Aboriginal Identity In Australia

2.1.2 Historical Identity in Different Cultures

Benang is a story that addresses the relationship between white and Aboriginal people in Australia. Thus the Aboriginal approach on the documenting and writing of history should not be neglected. Aborigines often are a half-nomadic people whose lives centre around a far bigger area than that of an average white settler. Even though they cannot be described as settled, they nevertheless have particular places of cultural value. A local Aboriginal history would thus have to be far more extensive. Additionally the people and the country have a close relationship in Aboriginal culture (Cf. Reynolds 1996 139) Awareness of the country is of great significance for Aboriginals and also serves as a connecting

For all these reasons it is almost impossible to distinguish between family and local history. As indicated above, among Aboriginal peoples, families and places are strongly interwoven with each other. It seems not far to seek to hold the opinion that they are identical. Aboriginal family history makes only sense if it contains information about the local area. As there are different Aboriginal tribes in Australia their domestic areas are part of their identity. Similarly their local history is always connected to people and thus to families. It can be stated that Aboriginal family history as well as local history encompasses a far wider range than white history. And the division line between the two kinds of history are even more blurred in Aboriginal history. Additionally family is such an important factor in Aboriginal culture and society (Cf. Rickard 6), that even the tribe’s or Aboriginal

As pointed out above history can be used as a device to exclude certain people from society/life/humanity. On the other hand people who experience this exclusion will draw on history in order to gain back some of their self-determination and identity. As Ashcroft has stressed, this can be understood as the most powerful form of resistance. (Cf. Ashcroft 83) The resistance doesn’t comprise common ways of history writing that are maintained; instead they are challenged and new forms of remembering and processing the past are forged. Heavily influenced by this, the line between facts and fiction in historical documentation is increasingly blurred. Poetry, myths and fictional narratives are established as equally valid sources of historical truths and memory. Furthermore the “’factuality’ of history”, as Southgate calls it (Southgate 45) has been made disputable. He and M. J. Wheeldon both emphasize that the facts established in historical documentation are just as much subjective and hence to a certain extend unreliable, as oral narrative or (historical) fiction. (Cf. Southgate 45 and Wheeldon 33) Regardless whether a historical narrative is based on facts and verified through historical evidence or unambiguously fictional, it is essential to convince the reader of the narrative’s genuine truth. (Cf. Wheeldon 33) This supports the argument that history