Bill Gammage
Författare till The Biggest Estate on Earth: How Aborigines Made Australia
Om författaren
Bill Gammage is a historian and adjunct professor in the Humanities Research Centre at the Australian National University. He is best known as author of the ground-breaking military history The Broken Years: Australian Soldiers in the Great War.
Serier
Verk av Bill Gammage
Narrandera shire 1 exemplar
Associerade verk
Taggad
Allmänna fakta
- Namn enligt folkbokföringen
- Gammage, William Leonard
- Födelsedag
- 1942
- Kön
- male
- Nationalitet
- Australia
- Födelseort
- Orange, New South Wales, Australia
- Bostadsorter
- Orange, New South Wales, Australia
Papua New Guinea
Canberra, Australian Capital Territory, Australia
Adelaide, South Australia, Australia - Utbildning
- Wagga Wagga High School
Australian National University - Yrken
- historian
academic - Organisationer
- Australian National University
University of Adelaide, Australia
University of Papua New Guinea - Priser och utmärkelser
- Order of Australia (2005)
Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia (Fellow)
Medlemmar
Diskussioner
Australians : A Historical Library Limited Edition – FAIRFAX, SYME & WELDON 1987 i Fine Press Forum (augusti 2023)
Recensioner
Australians, 1938 (Australians, a historical library) av Bill Gammage
Part of a series of 10 volumes published for Australia's 1988 Bicentenary, this is a rather detailed exploration of life in 1938 from childcare to death, with an admirable section on Indigenous life and inequality. Would love to collect the entire set one of these days.
Reading historian Bill Gammage's The Biggest Estate on Earth, How Aborigines Made Australia which has been on my TBR for nearly a decade, I came across what I think is the best explanation of The Dreaming that I've ever come across. It occurred to me as I read it, that many of my international readers may have come across references to The Dreaming without really knowing what it's about. So here's an excerpt from the chapter entitled 'Heaven on Earth' book to clarify what it means.
Gammage says that all religions aim to explain existence and to regulate behaviour. It was the anthropologist Ted Strehlow (1908-1978) who said that 'the great and specifically Australian contribution to religious thought has been the unquestioning Aboriginal conviction that there was no division between Time and Eternity.'
As Gammage says, the impetus for change is inbuilt into most other societies and we tend to think that it is natural. He also notes that it's not clear that Aborigines "entirely succeeded in leaving the world as they found it but they dedicated their lives to conserving what they inherited, and within the perception of living generations generally they succeeded."
Leaving the world as it is, does not mean untouched. The Law says that the land must be managed and it is a manager's duty is to shepherd land and creatures through the cycles of life and seasons.
The chapter goes on to explain songlines (the path along which a creator ancestor travelled to bring country into being) and totems (which assert place for each living being). Totems control kin, marriage, population and loyalties.
The Biggest Estate on Earth was reviewed extensively at the time of its publication in 2011, including by Janine Rizzetti here and at Brona's Books here. However, although Gammage's book is a work of remarkable and ground-breaking scholarship, it is very heavy on detail and at 434 pages requires considerable commitment to read it. I think that most readers will find Dark Emu, Black Seeds: Agriculture or Accident? by Bunerong man Bruce Pascoe, a more accessible way to learn about this topic from an Indigenous perspective. (There is now also a children's version of Dark Emu, which IMO ought to be in every school library).… (mer)
Gammage says that all religions aim to explain existence and to regulate behaviour. It was the anthropologist Ted Strehlow (1908-1978) who said that 'the great and specifically Australian contribution to religious thought has been the unquestioning Aboriginal conviction that there was no division between Time and Eternity.'
"The Dreaming conceives an unchangeable universe, hence free of time. This can be so because the universe is not natural: it was made from darkness by God. Who made God and darkness no-one knows. They are as much puzzles as chance and death. No religion has solved them, but denying time makes them much easier to pass over, and [Aborigines] accept that although it is worthy to strive to understand, they are not meant to know.
Across Australia the creation story is essentially the same: God made light, brought into being spirits and creator ancestors, and set down eternal Law for all creation. The creator ancestors accepted the Law or suffered if they didn't, and made epic journeys across a formless space, giving land and sea substance and shape before settling to rest in a place important to them. They are there still, and where they went still bears marks of their trials and adventures. All things derive from their presence or deeds, and are ruled by the Law they passed on.
Since universe and Law never change, time is irrelevant, as in a dream. Change and time exist only as cycles: birth and death, the passage of stars and seasons, journeys, encounters, and after 1788 the appearance of plants and animals seeming new but always there. Cycles are eddies, ending where they begin or eclipsed by larger cycles: travel by death, for example, or seasons by life spans. Eddies exist not on a river of life, for a river has a beginning and end, but on bigger eddies, in a boundless pool. Time is an eddy; the pool is timeless. Pool, eddies and Law are the Dreaming.
The Dreaming has two rules: obey the Law, and leave the world as you found it—not better or worse, for God judges that, but the same. The first rule enforces and exists for the second. Together they let place dominate time, and translate well understood ecological associations into social relations—kin, marriage, diplomacy, trade and so on, outlawing fundamental change, so making all creatures conservationist and conservative". (p.123-4)
As Gammage says, the impetus for change is inbuilt into most other societies and we tend to think that it is natural. He also notes that it's not clear that Aborigines "entirely succeeded in leaving the world as they found it but they dedicated their lives to conserving what they inherited, and within the perception of living generations generally they succeeded."
"Innovation and creativity, become means not ends [...] and do not disturb a sense that the fundamentals of existence are beyond challenge or improvement". (p.124)
Leaving the world as it is, does not mean untouched. The Law says that the land must be managed and it is a manager's duty is to shepherd land and creatures through the cycles of life and seasons.
The chapter goes on to explain songlines (the path along which a creator ancestor travelled to bring country into being) and totems (which assert place for each living being). Totems control kin, marriage, population and loyalties.
"Aboriginal landscape awareness is rightly seen as drenched in religious sensibility, but equally the Dreaming is saturated with environmental consciousness. Theology and ecology are fused." (p.133)
The Biggest Estate on Earth was reviewed extensively at the time of its publication in 2011, including by Janine Rizzetti here and at Brona's Books here. However, although Gammage's book is a work of remarkable and ground-breaking scholarship, it is very heavy on detail and at 434 pages requires considerable commitment to read it. I think that most readers will find Dark Emu, Black Seeds: Agriculture or Accident? by Bunerong man Bruce Pascoe, a more accessible way to learn about this topic from an Indigenous perspective. (There is now also a children's version of Dark Emu, which IMO ought to be in every school library).… (mer)
1 
anzlitlovers | 4 andra recensioner | Mar 13, 2021 |
anzlitlovers | 4 andra recensioner | Mar 13, 2021 | Well Bill, you pretty much had me until your last chapter (which is really an appendix). But thou "dost protest too much, methinks". This appendix is very defensive and highlights the fact that Bill's thesis has its critics. I think there is certainly enough evidence cited to show that Aboriginals did use fire extensively to manage the landscape and, in fact, we are "given a Tsunami of evidence". But I found myself asking all the way through ......."Is this ALL the evidence?....Is this balanced?......are there other views that we are not being exposed to? Has Bill cherry-picked this evidence?" Because without knowing the answers to these questions it's impossible to know how reliable the arguments are. I did some work myself on Riverine soils ..and published a few scientific papers on them and one thing I did learn was that Cypress pine in that area is almost always found on sandy loams ...not on the red-brown cracking clays. So there are certainly environmental factors at play in tree distribution. (Apart from selective burning).
I guess we are shown enough evidence for me to be persuaded that pre 1788, fire was used extensively to open up land for animals such as kangaroos. And this was responsible for much of the parklike landscape observed. But I did get a little bored with the seemingly re-iteration of the same point ad nauseam. I'm not necessarily more convinced by 1000 quotes than I am by 10. I'd just like to be convinced that he hasn't been "cherry-picking" his quotes. For example, this extract from a journal kept on the Nijptangn ...one of de Vlamingh's ships north of Perth in 1697; "Having come to the beach, we found many oysters and started at once out on our march but sometimes had to rest through fatigue caused by the heat of the sun and the heavy going through the thick scrub". I guess one could find a lot of similar quotes...with no mention of "park-like" conditions......in fact just the reverse. But what does this PROVE? How do we know these were balanced comments? Obviously it is harder to have to force your way through thick scrub than through bushland. And maybe explorers chose the easy routes. Anyway we have plenty of bushland in Australia that hasn't seen a fire for say 8-10 years and has just the kind of park-like conditions talked about. Basically it's because of competition for light and for water ...and the bigger trees have the advantage with both. Clearly, the WHOLE continent was NOT being managed as Bill would have it. Some parts were thick scrub. (See the quote above).
I've come back to this review in Dec 2019 as NSW has been devastated with massive bush fires following a prolonged drought. Sydney has been swathed in smoke for weeks on end. Apparently many of the fires have been ignited by "dry lightning" and this sort of ignition and fire would have taken place with or without controlled burning by aborigines. The intensity and scale of the current fires is truly monstrous ...with flames rising to over 60-70m and 2.7 million Ha burned (an area bigger than Wales and still early in the season). Yet, I noted that, following the burn, the basic eucalyptus trees were still standing and presumably will re-shoot and the undergrowth has been eliminated. So these wild fires also seem likely to result in the same park-like conditions that Bill claims are entirely due to planned burning by aboriginals. So I'm not entirely convinced by his arguments. It seems to me that with patch-work burning in the winter that fauna and certain plants will have better survival rates...and certainly, the aborigines practiced this sort of burning. But to claim that the park like conditions were entirely an outcome of their burning practices...and ignore the contribution of wildfires...seems like an over-reach.
A basic thrust of his argument is that with the use of the fire stick, the aborigines cared for the land better than the newcomer europeans and our land has degraded dramatically since 1788. That is probably correct. But it is also supporting a population of about 25 million whereas before 1788 it was (according to the best evidence I can find) about 200,000. And, if you don't have any land clearing at all ....and maintain the wilderness as wilderness....then , of course, you are going to preserve the natural character of the land. But, surely we can do better: even with extensive agriculture. Reduce erosion, clean up the streams, manage water tables better, preserve wildlife corridors and habitat and so on.
Interestingly enough, managed fires are being introduced as a way of cutting greenhouse gas emissions and better managing "Country". I did some work with the Kimberley Land Council on such managed burning. Nowdays, the fires are lit from helicopters and overseen via helicopter. But the basic idea is the same. Slow cold burns every few years (in a kind of patchwork) rather than one wildfire every 6-10 years which burns even big trees to the ground and emits a lot more greenhouse gases in the process.
I actually found his description of the aboriginal dreamtime/religion and relationship to country most interesting, maybe the best part of the book.... especially the idea of the songlines...the path or corridor along which a creator ancestor moved to bring country into being. And the way these songlines threaded Australia linking people of many local groups ...separated by great distances. And being born on or near a songline decides a person's most important totem. And for an emu man, he does not have emu as merely symbolic; he IS emu, of the same mould and of the same flesh. He must care for emu and for his habitat. etc. All Australia obeyed the dreaming. By world standards this is a vast area for a single belief system to hold sway. (I think this is a really interesting point). It leads on to the sacred duty of aborigines to leave the world as you found it ....hence the adherence to long established practices about burning the land.
Clearly burning the land regularly did a number of things. It burnt insects; it burned young seedlings and seeds, it allowed grass to regenerate and with fire resistant trees it allowed them to continue growing...especially where there was a cool fire. (Actually, there is another advantage that Bill does not mention and that is that a cool fire emits less Nitrous Oxide than a hot fire and Nitrous Oxide is a much more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide). And, of course, it provided pathways through the timber. Though there are also some downsides. Back-burning now around Sydney gives us the days with the highest (and most dangerous) levels of small particle pollution ...and these small particles are carcinogenic.
I must admit, to my shame, that I had never fully appreciated before just how the aborigines felt attached to the land (country). (Though I had heard it claimed many times) ; how they were displaced and what an impact this had on them; and how ignorant the newcomers (settlers) were ...and still are.....about this casual displacement. I wonder how much the situation was destabilised by the introduction of smallpox, measles, etc into the early communities. As Bill Says..."For the people of 1788, the loss was stupefying. For the newcomers it did not seem great". (I recall around Sydney there was something like a 95% death rate from a series of infection outbreaks in the aboriginal community
Bill briefly touches on some other activities of aborigines that I have only just read about in "Dark Emu". The fact that Aborigines did cultivate yams and grass seeds...and if this wasn't farming it was pretty close to it. They also, in at least one area, built stone houses and extensive fish traps; they dug wells in stone and built dams and aqueducts. So in many respects they were on the cusp of that development phase that elsewhere led to a more highly developed agriculture, writing and civilisation as we have come to know it. Though Gammage makes the interesting point that with their world view ..."They considered themselves superior to "us" ; they preferred their mode of living to ours....they pitied us that we troubled ourselves with so many things".
Overall, an interesting book...makes his point very strongly...but he hasn't convinced me that it's a balanced view. He's best when he talks about the aboriginal view of their world and attitude to country.… (mer)
I guess we are shown enough evidence for me to be persuaded that pre 1788, fire was used extensively to open up land for animals such as kangaroos. And this was responsible for much of the parklike landscape observed. But I did get a little bored with the seemingly re-iteration of the same point ad nauseam. I'm not necessarily more convinced by 1000 quotes than I am by 10. I'd just like to be convinced that he hasn't been "cherry-picking" his quotes. For example, this extract from a journal kept on the Nijptangn ...one of de Vlamingh's ships north of Perth in 1697; "Having come to the beach, we found many oysters and started at once out on our march but sometimes had to rest through fatigue caused by the heat of the sun and the heavy going through the thick scrub". I guess one could find a lot of similar quotes...with no mention of "park-like" conditions......in fact just the reverse. But what does this PROVE? How do we know these were balanced comments? Obviously it is harder to have to force your way through thick scrub than through bushland. And maybe explorers chose the easy routes. Anyway we have plenty of bushland in Australia that hasn't seen a fire for say 8-10 years and has just the kind of park-like conditions talked about. Basically it's because of competition for light and for water ...and the bigger trees have the advantage with both. Clearly, the WHOLE continent was NOT being managed as Bill would have it. Some parts were thick scrub. (See the quote above).
I've come back to this review in Dec 2019 as NSW has been devastated with massive bush fires following a prolonged drought. Sydney has been swathed in smoke for weeks on end. Apparently many of the fires have been ignited by "dry lightning" and this sort of ignition and fire would have taken place with or without controlled burning by aborigines. The intensity and scale of the current fires is truly monstrous ...with flames rising to over 60-70m and 2.7 million Ha burned (an area bigger than Wales and still early in the season). Yet, I noted that, following the burn, the basic eucalyptus trees were still standing and presumably will re-shoot and the undergrowth has been eliminated. So these wild fires also seem likely to result in the same park-like conditions that Bill claims are entirely due to planned burning by aboriginals. So I'm not entirely convinced by his arguments. It seems to me that with patch-work burning in the winter that fauna and certain plants will have better survival rates...and certainly, the aborigines practiced this sort of burning. But to claim that the park like conditions were entirely an outcome of their burning practices...and ignore the contribution of wildfires...seems like an over-reach.
A basic thrust of his argument is that with the use of the fire stick, the aborigines cared for the land better than the newcomer europeans and our land has degraded dramatically since 1788. That is probably correct. But it is also supporting a population of about 25 million whereas before 1788 it was (according to the best evidence I can find) about 200,000. And, if you don't have any land clearing at all ....and maintain the wilderness as wilderness....then , of course, you are going to preserve the natural character of the land. But, surely we can do better: even with extensive agriculture. Reduce erosion, clean up the streams, manage water tables better, preserve wildlife corridors and habitat and so on.
Interestingly enough, managed fires are being introduced as a way of cutting greenhouse gas emissions and better managing "Country". I did some work with the Kimberley Land Council on such managed burning. Nowdays, the fires are lit from helicopters and overseen via helicopter. But the basic idea is the same. Slow cold burns every few years (in a kind of patchwork) rather than one wildfire every 6-10 years which burns even big trees to the ground and emits a lot more greenhouse gases in the process.
I actually found his description of the aboriginal dreamtime/religion and relationship to country most interesting, maybe the best part of the book.... especially the idea of the songlines...the path or corridor along which a creator ancestor moved to bring country into being. And the way these songlines threaded Australia linking people of many local groups ...separated by great distances. And being born on or near a songline decides a person's most important totem. And for an emu man, he does not have emu as merely symbolic; he IS emu, of the same mould and of the same flesh. He must care for emu and for his habitat. etc. All Australia obeyed the dreaming. By world standards this is a vast area for a single belief system to hold sway. (I think this is a really interesting point). It leads on to the sacred duty of aborigines to leave the world as you found it ....hence the adherence to long established practices about burning the land.
Clearly burning the land regularly did a number of things. It burnt insects; it burned young seedlings and seeds, it allowed grass to regenerate and with fire resistant trees it allowed them to continue growing...especially where there was a cool fire. (Actually, there is another advantage that Bill does not mention and that is that a cool fire emits less Nitrous Oxide than a hot fire and Nitrous Oxide is a much more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide). And, of course, it provided pathways through the timber. Though there are also some downsides. Back-burning now around Sydney gives us the days with the highest (and most dangerous) levels of small particle pollution ...and these small particles are carcinogenic.
I must admit, to my shame, that I had never fully appreciated before just how the aborigines felt attached to the land (country). (Though I had heard it claimed many times) ; how they were displaced and what an impact this had on them; and how ignorant the newcomers (settlers) were ...and still are.....about this casual displacement. I wonder how much the situation was destabilised by the introduction of smallpox, measles, etc into the early communities. As Bill Says..."For the people of 1788, the loss was stupefying. For the newcomers it did not seem great". (I recall around Sydney there was something like a 95% death rate from a series of infection outbreaks in the aboriginal community
Bill briefly touches on some other activities of aborigines that I have only just read about in "Dark Emu". The fact that Aborigines did cultivate yams and grass seeds...and if this wasn't farming it was pretty close to it. They also, in at least one area, built stone houses and extensive fish traps; they dug wells in stone and built dams and aqueducts. So in many respects they were on the cusp of that development phase that elsewhere led to a more highly developed agriculture, writing and civilisation as we have come to know it. Though Gammage makes the interesting point that with their world view ..."They considered themselves superior to "us" ; they preferred their mode of living to ours....they pitied us that we troubled ourselves with so many things".
Overall, an interesting book...makes his point very strongly...but he hasn't convinced me that it's a balanced view. He's best when he talks about the aboriginal view of their world and attitude to country.… (mer)
Well worth the time that was needed to read and digest.
So many examples from all over the Country made for a long but detailed read and well supported the arguments that the use of fire was a national trend in Land managment pre 1788.
So many examples from all over the Country made for a long but detailed read and well supported the arguments that the use of fire was a national trend in Land managment pre 1788.
Listor
Priser
Du skulle kanske också gilla
Associerade författare
Statistik
- Verk
- 12
- Även av
- 1
- Medlemmar
- 397
- Popularitet
- #61,078
- Betyg
- 4.2
- Recensioner
- 9
- ISBN
- 21
- Språk
- 1