| Abstrakt: |
One feature of settler misrecognition of First Nations sovereignty is the failure to acknowledge successful maintenance of connections to and obligations for Country, despite European conquest. Concomitant to this is the First Nations expectation that strangers must adhere to the law of that Country by observing 'right behaviour'. This article traces Taungurung expression of this demand, as they sought to ensure generational transmission of traditional knowledge, to protect their lands and negotiate the impacts of dispossession and exile. Drawing on oral knowledge of Taungurung Elder Uncle Roy Patterson and settler records, including a hitherto unexamined settler memoir, the article finds that settlers granted ingress to Taungurung lands in the post-frontier period were (and are) expected to fulfil obligations to Taungurung people and to Country, including through practices of reciprocity. It argues that participation in cultural resurgence projects fosters respect for the contemporaneity of Indigenous sovereignty by providing settlers with opportunities to acknowledge Indigenous hospitality and to learn right behaviour. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] |
