The challenge posed by these findings to entrenched orthodoxy is not confined to the impact of African American political ideology during the 1920s and 1960s. The interaction and connection between Aboriginal people and other cultures has a very long history that needs to be explored in greater detail and recognised.
Western thought for a great part of the twentieth century was instrumental in establishing the misconception that Aboriginal culture was static and locked at the stone age of development. In recent decades this convenient myth has been overturned. Aboriginal culture was never static but evolving, adapting and changing through the exchange of goods and technology along well-established trade routes. These exchanges were not confined to the Australian continent. The most notable early visitors were the Macassans from the Dutch East Indies (present day Indonesia), who for hundreds of years visited northern Australia for the trepang (sea slug), an expensive delicacy which they sent in vast quantities to China.[30] Aboriginal people gained work as crewmen on these boats, which raises the probability that some Aboriginal people may have ventured far from these shores many centuries ago, certainly as far as China. One can only imagine the impact made when these early Aboriginal sailors finally returned to their own communities. Other visitors who may have contributed subtle changes to Aboriginal life included the Dutch, Portuguese, French and Chinese.
The British invasion and occupation of the Australian continent in 1788 signalled the onset of large-scale interaction between Aboriginal peoples and other nationalities. From the outset Aboriginal people made contact with black convicts and sailors as well as Europeans. One important early connection was through one sailor of the First Fleet, who was probably a Native American Indian. When the devastation of disease impacted upon the local Aboriginal population of the Sydney region in the winter of 1789 the ‘Native American’ sailor took it upon himself to visit and attempt to comfort two seriously ill Aboriginal children. Some may ask why he took this direction. I think the answer is obvious he cared and had empathy and compassion for the Aboriginal experience that he was witness to, and it undoubtedly drew parallels to the experience of his own people in the United States. Sadly this Native American man contracted smallpox himself and was the only recorded casualty amongst the first fleet.[31]
The British for their part immediately began a process of taking Aboriginal people back to Britain (which reflected an ongoing process of European conquest and domination – to publicly display the vanquished), first as curiosities and later as examples of the fine efforts of Christian civilising. In December 1792 Bennelong and a young man Yemmurrawannie accompanied Governor Arthur Phillip to England (as well as four kangaroos and ‘other peculiar animals’). Bennelong returned to Australia in 1795 with new governor John Hunter (Yemmurrawannie died of a respiratory infection in 1794 and was buried at Eltham in England). English King George III formally expressed his desire to the new governor that ‘not another native should be brought home from New South Wales’.[32] The King’s wishes went unheeded and there were further Aboriginal travellers, including the man Moowat’tin or Daniel who acted as a guide and specimen collector to the botanist Caley. Caley brought Moowat’tin to England to help with identifying his specimens but also asserted the advantages of this being a ‘means of bringing them [the natives] over to our customs much sooner’. What started as a trickle in the late eighteenth century built to a steady flow throughout the nineteenth century of Aboriginal people journeying to other places around the globe. It was not an Aboriginal choice, in many instances. Roslyn Poignant’s recent book Professional Savages highlights the sad story of a group of Northern Queensland Aborigines shipped to the United States to appear in dime museums, fairgrounds and circuses all over America and Europe.[33] These circus performers were followed in future decades by Aboriginal cricketers, boxers, footballers and horsemen.
Connections between Aboriginal people and other cultures on the docks of Australian harbours have been an important and previously neglected link to the outside world and warrant further studies. As an example of this dockland cultural connection, John Askew in 1852 recorded the natural inclination and gravitation of visiting Maori to the local Aboriginal people. Askew recorded his adventures and experiences as a steerage passenger in the Australian colony noting that eleven of the crew on the ship to New Zealand were Maori. Whilst berthed in Newcastle the Maori crew left the ship and walked the streets and docks of Newcastle. He noted not only his own but also the bewilderment of the local populace at the Maori appearance:
The Maories [sic] all came into the city that night, and their singular appearance attracted much attention. They were strapping young fellows. Some grotesquely tattooed; one or two had ear-rings of a peculiar kind of sharks teeth suspended by a piece of ribbon from their ears. [34]
Askew records a cultural exchange between the Maori visitors and the local Aboriginal people within the town.
After strolling about the place for a considerable time, they mustered in front of James Hannel’s, to look at a group of black fellows and gins, who were dancing a corrobory [sic] ... No sooner had they ended, than the Maories commenced their terrible war song. Squatting themselves down, with their legs crossed in the oriental fashion, they began by making a noise not unlike the snorting of an ‘iron horse’, heard half a mile off.
This noise was accompanied by violent gestures, and the rapid motion of their hands through the air.
As they became more excited, their eyes rolled in a frenzy, and their heads turned from one side to the other. And at every turn they sent forth roars the most piercingly savage and demonical that I ever heard from human beings. When the song was finished, one of them went round with his cap and made a collection. After the collection was secured, they all started to their feet, gave a tremendous yell, ran down to the ship and divided the spoil.[35]
Askew unknowingly has recorded a Maori performance of the Haka. Today acknowledged and celebrated around the world as the national performance of New Zealand, most notably through the pre-match ritual of the New Zealand All-Blacks. Disturbingly, Aboriginal cultural performance through corroboree has never attained either nationally or internationally the same due recognition.