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Indigenous Australian interactions with explorers. A number of sub discourses within this
broader one emerge. The first sub discourse, Indigenous Australians as a problem to be dealt
with is analysed here. The explorers, through a non-articulated perspective of superior rights
to explore, ignorant of the claims of Indigenous Australians to protect their land, presents
interactions with Indigenous people as a nuisance in the way the flora was, with a passage
from Social Studies for Queensland schools grade 5 reading:
The natives were troublesome. Sometimes Kennedy was forced to fire upon them to
frighten them off. Once, when the party was crossing a grassy plain, the natives set
fire to the grass. The explorers were very fortunate to escape this danger without
injury. (Department of Education, 1959/1962, 1966, p. 32)
Here, when Indigenous Australians attempt to make clear their intentions to protect or defend
their land, their perspectives are not attributed to any legitimate argument, but rather seen as
something that needs to be overcome, much the same way as the thick scrub needed to be cut
down.
A second sub discourse that emerges is that of violence between Indigenous Australians and
explorers. One point to make though, is that violence committed by the explorers is mitigated
through the argument that it was initially the Indigenous people who allegedly goaded the
explorers into violence, by following them and making (not overtly articulated in the
narrative) threats of violence (see Source 6.17).
Source 6.17. “The Natives” extract from Social Studies for Queensland
schools grade 5 (Department of Education, 1959/ 1962/1966, p. 30).
A third sub discourse, and arguably the most significant with the broader discourse of
experiences of Jacky Jacky; is the discourse of Indigenous Australians as anonymous. In this
case, the Indigenous person at the focus of the narrative, Jacky Jacky bucks the usual trend
that sees Indigenous Australians as anonymous and silenced actors in history narratives.
Jacky Jacky presents as the only example in this textbook where an event is told from the
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