Darkest Western Australia

a guide to outback travellers by HGB Mason

[CW: racism, references to cannibalism]

Written in the early 1900s, this little book sits on the shelves of the Battye Library, part of the State Library of Western Australia. It perpetuates numerous false stereotypes of Aboriginal people and is an example of colonial narrative in our archives that is long overdue for challenging. 

“Since the advent of the whites, nothing that mortal man can do will prevent the passing of the Australian black within a few decades. Niggers are cut out for a wild free life and it’s a pity to spoil Nature’s handiwork.”

“Castration has a wonderfully soothing and beneficial effect on all creatures with wild vicious blood.”

“These male Aboriginals are all cannibals. The height of a nigger’s ambition is to kill and eat some member of another tribe; although quite content to eat his own off-spring or barter them for weapons of exceptional value. When the children are considered fat enough the killing is not delayed.”

“The child is roasted in the same manner as an emu or kangaroo.”

“To save time in digging too big a hole for the fire – the nigger is ever ready to shirk work – the child’s legs and arms are cut off at the knees and elbows, and thrown into the rectangular hole dug to receive the body, from which the intestines are removed by making a long straight slit.”

“Nowadays in our explorations we see very few children indeed. Many of them are eaten.”

“As the white man gives kangaroo liver to his dogs to make them good killers, so the blackfellow Boolya man gives human flesh to his tribe to make them strong and brave warriors.”

“I would suggest as a preventive for infanticide that:

1) all blacks and half-caste children as far as possible be branded with tattoo marked numbers;

2) Notification given to parents to bring in their children periodically to a Protector.

3) Any child reported dead or missing, the corpse to be produced, and afterwards cremated to prevent disinterment by the blacks.”

What can you do to learn more?

It’s important to recognise that within Australia’s museums, libraries, galleries and archives, there are many records and artefacts just like this book, full of outdated and overtly racist sentiment towards first nation’s people. The conversation about how we frame these narratives in a modern context and in a manner respectful of contemporary indigenous opinion is long overdue.

Commentary sites like Nathan Sentance’s excellent The Archival Decolonist are a great place to read more about the issues surrounding collecting in Australia.

https://archivaldecolonist.com

Source

State Library of Western Australia