From the Archives

Words by Sarah Kelly

The Loreto College Ballarat Archives is a home for our wonderful historical artefacts and records. We focus on the history of the College and our students, past and present. Here at the Archives, we look after hundreds of objects and thousands of records. Our historical collection dates to the earliest days of the College and it’s opening, which means that it carries a Victorian colonial context with it.

Colonialism and Society

The Australian Indigenous collection is what is currently on our radar in terms of cultural ethics. For many years this collection was on display as part of what we call the Corridor Museum. Originally, it was a set of display cabinets, filled with interesting things from around the world.

The Loreto Sisters were keen on sending interesting artefacts to each other all over the globe, as it was a way for them to stay connected despite being oceans apart. The Loreto Sisters in Ballarat used these items as teaching aids to assist with classes like geography and natural sciences. The Loreto Order was progressive for its time, but they were still a part of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, which means that the precedence of colonisation was already a part of their society.

The Original Story

The historical story of the Indigenous collection was thought to be sound in terms of provenance, until very recently. The wonderful Province Archivist, Robin, had been sleuthing away quietly the last few years. Originally, it was thought that the artefacts were given as a gift to the Sisters during Mother Gonzaga Barry’s Jubilee in 1903. Mother Francis Tobin (Mother Gonzaga Barry, Her Life and Letters, 1923) wrote that the

‘Aborigines from the Lake Condah mission came and gave a display of throwing boomerangs, spears etc. and dancing’. She wrote that ‘valuable specimens of boomerang, nullah and spear were presented to Mother General’. M. Francis Tobin noted that the Mother General also took photos of the dancers with her own camera. These photos, however, have never been found.

While not having photos from 1903 might make sense, the Sisters were quite studious with their photograph collections, as it was an expensive undertaking and the Sisters kept record of a lot of their photos. The point where even now, we know who is in most photographs, when it was taken and where it was up until photography became more common in the 1950s.

M. Francis Tobin’s account of M.

Gonzaga Barry’s Jubilee was written 20 years after the event happened, and M. Gonzaga Barry had passed away back in 1915, eight years prior. The account of this event can only be taken at face value, given the gap in time.

Worth noting is the fact that M. Francis Tobin’s account of the artefacts given doesn’t necessarily line up with the items in the collection. While there are a number of boomerangs, the account only describes one. There are no spears or nullah nullahs in the collection either. With nearly a dozen objects in the collection, the numbers don’t add up.

Mother Michael Corcoran was the Superior General of IBVM at the time. M. Michael Corcoran travelled through Australia and India between 1902 and 1908. She took numerous photos and was quite the letter writer. A letter from M. Michael Corcoran, dated to the day before the Jubilee, said that she hoped to be ‘visited by two Aborigines on the following day’. The Generalate Archives holds glass plates of M. Michael Corcoran’s photographs but there are none of the Indigenous people or the artefacts from the Jubilee celebration which means we cannot visually verify where the artefacts have come from.

The other point to note is that even if a few of the items are from this event and were a gift, there are multiple other artefacts that have been accumulated since or even before 1903 that are unaccounted for.

Given the gaps in provenance, Robin and myself have sought to have the artefacts identified. Gunditjmara representatives have noted that a few items may be from Portland, although they could not identify them. The team at Museum Victoria Discovery Centre have suggested that the coolamon may be from Central or Western Australia.

Moving Forward

So now we are putting the future research of these items into the hands of our wonderful Dhurrung students. They came for a critical thinking session over the future of the Indigenous collection and the possible outcomes of what cultural identification of the artefacts might produce. They have had some amazing ideas and are working on networking with other groups to see what can be done. With some guidance from the Archives Centre, the students are now taking the lead on moving forward and are heading the efforts to get the collection accurately identified.