Aboriginally and historical consciousness: Bernard O’Dowd and the creation of an Australian national imaginary

Abstract

40-it is only in recent times, as historians have embraced a more critical understanding of the nation-state, that the manner in which white Australian myth-makers have appropri- ated Aboriginal culture has entered discussion of Australian national identity 40-This revisionism has occurred as part of a larger post-colonial awareness of white Austral- ians' status as colonisers and even invaders, while the ubiquity of images of Abonginal- ity in contemporary representahons of the nation has also kindled interest in thisissue. The invenhon and promotion of such images involve an appropriabon of the Aborigi- nal presence in a manner that 'permits the Australian national imaginary to claim cer- tain critical and valuable aspects of "the Other" as essentially part of i~self 40-Aboriginahty becomes a constituent in a larger complex of sounds and images that signify AustralIan national identity, a process in which some Aboriginal people m g h t now sometimes be complicit, but which they cannot control. 40-Tom Griffiths has recently drawn attention to what he calls 'European rituals of place or "land rites"', which 'aimed to secure the land emotionally and spiritually for the settler society'. He argues that these 'land rites were most overt during the early decades of the twentieth century, the very period when acknowledgement of the violence and illegitimacy of the European invasion of Australia was most strongly suppressed and denied' 42-Jindyworobak poets 1930s-50s sought to develop distinctlyve Australian poetry using Aboriginal iconography