Nestled between the lines of poorly-written script in a small, battered journal dated February 13, 1832 is a crude diagram. No larger than a thumbnail, it is the sum total record of the architectural engineering practice of a people who were swept from their homelands within a lifetime of the arrival of the British on the island of Tasmania. The identity of the journalist is not important to this story. Plenty had been written about him already. Indeed, it is too often the case that the writers of colonial records become pre-eminent in the accounting of cultures in which they had no part. Or worse, the account of their part in the undoing of a culture becomes entangled, and mistaken for a description of the culture itself. This is how our knowledge of a people is colonised by history.

Item Type:	Magazine Article
Keywords:	Tasmanian Aboriginal, architecture
Research Division:	Indigenous Studies
Research Group:	Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, society and community
Research Field:	Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander sociology
Objective Division:	Culture and Society
Objective Group:	Understanding past societies
Objective Field:	Understanding Australia's past
UTAS Author:	Lehman, G (Professor Gregory Lehman)
ID Code:	145811
Year Published:	2018
Deposited By:	Aboriginal Engagement
Deposited On:	2021-08-06
Last Modified:	2021-08-06
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