{"id":5935,"date":"2016-03-09T09:34:11","date_gmt":"2016-03-08T22:34:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stumblingpast.com\/?p=5935"},"modified":"2022-08-04T00:25:17","modified_gmt":"2022-08-04T00:25:17","slug":"review-finding-eliza-by-larissa-behrendt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stumblingpast.com\/2016\/03\/09\/review-finding-eliza-by-larissa-behrendt\/","title":{"rendered":"Review: Finding Eliza by Larissa Behrendt"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Book<\/a>
Finding Eliza: Power and Colonial Storytelling by Larissa Behrendt (UQP, 2016).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Larissa Behrendt has written a nuanced and engrossing book about colonial attitudes as they operated through a particular Australian colonial \u2018captivity tale\u2019. Using the story told by Eliza Fraser who was helped by the Aboriginal people of Fraser Island after surviving a ship wreck in 1836, Behrendt turns the colonial gaze back on itself to examine the motives, the fears and the deficiencies of the Europeans as revealed in stories such as Eliza\u2019s.<\/p>\n

Behrendt uses her background as a novelist to examine the dramatic elements that drive the stories of Eliza Fraser. \u00a0These stories were written to satisfy the expectations of British readers for a tale of \u2018barbaric natives\u2018, gripping adventure with a dash of sexual danger to titillate\u00a0the audience. Behrendt retells the story from the point of view of the Butchulla people, the Aboriginal people of Fraser Island. She then goes on to demonstrate how various fictions justified colonial violence against indigenous people and wended their way into the legal framework that supported the dispossession of land from the traditional owners. Behrendt shows the power of stories, whether they are fictional, historical or legal in shaping a narrative that can perpetrate violence, but how these stories can also be used to dismantle the structures that caused great injustices.<\/p>\n

In Finding Eliza <\/em>Larissa Behrendt examines gender across the racial divide in colonial settler society. She rejects a simplistic judgement of Eliza Fraser\u2019s role in all this. Behrendt acknowledges Eliza\u2019s strength and tenacity to not only survive what would have been a terrifying ordeal for a middle-class European woman but to take the initiative to tell her story in a European culture where women\u2019s voices struggled to be\u00a0publicly heard.<\/p>\n

Colonial European male observers denigrated Aboriginal women while ignoring the huge issue of the low status of European women and the myriad injustices against them. \u00a0While Europeans regarded Eliza Fraser\u2019s story as a tale of a British woman captured by indigenous people and threatened with unmentionable violence, Behrendt points out that the Europeans ignored the appalling cruelty and violation of Aboriginal women by European men which was far more common.\u00a0The colonial frontier was violent and Behrendt is blunt about the massacres, the rapes and the slave-like conditions that Aboriginal people were held in across Australia giving a few well-known and little disputed examples.<\/p>\n

Behrendt uses Eliza Fraser\u2019s story as a launching pad to examine attitudes that are embedded in colonial literature. She critiques the work of authors such as Katherine Susannah Prichard, Robert Hughes, and Marlo Morgan. Morgan\u2019s New Age novel, Mutant Message down Under <\/em>was first published in post-colonial 1991 and was very popular in the United States\u00a0yet Behrendt identifies tired colonial stereotypes and attitudes were embedded in this novel.\u00a0This is not just a litany of criticism, the work of writers such as Liam Davison and Kate Grenville are given as examples of respectful inclusion of Aboriginal people and culture in novels.<\/p>\n

The harm done by negative stereotypes is well-known but Behrendt also discusses the harm done by attempts to portray Aboriginal people in a positive light using the \u2018noble savage\u2019 motif. She warns of how many Aboriginal people who live a contemporary lifestyle are denied their identity when people argue that only those living a traditional lifestyle are \u2018genuine\u2019 Aborigines. All cultures change over time, but the \u2018noble savage\u2019 ideal fossilises Aboriginal culture and denies Aboriginal people the agency to determine their own culture. This problem infiltrates the legal system as Behrendt\u2019s account of the failed Yorta Yorta native title case demonstrates. Readers of Anita Heiss\u2019s Am I Black Enough For You?<\/a> <\/em>will be familiar with this issue.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe law tells our national story as much as historians, prime ministers and novelists do\u201d, she argues. Behrendt points out that the legal process is about competing narratives mounted by the opposing parties in a bid to convince judges or juries of their case. The chapter about the law is a good introduction to how the legal \u2018fiction\u2019 of terra nullius was introduced and how it was removed through the Mabo case.<\/p>\n

Many writers and historians have taken a similar approach to all sorts of colonial history and a few have also deconstructed Eliza Fraser\u2019s story. I have previously read about the colonial trope of the \u2018savage cannibal\u2019 but Behrendt\u2019s discussion about this is the best I have read. The European allegations of cannibalism among \u2018primitive peoples\u2019 have been well exposed as a fiction created by the fears of Europeans. Behrendt uses legal cases to identify the rarely used, but accepted European practice of cannibalism in times of desperation by survivors of ship wrecks. In contrast, there is no strong evidence that any other peoples practised cannibalism. \u00a0\u201cEvidence of cannibalism in first-contact experiences and second-hand accounts is suspect because of the cultural and racial lens of the viewer, whose expectations and assumptions lead them to interpret what they see according to what they expect to find\u201d observes Behrendt.<\/p>\n

Behrendt hopes Australia will develop an inclusive nationalism that embraces diversity and holds Aboriginal cultures at its centre with no one dominant national narrative. She praises the work of Australian historians since the 1980s in challenging the dominant, triumphalist national story. \u201cThrough these counter-narratives, this wave of historians showed that, while victors write the history, that story can be challenged by dissenting voices and unpicked, until it ultimately frays at the edges.\u201d<\/p>\n

Larissa Behrendt is a well-known Aboriginal author, a professor at University of Technology Sydney and holds a doctorate in law. She has written a book that engages the reader on a serious topic. In an era when authors and publishers seem to be enamoured of large tomes, the small size of this book is a welcome sight. For the busy reader this book is perfectly proportioned, yet it still tackles large questions with the depth that is needed. It is a good book for anyone wanting to read about big questions in Australian history, and western history generally.<\/p>\n

This is the perfect book to review for International Women\u2019s Day (it is still that day in many parts of the world) because of its focus on women\u2019s history, both that of indigenous and European women. I also chose to review this book because in my review of my last five years of blogging I have found that I am not reviewing enough books by diverse authors. In the past I might review one or two books by Aboriginal authors a year and even fewer by authors from any other non-Anglo background. This is not good enough.<\/p>\n

This month I am launching a renewed focus for my book reviews. I will continue to review histories, biographies and the occasional memoir by women and men of all backgrounds, but I hope to increase the number of books I review by women of diverse backgrounds.<\/p>\n

UQP, the publisher of <\/em>Finding Eliza, provided me with a review copy of this book.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"Australian<\/p>\n

Other discussions about this book:<\/p>\n