Revising the Vanquished: Indigenous Perspectives on Colonial Encounters

Abstract

This essay examines how and why two works of postcolonial literature (Master of the Ghost Dreaming by the Aboriginal Australian writer Narogin Mudrooroo and Indigo: Mapping the Waters by the British writer Marina Warner) and two films (Werner Herzog's 1973 German classic Aguirre: The Wrath of God and the 1986 Australian Broadcasting Corporation film Babakiueria) invite readers to re-imagine colonial contact from the perspective of indigenous Australian and Caribbean people. The essay juxtaposes these particular texts in order to analyze different narrative techniques—cinematic and literary, fictional and somewhat documentary, serious and humorous—and different colonial textual targets—letters, reports, diaries, and ethnographies. Looking at this range of techniques and topics allows us to speculate on the intent and efficacy of these revisionary texts and to explore how they use the narrative point of view to metaphorically shift political perspective. This potentially greater understanding of imperial history and historicity can be an important catalyst of movements toward social progress in postcolonial and neocolonial states. But, as the essay shows, Babakiueria warns that reader/viewers must also be wary of this desire to know the Other, which can, if focused in the wrong direction, reinforce "orientalism" and enable a culturally paralyzing complacency.