Death and the Great Australian Disaster

Abstract

There has been a long history of disasters in the Australian context, many going back over the thousands of years before European settlement. Natural disasters have affected all societies and the powerful forces unleashed by them have always brought threat to the survival of communities or groups. Such events are often the cause of large-scale death and destruction, come unexpectedly, and strike randomly. The ‘wise men’ or ‘soothsayers’ of the culture or group will seek to explain or predict, so as to protect against these adversities. Disasters, by their very nature, almost always bring confrontation with death and often massive deaths. All societies seek to interpret these deaths; why some, be they individuals or communities, are ‘chosen’, and others not; and in these interpretations, omens also are sought. Frequently the deaths, or destruction of home, possessions, crops, village, are seen in terms of ‘punishment’: for these deaths and losses are untimely, and some are affected and others are not. The search for meaning and interpretation is common to all affected by these disasters, which are often viewed as ‘Acts of God’. This search for meaning appears in both highly civilized and primitive communities, although these interpretations may be more hidden and less conscious in the former, less conscious, and more direct and overt in the latter.