Australian National University Press Research Articles

Reviewed by: On Taungurung Land Sharing History and Culture by Uncle Roy Patterson and Jennifer Jones Julia Hurst On Taungurung Land Sharing History and Culture By Uncle Roy Patterson and Jennifer Jones. Canberra: Australian National University Press, 2020. Readers are advised that this writing contains the names of Aboriginal people who are deceased. I attempted a number of times to find my way into the rhythm and knowing of Uncle Roy Patterson and Jennifer Jones’s book On Taungurung Land Sharing History and Culture. My last and final attempt was on 26 January this year as social media pinged with calls to “Change the Date” (of Australia Day) and with pictures of the Aboriginal flag finally “freed.” So, with a heavy critique already instilled in my heart, I began to read through the opening chapters. I must admit for a while I could not find my way into the narrative. I wondered, is this all there is? As I continued though, the story became clear and the deep knowledge, reciprocity and care taken to create this book became evident. I am so glad I persisted. I do, however, have some concerns. Historian Jennifer Jones was approached to co-author this book with Uncle who died before their work was complete. Uncle wanted to secure his knowledge for future generations: “I want this book to get out to people that I don’t teach and schools I don’t get near, to museums and universities that know nothing about it. It will be something to show about our culture” (4). As Jones described, Uncle believed that encounters with significant Aboriginal places and place-based knowledge could be transformative for both Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people. I agree with this sentiment. The book is divided into two sections. The first section (chapters one to five) detail Taungurung history since invasion. Written in Jones’ scholarly voice, her focus is on the settler policies of “protection” that affected Taungurung people and Uncle’s ancestors, highlighting the decisions of relevant white settlers and officials. As Jones explains, her aim was to contextualise the knowledge that Uncle shared with her by developing a biographical and historical picture of the settlers with whom Taungurung people interacted, and to provide a foundation for the full appreciation of Taungurung survival. Intermittently, the ghostly voice of Uncle interrupts the archive to verify the history being shared against his generational oral knowledge. The brief interceptions of Uncle’s voice remind the reader that there is indeed more going on here than meets the archive and this story. The second section (chapters six to eight) focuses on Taungurung cultural knowledge as passed down to Uncle. Written in his voice, this section offers a keen and welcome departure from the first. His storytelling relates to his generational and cultural knowledge of bush tucker, bush medicine and Taungurung cultural practices. This section is richly descriptive and generous. However, the writing was left to Jones and when people asked her whether she could finish the book without Uncle, she reflected, “perhaps the answer should have been ‘no’” (7). I do not believe that this should have been the case although I do wonder why she persisted if this is what she thinks. I can imagine, if Uncle was still alive, the structure of the book might be very different, and here there is an important point to make. Uncle had no control over the final product, his legacy. Jones’ aim was to provide a foundation for Uncle’s story to rest. She presents the reader with an archival history of Aboriginal protection, greed and power on Taungurung land and a separate account of Uncle’s generational Aboriginal Knowledge. This structure sits uneasily with me because it sustains a status quo whereby the very active making of Aboriginal history, storytelling and handing-down of his generational knowledge at the time of invasion, colonisation and making of the archive still remains. Why does the archive of his scholarly work (as Aboriginal expert) sit outside of the “scholarly archive” of Jones’ historical writing? Is Uncle’s generational knowledge not considered part of history-making? What is so obvious about this work, is that Taungurong people were handing on...

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REVIEWS 177 off of the altars of its Nativity and Intercession cathedrals, preventing their use for religious services. It was only at Easter 1905, against the background of the developing revolution, that the altars were re-opened, on the eve of Nicholas II’s decree on religious toleration. De Simone’s account of the history of the Rogozhskoe community provides a detailed and illuminating picture of many aspects of the lives of the Moscow popovtsy, including the architecture of their cathedrals, the activities of their charitable and educational institutions and the growth of merchant dynasties such as the Morozovs and the Riabushinskiis. The author has made good use of archival materials, although his attitude towards his sources is somewhat uncritical, producing a highly sympathetic picture which sometimes verges on the hagiographical. De Simone focuses on the relationship of the Rogozhskoe community to the state and the official Orthodox Church, while largely ignoring its position in the broader spectrum of Old Belief. He says little about the attitude of the Rogozhskoe priested community to its priestless counterpart, the Moscow Preobrazhenskoe Cemetery community, nor to other priestless and priested communities throughout the Empire. Many of the more radical groups considered the Moscow popovtsy to be hopelessly compromised, not least by their swearing of the oath of loyalty to Alexander III after the assassination of Alexander II in 1881. It is not too surprising, therefore, that the authorities were mistrustful of professions of loyalty by a community that aspired to a leading role in a movement that included groups which still identified the tsar as Antichrist. The monograph is thoroughly researched, with a full scholarly apparatus and some well-chosen illustrations. Unfortunately, however, the author’s style is somewhat pedestrian and repetitious, and the publisher has allowed far too many typos to slip through the proof-reading net. But overall this is a valuable contribution to our knowledge of Russian religious history. Centre for Russian, European and Eurasian Studies Maureen Perrie University of Birmingham Massov, Alexander; Pollard, Marina and Windle, Kevin (eds). A New Rival State? Australia in Tsarist Diplomatic Communications. Australian National University Press, Acton, ACT, 2018. xiii + 353 pp. Illustrations. Tables. Notes. Index. AUS$ 55.00 (paperback). This volume covers six decades of despatches by imperial Russia’s consular representatives in Melbourne, from the establishment of a Russian consular service in the Australian settler colonies in 1857 to the Russian revolutions SEER, 98, 1, JANUARY 2020 178 of 1917. The reports selected from the Arkhiv vneshnei politiki Rossiiskoi Imperii (AVPRI) throw an interesting light on the growing relations between the two countries in this period. But they also offer useful insights into the economic, social and political history of the Australian federation. Ever since Leopold von Ranke based his history of the Reformation on the Venetian relazioni ambasciatori, historians have learnt to appreciate the value of foreign diplomatic sources for the study of a country’s internal history. Historians of nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Australia will similarly find much of interest in the reports compiled by the eight Russian consuls. At the same time, their despatches also reveal the cultural, social and political norms of the country which they represented in this fast modernizing outpost of the British world in the Southern hemisphere. Its dynamism elicited admiration and fascination, but it also met with an altogether more traditional Russian response of hostility towards uncontrolled, from-the-bottom-up change, unfettered by governmental direction. Russia’s first contact with the Antipodes occurred in 1807, when the Russian sloop Neva put into Sydney harbour en route from Kronstadt to Alaska. From the early 1850s onwards there was an increase in immigration from Russia to Australia, triggered initially by the ‘gold fever’ of 1851. This first wave of immigration lasted until the 1890s, to be followed by a second in the decade before 1914. Indeed, on the eve of the First World War, the Russian community inAustraliaincreasedby120–150permonth.Inbothperiods,therecentarrivals were drawn mostly from the peasant class, reflecting the shortage of available land in Russia. But there was also a significant element formed of political refugees and oppressed ethnic minorities. Following the Polish uprising in 1863, Poles arrived in substantial numbers (doc. no...

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Australian National University Press Research Articles

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Australian National University Press Research Articles

Related Topics

Articles published on Australian National University Press

History Wars. The Peter Ryan‐Manning Clark Controversy. By DougMunro (Canberra: Australian National University Press, 2021), ajph12903vi +193 pp., colour and b/w illustrations. e‐book† and pb.

On Taungurung Land Sharing History and Culture by Uncle Roy Patterson and Jennifer Jones

The Bugis Chronicle of Bone transed. by Campbell Macknight, Mukhlis Paeni, and Mukhlis Hadrawi (review)

Commonwealth Responsibility and Cold War Solidarity: Australia in Asia, 1944–1974. By DanHalvorson (Canberra: Australian National University Press, 2019), pp. x + 191. AU$45.00.

A Sketch Grammar of Pondi by Russell Barlow

Clive Moore. Tulagi: Pacific Outpost of British Empire. Pacific Series. Canberra: Australian National University Press, 2019. Pp. 500. $60.00 (paper).

A New Rival State? Australia in Tsarist Diplomatic Communications by Massov Alexander (review)

China’s 40 Years of Reform and Development: 1978–2018, edited by Ross Garnaut, Ligang Song, and Cai Fang. Canberra: Australian National University Press, 2018. xxvii+679 pp. A$95.00 (paper); also available as a free e-book at ANU Press’s website.

Social Cost‐benefit Analysis in Australia and New Zealand: The State of Current Practice and What Needs to Be Done, by LeoDobes, GeorgeArgyrous and JoanneLeung (Australian National University Press, Canberra, ACT, 2016), pp. 246.

“A Difficult Neighbourhood. Essays on Russia and East-Central Europe since World War II” by John Besemeres, Australian National University Press 2016, pp. 525.

Mid-to-Late Holocene Aboriginal Flaked Stone Artefact Technology on the Cumberland Plain, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia: A View from the South Creek Catchment

Reluctant Representatives: Blackfella Bureaucrats Speak in Australia's North, CAEPR Research Monograph No. 37.ElizabethGanter, 2016. Australian National University Press, Canberra.

Peter Drahos (red.), Regulatory Theory. Foundations and Applications, Australian National University Press, 2017

A Difficult Neighbourhood. Essays on Russia and East‐Central Europe Since World War II

Journeys into the Rainforest: Archaeology of Culture Change and Continuity on the Evelyn Tableland, North Queensland By Åsa Ferrier Terra Australis 43, Australian National University Press, Canberra, 2015 ISBN: 978‐1‐925‐02287‐2. Pp. 174. AUD60 or download free.

The Seven Dwarfs and the Age of the Mandarins: Australian Government Administration in the Post‐War Reconstruction Era, by SamuelFurphy (Australian National University Press, Canberra, 2015), pp. 246.

NGOs and Political Change: A History of the Australian Council for International Development

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