TY - JOUR
T1 - The missing Macassans
T2 - Indigenous sovereignty, rock art and the archaeology of absence
AU - May, Sally K.
AU - Wesley, Daryl
AU - Goldhahn, Joakim
AU - Lamilami, R.
AU - Taçon, Paul S.C.
PY - 2021
Y1 - 2021
N2 - The contact period rock art of northern Australia provides unprecedented insights into Aboriginal cross-cultural experiences during the last few hundred years. Northwest Arnhem Land, Australia, has an extensive rock art assemblage and a complicated history of interactions between Aboriginal communities and island South East Asians (Macassans), colonists, explorers, missionaries, buffalo shooters, and more. This contact period rock art offers a unique opportunity to explore a variety of questions relating to cross-cultural interactions and artistic responses to new people, objects and ideas. In this paper we argue that a dichotomy exists in the number of European and south-east Asian themed rock art motifs. We suggest that there is an underlying theme in the proliferation of European related imagery relating to threats to Indigenous sovereignty. Our findings suggest that rock art illustrates the Aboriginal community’s responses to both groups and their experience of the existential threat posed by European intruders. The apparent lack of rock art relating to south-east Asian interactions, although perplexing, may in fact provide circumstantial evidence for a very different type of interaction between some northern Australian and south-east Asian communities.
AB - The contact period rock art of northern Australia provides unprecedented insights into Aboriginal cross-cultural experiences during the last few hundred years. Northwest Arnhem Land, Australia, has an extensive rock art assemblage and a complicated history of interactions between Aboriginal communities and island South East Asians (Macassans), colonists, explorers, missionaries, buffalo shooters, and more. This contact period rock art offers a unique opportunity to explore a variety of questions relating to cross-cultural interactions and artistic responses to new people, objects and ideas. In this paper we argue that a dichotomy exists in the number of European and south-east Asian themed rock art motifs. We suggest that there is an underlying theme in the proliferation of European related imagery relating to threats to Indigenous sovereignty. Our findings suggest that rock art illustrates the Aboriginal community’s responses to both groups and their experience of the existential threat posed by European intruders. The apparent lack of rock art relating to south-east Asian interactions, although perplexing, may in fact provide circumstantial evidence for a very different type of interaction between some northern Australian and south-east Asian communities.
KW - Arnhem Land
KW - Australia
KW - contact
KW - Macassans
KW - Rock art
KW - Southeast Asia
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85110900133&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://purl.org/au-research/grants/ARC/DP160101832
UR - http://purl.org/au-research/grants/ARC/FL160100123
UR - http://purl.org/au-research/grants/ARC/DE170101447
U2 - 10.1080/03122417.2021.1932243
DO - 10.1080/03122417.2021.1932243
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85110900133
SN - 0312-2417
VL - 87
SP - 127
EP - 143
JO - Australian Archaeology
JF - Australian Archaeology
IS - 2
ER -