The release of new research showing a tree in Western Australia, thought to have been used as a holding cell for Indigenous prisoners, may never have been used for that purpose, has reignited a debate over so-called “dark tourism”.
The story around the boab tree, south of the town of Derby in northern WA, came about in the 1940s, and may have originated from a mix-up with another boab tree in a nearby town.
University of Adelaide’s Dr Elizabeth Grant says she believes the narrative was allowed to continue to attract tourists to the site, as part of so-called “dark tourism”.
“The interesting thing is this tree - when you look at it from dark tourism - where I see it laying is at a part of colonial conquest, and that’s really how they’re selling it,” she told SBS News.
In an upcoming book co-authored by Dr Grant, she examines dark tourism’s appeal.
“It’s basically when people go to sinister places," she said.
"There’s a history of this - people like to go to jails, and they like to go to places of massacres.”
Sites including concentration camps, Pearl Harbour and Ground Zero are all considered dark tourism attractions.
Professor Jacqueline Wilson, from Federation University in Ballarat, says Australian history is inextricably linked with jails.
The so-called "prison tree", a boab tree near Derby, Western Australia (Dr Elizabeth Grant) Source: Dr Elizabeth Grant
“In Australia, our biggest drawcards are our historical prison sites: think Port Arthur in Tasmania, Hyde Park Barracks in Sydney, Western Australia’s Fremantle convict site, and the Old Melbourne Gaol in Melbourne – thousands and thousands of visitors every year,” she said.
And she doesn’t think it’s necessarily a bad thing.
“In many ways it’s a counter-narrative to the normal narratives that we have around history, which is always the sort of nation-state or the protagonist who is the hero, and I think these sites remind us about the other side of humanity,” she said.
“We need to be reminded about prisons and sites of captivity, and nobody would argue that places like Auschwitz don’t have a role to play about reminding us about what has gone down in the past and how we might not try and ever do that again.”
Both researchers agree that there is often a lack of understanding of a site’s true significance, and the dark tourism aspect can eclipse historical events.
This can become even more complicated when the site has importance for Australia’s Indigenous peoples.
Dr Grant says Derby’s 1500-year-old boab tree is one of these places.
“I would wonder why - when people understand the sacred nature of this site, and that people’s bodily remains have been taken [there] - that they would start to have a better understanding of what boabs mean [to Indigenous people].
“I think the concept of country and the importance of these sites and how stories are embedded into them is very difficult for a non-Indigenous person to understand. And that a physical landmark can be as important as a person.”
Professor Wilson says there are many places that are suffering from an absence of respect or empathy for the events that happened there.
Watch: The Feed investigate dark tourism destinations
“I don’t think it’s appropriate, it doesn’t do justice to the stories of the people who were in there,” she said.
“It seems to me that the ‘turnstile agenda’ that drives the profit margin means that the people who are interpreting that site are pushing that dark tourist agenda, rather than having an inclusive approach that might tell us a lot more about what was going on in the place.
“We could do it so much better, but all we’ve got at the moment is ghost tours."
The story around Derby’s “prison tree” has not gone completely unchallenged.
Even its Wikipedia page mentions a lack of evidence for the tree ever holding prisoners.
Dr Grant said she wanted to change the common view of Indigenous people as subjugated.
“People who were lied to and have had their sacred site denied to them, and have taken it back – to me that’s a story of success and resilience,” she said.
“I want Aboriginal people to be seen as heroes, not as victims.”
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