The following database intends to survey all the collective fights among Australian Aborigines that were reported in the litterature. The sources may be professional ethnographies, as well as newspapers articles or personal memories. The events cover whatever form of fight, from a feud to a pitched battle or a raid, given that it opposed two collectivies in Australia (Torres Strait islands and Tasmania excluded).

Whenever possible, the database records the presumed date and location of the fight, number of people involved, the number of casualties (dead and injured), the type and the alleged motivation of the confrontation. Each item is sourced, and the corresponding extract is included.

In addition of being listed in the table view of the database, all the events are located on the interactive map. Main characteristics are summerized in the synthesis, with one table showing the repartition according to the type and confrontation and its lethality, and another one according to the causes of conflicts.

Currently, the database includes 219 events. Everyone may submit others by sending me an email.

Christophe DARMANGEAT
Lecturer in Economics and Social anthropology
Université de Paris

Publications using these data:

• Justice and Warfare in Aboriginal Australia, Lexington Books (nov. 2020). See the presentation and reviews
• “Vanished wars of Australia: the archaeological invisibility of aboriginal collective conflicts”. Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory, vol. 26, issue 4, december 2019, p. 1556-1590 [get the article].
• “Forms and principles of Aboriginal justice” (forthcoming paper).
• “Indigenous Australian laws of war: Makarrata, milwerangel and junkarti”, Ray Kerkhove, Samuel White, International Review of the Red Cross, 2021 [get the article]

Website credits: Justine LO & Lucas VERRIERE

Background image: “Native Fight on the Lower Goulburn River in 1842”, Caroline Le Souef, 1895, Museum Victoria