THE EUROPEAN CREATION OF ‘ABORIGINALITY’ IN NINETEENTH AND EARLY TWENTIETH CENTURY VICTORIA: a study of material culture in historical documents, historical photographs, and artifact collections

Abstract

This thesis examines the role played by Victorian Aboriginal material culture in the creation during the late nineteenth and early twentieth century of the European image, or concept, of 'Aboriginality'. Three texturally different sources - documentary sources, historical photographs and artefact collect ions - open windows onto different aspects of European perceptions of Aborigines and their culture. A survey of these sources was carried out in order to determine the ways in which Victorian Aborigines and their artefacts, were portrayed, and therefore perceived, by Europeans. The results of analyses of these data showed that a fundamental principle underlying the way in which Europeans perceived Aborigines was that of primitiveness. It was also ascertained that particular artefacts served as indicators of this principal, and that these artefacts - hunting and fighting implements - were predominant in representations of the range of Victorian material culture. Hunting and fighting implements characterised the range of Aboriginal material culture in the minds of Europeans, and as such were essential elements in the European image of Aboriginality. It is suggested that Victorian artefacts depicted in the sources, are not illustrating Aboriginal material culture, but the European concept of 'Aboriginality'. Therefore European perspectives and perceptions of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries have implications for future archaeological research, and for our present knowledge of the nature of pre-contact material culture.