THE CONTEMPORARY PACIFIC· SPRING/FALL 1989

can societies could not by definition bedynamic, inventive, or expansive. (284)

Since the arrival of the first Europe­ans in the Pacific, we have heard asteady litany of regrets about "dyingcultures." This is precisely why metro­politan audiences are repeatedlyastonished when enough French bloodis spilled to draw attention to theKanak resistance, or Fiji is bannedfrom the Commonwealth for ColonelRabuka's apocalyptic behavior.

The importance of this book lies inits persistent recognition that informedsocial history must (or as Clifford hasit, is "condemned to") oscillate betweentales of homogenization accompaniedby loss and emergence along withinvention (17). Political economy anddemography tell us of the mighty forcesnow squeezing the lives being lived inthe contemporary Pacific. But in a pro­cess that is perhaps analogous to thetransformation of coal into diamonds,such pressure may also meet with lapi­dary toughness and brilliance.

GLENN PETERSEN

City University ofNew York

*

The Law of the Land, by Henry Rey­nolds. Ringwood, VIC: Penguin BooksAustralia, 1987. xii + 225 pp, notes,bibliography, index. A$12.95

I've explained it to white people, I've said,"Look, say I built a tent on your lawn.What would you do?" "Oh," he said, "I'dget the police and move you off." Well,there you are . .. you'd run to the law. Youwant things exactly according to the law.But when it comes to the Aboriginal landright you disregard the law. <.

Henry Reynolds, known for his pio­neering work recognizing the long­ignored Aboriginal perspective of Aus­tralian history, returns to the white sideof the frontier in his latest book onAustralian land and law. In exploringthe Australian application of nine­teenth century European law, Rey­nolds reveals the deep contradictionsand legitimizing myths central to thecolonizer's claims of land ownership.His conclusion is painstakingly docu­mented and startling: the Europeaninvaders, by their own then-applicablestandards of domestic and interna­tionallaw, never achieved legitimateland tenure in Australia. Non-Abori­ginal claims to land ownership inpresent-day Australia are, all the morecertainly, a fraud. It is one thing tomake this claim using appeals to highermorality or to Aboriginal concepts ofownership-the political appeal famil­iar in anticolonialist movements. It isquite another to make this claim, asReynolds has, from within the mindsetof the colonizer. Foregoing the rhetoricof moral discourse, Reynolds meets themind of the colonizer. He accepts thecolonizer's worldview. He then showshow the Australian newcomers failedto achieve legitimate title even undertheir own, presumably self-interested,laws. One suspects Reynolds of mak­ing his proof gleefully, although thetext sticks primarily to documentation,leaving the silent exclamations to thereader.

Reynolds presents a convincingstatement on the European law of colo­nialland acquisition at the time of Aus­tralian settlement. Citing leading legaltexts, government documents, interna­tionallaw, and the proclamations of

BOOK REVIEWS

Crown and colonists, he shows thattitle to occupied, "discovered" landcould vest through treaty or throughpurchase and in no other way. The ideathat title to private land could vest byforceful eviction of existing occupantswas universally rejected. While title tovacant land could be claimed throughdiscovery and settlement, soon afterthe 1788 landfall it became clear thatthe whole of Australia was occupied byAborigines.

Because the colonists never pur­chased the land, and never obtained itby treaty, their only possible claim tolegitimate tenure was through the the­ory of terra nullius: no one was there.Reynolds documents the absurdity ofthe terra nullius position. He citesnumerous letters, memoirs, govern­ment memoranda, and other contem­poraneous commentary that show thecolonists and the Crown knew of theAborigines' tenure. Indeed, Europeanexploration of the continent dependedon Aboriginal guides and carefully soli­cited permission to enter the territoryof different groups. The initial miscon­ception that the continent was barelypopulated by a few aimless nomadswho held no territorial claims wasquickly dispelled. As Reynolds' earlierwork has shown, the Aborigines werespiritually and economically attachedto their lands, and they actively resistedthe European invasion. The Europeanscould not fail to notice that the Aborig­ines valued and claimed the land astheirs. The survival of the Aboriginehad-for a-longer time than the entirehistory of England-depended on care­ful use of their land. Instead of beingconfused wanderers, the Aborigineswere skillful managers. They returned

regularly to various parts of theirdomain for food and other necessitiesof life. They punished trespassers andmemorized boundaries. The Europe­ans knew this.

On the North American continent,the tenure of hunter-gatherers by occu­pancy was recognized by Europeans. Ifthe lands of North American hunter­gatherers were desired for settlement,they were bargained for. Howeverduplicitous the bargains may havebeen, it was never considered possibleto establish colonial title without firstextinguishing native title.

Of the English colonies, Australiastands alone in its failure to extinguishnative title in any manner. As a conse­quence, Australia has had to rely on aseries of myths to maintain a claim ofwhite land ownership. In addition tothe myth of terra nullius and the land­less nomad, the myths of racial su­premacy and white charity provide ashaky foundation for white Australianland tenure. The supremacy argumentpresents the white race as better able touse the land and therefore entitled totake it. The Aborigines who failed tomake the land productive had nolegally cognizable claim. It is easy tosee why this argument fails. Aside fromthe discredited racism and ethnocen­trism at its core, the idea that landshould belong to the person who canmake best use of it would destroy thecentral pillar of capitalism and ofAnglo-American law: the concept ofprivate property. If it were true thatowners who allow land to lie fallowlose title, many lords and ladies of Brit­ain would have found their pristinehunting grounds invaded by hardwork­ing, landless hoards ready to put the

THE CONTEMPORARY PACIFIC· SPRING/FALL 1989

vacant land into production. Title hasnever depended on productive use.

The related myth of white charityattempts to account for and discountthe times when Crown and colonialgovernments did acknowledge Aborigi­nal title in Australia. The patents andmemoranda from London exhortingthe colonists to compensate for appro­priated land are dismissed as acts ofaspiration and charity rather than obli­gation. Reynolds notes that the illegiti­macy of the Australian land-grab didnot go unnoticed in either England orthe colonies. The members of the anti­slavery movement were quick to seeland-stealing as an evil analogous toslavery, and to push for compensation.Imperial officials were caught betweenthe growing pressure for emigrationand settlement in Australia, and therecognition of the need to extinguishnative title in accordance with law. TheCrown attempted ineptly to guardAboriginal land rights. Reynoldsdescribes one Quaker settler, disgustedwith government failure to compensatethe Aborigines, who sent in a paymentin protest, pleading with the govern­ment to disburse it to the Aborigines inaccordance with the obligations of acolonizer. The settler added, "I dis­claim this to be either donation, grantor gift; but a just claim the natives ofthis district have on me as an occupierof those lands" (120).

With several equally telling docu­ments, Reynolds paints a picture ofcontradiction, deception, and evasionby colonial governments, as they ~ ­rejected imperial requests to honorAboriginal land rights.

The picture of Europeans defyingEuropean legal standards is painted so

convincingly by Reynolds, that thereader is tempted to believe that adher­ence to legality could have savedAboriginal land. Unfortunately, thecomparative perspective shows thatlaw is a false savior. The North Ameri­can, New Zealand, and Hawaiiancases show that native peoples losetheir land in many different ways­some legal, some illegal, but all at thebehest of colonizers relentless in theirlust for land. Recognition of native titledoes little good in the face of all thelegal ways to grab land: eminentdomain, adverse possession, tax sales,mortgage foreclosures, and quiet titleactions, to note a few. Indigenous peo­ple unfamiliar with Western conceptsof title and valuation often fail to pro­tect their claims. Faced with disease,social dislocation, and loss of a subsis­tence lifestyle, they sell land at less thanmarket value, leaving righteous mis­sionaries like Lorrin Thurston toexclaim that nobody "stole" theHawaiians' land.

The observation that recognition ofnative title may not have much alteredthe path to Aboriginal landlessnessdoes not obviate the importance ofReynolds' book. No one can take goodtitle from a thief. The questionablebasis of colonial title in Australian landcreates for contemporary Australia afundamental dilemma in the realm oflegal consciousness. The legal mindvalues private property and chain oftitle. The entire system of private prop­erty can disintegrate if title is not tracedto a legitimate beginning. This logicalobsession is central to Anglo-Americanconcepts of land ownership. In order tomaintain the logic, Australian juristsmust either rely on the old myth of

BOOK REVIEWS I8S

Drugs in Western Pacific Societies:Relations ofSubstance, edited byLamont Lindstrom. ASAO MonographSeries no. II. Lanham, MD: Universityof America Press, 1987. xii + 299 pp,notes, references, index. uS$15.25.

If anthropology is to serve the needs ofPacific peoples rather than those of itsEuro-American practitioners, Lind­strom's collection of ethnographicdescriptions of drug use in the westernPacific is a good start. The essays inthis volume make clear that a subjectonce treated as peripheral to ethno­graphic interests is not only importantbut indeed central to an understandingof culture change, modernization, andpublic health in the Pacific.

Lindstrom's introduction pointsthe reader toward some of the manydimensions of the subject. How doboth traditional and introduced drugsbecome part of an exchange system?

sure the power of its logic and will notwant to cut the same bargain as the col­onizers who chose land above legiti­macy. He closes with a quote fromGough Whitlam that serves well toprod the conscience of all descendantsof colonizers in the Pacific: "Australia'streatment of her Aboriginal people willbe the thing upon which the rest of theworld will judge Australia and Austra­lians-not just now, but in the greaterperspective of history" (178).

MARl J. MATSUDA

University ofHawaii at Manoa

':'Note: Opening quotation is by Eric Kerr,Aboriginal ex-convict, quoted in K. Gil­bert, Living Black, Penguin Books, 1977.

terra nullius or recognize and rectifythe failure to properly extinguishnative title. The United States Govern­ment did just this in the Alaskan NativeClaims Settlement Act, paying offnative claimants to extinguish nativetenure. The only other alternative isunthinkable to the legal mind: aban­donment of the rule of law and admis­sion that title in Australia is based onbrute force and bigotry. To thus revealland law as a tool of selfish powerrather than a product of logic wouldplant dangerous seeds of discontent.

What Reynolds ultimately providesin this and his previous work is the bar­gaining card of knowledge. It becomesharder to support present-day title withthe old myths, the more their untruth isdocumented with historical sources.The Law of the Land is a logical exten­sion of Reynolds' earlier ethnographicwork. This time he has written an eth­nography of the white European.Using the words, the remembrances,and the worldview of the European, heshows deep conflict pitting the path ofland acquisition in Australia and hegenerates a nagging push to fit this rev­elation within a legal logic. The resultmay well be, at long last, Aboriginalland rights. The difference betweenAboriginal and European ethnographyis that the Europeans left a paper trail.Bureaucrats in London wrote agonizedmemos questioning colonial title. Col­onists wrote stubborn diary entriesdefying the law and decrying the impe­rial bleeding hearts. Reynolds uses thispaper trail to exacerbate the crisis oflegitimacy, a crisis he hopes will beresolved with recognition of Aboriginalland rights. He takes the chance thatthe keepers of the law do indeed trea-

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