Jacky Jacky and the Politics of Aboriginal Testimony

Abstract

One obstacle to writing detailed histories and rounded biographies of Aboriginal guides who participated in nineteenth-century exploration is the dearth of source material, especially accounts provided by Aboriginal guides themselves. Within the epistemology of exploration, Indigenous guides and other intermediaries were rarely accorded the status of author, an honour preserved for the expedition leader or expedition scientists and naturalists. Published exploration narratives sometimes disavowed Aboriginal guides and their contributions, a situation influenced by the premise that scientific knowledge was gained by an explorer’s unmediated and unfettered encounters with places and people. Even though intermediaries were indispensable to many expeditions, the knowledge and labour they provided became ‘hidden’ or ‘invisible’ (or only ‘partially visible’) within exploration texts, as Felix Driver and Lowri Jones have shown. And although it was quite common for Aboriginal guides to be given some form of public recognition once an expedition was completed, such as monetary reward or public testimonials (see Bishop and White, this volume), this did not usually extend to making a lasting record of their own lives and exploration experiences. It required exceptional circumstances for that to happen.