- Past Masters Prospectus -
Dawn over Djinjan in Jensen Bay, Marchinbar Island
Welcome to the new PastMasters website with dawn breaking over Jensen Bay in the Wessel Islands - one of the places you'll hear much about as you join our quest to explore history & develop the heritage capital.
Far from Remote
Our primary obsession is the notion that northern Australia is far from remote - holding a ringside seat on a thousand years of traffic & trade along the salt water silk route from Africa, through the Spice Islands to China. We believe that by plotting and collating the oral history with the casual finds of cannon & the like - within an overarching theoretical framework of deliberate visitation - we can collaboratively identify the key sites of estuarine freshwater resources which can then be archaeologically interrogated to uncover the proof. Aboriginal people have managed & marketed these resources for centuries and with cruise ships and keyhole tourism they can do so again. It is noted that foreign vessels continue to use these resources today, as evidenced at the Wessel Islands.
Arnhem Land Heritage Capital
As ceremony time passes into history - new industries, capacities and teaching opportunities must be found to sustain the unique identity of Arnhem Land and its people. We believe that Heritage is at once a source and a destination - an ever appreciating asset that enriches every aspect of our lives. Many emergent peoples along the ancient Indian Ocean & SE Asian trade routes share with us a common history of exploration, traffic & trade from East African sultanates such as Kilwa, home to the 1000 year old coins - to entreports as far away as China, source of the 1000 year old pottery found at Kilwa. We believe that for all involved the benefits will accrue in direct proportion to the extent of collaboration.
This website aims to convey some idea of the richness of the heritage assets to be unearthed, researched, preserved, interpreted and displayed as a source of positive identity and economic opportunity. It is good fun - that's how complementary learning works - it is a source of genuine delight in which we each bring different dishes to the feast. The rub is where the economic reality of tourism meets the unblinking pragmatism of the wild - there are no museums or fine libraries, no statues or monumental obelisks - but there are real people with boundless stories, permeating a unique physical and cultural environment that is quintessentially Australia. The cardinal axiom of tourism is - No Relics, No Pilgrims - {Reliquiarum nihil sine peregrinis} - it's out there on every beach, in every community on every island - from the processional landmarks of the mythical beings to the legendary visitors who built stone fish traps and houses long before the Macassans and long before the Missions, Military and Mining days - together we can make it happen.
Arnhem Land is famous throughout the world for rock art, bark painting and the myriad facets that have come to epitomise Australian Aboriginal culture - the last and final flowering of 40 thousand years cultural activity. To generations of scholars, artists and admirers they proclaim the world's oldest continuous culture. At once distant and intimate - ancient and contemporary - the songs and ceremonies echo down the millennia to our own temporal circumference. They speak of times when the coast of Arnhem Land held a ringside seat on a thousand years of traffic and trade from Africa and the Indian Ocean up through the myriad Spice Islands reaching even to the potteries of China and beyond.
This is not a History Free Zone - Aboriginal oral 'proto-history' abounds with tales of travellers & traders, driven south by greed or necessity - evading pirates and slavers - seeking shelter & succour until the trade winds turned to carry them northwards to safe harbour & home. Generations of Australian Aborigines managed a string of freshwater way stations - trading commodities & comforts for tools & technology - along the siren strand of Arnhem Land.
It is just over 100 years since the fleets of Macassan praus from Sulawesi ceased their centuries old seasonal voyages to harvest trepang and trade sharp tools, tobacco and grog for labour, turtle shell, pearls, timber and palm wax for candles. The sagas tell of murders and massacres - committed and endured - they tell of disasters and bounty - of marriages and kidnappings - of foreign voyages and familial alliances lasting generations, even down to today. These were the fishermen who astounded Matthew Flinders at Pobassoo Island - it was one of their wrecked vessels that his men were chopping up for firewood on Marchinbar in the Wessel Islands when some locals wandered down for a chat - Flinders tells of their parting & gifting axes to the 'Australians'.
More than two centuries ago the 'Australians' of Arnhem Land were long accustomed to white visitors whilst the wild countrymen of what was to become New South Wales had averted their eyes, afraid to gaze upon the spirit ships and ghostly crew of Cook's Endeavour. Australia is not a history free zone - this island continent's national history and cultural identity adorns the Arnhem Land strand. Now, the end of the cultural time, the opening up of the country - the loss of ceremony as the lecture hall of oral history and increasing storm surge activity are conspiring to expose the hundreds of Macassan and pre-Macassan sites - scattering the artefacts and crazing history's mirror.
Recent work in Arnhem Land has clearly demonstrated that the recounting of oral history is still vital, respected & as eagerly sought after by young Yolngu as it is by their elders. There is genuine delight & fascination - in contrast to all other program and service provision. The World War II saga of HMAS Patricia Cam is one of struggle & heroic sacrifice in the Wessel Islands - exemplifying the partnership of Balanda & Yolngu that persists beyond the grave.
This endeavour is the culmination of decades of work in the remote communities of Arnhem Land. It is rational, demonstrable and replicable. Heritage provides a unique opportunity for collaboration wherein the oral tradition, Macassan, Mission, Mining and Military history is developed as an indelible source of positive identity - an inexhaustible opportunity for complementary learning and an ever-appreciating asset of heritage capital for economic development through tourism and managed research. The exhumation, preservation, presentation and explanation of heritage objects respects axiom of archaeology that you can't protect something that you don't understand as well as the cardinal tenet of tourism - No Relics, No Pilgrims.
The methodology of a collaborative historical narrative brings to the ancient Arnhem Land oral histories the diverse scientific skills that are shared in training workshops and practical archaeology in the field.
Far from Remote
Our primary obsession is the notion that northern Australia is far from remote - holding a ringside seat on a thousand years of traffic & trade along the salt water silk route from Africa, through the Spice Islands to China. We believe that by plotting and collating the oral history with the casual finds of cannon & the like - within an overarching theoretical framework of deliberate visitation - we can collaboratively identify the key sites of estuarine freshwater resources which can then be archaeologically interrogated to uncover the proof. Aboriginal people have managed & marketed these resources for centuries and with cruise ships and keyhole tourism they can do so again. It is noted that foreign vessels continue to use these resources today, as evidenced at the Wessel Islands.
Arnhem Land Heritage Capital
As ceremony time passes into history - new industries, capacities and teaching opportunities must be found to sustain the unique identity of Arnhem Land and its people. We believe that Heritage is at once a source and a destination - an ever appreciating asset that enriches every aspect of our lives. Many emergent peoples along the ancient Indian Ocean & SE Asian trade routes share with us a common history of exploration, traffic & trade from East African sultanates such as Kilwa, home to the 1000 year old coins - to entreports as far away as China, source of the 1000 year old pottery found at Kilwa. We believe that for all involved the benefits will accrue in direct proportion to the extent of collaboration.
This website aims to convey some idea of the richness of the heritage assets to be unearthed, researched, preserved, interpreted and displayed as a source of positive identity and economic opportunity. It is good fun - that's how complementary learning works - it is a source of genuine delight in which we each bring different dishes to the feast. The rub is where the economic reality of tourism meets the unblinking pragmatism of the wild - there are no museums or fine libraries, no statues or monumental obelisks - but there are real people with boundless stories, permeating a unique physical and cultural environment that is quintessentially Australia. The cardinal axiom of tourism is - No Relics, No Pilgrims - {Reliquiarum nihil sine peregrinis} - it's out there on every beach, in every community on every island - from the processional landmarks of the mythical beings to the legendary visitors who built stone fish traps and houses long before the Macassans and long before the Missions, Military and Mining days - together we can make it happen.
Arnhem Land is famous throughout the world for rock art, bark painting and the myriad facets that have come to epitomise Australian Aboriginal culture - the last and final flowering of 40 thousand years cultural activity. To generations of scholars, artists and admirers they proclaim the world's oldest continuous culture. At once distant and intimate - ancient and contemporary - the songs and ceremonies echo down the millennia to our own temporal circumference. They speak of times when the coast of Arnhem Land held a ringside seat on a thousand years of traffic and trade from Africa and the Indian Ocean up through the myriad Spice Islands reaching even to the potteries of China and beyond.
This is not a History Free Zone - Aboriginal oral 'proto-history' abounds with tales of travellers & traders, driven south by greed or necessity - evading pirates and slavers - seeking shelter & succour until the trade winds turned to carry them northwards to safe harbour & home. Generations of Australian Aborigines managed a string of freshwater way stations - trading commodities & comforts for tools & technology - along the siren strand of Arnhem Land.
It is just over 100 years since the fleets of Macassan praus from Sulawesi ceased their centuries old seasonal voyages to harvest trepang and trade sharp tools, tobacco and grog for labour, turtle shell, pearls, timber and palm wax for candles. The sagas tell of murders and massacres - committed and endured - they tell of disasters and bounty - of marriages and kidnappings - of foreign voyages and familial alliances lasting generations, even down to today. These were the fishermen who astounded Matthew Flinders at Pobassoo Island - it was one of their wrecked vessels that his men were chopping up for firewood on Marchinbar in the Wessel Islands when some locals wandered down for a chat - Flinders tells of their parting & gifting axes to the 'Australians'.
More than two centuries ago the 'Australians' of Arnhem Land were long accustomed to white visitors whilst the wild countrymen of what was to become New South Wales had averted their eyes, afraid to gaze upon the spirit ships and ghostly crew of Cook's Endeavour. Australia is not a history free zone - this island continent's national history and cultural identity adorns the Arnhem Land strand. Now, the end of the cultural time, the opening up of the country - the loss of ceremony as the lecture hall of oral history and increasing storm surge activity are conspiring to expose the hundreds of Macassan and pre-Macassan sites - scattering the artefacts and crazing history's mirror.
Recent work in Arnhem Land has clearly demonstrated that the recounting of oral history is still vital, respected & as eagerly sought after by young Yolngu as it is by their elders. There is genuine delight & fascination - in contrast to all other program and service provision. The World War II saga of HMAS Patricia Cam is one of struggle & heroic sacrifice in the Wessel Islands - exemplifying the partnership of Balanda & Yolngu that persists beyond the grave.
This endeavour is the culmination of decades of work in the remote communities of Arnhem Land. It is rational, demonstrable and replicable. Heritage provides a unique opportunity for collaboration wherein the oral tradition, Macassan, Mission, Mining and Military history is developed as an indelible source of positive identity - an inexhaustible opportunity for complementary learning and an ever-appreciating asset of heritage capital for economic development through tourism and managed research. The exhumation, preservation, presentation and explanation of heritage objects respects axiom of archaeology that you can't protect something that you don't understand as well as the cardinal tenet of tourism - No Relics, No Pilgrims.
The methodology of a collaborative historical narrative brings to the ancient Arnhem Land oral histories the diverse scientific skills that are shared in training workshops and practical archaeology in the field.
Sunset in Jensen's Bay, Marchinbar Island NT