Hilary M. Carey

God's willing workers : women and religion in Australia

This work examines the ways religious beliefs and institutions have shaped the lives of women in Australia over 200 years. It looks at Catholic nuns, protestant missionaries, deaconesses, and laywomen.

Smallpox and the Baiame Waganna of Wellington Valley, New South Wales, 1829-1840: The Earliest Nativist Movement in Aboriginal Australia

Of all the various infections that afflicted Aboriginal people in Australia during the years of first contact with Europeans, smallpox was the most disastrous. The physical and social impacts of the disease are well known. This article considers another effect of the contagion. It is argued that a nativist movement in the form of a waganna (dance ritual) associated with the Wiradjuri spirit Baiame and his adversary Tharrawiirgal was linked to the aftermath of the disease as it was experienced at the settlement site of the Wellington Valley of New South Wales (NSW). The discovery of this movement is of considerable significance for an understanding of Aboriginal responses to colonization in southeastern Australia. It is the earliest well-attested nativist movement in Australian ethnohistory.

Death, God and Linguistics: Conversations with Missionaries on the Australian Frontier, 1824–1845

Abstract The first encounters between Aborigines and Europeans in south-eastern Australia were constrained by profound social and linguistic barriers, but they did provide opportunities for cultural exchange. This article argues that important evidence is contained in linguistic materials compiled by missionaries for the purposes of evangelisation and scripture translation. It interprets the linguistic work of Lancelot Threlkeld (1788–1859), who conducted a mission on behalf of London Missionary Society and, later, the government of New South Wales, to the ‘Awabakal’ or Kuri people of the Hunter River and Lake Macquarie region from 1824–1841, and William Watson (1798–1866) and James Günther (1806–1879) of the Church Missionary Society, whose mission was to the Wiradhurri people of Wellington Valley, NSW, from 1832 to 1843, as sources for life on the colonial frontier. It argues that linguistic sources provide a unique insight, expressed in languages now extinguished, into the conversations conducted by missionaries on issues such as language difficulties, the nature of the soul, spiritual beings, death, violence and the disintegration of traditional society.

Lancelot Threlkeld, Biraban, and the Colonial Bible in Australia

Ethnographers, historians, and linguists have argued for many years about the nature of the relationship between missionaries and their collaborators. Critics of missionary linguistics and education have pointed out that Bible translations were tools forged for the cultural conquest of native people and that missionary impacts on local cultures nearly always destructive and frequently overwhelming (Comaroff and Comaroff 1997; Rafael 1988; Sanneh 1989). Sociolinguistic readings of scripture translation have emphasized the cultural loss inherent in the act of translation and even seemingly benign activities such as dictionary making (Errington 2001; Peterson 1999; Tomlinson 2006). To make this point, Rafael (1988: xvii) notes the semantic links between the various Spanish words for conquest ( conquista ), conversion ( conversion ), and translation ( traduccion ). Historians, on the other hand, have generally been more skeptical about the power of mere words to exert hegemonic pressure on colonized people and have emphasized the more tangible power of guns and commerce as agents of empire (Porter 2004). Few would deny the symbolic power of the Bible as a representation of colonial domination, as in the saying attributed to Archbishop Desmond Tutu by Cox (2008: 4): “When the white man arrived, he had the Bible and we had the land; now, we have the Bible and he has the land.”

“The Land of Byamee”: K. Langloh Parker, David Unaipon, and Popular Aboriginality in the Assimilation Era

Popular Aboriginal legendary tales have been one of the most significant ways in which Aboriginality has been constructed in Australia, but they have not received much attention prior to this paper. Beginning with missionary accounts of Baiame, a deity associated with Gamilaraay (Kamilaroi) and Wiradhuri (Wiradjuri) speaking peoples of colonial Australia, the author examines the way in which the theme of the Great Spirit or Baiame is developed in popular mythology. The focus is placed on two key writers: K. Langloh Parker and David Unaipon. It is argued that the popular discourse of The Land of Byamee reflected the political constraints of the assimilation era.

Women's Work in a Rural Community: Dungog and the Upper Williams Valley, 1880-1900

This article analyses the position of women in the economy of a rural community in the second half of the nineteenth century. The town of Dungog and its surrounding region in the Hunter Valley of New South Wales were being settled by Europeans in these decades. The article explores the relationship between family needs and aspirations, the economic constraints and opportunities available to women in this community. It concludes that while more economic opportunities such as teaching and nursing were opening for single women, most womens work remained part of the family enterprise. In addition, womens unpaid labour was vital in the creation ofDungogs quality infrastructure such as schools, churches and hospitals.

Judicial astrology in theory and practice in later medieval Europe

Interrogations and elections were two branches of Arabic judicial astrology made available in Latin translation to readers in western Europe from the twelfth century. Through an analysis of the theory and practice of interrogations and elections, including the writing of the Jewish astrologer Sahl b. Bishr, this essay considers the extent to which judicial astrology was practiced in the medieval west. Consideration is given to historical examples of interrogations and elections mostly from late medieval English manuscripts. These include the work of John Dunstaple (ca. 1390-1453), the musician and astrologer who is known have served at the court of John, duke of Bedford. On the basis of the relatively small number of surviving historical horoscopes, it is argued that the practice of interrogations and elections lagged behind the theory.

Australian Religion Review, 1980–2000, Part 2: Christian Denominations

This article forms the second part of a review of Australian religious historiography published between 1980 and 2000. 1 The first part considered survey histories of religion in Australia, bibliographies and reference works, religion in non-religious Australian history, Aboriginal religions and missions, Judaism and other religious traditions. This second part covers the Christian denominations: Anglicanism, Catholicism, Non-Anglican Protestantism, and Orthodoxy. Overall, there has been a great deal written since 1980, but not all of it can be considered meritorious. The review concludes with suggestions for future research.

Australian religion review, 1980-2000, Part 1 : Surveys, bibliographies and religions other than Christianity

This article reviews Australian religious history from 1981 to 2000. It extends an earlier review, also published in the Journal of Religious History, which provided an initial survey of Australian religious history from 1960 to 1980. The review is published in two parts. The first part discusses survey histories, bibliographies and reference works, religion in «non-religious» Australian history, Aboriginal religions and missions, Judaism and other non-Christian religious traditions. The second part covers Christianity: Catholicism, Anglicanism, Non-Anglican Protestantism, and Eastern Orthodoxy. Overall, there has been a great deal written since 1980, but not all of it can be considered meritorious. The review includes suggestions for future research.

Henry VII’s Book of Astrology and the Tudor Renaissance*

This essay considers the place of astrology at the early Tudor court through an analysis of British Library MS Arundel 66, a manuscript compiled for the use of Henry VII (r. 1485–1509) in the 1490s. It argues that an illustration on fol. 201 depicts King Henry being presented with prognostications by his astrologer, William Parron, with the support of Louis, Duke of Orleans, later King Louis XII of France (r. 1498–1515). It considers the activities of three Tudor astrologer courtiers, William Parron, Lewis of Caerleon, and Richard Fitzjames, who may have commissioned the manuscript, as well as the Fitzjames Zodiac Arch at Merton College, Oxford (1497) and the London Pageants of 1501. It concludes that Arundel 66 reflects the strategic cultural investment in astrology and English prophecy made by the Tudor regime at the time of the marriage negotiations and wedding of Arthur, Prince of Wales and Katherine of Aragon, descendant of Alfonso X, the most illustrious medieval patron of the science of the stars.