WEIRD HISTORY COLLOQUIUM

What Is Weird History?

Weird history is as old as the writing of history itself. The father of history, Herodotus, recounts some very strange stories in his History, and although he is sceptical of some them, others are presented as if they were true.

The desire to believe in the fabulous and the fantastic and the downright weird appears to be inherent in human nature and finds expression both in some very strange forms of history and in a capacity to believe in conspiracy theories.

We live at a time when we are awash with history and archaeology in both books and on television. It is becoming increasingly difficult to discern what should be taken seriously and what should be thrown in the rubbish bin.

This colloquium explores some of the forms of weird history and archaeology that is now out there in the public domain. It considers the sorts of flaws and inconsistencies that pervade what we have called weird history. It asks how do we discern weird history from the real thing. And it considers what the role of the historian and archaeologist should be in dealing with weird history.

Did the Chinese visit England and America in the 15^th century? Did the Mongols really invade Russia? Were there secret visitors to Australia? These are the sorts of questions that this colloquium will explore.

Programme:

Abstracts:

Weird Times and Weird History - Greg Melleuish

We live in a time in which there is a marketplace of works of history both in terms of books and films and documentaries. It is often difficult to decide what is the real thing and what is rubbish.

Strange and weird stories are as old as the writing of history itself. People like to make up stories and these often end up alongside reputable historical accounts jostling for our attention. This seems to be part of a natural human tendency to elaborate on an original story and to spin out the details. A modern example of this elaboration is the way in which all sorts of mad stories and theories have developed about Jesus including the idea that Jesus Christ is code for a magic mushroom.

Weird history flourishes where evidence is limited and the scope for elaboration considerable. The real issue is, how should historians and archaeologists respond to this type of history. It is important that individuals should be able to exercise their judgement so that they can determine what is plausible and what is not, while being able to appreciate the romances of weird history for what they are, largely works of fiction.

1421: Voyages in a parallel universe - Philip Rivers

Gavin Menzies in touting his 1421: The Year China Discovered the World/America frequently boasts he sailed the world in the wake of Columbus, Cabral, Dias, Da Gama and Magellan. During his naval service he claims he collected invaluable experience enabling him, better than any written record, to trace the routes of Chinese fleets in his fantasised voyages of global discovery. Well, their Admiral Zheng He was the Ming Da Gama but the tracks drawn by Menzies were impossible of performance throughout and the fleets as such never went beyond the Indian Ocean.

It is proposed to follow in the wake of Menzies’ passages in his parallel world contrasting his assumptions with reality and commenting upon some distortions of his various source references that supposedly support his rather dubious conclusions. Monsoon seasons, ocean currents and navigational matters will also be touched upon as well as some bits from the compost heap of disjointed material that he labels as “evidence”.

The runaway blockbuster 1421 has undoubtedly aroused wide-spread interest in the almost ignored exploits of the legendary Zheng He, best known to some as Cheng Ho. But unfortunately this led to an uncritical acceptance of specious suppositions as being proven facts.

Did the Mongols invade Russsia? -Konstantin Sheiko & Stephen Brown

The rewriting of Russian history along nationalist lines has proceeded apace since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. While academic history languishes because of poor resources and the flight of academics to more lucrative work, ‘history’ in its broadest sense has become a growth industry as popular books seek to satisfy the desire for knowledge about previously taboo subjects in Russian History. One of the most successful of the new popular writers is Anatolii Fomenko, a leading mathematician in the Soviet era who claims that history was falsified at the behest of Western political interests with the aim of diminishing Russia’s place in world history. Among the astonishing claims of Fomenko is the assertion that the Mongol empire of the medieval period was in fact a Russian empire in which the term Mongol simply referred to groups of soldiers hired by Russian princes to fight their wars. Fomenko claims that Genghis Khan was most likely a Russian prince with blonde hair and blue eyes, that Cossacks and not Christopher Columbus first reached the American continent, and that many famous events of ancient history actually happened in the modern era. The magnitude of the claims made by Fomenko is exceeded only by the sales of his books. This paper will attempt to explain the Russian fascination with weird history by critically examining Fomenko’s claims about the Mongols in Russia. 

Two hundred years of secret visitors: The history of a pseudo-archaeological concept - Denis Gojak

The theme of secret visitors - claims for discovery and settlement of Australia by other nations predating Cook and the Dutch - has been around and strong since the late 18th century, despite it being constantly dismissed and ignored by the orthodoxy of archaeology and history. In this paper I provide an overview of how such claims have figured in discussions about the Australian past, how the mainstream has responded and how they have managed to remain a constant element in the popular understanding of Australian history. While we will skip from mahogany ships, to Gympie pyramids and Spanish graffiti in Sydney Harbour we will also look at some serious issues as part of the broader theme of pseudo-archaeology. Does this alternative view of Australia's past show that we are failing as archaeologists and historians to educate about the past? If some of these claims were legitimate what would be the evidence and standards of proof required to create an acceptable case? How do you argue the case with secret visitor claimants? What is the role of an archaeologist in establishing and maintaining an orthodox view of the past, as against encouraging a plurality of views? When can we tell that someone is pushing the boundaries of knowledge and when have they overstepped the mark?

‘None dare call it conspiracy – revisited.’ - Glenn Mitchell

Conspiracy theorists could have us believe that officers of the HMAS Melbourne, the ship that collided with and sank two destroyers, the HMAS Voyager in 1964 and the USS Frank E.Evans in 1969, were distant relatives of Ned Kelly, knew of the plot by Chinese submariners to kidnap Harold Holt and had bank accounts with the Nugan Hand bank. Moreover, some officers went on to work with the CIA in a little-known group to overthrow the Whitlam government. Yes Ned Kelly is linked through Harold Holt to the demise of Whitlam!

This paper examines the role of conspiracy theories in explaining significant aspects of Australian history. The paper has three sections. The first part identifies the extent of conspiracy explanations in Australia and the second part discusses the evidence on which these explanations are based. The final part takes the dismissal of the Whitlam government and uses the article by Humphrey McQueen, None dare call it conspiracy’, (Politics 1976) as lens to interrogate the conspiracy theories surrounding this event.

Walking to China: Convict Escape mythology in Colonial Australia - David Levell

‘Weird History’ in Australia is almost as old as European settlement. From 1791 until about 1830, many convicts rejected their overlords’ version of the geography of the continent serving as their gaol. Instead they developed their own ‘Weird History’ of Australia, a conspiracy theory that other regions were hospitable and cultivated, that Australia was much smaller than officially claimed and that other colonies or civilisations existed short distances overland from Sydney. The first Irish convicts tried walking to China; in later years both Irish and English escapees sought Timor and New Guinea in the bush. The most disruptive belief of all was that a society of white people supposed to live across the Blue Mountains. 

These tales were often corroborated, perhaps even originated, by Aborigines and they inspired many escapes, breaking down the bush-as-prison-wall concept that the colony relied on - Governors Hunter and King both mounted expeditions aimed at disproving the existence of the mythical 'white colony'. Convict myths of escape thus prompted the most wide-ranging early explorations. They were also closely related to officialdom's myth of the inland sea - explorer Matthew Flinders also postulated the existence of inland non-Aboriginal civilisations - and seem to be the first folklore of post-1788 Australia, predating other European-Aboriginal hybrid beliefs such as the bunyip. They afford an insight into the convict imagination and show how imagination helped shape Australia's early development.

Last reviewed: 15 January, 2008