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Introduction

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"In the 1950's and 1960's, some anthropologists of Aboriginal Australia [1][2] argued that no wars were deliberately designed to take over a stretch of country, or as conquest over neighbouring groups"[3]. However, there is now an overwhelming body of archeological, anthropological and historical evidence to indicate that violence and warfare between Aboriginal tribes was endemic prior to the European settlement of Australia in 1788, and well into the twentieth century.[4] [5] [6] [7] [8]

This evidence includes :

Ancient rock art

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Rock art in Arnhem Land dated from 45,000 to 20,000 years ago, depicts graphic scenes of inter-tribal conflict such as, "[F]igures hurl spears or boomerangs at their opponents, where the intended victims are either avoiding the the projectiles or being delivered the coup de grace after being struck"[9][10]

Archeological Evidence

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"Archeological evidence for violence and warfare in Aboriginal Australia is rich and detailed. It reveals tremendous variation across vast spaces and deep periods of time, but nonetheless shows clear patterns of conflict that date back to at least the late Pleistocene."[11]

Kwatkwat people - New South Wales Blacks practising fighting before going to war

A rich source of skeletal and ethnographic evidence for warfare and violence in Aboriginal Australia in the Central Murray River area has been documented.[12] Parry fractures caused by "face-to-face combat or as a reflex action to ward off an unexpected or sudden blow" our found in about 5% of skeletal remains of the Central Murray River. This compares with to up to 10.5% of male remains from the Arid zone and a horrifying 19.2% of female remains recovered along the NSW and Queensland coasts.[13]

"Cranial depression fractures are a common feature of Australian skeletal biology....The depressions are caused by a sharp rap on the head with a club or stick that collapse the outer part of the skull and leaves a dent" [14]' In the Central Murray River area there was found a wide variation in the proportion of skeletal remains with cranial dents, depending on the aboriginal group, e.g.: from 12% of Barapa men up to a staggering 71% of Pangerang women.[15] Multiple fractures were more common among women, which suggest that the "cause of such blows is tehrefore morelikely to be from domestic disputes (within and between the sexes), sham fights, formal battle or trial by ordeal."

Other individual trauma injuries from the osteological record offer further evidence of a violent pre-historical Aboriginal society. Octavia Man [16] found with embedded stone barbs in his body "had received multiple spear wounds, was dismembered and burned , tehn abandoned without burial. This clearly suggest a revenge or 'payback' attack" The excavated remains of another young man was found with a bone point in his ribcage located in such a way that it is almost certain that he was speared in his sleep, most likely during a night raid on his camp.[17]'

Ethnographical and historical evidence

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This evidence includes such things as journals and eye-witness accounts from early explorers[18], journals and accounts of the early settlers, [19], newspaper reports, Government, police and coronial reports and academic historians for post 1788 events.[20]

An accounts by an early settler of the Central Murray District, Edward Curr confirms the incidence of violence and warfare that would lead to parrying and cranial fractures : "When a tribe in our neighbourhood had a substantial grievance against another which admitted of adjustment, such as the violation of their territory or the abduction of some of their women, it was usually fought out in broad daylight with spears, boomerangs, and waddies ...[with] a score or two of active savages doing their best to kill each other [but] .... the fracas would probably result in nothing worse than a few ugly gashes and contused heads, and a general make-up when all was over. In my experience I never knew anyone killed in such engagements, though I have seen some narrow escapes, so dexterous were the combatants in the use of their shields and so quick of sight".[21] Curr continues "When a real hatred and blood-thirst took possession of a tribe, matters proceeded very differently.Amongst the Bangerang, as indeed amongst the whole of the tribes of Australia, so far as is known, the cause, not of fights, but of bloodshed,...was, nine times out of ten, the belief that the deaths of persons, no matter from what apparent cause other than old age, were attributable to the spells and incantations of some of their enemies—their enemies including all Blacks not their intimate friends and neighbours. In connection with the history of our aborigines there is, perhaps, no more important circumstance than this; for this belief in the taking of life by incantation, in its immediate and collateral consequences, was the bane of the race. It systematized murder throughout the continent, rendered the friendship of the tribes at large impossible, and was the great factor of savagery and degradation."

Anthropological and linguistical evidence.

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Linguistic research in the Central Murray River area [22] includes vocabulary associated with warfare, such as liya-wil (battles axe), parn-parn (war party), parntya-parntya (vengeance party). "Even the names of the peoples themselves Barapa Barapa, Wemba Wemba, Wadi Wadi and Yorta Yorta all tyranslate as No-No in their respective languages, undescoring their unwelcoming attitude to outsiders"[23]

Methods and Examples of Indigenous Australian Inter-Tribal Warfare

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Queensland [24]

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Northern Territory

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In Arnhem Land in northern Australia, a study of warfare among the Australian Aboriginal Murngin people in the late-19th century found that, over a 20-year period, no less than 200 out of 800 men, or 25% of all adult males, had been killed in intertribal warfare.[25]

The anthropologist, TGH Strehlow has written, “it was this readiness to kill persons who had committed sacrilege either knowingly or unwittingly that caused a great revulsion against Aboriginal religion in Central Australia after the arrival of the white population.”[26]

Some Incidences or Sites of Major Aboriginal Violence, Warfare or Massacres on Record

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Pre-History Period

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Octavia Man (ca4000 BP)

Narrabeen Man - a 30 to 40 year old Aboriginal male was excavated at Narrabeen in Northern Sydney in a dune near the coast having been killed by "Death Spears" ("a spear with small blades inset in a wooden shaft" and fixed such that they "dislodge inside wounds and are extremely difficult to remove from victims)"[27]. This indicates the deliberate design of a war-like spear to be used against an enemy. This theory is further supported by recent accounts of you aboriginal men fitting blades t their spears ifthey felt threated...see emaple inbook?

Historical Period

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1700's

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The Daily Threat of Violence in pre-Colonial and Colonial Australian Aboriginal Society

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An Assistant Protector of Aborigines in the 19th Century, Edward Stone Parker, commented, "On the whole their [the aborigines] way of life was a satisfying one, and could have almost been idyllic. - but for their frequent fighting and the persistent fear of revenge"[28]. And, "Intestine wars between the tribes frequently caused great sacrifice of life. Whole tribes have been exterminated by sudden attacks and nocturnal surprises, before the Europeans colonized the country. But one effect of colonization unquestionably has been the diminuation of these wars; and from this cause only there has not been any great sacrifice of life....In fact, it has been acknowledged to me by the natives themselves and that in significant terms, that the effect of their association with the colonisys, has been the preservation of life. 'Before you came here' said one [aboriginal] man to me,'the country was strewed with bones, and we were always at war; but now you say, 'Do not fight, do not kill'; it is a strange speech'" [29]

Violence in Modern Australian Aboriginal Society see Indigenous Australians and crime

References

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  1. ^ Berndt, R.M. (1992) [1964]. The World of the First Australian. Canberra: Aboriginal Studies Press.
  2. ^ Elkin, A.P. (1974) [1938]. The Australian Aboriginies. Melbourne: Angus and Robertson.
  3. ^ Pardoe, Colin (2014). Violence and Warfare Among Hunter Gathers, M.A. Allen & T.L Jones Ed. Routledge. p. 116.
  4. ^ Blainey, G. (2015). The Story of Australia's People-The Rise and Fall of Ancient Australia. p. 106-122.
  5. ^ Nance, B (1981). "The Level of Violence : Europeans and Aborigines in Port Phillip, 1835-1850". Historical Studies. 19 (77): 532–552.
  6. ^ Clark, I.D. (2014). The Journals of George Augustus Robinson, Chief Protector, Port Phillip Aboriginal Protectorate Vol 4 1 January 1844 - 24 October 1845.
  7. ^ Berndt, R.M. & C.H. (1964). The World of the First Australians. Ure Smith-Sydney. p. 356-362.
  8. ^ Morgan, John (1852). The Life and Adventures of William Buckley. R. Schicht 1996.
  9. ^ Johnson, M. (2014). Australia's Ancient Aboriginal Past-A Global Perspective. p. 132-133.
  10. ^ https://www.nationalgeographic.com.au/australia/boomerangs-were-lethal-weapons-of-war-skeleton-suggests.aspx
  11. ^ Allen, M.W. (2014). Violence and Warfare Among Hunter Gathers, M.A. Allen & T.L Jones Ed. Routledge. p. 97-98.
  12. ^ Pardoe, Colin (2014). Violence and Warfare Among Hunter Gathers, M.A. Allen & T.L Jones Ed. Routledge. p. 112-132.
  13. ^ Pardoe, Colin (2014). Violence and Warfare Among Hunter Gathers, M.A. Allen & T.L Jones Ed. Routledge. p. 123-124.
  14. ^ Pardoe, Colin (2014). Violence and Warfare Among Hunter Gathers, M.A. Allen & T.L Jones Ed. Routledge. p. 125.
  15. ^ Pardoe, Colin (2014). Violence and Warfare Among Hunter Gathers, M.A. Allen & T.L Jones Ed. Routledge. p. 125.
  16. ^ McDonald, J.J; et al. (2007). "The First Archaeological Evidence for Death by Spearing in Australia". Antiquity. 81: 877–85.
  17. ^ Pardoe, Colin (2014). Violence and Warfare Among Hunter Gathers, M.A. Allen & T.L Jones Ed. Routledge. p. 128.
  18. ^ Eyre, E.J. (1845). Manners and Customs of the Aborigines. From Vol II of Journals of Expeditions of Discovery into Central Australia. The Friends of the State Library of SA 2010. p. 74-82.
  19. ^ Parker, E.S. (10 May 1854). The Aborigines of Australia, A Lecture Delivered in the Mechanics' Hall, Melbourne. Nat Library of Aust 1966. p. 16.
  20. ^ Ngarta and Jukuna (2016). Two Sisters. Magala Books. ISBN 978- 1-925360-27-1.
  21. ^ Curr, E (1883). RECOLLECTIONS OF SQUATTING IN VICTORIA Then Called the Port Phillip District (From 1841 to 1851). GEORGE ROBERTSON. p. 308-309.
  22. ^ Pardoe, Colin (2014). Violence and Warfare Among Hunter Gathers, M.A. Allen & T.L Jones Ed. Routledge. p. 117.
  23. ^ Pardoe, Colin (2014). Violence and Warfare Among Hunter Gathers, M.A. Allen & T.L Jones Ed. Routledge. p. 117.
  24. ^ Kirkhove, R. "Mapping Frontier Conflict in SE Qld - Traditional Aboriginal Warfare".
  25. ^ War Before Civilization
  26. ^ Thomas, T. (8 May 2013). "A blacked-out past — Part III". Quadrant-Online. Retrieved 24 March 2019.
  27. ^ Allen, M.W. (2014). Violence and Warfare Among Hunter Gathers, M.A. Allen & T.L Jones Ed. Routledge. p. 99.
  28. ^ Blainey, G. (2015). The Story of Australia's People-The Rise and Fall of Ancient Australia. p. 106.
  29. ^ Parker, E.S. (10 May 1854). The Aborigines of Australia, A Lecture Delivered in the Mechanics' Hall, Melbourne. Nat Library of Aust 1966. p. 16.
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