:  0419298018  / email: leslie.bursill@gmail.com

Mike Donaldson – mobile: 0420889565 /  email: miked51@bigpond.com 

See also: Illawarra Aborigines Before Colonisation conference 2015.

Agenda

Saturday 9 July

10.00 – 10.15	Les Bursill, Elder in Residence, University of Wollongong Welcome  Chair:  Michael Organ
10.15 – 11.10	Emeritus Prof  Iain Davidson   Impacts of anthropological analysis on Aboriginal peoples: disentangling methods and theories in archaeohistorical narratives. Chair: Les Bursill
11.10 –11.40	Dr Craig Barker Written in Stone: the Macleay Museum exhibition of Aboriginal Stone Tools Chair:  Les Bursill
11.40 –12.20	Les Bursill Rock art and Dreamings of the Dharawal Chair:  Mike Donaldson
12.20 –1.00	Ann Stafford Dharawal Plant Foods and Medicines Chair:  Mike Donaldson
1.00 – 1.30	Lunch
1.30 – 2.10	Robert Fuller  Astronomy of the Aboriginal Peoples of the Sydney Basin. Chair:  Mike  Donaldson
2.10 – 2.50	Jodi Edwards Cloaked in Culture Chair:  Les Bursill
2.50 – 3.30	Paul Chandler, Pro Vice-Chancellor (Inclusion & Outreach) University of Wollongong Book Launch - An Aboriginal History of Illawarra Vol 1: Before Colonisation Chair:  Michael Organ

Sunday 10 July

10.00 – 10.40	David Marshall    Screen Play on First Contact: Cook and Banks in Botany Bay Chair: Les Bursill
10.40 –11.20	Michael Organ Captain Cook and the Appin Massacre - the Empire Unbound. Chair: Mike  Donaldson
11.20 –12.00	Mike Donaldson Kings and Queens of Illawarra 1815-1880. Chair: Michael Organ
12.00– 12.40	Lunch
12.40– 1.20	Sue Boaden Looking for Austinmer's Aboriginal Heritage. Chair:  Les Bursill
1.20– 2.00	Karen Stokes  Provenancing the ground-edged artefacts from the Illawarra.  Chair:   Michael Organ
2.00– 2.40	Vincent Bicego Bull Cave “Bull Shit”: Repositioning Rock Art in Contemporary Space. Chair:  Les Bursill
2.40 – 3.20	Robbie Collins On Being a Head of a Regional Campus with an orientation to regional development and working with Aboriginal people and local community to foster educational success. Chair:  Les Bursill
3.20 – 3.35	Michael Organ  Close

SPEAKERS

Dr Craig Barker

Written In Stone. The Macleay Museum’s exhibition “Written In Stone” is an exploration of Australian Aboriginal stone tool production over an incredibly long period of time and from across the continent.  For Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people today, these stone tools are remarkable and durable evidence of occupation, ingenuity, resilience and survival.  For other Australians they offer a direct example of the diversity and technological innovations developed by First Australians over the millennia. For exhibition curator, Matt Poll, the challenge of the exhibition was making stone tools interpretative to diverse audiences.  The exhibition could not just represent the archaeological classifications of the tools, but also had to recognise the diversity and resourcefulness of tool kit of different Aboriginal language groups.  This presentation explores the challenges being to find ways of presenting and interpreting these artefacts in innovative and culturally enriching ways that empower more intelligent discussions about both settler and Indigenous histories.

Vincent Bisego

Bull Cave “Bull Shit”: Repositioning rock art in contemporary space. During the earliest days of British colonisation, cattle were drawn onto Sydney sandstone by Aboriginal people for the first time. ‘Bull Cave’, on the outskirts of present-day Campbelltown, is one of the earliest ‘contact’ art sites in Australia, but has been consistently compromised by urbanisation and vandalism. This paper discusses the condition of Bull Cave as symptomatic of settler Australia’s uneasy relationship with Indigenous heritage and history, and asks how this art might be ‘repositioned’ in contemporary space to more effectively inform regional, and even national, history and identity.

Sue Boaden 

Looking for Austinmer’s Aboriginal heritage  Austinmer is a small seaside village in the northern Illawarra and the main focus of my current PhD research. Specifically my research is the exploration and settlement of Austinmer since the 1800s and the influence of landscape on its development and cultural identity. My research into Austinmer’s history has taken me down many byways and the journey has thrown up many mysteries and dead ends. Seeking to understanding the Aboriginal history and heritage of Austinmer and to integrate their story into the Austinmer research has been one of the challenges but also a highlight of the Project. This paper will provide an illustrated outline of progress to date sourced from published and unpublished sources. 

Les Bursill OAM

35 years of looking at Aboriginal (Dharawal) Rock Art.  Interpretation is a mine field of trickery, misinformation and variations in local knowledge. Strongly held beliefs, Information brought into Dharawal country from others sources, deliberate trickery and distorted information. False claims and new technologies are helping to clarify imagery and to dispel wrong interpretations. The demand for authentic inclusions and resistance to the impacts of European concepts inserted into Aboriginal Dreaming Stories.

Associate Professor Robbie Collins

On Being a Head of a Regional Campus with an orientation to regional development and working with Aboriginal people and local community to foster educational success. It is a Personal Reflection concerning a Campus where the percentage of Aboriginal students exceeds 6%: where links with the Community are strong: and where the beginnings of the Campus include a Local Aboriginal Land Council giving the Land.  The presentation includes a blended digital story weaving creativity and leadership into the network of relationships. Building Relationships: Building a Narrative: a Future that acknowledges the Past: Moments in Time: Place and Time: Country and People                        

               

Emeritus Professor Iain Davidson

Impacts of anthropological analysis on Aboriginal peoples: disentangling methods and theories in archaeohistorical narratives. In this paper I will look at the ways in which the preoccupations and practices of 19^th Century anthropology and archaeology have created enduring images of indigenous peoples that prevented the sort of understanding they claimed to be fostering.  This problem was manifest across attitudes to physical anthropology (racial classifications), social anthropology (The Dreaming), museum studies (authenticity of material culture) and archaeology (the interpretation of changes through time).  The problem was passed on to non-anthropological society through a lack of questioning of the causes of variation in human biology, the language for describing the daily lives of Aboriginal people, the representation of Aboriginal culture in books and museums, and the way in which archaeologists within and beyond Australia have approached the interpretation of archaeological remains.  

Dr. Mike Donaldson.

Kings and Queens of Illawarra 1815-1880.  Over about 100 years, around a dozen Dharawal and Dhurga men and women were made Kings and Queens by the British. This paper looks at some of their reasons for accepting the titles, and what they achieved by this. Dr Mike Donaldson was for many years the head of the Sociology Department at the University of Wollongong.  He has written many books and learned articles and has worked as a consultant with UNESCO.  Mike has taught in New Zealand, Papua New Guinea and the USA and has served as the NSW State Secretary of the National Tertiary Education Union.

Robert Fuller 

Astronomy of the Aboriginal Peoples of the Sydney Basin. We did an historical archival study and literature survey of the cultural astronomy of the Aboriginal language groups of the Sydney Basin to establish a basic knowledge of stories and vocabulary for a future ethnographic study.  In this we examined the definition of the Sydney Basin, establish for the purpose of this study the languages, names, and geographic boundaries of the communities included in the Sydney Basin, and confirmed the relationship between cultural astronomy and culture, resources, and rock art. The dataset includes stories and vocabulary in the relevant language groups.” indigenous and non-indigenous peoples.

David Marshall

Prelude to the Fall – A new story in our two mobs dreaming. Our two mobs have different stories about what happened when the world was new. When a big canoe sailed into your country for the first time our two stories became intertwined forever. I want to take you back to that time, when discovery was exciting and fearful, risky and demanding. Those two mobs were very similar, each just working to live, your mob in your country and ours on the sea. But we were also of very different dreaming, two mobs strange to each other. And we spent a week living together in the place that our mob called Botany Bay and your mob knew as Gweagal country. My talk presents my journey to understand the interactions between us during those seven days: the cagy advances and retreats; the strange tactics; the language barrier. I want you to know how profoundly moving the experience was for that fella James Cook, and how his crew was decimated afterwards, because you already know how profoundly devastating it was to become for you – the Prelude to your Fall.

Michael Organ

Captain Cook and the Appin Massacre - the empire unbound. On 28 April 1770 Captain James Cook attempted to land at Woonona, just north of Wollongong. Forced back by heavy surf, the next day Cook and the crew of the Endeavour entered Botany Bay. Here the first substantial encounter between representatives of the British Empire and the Australian Aborigines took place. What the English observed, and the actions they took, were to have profound repercussions on the local people, culminating in the invasion of January 1788. The subsequent Appin Massacre of 17 April 1816 – in which at least 14 men, women and children were killed by members of the 46^th Regiment of Foot Grenadiers - reveals the true intend of the British in regards to the country and its people, with an informal declaration of war by Governor Lachlan Macquarie and military campaign carried out with secrecy and despatch. This detailed study casts new light on two significant events in the history of the Illawarra region.

Ann Stafford

Dharawal Plant Foods and Medicine.  A long interest in bushwalking, coupled with being a parent, has led me to become a Scout Leader.  Over the years my interest has moved from a broad range of scouting activities and become more focused on teaching young people about the bush, how to care for the bush and how to become more aware of their surroundings. With these aims in mind I have recently established a bush food and medicine trail at a Scout Camp south of Waterfall.  The idea behind this trail is to help young people gain a very broad understanding of how the Dharawal people lived their traditional lifestyle before white colonisation. Instead of looking around them and just seeing bush, it is hoped people will gain an understanding that to the Aboriginal people the bush was a supermarket, a pharmacy and a hardware store.

Last updated: 8 July 2016