First Australians were engineers, house-builders

The first Australians were not simply hunter-gatherers, but engineers who constructed houses and storage, designed irrigation systems, harvested from farms and sewed complex clothes, says an award-winning Victorian writer who will speak in Hobart for the Tasmanian Writers’ Centre on Sunday 22 April.

Outstanding writer Bruce Pascoe has tribal links to Tasmania and Victoria and will speak about “the real Aboriginal economy” documented by noted explorers and first settlers, including Mitchell, Sturt, Giles and Hume.

“The assumption that Aborigines were simply hunters and gatherers has to be contested”, Mr Pascoe said.

“Dams, irrigation, harvests, storage, houses, engineering and sewing are not words normally associated with Aboriginal people but that’s just what the explorers described.”

Mr Pascoe’s non-fiction book Convincing Ground (ASP, 2008) documented this early economy, but he said the “primitive society stereotype” remains entrenched in common understanding and in the minds of historians.

“There are still difficulties convincing some academics that Aborigines interacted with their environment to any greater degree than to sit under trees and wait for fruit to fall”, Mr Pascoe said.

“Some of the comments made are seriously insulting to Aboriginal people.”

“I realised that in the next book I would have to use white Australia’s own heroes as my sources; respected explorers and settlers who witnessed Aboriginal societies at first contact, and who wrote about it.”

He said that failure to accept Australia’s history had painted Australia into a corner in its search for identity.

“Australians don’t want to think of themselves as racist, no-one does, but a country which advocated a Whites Only policy just 50 years ago and has such a poor record of including Aboriginal people in health, employment and education policy, has to ask itself serious questions about what it believes itself to be.”

Director of the Tasmanian Writers’ Centre, Ms Chris Gallagher, said the event was the first in a new series probing important ideas and topics.

“Writers are often at the forefront of key issues, probing questions that stimulate new thinking and debate”, she said.

“These events will be titled Food for Thought, and will be a brilliant new way for people in Tasmania to hear, connect with, and think about the stimulating ideas from our best writers.”

The event will raise funds for the newly established Geoff & Liz Dean Foundation, a Writers’ Centre fund which will support new Tasmanian writing initiatives.

Ms Gallagher said Mr Pascoe and his wife Liz Harwood were also highly respected for publishing the magazine Australian Short Stories during two decades, publishing Australia’s top authors including Patrick White, Frank Moorhouse, Helen Garner, Elizabeth Jolley and Frank Hardy.

“Bruce will also talk briefly about Australian Short Stories magazine, through which he met the noted Tasmanian writers, Geoff and Elizabeth Dean”, Ms Gallagher said.

“He will also talk about his Tasmanian family links, and years living on King Island.”

“It will be a fascinating afternoon.”

Mr Pascoe’s new non-fiction book Dark Emu, drawing on the observations of white explorers and settlers, will be published later this year.

Victorian writer Bruce Pascoe will speak at Food for Thought: Writers’ Centre at Rosny Barn, from 2pm to 4pm on Sunday 22 April, at the Rosny Barn, adjacent to Eastlands off Rosny Hill Road, Rosny. Tickets are $40 or $25 for members of the Writers’ Centre and include canapés. For bookings, email admin@tasmanianwriters.org or phone 6224 0029, or see www.tasmanianwriters.org