'Wanton With Plenty' Questioning Ethno-historical Constructions of Sexual Savagery in Aboriginal Societies, 1788-1803

Louis Nowra's recently published Bad Dreaming: Aboriginal Men's Violence Against Women and Children (2007) includes an ethno-historical study of gender relations in Aboriginal 'traditional' society, drawing on early explorers' observations and anthropological accounts. Inga...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Australian historical studies 2008-09, Vol.39 (3), p.356-372
Main Author: Konishi, Shino
Format: Article
Language:English
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Summary:Louis Nowra's recently published Bad Dreaming: Aboriginal Men's Violence Against Women and Children (2007) includes an ethno-historical study of gender relations in Aboriginal 'traditional' society, drawing on early explorers' observations and anthropological accounts. Inga Clendinnen likewise included a chapter on Aboriginal sexual politics in Dancing with Strangers (2003). This paper critiques their conclusions and methods, and closely analyses the same terrain-late eighteenth-century European representations of Aboriginal sexual relations. My aim is not to deny that there were instances of violence in the sexual conduct of eighteenth-century Aboriginal societies. Instead, this paper demonstrates that Nowra and Clendinnen's ethno-histories fail to present a holistic account of the myriad descriptions of Indigenous gender dynamics that permeate the European explorers' accounts.
ISSN:1031-461X
1940-5049
DOI:10.1080/10314610802263331