John Ramsland and Christopher Mooney, Remembering Aboriginal Heroes.

John Ramsland and Christopher Mooney, Remembering Aboriginal Heroes. John Ramsland and Christopher Mooney, Remembering AboriginalHeroes, Melbourne, Brolga Publishing, 2006, 373 pages, ISBN 192078888X:9871920788887, pbk. The characters that enliven past events, like small candles in thedarkness, provide us with sometimes surprising insights into the humancondition. Nevertheless these important figures, who can shed light onthe customs, attitudes and beliefs of past societies, and of the eventsthat shaped them, can also be in danger of completely disappearing fromour historical consciousness. This is a process that should bevigorously guarded against, particularly when the people arerepresentative of minority, marginalised and disenfranchised groups.John Ramsland and Christopher Mooney address this task of recovery inRemembering Aboriginal Heroes. The subtitle Struggle, Identity and theMedia is, I think, interesting, because it is certainly the case thatthe characters on whom Ramsland and Mooney turn their formidableresearch skills are certainly brought into prominence as a result ofthose three elements. The timing is just right--as the writers point outearly in the introduction, the media's influence on popularperception was beginning to burgeon in the 1950s and had the capacity toshape personalities, as well as the perception of them, in a way that,in some cases, for example Albert Namatjira, had disastrousconsequences. It may seem at first a little strange that the writers haveconcentrated their research on an almost completely male group, butgiven the time-frame of the 1940s and 1950s, it becomes unsurprising.Each of the group--from Namatjira to Jimmy Little--are contextualised bythe writers in two significant ways. First, we are provided withinsights into the lives of these diverse individuals, during which wecan begin to develop some understanding of the impact of media'spin' on them--and to the modern ear, that 'spin'is deeply offensive. Second, we are given the opportunity to considerthe contemporary set of social attitudes and beliefs that allowed this'spin' to occur. The writers have been painstaking in theirselection of quotes that highlight the paternalistic, dismissive anddeeply racist stances of the time. As they write of an article onNamatjira by the Bulletin: 'A simple racist exoticism was thusevoked. Most aspects of these rapidly spreading myths contain falsehoodsthat have perpetuated themselves to the present day.' (p.43) If there were no other reason, this insight would make RememberingAboriginal Heroes a worthy read. The fact that this thread can be tracedthroughout the remembrances of all of the characters mentioned creates apowerful argument that this sort of research is a vital component in thedevelopment of non-Aboriginal understandings of Aboriginal experience.It is notable that this spurious and deeply damaging mythology emergesmost powerfully when the writers explore the life of Dave Sands--whosemastery in the ring continued to be attributed to his 'inheritedphysical characteristics' (p. 106) rather than to his skill in thering. While the writers of this timely text have been obviouslypainstaking in their research of the selected group of'icons', they have also successfully incorporated a commentarythat provides the reader with important windows through which to viewthe great obstacles that each had to overcome, for example HarryPenrith's (Burnum Burnum) early horrors, and their lasting impact.As well Ramsland and Mooney show how a media driven by powerfulstereotypes attempted (often too successfully) to warp the reality ofthe lives of these important people so that they would more comfortablyfit into what was, undoubtedly, a popular perception fuelled by many,many decades of ignorance, wrong-headed public policy and an embeddedprejudice that infused significant institutions, not only during theformative years of the people in this book, but as the writers socogently put it, are 'perpetuated to the present day.' In their introduction, Ramsland and Mooney point out: 'TheAboriginal personas explored here were pioneers in their fields ofendeavour. They helped prepare the ground for others to follow.'They also point out--vitally- that the stereotype in the media of'Aboriginal celebrities as doomed geniuses' (xiii) replacedthe richness of the real experiences of these pivotal characters. Thisis not a 'through the keyhole' peep into an exotic'otherness'. but a serious attempt by Ramsland and Mooney toprovide at least part of a platform of understanding how our attitudesas a society have been shaped. And what a worthy task that is! MARK D'ARBON University of Newcastle