9. AWASH IN A TIDE OF HISTORY: “RESPONSIBILITY” FOR CULTURAL VIOLENCE – A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF NULYRIMMA

What is this tide of history that washes over the continent of Australia after 1788 destroying in its wake much of the indigenous people’s relationship with land and waters? Now only remnants, fragments of a former aboriginal inscription of law/lore remain evident in the Australian physical and metaphoric landscape.¹ In Law, the “tide of history” has been extended from its original voicing in Mabo v. Queensland [No. 2] (1992) to become a justificatory strategy for the limitation of responsibility and a concurrent apologia that simultaneously acknowledges a previous aboriginal connection with land but denies its current legitimacy.²