Lester Hiatt

Dr Lester Richard Hiatt (1931–2008), aka "Les Hiatt", was a scholar of Australian Aboriginal societies who promoted Australian Aboriginal studies within both the academic world and within the wider public for almost 50 years. He is now regarded as having been one of Australia's foremost anthropologists

Primary ethnographic research

The part of Australia where Dr Hiatt did most of his primary, detailed ethnographic fieldwork is in, and around, Maningrida, in the Northern Territory's Arnhem Land.

From the late 1950s (at which time the Australian Aboriginal community of Maningrida was first being formed and gazetted as a township), Dr Les Hiatt spent more than 45 years, of and on, researching, learning and recording the views, language, songs, stories, understandings, and practices of the Burarra or Gidjingarli language speakers.

It was here at Maningrida that Les developed some of his deepest, most persevering research relationships, producing at least one film and a book in memory of Frank Gurrmanamana, one of the 'informants' with whom he worked most closely.

Institutional reforms and change

Institutional assistance and support for 'Aboriginalist' scholarship (studies into Australian Aboriginal societies) has improved from that time when Dr Hiatt first started his own studies, and he has since been attributed with playing an important role assisting and supporting this reform (particularly during the Whitlam and Fraser governments, with the early establishment of the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies

Contributions to Australian anthropology

In addition to Dr Hiatt's detailed ethnographic records and works, there is a substantial body of written works inquiring into, questioning and sometimes challenging some of the more conventionally 'received' anthropological knowledges held by academia and the general public about Australian Aboriginal peoples. Some of these works are identified and briefly annotated below.

Significantly, for instance, Dr Hiatt effectively challenged the previously conventional understanding that patrilineal descent is the primary social organisational principle across all Aboriginal Australians (a 'knowledge' inherited from the work of British social anthropologist, Professor Alfred Radcliffe-Brown)

In 1982 the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland (RAI) awarded its annual ethnographic film prize to a film ('Waiting for Harry') recorded at Maningrida, within which Dr Hiatt played a key role both in its filming and as an 'actor' within the film

Annotated sample of works

• HIATT, L.R (1985) "Aboriginal land ownership'". Current affairs bulletin. Volume 62. Number 3. Pages 17– 23.

Examines methods of determining traditional ownership of land, with reference to Gidjingarli people; discusses applicability of Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act 1976 as a model for State Governments.

• HIATT, L.R & JONES, Rhys (1988) "Aboriginal conceptions of the workings of nature" in R.W. Home (Ed) Australian science in the making. Cambridge University Press. cambridge, England. Pages 1 – 21.

Deals with Aboriginal conceptions of the workings of nature, includingarchaeological evidence; discussing plants, animals, totemism, magic, magical use of songs; Manikay songs, Gidjingarli, Aranda, Arnhem Land.

• HIATT, L.R (1996) Arguments about Aborigines: Australia and the evolution of social anthropology. Cambridge University Press. Cambridge, United Kingdom.

"Gives a history of Aboriginal anthropology examined through debates about aspects of traditional culture; cultural and political background to the development of anthropology; models of Aboriginal land ownership – definition of clan and horde; effects of land claims and native title recognition; kinship and marriage systems – problem of group marriage; definition of the family; marriage relations; the place of women – bestowal; role of womens ritual – love magic; sexuality and gender; theories of social evolution and control; political organisation – autonomy and hierarchy; high gods (Baiame, Wonjina, Rainbow Serpent) – totemism and cosmology; conception beliefs; incest taboo – mother-in-law avoidance and sister antagonism; interpretation of ritual (the Kulama of the Tiwi); initiation"

• GURRMANAMANA, Frank, HIATT L.R, McKENZIE, Kim (2002) People of the Rivermouth: The Joborr texts of Frank Gurrmanamana Aboriginal Studies Press. Canberra.

"..arguably the most comprehensive work ever produced on a single Australian Aboriginal group. It is the result of a four-decade long relationship between the Anbarra people of the Blyth River in northern Arnhem Land and leading scholars from various fields of research.

The book and CD-ROM are based on twenty extraordinary texts created by Frank Gurrmanamana in 1960 to explain to anthropologist Les Hiatt the protocols and etiquette of Anbarra society. They follow an imagined life from birth through boyhood, to marriage and death."

Further reading

• HIATT, L.R. (2001) "It seemed an interesting career to follow" in Geoffry Gray (Ed) Before it's too late: anthropological reflections, 1950–1970. Oceania Monograph 51, University of Sydney. Pages 108–116.

• CROWN CONTENT (2005) Who's Who in Australia. Cown Content. Melbourne: see L.R. Hiatt's entry.

External links

• Interview with Les Hiatt, 14 July 2005, from Alan Macfarlane's video archive Accessed 29 February 2008
• Sydney Morning Herald ObituaryAccessed 29 February 2008
• Royal Anthropological Institute Annotation of the film 'Waiting for Harry' within which Les Hiatt played a significant partAccessed 1 March 2008