The judgement of the world: The Yorta Yorta case and the 'tide of history'

Australian Historical Studies

Volumn 35, Issue 123, 2004, Pages 106-121

  Ritter, David ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF WESTERN AUSTRALIA   (Australia)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 61149508320     PISSN: 1031461X     EISSN: 19405049     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/10314610408596274     Document Type: Article

References (81)

1. Alain Robbe-Grillet, quoted in C. Plasa, 'Silent Revolt: Slavery and the Politics of Metaphor in Jane Eyre' in The Discourse of Slavery: Aphra Benn to Toni Morrison, C. Plasa and B.J. Ring (New York: Routledge, 1994), 64
2. H.O. Taylor, 'Continuities in History', American Historical Review 44(1) (October 1938): 7
3. See: P. Seidel, 'The Yorta Yorta Native Title Determination Application' in Working with the Native Title Act: Alternatives to the Adversarial Method, ed. L. Strelein (AIATSIS: Canberra, 1998), 130
4. W. Atkinson, 'Mediating the Mindset of Opposition', Indigenous Law Bulletin 5(15) (February/March 2002): 10
5. For an evocative description of the mediation process in Yorta Yorta, see: W. Atkinson, 'Mediating the Mindset', 8-11
6. M. Morgan, 'The Claimant Experience of National Native Title Tribunal Mediation in the Yorta Yorta Claim' in The Skills of Native Title Practice, P. Burke (AIATSIS: Canberra, 1995), 21
7. For some of the matters covered on appeal see J.F. Weiner, 'Diaspora, Materialism, Tradition: Anthropological Issues in the Recent High Court Appeal of the Yorta Yorta', Land, Rights, Laws: Issues of Native Title 2002(2): 18
8. S. Flood, 'Application for Determination of Native Title' in Implementing the Native Title Act First Steps; Small steps, ed. G. Meyers (Perth: National Native Title Tribunal, 1996), 6
9. MacDonald, 'Does "Culture" have "History"? Thinking about Continuity and Change in central New South Wales', Aboriginal History 25, (2001), 178
10. Kerruish and Perrin have described the 'settled south' as a paradigm, V. Kerruish and C. Perrin, 'Awash in Colonialism', Indigenous Law Bulletin 24(1) (Feb. 1999): 3
11. R. Bartlett, Native Title in Australia (Sydney: Butterworths, 2000), 115, para. 8.77
12. N.Case, 'Tide of History or Tsunami? The Members of the Yorta Yorta Aboriginal Community v The State of Victoria & Ors', Indigenous Law Bulletin 4(17) (Dec 1998/Jan 1999)
13. S. Young, 'The Trouble with Tradition': Native Title and the Yorta Yorta Decision', University of Western Australia Law Review 30 (2001): 28
14. Yorta Yorta Appeal per Chief Justice Black; J. Cockrayne, 'Members of the Yorta Yorta Aboriginal Community v Victoria', Melbourne University Law Review 25 (2001): 786
15. R. Foster, "Turning Back the Tide. The Use of History in the Native Title Process', Indigenous Law Bulletin 4(22) (July 1999): 17
16. J. Litchfield, Mabo and Yorta Yorta: Two Approaches to History and some Implications for the Native Title Process (Perth: National Native Title Tribunal Occasional Papers Series, 3/2001, 2001)
17. T. Murray, 'Conjectural Histories: some archaeological and historical consequences of dispossession in Australia' Native Title and the Transformation of Archaeology in the Postcolonial World
18. R. Pitty, 'A Poverty of Evidence: Abusing Law and History in Yorta Yorta v Victoria (1998)', Australian Journal of Legal History 6 (2000): 41
19. A. Reilly, 'The Ghost of Truganini: Use of Historical Evidence as Proof of Native Title', Federal Law Review 28 (2000): 453
20. A. Reilly, 'History Always Repeats: Members of the Yorta Yorta Aboriginal Community v State of Victoria'. Indigenous Law Bulletin 5(6) (Feb.-March 2001): 25
21. C. Land, 'Representations of Gender in E M Curr's', Indigenous Law Bulletin 5(19) (2002): 6-8
22. Weiner, 18; G. MacDonald, 'Does "Culture" Have "History"?': 176
23. D. Rose, 'Aboriginal Life and Death in Australian Settler Nationhood', Aboriginal History 25 (2001): 158-60
24. R. Hagen, 'Anthropologists and Land Claims', 'Native Title in the New Millennium Representative Bodies Legal Conference, Melbourne, 18 April 2000. Rose and Hagen both gave evidence as experts on the part of the Yorta Yorta. Both were criticised by Justice Olney who stated: 'The anthropological and historical evidence presented on behalf of the applicants was prepared and presented by Mr Hagen. In preparation for this claim he spent five weeks working with the applicants. In evidence he conceded that his active participation in the conduct of the proceedings indicates a close association with the applicants and perhaps a degree of partisanship on his part. Nevertheless, his report is comprehensive ⋯ Mr Hagen's views were supported by Dr Deborah Rose. Dr Rose's evidence suffers from a combination of factors, notably, that she had no prior anthropological experience in the area under consideration, she had not read the ethnographic literature of the region and had relied upon the written witness statements, not all of which were in evidence and some of which were shown to be inaccurate', Yorta Yorta Triai, para. 55. For earlier Hagen perspectives
25. see R. Hagen, 'Ethnographic Information and Anthropological Interpretations in a Native Title Claim-The Yorta Yorta Experience', conference paper to 'On The South-East', Humanities Research Centre, ANU, Canberra, 18 June 1997
26. and R. Hagen, 'Anthropologists, Historians and Land Claims', Australian Historical Association Annual Conference, Sydney University, July, 1998
27. 'One of several remarkable aspects of the judge's decision was the quality of its sentiment', D. Rose, 'Aboriginal Life and Death', 158
28. Kerruish and Perrin, 3, and S. Knuckey, 'The Modern Necessity of the Noble Savage', presented at the annual Native Title Representative Bodies Conference, 'Outcomes and Possibilities', Geraldton, WA, 3-5 September 2002
29. See, for example: W. Atkinson, ' "Not One Iota" of Land Justice: Reflections on the Yorta Yorta Native Title Claim 1994-2001', Indigenous Law Bulletin 5(6) (Feb.-March 2001): 19
30. Morgan. 'The Claimant Experience', 21
31. M. Morgan, 'Women and Native Title' in Native Title in Perspective
32. M. Morgan, 'Yorta Yorta', conference paper delivered at the annual Native Title Representative Bodies Conference, 'Outcomes and Possibilities', Geraldton, WA, 3-5 September 2002
33. See, for example: R. Brunton, 'People's Tragic Tale of Culture Eroded and Renounced', Courier-Mail (Qld), 2 January 1999
34. J. Forbes, 'Judicial Tidy-Up or Takeover? Centralism's Next Stage', Proceedings of the Samuel Griffiths Society 11(7) (1999): 6-8
35. J. Forbes, 'Native Title Now', Proceedings of the Samuel Griffiths Society 13(4) (2001): 3-5, 6-8
36. J. Forbes, 'Judicial Tidy-Up or Takeover?', 8
37. P. Schoff, 'The High Court and History: It Still Hasn't Found(ed) What it is Looking For', Public Law Review 5 (1994), 253: 258
38. The quote is taken from a submission by Ron Castan QC to the High Court in the Yorta Yorta High Court appeal that: There is no image of the Aborigine standing on the hill with a spear against the sunset that conditions the exercise of the native title jurisdiction.' Quoted in A. Pradhan, 'Yorta Yorta Take Fight to High Court', Green Left Weekly, 29 May 2002
39. See: D. Fletcher and M. Keenan, 'Indigenous Land Use Agreements and the Future Role of the Historian in Native Title', paper presented at 'Land and Freedom', ANZLHS Conference, Sydney, July 1999
40. C. Cheater, Historians and Native Title (Sydney: Professional Historians Association (NSW) Inc., Monograph Series No. 3, 2000)
41. N. Green, 'Three Legged Elephants: Native Title Histories', cf M. Paul, 'Reflecting on Past Practice: The Uses of History in the Alice Springs Arrernte Native Title Application', conference papers delivered at 'Crossing Boundaries: Anthropology, Linguistics, History and Law in Native Title', 19-20 September 2000, University of Western Australia (publication in a Melbourne University Press anthology pending)
42. C. Choo and S. Hollbach, 'The Role of the Historian in Native Title Litigation', Indigenous Law Bulletin 4(17) (December 1998-January 1999): 7-9
43. C. Choo, 'History in Practice: History, Native Title and Reconciliation', Limina 5 (1999): 138
44. C. Choo, 'Historians and Native Title', paper given at 'Crossing Borders', National Conference of the Oral History Associate, 3-7 September 1997, Alice Springs
45. C. Choo and S. Hollbach, History and Native Title, Studies in Western Australian History 23 (2002)
46. New South Wales called an anthropologist (Professor Kenneth Maddock) and a linguist (Dr Bruce Sommer); and a group of other represented respondents called a second anthropologist (Dr Ronald Brunton)', Yorta Yorta Trial, paras 22-3
47. These various issues are discussed in D. Ritter and F.N.A. Flanagan, 'Stunted Growth: The Historiography of Native Title Litigation in the Decade Since Mabo', publication in Public History Review, pending
48. A. McGrath, 'History and Land Rights', Law 'Stories for Country': Oral History and Aboriginal Land Claims', Oral History Association of Australia Journal 9 (1987): 18
49. Reilly, 'The Ghost of Truganini' 460. Although I have perhaps used it in such a way, in context Alex Reilly's statement is not made uncritically: he goes on to persuasively interrogate the evidence, arguing a competing interpretation
50. D. Rose, 'Aboriginal Life and Death', 158
51. The phrase 'truncated beings' comes from J. Wilton and R.J.B. Bosworth, Old Worlds and New Australia the Post-war Migrant Experience (Melbourne: Penguin, 1985), 152, who were expressing scepticism about immigrants to Australia being 'truncated beings'
52. See B. Attwood. Rights for Aborigines (Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 2003), 77
53. See also, R. Pitty, 'A Poverty of Evidence: Abusing Law and History in Yorta Yorta v Victoria (1998)', Australian Journal of Legal History (6), 41 (2000): 44-5
54. See D. Ritter and L.A. Ritter, 'Proto-Nationalistic History: We Have Made a Native Title Claim, Now We Must Make Native Title Holders' in Europe-Divided or United?, eds F. Oswald and M. Perkins (Canberra: Southern Highlands Publishers, 2000)
55. D.R. Lewis, 'Still Native: The Significance of Native Americans in the History of Twentieth- Century American West' in A New Significance: Re-envisioning the History of the American West, ed. C.A. Milner (Oxford, 1996) 215
56. G. MacDonald, 'Does "Culture" Have "History"?': 185
57. P. Sullivan, 'The Generation of Cultural Trauma: What Are Anthropologists For?', Australian Aboriginal Studies (1) (1986): 13-23
58. Quoted in L.R. Hiatt, Arguments About Aborigines (Cambridge University Press, 1995), 19-20
59. G. Blainey, Triumph of the Nomads (Melbourne: Sun Books, 1985), 254. Ambiguously, Blainey's Short History of the World prominently featured a giant wave as the graphic on the frontispiece to Pan One, G. Blainey, A Short History of the World (Melbourne: Penguin, 2001)
60. G. MacDonald, 'Does "Culture" Have "History"?': 180
61. K.W. Deutsch, Tides Among Nations (New York: Macmillan, 1979), ix. Later in the passage, Deutsch emphasised that the metaphor should not be taken literally
62. See for example: G.M. Trevelyan, 'Clio Rediscovered' in The Varieties of History from Voltaire to the Present
63. C. Ginzburg, The Judge and the Historian: Marginal Notes on a Late-Twentieth-Century Miscarriage of Justice (London: Verso, 1999), 13. One commentator, in the context of Mabo, has noted its connection with the philosophical ideal of eternal return, see Schoff, 257
64. Lord Acton, Lectures on Modern History (London: Macmillan, (1906) 1960 edn), 31
65. See, for some of many, many possible examples: P. Fussell, The Great War and Modern Memory (London, 1975)
66. M. Eksteins, Rites of Spring (London, 1990)
67. M. Howard, War and the Liberal Conscience (London, 1978)
68. See: J. Barker, The Super Historians (New York, 1982)
69. P. Costello, World Historians and their Goals (Dekalb (111.), 1993)
70. O. Spengler, The Hour of Decision (New York: AMS Press, 1934), x-xi
71. A.J. Toynbee, A Study of History, vol 1 (London, 1934)
72. See D. Ritter, 'The Rejection of Terra Nullius in Mabo: A Critical Analysis' Sydney Law Review 18(1) (1996): 5
73. Morgan, 'Women and Native Title', 29
74. W. Atkinson, 'Not One Iota', 20
75. R.A. Williams, The American Indian in Western Legal Thought (Oxford University Press, 1990), 8
76. R.H. MacDonald, The Language of Empire: Myths and Metaphors of Popular Imperialism, 1880-1918 (Manchester University Press, 1994), 54-6
77. There is obviously a vast literature here. See, for example, Williams, The American Indian
78. G. MacDonald, 'Does "Culture" Have "History"?': 176
79. I am deliberately echoing debates over the so-called 'rejection of terra nullius' in Mabo here. I want to avoid problems of the kind identified in V. Kerruish, 'Reynolds, Thompson and The Rule of Law: Jurisprudence and Ideology in Terra Nullius', Law in Context 7 (1989): 120-33
80. D. Ritter, 'The Rejection of Terra Nullius', 5
81. See also S. Motha, 'Encountering the Epistemic Limit of the Recognition of 'Difference", Griffith Law Review 7(1) (1998): 79