Finders, keepers
Because of the perceptions described above, Australia’s early colonists viewed expressions of indigenous culture from an anthropological or ethnographic stance. They dealt not with arts, but artefacts. Early encounters with Aboriginal cultures were often recorded in journal entries and illustrations. There was also, however, a process of active collection as the new occupants encroached into Aboriginal lands.
This process of collection continued to gather pace throughout the extended period of European occupation, reaching a peak in what Berndt & Berndt (1992) call the ‘collation and preservation phase’. This phase began in earnest about a century after Australia was claimed for England. It was, by and large, a ‘scientific’ response to the fact that ‘lost tribes’ were seen to be passing away and records were few. Many objects (including human remains) were gathered and shipped off to European museums. Later, many more such ‘cultural specimens’ found their way into Australia’s museums of natural history, where they shared space with plants and animals.
In all of this activity, one critical legal principle was at work: the acquirers of Aboriginal cultural heritage became the recognised owners. So long as these materials were not acquired by theft, European collectors had the support of the law in determining future use and presentation. This right extended to those who recorded and published Aboriginal languages; that is, because they had produced the first written versions, these publishers had the status of creators – a status that gave them far greater control over the dissemination of the languages than the speakers of the languages had.