Open AccessThe Gweagal Shield
Author(s) -
Kathryn Lawn
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
new emerging scholars in australian indigenous studies.
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 2208-1232
DOI - 10.5130/nesais.v5i1.1585
Subject(s) - demise , narrative , misrepresentation , frontier , battle , cognitive dissonance , insider , guard (computer science) , autonomy , history , sociology , law , political science , archaeology , art , psychology , social psychology , literature , computer science , programming language
Recounts of Aboriginal Australian history stand as a jarring reminder of the dissonance at the heart of the modern Australian autonomy. Failing to comprehend the truth in a battle of power and knowledge, the Aboriginal story is partly lost, and the modern narrative found, in a tale of coercion and misrepresentation. The colonial process in Australia decimated the original inhabitants, expropriated their lands and dislocated them from their culture (Morris 1989), the systematic consequences of which would continue to be felt through generations. Narration of this discourse masqueraded as fact for many years, insinuated a complicity on the part of Aboriginal Australians in their own demise. As Morris notes, it was as if they had ‘simply faded away’ (1989, p.6). Few clues remain of the ‘other side’ of the frontier, of those who stood in guard of their Australia at the site of first contact with the colonisers.