Footnote 3 However, reassessing early European-Aboriginal encounters is important not only to inform a more balanced historical understanding of those interactions but also to continue informing our current understanding of Aboriginal cultures and their musical traditions.
There is no single narrative for early Indigenous reception of European music.
As is universally the case with transculturated music traditions, Indigenous Australians responded to interventions in their lives with varying degrees of accommodation and resistance. This article will use the European violin as a lens through which to reinterpret interactions between Aboriginal people and the European colonizers in twentieth-century Australia. Footnote 2 The Frenchmen could not fathom that Aboriginal people not only disliked the sound of the violin but could show active distaste for it. At first they left us in doubt for some time on which our musician redoubled his exertions, in hopes of obtaining their applause but the bow dropped from his hand, when he beheld the whole assembly stopping their ears with their fingers, that they might hear no more. We knew already that these savages had little taste for the violin but we flattered ourselves that they would not be altogether insensible to its tones, if lively tunes, and very distinct in their measure, were played.
The article aims to contribute not only to a new understanding of the way Aboriginal people have responded to the violin, but also to how it has been understood within histories of Australia and colonization. The ability to adapt in the face of cultural genocide has ensured the survival of Aboriginal people and their traditions over the years since the colonists arrived and it is important to understand how Aboriginal people reacted. This allowed the violin to act as a powerful means of cultural continuation and expression that was encouraged, not forbidden. However, the diverse and adaptable sound of the violin, combined with its construction from natural materials, aligned with Aboriginal people’s traditional and collaborative experience of music. Accordingly, the Europeans took the Indigenous embrace of the violin as evidence of successful assimilation policies and the acquisition of civility. The violin is a particularly well-respected instrument within the western art music tradition. This article will use the European violin as a lens through which to reinterpret interactions between Aboriginal people and Europeans in twentieth-century Australia.
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