First taste. How Indigenous Australians learned about grog.

first taste
first taste
first taste
first taste
Book 1 First
First
taste
taste
how indigenous
australians
learned about grog
Aims and ideas
a set of resources in six parts by
Maggie Brady
first taste
first taste
first taste
first taste
first taste
first taste
first taste
first taste
first taste
first taste
first taste
first taste
first taste
first taste
first taste
first taste
first taste
first taste
first taste
ii
First published in Australia by
Alcohol Education & Rehabilitation Foundation Ltd, Deakin ACT
© Maggie Brady 2008
National Library of Australia
Cataloguing-in-publication data
Brady, Maggie.
First taste. How Indigenous Australians learned about grog.
/ Maggie Brady; editor, Mouli MacKenzie.
9780980379129 (set)
Includes index.
Bibliography.
Aboriginal Australians—Alcohol use. Torres Strait Islanders—
Alcohol use. Drinking of alcoholic beverages—Australia.
Alcoholics—Australia.
362.2920899915
Edited and designed by M Squared Design
[email protected]
Printed by
Insert printers name here, Fyshwick Canberra
First
taste
how indigenous
australians
learned about grog
a set of resources in six parts by
Maggie Brady
‘Misconceptions abound
in relation to Australian
people, and the history
of alcohol.’
Dr Kaye Price, Aboriginal Educationalist
front cover
Aboriginal public drinking—
independence or exclusion?
A print from the 1830s.
Augustus Earle, Natives
of NS Wales as seen in the
streets of Sydney 1830.
(Detail) Lithograph handcoloured. National Library
of Australia
‘History is important.
… When we have
factual knowledge
and understanding of
our past we can start
developing effective
ways of working in
managing the grog
problems we see today in
our communities.’
Wendy Casey, Manager, Aboriginal Alcohol &
Other Drug Programs Western Australia
‘Not really sensible way…’
A few years ago I was talking with an Aboriginal man from Timber
Creek, west of Katherine in the Northern Territory. He had given
away the grog and was talking about the different ways that
Aboriginal people, and non-Aboriginal people, drank. What he said
really stuck in my mind. This is what he said:
‘I bin watching this film…and I watch them cowboy, how they go in …they
have one little glass. Just have a glass and they walk out. And I thought “I
wish people could do that”, you know? … But especially Aboriginal…They
can’t take a glass, they want a—! …Aboriginals, soon as they go in, they
start swearing when they’re drunk, and start arguing, start pushing each
other. That’s not really sensible way. I seen whitefella when they drink they
get a glass, they sit down and then they go out. I reckon that’s the way
we should drink alcohol. The proper way, not going to send them mad,
because when they go mad, they end up in all sort of problems.’ Duncan
Bero in Brady 1995:94
And here is another man, from the Fitzroy River region in Western
Australia. What he said was similar:
‘When our people start drinking they go silly. That’s the way I look at
it nowadays, good people going to waste. They don’t even know why
they’re drinking…They don’t drink slowly like a whiteman; they open up
the can and drink it down really fast. Gulp it down like you would with
water. Then they start on the next can. That’s the way this mob drink beer.
You know, the quicker they drink it the quicker they get drunk. That’s what
they’re after —getting drunk’. Jock Shandley in Marshall 1988
I started thinking about how this all happened. How did people
learn to drink like this and why? When did alcohol first arrive in this
country, and did Aboriginal people or Torres Strait Islander
‘No-one ever taught
Aboriginal people…
what alcohol could
do to our people.
We just got in,
just like cattle in a
trough, and we just
go straight into the
trough, and have
as much as we can
drink.’ Roy Harrington
people have their own, traditional alcohol before? How did those
old Aboriginal people in the early days get to know how to drink?
Some say that they copied the rough white men who were working
out bush in the early days, men who drank up their cheques and
drank to get drunk. But these stories from Duncan Bero and Jock
Shandley show that some white Australian men, in the 1950s and
1960s at least, were drinking ‘sensible way’, taking that one little
glass, having a yarn. They are saying that Aboriginal people drink
in a different way. So how is it that grog is still such a big problem
for so many people? Another Aboriginal man, Roy Harrington,
suggested that
‘No-one ever taught Aboriginal people…what alcohol could do to our
people. We just got in, just like cattle in a trough, and we just go straight
into the trough, and have as much as we can drink’. Brady 1995:97
Maybe this is the reason. But would ‘teaching’ people have made
a difference? These books try to answer some of these questions
about grog. We know that the history of contact between outsiders
and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples has changed
everything, affected everything. The questions about learning to
drink alcohol are important because what we think we know is
sometimes wrong.
Maggie Brady
Canberra 2008
The aim of these books
Moving
on from
despair
and
blaming
First Taste gives a social and cultural analysis, rather than
search for causes of dysfunction. These resources do not look
at all the possible underlying causes of Indigenous alcohol
abuse such as poverty and dispossession, low self esteem,
ongoing intergenerational trauma and discrimination. They do
not examine the physical, biological or psychological causes of
addiction or ‘alcoholism’ either.
The books take episodes from history in order to understand
more about how Aboriginal people learned to drink. They look
at how social and historical events have influenced Indigenous
attitudes to, and expectations of, alcohol. By exploring historical
records and oral histories, each book examines and deals with
misunderstandings that have become embedded in peoples’
minds. Today these mistaken beliefs continue to create fatalism,
despair and blaming. They do not help to solve the problem or
empower people.
By looking at history more carefully, these books are designed to
educate and empower Indigenous people on alcohol issues, and
contribute to greater understanding and reconciliation between
Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians.
Misunderstandings about alcohol use and Aboriginal and Torres
Strait Islander peoples affect the way in which Indigenous
people feel about themselves, and the ways in which they look
for solutions to drinking problems. Stereotypes about drinking
also affect perceptions of Indigenous Australians by people in
the general population. These ideas have been around for a long
time, and many of them relate to the history of what happened
contents
Ideas challenged in
these books
The language of grog
6
12
Learning to drink in
a different way
14
when Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples first came up
References
15
against alcohol. The ideas that need to be challenged include:
Index
16
> The idea that Aboriginal people traditionally had no alcohol
> The idea that alcohol use among Aboriginal Australians
started in 1788 at Botany Bay with the First Fleet
> The idea that outsiders always used alcohol to exploit
Aboriginal people
> The idea that Aboriginal people were the passive recipients
of colonial goods including alcohol
> The idea that alcohol abuse and intoxicated behaviour
among Indigenous people is determined more by
biological than by cultural and social factors.
Idea 1
Aboriginal people traditionally had no alcohol?
It is surprising to many people to discover that Aboriginal people made
fermented drinks before contact with outsiders. There are only three
documented instances of these mildly intoxicating drinks, and they are
described in Book 2 First taste of alcohol. Their existence counters the usual
assumptions: that Aboriginal people had not previously experienced the
pleasures and mood-changes of drinking.
The Whiteman’s
dependence upon
Alcohol was one of the
first things he showed
the Aborigine people
when Rum was the
basis of currency in the
early colony.
Patrick Dodson 1981:10
Idea 2
Alcohol use started in 1788 at Botany Bay with the First Fleet?
Alcoholic drinks from foreign sources entered the lives of Aborigines and
Torres Strait Islanders by many different routes. Early maritime explorers
and adventurers landed on Australian coasts long before the First Fleet. All
these early ships carried alcohol. The first documented account of Europeans
offering liquor was in 1756 on Cape York. The first regular supplies of alcohol
entered Australia in the north (not the south) of the country, when Southeast
Asians from Makassar brought supplies on an annual basis from around 1720.
This historical fact once again undermines the belief that the English were
the first importers of alcohol. The Makassans were also the first ‘models’ of
drinking and drunkenness for northern coastal Aborigines, and it seems that
they were not moderate drinkers. Their story is told in Book 3 Strong spirits
from Southeast Asia.
Idea 3
Outsiders always used alcohol to exploit Aboriginal people?
What can be learned from interactions with the Makassans, is that alcohol
was offered along with other goods as a tribute or payment to Aboriginal
people. It was in exchange for a resource that they neither needed nor used
themselves: trepang. This was an instance in which alcohol was not used to
exploit or to colonise the traditional owners, but was shared and consumed in
a largely positive way. Aboriginal people were not passive, but were actively
involved in these exchanges. They even incorporated the Makassan alcohol
into their ceremonial performances and their languages.
Similarly, when Filipinos living in the Torres Strait shared their knowledge of how
to make fermented and distilled tuba, the Islanders also learned to make these
drinks of their own free will. They were active participants in the process and used
these drinks in what seems to be a sociable and controlled way. These stories are
told in Book 3 Strong spirits from Southeast Asia.
Port Jackson Painter, A native
going to fish, 1788–89.
Watling Collection, Natural
History Museum, London
Acting or exaggerating
drunkenness was a
way of obtaining cash
and favours.
Idea 4
Aboriginal people were the passive recipients of alcohol?
Indigenous Australians were not just passive recipients of alcohol brought
by outsiders. In Tasmania, Book 4 The story of the bottle tells how Aboriginal
people actively sought out glass alcohol bottles from French visitors. They
wanted the glass for their own uses, which were not the same as European
uses of bottles. Bennelong, Bungaree and others in the early colony of Sydney
also actively related to the outsiders. They obtained the resources they desired
(such as alcohol and cash) by learning the behaviours taught by the English.
Bennelong learned to drink sociably using the toast, and he enjoyed wine.
Bungaree imitated the fancy behaviour of the gentleman in order to humbug
visitors for things he wanted. How Aboriginal people made use of colonial
goods in their own way is described in Book 5 Learning from the English.
Aboriginal people were very observant, and they mimicked and played the
role of the drunk, both when they were intoxicated and when they were not!
At a time when things were desperate for the Eora in the Sydney region, acting
or exaggerating drunkenness was a way of obtaining cash and favours. Once
more, people were not all passive victims of alcohol.
An American researcher once called Native American drinking ‘the world’s
oldest on-going protest demonstration’ (Lurie 1979). This was because she
disagreed with the idea that Native Americans drank because of an identity
crisis, or low self esteem, or the effects of prejudice and poverty. She saw
heavy drinking as a way of being an Indian rather than a white. Her ideas are
interesting because she agreed that the behaviour of drunken white frontier
workers and traders was emulated by Indians. But then, she said, they made
it their own style of drinking, for their own cultural reasons. Indigenous
Australians did this too.
Eora people of Botany Bay
and Broken Bay in the 1830s.
Charles Rodius, Lithograph
National Library of Australia
Gooseberry’s rum mug.
State Library of
New South Wales
Idea 5
Alcohol abuse is determined more by biology
than by the social and cultural environment?
The most entrenched idea about Indigenous people and grog is that heavy
drinking—and the intoxicated behaviours that go with it—are somehow
biologically or physically determined. This idea underestimates the
power of the social and cultural aspects of drinking (Rowley 1973). After
all, drinking makes action happen. Being intoxicated allows people to
be more up-front, more forward, but without being held responsible for
their words or actions. People confront others with things they want to
say, but normally cannot. Drinking helps people to lose shame. Drinking
drowns sorrows. It releases stress and tensions. Drinking means showing
your generosity to relations. It also means you can deny relationships by
failing in family obligations. Sometimes people drink in order to have an
argument: this shows that drinking to become intoxicated is not accidental.
Aboriginal people learned that these were the things that being intoxicated
could do for you in an Aboriginal way.
There is some truth in the idea that binge drinking and drinking to
unconsciousness was once learned by Aboriginal people from frontier
Europeans. This is discussed in Book 5 Learning to drink from the English.
But this explanation alone makes it seem as though Indigenous societies
have been static since the 19th century; that they have not changed in all
that time (Saggers and Gray 1998:79). What happened after this frontier
period, was that prohibition came in. Indigenous people were banned from
hotels where they could drink alongside white Australians. Segregation
meant that drinking was separate, unmonitored, and away from the normal
social controls that exist (or should exist!) in licensed premises. During this
time Aboriginal people only drank with each other. Aboriginal beliefs and
attitudes about what alcohol could do took over (cf Stead 1980). Patrick
Dodson once called this environmental alcoholism (Leary et al 1975). And
when licensed community clubs were introduced in the late 1960s and early
1970s, this simply reinforced the type of drinking behaviour that could
only flourish in segregated situations. The impact of these 20th century
developments is discussed in Book 6 Struggles over drinking rights. We
cannot ignore biology—our genes affect us all—but there is no evidence
that Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander people are different in this respect.
Drinking to intoxication and violence are behaviours shaped by a person’s
history and experience—learned from others in the social environment.
10
‘The drinkers think
about bringing
grog here. They like
to catch up with
someone who’s had
an argument, get
stronger to fight or
talk. So they bring
it back. Before, we
used to have a fight
and forget about.
Now they wait for
when they get a grog.
Some blokes, you
can’t get a word out
of them, but when
they drink, you can’t
stop them.’
Mr D R, of Warburton, Interview 1990
Tjunmutja Myra Watson speaks out
at the launch of an alcohol report
in Alice Springs, 13 July 1995, with
other members and executive of
the NPY Women’s Council. The
organisation has rallied women
over several years, who show their
concern and anger about alcohol
sales and alcohol abuse.
Photo Courtesy NPY Women’s Council
11
salty
The language of grog
sweet
poison
bitter
ngatjur
pama
kun-bang
kuthakarldi
mirripaka
wama
lungkarri
malaa
ngkwarle
One of the
stereotypes about
the introduction of
alcohol to Indigenous
Australians is that
their responses to
it were the same
across the country.
Language tells
another story.
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people had to find ways of describing
strong-tasting alcohols, and by naming them, alcohol became part of
peoples’ linguistic world. In Indigenous languages, speakers ‘stretch’ the
meaning of existing words to refer to alcoholic drinks. For example in some
areas, people expand the term for ‘water’ to refer to alcohol, sometimes
adding ‘bad’ or ‘burning’. In Pitjantjatjara this is kapi or kapi kura. In the
Torres Strait, in Mer and Meriam, people say koamal nguki or uweri ni: ‘hot
water’. In this way, language terms provide clues as to what people thought
of alcohol and what their experiences of it were.
Some found it pleasurable like a delicacy, and named alcohol after highlyvalued and sweet tasting liquids. These sweet words for alcohol can be
found mostly in the desert regions, such as wama (Pintupi, Pitjantjatjara)
and pama (Warlpiri). Other language groups (often on the coast) use terms
meaning salty or bitter to refer to alcohol. Saltiness is a strong taste with a
‘sting’ to it, like some alcoholic drinks. On the Tiwi Islands, mirripaka means
sea water and beer (perhaps because of the foam on beer like sea-foam)
(Nash 1997).
Other groups believed the drinks to be as powerful and dangerous as
venomous snakes, and referred to them by these terms. In the Kakadu
region, the Kuninjku refer to alcohol as kun-bang. It means ‘dangerous,
poisonous, sleek, deadly one’. These words are like a warning, for alcohol is
a form of poison. Drinking too much of it will poison the body and the mind.
Looking at language is a reminder that people across the country responded
variously to alcohol. Perhaps these terms show that people in different
regions had contact with different alcoholic drinks at different times in
history. Above all, they remind us that there was no single ‘Aboriginal
response’ to alcohol.
12
poison
kun-bang
(Kuninjku) poisonous, grog
lungkarri
(Wambaya) poison, grog
girrngay
(Yidiny) fish poison, grog
The poison of alcohol
I know this thing, I have tasted it, I
have drunk it. I know this thing that
you drink, it is really bad, it takes you
away and speaks to you and you cannot
stop, you have to listen. It is bad that
water, it is bitter, it is poison, it is like
the water that you find trapped in the
layers of paperbark, it is bitter. You
see I have tasted that water and I have
tasted beer; that is what beer tastes
like, it tastes bitter like hot water. You
are completely bad because you give
this thing to children, you are giving
them the knowledge of this alcohol and
then they drink. Do not give it to them
because they are then learning to drink
alone, and then they will drink for good.
That is all, I have finished,
this is all I have to tell.
A public declaration by Charlie Miller Marnarra.
Translated from Yanyuwa by John Bradley, 1980
salty
ngatjur
(Batjamalh) sour, salty, grog
mirripaka
(Tiwi) sea, beer
malaa
(Kayardild) sea, brackish, beer
bitter
kutha-karldi
(Arabana) bitter water, alcohol
kathi-nguku
(Paakantyi) spirits, bitter water
sweet
pama
(Warlpiri) delicacy, grog
ngkwarle
(Kaytetye) honey, nectar, grog
wama
(Pitjantjatjara) nectar, liquor
13
How about learning to drink in a different way?
Ways of drinking and attitudes to it can and do change, even
though these are part of a society’s ‘culture’. We know that the
riotous drunken behaviour of Australians in the early colonial days
has now mostly gone. Choices of drink also change over time.
Port, for example, is no longer the popular drink it once was for the
general Australian population: a change that has taken 40 years.
Port is still the drink chosen by many Aboriginal people however.
Aboriginal people disliked the taste of alcohol at first. Most people
do. Now however, around 62% of Indigenous Australians drink
alcohol and more Indigenous than non-Indigenous drinkers drink
enough to cause great harm—to themselves, and to other people.
Reactions to drinking behaviour change over time. Australians now
worry about teenage binge drinking. Aboriginal women are more
openly critical of alcohol abuse than they once were and in recent
Port has long been the cause
of alcohol-related troubles for
Aboriginal people.
Photo: Maggie Brady 2005
years have become less tolerant of it. This puts social pressure
on the drinkers to change their ways. This new intolerance alone
is evidence that the culture is changing. Hundreds of Aboriginal
and Torres Strait Islander people manage to ‘give away the grog’
by themselves and this fact, together with a greater willingness
to speak out about grog, show the power of social and cultural
influences on drinking. These examples weaken the argument that
biology is as important as many people think. Children follow in
their parents’ footsteps, mostly because of role modelling and the
social environment, not because of genetics.
14
references
references
references
references
references
references
references
references
references
references
references
references
Brady, Maggie, Giving Away The Grog. Canberra, Dept of Health and Ageing
Dodson, Patrick (1981) Alcohol prevention. Identity 4(2):10–11
Leary, Rev J, Dodson, Rev P, Tipiloura B, Bunduk L (1975) Alcoholism and
Aborigines: A report. Darwin, publisher unknown
Lurie N O (1979)The world’s oldest on-going protest demonstration:
North American Indian drinking patterns, in Mac Marshall (ed) Beliefs,
Behaviours, and Alcoholic Beverages: A cross-cultural survey. Ann Arbor,
University of Michigan Press:127–145
Marshall, Paul ed. (1988) Raparapa. Stories from the Fitzroy Valley Drovers.
Broome, Magabala Books
Nash, David (1997) List compiled from ASEDA language catalogue, Canberra,
AIATSIS
Rowley, Charles (1973) Outcasts in White Australia. Ringwood, Vic, Penguin
Saggers, Sherry and Gray, Dennis (1998) Dealing with Alcohol. Indigenous
Usage in Australia, New Zealand and Canada. Cambridge, Cambridge
University Press
Stead J (1980) Under the Influence: A comparison of drinking in two Australian
Aboriginal societies. BA Hons, Canberra, Australian National University
All societies have it in
their power to change the
way they drink.
Being less tolerant of
alcohol abuse is one way
of bringing change.
15
index
books 1–6
Aboriginal leaders 1:10 5:15 6:10, 19–20, 23
Abstinence 3:14–16 5:12 6:4, 6–8, 10–11,
23
Arnhem Land 2:12 3:4, 10 4:17, 19
Arrack 2:14, 16 3:7–9, 14, 16 4:3
Art, Aboriginal 2:7 3:5, 12 4:12–19 5:7–8,
20, 22
Availability (of alcohol) 5:6–7, 6–21 6:16–17
Banksia flowers 2:4, 10, 18
Bennelong 5:11–14, 23 6:2
Binge drinking 5:4, 10, 20–21 6:6
‘Bull’ 4:20 5:16, 18
Bush drinking 5:19–22 6:2
Bungaree 5:17–18, 23
Christianity 4:21 5:8, 18 6:4, 8, 10–11, 22
Citizenship/civil rights 6:14, 16–19
Coconut palms 3:8–9, 19–21
Controls on drinking 3:16, 22 4:3
Cook, Captain James 2:14–16 3:14
Cultural beliefs/attitudes (& alcohol) 2:18,
20 3:10 4:3 5:9 6:2–3
Death in custody 5:18
Distilled drinks 3:8–9, 19–23 5:3, 6
Drinking behaviour 3:12–13, 18 4:3, 20–21
5:6–10, 12–13, 20–22 6:22–23
Drunkenness:
Aboriginal 2:6 3:14, 16 4:21 5:9, 16, 18, 21 6:4, 16
English 2:16, 21 4:3 5:3–10, 19–20
Makassan/SE Asian 3:14, 16, 18
Eora people 1:9 2:15, 18, 20 3:15 4:8 5:2,
16
European visitors:
English 2:15–20 3:14 5:6
French 3:14 4:6–7 5:6–7, 12
Dutch 2:5, 12–13
Fermentation 2:4–9 3:8–9, 19–21
First Fleet 2:14, 18–19 5:3
16
Key
Book numbers are in bold
Page numbers follow
eg Book 6 page 3 is shown as 6:3
Foetal alcohol syndrome 5:3
Genetics (and alcohol) 3:10 6:3, 6
Glass bottles 2:12–13 3:7 4:2–15 5:7
Gin Craze 5:3–5
Grog 2:21 3:8 4:3, 4 5:10, 15, 17
Hotels 4:20 5:10, 20 6:2–3, 5–9, 19, 22
Imitation (of others) 1:8 3:18 5:2, 12–14,
17–18, 22–23 6:13
Influences on drinking:
Social 2:18, 21 3:10, 16, 21 5:3–7, 20 6:2–7
Cultural 2:20 3:10, 14 4:3 5:3–10, 12 6:16–17
Environmental 2:18 3:12, 14, 16, 22–23 4:20 5:2, 5, 20–22 6:4, 6, 22–23
Language terms 1:12–13 2:2, 6, 8, 15
3:4–9, 18–19 4:4, 22 5:3, 12
Low alcohol drinks 2:4–9, 22 5:5
Makassans 2:14 3:2–18 4:10, 17
Maps of:
Landings in Australia 2:13
Routes taken by Makassans 3:13
Material culture 2:5, 10–11 3:7, 22
4:2–29, 22–23
Methylated spirits 6:6, 14
Missionaries 5:15 6:4, 22
Namatjira, Albert 6:16–17
New South Wales 4:4, 12–13 5:11 6:3, 6,
14, 18–19, 21
Nganitji 3:8 14, 18
Non–alcoholic drinks 2:11, 18 3:19 6:10
Northern Territory 2:8, 12 3:2–18 4:8 5:21
6:3, 16–17, 21–22
NPY Women’s Council 1:11 6:8–9
Palm liquor, toddy 3:7, 9, 14, 19–21
6:14–15
Perkins, Charles 6:19–20
Philippines/Filipinos 3:2, 13, 19 6:3
Phillip, Governor Arthur 2:17–19, 21 5:12
Price of alcohol 5:5 6:20
Prohibition 3:22–23 6:3, 6–7, 14, 21, 23
Queensland 4:4, 14–15 5:21–22 6:3, 18
Right to drink 6:14–22
Rum 2:16, 21–22 3:17 4:4 5:6, 12
Seafarers, sailors 2:3, 12–14, 16, 20–21
4:3–9 5:10, 17
Segregated drinking 1:10 6:3, 6, 18, 22
Sensible drinking 3:3, 14, 22 5:12, 23 6:4,
22
Smoking pipes 2:9, 12 3:6 4:17, 22 5:17
Social environment 3:3, 16 5:3
Song/poem/performance 2:14 3:18 4:4
6:5, 12–13
South Australia 2:10 4:8–9 6:3, 5, 9–10,
12–13, 21–22
Sly grog 2:21 5:19–20 6:4, 6
Tasmania 2:6–7, 11 4:6–8 6:21
Temperance societies 6:8–13, 18, 23
Toasting health 2:17 5:12–14 6:4
Torres Strait Islands 2:11–12 3:19–22 4:8
6:3, 10, 15
Trade and exchange 2:3, 14, 18–20 3:12,
16, 21 4:6–7 5:17, 19
Traditional drinks
mangaitch 2:4–5
way-a-linah 2:6–7
kambuda 2:8
Tuba/steamed tuba 3:19–22 6:14
Victoria 2:11 5:19–21 6:3–4, 8, 10–11, 21
Violence 3:14, 16 5:13, 16
Waters, Len 6:14–15
Western Australia 2:4–5, 10 4:10 6:3, 21
Women and alcohol 3:12 5:3, 20–21 6:8–9,
18, 22
World War II 3:21–22 6:14–15
Yanyuwa (Borroloola) 2:8 3:10 4:4
Thanks to these people
I gratefully acknowledge research
Frances Peters-Little, Kaye Price,
funding from the AER Foundation
Peter Radoll and Carol Watson.
(2002 GO177), an ARC post doctoral
Thanks to Ruth Nicholls for research
fellowship (DP0343288), and the
assistance. Thanks to the National
support of Centre for Aboriginal
Library of Australia, the state libraries
Economic Policy Research at the
and other institutions for permission
Australian National University.
to use their images. Thanks also to
I have been greatly encouraged
Mouli MacKenzie, M Squared Design,
in writing these books by Wendy
for her inviting and accessible
Casey, Inga Clendinnen, Robin Room,
editorial and design work.
¾STUUBTUF
¾STUUBTUF
¾STUUBTUF
¾STUUBTUF
#PPL 'JSTU
'JSTU
UBTUF
UBTUF
IPXJOEJHFOPVT
BVTUSBMJBOT MFBSOFEBCPVUHSPH
Book 1 Aims and ideas introduces the series
"JNTBOEJEFBT
BTFUPGSFTPVSDFTJOTJYQBSUTCZ
.BHHJF#SBEZ
and lists its aims. It sets out and challenges
the common ideas and misunderstandings
about alcohol and Indigenous people that are
discussed in books 2 to 6.
¾STUUBTUF
¾STUUBTUF
¾STUUBTUF
¾STUUBTUF
#PPL 'JSTU
UBTUF
IPXJOEJHFOPVT
BVTUSBMJBOT MFBSOFEBCPVUHSPH
Book 2 First taste of alcohol tells the story
5IF¾STUUBTUFPGBMDPIPM
of traditional Aboriginal alcoholic drinks and
BTFUPGSFTPVSDFTJOTJYQBSUTCZ
.BHHJF#SBEZ
What is in these six books?
describes how Aboriginal people in southern
Each of these resource books tells
European alcohol—they rejected it.
Australia responded to the first taste of
part of the historical story of how
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander
people learned about alcohol, and
about drinking. They are designed for
¾STUUBTUF
¾STUUBTUF
IPXJOEJHFOPVT
¾STUUBTUF
BVTUSBMJBOT
MFBSOFEBCPVUHSPH
¾STUUBTUF
#PPL 4USPOHTQJSJUTGSPN4&"TJB
'JSTU
'JSTU
UBTUF
UBTUF
Book 3 Strong spirits from Southeast Asia
tells how strong liquor first arrived in the north,
people who are trying to learn more
not the south of Australia. The Makassans
about Indigenous alcohol problems—
from Sulawesi brought arrack, and the Filipinos
students, health workers and those
brought tuba to the Torres Strait Islands.
working in alcohol programs.
BTFUPGSFTPVSDFTJOTJYQBSUTCZ
.BHHJF#SBEZ
The books are roughly in historical
order. Each one is designed as a story
in itself, with its own list of references
Book 4 The story of the bottle tells how
¾STUUBTUF
¾STUUBTUF
IPXJOEJHFOPVT
¾STUUBTUF
BVTUSBMJBOT
MFBSOFEBCPVUHSPH
¾STUUBTUF
#PPL 5IFTUPSZPGUIFCPUUMF
¾STUUBTUF
'JSTU
UBTUF
important bottle glass was to Aboriginal
and Torres Strait Islander people, as the raw
showing where the information came
material for making spear points and cutting
from, so that if you want to do more
tools. Today modern Aboriginal artists use
research you can look them up yourself
bottles in different ways to make statements
in a library or on the web. Each book
BTFUPGSFTPVSDFTJOTJYQBSUTCZ
.BHHJF#SBEZ
J
has some discussion topics for use in
workshops or teaching. At the back of
Book 1 there is an index to guide you
¾STUUBTUF
¾STUUBTUF
¾STUUBTUF
¾STUUBTUF
#PPL
'JSTU
UBTUF
about drinking.
IPXJOEJHFOPVT
BVTUSBMJBOT MFBSOFEBCPVUHSPH
-FBSOJOHUPESJOLGSPNUIF&OHMJTI
through all of them.
Book 5 Learning to drink from the English is
about the early settlers and how they drank.
Aboriginal men such as Bennelong were taught
English drinking customs; others witnessed
and mimicked drunkenness.
BTFUPGSFTPVSDFT JOTJYQBSUTCZ
.BHHJF#SBEZ
¾STUUBTUF
¾STUUBTUF
IPXJOEJHFOPVT
¾STUUBTUF
BVTUSBMJBOT MFBSOFEBCPVUHSPH
¾STUUBTUF
#PPL 4USVHHMFTPWFSESJOLJOHSJHIUT
'JSTU
'JSTU
UBTUF
UBTUF
J
Book 6 Struggles over drinking rights
is about the effects of prohibition laws on the
process of ‘learning’ to drink and on all-ornothing patterns of consumption. Aboriginal
Christians and civil rights campaigners had
BTFUPGSFTPVSDFTJOTJYQBSUTCZ
.BHHJF#SBEZ
different views on lifting the drink bans.