Translating histories: Australian Aboriginal narratives, history and literature

Abstract

Can literature exist without history? Can history exist without literature? I argue that Indigenous authors and artists are now leading the way towards new tellings of Australian history which go beyond the last ice age. In Australia, the topic of 'Aboriginal History' is conventionally narrated from the starting date of 1788, with the British arrival to the shores around Sydney Harbour. From the late 1970s, historians started to fill the erasure of written narratives. They tried to address the neglected Aboriginal side of an Australian history that had been presented as a white narrative of nation. However, as my own work attests, we historians still followed the same dates as many other authors of national history. In Creating a Nation, a feminist history of Australia that I co-authored with Patricia Grimshaw, Marilyn Lake and Marian Quartly, I wrote about 'Birthplaces' at Port Jackson, a story of gendered encounter. In my edited volume, Contested Ground: Aborigines under the British Crown, it seemed appropriate to start in 1788 with the arrival of the First Fleet of British convicts and the marine officers in charge. I But I no longer believe this is adequate. Such a 'false start' is a narrative trick that we have replayed for too long. Show more