Wednesday 10 June 2020

EXAMINER JUNE 11 2020

Click on the image to enlarge
The Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery will begin consultation with the state's Aboriginal community in the next few weeks to negotiate the return of sacred relics to them.

The museum's board in December decided to return petroglyphs cut from stone on the North-West Coast once necessary arrangements and approvals were in place in accordance with the Aboriginal Heritage Act. ............................ The City of Launceston council at its ordinary meeting on Thursday will also decide whether petroglyphs held by the Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery will be repatriated. ............................ TMAG director Janet Carding on Wednesday said the museum was undertaking the community consultation required under the Aboriginal Heritage Act so the TMAG board could apply for a permit to move the relics. ............................ She said discussions were underway to work out how the artefacts could be returned and where they would be returned to. ............................ Ms Carding said she had a series on consultation meetings scheduled over the next few weeks with various Tasmanian Aboriginal organisations. ............................ "I'll be getting their feedback, I'll be compiling a report, and that will go into the permit application," she said. ............................ "As soon as we put the permit application in, we hope there will be a swift resolution. ............................ "I appreciate that it is a matter of anxiety for some people that it has taken some time." ............................ Aboriginal Land Council of Tasmania chairman Michael Mansell said the complex process was due to antiquated legislation which was under review. ............................ "We're at a stalemate," he said. ............................ "The act isn't working properly." ............................ Mr Mansell said despite some stalling in the repatriation process, he remained confident the Aboriginal community would have the petroglyphs returned to them in September. ............................ However, Ms Carding said she could not commit to a return by then. ............................ "We need to make sure we do the consultation properly," she said. ............................ Launceston council's cultural services general manager, Tracy Puklowski, wrote in Thursday's meeting agenda there were a range of opinions held by different Aboriginal groups as to the best outcome for the petroglyphs. ............................ She said these ranged from relocation to the area where they were found to display for future generations.
...

Land handbacks discussed with Tasmanian Premier Peter Gutwein Matt Maloney National

 Land returns were discussed between Premier Peter Gutwein and Aboriginal Land Council of Tasmania chairman Michael Mansell on Wednesday for the first time since Mr Gutwein took leadership. ............................ After the meeting, Mr Mansell expressed positivity that the pair could form an effective working relationships to sort out issues that still aggrieved the Tasmanian Aboriginal community. ............................ He said there would be another meeting with the Premier in July to further discuss the list of options for genuine reconciliation put to him, such as dedicated seats in Tasmanian Parliament. ............................ "What I've put to them is something we can collectively work towards," he said. "He seems to be onboard in wanting to do something. ............................ "What it is, he didn't say, but there was a big difference between talking to him and other Liberal ministers over the years when you know that you are not getting through to them." ............................ Mr Mansell said it was his view the government's review of land handbacks was a stalling process. ............................ He said he expected the next stage on land returns would be further discussed at the July meeting. ............................ Mr Mansell said it had been 15 years since the last land return by the government. ............................ Mr Gutwein said the government was committed to improving social, cultural and economic outcomes for the state's Aboriginal people. ............................ He said Wednesday's meeting had been constructive. ............................ "We discussed a number of matters including the return of petroglyphs, joint land management and the future of land handback arrangements along with other matters," Mr Gutwein said.

Tuesday 9 June 2020

TASMANIAN ABORIGINAL AFFAIRS AND GOVERNANCE


It will be the first time advocates have sat down with Mr Gutwein since he became Premier in January.
Aboriginal Land Council chair Michael Mansell said he had been overwhelmed by the support at Black Lives Matter rallies in Tasmania and across the country.
Mr Mansell, who spoke at the Launceston rally on Saturday, said the government should set up a Treaty Commission.
"The Commission should be armed with a draft treaty to be used for broad community consultations about how a treaty might work in practice," he said.
"The treaty could be based on sharing sovereignty with Aboriginal people, establishing a reparations fund and making a land settlement."
A treaty also would provide for two Aboriginal seats in the House of Assembly and three per cent of state gross domestic product, or about $93 million to provide housing and to run programs and services and protect Aboriginal heritage.
Mr Mansell said in an inclusive society, governments should try to focus on values of fairness and justice.
"It has been recognised throughout commonwealth countries that treaties and reparations comprise essential values in modern societies where the original people have suffered severely under European invasion.
"Aboriginal people and our representatives have pressed successive Tasmanian and Federal governments to address these fundamental remedies without success. That is no reason to walk away from the opportunity now before us."
Mr Mansell said people who attended Black Lives Matter rallies wanted to know how to achieve equality.
"There has been an outpouring of support and goodwill and ordinary people want to know how to express their views and support change," he said.
"They are looking for political leadership but no politicians are listening.
"We need to build on that momentum. Justice costs nothing."
The meeting will be held on Thursday.
Mr Gutwein said: "I look forward to meeting with Michael Mansell this week to discuss matters of importance to Tasmania's Aboriginal communities."

Sunday 7 June 2020

Coast is far from clear for sacred Tasmanian Aboriginal rock art’s return

EXCLUSIVE MATTHEW DENHOLM
 TASMANIA CORRESPONDENT
 JUNE 7, 2020

For millennia, Tasmania’s Aborigines chronicled their stories in stone, carving them into the rocks and cliffs of Tasmania’s wild Tarkine coast for future generations. Now some of these remarkable ancient petroglyphs are part of a very different story.

And it’s not a happy one for the descendants of those rock-carving storytellers, nor for the broader Tasmanian community that is still working to reconcile a bloody history of Aboriginal dispossession and conflict.

In 1962, a large intact section of petroglyph from the rugged coastal area of Preminghana, in the state’s remote northwest, was sawed from its rock face and sent to Hobart’s Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery. Other sections that apparently broke away naturally were taken to Launceston’s Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery for display

A long struggle to have the ­petroglyphs returned to the Aboriginal community appeared to have succeeded in December, with the TMAG committing to the move. However, the process has stalled and some Aboriginal groups are mystified as to why.
The Australian has learned the return of the cultural treasure has become tangled in red tape, consultation and hand-wringing, as well as differences among Aboriginal groups.

Experts, meanwhile, warn the priceless rock art, likened by some authorities to treasures of ancient Egypt, will rapidly disintegrate if it is returned, unprotected, to its original coastal site.

Michael Mansell, chair of the Aboriginal Land Council of Tasmania, has called for state legislation to break the deadlock and have the petroglyphs returned to Preminghana. “There’s nothing to consult about. Just get on with it — legislate, make them do it,” Mr Mansell said.

The stories of how and where Aboriginal life began … are carved into these rocks. Whenever major events took place in the sky, that’s carved into the rock. When there was a significant meeting of the tribes … you can see the markings.

There is a whole coastline of these markings. It’s like a big ­jigsaw puzzle, and when they took away these slabs and put them in museums, they took away the middle piece.

It seems everyone — the ­museums, the government and all Aboriginal groups — accept the petroglyphs should return to the Aboriginal community. But in ­recent years, the state government has broadened its indigenous consultation to include a range of groups, not just Mr Mansell’s long-established ALCT and the Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre.

Some of these newer groups have different ideas about what should happen to the rock carvings. Some favour a museum of their own to house them, others want guarantees of access to Preminghana, owned by ALCT.

Mr Mansell said the property had public access, but Rodney Dillon, co-chair of the Tasmanian Regional Aboriginal Communities Alliance, said some people wanted guarantees of access to the carvings and of their protection from erosion and vandalism.

The museums have a responsibility to all Aboriginal people in the state to see what we all think should happen,” Mr Dillon said. “There’ll be angst on who gets them and where they go. I think we all have a common view that they should go back to where they came from. My fear is that someone will want to have them (exclusively) and hold on to them.

Peter Sims, a rock art expert who saw the petroglyphs in situ in 1961 before they were removed and is writing a study on them, said they must return to the Aboriginal community. However, he warned they would “disintegrate” rapidly if exposed to the elements and rising sea levels.

That’s my greatest fear,” he said. It would only last a short ­period of time if left out exposed. It would have to be protected in some way, (for example) with a shelter and Perspex.

Albert van Zetten, mayor of the City of Launceston, which runs QVMAG, said the council would on Thursday make a decision on the way forward, but was trying to balance “a range of opinions held by different groups

Council is genuinely committed to making sure they return to the Aboriginal community and we’re trying to work towards the best outcome,” he said.

 It appeared a permit was required under the Aboriginal Heritage Act to move the carvings from museum storage. While some argue this is akin to requiring a permit to return stolen goods, it is a position taken by TMAG and confirmed by the state government.

As part of the permit application process, the (TMAG) board is consulting with Aboriginal community organisations and individuals about the repatriation,” said TMAG director Janet Carding.

Premier Peter Gutwein wants the petroglyphs returned “as soon as possible”, blaming delays on the COVID-19 restrictions.

 At Preminghana, Aboriginal rangers Victor Ralph and Tim Lowery believe a way can and must be found to bring the carvings “back home”. “This is where they belong. They should never have been taken in the first place,” Mr Ralph said.

Letter to the editor


Return the carvings

I urge the Launceston City Council to release the Aboriginal rock carvings currently held by the QVMAG and to assist us to have them returned to their rightful place.
There is no need for further consultation on this matter.
The Aboriginal community has already agreed these items must be relocated to where they were taken from.
There are no alternatives.
It is unnecessary and demeaning for hand-picked advisory groups and government bodies to get a say in this matter. The Aboriginal community has already spoken.

Adam Thompson, Trevallyn.

Saturday 6 June 2020

PLACEDNESS AND PETROGLYPHS



"The West Coast tribes felt bonded to the land. They knew it intimately. People lived in villages in beehive-shaped bark huts. In their seasonal hunter-gatherer regimes, women dived for crayfish, mussels, abalone and shellfish. By ‘firestick farming’ the plains, the men hunted wallaby, wombats, possums, quolls and emus, kept access paths open and replenished the feed. Ducks, ravens and muttonbirds were caught. Eggs, herbs and fungi were gathered.

Although much knowledge of tribal societies has been lost, elaborate death rituals, the use of amulets for healing and the idea of the soul transcending the body were all recorded. Petroglyph art sites at Mount Cameron West attest to indigenous interest in astrology, possibly even its spiritual significance. Ochre was widely used for decorative and perhaps spiritual purposes. Inter-tribal marriage was common, with established courting rituals. Gifts such as a supply of ochre facilitated access to another tribe’s territory during seasonal migration."
When Premier of Tasmania Jim Bacon was reported as saying 'the so-called Tarkine' and he is a part of this place's histories. Click here for Lindsay Tuffen's overview

Thursday 4 June 2020

A MUSINGPLACE AND THE 'RACE ISSUE'

GO TO: https://nmaahc.si.edu/about/news/national-museum-african-american-history-and-culture-releases-talking-about-race-web

The Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture today launched Talking About Race, a new online portal designed to help individuals, families, and communities talk about racism, racial identity and the way these forces shape every aspect of society, from the economy and politics to the broader American culture

The online portal provides digital tools, online exercises, video instructions, scholarly articles and more than 100 multi-media resources tailored for educators, parents and caregivers—and individuals committed to racial equality. A rash of racially charged incidents—from an altercation in Central Park to acts of police brutality resulting in the deaths of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd and the protests they provoked in cities around the country—prompted the Museum to move up the release date of Talking About Race. By releasing the new portal today, the Museum aims to help individuals and communities foster constructive discussions on one of the nation’s most challenging topics: racism, and its corrosive impact..

Since opening the museum, the number one question we are asked is how to talk about race, especially with children. We recognize how difficult it is to start that conversation. But in a nation still struggling with the legacies of slavery, Jim Crow laws, and white supremacy, we must have these tough conversations if we have any hope of turning the page and healing. This new portal is a step in that direction.

Monday 1 June 2020

No Reprieve for Tasmanian Rock Art by Peter C. Sims

Abstract
The Australian State of Tasmania, at latitude 42 degrees south, became an island about 8,000 years ago when the sea rose to its present level, following the melting of polar and glacial ice that covered much of the land mass. After that time, the Tasmanian Aboriginal rock art developed independently of mainland Australia, with its form being basically linear with some naturalistic figures and a predominance of cupules. The petroglyphs with one lithophone site occur on various rock substrates varying in hardness from granite to sandstone. Many sites exist along the western coastline that borders the Southern Ocean where the landscape in some places has changed little since the arrival of Europeans in 1803. The significance of this Tasmanian Aboriginal cultural heritage along what is now known as the Tarkine Coast, named after an Aboriginal band that once inhabited this area, was recognised by the Australian Government in February 2013 when a 21,000 ha strip, 2 km wide, was inscribed on its National Heritage Register, being one of 98 special places listed in the country. However, politics and racism hamper its management. This paper is based on the results of 40 years of field recording of the Tasmanian Aboriginal rock art sites, many of which remain unpublished. View Full-Text


BURIED TREASURE, THE FINANCIAL REVIEW AND TASMANIA'S PETROGLYPHS


FOREWORD
This article is reproduced here for the purposes of critical review and the contribution it makes to the cultural discourse relevant to the 'deep histories' and 'the contested ground' attached the petroglyphs and ultimately Tasmania's colonial histories as they are played out and variously understood.

Please note, various words and phrases are hyperlinked to other references to assist readers in forming their contextual understandings.


In the far north-west of Tasmania there is a strip of shore that has been returned as Aboriginal land. This is Preminghana, a wild and beautiful place. Just to the north lies Cape Grim, once the site of a notorious massacre, now better known for the purity of its air, reputedly the cleanest in the world. Wind farms adorn a nearby promontory. The turbines can be seen carving circles slowly in the air. It is a weird conjunction of the pre-European and the post-carbon. For hidden on the shore at Preminghana is the finest expression of Aboriginal art in Tasmania.

Under a heaped dune, by a small creek, lies a complex of remarkable carvings. A matrix of geometric motifs – concentric circles, drifting trellises, rows of dots, crosses, parallel lines – has been chiselled into slabs of fallen sandstone along a buried cliff face. Certain rock formations are so covered with engravings that they resemble monumental abstract sculpture. Elsewhere, tracks of a bird – thought to be the extinct Tasmanian emu – have been discovered carved into the rock

Giants of Australian archaeology were once intensely interested in the site. Fred McCarthy, author of Stone Implements of Australia, said it was as important to the human story as the temples of Abu Simbel, then saved from the rising waters of the Aswan Dam by hundreds of millions of dollars. McCarthy was hoping for funds at Preminghana. His hopes were not realised. All that can now be seen of this great work of hunter-gatherer art is a pair of circles floating in a single block of protruding stone. The rest lies buried. It is a strange story. 


 Workers removing a panel with a cross cut saw in 1962. 

Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery 

Peter Sims tells the tale. He is an octogenarian former industrial chemist with hawk-like eyes who has devoted much of his life to rock art and is now finishing a work on Preminghana. At his home in a rainforested dell outside Devonport, and later in his personal archive at the Queen Victoria Museum in Launceston, Peter pulls out the old photographs and faded documents, and puts the pieces together.

A schoolteacher and amateur archaeologist made the rediscovery in 1933, after the petroglyphs were blown free of sand at Mount Cameron West, as it was then known. Archibald Meston was taken to the site by shepherds from the nearby Van Diemen’s Land Company (a pastoral concern with a bloody past in the island’s notorious Black War of the 1820s). Meston immediately recognised the petroglyphs’ significance and prepared a paper for the Royal Society of Tasmania. 

This elicited the attention of a stonemason, Leo Luckman, who documented the site and removed a fallen carving in several pieces to his local museum in Launceston. Then, in 1962, the island’s leading museum, the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery (TMAG) arrived on the scene. Workers took a crosscut saw – generally used for logging operations – and cut off one of the finest panels, hefting the slab back to Hobart. At the time this caused real dismay in the Australian archaeological community and was deplored as official vandalism by John Mulvaney‘the father of Australian archaeology’, at the Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies in Canberra.

Rhys Jones, a young Welsh archaeologist freshly out of Cambridge and soon to be a gilded name, was dispatched to the Tasmanian backwater. Together with Fred McCarthy, he did a major excavation in 1969, making fibreglass casts of the motifs. They carbon-dated material and found the carvings were at least as old as the Hagia Sophia and probably far older. Rhys Jones judged the site was abandoned to windblown sand, then soil, around 850 years ago, until cattle caused erosion. There was talk of building a dome and seawall to protect the ancient art from the abrasive sands and waves of the Southern Ocean. Eventually, in lieu of funds, concerned locals, with a nod from the Institute of Aboriginal Studies, decided to rebury the petroglyphs in the late '70s. The ground was seeded with marram grass and has now changed beyond recognition. In 1995 the Liberal state government of Ray Groom returned Preminghana to the Aboriginal Land Council of Tasmania. The carvings have not been sighted since

Peter Sims is quietly incredulous as he relays this tale. At the time when the petroglyphs were reburied, Sims and others believed that in 20 years' time there would be an "enlightened community" to protect and promote them. 

A photograph of one of the carvings 

taken in 1971. Peter Sims 
"Well, it’s not 20 years, it’s 50 years," he says. "My lifetime will pass and nothing will change. It should somehow be resurrected. TMAG holds the key.’' 

Located down near the Hobart docks, TMAG is not to be confused with the city’s other museum, David Walsh's fizzing, contemporary Museum of Old and New Art (MONA). In comparison, TMAG can seem traditional, even sedate. 

Yet inside the museum can be found a willing exploration of Tasmania’s complex past. There are two galleries dedicated to the island’s Indigenous people. According to a written statement provided by the Museum’s communications manager, Andrée Hurburgh, the petroglyph was taken off display in 2005 ‘'at the request of the Tasmanian Aboriginal community’'. Later, from annual reports it emerged that in 2011-2012, TMAG had commenced formal discussions with the custodians of the site ‘'regarding the return of the petroglyph'’. The status of those discussions is unclear. .

Graeme Gardner, head of the Aboriginal Land Council of Tasmania, says there has been ‘'no discussion with TMAG for years'’

Aboriginal activist and lawyer Michael Mansell is more forthright: "They’re not going to give up anything willingly. They think that they are the keepers of mankind’s history. They think that they are the only ones who can be trusted. But the carvings were stolen – sawn off and taken away in a truck. If that’s not desecration, I don’t know what is." "White people say Aborigines were illiterate," Mansell says. "We weren’t illiterate. If you carve out the camping grounds, the walking tracks, the totems to honour as you go through, the birds and the trees you cannot cut down, you might not be writing it down in English, but you are writing down messages, you are writing a roadmap to the territory. Then this lot come in and carve it up. 


Fred McCarthy examines carvings of emu feet during the 1969 excavation. 

Rhys Jones (right) and Nick Peterson are seated. Jack Thwaites Collection, Tasmanian Archives 
Director of TMAG Janet Carding, in written answers to questions, confirms the museum accepts the Tasmanian Aboriginal community has "a claim on the Preminghana material" and adds it is open to restarting formal discussions ‘'when requested'’. She also says the museum is exploring with the Land Council their viewing the material held in storage. 

Informed of this, Michael Mansell says, ‘'This is progress. We will sit down and talk with them now about a timetable. We will hold an Aboriginal community meeting to determine exactly how the missing petroglyph should be repatriated to the place of origin, the place from which it was cut.’' 

Paul Taçon is a leading authority on rock art, the co-author of an assessment of best practice for the Getty Conservation Institute, entitled Rock Art: A Cultural Treasure At Risk (2015). Originally from Ontario, and a recipient of the Rhys Jones Medal (the highest honour in Australian archaeology), he has had exposure to similar issues in Canada, Australia and many parts of the world. From his office at Griffiths University, Professor Taçon says the Aboriginal Land Council of Tasmania has a claim to the missing piece and it should be returned to them. In his view, proper resources – funds, technical advice, a place to care for the sawn-off petroglyph – should also be made available once it is returned. .
Beyond repatriation, it is unclear, however, what the fate of the Preminghana carvings could be. To uncover them once more for viewing would be fraught with hazards. Vandalism has occurred at other rock art sites in Tasmania, most recently three years ago, when red and yellow ochre hand stencils thousands of years old were defaced in the Tasmanian Central Highlands, scratched at with rock. 

To build a protective structure against erosion would also run to several millions of dollars. And then there is the matter of climate change and receding shorelines. ''The petroglyphs could be carefully uncovered,'’ Paul Taçon suggests, ''and a 3D laser scan undertaken. 3D models could be made and an exact replica created, if the Tasmanian Aboriginal Land Council wanted one. The petroglyphs could then be rebur

He draws a parallel to the great Chauvet cave paintings in France where a replica now ensured that a timeless work of the human imagination was not damaged, and yet tourists still had ‘'a realistic experience'’ of the site. 

Graeme Gardner says that leaving aside questions of money, ‘'which we don’t have'', these were all options that could be considered if the Tasmanian Aboriginal community felt it was able to decide. The first step remains the missing piece. His personal preference is that it be restored exactly as it was beside the bracing waters of the Southern Ocean, but there must be community consultation. ‘'And we don’t need to see it to know that it’s there,’'  he adds. ‘'We just have to have the right to make the decision. That is the key.’'


Click here to link to another version
RECENT desecration of Aboriginal art in the Derwent Valley is just the latest in a string of failures in law and policy in Tasmanian Aboriginal cultural heritage protection.
These failures amount to wilful neglect to the extent that national, and ultimately international, intervention is required.
Daily we hear of hundreds of thousands of dollars dedicated to tourism, to upgraded facilities, to new and wider roads, to propping up regional businesses. But still nothing for Aboriginal heritage protection, aside perhaps from some studies funded by the Commonwealth which the state pays to itself.
Tasmania’s Aboriginal Relics Act dates from 1975, a time when the contemporary struggle for recognition of Aboriginal rights and land justice was just getting started.
The approach to Aboriginal heritage protection was firmly based in archaeological values: the protection of “relics” from a culture long gone and nothing that dates from after Trukanini’s death in 1876 is covered by the Act.
Tasmania is the only state in Australia that still has this outdated archaeological approach to Aboriginal heritage protection. Even the State Government now concedes the legislation is outdated, racist and a hangover from past prejudices.

IDENTITY AND OWNERSHIP


Public Access at Preminghana (Mount Cameron West)
The issue of public access at preminghana always generates a high level of public debate. So, is it purely an argument of the right to drive vehicles onto a beach? No. The debate is about the right of a landowner to determine what is important and needs protection on the land and who may enter their land. 

The Tasmanian Aboriginal community is a landowner and must have the right to make decisions about what happens on the land it owns the same as any other land owner, Aboriginal or not.

When preminghana was returned to the Aboriginal community in 1995, the Aboriginal lands Act 1995 specified that public access to the coast be retained. However there were provisions in the legislation which limited this access, i.e. 15 metres above high-water mark, similar to the coastal reserve provisions applied to other coastal areas around the state. 

The legislation included a map or site plan for preminghana which identified a vehicle track (commonly called Mt Cameron Road) that allowed visitors to drive to a point outside 15 metres above high-tide mark and then to walk along a pedestrian track to Annes Bay (also called Carvings Beach).

Coincidentally this track was established before 1995 against the wishes of the managers, Parks and Wildlife Service, during their period of management.

Section 27 (8A) of the Aboriginal Lands Act states:
‘There is reserved to the public at all times, in relation to the land referred to in item 2 schedule 3 [Preminghana], a right of pedestrian access over the land 15 metres wide immediately above the high water mark except that area of land between points A and D shown (site of rock carvings) as being on the high-water mark in the Plan 3467 in the Central Register.’

CONTENTION UPON CONTENTION


The coastline on Tasmania's north-west is so windy that the white-capped waves push massive clumps of seaweed onto the rocky beach. 

Victor Ralph — a pakana, or Tasmanian Aboriginal, ranger — is on his hands and knees as he dusts sand off a large piece of sandstone, uncovering the faint remains of a circle that has been carved into the rock by his ancestors. 

"These petroglyphs have probably been around for longer than 40,000 years," he says. 

The ancient rock carvings are priceless to Tasmania's Aboriginal community, but someone has stolen one. 

It is an unsolved crime that Australian Federal Police (AFP) have investigated all the way to the USA. 


A meticulously executed crime

Story by Felicity Ogilvie

10 Nov 2019,

DISQUIET IN REGARD TO TASMANIA'S PETROGLPHS