Discussion Thread: Who wrote Pauline's history?

Who wrote Pauline's history?

FYI: Richard Bosworth on Occam's Razor

Author: Marion Diamond med@lingua.cltr.uq.edu.au
Date: Mon, 28 Apr 1997 13:16:59 +1200

Date Sent: Monday 28 April 1997

Kevin Blackburn has chastised us for not engaging in public discussion about what's on the media, and maybe he's right. So I'll start the ball rolling by saying how much I enjoyed hearing Prof. Bosworth on Occam's Razor yesterday morning. I missed the first few minutes (I only heard it at all because I was in the car) but it was an intelligent, clearly argued essay on the value of history. At a time when history is being used for all sorts of dubious purposes, it was a terrific corrective, and it's only a pity so few people probably heard it at all.

Likewise, did other people note that Alan Ramsay's Saturday column in the Sydney Morning Herald was a report of a speech by Geoffrey Bolton? It's good to see professional historians engaged in public debate.

Meanwhile - who is the anonymous writer of Pauline Hanson's missive?

Reply: Who wrote Pauline's history

Author: Norman Etherington <nether@cyllene.uwa.edu.au>
Date: Mon, 28 Apr 1997 13:41:38 +1200

Date Sent: Monday 28 April 1997

The many references in the press to a "disaffected academic" perhaps point to Geoffrey Partington.

Reply: Who wrote Pauline's history

Author: Jan Wegner,James Cook University, Cairns Campus
<Janice.Wegner@jcu.edu.au>
Date: Tue, 29 Apr 1997 13:45:38 +1200

Date Sent: Monday 28 April 1997

Does anyone out there actually own or have access to this work? If you do, could you tell me if it uses Hector Holthouse's _River of Gold?_ This turgid potboiler has been contaminating North Queensland history since it was first published in 1967 and still seems to be first port of call for accounts of Aborigines and cannibalism. I set it as a topic for a third-year course so I'm curious.

Reply: Who wrote Pauline's history

Author: Michelle Watson, University of Newcastle
<mgmw@cc.newcastle.edu.au>
Date: Wed, 30 Apr 1997 11:02:11 +1200

This topic is alive and well in usenet also. In regard to cannibalism, try "The Man Eating Myth: Anthropology and Anthropophagy" by W. Arens, his basic thesis is that there is no solid evidence for the type of cannibalistic practices as proposed by Pauline Hanson.

Reply: Who wrote Pauline's history

Author: Bryce Moore, Editor, Fremantle Arts Centre Press
Date: Thu, 1 May 1997 13:28:23 +1200

Date Sent: Thursday 1 May 1997

I have frequently had this argument about cannibalism with one of my work colleagues, who would probably be rather sympathetic with Ms Hanson's views. He submits that cannibalism amongst Aborigines is the subject of a giant cover-up, in the name of 'political correctness' on the part of academic historians. To paint the Aborigines in a more favourable light, instances of cannibalism, which he says are many, are ignored by historians.

I find any discussion of cannibalism amongst Aborigines obnoxious, simply because those who seek to draw attention to it implicitly tender cannibalism and other perceived forms of 'savagery' as a justification for the dispossession and genocide practised against Aborigines during the course of the white invasion. European revulsion against such practices somehow excuses the barbarism inflicted upon indigenous people.

I suggest that any assessment of the acceptability or otherwise of Aboriginal cultural practices to European sensibilities is irrelevant to the discussion of crimes committed against them by whites.

Even if there is irrefutable proof that tribal Aborigines practised cannibalism - and other posters to this list suggest that no such proof exists - it should make no difference whatsoever to the task of reclaiming this part of our history.

Two wrongs do not make a right.

Reply: Who wrote Pauline's history

Author: David Roberts, University Of Newcastle <hidar@cc.newcastle.edu.au>
Date: Thu, 1 May 1997 13:28:40 +1200

Date Sent: Thursday 1 May 1997

Norman wrote:
The many references in the press to a "disaffected academic" perhaps point to Geoffrey Partington.

Forgive my ignorance. Who is Geoffrey Partington and what would have caused him to stray from the path of honesty and intelligence?

Reply: Who wrote Pauline's history

Author: Marg Hutton <mhutton@melb.alexia.net.au>
Date: Thu, 1 May 1997 13:48:50 +1200

Date Sent: Thursday 1 May 1997

David Roberts wrote:
Forgive my ignorance. Who is Geoffrey Partington and what would have caused him to stray from the path of honesty and intelligence?

See Partington's `Aetiology of Mabo' (1994) published by The Samuel Griffiths Society and available on the web at: http://www.exhibit.com.au/~griffith/v4chap1.htm

Reply: Who wrote Pauline's history

Author: Philippa Martyr <Philippa.Martyr@nursing.utas.edu.au>
Date: Thu, 1 May 1997 13:37:19 +1200

Date Sent: Thursday 1 May 1997

Before we start in earnest on Geoffrey Partington, we should perhaps try to find out just who it was who wrote the thing in question - please?

Reply: Who wrote Pauline's history

Author: Marg Hutton <mhutton@melb.alexia.net.au>
Date: Fri, 2 May 1997 10:27:30 +1200

Date Sent: Thursday 1 May 1997

Extracts from the infamous tome are on the One Nation website which went up shortly after the launch of the party. See: http://www.gwb.com.au/onenation/truth/

Compare the Partington article mentioned previously (http://www.exhibit.com.au/~griffith/v4chap1.htm) with the extract from the book `Surrendering Australia: Mabo, Wik and Native Title' (http://www.gwb.com.au/onenation/truth/title.html)

Reply: Who wrote Pauline's history

Author: Steve Mullins <s.mullins@CQU.EDU.AU>
Date: Fri, 2 May 1997 10:27:24 +1200

Date Sent: Thursday 1 May 1997

David Roberts wrote:
Forgive my ignorance. Who is Geoffrey Partington and what would have caused him to stray from the path of honesty and intelligence?

See also, Geoffrey Partington, The Australian History of Henry Reynolds, AMEC, 1994

Reply: Who wrote Pauline's history

Author: Norman Etherington <nether@cyllene.uwa.edu.au>
Date: Fri, 2 May 1997 10:27:22 +1200

Date Sent: Thursday 1 May 1997

Geoffrey Partington, who lectures in education at Flinders University has written, among other things: The Australian nation : its British and Irish roots, 1994. He is not shy about taking a stand against all forms of "black arm-band history"

Reply: Who wrote Pauline's history

Author: Philippa Martyr <Philippa.Martyr@nursing.utas.edu.au>
Date: Fri, 2 May 1997 10:27:19 +1200

Date Sent: Thursday 1 May 1997

I agree with Bryce's comment, but I did perform one little exercise. I took one of his paragraphs and reversed the words:

"I suggest that any assessment of the acceptability or otherwise of European cultural practices to Aboriginal sensibilities is irrelevant to the discussion of crimes committed against them by blacks."

European cultural practices at this time included finding large bodies of land, declaring them empty and possessing them, and also disposing of the inhabitants and/or converting them to Christianity. Ample evidence exists to suggest that these were normative cultural practices of European explorers and their followers in the period in question.

So should we dismiss them because they are normative cultural practices for a certain time and place?

In fact, can we even call them crimes, seeing as they were only cultural practices which have since become outdated?

Reply: Who wrote Pauline's history

Author: "H-ANZAU Editor, Caroline Daley" <c.daley@auckland.ac.nz>
Date: Fri, 2 May 1997 11:14:13 +1200

From:Steve Mullins Date Sent: Friday 2 May 1997

Having gone to the web to read `Aetiology of Mabo' (1994), I find it is exactly the same as The Australian History of Henry Reynolds (1994), apart from the opening paragraphs. Hmm. I wonder how they rate on the Brennan Index?

Reply: Who wrote Pauline's History

Author: Brian Dickey <Hybd@sss.flinders.edu.au>
Date: Fri, 2 May 1997 11:17:48 +1200

Date Sent: Friday 2 May 1997

Geoff Partington retired from Flinders University at the end of 1995. He no longer uses FU as a byline.

Reply: Who wrote Pauline's history

Author: Marion Diamond <med@lingua.cltr.uq.edu.au>
Date: Fri, 2 May 1997 19:17:37 +1000

Subject: Reply: Who wrote Pauline's history
Date Sent: Fri, 2 May 1997

I'm interested in someone's comments (sorry, I deleted the letter) that while Australian historians know a fair amount about the history of race relations, they don't know much about the history of pastoral leases. I agree. 50 years ago, Oz history was very heavily associated with the history of land settlement, squatting and Stephen Roberts's triumphalist accounts. We've had very little further investigation of the history of land settlement, and its legal implications, since Buckley's 'Gipps and the Graziers' back in the 1950s - not until Frost and Reynolds started publishing, from an entirely different angle, on the background to Terra Nullius. The history of land went out of fashion, as these things do.

Yet one of the curiosities of the current debate, it seems to me, is the assumption, in much of the conservative rhetoric, that freehold tenure is somehow the normative form of tenure - yet historians outside Australia (e.g. Avner Offer, in Britain) have been working on the (relatively recent) history of freehold tenure. Apart from a few relatively inaccessibe studies in legal history circles, there has been very little done in Australia. For my sins, I've agreed to give a lecture on the history of pastoral leases in Australia. I'd be grateful for suggestions of sources to look at.

Marion Diamond
History Department
University of Queensland

Reply: Who wrote Pauline's history

Author: Carrie Jacobi <hicgj@cc.newcastle.edu.au>
Date: Fri, 2 May 1997 20:37:13 +1000

Date Sent: Friday, 2/05/97

When I tried to access the first of these sites, netscape said that the URL was incorrect - is it? I was able to access the partington page, but not the one nation page. I copied it directly from Eudora so that I wouldn't have any typos.

Would appreciate any ideas on how to access it.

Carrie Jacobi
History, University of Newcastle

Reply: Who wrote Pauline's history?

Author: Paul Turnbull <Paul.Turnbull@JCU.EDU.AU>
Date: Sun, 4 May 1997 14:14:23 +1000

Subject: Reply: Who wrote Pauline's history?
Date Sent: Sat, 03 May 1997

Bryce Moore's recent post doesn't cheer one, if indeed people working for such a important publisher as Freemantle Arts think historians are engaged in some sort of politically correct cover-up. However, what I personally find depressing is the fact that any calm, historically informed response within the media is likely to be misintepreted in many quarters.

The nub of the issue is the concept of cannibalism as it has evolved in western culture over many centuries. Like most concepts, the meaning has been contingent upon the peculiarities of specific cultural geographies. Even so, there have been some stubborn elements, not the least being that cannibalism is morally abhorrent because it defies accepted moral tenets with respect to the treatment of the body, self and (in many instances) soul. The abhorrence with which Indigenous communities regarded cannibalism is evident in the manner in which sorcery and bad magic often involved the defilement of the body.

How do we explain the many references to cannibalism in nineteenth-century European texts? On the strength of those I've read in the course of my own research on the theft of ancestral remains I would have thought the answer is fairly obvious. In many cases what was encountered was traditional mortuary ceremonies in which fire was integral to reuniting spirit to country. The open assertion, or implication, that cannibalism was halted by the appearance of Europeans or the Native Police is usually evidenced by the statement that people fled on discovery!

It would appear, however, that Hansonesque history is largely confined to Holthouse. Now you don't have to go very far into the history of the North Queensland mining frontier to know that it was a war of extermination, marked by some of the most appalling incidents that found their way into the nineteenth century historical record. As utterances by mining wardens, diggers and police signal, in northern mining camps it was easy to murder anyone, black, Chinese or European, mutilate the corpse and then blame it on the Aboriginal people seeking to defend their country.

Bryce Moore comments:

I suggest that any assessment of the acceptability or otherwise of Aboriginal cultural practices to European sensibilities is irrelevant to the discussion of crimes committed against them by whites.

Absolutely. Whether or not contemporary practices are acceptable is a legitimate subject for discussion, although one that has to be tempered by mutual respect and an awareness of our shared histories since 1788. But to use the past as the Hansonites are doing, well....

Bryce also adds:

Again, I agree wholeheartedly. I'm inclined to think that localised Indigenous cultures included practices which extended to the ritual ingestion of the body. But then so have European cultures. Its a facet of the past, and one that does not impinge on the current debates about native title.

Cannibalism in the traditional pejorative meaning of the concept? No, I don't think that there is any solid evidence that Aboriginal people were "cannibals". Indeed, if we to appraise the sum of reliable evidence of "cannibalism" in the nineteenth-century, then on balance the charge is more appropriately levelled against Britons.

Paul Turnbull,
James Cook Univeristy

REPLY: Who wrote Pauline's history?

Author: Rosemarie McNairn <mcnairn@HG.ULETH.CA>
Date: Mon, 5 May 1997 08:27:33 +1000

Subject: REPLY: Who wrote Pauline's history?
Date: Sun, 04 May 1997

As one who usually researches the Caribbean and Central America, and has come lately to Australian/New Zealand history, the current discussion on cannibalism and Pauline Hanson is fascinating- confirmation yet again that although the principals may change the discourse of colonialism remains the same.

For those of you who are interested you might want to take a look at Peter Hulme's work, Colonial Encounters: Europe and the Native Caribbean, 1492-1797 (London, 1986) which outlines the development of the 'myth' of cannibalism as a colonialist trope. He uses primary sources (texts of discovery etc) along with European literature (e.g. Shakespeare's The Tempest, Defoe's Robinson Crusoe) to discuss the origins of the word cannibalism (a corruption of Carib, one of the indigenous groups in the Lesser Antilles who resisted colonization until the late eighteenth century)to show that cannibalism was more a construction of the European mind than a Caribbean reality. [with apologies to Hulme for such a watered-down synthesis of his excellent book.]

Cannibalism was also a pretext for the Spanish conquest of America and one of the four 'justifications' for waging war against the indigenous peoples there as outlined in the 1550 debate in Valladolid, Spain, between Sepulveda and Las Casas on the Nature of the Indians.

But, having just returned from Oz and being able to see the debate unfold, as it were, I doubt that Hanson will be deterred by the 'facts'. Colonialists rarely are.

Rosemarie McNairn
History, University of Lethbridge
Lethbridge, Alberta
Canada

REPLY: Who wrote Pauline's History?

Author: David Cameron <David.Cameron@MAILBOX.UQ.EDU.AU>
Date: Mon, 5 May 1997 15:00:52 +1000

Subject: REPLY: Who wrote Pauline's History? - Home Page hassles

I tried the URLs on Saturday morning and had no problem reaching Pauline Hanson's Home Page and other sites:

The URLs I used are, for Hanson's Homepage:

http://www.gwb.com.au/onenation/truth/index.html

and for the attached propagande try:

http://www.gwb.com.au/onenation/truth/intro.html

Make sure you have a barf bag handy as this stuff will make you sick.

David Cameron
University of Queensland

REPLY: Who wrote Pauline's history?

Author: Richard Boast <Richard.Boast@VUW.AC.NZ>
Date: Wed, 7 May 1997 10:08:48 +1000

Subject: REPLY: Who wrote Pauline's history? Cannibalism in New Zealand

It is fairly amazing to me (an innocent from the other side of the Tasman) that this issue has caused such apparently heated debate. In New Zealand it is absolutely clear that that the Maori did practise cannibalism - usually as a means of demonstrating triumph over, or contempt for, one's enemies defeated in battle. The relevance of this fact to current political/legal problems, however, is absolutely zero. I can't imagine an NZ poltician advocating that the Waitangi Tribunal, say, should be dis-established because the Maori practised cannibalism. (This is not to say that there are not calls for its abolition, or that Maori claims are universally accepted.)

It does seem from this distance that some of the insistence that the Aborigines did not practise it carries a wholly unnecessary air of defensiveness or special pleading, but what do I know? So what if they did? Our English ancestors used to cut out the entrails of traitors while the victims were still alive and then burn them in front of the victim.

Richard Boast
Faculty of Law
Victoria University of Wellington

REPLY: Who wrote Pauline's history?

Author: Tim Lovell-Smith <Tim.Lovell-Smith@NATLIB.GOVT.NZ>
Date: Thu, 8 May 1997 16:49:27 +1000

Subject: REPLY: Who wrote Pauline's history? Cannibalism in New Zealand

As another New Zealander, I share Richard Boast's surprise at the excitement displayed by Australians at the possibility of cannibalism.

What's Pauline's point about this practice?

All cultures contain some unlovely traits, and surely to deny Aboriginal or Maori rights on this basis is as unjust as to deny Europeans constitutional rights because they once practised legal slavery.

Tim Lovell-Smith
Manuscripts and Archives Section
Alexander Turnbull Library
Wellington, New Zealand

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