El Moro en Las Letras Castellanas

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Early Asian Contacts with Australia

Peter M. Worsley

Past and Present, No. 7. (Apr., 1955), pp. 1-11.

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Early Asian Contacts with AustraliaMUCH 1NTFKF.ST H k S B E C Y ZROC'STI, RECENTlY BY THE SC'GGESTIOYput forward by I'rofessor C. 1'. Fitrgerald that there nlay havebeen contact betueen Australia .lnd China long before even theearliest of European vojagers touched upon the coastline ofAustralia1. T h c e~idence dduced by Professor Fitrgerald is ajade image of the god Shou Lao discoveretl in Damin in 18'79,four feet underground, wedged in the roots of a ban\an tree, atree which is not indigenous to Australia. Professor Fi t~ge ra ld snot rash enough to state that the finding of a Chinese objectnecessarily indicates that the object xcas taken to Australia byChinese, nor that the dating of the period of manufacture of theimage as fourteenth century necessarily implies that it a r r i ~ e dnAustralia at that time. TVhat he does suggest is that the objecthad been lying at Daruin for a \cry considerable period of time,long before White contact with Australia.When he goes on to remark, however, that "thc Australiancontinent . . . apparently remained just as unknomn or . . .neglected . . . bv Asiatics as Europeans" and that the Malays"lacked the Igorous incentkes and the ad\ anced organizationwhich impelled and enabled the peoples of .icestern Europe tosail the dis tant seas" he is ignoring a eat deal of material onearly Asian contacts with Australia, a n x incidentally, a possibleclue to the manner in xihich the Shou Lao image might havefou~ldts way to Australia.T h e records of early voyagers to Australia contain frequentreferences to the activities of Malay voyagers to Australia, partic-ularly hlacassarese and Buginese ftons the hfacassar region of thesouthern Celebes. These people mere great voyagers and trader$,and used to make annual \isits to the coast of lustralia, beingblol+n dox\n on the north-west ~rtollsoonal xtind, and beingbrought back again with the south-east tr'ide winds. The.lustralian coast from D amin ~uest\vards was known to theZlacassarese as Kai Dja\\ai, and the coast eastward5 a5 far 6 s theGulf of Carpentaria as Marege or hlarega.In addition to the written recordr dealing mith this trade, muchadtlitional n~ater ia l s a~ai lable rom the field of anthropology4.The aborigines of Arnhenl Land and adjoining region5 ha1e 1 i ~ .drecollections of the \lacassare5e ~ h i c hIre of Lgrcat balue i n rupplenlenting the con\ en tional :+I itten ?our(pi of lsislo~ Ineastern Arriliem Land, nlolcoler. the aborigilie5 artbqui te categor-ical in their statements that the Macassarese were preceded bv


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2 PAST AND PRESENT

another people they term the Baijini. These people were definite-ly different from the later Macassarese, though like the Macas-sarese, they came for the purpose of collecting trepang ( t~ ,che-de-mer), a sea-slug which abounds in the shallow waters off theArnhem Land coast. When dried, the trepang is used as adelicacy in soup, particularly in China, and reached the greatChinese market via such entrepdts as Timor Laut, Koepang,Macassar, etc. Even as late as the beginning of the 1989-43 "a1the trade in trepang for Canton still flourished in northernAustralia.The Baijini had an advanced technolog) : they possessed hand-looms, were agriculturalists, and built huts during their staysin Australias. One of the more interesting comments made aboutthe Baijini is a reference to their light-coloured skins. Whilstit is possible that these people may have been Chinese, the tradein trepang was usually carried out by non-Chinese, the Chinesemiddlemen coming into the picture at Koepang and other suchmarkets. Fitzgerald suggests that any Chinese voyages wouldmost likely have been scientific and exploratory expeditionsrather than trading expeditions. T h e Baijini, then, may havebeen another Indonesian people, and not necessarily Chinese.The written historical records of Macassarese and Bugineyeenterprise go back to 17686. Other eighteenth-century writersmentioned the existence of this profitable trade in brief notes',but the first detailed account came from the pen of Flinders inhis now-famous description of his meeting with the Indonesiailsin Australian waters, at what is to-day named Malay Road. innorth-eastern Arnhem Land, in 18038.The fleet which Flinders encountered was commanded h)Pobassoo, and belonged to the Rajah of Boni. Pobassoo toltlFlinders that the voyages to Australia onlv commenced sometwenty years beforehand ( i t . about 1783), a statement whichwas endorsed later by the Dutch Governor at Koepang. Reliable,however, as this date may seem, it is contradicted by the existenceof Dalrymple's work. Moreover, the evidence from aboriginalsources suggests that the Macassarese voyages had been takingplace over a much longer period of time, and before the Macas-sarese there were the Baijini. Unfortunately, such archaeo!ogicalfield-work as has been done in Arnhem Land has thrown no liqhton these problems. Later writers such as Icing, Stokes, McGilliv-ray and others who wrote about the presence of Indonesians innorthern Australia give us no clue as to the probable date ofinception of these voyages.T h e north-west wind brought the Macassarese to northernAustralia about November; they departed again around March.Since they thus spent almost half the year in Australia, and since


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F 4R I Y 4SIAN COWACTS WITH 4ITSTR4114 q

the fleet encountered by Flinders numbered some sixty vesselswith crews of 20-25 in each vessel, the trepang expeditions canhardly have failed to make a considerable impact on the life ofthe Australian aborigines, on their economy and their socialorganization, a5 well as on their ideas and beliefs. For theMacassarese did not merely establish contact with the aborigines;they em loyed them. T h e work which the aborigines performedranged Ron1 diving for trepang, smoking and curing the sea-slug,to fishing, bui lding smoke-houses for curing, cutting firewood ant1digging wells.

T h e Arnhem Land aborigines thus became accustomed toeconomic activities other than their traditional direct appropria-tion of hunting an d collecting long before any other Australiaaboriginal group, though, paradoxicall> enough, this region wasone of the last to be integrated into the Whi te economy. More-over, it must be emphasized that they took part in this work aswage-labourers, a facet of the aboriginal-Macassarese relation-ships which is generally glossed over, for we are commonly toldthat the aborigines received "gifts" or "exchanged" the trepangthey procured for food, cloth, gin. tobacco, knives and variousother cornmodities: in fact. these colnmodities represent w aqespaid in kind.

T h e relationship o f he aborigines to the Malax4 was a patri-archal one, as evidenced in the aboriginal extension of kinshipterms to the hfacassarese. T h e Rfacassarese themselves also em-ployed this idiom, as the reminiscences of one Macassarese maninterviewed in the Celebe? indicate. He remarked that his fatherwas "like" a brother to i Rangkala, the headman (hoofd) ofDaeng Lompo (i.e. Dalimbo, Groote Eylandc)."~ aboriginalstandards the visitors were prodigiousl~ ich and, at times, liberalwith their wealth. The) gave largr present?, particularly to thesenior and influential aborigines. and left large quantities offood behind on their departure.In addition, considerable trade took place between theaborigines and the Malays, superficially 5imilar in that it in-volved the exchange of such natural l>rodr~ctqas turtle-shell, firh.trepang, pearls and similar coln~nodities collected 13) theaborigines, for food, cloth and similar goods. 111 thiq relationship.the aborigines stood in the position of independent producers.and were selling these comnlodities. not their labour-power. Suchproducts were accumulated even during the absence of theMacassarese, and stored up until their return the followingyear.1 Again, the distinction betrzeen these different econornicactivities is further obsc~lretf b~ [he aboriginal interpretation ofthese actix ities in terms of theis own categories: they speak of


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4 PAST AND PRESENTthe payment of wages in kind in terms of their own sharing be-tween members of a co-operative enterprise.

T he introduction of new commodit ie~ n considerable volumeinto the aboriginal economy does not appear to have radicall,affected their economic organization. T h e most important ofthe more durable commodities were tools: metal knives, axesand spear-heads, which partly displaced stone artefacts, and thedugout canoe, which partly displaced the bark canoe. Inneither case did the new artefacts entirely replace the traditionalones, partly because they were not necessarily superior to theold tools for all purposes. T he bark canoe, for example, lightand easily-made, was more portable for inland use, as comparedwith the heavier sea-going dugout; and whilst the metal axe wasa great advance on the stone axe for wood-work, the old stoneknives were quite adequate for many purposes. The effect of thenew tools was to increase the efficiency of hunting and collecting-the range of exploitative activities, trading and social contactwas greatly increased by the possession of the dugout canoe-bu t no radical change in the economy took place. In the coastalregions of Arnhem Land and the islands off the coast, moreover,the natural richness of the environment in animal and vegetablespecies useful to the aborigine made the improvements in hunt-ing effected by the new tools less significant, for there were notthe same difficulties in obtaining food that faced the aboriginesof the less fertile regions."It would appear likely, however, that the introduction of newcommodities by the Macassarese, and the considerable volume ofsuch commodities, played a large part in stimulating inter-tribaltrade generally in this northern region, as Thomson has pointedout at some length.'Z T h e extent to which production was in-creased for the specific purpose of selling shell and other corn-modities to the Macassarese is now impossible to ascertaiil, butalthough such products as pearls, pearl-shell and turtle-shellmight be produced as mere by-products of ordinary hunt ingactivities without entailing much extra effort on the part of theaborigines, specific production for the market also took place, atype of economic activity only slightly in evidence before theadvent of the Macassarese. Before that time, the principalstimulus to trade arose from local deficiencies, a typical examplebeing the import of stone suitable for ueapons to GrooteEylarldt from the mainland; many of the objects traded howeler.were of a less directly ultilitarian nature, since in rnost essentialseach aboriginal tribe was self-sufficient. This aspect of aboriginalexchange has misled some ~ r i t e r s n to speaking of i~I T'ceremonial', 'non.economic', etc,


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5ARL Y ASIAN CONTAC7rS WITH AUS TRALI AApart from these important economic effects of Macassaresecontact, there were other consequences of their visits to Australia.

The world-view of the aborigines was greatly widened, not mere-ly by direct contact with the M-alay sailors, but also by first-handexperience of Indonesia itself, since many aborigines took em-ployment in the vessels of the visitors, and thus visited theCelebes, the Aru Islands, Timor, Timor Laut and other parts ofIndonesia for quite lengthy periods. During these voyages, more-over, they extended their knowledge of other aboriginal tribesalong the coast of Arnhem Land, and thus increased their aware-ness of their common aboriginal identity vis-Fvis the Malay-strangers.T h e Macassarese irnpact is further mirrored in changes in thereligious life of the iborigines and in their art. In The lattersphere, one of the most important effects of contact with theMacassarese was the development of carving in the round, an art-form unknown elsewhere in Australia except in that part of theCape York Peninsula under the influence of the culture of theTorres Straits Islands. Representations of the human form arecommonl) found, 5ome of purely secular significance, as in thecase of the interesting carving depicting a Japanese ship's engineerwho visited Arhhem Land in the nineteen-thirties, others being

used in religious ceremonies and as grave-posts.13 Carvings and\+ax igures of animals and other natural species used in totemicceremonies are also found in this part of Australia and no other.The mourning ceremonies, the magical practices and the import-ant religious ceremonies depicting the movements of ancestralbeings such as the Djanggawul, Gunabibi and allied ceremoniesare all shot through with Macassarese influences, for example,the representation of Macassarese anchors and the deck of aprahu in the mourning ceremonies of north-eastern ArnhenlLand. Much of our knowledge of the details of Macassaresecontact and almost all our knowledge of the Baijini comes fromthe song-cycles associated with the important religious ceremonies.On Groote Eylandt, the totemic system has been modified bythe introduction of the Ship totem (mzdjunga, cf. the djoeng ofIndonesia), of dehnite Macassarese origin, as the validating mythbears witness, and of the north-west and south-east wind totems.These are the two winds which brought the Macassarese andtook them away again each year, and the symbols used by theaboriginal artists to represent these winds clearly derive fromthe shape of the sails of a Malay prahu in different winds.14

In 1907, the Conimonwealth Government ended the trepangtrade with Macassar after a lengthy period of harassing theMalays with customs demands, as a logical consequence of theWhite Australia policy; contact between aborigine and Malay


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was thus sharply broken off. Today, therefore, the most obvioussigns of Macassarese influence are a few 1r~donesiaii-type rticlesof material culture, such as the lolig reed-pipe wit11 metal bowl,the ren~ainsof Macassarese camp-sites with tamarind trees andold trepang-boilers, the dugout canoes, and so on. T h e lessiriaterial effects of the contact, however, are still iniportant, i.e.the effects rriarlifest ill art, in social orgaliization, in religio11,and,.as we shall see, in the wa? in whicl-1. the aborigines evaluaietlie past.I11 spite of this prolonged cu~ltact-over at least 125 years, andprobably for niuch longer--arid in spite of the introduction toXust.ralia of wage-labour, atid of the strong stilllulus to increased

production arid increased trade which the Macassarese contactprovided, the effects oil the indigenous ecorioniy of the aborigirleswere, and are, n~iriirr~al.,$Thy was this so ?We have already noted that the new tools did not entirelyreplace the old; neither did they lead to the supersessioil ofhunting and collecting, nor to any great advance in the divisionof labour. Although there are accounts of the existence of' a8z.i.culture on the lna inlal~d S Xrllhei~iLalid, this work is said tuhave been done by the Uaiji~~ihenlselves and riot the aborigines.The knowledge oi' pot-ntaking,'balncl-l~etal-~vcrrking, siniilarcrafts was not acquired by the aborigil~es,who were content toacquire goods hosn the Macassarese; only towards the end ofthe Macassarese period, possibly owing to diminishing supplies,did the natives of Groote Eylandt, for example, begin to makcthe. dugout canoe themselves.-Finally, for at least half the year the aborigines carried ontheir accustomed hunt ing activities, so that the effect of theMacassarese contact was to some extent conlpartmentalized; evenwhen the Macassarese arrived, not all the men would take em-loynlent, whilst the women and children, especially on GrooteEylandt, were carefully segregated from the Malays. Hunt inga11d collecting, theli, 1.eniaiued the basic pattern of life for thertbbrigines. In spite of the stin~ulus o inter-tribal trade, thecolume of goods iritroducecl I> ) the Macassarese remailledlixnited, so that inter-tribal trade retained its sporadic andlimited character. l 'h i s is tirirrorecl ill aboriginal concepts ofvalue,Although the aborigines are quite capable of distinguishingthat the ;irnouiit of labour expended and the type of skill re-quired in making a canoe are greater than in iliaking a fish-spear, and in fact generally snake sudi estimates, neverthelessthe) do 11ot in ptzlctice carr? out exclial~geor1 the basis of aregular series of equivalents, ill which x commodity A can bereckoned as cquivalellt to \. colnmodit) B, r commodity C, and so


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7'AKLY AS I AN CONTACTS WITH AUS TRALI Aor!, Even less have they established any particular commodity asa common standard in terms of which other commodities m ~ g h tbc reckoned, and which might be used as a common medium oftrade. 'There is no clear evidence that definite and regular equiv-alents existed even in inter-tribal trade, such as occurred whenstone was imported to Groote Eylandt from the mainland. I thas been suggested that this is largely a function of an economyin which trade and exchange is minimal, irregular, and in whichthe division of labour is but slightly developed. Even inter-tribaltrade varied in volume, in the number of individuals participat-ing, and in the regularity of its occurrence. It was also oftena by-product of occasions when social contact was establishedfor other purposes, when advantage was taken of the meetingt o indulge in trade.Nevertheless, it is qu ite conceivable that even such small-scaleand irregular trade as this could lead to the establishment ofdefinite equivalents, and even of recognised media of payment.The sinlplistic interpretation of this situation in terms of the"prirnacy" of ceremonial or ritual consideratons over the"econon~ic" ignores the pol i tkul function of much of thisceremonial.16 It would seern that the real reason for the non-existence of' more advanced methods of estimating value mustt ~ csought not solely in the limited importance of trade as awctor of tlie iota1 economy, but rather in the wider social rela-rions existing ill a society where poor material equipment andLL low Level of technical development restricts production, andinhibits the differentiation of society. The aborigines arrivedin Australia with a limited technical equipment, and devel-op~neritwas greatly hampered by the hostile environment of acountry where, even today, settlenlent is principally restrictedto a narrow strip round part of the coastline. Under such condi-tions, society remained essentially small-scale, and relations withone's fellowmen were direct an d unmediated. One's social con-tacts are with close relatives in these tribal groups which rarelyexcectled 500 and averaged around 250 individuals. Kinship,heref fore, retilaills the dominant idiom in which relations ofrlraiiy different kil~tfsmay be expressed. Even today, then, anaborigine has only to ask a relative for something which heneeded and which was not being used, and the relative wouldfind i t difficult to refuse him, since a bond of close kinship couldalways be invoked. If the asker was able to give a quid pro quo,he might do so; if not, he could not be ex ected to give what hehad not got, and might delay giving anyt1ng in return until alater dace or indeed might never do so. Since everybody in suchJ society is closely related, there is no chance of accumulatingwealth when one's relatives cannot rightly be refused if they are


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8 PAST AND P R E S E ~in need. I11 addition, there is little that one can d o with asurplus of perishable curlsumption goods (storage techniquesbeing limited) except distribute it, thus initiating a series ofreciprocal exchanges. The writer also found that in exchanges,a fixed price was not insisted upon. An important close relativewould not be expected to hand over anything in return f o ~goods given him; he would at least hand over less than one whocould only claim more distant relationship.17It will be seen, therefore, that there is little chance of lrioreadvanced methods of estimating value being used in actualexchange in such a society, where kinship always comes intoplay:. the importance of kinship and the limited extent of thedivision of labour (other than the very important sex-divisiori o flabour), and therefore of more developed exchange, are allaspects of the same basic situation-the low level of productiveforces.There is one remaining aspect of the Macassarese impact thatstill remains important today-the attitude of the present-dayaborigines towards the Macassarese era. If one listens toaboriginal accounts, one gains the impression that theMacassarese era was a Golden Age, a time when food was givenaway in vast quantities, when the aborigines had only to asktheir Macassarese 'brothers' in order 60 be given unlimitedtobacco, cloth, knives, etc. Moreover, they say, we were treatedwith equality; we ate at the same table, ate the same food, usedthe same dishes. T h e contrast is plainly between the generosityand democracy of the Macassarese and the parsimony and colourbar of the Whites. How far is this picture of aborigine-Macassarese relations correct, and how far is it an idealization ofthe past ?In his discussions with Pobassoo, Flinders was warned to be-ware of the aborigines, and was told of numerous clashes, in o ~ i eof which Pobassoo himself had been wounded. The earliest first-hand account, then, bears witness to the existence of bad rela-tions between Macassarese and aborigines. Flinders himself wasinvolved in clashes with the natives of this region at Morganisland in the Gulf of Carpentaria and also near PointAlexander.18 He was surprised at this hostility, a circumstancenot previously noted in the Wellesley Islands to the east, wherehe commented on the 'timidity' of the 'Indians'. T he hostilereception in the western Gulf region, which, he remarked, was"so contrary to all I have known or heard of their countrymen",he attributed correctly to the effects of contact with 'Asiatics',some signs of whose presence he had observed at BentinckIsland, the Pellews and on the mainland opposite GrooteEylandt.


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9ARLY AS IAN CONTACTS WlTH AUSTRALIASuch hostility towards foreigners, then, was not characteristicof the aborigines in general. Later literary sources amply con-

firm this estiniate of the bad state of aborigine-Malay relationsin the Gulf region, however. Searcy,l' writing of the 'eighties ofthe last century, records case after case of arrrled conflict betweenaborigines and Malays, with ambushes, revenge-expeditions andviolent retaliatio~iyear after year. Tindale20 writes of GrooteEylandt :"The Malays whenever possible obtained possession of nativewo111en and took them away on their homewards journeys. TheIngura [correctly WaniNdiljaugwa, the tribe inhabiting Grootc

and neighbouring islands, P.M.W.] native thus learnt thatwomen should never be seen. T he island natives being com-paratively few, were frightened by the Malays, who robbed them,enticed thern with drink, and beat them when they would notwork. The ir attitude towards the Malays was one of hate; some-times they tried to kill them, and stories of ambushes andattacks are told in the camps" (p. 131). Earlier Stokesz1 notedthat in 1837-43, every other Malay on the coast of Arnheni Landwas under arms whilst the others worked.Yet today this period is represented as a Golden Age by tlleaborigines. I t is plain that the memory of the real nature ofaborigine-Macassarese relations has grown dim and become ob-scured by the much more pressing problem or' present-day rela-tions with the Whites. In a situation of segregation and colour-bar, the aborigines have idealized the past, holding it up as ameasure of the unfortunate situation into which they havefallen. The ir evaluation of the Makassarese era is thus deter-mined by their existing social relations and not by the preserva-tion of objective record, and the 'memory' of this era serves as

an expression of and stirrlulus to anti-White feeling today.We may conclude, then, that whilst the existence oi ChineseAustralian contacts in the pre-White era cannot be regardedas definitely established, the known contact between Indonesiansand Australian aborigines has beer] much more sustained andintense. In spite of contact during more than a century (andprobably for much longer), and in spite of the employment oiaborigines by Malays and increased trade in this northernAustralian region, the Malay contact led to no radical change

in aboriginal society. T h e hunting-and-collecting economy wasnot greatly undermined, and it is therefore principally in theexistence of certain features of technology and of certain religiousand artistic manifestations that Malay influence was still dis-


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1 0 PAST AND PRESENI~ e ~ l ~ i b l en Groote at the arrival of the Whites. Toda), aboriginaldescriptiorls of the Makassa~eseera are beliefs coloured by thec.onte~i i~>c)~fi j of: theocial situation rather than objective ~ecord s['a".

NOTESI C . P. Fit~gerald, "A Chineae Discovery ot Australia .i" in . ;(zc~ttalraW r l t e ~ ,ed. T . Inglib Moore, Cheshire, Melbourne, 1 c ~ j ~2 G. E. P. Collins in East Motrsoon, Scribner's Sons, New York, 1937, notc2that 7-8000 prahus cleared the port of hlacassar per year (p. 147).3 cf. H. J . Heeren, "Indonesische cu ltuu rinv loede~~ n Australie",l t ldones ib, 'l'he Hague, lyjn, 6th year, pp. 149-15y.4 Much of the evidetlce or1 Makassarese-aboriginal relatiolia gi\erl in ~ J l i harticle was obtained by llle writer duriug field-work OII Groote Eylaildt,Sortllern Territory, tluring rytjz-3, under the auspices of he Australia~~National University.5 cf. K . M. Berndt, D j ~ ~ i ~ g g c ~ r u u l , hlelbourtle, 1y3r, passiru.lleshire,Alexander Dalrymple, ".4 .I,lart for t , x t e t~ din g th e conr f~ rerceof Iltr~h i t r g d o ~ r ~ I.ondon, 1768, quoted in A. .S.% d up t h e E a ~ t t l d i a C o r r ~ k ~ ~ t r y " ,(:euse, "hlakassaars-Boegi~lerc.prariu~arLu p Noord-Australie". U i j d r u g c ~ ~o /t le T a a l - , L a n d - e n l 'o l ke n kr ~ rr d c,Vol. 108, 's-Gravenhage, 1952, p ~ . ,48-nti:.7 e.g. I'hos. Forrest, ''A F.'oyage frorn Calclrt ta to th e M erg ui Ar c a~p ela go ",1-undorl, 1792; E'. PCror~and 1.. Freycinet, I 'oyugc t le dt.'cortvertes d u x T e r r a.-fustrales, Vol. 11, pp. 245-259, Paris, 1816.8 Capt. Matlhew Flinders, A Vo ya ge l o Terrcr :lustralis , Vol. 11, pp. 1.28~zgy, L o n d o ~ ~ ,814.9 Heeren, op. cit., p. ?ti+ 7' lic name '.i Bangkafa" does uot resemble auyuf the contemporar) nanles of Groote Eylandt na ti ve, and 111ust be a. .cot.ruption.10 cf. A. Searcy, In Aus t ra l ia t~ Tro f i r cs , London, 1909, p. yz and 8,sl l ood and l . ' i e ld , London, 19 r, p. 239.I 1 011 the richness of the bush in Arnhe~ n 1,arld. coasral reb'IOllb, bee\V. E. Harney, N o r t h of ry" , Aus~ralia~i p. 176ublishing Co., Sydney (II.~.),

and R. L. Specht, "An Introtluction to the Etl ~r lob ota ~i)f Ar1111t.m Lat~d".Iicco rds of th e ..lrrrlzenz L a n d E xfi ed itz on (it1 press).12 D. F. 'Il~ornson, Econornic S t r r~c tur e and t h e Cere i~ zoniu l Exc iratrge~ y ~ l e t r ~ri ..ittzheir~ Lnn cl, Melbourne University Press, hlelbourrie, 1949.13 cl. A . 1'. Elkill, C:.H. and R. hl. Ber~idt, rt irr Atnhcrrr Lurrd, Cheallllc,l.lelboui.ne, ~ y g l ; :. D. McCarthy, .411slraliat~ . lburigiirul D e ~ o r a t i v eA r t .Australia11 Museult~ ,Sydnev, 3rd edn., 19;~; C . P. Mountford, Z


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E'.hKl.'t 4 S l A X C O R " l A C I5 WITH A U S l K A 1 . 1 . 3 1 1

16 Emphasized by R. P . Fortune, writing of the exchange of 'valuables'in the well-known ku l a ring of tlie Western Pacific described by Malinowski:"l 'he exchange of the ornaments, useless in itself, makes strongly for peace-ful relationships between potentially hostile i~iternationals", Sorcerers ofI j o b u , Routledge, London, 1932, p. 210. For the Australia11 aborigines. sec\V. E. H. Stanner's reniarks on 'ma r b o k interl~ationalisni', "CeremonialEcol~omics f the Mulluk-Mulluk", Ocealliu, Sydney, Vol. IV, 1933-4, p. 156-. --I i ! , .

17 'I'lie introduction of definite paylrlelits !nay be seen ill crrtai~ i ayriiel~tsto specialisw, especially for big tasks, arid 'colnpensation' to the ownel. ot';I canoe for the use of the veasel; cf. D. F. l'honisoll, op. cit., pp. 55-60 and"'l'lie Dugong Hunters of Cape York", Jottrnul of t l ir Ro yal rintl~ ro po lug -ical Ins t i tute , Vol. LXIV, pp. 217-235.18 Flinders, op. cit., p. 213.19 A. Searcy, op. cit., igog and 191% p a sh i .20 N. B. Tiii&alr, "Natives of Groote Lylandt and ot the West Coast ofthe Gulf of Carpentaria", Records of tile South .~ l zcs tra l iu~~ Vol. 111,Cluse z~ i r~ ,Nos. 1 and r , Adelaide, lye;/ti.I,. Stokes, Discover ia in , . f r ~ a t ~ . c ~ l i a tl.ltl..\.t c . tltcring the l'oyagc of


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Early Asian Contacts with Australia

Peter M. Worsley

Past and Present, No. 7. (Apr., 1955), pp. 1-11.

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Notes

14 142. Malay Influence on Aboriginal Totemism in Northern Australia.

Frederick Rose

Man, Vol. 47. (Oct., 1947), p. 129.

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