Lecture Series Launch: Indigenous collections – Indigenous museums?

The first lecture in this Macleay Museum series was given by Dr Dawn Casey, CEO of Western Australian Museums on ‘Being Collected’ on the 25 August 2006. Dr Casey's talk, given here in full, was followed by discussion led by Ms Jenny Munro and Mr Warren Mundine.

A podcast including the discussants comments and questions can also be heard by following the link.

I am honoured to be here today to give the lecture 'Being Collected' to launch the Macleay Museum’s Lecture series Indigenous collections – Indigenous museums?
Are museums agents for social and political change? And can the act of visiting museums be part of a conscious nation-building exercise?
In my view the answer is yes to both of these questions. If you agree with my assumptions then you would also agree that those who control and manage museums could build a nation based on their ideology.

What place do we hold as Indigenous people in Australia and does what happened in the past matter today?
For these answers let’s revisit the past.

The Past

William Dampier, who published the first best-selling travel books about Australia around the reign of Queen Anne, set the fashion for an unsympathetic press on Aboriginal people. And although many would argue Dampier presented accurate anthropological observations about Aboriginal people from the Kimberley’s’ (tall, slender, slight limbs, heavily-boned eyebrows, eyes troubled by flies), his perceptions were clouded by his European values. In an age when trade benefited one country at the expense of others, mercantilist, bourgeois and protestant Christianity, naked heathens lacking goods for trade and who neither farmed nor husbanded animals, epitomised the negation of ordered society. ¹

Dampier’s contemptuous and oft-quoted dictum – ‘the inhabitants of this country are the miserablest people in the world’ - was to be echoed as a self-justification by the land-takers two centuries later. ²
Whilst Governor Phillip as one of the few to record the presence of Aboriginal art and accepted the visual reality of it many later writers doubted that any artistic talent existed and ignored its symbolic content, at best dismissing it as the daubings of childlike minds. Confronted by the existence of major galleries with contrasting styles, such ‘experts’ explained their form by reference to the intrusion of foreigners possessing superior intellect.³

The striking Wandjina figures of Kimberley art, for example, have been attributed to Egyptians, Hindus and creatures from outer space. The influence of Assyrians, Persians, Phoenicians, Greeks and Romans has been discerned at other places, such as the Cleland Hills rock engravings. ⁴

The export of our material culture and human remains

Indigenous cultural material began leaving Australia in 1623, when Jan Carstenz collected ethnographic items and shot some their owners (Mulvaney 1977:263).⁵

During the 19th and early 20th century Aboriginal artefacts and human remains left Australia in quantity either in private collections, government gifts or museum exchanges.

The struggle for ownership of our artefacts and human remains

Researchers in Australian museums were no less imperialistic in their approach to their counterparts overseas. Artefacts and human remains were collected and information gathered and analysed, displayed and interpreted without any reference to any cultural sensitivity. Secret/sacred objects and skeletal remains were put on display. Recordings, photographs and movies of secret ceremonies were published. Knowledge was pursued, so it was said, for the sake of knowledge alone.

That is not to say that cultural sensitivities were completely disregarded. Often the sensitivities themselves were known, but considered subsidiary to the culture of the collecting institution.⁵

It is not surprising therefore that in the eyes of Indigenous peoples in Australia and throughout the world; Museums with their unbridled approach to collecting, researching and interpreting were seen as the despoilers, desecrators and robbers of Indigenous cultures.

By the end of the eighties the fight for the repatriation of Indigenous human remains and secret sacred objects, changes to way our cultural material was displayed, interpreted and researched had reached its peak and is best summed up by Ros Langford when addressing the Australian Archaeological Association (Langford 1983:21) “You seek to say as scientists you have a right to obtain and study information of our culture. You seek to say that because you are Australians you have a right to study and explore our heritage because it is a heritage to be shared by all Australians, white and black. From our point of view we say – you have come as invaders, you have tried to destroy our culture, you have built fortunes upon the lands and bodies of our people and now, having said sorry, want a share in picking out the bones of what you regard as a dead past. We say this is our past, our culture and heritage and forms part of our present life. As such it is ours to control and it is ours to share on our terms.”⁶

Like most things we gained during that very short period of time from the early sixties to the end of the eighties we are currently in danger of losing once again the true representation of our history and culture. Given this do we need to revisit some those earlier decision not to research remains for evidence of conflict or to determine with more accuracy the number of Indigenous people before the arrival of the Europeans and whether or not our ancestors were alone to blame for the loss of Australia’s mega fauna?

Influences on and the evolution of Indigenous material culture

Contrary to some views Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander culture has not stayed fixed in time. One of the earliest human influences’ on Aboriginal society recorded in the form of bark paintings were the Macassans several hundred years ago. And although most Europeans did not value it at first, Australian Indigenous creativity began to respond to the European presence from the days of earliest contact. Aboriginal weapons like the boomerang took on iconic status as Australian souvenirs and were created as decorative pieces for sale. The bark paintings of Arnhem Land, the dance machines and masks of the Torres Strait, the shell necklaces of Tasmania or the toas of the Lake Eyre district became recognised as different items, as interesting and eventually valuable trade items, and thus took on a new meaning sometimes quite different from the original.

The rock carvings, body painting or sand patterns which had been part of Aboriginal culture since time immemorial, once they were transferred to silk or board or canvas, helped to power the vast renaissance of Aboriginal art and culture. The Hermannsburg watercolour artists turned their knowledge of country into striking landscapes. Potters like Thancoupie turned ceremonial clay into ceramics. Traditional burial poles were created anew as impressive modern sculpture.⁷

Whilst we are now used to hearing that an Aboriginal artwork has fetched record prices in an international auction, or seeing exhibitions of the work of Rover Thomas or Emily in major galleries Aboriginal art was not considered for inclusion in collections until the 1980’s.⁸

Cultural revival and assertion of identity

The real story of Indigenous art, and the power behind its growth in recent years, is the desire for self-representation.⁹ The contemporary art movement in Central Australia and the Kimberly including painting, weaving and glass can be directly correlated to the return to country resulting in cultural revival and supported by white advisors including Geoffrey Bardon and Nalda Searles. It is about identity, rights and respect for culture.
It is also a point the Federal Government needs to take into account in pursuing the closure of outstations and communities in response to accusations that culture is a cause for dysfunctional behaviour.

For many urban Indigenous artists because their work arises from the desire to assert cultural identity it is inherently political.¹⁰
Fiona Foley artwork ‘Annihilation of the blacks’ a row of hanging black figures presided over by a white man was inspired by Arthur Pambegan’s traditional piece ‘Bonefish’, which is a row of carved wooden fish. Fiona’s work is overtly political, very disturbing and confronting. One visitor to the National Museum was moved to say: I hate the sculpture of people hanging, I think that sort of thing is unnecessary.¹¹ For Fiona the aesthetic expression and the demand for social justice are inextricable linked.

I do not agree with the way many early European researchers and museums acquired our material culture and ancestral remains. Nor do I support the patronising way in which our history and culture has been interpreted, displayed, researched and written about. It would however, be disingenuous of me not to recognise the reality that Australia has been colonised and acknowledge the collecting and preservation by museums of our material culture means it is available future for generations of Indigenous people and indeed others. The materials used make items including; bark, wood, grasses and feathers did not last and in some instances the destruction of objects were part of ceremony.


The last twenty years has seen the most profound shift in how people across the world view the role of museums. Internationally old museums have been redeveloped and hundreds of new ones constructed.

This phenomena – and I do not exaggerate when I use words such as profound and phenomena – this phenomena reflects the dramatic changing world and governments and others responding to a need by their constituents to understand the complexity of this new world.

These new and redeveloped museums represent national and international events both celebratory and horrific, reunification of countries, new national identity, urban regeneration and recognition of Indigenous people. They include:

• Jewish History Museum in Berlin and Holocaust Museums Washington and Israel
• The Apartheid Museum in South Africa
• Museums in Rwanda and Cambodia showing thousands of skulls from the massacres
• Bilboa in Spain
• Canadian Museum of Civilisation
• National Museum of Native Americans
• Te Papa in New Zealand

In Australia the Melbourne Museum and National Museum of Australia have opened along with a new Aboriginal gallery in the South Australian Museum and several Aboriginal and Torres
Strait Islander Cultural Centres are now operating around the country. Most of the major museums employ Indigenous staff and have Indigenous representation on their Boards and Indigenous Advisory Committees. Indigenous human remains and secret sacred objects have been repatriated.

Museums today have a social role: they represent the culture of a particular society, and by acquiring items of national, local or community significance they act as a collective memory. They are repositories of the sum total of everything that is important to us.
So everything must be rosy!

Far from it. The recognition of the history, culture and identity of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people as a race is more at risk today than at any other time since the arrival of Europeans.

Let us now explore what are the influences. During the last 11 years the Federal Government has adopted a new unwritten policy on the use of the English language along the following lines:

• Australia was ‘settled’ not ‘colonised’
• Aborigines were ‘dispersed’ not ‘massacred’
• Children were ‘removed’ for their own good
• ‘Stolen’, ‘generations’ and ‘genocide’ are not to be used in association with Indigenous people
• Aboriginal Reconciliation has been relegated to a Practical Reconciliation dealing with health, education and housing
• ‘Sorry Day’ has been renamed ‘Day of Healing’

ATSIC has been abolished, Aboriginal programs have been mainstreamed and more recently the Northern Territory Land Rights Act has been substantially watered down.

In 2003 the Prime Minister openly declared the conservatives had won the ‘Culture Wars’. In his closing address at the Liberal Party National Convention in Adelaide the Prime Minister said:

and

To further reinforce their political ideology the Government has not appointed any Indigenous person the following Boards:

• National Library
• National Museum of Australia
• National Gallery
• ABC
• SBS
• National Archives
• Screensound/Australia’s National Film and Sound Archives

They have however appointed Keith Windschuttle to the ABC, Christopher Pearson to both the National Museum and SBS and David Barnet to the National Museum Board.

These national institutions hold everything that is central to the soul of the nation. They hold collections of our material culture, recordings of our songs and stories, oral histories, official written records, films, art and much more. Yet there are no Indigenous people on the Boards.

I am reminded of questions posed in an imagined dialogue between Maori and pakeha in Flora Kaplan’s book Museums and the Making of ‘Ourselves’.

Clearly we as Indigenous Australians have no control and say in the management of our heritage held in the national institutions.

As well as being a council member David Barnet is chairman of the National Museum’s Collections Committee. This Committee is responsible for making recommendations to the NMA Council on items to be accessioned into the National Historical Collection. Here is a person who is opposed to the repatriation of Indigenous human remains and has been known to comment he liked museums when they displayed the Indigenous remains alongside the skeletons of apes. Barnet said of “the stolen children exhibit there should be an attempt to explain what it was about: the children were half-castes, who were routinely murdered all the way from Hindmarsh Island to Broome...”

Early this year the NMA Council endorsed the recommendation by Barnet’s Collection Committee to not include the Queenie McKenzie painting Blood Feud depicting the Mistake Creek Massacre in the National Historical Collection.

In 2000 Queenie McKenzie was identified as one Australia’s 50 most collectable artists. The Bulletin magazine states “Barnett is understood to strongly hold the view that a massacre never happened at Mistake Creek and that the painting should not be admitted to the National Historical Collection because it is a lie.”

In an article in the Sydney Morning Herald Miranda Devine wrote, the painting “will be relegated to deep storage, never to be seen again under the present council and Federal Government” and “ Windschuttle has stopped the genocide juggernaut in its tracks. No historian engages in such a pre-2002 exaggeration anymore, which is to be the benefit of the Aborigines, for whom the semantic debate diverted attention from the real issues of dysfunctional communities, alcohol and drug addiction, child abuse, poor health and education outcomes”.

This sounds awfully like where I started this talk with Dampier calling us, the miserablest people in the world’ and is a good indication of the place Indigenous people hold in Australian society today!

So I guess that those in power also agree that museums are agents of social and political change and that is why there is no Indigenous representation on any of the national institutions. Wouldn’t you agree?

Thank you