‘Broome culture’ and its historical links to the Japanese in the pearling industry

Abstract

The Broome Shire Council's decision in 2009 to suspend the sister-town relationship because of controversy over Taiji's practice of culling dolphins galvanized Broome's Asian and Asian-Aboriginal community (hereafter referred to as poly-ethnic community) to oppose this move. This, and other examples explored in this paper, attests to the strong connection between these two groups that has shaped a distinctive ‘Broome culture’. This paper explores ways in which Japanese working in the pearling industry contributed to the emergence of a Broome culture through their historic ties with Aborigines. Some of these ties are through family lineage; others are through vast interlocking familial and friendship networks in Broome's Asian-Aboriginal community. Recent interviews attest to the enduring nature of these networks.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the following people who gave me interviews for this paper: Stephen (B'aamba) Albert, Daniel Chi-Oades, Domenic Charles, Kevin Fong, Pearl Hamaguchi, Michaela Lee, Kunihiko Kaino, Yoshinori Maeda, Kim Male, Kevin Puertallano, Paul Phillips, Carol Tang Wei, and Terry Wooltorton. Thanks to John Hall for editorial assistance and to the anonymous referees for their useful comments.

Notes

 1. At the 13 October Council meeting Broome Shire President Graeme Campbell claimed that councillors had not voted to suspend or sever ties with Taiji, as reported in the media. The actual motion was that Council ‘respectfully advises the Council of Taiji that it will be unable to fulfil its pledge as a Sister-town with the Town of Taiji while the practice of harvesting dolphins exists’ (Special Council Minutes of 22 August 2009, Broome Shire Council).

 2. Yu was elected a Broome Shire Councillor at the local government elections on 17 October 2009.

 3. Fong, Tang Wei and Yu. 2009. Fixing our backyard. Meeting of interested people and Shire of Broome, Broome, August 28.

 4. All personal communications were conducted in confidentiality, and the name of this emailer was withheld by mutual agreement.

 5. I worked with these women in Broome prior to the Special Meeting of the Broome Shire Council where the decision to suspend relations with Taiji was reversed.

 6. Trepang is a sea slug that was fished by the Macassans and mainly traded to the Chinese.

 7. Ganter (2006, 4) explains that ‘Macassan’ refers to participants in a sea trading industry rather than an ethnic group. The term refers to people from the city of Makassar, the kingdoms of Gowa and Bugis, Aru and Timor islands, and Sulawesi.

 8. MacKnight (1976) found evidence of one Macassan man who lived in Australia for ten years, but he believes such long stays were unusual.

 9. Co-habitation between Aboriginal women and white men was deemed to be more acceptable. In 1900 the Solicitor General argued that ‘allowance must be made for the utter lonely and monotonous existence which people living out in our never never country are called to face’. In 1905 pastoralists successfully moved to reduce the minimum fine for whites co-habiting with Aboriginal women from fifty pounds to five (Haebich 2000, 239).

10. Liaisons between Filipinos and Aborigines were sanctioned by the Catholic Church as most Filipinos were Catholic (Lockyer 2009, 18; Hamaguchi, personal communication 2009).

11. Stephenson's (2009) interviews with Malay-Aborigines with Muslim fathers found similar tributes to the disciplined household as Albert describes.

12. Broome people were generally pessimistic about their chances of overthrowing this decision.