UNDERSTANDING ABORIGINAL CULTURE
Dr. A.B. Kelly, 2nd December 2004
(Paper Presented to Terry Roberts,
“If the current policy towards Aborigines had been
planned by a rabid racist whose aim was Aboriginal Genocide, it could not have
been made more effective.”
There are two cultures in
There is both ignorance and confusion about Aboriginal
Culture. There are a number of reasons for this situation. Few Australians have
any contact with Aborigines. The ‘Aboriginal Industry’ has fostered deliberate
distortions of the truth. More importantly there is the lack of any general
understanding of the importance of culture. There is an even greater lack of
any understanding of what constitutes the essence of any culture.
With very few exceptions, members of the Aboriginal
Culture are genetically Aborigines. The exceptions are individuals who have
some non-Aboriginal genes, but whose first part-Aborigine ancestor was
incorporated into the tribal system on the assumption that he or she was the
offspring of his Aboriginal parents. On that fallacious assumption the
part-Aborigine had been allotted a ‘skin’, and was incorporated into the tribal
‘skin’ system. To marry or to be initiated, an Aborigine had to have a ‘skin’
(Anthropologically, belong to a ‘moiety’). Some members of the Aboriginal
culture tested by de Lemos at Hermannsburg
(mentioned later) fit into this exceptional category. Such people are part of
the Aboriginal Culture. The majority of part-Aborigines are part of the
Australian Culture, not of the Aboriginal Culture.
Any sensible policy directed towards the welfare of
Aborigines has to take account of the fact that the majority of part-Aborigines
are members of the Australian Culture, and are not members of the Aboriginal
Culture. This is not to say that such part-Aborigines may not have suffered
disadvantage, but there are other members of the Australian Culture who have
suffered disadvantage for other reasons. The present policy towards such
part-Aboriginal people, which assumes that they are members of the Aboriginal
Culture, is based on a mistake.
In the
I set out to understand the Aborigines and their
culture. At that stage I had an interest in, but only a slight understanding of
Anthropology and Philosophy. Despite my unusually close contact with Aborigines
I found them very difficult to comprehend at that time. They are significantly
different from other Australians.
After 40 years of working life, I commenced Tertiary
studies in Sociology, Philosophy and Theology in 1985. My studies included
research in the
In my Postgraduate research I sought to put my
lifetime experience into context and, in particular, to make sense of my
observations of Aborigines in the field. I obtained my Doctorate in 1998 for my
thesis on ‘The Process of the Cosmos’. This thesis considered the nature of the
cultural process, among other matters. My interest in Aborigines had developed
towards broader cultural questions.
The situation of Aborigines has continued to
deteriorate. An article in the April 2000 issue of Quadrant reported on the
state of barbarism that had developed in every remote Aboriginal community.
This report came as no surprise to me. The seeds of that decline into a state
of barbarism had been initiated in the 1960`s. Before anything can be done to try
to repair this situation, we have to understand where we went wrong.
When
there was prohibition of the supply of alcohol to Aborigines, either as
Aborigines or as Wards of the State, there was an incentive for part-Aborigines
to gain an exemption from such prohibition, by demonstrating that, as members
of the Australian Culture, they could conduct themselves appropriately. This
incentive was lost when the prohibition on the supply of alcohol to Aborigines
was abandoned.
At the same time it
became financially advantageous for part-Aborigines who were members of the
Australian Culture to be considered to be an Aborigine rather than a
disadvantaged member of the Australian Culture. The blurring of the real
cultural difference between Aborigines and other Australians, and the
introduction of a pseudo-racial, rather than a cultural criterion, had to give
rise to an abuse of any system designed to assist real Aborigines.
This
pseudo-racial criterion led to the encouragement of a professional victim-hood on
the part of part-Aborigines. Ironically, the historical basis for such a
pseudo-racial categorisation had its origin in the slave-owning American
Confederacy. Part-Negros were categorised as Negro
rather than White, so they could still be bought and sold. It had no scientific
or cultural justification.
In the Australian Magazine of 20-21 November 2004,
Noel Pearson stated: ‘The Australian
people set a lethal trap when indigenous people were exposed to the combination
of welfare payments, idleness and access to legal and illicit addictive
substances and gambling. I marvel at the ignorance and lack of foresight that
allowed Australians to settle on such a policy after the end of the era of
protection and official discrimination. How could we not see that the
consequence would be short lives, illiteracy, tens of thousands of cases of
severe sexual abuse and violent crimes, and cultural dislocation?’
It was the new policy that was based on both
‘ignorance and lack of foresight’. The previous policy of the ‘era of
protection and official discrimination’ had not been based on ignorance. It had
been based on both first-hand experience and the exercise of foresight. It was
based on a realistic recognition of the cultural differences that existed, and
still exist, between Aborigines and other Australians.
The adverse consequences of the new policy were not
foreseen for one simple reason. It stemmed from the belief that Aborigines are
the same as we are, just a bit darker. This belief is false. Real Aborigines
are significantly different from us. Those who have never had any contact with
real Aborigines tend to hold this false belief most strongly. By a real
Aborigine I mean a person who is culturally and, almost without exception,
genetically fully Aboriginal. The application of this false belief to real
Aborigines has devastated them. If the
current policy towards Aborigines had been planned by a rabid racist whose aim
was Aboriginal Genocide, it could not have been made more effective. Every
aspect of the current policy is effectively aimed at the destruction of vital
aspects of Aboriginal culture. The survival of real Aborigines depends on
recognition of the difference between the Aboriginal culture and our own. Any
successful policy must be aimed at supporting the traditional culture by every
means possible. No action should be taken that is detrimental to the Aboriginal
culture. This does not mean that there is no room for any cultural development,
but any cultural development should result from encouragement, not imposition.
The
problem is essentially a problem of culture. The nature and role of culture has
to be understood before we can hope to deal with the current problems in
Aboriginal society. The roots of a culture are to be found in the ideas that
the people of the culture take for granted, as to the meaning and purpose of
human life. (Dix 1967,7)
Every culture is ultimately based upon a belief
system, which tells the members of that culture who and what they are, and what
the world is all about. This is the central role of a culture. Humans are made
in such a way that they need a culture to complete them. We have an innate need
of a culture, and we cannot live without one, or without creating one. A
culture provides the necessary matrix for each individual’s development. (Midgley 1978,286) A person’s
culture is literally that person’s second nature.
As humans need a culture to complete them, successful
attacks on the Aboriginal Culture will reduce them as human beings. The state
of nature adverted to by
In the 1950’s, when Aborigines were healthy and
enjoyed long lives, every cattle station supported an Aboriginal camp where
Aborigines were able to maintain their culture. They were able to conduct the
ceremonies that were vital to the transmission of their cultural beliefs. The
status of Aboriginal elders is based solely on the extent of their knowledge of
the foundational stories of their Dreaming. That status enabled them to
maintain social discipline. At the same time the camp provided a source of labour for the cattle station.
The two main disasters that overtook Aborigines in the
1960’s were the decision to apply Award standards to Aboriginal workers on
stations, and the decision to remove the prohibition on Aborigines drinking.
The Award ensured that the homogenous camps would be disbanded, with the
Aborigines gravitating to towns or settlements and going on welfare - ‘sit-down
money’. The second disaster, access to Alcohol, ensured their total
demoralization. The elders no longer had the capacity to maintain the culture.
The inability of Aborigines to handle alcohol is
similar to the inability of Europeans to handle heroin. This inability had been
recognised everywhere there was contact between the
two cultures, and prior to the 1960’s, prohibition had been the universal
consequence. Aboriginal culture had never had to contend with drugs,
intoxicants or narcotics, other than pituri, a mild
and rare narcotic that was reserved for initiated men.
Europeans had been culturally and physically exposed
to alcohol for thousands of years, and yet they still produce alcoholics who
cannot tolerate alcohol. However in the 1960’s we were busy abandoning many of
our own cultural restraints. So why should we continue to impose restraints on
others, which earlier generations - who were clearly not as enlightened as the
1960’s generation - had found necessary?
The obvious consequences of cultural breakdown include
increased crime, increased suicide and increased substance abuse. We cannot
understand these symptoms without first having an understanding of the nature
and role of culture in a society.
There was truth in the understanding of primitive Aborigines
as a proud, innocent and noble race. In my experience, initiated Aborigines,
particularly the elders were self-confident and proud. The pride of the
initiated Aborigine came from knowing who they were, what they were, and what
their role in the world was. They were convinced of the truth of their own
cultural beliefs.
The cultural deterioration in Aboriginal society is
far worse than in the broader society. There are a number of reasons for this.
Aboriginal culture was transmitted through the process of initiation. The
foundational myths were a male preserve. Only males were initiated. A
non-initiated person was a non-person, with no rights.
Early contacts with Aborigines in remote areas were mainly
made by European males. Aborigines were willing to ‘lend’ their females for a
consideration. The result was a growing number of half-castes. While some early
half-castes were initiated and so incorporated into the tribal system, it was
soon realised by the elders that male half-castes
presented the tribe with a problem. They were not the product of both their
Aboriginal parents, so they could not be initiated or be fitted into the strict
marriage system.
In the Aboriginal system, who a person could marry was
strictly determined by the moiety or ‘skin’ of both parents. Once it was
realized that half-casts were not the offspring of both Aboriginal parents,
they presented a problem. They were despised, and likely to be killed. As a
tribal elder expressed the position to me in 1951, ‘White fellow all-right,
black fellow all-right, yellow fellow rubbish’.
Aborigines always referred to themselves as black
fellows. A retired Aboriginal Welfare Officer, Les Penhall, with whom I had
been on patrol in 1953, was recently told by an old black fellow in
Burnam Burnam, philosopher, writer and actor, was a
lot more Aboriginal than many who claim to speak on
behalf of Aborigines. He suggested that the authorities should listen only to
full bloods on Aboriginal matters, rather than those who claim to be Aboriginal
but who have, as he put it, ‘a severe pigmentation problem’.
Burnam Burnam’s view was that the attitude of the
chromatically challenged to the real Aborigines, was
that the real Aborigines exist to perform for the tourists, while the half
casts were made to look after the money side of things.
Prior to the disastrous decision to make alcohol
freely available to Aborigines, part-Aborigines had a motive to distinguish
themselves from Aborigines. If they maintained normal community standards they
could seek exemption from the prohibition on alcohol, but this exemption could
be withdrawn if they abused alcohol. This system worked to the advantage of
many individuals, and of their families. This incentive was removed when it
became financially advantageous to be deemed Aboriginal, and alcohol was made
available to all.
Although there are only two cultures in
Everyone who has had contact with real Aborigines,
particularly in those areas of
A paper by M.M. de Lemos,
who carried out the Hermannsburg tests, is
republished in The Psychology of Aboriginal Australians (1973) Kearney
& Os. In the group of 80 children tested by de Lemos
in the 1960’s, half the children were Aborigines and the other half were
seven-eights Aboriginal. The environment of both groups was identical. The
part-Aboriginal children had white great-grandfathers. These children, with a
trace of European ancestry, showed markedly better performances in the tests.
The general standard of the full-blood Aborigines implied ‘an inability to form
logical concepts or to apply logical operations to the organization and systematisation of concrete data . . . affecting the level
of logical thinking in all areas.’ Later studies appear to have avoided
distinguishing between full blood and part Aboriginal subjects.
The occurrence of children in a tribal situation with
white great-grandparents is rare. In the case of the Hermannsburg
children it appears that the first children born after the initial contact with
whites were not recognised as being other than the
children of the Aboriginal parents, so they were initiated and incorporated in
the tribe. The remoteness of European ancestry in the Hermannsburg
test group shows that it took some time for Aborigines to realise
that those, who they would later categorise as yellow
fellows, did not have an Aboriginal ‘skin’ and so could not fit into the
marriage structure of the tribe.
A Masters Thesis by Margaret S. Bain,
published as The Aboriginal-White Encounter (1992) concludes that
Aborigines are only capable of first-degree abstractions. These are
abstractions that retain a direct link with empirical reality. Westerners
regularly recognize and utilise second-degree abstractions,
abstract concepts that have no direct link to concrete reality. Westerners
understand the world differently from Aborigines. Bain also finds that while
social processes in western society are both interactional and transactional, utilising both first degree and second-degree abstractions,
Aboriginal social transactions are purely interactional, utilising
only first-degree abstractions. They are one-way actions, prescribed by law.
This analysis came too late to prevent a number of
tragedies in the black-white encounter. When whites gave food or other gifts to
Aborigines in early encounters, the Aborigines interpreted this as the
performance of a duty. Their law prescribed all their giving. They had no
concept of a charitable action. When the gift was not repeated this was
interpreted as a failure to obey a law. The white man was liable to be punished
by spearing. A number of people speared during early contacts were known to be
well disposed and generous to Aborigines.
In The Psychology of Aboriginal Australians, we
find that Mathew had concluded in 1910 that Aborigines ‘were unreflective and
averse to both abstract reasoning and sustained mental effort’. In 1872 Wake
had suggested that to speak ‘of intellectual phenomena in relation to the
Australian Aborigines is somewhat of a misnomer’.
The explanations of these phenomena put forward at the
time were all evolutionist, the assumption being that social development could
be understood on the biological model.
I would argue that Aboriginal mental development is
better understood as a function of human cultural self-creation.
The Aborigines had a culture that provided a complete
explanation of the world. Knowledge was passed on, but there was no motive to
increase the sum of knowledge.
Aboriginal Australians became locked into a non-progressive culture, which
limited their possibilities of mental and cultural self-development. The fact
that a small admixture of European genes has a significant effect on mental
development seems to indicate a Lamarckian form of mental development in other
people and their progeny. Evidence of the ‘Flynn Effect’, which shows a
generational increase in IQ in problem-solving societies, supports this view.
The differences between real Aborigines and part-Aborigines
have to be taken seriously if Aboriginal policy is to be effective. Most
Aboriginal policy is premised on the assumption that there is no difference
between Aborigines and part-Aborigines, or between Aborigines and Europeans.
This is clearly not the case. Aborigines think, understand and act differently.
Aborigines find any contact with the white man’s law
confusing. In their culture, punishment is immediate, physical and mandatory.
There is no room for a plea in mitigation. The rituals of our law are largely
meaningless charades to them. The approach of our law to offenders is
constantly changing. Law enforcement in 2000 is different from what it was in
1950. It is even more different from what it was in the 1890’s. It is vastly
different from what it was in 1788. Is it reasonable to apply the latest
fashion of such variable standards to people whose idea of law was set in stone
thousands of years ago? It makes great business for the Aboriginal Industry,
but it does nothing for the Aborigines.
The present day situation of real Aborigines is worse
than it ever was previously. Most of the damage that has been inflicted on
Aborigines was done with the best of motives, but in ignorance of the reality.
The activities of good-hearted but ignorant do-gooders have hastened the
passing of the Aborigines more rapidly in the last half Century than ever
before. The cynical Aboriginal Industry is still hard at work. It is time for a
rethink.
The primary cause of the disastrously mistaken
policies that are applied to Aborigines is the failure to recognize how
different they are, with the consequent projection of Western attitudes and
concepts onto them. The Aboriginal mind-set is fundamentally different from
ours. Western man is oriented towards the future. Aboriginal man is oriented to
the present and the past.
As we have seen, Aborigines think, understand and act
differently from other Australians. In scientific studies de Lemos found an absence of the ability to form logical
concepts, which affected the level of logical thinking in all areas. Margaret
S. Bain concluded that Aborigines are only capable of first-degree
abstractions, abstractions that retain a direct link with empirical reality.
Bain also found that Aborigines only ever utilize first-degree abstractions,
those that have a direct link to concrete reality, even in their social
transactions. These studies confirmed earlier, less rigorous observations,
which had concluded that Aborigines were unreflective and averse to abstract
reasoning.
Western thought is essentially abstract. There is a
premium on clarity of thought, and on the making of distinctions, which
comprise the essence of clear thought. However clear thinking can be impeded by
faulty basic assumptions, lack of knowledge or by the `thought control` of
political correctness. All of these factors are affecting and have affected
Aboriginal policy. Aborigines have suffered and still suffer from mistaken
policies.
The most basic distinction is the one that should be
made between Aborigines and part-Aborigines. This distinction is based on the
distinctiveness of Aboriginal thought patterns, which does not apply to
part-Aborigines. Real Aborigines are in
need of specifically tailored policies, which take account of their cultural
base. Their cultural base is essentially Paleolithic in both material and
mental terms.
That is not to say that there should not be
appropriate policies for disadvantaged part-Aborigines, but because the
circumstances of Aborigines and part-Aborigines are quite different, the
policies should be different. There is no reason for any difference between the
policies that should be applied to disadvantaged part-Aborigines and those
applied to any other disadvantaged Australians. There are compelling reasons
for quite different policies to be applied to real Aborigines. Such policies
must take into account the real differences between Aborigines and other
Australians.