Islam and Australia's aborigines? A perspective from north-east Arnhem Land

Journal of Religious History

Volumn 20, Issue 1, 1996, Pages 53-77

  Mcintosh, Ian S ^a  

^a Northern Land Council   (Australia)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 49949106329     PISSN: 00224227     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-9809.1996.tb00692.x     Document Type: Article

References (93)

1. Following Rudder, I use the words 'inside' and 'outside' to refer to secret/sacred and public interpretations of knowledge relating to the Dreaming or creation period in Aboriginal cosmology. See J. Rudder, Yolngu Cosmology: An Unchanging Cosmos Incorporating a Rapidly Changing World? PhD thesis, Australian National University, Canberra 1993, p. 30.
2. W. S. Campbell, "The Oldest Industry in Australia: Trepang', Royal Australian Historical Society Journal, Vol. 3, No. 9, 1917.
3. In 1907 Macassan fishermen were barred from entry into Australian waters for purposes of trepanging (see C. C. Macknight, The Voyage to Marege: Macassan Trepangers in Northern Australia, Melbourne 1976, p. 1).
4. See A. Capell 'Early Indonesian Contacts with North Australia', Journal of the Oriental Society of Australia, Vol. 3, 1965, p. 74;
5. T. Swain, A Place for Strangers: Towards a History of Australian Aboriginal Being, Cambridge 1993;
6. and J. Urry and M. Walsh, "The Lost "Macassar Language" of Northern Australia', Aboriginal History, Vol. 5, No. 1, 1981, p. 98.
7. R. M. Berndt and C. H. Berndt, 'Discovery of Pottery in North-Eastern Arnhem Land', Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, Vol. 77, 1947, pp. 133-40.
8. P. M. Worsley, 'Early Asian Contacts with Australia', Past and Present, Vol. 7, 1955, p. 5.
9. A. Walker, 'Macassan Influences on the Aboriginal Language and Culture of Northern Australia', Indonesian Studies: Bulletin of the Indonesian Cultural and Educational Institute, Vol. 5, No. 1, 1988;
10. A. Walker and D. Zorc, 'Austronesian Loanwords in Yolngu-Matha of North-East Arnhem Land', Aboriginal History, Vol. 5, June 1981;
11. D. Zorc, Yolngu-Matha Dictionary, Batchelor, N.T. 1986.
12. Rudder, Yolngu Cosmology.
13. I. Keen, Knowledge and Secrecy in an Aboriginal Religion: Yolngu of North-East Arnhem Land, Oxford 1994.
14. See Macknight, Voyage to Marege
15. and S. Mitchell, Foreign Contact and Indigenous Economies on the Cobourg Peninsula, PhD thesis, Northern Territory University 1994.
16. C. C. Macknight, 'Macassans and Aborigines', Oceania, Vol. 42, No. 4, 1972.
17. Burrumarra's father, Ganimbirrngu, was described as a 'front man' for the Macassans, and in an account by one of the last Macassans on the coast he was referred to as the Rajah of Melville Bay (see Macknight, Voyage to Marege, p. 84).
18. See R. M. Berndt, An Adjustment Movement in Arnhem Land, Paris and The Hague 1962, and also Northern Territory News, 21 February 1995. Burrumarra was an informant for the noted academics Donald Thomson, John Mulvaney, Ronald and Catherine Berndt, John Cawte, Campbell Macknight and John Money.
19. W. L. Warner, A Black Civilization: A Social Study of an Australian Tribe, Chicago 1969.
20. See also J. Cawte, The Universe of the Warramirri, Sydney 1993;
21. I. S. Mcintosh, 'Who are the Bayini?', The Beagle: Records of the Museum and Art Galleries of the Northern Territory, Vol. 12, 1995, pp. 193-208;
22. and I. S. Mcintosh, 'Aboriginal Iron Production and Use in North-East Arnhem Land', Aboriginal History, forthcoming.
23. See Mcintosh, 'Aboriginal Iron Production and Use'.
24. See Berndt and Berndt, 'Discovery of Pottery in North-Eastern Arnhem Land'.
25. See Mcintosh, 'Who are the Bayini?';
26. I. S. Mcintosh, Can we Be Equal in Your Eyes? A Perspective on Reconciliation from Yolngu Myth and History, PhD thesis, Northern Territory University 1995.
27. 'Macassans' or more generally, non-Aborigines; people with 'white' skin. See Zorc, Yolngu-Matha Dictionary.
28. W. L. Warner, 'Malay Influence on the Aboriginal Cultures of Northern Australia', Oceania, Vol. 2, No. 1, 1932, pp. 476-95.
29. See A. P. Elkin, R. M. Berndt and C. H. Berndt, Art in Arnhem Land, Melbourne 1950, p. 55.
30. U. Tjandrasasmita, "The Introduction of Islam and the growth of Moslem Coastal Cities in the Indonesian Archipelago', in Dynamics of Indonesian History, H. Soebadio and C. A. du Marchie (eds), Amsterdam 1978, p. 149.
31. M. A. P. Meilink-Roelofsz, 'Trade and Islam in the Malay-Indonesian Archipelago Prior to the Arrival of the Europeans', in Islam and the Trade of Asia: A Colloquium, D. S. Richards (ed.), Oxford 1970, p. 154.
32. B. J. O. Schrieke, Indonesian Sociological Studies: Selected Writings of B. Schrieke, Part Two: Ruler and Realm in Early Java, The Hague and Bandung, 1957, p. 233.
33. E. McKay, 'Sixteenth to Eighteenth Centuries: The Significance of the Coming of the Europeans', in Studies in Indonesian History, E. McKay (ed.), Melbourne 1976, p. 108.
34. C. Turnbull, A Brief History of Malaysia, Singapore and Brunei, Sydney 1989, p. 22.
35. McKay, 'Sixteenth to Eighteenth Centuries', p. 108.
36. A. Reid, 'The Rise of Macassar', Rima, Vol. 17, 1983, p. 117.
37. L. A. Andaya, The Heritage of Arung Palaka: A History of South Southwest Sulawesi (Celebes) in the Seventeenth Century, The Hague 1981, p. 1.
38. Swain, A Place for Strangers, p. 102.
39. Reid, 'Rise of Macassar', p. 117.
40. L. A. Andaya, The Heritage of Arung Palaka, p. 1.
41. In Macknight, 'Macassans and Aborigines', p. 293.
42. R. M. Berndt and C. H. Berndt, Arnhem Land: Its History and its People, Melbourne 1954, p. 46.
43. Walker, 'Macassan Influences on the Aboriginal Language and Culture of Northern Australia', p. 32, says the prayer-man first addresses God as 'Father!', then addresses him as the 'Most High God', i.e., Walitha'walitha.
44. Warner, A Black Civilization, p. 420.
45. See D. E. Sopher, The Sea Nomads: A Study Based on the Literature of the Maritime Boat People of South-East Asia, Singapore 1965, p. 145.
46. Only Dhurritjini (Turijene) can be positively identified as Sama-Bajau. They were associates of the Macassans from Gowa from at least the early 1600s and lived on the islands off Ujung Pandang (see C. Pelras, A few Complimentary Notes on Aquatic Populations in South Sulawesi and South Malaya, unpublished notes from the International Seminar on Bajau Communities, Jakarta November 1993).
47. The identity of the other groups is unknown. They may in fact represent the peoples of Maluku in eastern Indonesia (I. S. Mcintosh, 'Maluku "Totem" Hunters and Sama-Bajau in North Australian Aboriginal Mythology?', Australian Folklore, Vol. 10, 1995, pp. 50-60).
48. E. Kolig, 'Post-Contact Religious Movements in Australian Aboriginal Society', Anthropos, Vol. 82;
49. E. Kolig, 'Religious Power and the All-Father in the Sky: Monotheism in Australian Aboriginal Culture Reconsidered', Anthropos, Vol. 87.
50. See E. Kolig, 'Captain Cook in the Western Kimberleys', in Aborigines of the West, R. M. Berndt and C. H. Berndt (eds), Perth 1979;
51. C. Mackinolty and P. Wainburranga, 'Too Many Captain Cooks', in Aboriginal Australians and Christian Missions: Ethnographic and Historical Studies, Bedford Park, S.A. 1988;
52. and D. B. Rose, 'The Saga of Captain Cook: Morality in Aboriginal and European Law', Australian Aboriginal Studies, Vol. 2, 1984.
53. Kolig, 'Religious Power and the All-Father in the Sky', p. 29.
54. The constitution of 'Other' by academics and by indigenous peoples is a major issue in contemporary anthropology (see J. Fabian, Time and the Other: How Anthropology Makes its Object, New York 1983). In its simplest form, to Aborigines, non-Aborigines are the 'Other', and vice versa. This article looks at Aboriginal representations of the 'Other', i.e., 'Macassans' in myth and oral history.
55. See A. Lattas, 'Hysteria, Anthropological Discourse and the Concept of the Unconscious: Cargo Cults and the Scientisation of Race and Colonial Power', Oceania, Vol. 63, No. 1, 1992;
56. See E. Shephardson, Half a Century in Arnhem Land, One Tree Hill, S.A. 1981.
57. See Berndt, An Adjustment Movement in Arnhem Land; R. Bos, Jesus and the Dreaming: Religion and Social Change in Arnhem Land, PhD thesis, University of Queensland 1988;
58. J. R. Garrawurra, untitled article in Crucible (Uniting Church in Australia, Northern Synod), May 1982;
59. D. Gondarra, Father You Gave Us the Dreaming, Darwin 1988;
60. I. R. Yule, My Mother the Land, Darwin 1980.
61. See Yule, My Mother the Land.
62. Warner, 'Malay Influence on the Aboriginal Cultures of North Australia', p. 493;
63. D. F. Thomson, Economic Structure and the Ceremonial Exchange Cycle in Arnhem Land, Melbourne 1949, p. 60.
64. See A. Searcy, In Australian Tropics, London 1909;
65. A. Searcy, By Flood and Field: Adventures Ashore and Afloat in North Australia, London 1911.
66. Worsley, 'Early Asian Contacts with Australia'.
67. They have, however, a considerable knowledge of the Macassarese language, and in Yolngu matha (north-east Arnhem Land languages) there are hundreds of loan words still in common use. See Walker, 'Macassan Influences on the Aboriginal Language';
68. Walker and Zorc, 'Australian Loanwords'.
69. It is well documented that, upon death, the souls of Warramiri clan members are transported on the back of a whale to a paradise in the north, with the aid of the whale-hunters referred to earlier, i.e., Dhurritjini (Warner, 'Malay Influence', p. 356;
70. I. Mcintosh, The Bricoleur at Work: Warang (Dingo) Mythology in the Yirritja Moiety of North-East Arnhem Land, MLitt thesis, University of New England 1992. In modern times, however, variations on this theme have emerged. One lady said her mother, a Warramiri-Mandjikay clan woman, had a black bus as Walitha' walitha. If someone had died, then Walitha' walitha, in this form, would come to take the spirit away. A number of people also told me that Burrumarra himself had a helicopter as Walitha' walitha.
71. The flag dance is a part of the Wurramu ceremony. Downing has also stated that the flag, in Indonesia, is linked to the spread of Islam, and to bringing all peoples under a single banner. (See the 1993 television program, 'Different Lives Below the Wind', Australian Broadcasting Commission, Big Picture Series, 13 January 1993.)
72. Another name for the Wurramu or spirit of the dead. See Berndt and Berndt, Arnhem Land, p. 214 and later.
73. See K. Burridge, New Heaven New Earth: A Study of Millenarian Activities, Oxford 1971;
74. Rethinking History and Myth; Indigenous South American Perspectives on the Past, J. D. Hill (ed.), Chicago 1988;
75. and also D. H. Turner, 'Caste Logic in a Clan Society: An Aboriginal Response to Domination', in Aboriginal Power in Australian Society, M. Howard (ed.), Brisbane 1982.
76. Warner, 'Malay Influence', applied the term Murrnginy to a series of clan groups, both dhuwa and yirritja, in north-east Arnhem Land.
77. As McIntosh shows, however, it is a term specific to the yirritja moiety and refers to the dreaming era of Birrinydji, when Aborigines turned their backs on his law. (McIntosh, Can We Be Equal in Your Eyes?, p. 27.)
78. D. F. Thomson, 'Arnhem Land: Explorations Among an Unknown People, Part 3: On Foot Across Arnhem Land', Geographical Journal, Vol. 114, 1949, p. 61.
79. R. M. Berndt and C. H. Berndt, 'Secular Figures of Northeastern Arnhem Land', American Anthropologist, Vol. 51, No. 2, 1949, p. 214.
80. See Berndt and Berndt, 'Secular Figures of Northeastern Arnhem Land';
81. J. A. Hoff, 'Aboriginal Carved and Painted Human Figures in North-East Arnhem Land', in Form in Indigenous Art, P. Ucko (ed.), Canberra 1977.
82. Macknight, Voyage to Marege, p. 314.
83. Given that there appear to have been such poor relations between Aborigines and 'Macassans' in this area of Arnhern Land, it is hard to imagine 'Macassans' performing last rites for Aborigines. Yet as Berndt and Berndt note (Arnhern Land, p. 46), the early 'Macassan' period was marked by the joint performance of rituals of celebration prior to departure from the coast at the end of the trepanging season. In the example the Berndts give, the celebrations were held in Warramiri territory, at Cape Wilberforce.
84. Elkin, Berndt and Berndt, Art in Arnhem Land, p. 55.
85. I. S. Mcintosh, 'The Dog and the Myth Maker: Macassans and Aborigines in North-East Arnhem Land', Australian Folklore, Vol. 9, 1994, p. 67.
86. Dance promoter Andrish St Claire received a grant from the Australia Council in 1994 to commence negotiations.
87. M. Cooke, Makassar & Northeast Arnhem Land: Missing Links and Living Bridges, Batchelor, N.T. 1987;
88. I. Mcintosh, 'A Memorable Trip to Macassar', The Aboriginal Health Worker [Special Feature; Elcho Island], Vol. 13, No. 2, 1989.
89. D. F. Thomson, 'Early Macassar Visitors to Amhem Land and their Influence on its People', Walkabout, Vol. 23, No. 7.
90. See Cawte, The Universe of the Warramirri, p. 43.
91. See Cooke, Macassar & Northeast Arnhem Land, p. 18;
92. J. Isaacs, Australian Dreaming: 40,000 Years of Aboriginal History, Sydney 1980, p. 75.
93. A. P. Elkin, 'Arnhem Land Music', Oceania, Vol. 24, No. 2, p. 91, records a number of Warramiri songs such as the 'card-gambling' song which highlights this sense of partnership between peoples.