Githabul people win land title recognition

Back in January 2015 I reported on the agreement between the Githabul people and the NSW Government about a large native title land claim over a large portion of New England. Now the claim has moved another step forward. I was going to give you a link, but the story seems to have vanished into Fairfax's digital store, so I will just report the key facts.

In the first claim in ten years settled under the Commonwealth's Native Title Legislation and the first time that the Sydney Government and an indigenous community have jointly sought a decision, the Githabul people have won rights over an area of 112,000 hectares including nine national parks and thirteen state forests in the Kyogle and Tenterfield Shires.

The decision will afford traditional owners the right of access to the area for spiritual purposes; to camp, fish, hunt and gather animals, plants and water there for non-commercial needs and to lawfully protect places of importance to them.

One thing that made me sad, though, was a comment from Trevor Close, the successful applicant of the claim. He said:

You will never see this again in NSW. Too many elders have passed away who
hold the information and language necessary to pass the evidence test.

In the midst of all the macro Australian argument about things like reconciliation and saying sorry, my concern has been much more local. Recording and preserving what we have now, while meeting the needs of New England's indigenous peoples as they are today.

New England's Aboriginal Languages - a map

I finally found a map (here) of New England's Aboriginal languages. The map extends down towards Sydney and misses a bit out on the left, but it gets the guts of it.

Moree mentoring attracts interest - congratulations to Peter Strang

Back in June I wrote a short post on the work of Dick Estens and his colleagues in creating employment opportunities for Moree's Aboriginal young.

I see from an article in the Moree Champion that this work has continued. My congratulations to Peter Strang for receiving the initial AES award for his work in Moree's mentoring program.

I think personally that this type of action is very important. Whatever the issues and approaches may be at state or national level, action at local level to improve opportunities for New England's Aboriginal kids is critical. Without this, other things will fall over.

New England's Kamilaroi people - web search August 08

Photo: Aboriginal camp north of Moree around 1885.

A little while ago I created a Kamilaroi Entry Page to act as a central reference point for stories on this New England Aboriginal people. I have been slow since then to add some supporting posts. To move forward, I thought that I should start with a simple web search.

The Kamilaroi/Gamilaraay Web Dictionary is, as the name says, an on-line dictionary of the Kamilaroi language.

Based in Moree, the Indigenous Unit is part of the Northern Regional Library & Information Service. Its web site has some useful material, including photographs.

N B Tindale's pioneering attempt to delineate Kamilaroi boundaries can be found here.

The Aboriginal Justice Advisory Committee site lists service points within the AJAC's Kamilaroi region.

Lorimer Fison and William Howitt's 1880 study Kamilaroi and Kurnai is available on-line for a price.

Qian Liu's 2006 PhD thesis, An ethnopharmacological study of medicinal plants of the Kamilaroi and Muruwari aboriginal communitites in northern New South Wales, is available on-line.

A short profile on Yulawirri, a Kamilaroi artist. Another on Urandali.

With a Wiradjuri father and Kamilaroi mother, the photographer Michael Riley is described as a Wiradjuri/Kamikaroi artis. Neil Whitfield, Ninglun, carried two posts on Michael with links through to sources - here, here.

Kamilaroi and white : a study of racial mixture in New South Wales (1924?) by Griffith Taylor and F. Jardine is available in the National Libary.

Description of two bora grounds of the Kamilaroi tribe by R.H. Mathews is available in the National Library.

Australian Dictionary of Biography entries with some linkage to the Kamilaroi include:

• Fison, Lorimer (1832 - 1907)
• Greenway, Charles Capel (1818 - 1905)
• Groves, Herbert Stanley (Bert) (1907 - 1970)
• Howitt, Alfred William (1830 - 1908)
• Jardine, Fitzroy (1896 - 1964)
• Ridley, William (1819 - 1878)
• Samuels, Charles (c. 1864 - 1912)

Of this group, only Herbert Groves and Charles Samuels are Aboriginal.

Comment

As seems always to be the case, the references are very fragmentary. As I have argued before, we need sites for each indigenous language group to allow material on that group to be collected and presented so that it is accessible to all Australians.

Postscript

Since putting up this post, I have noticed a small but steady stream of hits. For those who are interested I refer you to a post on another of my blogs, The vanished Kamilaroi and the need for a new approach. Why shouldn't the Kamilaroi have their own web site?

Return to Kamilaroi entry page.

The Koori Mail - New England's national indigenous newspaper

For a little while, an Aboriginal colleague at the office has been lending me copies of the Koori Mail to read. That colleague is leaving, so I am going to have to take out a subscription if I want to continue to keep in touch.

The Koori Mail is, I think, one of the few if not the only New England publication with truly national reach.

The paper was founded in in 1991 by Owen and Sue Carriage. In 1992, it was taken over by a company called Budsoar Pty Ltd, jointly owned by five Aboriginal organisations on the North Coast of New South Wales- Bundjalung Tribal Society (Lismore), Bunjum Aboriginal Co-operative (Cabbage Tree Island), Kurrachee Co-operative Society (Coraki), Nungera Co-operative (Maclean) and Buyinbin (Casino).

The Koori Mail remains an entirely self-funding, wholly Aboriginal owned company. The board of directors comprises one member from each of the five Aboriginal organisations that own it, with twenty percent interest from each.

The paper's mission is to report news and relay advertising of interest to indigenous Australians and people interested in indigenous affairs. It covers news from around the nation and accepts contributions in the form of stories, poetry, news, photographs and artwork.

For a long time the paper was the only national voice of the indigenous community. Today it has developed into a strong fortnightly voice with an audited circulation of 90,000.

Big Sky Tourism's Aboriginal Heritage Tour

I was pleased to see that the Big Sky Tourism people have put together material outlining some of the Aboriginal attractions across the Northern Tablelands and Western Slopes.

I have long argued that we need more thematic tourism material to make New England's attractions more accessible to visitors. I think that this is especially important in making our indigenous heritage available to both locals and a wider audience.

New England's Aborigines - the Birpai: web references

Photo: ABC Mid North Coast. Coorah Canugan Badu Exhibition Closing Ceremony. Kattang Dancer Joe Archibald on the hunt for some honey. In the background playing the didge is one of the exhibition's curators Birpai man Stephen Donovan.

In an earlier post on visitors to this site I mentioned the visitor who searched on the Birpai, the Aboriginal people occupying the Hastings and Manning River Valleys.

I also said how disappointed that visitor would have been by the results. So for his/her sake as well as my own, I thought that I would do a brief post pulling together some of the web references on the Birpai. I can then use this as a base to do a fuller post later.

First, as a general comment, while those in the Hastings Valley say Biprai, those in the Manning Valley often refer to the Biripi. They are the same people. As a second general comment, there are a lot of fragmentary glancing references that make a full search difficult.

AIATSIS has a 2003 list of references on the Birpai language and people, although I find the lay out complicated.

The Greater Taree City Council has a very useful heritage section on the Birpai. The Kendall site contains a short summary. There is a another very useful page on the Tobwabba site that deals with the Worimi and Biripi and sets a historical context. The Great lakes museum has a short page on early contact with Europeans. A related Great Lakes page can be found here.

The Timbertown site also has a useful page focused on the use of wood. The site page includes a list of references and also provides an introduction to the Dick photographic collection. Even though the photos were staged, this is by far the best collection of photos on traditional Aboriginal life in New England.

The Australian Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission has an interesting page that provides a snapshot of the position of the Birpai people in 1998.

Another interesting snapshot is provided by the minutes of the Purfleet community meeting. The NSW Department of Aboriginal Affairs Two Ways report on the North Coast sets a general context on current Aboriginal conditions on the broader North Coast region.

Arts Mid North Coast has a useful page giving contact details for various Aboriginal organisations.

The booklet prepared after the construction of the Cowarra dam contains some limited information. The Dooragan National Park Management Plan (July 2004) has some material including the story of the three brothers. Another short National Parks reference can be found in the material on the Barrington tops.

Australia's Aborigines - the need to localise

Photo: Thomas Dick Collection, Port Macquarie Historical Society, the Birpai

In my last post on what brings people to this site, I mentioned the search that had been done on the Birpai, an Aboriginal language group in the Hastings and Manning River Valleys.

The person searching would have been disappointed. So I thought that I should add a post pointing to some reference sources. But before I do so, I want to make a general point.

Without checking precise post references, I have said before how hard it is to find information about Australia's indigenous peoples at local or regional level. I think that this is a major gap.

If we really want to recognise the past of our indigenous peoples and integrate it properly into national history, we must localise it. People find it much easier to understand and identify things relevant to their own immediate areas.

Postscript

I have been trawling through web pages relating to the Birpai. There is a fair bit of information but it is all over the place.

One simple, cheap and useful thing that could be done by either the NSW or Australian Governments is to pay for the creation of web sites covering the the different language groups such as the Birpai to act as a central information point.

Simple because the technology is not complex. Cheap because web costs are low, while one or two full time researchers could progressively create the content for a lot of sites in twelve months. Useful because it would help both our indigenous peoples and those like me who are interested.

New England's Aborigines

Short post to say that over at the New England History blog I have put up a long stocktake post drawing togther some of the posts I have written across blogs dealing with New England's Aboriginal peoples.

I think that this is an important topic. While the stocktake post is very long, I hope that it contains some material of interest.

New England's Poor Towns - a failure in public policy

One of my consistent arguments on this blog is the need for New England to develop an effective voice.
In my posts on the NSW Government's State Plan, I began by looking at New England's needs. As part of this I pointed to the need for economic development to provide jobs and overcome economic and social deprivation.

In my second post I examined the Plan against New England's needs. I concluded:

If you look at my simple analysis of New England's needs in the previous post, and then compare it to the Plan you will see that most of New England's needs are not addressed or addressed in a peripheral fashion.
In this context, one way of testing the potential value of a plan is to ask what the position would be at the end if every target were to be achieved. Here I think that we can say that at the end of ten years New Englanders will be at best marginally better off, more likely they will have seen a further deterioration in New England's position.

Professor Vinson's new national study into economic and social disadvantage drives home my argument about the failure of Government policy to address New England's needs.

Nearly all the poorest and most socially disadvantaged towns and villages in NSW can be found in New England.

Bonalbo, Kempsey, Tingha and Windale. Bowraville, Casino, Deepwater, Urunga and Coraki. Nambucca Heads, Tweed Heads, Walgett and Forster. Kurri Kurri, Woodenbong, Boggabilla and South West Rocks. Tenterfield, Ashford, Iluka and Inverell. Sawtell and Taree. The list goes on.

Circumstances vary from place to place.

I think, for example, that Inverell would be surprised to find itself on the list, yet on the key social indicators used by Professor Vinson the town ranks low because of the presence of disadvantaged groups. On the coast, the presence of retirees pulls average incomes down. There is also , I suspect, a close correlation between the relative size of local aboriginal populations - the Aborigines form a much higher proportion of the New England local population than the national average - and the average measures of economic and social deprivation.

Whichever way you cut the numbers, many New England towns and villages have been going backward in relative terms, in some cases absolute terms, for many years. In some parts of New England real youth unemployment ranges from 20 to over 40 per cent. This sometimes sits side by side with the presence of skilled labour shortages that compound the problem by reducing incomes and support jobs.

I can see no sign that these problems are being addressed. Just the opposite.

The Mid North Coast has the lowest average incomes in NSW with above average unemployment. Yet the NSW State Government's coastal strategy for the Mid North Coast postulates a population increase for the area of 91,000 over the next twenty five years. The strategy is silent as to where the jobs will come from to employ these people.

Unless and until New England can again get its act together to force our politicians to look at New England's needs as a whole, these problems will remain unresolved.

Take Kempsey as an example.

The simple reconstruction of the inland road over the Big Hill to Armidale would increase traffic through the Upper Macleay valley to Kempsey and the adjoining resorts. It would also open up the inland to Macleay valley products. An effective inland New England development strategy would add to the impact.

There are already close links between the Macleay valley Aborigines and those in Armidale. Many of Armidale's Aborigines came to the city in the 1950s from the Upper Macleay Valley. There is scope to develop an Aboriginal tourism strategy that links the Macleay Valley and Armidale. New England as a whole has to learn to recognise its Aboriginal people as a New England asset, not a local concern.

These are not complex suggestions, now will they solve the problem in total. We need to try a whole range of things. But this will not happen so long as New Englanders continue to be bound by localism.

Update 25 July 2015

Over five years since I wrote this post. The latest data shows that the problem continues. 

New England's history - Anaiwan or Nganyaywana Aboriginal peoples entry page

Short post to say that over at the New England's history blog I have established a page to provide an entry point to posts about the Anaiwan or Nganyaywana Aboriginal peoples who occupied the southern and central areas of the New England Tablelands.

As with other entry pages, I hope that with time this will grow as a resource to help those interested find material about the Anaiwan.

New England Australia's Aborigines - Dainggati Entry Page

The Dainggatti are are a Macleay Valley language group with close Tablelands' connections. As part of my historical reseach, I have created a page to provide an entry point to all my posts on the Dainggatti

The Poetry of Judith Wright - Bora Ring

Judith Wright is probably New England's best known poet.

Her poetry, especially her earlier writing, has always resonated with me because it says something to me about the world in which I grew up, a world still deeply imprinted on my soul. I thought therefore that it might be fun to take some of her poems and use them as a window to look at different aspects of New England.

I suspect that many Australians still think of Australia's traditional Aborigines as simple hunter gatherers living in an ancient and unchanging landscape, although there is growing recognition of the complexity of their social and spiritual life. In fact, within the limits set by their tools and available food supplies they were also sophisticated builders.

The Bora Rings of New England and south-eastern Queensland are examples. As Sandra Bowdler pointed out, these earthen rings of eastern New South Wales and south-eastern Queensland are significant ritual structures and are probably unique in the world as hunter gatherer constructions of known function which constitute notable monuments in the landscape.

Sandra goes on to describe them:

The earthen rings known as “Bora” are usually part of a complex of two or three rings, linked by a path or paths. They were used in what Sutton calls “man-making ceremonies”, that is, male initiation ceremonies. In the literature, we find that the large ring in the complex was usually part of a relatively public ceremony, with women looking on; the smaller ring was the site of the major initiation rites, for initiated men and initiates only. The purpose of the third ring is not as well documented in the literature. It has been suggested that these are women’s rings, but it is not clear to me that this was always the case. Bora sites were often (always?) associated with carved trees.

The average size of a large ring is about 25 - 30 m across, and a small ring 10-12 m. There is a wide range of variation however. The earth is mounded up to a height of c.25-50 cms. Usually there is a path, often to the south-west from the large ring, connecting to smaller ring.

Judith's poem starts by painting a picture of a Bora Ring now alone in the landscape:

The song is gone, the dance
is secret with the dancers in the earth,
the ritual useless, and the tribal story
lost in an alien tale.

Only the grass stands up
to mark the dancing-ring, the apple gums
posture and mime a past corroboree,
murmurs a broken chant

The hunter is gone, the spear
is splintered underground, the painted bodies
a dream the world breathed sleeping and forgot.
The nomad feet are still

The rider halts, feeling that the ghosts are still present.

Only the rider's heart
halts at sightless shadow, an unsaid word
that fastens in the blood the ancient curse,
the fear as old as Cain.

It is a wonderfully evocative poem. But it is also a very European perspective with its emphasis on the vanished Aboriginal past. In fact, that past was still present.

I am not sure when Judith wrote this poem, but at the time there were almost certainly New England Aborigines alive who had passed through traditional initiation at one of the Bora sites. Further, the knowledge of the sites and their significance has continued to be passed on.

Here we can compare Judith's words with the much later 1996/1997 Aboriginal description of a site near Bellbrook quoted by Sandra:

“This site is known as the passing out ground for initiates of the Thungetti tribe. It is one of several initiation Grounds in the Bellbrook area where different stages of the Bora ceremony took place. As such, it is still highly sacred to the Aboriginal elders residing at Bellbrook Mission, and is considered to be one of the most important of the initiation sites in the area”

Entry Page for Posts about Judith Wright's poetry

Malcolm Calley, Anthropology and Australia's Aborigines

The predominant role of anthropologists from 1929 to 1945 (and indeed, to the present) in interpreting Aboriginal society, analysing its ills, and in recommending ameliorative policies, is remarkable. In fact, the Canadian historian K.A. MacKirdy commented in 1966 that ‘[Australian] historians generally have been content to leave the study of Aborigines to the anthropologists and then to ignore the anthropologists’! Adam Shoemaker

Any anthropologist who has worked on Native Title claims, or similar activity, in south eastern Australia is likely to have come across the anger of indigenous groups confronted with "academic" interpretations of their rights interests, customs and traditions which differ from their own view of these important aspects of their lives ....

Indigenous groups, not surprisingly , are highly indignant about having their claims, and the primarily oral traditions on which they are based, judged against the writings of the initial colonisers themselves and on occasion react even more strongly against later "academic" interpretations of territorial interests best epitomised perhaps by the work of Norman Tindale. Rod Hagen

I was browsing around to try to find out more on New England's Bundjalung people when I came across a reference to the papers of Malcolm Calley. This took my mind back.

Back in 1966 while I was doing my honours thesis on the economic structure of Aboriginal life in Northern New South Wales at the time of European intrusion I read Malcolm Calley's PhD thesis on Bandjalang Social Organisation with fascination.

My thesis was a study in ethnohistory, using historical records to try to understand the economic structure of aboriginal life. These were necessarily written from a European perspective. In writing I was also influenced by the conflict between Karl Polanyi and my cousin Cyril Belshaw on the applicability of economics to non-money using societies.

So while I was a member of Isabel McBryde's pioneer prehistory group at the University of New England, I was still writing very much from a European, anthropological and historical perspective. As an aside here, I was going to insert the link I had used before to a story about Isabel's work, but find that for some reason the Australian Archaeological Association has taken the page down. I must say that's a real nuisance.

At the time I was writing there was great suspicion among historians about the role of oral history and tradition as an evidence source. There was also a view that the Aborigines of Eastern Australia were too far removed from their tribal past for current memories to be a valid guide to traditional life.

To me, the striking thing about Malcolm's thesis was the way it demonstrated that oral tradition was still in fact worthy of study as a way of understanding past Aboriginal life.

The details I have on Malcolm's life are skimpy and I wish I could say more.

Malcolm John Chalmers Calley was born in Sydney around 1932. In 1955 he gained an M.A from Sydney University with a thesis ‘Aboriginal Pentecostalism', completing his PhD thesis in 1959. In the 1960s and 1970s he was a Lecturer, then Senior Lecturer, in the Department of Anthropology and Sociology at the University of Queensland during which time wrote extensively about Indigenous Australians. He died in February 1983.

Malcolm's work with the Aborigines is typical of the important role that anthropologists as compared to historians played in academic Aboriginal research as well as the promotion of new views about Australia's indigenous peoples.

I can attest to this from my experience when I was doing my own limited work on the Aborigines over the period 1963 to 1966. All the academic writing I used came from anthropologists and, to a lesser extent, prehistorians.

I can also understand the Aboriginal position as summarised by Rod Hagen in the second of the introductory quotes. However, that quote also links to something that concerns me at a personal level, the nature of the interaction (at least as I perceive it) between the Aboriginal community and certain parts of the academic and intellectual elites in the broader Australian community.

There is no doubt that the treatment of Australia's Aboriginal people has been quite awful. This needs to be and is being addressed in research and writing. But it has led, again as I see it, to a kind of cringe on the part of certain researchers and writers that is adversely affecting both the subjects selected for study and the research itself. It is also leading to a negative response in parts of the Australian community that is equally distorting in the opposite direction. The net outcome is bad for all sides.

In saying this, I am not making a comment about political correctness, simply expressing a continuing practical frustration.

In writing about the history of New England I need to talk about the history of New England's Aboriginal peoples. I want to understand and express the sweep of New England Aboriginal life past and present. I cannot do so. The basic factual information is simply not there - or at least not easily accessible - because everything is being twisted by and to fit differing perceptions of Aboriginal-non Aboriginal relations.

Southern Cross University - Bundjalung Nation Mapping

In December a new project was launched at Southern Cross University intended to give indigenous communities a greater say on how their traditional lands are managed and preserving the wisdom of Elders.

The new project is a joint venture between the University, the Bundjalung Nation Aboriginal Cultural Heritage and Natural Resource Management Committee, Northern Rivers Catchment Management Authority, and Department of Environment and Conservation National Parks and Wildlife Division.

The project has seen the creation of a highly secured, user-friendly computer-based record keeping system through which communities can record and own their cultural knowledge. It is designed to be administered and controlled by indigenous communities, with important or significant information only able to be accessed by those persons delegated by the local Aboriginal community.

Communities can record oral, visual and written histories, photographs, films and any other kind of digital media about their cultural places and landscapes and file them on the database for the benefit of future generations.

“A few years ago I became extremely concerned that Indigenous cultural knowledge and traditions were not being recorded or passed on to the younger generation,” said Dr David Lloyd, senior lecturer in the School of Environmental Science and Management and cultural mapping project manager.

“It seemed this would be lost within a very short time if some real effort was not made to preserve it.“

After consultation with indigenous communities they decided to work cooperatively with us and use modern technology to record their ancient wisdom, heritage and cultural traditions.

“The first community we have worked closely with are the Aboriginal people of the Tweed-Byron region and we are now encouraging other communities to get involved.“

New England's Aborigines - Moree Success Story

Photo: Message from Moree, ABC TV

Earlier this week ABC TV had an inspirational short piece on the work of Dick Estens. This followed an earlier ABC documentary, Message from Moree.

The western New England town of Moree is the centre of a rich agricultural district. At least 17 per cent of the population of Moree Plains Shire is Aborginal.

There have been strong past divides between Europeans and Aborigines in Moree, with high Aboriginal unemployment (up to 65 per cent) and limited opportunities creating a viscious cycle of social deprivation.

Dick Estens, a local cotton grower, believed that the only way to overcome racial divides and Aboriginal social deprivation was by finding Aboriginal people jobs. Seven years ago he launched Aboriginal Employment Services in the face of great scepticism from both sides of the racial divide. Both the documentary and the later follow up story trace the outstanding success of Esten's work.

More UNE Passings - death of Jo Woolmington

Photo; Jo Woolmington, Mary White College, 1979

I was browsing around looking for information on the current floods in the North when I cam across some sad news, the death of Jo Woolimington (23-4-1927 to 6-12-2015 ).

The material that follows is largely drawn from John Farrell's obituary in the Armidale Express (27 December 2015). However, I have added my personal recollections to flesh the story out. You see, Jo spans many of the things that I have been talking about on this and other blogs.

Born Jean Clara Cox at Essex, England, on April 23, 1927, Jo was a daughter of working class parents, Edward and Rose Cox, and a sister of Avis, Fred, Patsy and Celia.

Her secondary schooling was at Paddington and Maida Vale High School in London during World War II, when Jo experienced first hand the Blitz and other war time conditions, including rationing.

Possessing a strong social conscience, John records that Jo was greatly influenced by her robust Christianity which urged believers to go beyond personal moral reform to promoting social reform, and she was a prominent advocate for social justice while qualifying as a teacher at Whitelands College, London.

She graduated in 1947, and the following year married Eric Richard Woolmington, a geographer. As I remember Jo's stories, it was a whirlwind romance that essentially took place over one weekend!

In 1949 .the couple emigrated to Australia where Jo taught in Sydney at Abbotsleigh and Ascham. In 1956, Eric accepted a lecturing position in the Geography Department at the University of New England and the family moved to Armidale where Jo became an active member of the community.

She was active in the Armidale Association for the Assimilation of Aborigines and with the UNE Women’s Association which acted on their concerns about the social and economic conditions and discrimination experienced by Aboriginal people.

With like-minded people Jo was active in promoting education, employment, health and housing for Aborigines in Armidale.

She also used her dramatic talents, being a co-founder of the University Players which would produce two major productions each year in the Armidale Town Hall. Her production of East Lynn was the first to use the stage machinery at the UNE Arts Theatre. I also think that she was active first in the Armidale Theatre Club.

I must have met Jo soon after they arrived in Armidale, because she became friendly with my mother and used to drop in at home for coffee. I thought her a nice person, although I knew Eric better. At that point Jo was very much a compatriot of my mother's in my mind.

John Farrell notes that Jo enrolled at UNE, studying English in 1963 and History in 1964, while simultaneously teaching at NEGS from 1964 to 1967.

Now I think that John's dates are not quite right here, for Jo did History I with me in 1963. One of our first if not the first assignments was to prepare a summary of some work by Gordon Childe on prehistory - Jo did hers in poetry!

From then on I had a lot to do with Jo as she switched from Mum's to my friend. This was an interesting period to be at UNE in general, almost a golden time in the History Department.

The Department was very strong indeed. Mick Williams was one Professor, Russell Ward a second. Among others, Ted Tapp was pursuing his thoughts on the philosophy of history, Len Turner on military history, while Isabel McBryde had begun her pioneering work on the Australian Aborigines.

As a part time student with a family and a job, Jo could not join in all the things that we full time students did, including spending much time at our table in the Union arguing religion, politics, life and society. But she was there a fair bit of the time.

In 1965 Jo offered her house for seminars for the third year history honours group. There in the back room with its open fire, we held our seminars on the American Revolution, often side-tracking into other topics. In 1966 we all did honours together. Somewhere I have a photo of our table at the 1967 Graduation Ball, including Jo.

I mentioned that at first I knew Eric better.

On Sunday 23 February 1958, the Belshaw Block at UNE burnt down. Poor Eric. His PhD thesis was due to be submitted the following day. All copies were stored in the Belshaw Block and all were lost.

He started again. His new topic was an examination of the geographical scope of support for the New England New State Movement. This was finally finished in 1963 and the degree awarded.

In 1961 I did geography honours for the Leaving Certificate, getting into the top group in the state. As part of this, I had to do a local study. Eric helped me here. But as a strong New England New Stater, I was also interested in his geographic analysis of the movement.

Eric's central thesis was that New England was a marchland area, an area of economic competition between Sydney and Brisbane. Using a variety of techniques, he attempted to measure the natural economic boundary and then compared this to the actual boundary. The natural economic boundary lay far to the south of the actual boundat. He suggested that this area of overlap, contested territory, represented the natural heart of the movement.

He then looked at a whole variety of measurements to test movement support, relating this to his original thesis. In doing so, he painted a very accurate picture of the voting patterns that were to happen four years later in the 1967 New State Plebescite.

Eric's thinking was very influential on my own work.

In my 1966 honours thesis on the economic basis of Aboriginal life in Northern NSW. I used his model to postulate that the Northern Tablelands were a marchland area between the powerful and expanding Kamilaroi to the west and the strong Northern Coast tribes.

Later, his work formed an integral element in my own analysis of New Engalnd history. It remains powerful today when I look at the economic fragmentation and decline of Northern New South Wales, despite its apparent natural advantages.

Eric was not a new state supporter. He thought the dream unachievable, some of the logic flawed. But as he said in 1967, nobody in their right mind should vote no because it was the only thing that forced Governments to consider New England interests in any integrated way. I fear that he was right.

At the time that I am writing about, Erica and Jo's marriage was breaking up and Eric would leave Armidale, dieing in 1995.

In 1968 Jo successfully applied for appointment as tutor in the History Department. By then, I was living in Canberra. However, on most of my regular visits back to Armidale I took time to visit her, sometimes meeting with others like Brian Harrison. In fact, the last time I saw Brian was at Jo's house.

In 1972 Jo took up an active role in the Women’s Electoral Lobby. I remember this well, because I ran for Country Party pre-selection for Armidale in that year. Jo therefore interviewed me in my new role as pre-selection candidate.

I actually supported WEL, but I also knew that Jo's support for the Labor Party verged on the theological.

After talking for a bit, I said: "Jo, no matter what I say in answer to your questions, am I right in thinking it doesn't matter so far as your vote is concerned?" She laughed and said "James, I think that's right." We proceeded on that basis.

In 1973 Jo became acting principal of Mary White College at UNE , and was the principal from 1978 to 1982. Here I came in contact with her again while back in Armidale as a postgraduate student.

Jo's sensitivity to the Aboriginal cause, and its ambivalent relationship with Christianity, focused her research for two decades on the Aboriginal situation and the state of religion in the first half of the 19th century.

In 1973 Jo published a book of collected documents, Aborigines in Colonial Society, 1788-1850, still an excellent resource for anyone studying in the field. Her PhD thesis, ‘Early Christian Missions to the Australian Aborigine: a study in failure’ was completed in 1979.

In 1985 Jo was appointed a lecturer, then senior lecturer. She tells her own story up to 1987 in a chapter in a book titled The New England Experience, edited by Margaret Ann Franklin.

Jo joined with Dr Bruce Mitchell in 1988 – the bicentennial of white settlement in Australia – to present the first course on the history of Aborigines and their interaction with whites.

In this last period I was back in Armidale yet again, this time running a consulting business. Busy with business and family, I saw far far less of her than I had in the past.

After retiring from UNE Jo remained in Armidale. The last time I saw her was by accident in the main street on a fleeting trip.

She is survived by her two children, Jonathan and Nicola, as well as some members of her own family. I will remember her.

Postcript

Gordon Smith kindly sent me a link to the obit on Jo on the UNE site. This presents the same picture, but provides more information on her role in Mary White College.

Githabul People achieve Native title deal

A major native title deal has been agreed by the NSW Government giving the Githabul people joint control of 19 national parks and state forests in Northern New England.

This forms part of the biggest native title settlement struck on the eastern seaboard in terms of area and includes many picturesque NSW parks and the World-Heritage listed Border Ranges and Toonumbar national parks.

The Githabul's traditional territory covers more than 6,000 square km straddling the New England and Queensland borders around Mt Lindsay. The Queensland Government has opposed the claim and is not covered by the agreement.

I had some difficulty in working out the Githabul's exact territory simply because the on-line records are variable with multiple spellings for same language groups. AITSIS (IdE.14) records the language as Gidabal with the following alternative spellings: a-bool Giabal Gidabul Gidjoobal Gitabal Gomaingguru Kidabal Kidjabal Kit Kitabal Kitabool Kitapul Kitchebal Kittabool Kuttabal Kuttibal Kuttibul Noowidal Paiamba Kitabul Kuthabal.

I also have a problem because I am not sure of the relationships/territory/overlaps between the Githabul, Badjalang (AITSIS Id.E12: I have always said Bandjalong) and Gumbainggirr AITSIS Id.E07). As best I can work out:

• The Badjalang are recorded at the following localities: Ballina; Baryugil; Clarence River; Coraki; Moonim; Rappville; Richmond River; Tabulam; Evans Head.
• The Githabul are recorded at the following locations: Clarence River; Drake; Killarney; Logan River; Rathdowney; Richmond River; Spicer Gap; Tabulam; Tooloom; Unumgar; Urbenville; Woodenbong.
• The Gumbainggirr lie to the south of the Badjalang and are recorded at the following locations: Bellingen; Coff Harbour; Glenreagh; Nambucca Heads; Nymboida River; One Tree Point; South Grafton; Urunga; Woolgoola.

I will provide more on this story once I get more details.

New England's Aboriginal languages - a note

In my post on Bill Hoddinott I provided an initial list of New England's aboriginal languages based on Bill's records. I have now found more information.

The AusAnthrop site provides a valuable entry point for information about Australia's aborigines in general. It includes a tribal data base that allows you to search by state and language group.

One of the problems, one that I was aware of before, is the great variety in spelling and in overlapping geographic distributions. This means that while I can use the data base to generate information, I am also going to make some mistakes. When I come to put material together, I will try to draw out any conflicts and overlaps.

William G (Bill) Hoddinott & New England Aboriginal Languages

I was doing some searching trying to fill some knowledge gaps on the history of New England's Aborigines when I came across Bill Hoddinott's papers.

Bill came to the University of New England's English Department in 1960, later becoming an Associate Professor.

Isabel McBryde, someone I have written about before, interested him in recording details of the fast vanishing languages of New England's Aborigines still known to the old people of Armidale and the North Coast. He became fascinated with Aboriginal languages, later extending his work to the Daly and Victoria Rivers regions of the NT.

Bill died suddenly 1984, cutting the work off. It was a tragic loss.

Bill was a lovely bloke and deserves to be remembered for himself and his work.

Notes

I was trying to find something that would give me an updated picture of the distribution of languages across New England. The languages noted in Bill's papers are:

• Gadang (Gadhang) recorded at Purfleet near Taree. Also known as Kutthung
• Birpai (Port Macquarie area)
• Anewan Armidale
• Bundjalung
• Gumbaynggir
• Dhanggadi
• Iyaygir (Yaygir)
• Kamilaroi
• Banbai

I think I know the areas for each from past work, but no longer have those notes and need to check.