Strangers

on the Shore
Early coastal contacts in Australia
Edited by Peter Veth, Peter Sutton and Margo Neale

NATIONAL MUSEUM OF AUSTRALIA

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 Contents
List of illustrations iv
Message from the Director, National Museum of Australia vii
Australia on the Map: 1606–2006, and Strangers on the Shore
This book is copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study, research, criticism or Vice Admiral Chris Ritchie AO viii
review as permitted under the Copyright Act 1968 and subsequent amendments, no part of this publication
may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, Strangers on the Shore Organising Committee Rupert Gerritsen x
mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without prior written permission. Enquiries are to be
made to the National Museum of Australia. 1 Introduction and themes Peter Sutton and Peter Veth 1
© in this volume National Museum of Australia Press 2008 2 Strangers and servants of the company: The United East India Company
© in each chapter remains with its author and the Dutch voyages to Australia Colin Sheehan 6
Every attempt has been made to contact artists and copyright holders for permission to reproduce 3 Stories about feeling: Dutch–Australian contact in Cape York Peninsula,
their work in this book. Enquiries should be directed to the Copyright and Reproductions section 1606–1756 Peter Sutton 35
of the National Museum of Australia.
4 ‘Strange strangers’: First contact between Europeans and Karajarri people
First published 2008 by
National Museum of Australia Press
on the Kimberley coast of Western Australia Fiona Skyring and Sarah Yu,
GPO Box 1901 with the Karajarri native title holders 60
Canberra ACT 2601
Phone +61 2 6208 5340 5 ‘Out-of-country’: Too many Cooks spoilt the broth Margo Neale 76
Fax +61 2 6208 5148
6 Rock art and cross-cultural interaction in Sydney:
www.nma.gov.au
How did each side perceive the other? Jo McDonald 94
National Library of Australia cataloguing-in-publication data
7 French strangers on Tasmanian shores John Mulvaney 113
Strangers on the shore : early coastal contacts in Australia 8 European–Indigenous contact at shore-based whaling sites Mark Staniforth 124
editors, Peter Veth; Peter Sutton; Margo Neale
Canberra: National Museum of Australia Press, 2008 9 Harvesting the memory: Open beaches in Makassar and Arnhem Land
ISBN: 9781876944636
Campbell Macknight 133
Subjects: 10 The mark of marvellous ideas: Groote Eylandt rock art and the
First contact of aboriginal peoples with Westerners – Australia
Aboriginal Australians – First contact with Europeans performance of cross-cultural relations Anne Clarke and Ursula Frederick 148
Aboriginal Australians – History
Aboriginal Australians – Social conditions – History
11 Pre-Macassans at Dholtji?: Exploring one of north-east Arnhem Land’s
Cultural relations great conundrums Ian S McIntosh 165
Intercultural communication
Acculturation – Australia. 12 Looking for the residents of Terra Australis: The importance of Nyungar
in early European coastal exploration Len Collard and Dave Palmer 181
303.482
13 The encounter between Captain Cook and Indigenous people at Botany Bay
Publisher’s editors: Raylee Singh, Julie Simpkin
in 1770 reconsidered Maria Nugent 198
Design and typesetting: Po Sung
Print: Nexus Print Solutions 14 The conciliation of strangers James Warden 208
Cover image: detail of Bennalong Time, 2002, by Adam Hill. Casula Powerhouse and Liverpool Regional Museum 15 The Australian Contact Shipwrecks Program Michael McCarthy 227

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 iv S trangers on the shore
List of illustrations
Figure 1.1 Map: A century of exploration 1788–1888
Figure 2.1 World map, by Petrus Plancius
Figure 2.2 Map of Indian Ocean, by Johannes Janssonius
Figure 2.3 Portrait of Abel Tasman, His Wife and Daughter, by Jacob Gerritsz Cuyp
Figure 2.4 Chart of Malay Archipelago, and north and west coast of Australia, by Isaac de Graaf
Figure 2.5 Map of New Holland and South Land, by Melchisedech Thévenot
Figure 2.6 Chart of Terra Australis, by Matthew Flinders
Figure 3.1 Part of the journey of the Duyfken, 1606
Figure 3.2 Newly arrived visitors, near Edward River, Cape York Peninsula, 1932
Figure 3.3 A member of the host camp sitting with newly arrived visitors, near Edward River,
Cape York Peninsula, 1932
Figure 4.1 Traditional Karajarri stone fish trap near La Grange Bay
Figure 4.2 Karajarri Native Title Determination areas
Figure 4.3 Injitana Spring — pajalpi (spring) country
Figure 4.4 Edna Hopiga Wapijawa introducing her grandchildren to the pulany
Figure 4.5 Etching of the discovery of the bodies of Panter, Harding and Goldwyer,
La Grange Bay, 1864
Figure 4.6 Ration depot at La Grange Bay, about 1918
Figure 4.7 ‘Lay-up’ camp, Broome
Figure 4.8 ‘Aborigines – Corroborrie regalia’, Anna Plains, south of La Grange Bay, about 1928
Figure 5.1 Too Many Captain Cooks, 1987, by Paddy Fordham Wainbarranga
Figure 5.2 Lhooq Ere!, 2001, by Dianne Jones
Figure 5.3 Portrait of Paddy Fordham Wainburranga
Figure 5.4 T-shirt from Strangers on the Shore conference
Figure 5.5a Draughtsman Making a Perspective Drawing of a Woman, 1525, by Albrecht Dürer
Figure 5.5b ‘What Dürer saw; an approximation’, instructional drawing by Betty Edwards
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v
Figure 5.6a Illustration of the dualism of mind and body, by René Descartes
Figure 5.6b The Cartesian grid: a system for recording space, after Descartes
Figure 5.7 Triptych (detail: Requiem), 1989, by Gordon Bennett
Figure 5.8a Terra Nullius, 1989, by Gordon Bennett
Figure 5.8b Detail of Terra Nullius, 1989, by Gordon Bennett
Figure 5.9 Captain Cook Taking Possession of the Australian Continent on Behalf of the British Crown,
AD 1770, under the Name of New South Wales, 1865, by Samuel Calvert
Figure 5.10 Possession Island, 1991, by Gordon Bennett
Figure 5.11 Bennalong Time, 2002, by Adam Hill
Figure 5.12 Arrival of Captain Cook (in the Titanic), 1998 by Kylie Kemarre
Figure 6.1 The arrival of the Europeans
Figure 6.2 Aborigines attacking a sailor ‘gathering herbs’
Figure 6.3 Distribution of all recorded art sites with contact motifs
Figure 6.4 Example of an engraved ship from south of Hawkesbury River near Maroota
Figure 6.5 Tracings of two engraved ships from around Hawkesbury River
Figure 6.6 Tracing of engraved ship with masts, sails and possibly portholes
Figure 6.7 Drawing of an engraving, interpreted as depicting rabbits, at Staples Lookout
Figure 6.8 Tracings of bull drawings in Bull Cave
Figure 6.9 Traced examples of engravings with European clothing. Devil’s Rock, Maroota
Figure 7.1 The French meeting with the Tasmanians, February 1793
Figure 7.2 Tasmanians preparing a meal from the sea
Figure 8.1 Archaeological excavation at Cape Jervis
Figure 8.2 Site of Point Collinson whaling station during archaeological survey in 1997
Figure 8.3 Black glass bottle fragment showing evidence of having been worked
by Indigenous people
Figure 9.1 Trepangers from Makassar visiting Sinclair and Robinson’s camp in March 1875
Figure 9.2 A scene from the opera Trepang, performed in South Sulawesi in November 1997
Figure 9.3 Makassar dancers at the Garma Festival, 2005
Figure 10.1 Rock art painting, Ayuwawa, Groote Eylandt
Figure 10.2 Map of Groote Eylandt
Figure 10.3 Watercolour by William Westall of rock art from Chasm Island, 1801–03
Figure 10.4 Norman Tindale’s tracings of rock art images from Ayuwawa
Figure 10.5 Fred McCarthy and Kumbiala using McCarthy’s grid system to record rock art
in Arnhem Land
Figure 11.1 Map of north-east Arnhem Land
Figure 11.2 Drawing of David Burrumarra MBE, by Julia Blackburn
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 v ii

Message from the Director

National Museum of Australia
The National Museum of Australia prides itself on its commitment to high-quality and
innovative research and scholarship. Being a public collecting institution the National Museum
has a responsibility to make scholarly research accessible in a diverse range of ways: through
exhibitions, conferences, publications and collection documentation.
As a new museum of the twenty first century we have taken a broader view of the museum’s
role and practice and its place in the public and academic domains. We have developed a
reputation as a forum for debate on issues of critical contemporary relevance, such as the need
to explore new frontiers in the contact histories of this country. We recognise the need to be
inclusive of voices and views not previously heard in traditional Australian history-telling, and
to draw on new knowledge across disciplines in an effort to develop a deeper understanding of
Australian history and its complexities.
We are particularly pleased to publish Strangers on the Shore: Early Coastal Contacts in
Australia as it provides new perspectives on old materials and clearly attempts to include the
hitherto marginalised Indigenous and female voices in dialogue with the non-Indigenous male
voices that traditionally dominated this area of contact history. As a result, this publication
presents a highly textured terrain with new understandings and new challenges for future
scholars.
Importantly, for the Museum and in the context of the recent debates on Australian
history, this publication acknowledges that Australian history did not start in 1788 nor did
Aboriginal history end in 1788.
I congratulate all those involved in the production of this excellent publication.

Craddock Morton
Director
National Museum of Australia

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 v iii S trangers on the shore
Australia on the Map: 1606–2006,
and Strangers on the Shore
In 2006 Australia commemorated 400 years of documented European contact. That contact
began with the charting of the western coast of the Cape York Peninsula by the Dutchman
Willem Janszoon in the Duyfken in 1606. By the time of James Cook’s east coast discoveries
in 1770, at least another 36 contacts had been made by Europeans, many of them resulting in
significant charting of the northern, western and southern coastlines.
Prior to 2006 much of this history was probably unknown to many Australians. Certainly
it did not feature in the popular conception of the European origins of Australia nor was there
any consideration given to the impact these contacts had on the original inhabitants of the
country, those who were the original discoverers and settlers of Australia.
The first of these shortcomings was addressed by the formation of Australia on the Map:
1606–2006 (AOTM). In 2002 a few like-minded amateur historians came together and
created AOTM in order to ensure that proper recognition would be given in 2006 to the
400th anniversary of Janszoon’s voyage and to those who came after him. AOTM gained the
support of federal, state and local governments, as well as many communities, enlisted an
array of sponsors and stimulated the interest of professional historical bodies and museums.
A program of commemorative events was created in every state and territory and the Duyfken
replica ship was engaged to conduct a voyage to Australian ports throughout 2006, which
would serve as a visible means of telling the story of early maritime exploration.
AOTM’s main aim was to enhance Australia’s understanding of its early history, and the
success of the events in 2006, including the large numbers of people who became involved in
one way or another, suggest that this aim was achieved. Indeed, the momentum established
has been such that AOTM, originally intended as an organisation of limited life, has now
become a division of the Australasia Hydrographic Society, from where it intends to continue
its role in educating Australians about their maritime heritage.
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ix
The second issue pre-2006 was that of the impact of European contact. Recognising that
Australia’s history did not begin with the Europeans, AOTM sought to relate the significance
of the first contacts between visiting mariners and the Indigenous population. A symbolic
means of achieving this was through the presentation of message sticks to representatives
of the Indigenous communities in every one of the 23 ports visited by the Duyfken replica
in 2006. The messages asked for permission to pass through country and did much to gain
acceptance for the commemorations.
Another avenue was the conduct of Strangers on the Shore: A Conference on Early Coastal
Contacts with Australia held in Canberra on 30–31 March 2006, the first significant event in
the calendar after the official launch of AOTM on 29 March. The proceedings of this landmark
conference, focusing on the interactions between the foreign visitors and the local populations,
are recorded in the following pages. On reading them, I hope you can agree that Strangers
on the Shore has given visibility and relevance to another little-known facet of Australian
history.
All concerned with AOTM: 1606–2006 are immensely and rightly proud of what they
have achieved collectively in ensuring the success of the 2006 commemorations and in raising
awareness of our rich and diverse history. This publication forms a permanent record of a
significant aspect of that achievement and those who contributed to it deserve great credit.
Chris Ritchie AO
Vice Admiral RANR
Chair
National Commemoration Council
Australia on the Map: 1606–2006
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 x S trangers on the shore
Strangers on the Shore
Organising Committee
Australians generally have quite limited awareness or understanding of their early history, be
it European or Indigenous. However, a true appreciation of that history requires more than a
recitation of dates, an acquaintance with landmark events and knowledge of an assortment of
post-colonial developments. It also requires a realisation that history is composed of different
narratives, as well as some comprehension of the nature of those narratives. How each of those
narratives is constructed is strongly influenced by culture, while the content is dependent on
the historical experience of the various participants. Consequently different groups of people
may have quite contrasting ways of recalling and recounting historical episodes, and have
radically different perspectives and interpretations of the events constituting the narrative.
‘Strangers on the Shore: A Conference on Early Coastal Contacts with Australia’ was a
conference that attempted to embrace that concept at a fundamental level. In terms of specific
content the conference focused on the period when non-Indigenous peoples from lands across
the seas first began to visit the place we now know as Australia, when Indigenous and non-
Indigenous people met for the first time, and began to communicate and interact in many
distinctive ways.
The genesis of the conference lay in the historical landmark which occurred in 2006, the
400th anniversary of the first recorded visit by outsiders to Australia, this being the voyage
of the Dutch ship the Duyfken which reached Australian shores in March 1606. In December
2002 an organisation, Australia on the Map: 1606–2006, was formed to commemorate that
landmark. The National Steering Committee (NSC) of Australia on the Map: 1606–2006,
following consultations and deliberations, formed the view that the commemorations
must explicitly and publicly acknowledge the prior discovery and occupancy of Australia by
its Indigenous population. In addition, one of the aims adopted by the NSC was to use the
commemorations to promote reconciliation.
A number of initiatives were considered as a means of providing an appropriate
acknowledgement in the course of 2006 of prior Indigenous discovery and occupancy of
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xi
Australia. One of the initiatives given a high priority was a conference embracing that in some
form. Following consultation with and encouragement from John Mulvaney, an initial proposal
for such a conference was submitted for consideration to Peter Veth, at that time Director
of Research with the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies
(AIATSIS). Further discussions ensued before the final configuration for the conference was
settled upon and ‘Strangers on the Shore’ was born.
Subsequently AIATSIS, the Centre for Cross-Cultural Research at the Australian National
University, the National Museum of Australia and the Royal Netherlands Embassy agreed
to support the conference. All these bodies, along with Australia on the Map: 1606–2006,
provided substantial financial or in-kind contributions to the conference. A Steering Committee
was then established, comprising representatives from AIATSIS, the Centre for Cross-Cultural
Research, the National Museum and Australia on the Map.
The Steering Committee met regularly for over 18 months before all was in readiness. The
conference itself was then held at the National Museum on 30–31 March 2006.
In the course of the conference keynote speakers, such as Marcia Langton and John
Mulvaney, explored the distinctive narratives arising from contact and interaction between
the Yolngu and the Macassans in the Northern Territory, and Tasmanians and the French in
Tasmania. The dynamic relationship between the Macassans and the Yolngu, its implications,
its remembrance and its relevance to modern mapping of cultural landscapes also featured in
a number of papers, by Howard Morphy, Ian McIntosh and Campbell Macknight. Approaches
by Len Collard and Mike McCarthy on early interaction between the Nyungar and other west
coast groups and European maritime visitors provided a stimulating contrast. Len Collard and
Dave Palmer’s paper explored imaginary narratives on what Nyungar thought of these strange
intruders, while Mike McCarthy outlined the database of recorded contacts. Indigenous
adaptation to the new colonial order through involvement in such activities as the pearl-shell
trade and whaling was another important theme to emerge in papers by Sarah Yu and Fiona
Skyring, and Mark Staniforth.
Overall, the conference explored new fields of enquiry and approaches in a truly
multidisciplinary style, much to the satisfaction of the participants and speakers. Given the
diverse range of papers presented there was the risk the conference would be piecemeal and
fragmented. However, an effective level of integration was achieved by grouping papers into
themes. Perhaps more importantly, a certain ‘chemistry’ occurred in the course of the conference.
This is an elusive, intangible quality often missing in such undertakings. Its occurrence made
the whole greater than the parts and this contributed greatly to the success of the conference.
In conclusion I would like to express my gratitude to the Australian Institute of Aboriginal
and Torres Strait Islander Studies, the Centre for Cross-Cultural Research, the National
Museum of Australia and the Royal Netherlands Embassy for their far-sighted support. I would
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 x ii S trangers on the shore 1

also like to thank Peter Veth, Steve Kinnane, Rodney Harrison, Robert Cribb, Denis Shephard,
Daina Harvey and Amanda Zervos who assiduously served on the Steering Committee. Peter
Veth deserves special mention for his commitment to the project, the lead he gave in arranging
the program of speakers and undertaking the lead editing of this volume. Finally, I would
commend National Museum of Australia Press for agreeing to publish this groundbreaking
work.

Rupert Gerritsen
Chair
1. Introduction and themes
Strangers on the Shore Conference Planning Group Peter Sutton
University of Adelaide and University College London

Peter Veth
The Australian National University

Europeans were not the first strangers to visit the shores of what is now Australia, but they
were the first to leave a record and a chart of where they did so. These were Dutch-speaking
sailors and traders who sailed to Cape York Peninsula under Willem Janszoon in 1606 from
their base at Batavia, now known as Jakarta in modern Indonesia. This is the date that acted as
a catalyst for the conference Strangers on the Shore held at the National Museum of Australia
in Canberra in 2006, on the 400th anniversary of this important if ambivalent moment in
history. This book contains papers from that conference as well as some that have been written
specially.
The conference aimed to provide a series of reflections on the dynamics of first contact
between outsiders and First Australians. Our first objective was to include an Indigenous
storyline into the 400-year commemoration. It seemed equally important to disentangle
homogenised versions of first contact which either embraced glorified versions of European
discovery and conquering of a naïve land populated by acquiescent peoples or — as equally
fallacious — narratives of unrelenting resistance to intruders by armed denizens mustered on
beachheads. As the Berkeley-based anthropologist Kent Lightfoot (2005:234) recently noted
on the legacy of colonial encounters on the California frontiers:

California offers a tremendous opportunity for examining how native

entanglements with missionary and mercantile colonies produced a
diverse range of multicultural experiences that reverberate among Indian
populations to this day. [emphasis ours]

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 2 S trangers on the shore
Similarly the more likely contexts of first encounters, as revealed in the following papers,
are far more diverse, subtle, dynamic and volatile, involving the many positive and negative
elements of cross-cultural exchange — with nevertheless profound outcomes based on unequal
power relations.
Speakers at the conference addressed one or more of the following four themes:
Indigenous maps of landscape; Indigenous narratives of contact; contact as a two-way
process, and maritime societies in transition. The conference organisers aimed to seed a cross-
cultural comparative approach, as recently advocated by Lightfoot (2005:235) and Harrison
et al. (2005), whereby more holistic approaches (such as historical anthropology) draw on
ethnohistory, ethnography, Indigenous texts and narratives, and contact archaeologies. The
multidisciplinary nature of the following papers will become immediately evident.
For 150 years after 1606 the Dutch were the foremost navigators and cartographers of the
Australian shoreline, completing the mapping of most of the north, west and south coasts by
the end of their explorations in 1756 (Sheehan, this volume). From them we have most of the
earliest records of how the Australians reacted to foreign visitors. Like those who followed them
from Europe, the Dutch recorded Aboriginal people’s reactions to these hitherto unknown and
therefore unexplained beings. They recorded not only people’s actions but also their displays
of fear, friendliness, aggression, joy, curiosity, generosity, avidity and apparent indifference, on
different occasions (Sutton, this volume).
Aboriginal people’s own cultural transmissions about these encounters were in the form of
oral accounts or rock art, forms in which the cultural priorities of the original Australians were
often at the fore, not normally subjugated to tests against documentary evidence (Hercus &
Sutton 1986; Skyring & Yu, Neale, McDonald, this volume).
On the whole, it can be concluded at this point in time that the dominant Australian
reaction to European strangers on their shores was at first one in which Aboriginal people
thought the visitors were their own deceased relatives coming back to see them, perhaps also
to disturb and frighten them as spirits normally do. Both welcoming and fearful reactions
could be expected if Indigenous peoples had a returned-ghost perception of the newcomers.
Only later did the Australians usually come to the conclusion that these apparitions were
fleshly beings like themselves.
This is consistent with the numerous records of early-contact reactions that are anything
but those of landowners making a hostile response to would-be usurpers. Many times the
visitors were met with dancing and singing, and laughter, as well as with spears.
But the ghost factor is not the only reason why early-contact responses by Australians were
so varied, so lacking in any obvious uniformity. People living far from any regular contact with
other cultures showed reactions that were less hostile and more welcoming, for example. The
Top End of the Northern Territory and the tip of Cape York Peninsula were the exception, in
StrangersontheShoreTEXT08.indd 2-3
i n t roduc t ion a n d t heme s 3
that they had had centuries of external contact, with peoples of the Indonesian archipelago
and Torres Strait, respectively. But even in the same place and time, reactions could vary
profoundly. This may have been simply a reflection of the high variability of personalities
and attitudes among the Australians. Nothing about traditional Aboriginal cultural life, and
its fierce commitment to personal autonomy and its wide latitude for the expression of felt
emotions, would lead one to the view that a commonly held, agreed response to a new kind of
encounter was to be expected. There was no line to toe.
There were lines of a sort in the sand, however, from the more territorially oriented and
bounded societies of the more fertile lands of Arnhem Land, Cape York, south-west and south-
east Australia through to those societies inhabiting huge tracts of arid country where the
deserts meet the sea along the western and southern coastlines of Australia (cf. Keen 2004).
In these contrasting settings there were different kinds of economies and settlement patterns
in place, with the mobility of residential groups varying over space. The likelihood of larger
groups encountering strangers on their shore would have been vastly greater for more highly
populated coastal areas (such as the Kimberley) than for the southern cliffs of the Nullarbor
Plain. The spectre of a uniform response from the peoples of this vast and environmentally
diverse continent is plainly fanciful.
European visitors other than the Dutch, most notably the English and the French
(Mulvaney, this volume), left similar and, on occasion, richer records than the Dutch, as the
eighteenth century ended and the nineteenth began. The British Empire added Port Jackson
to its expanding colonial settlements in 1788 but European expansion was slow. The remoter
beaches and inlets were contacted not only by officials of the empire but also, and often first,
by small-scale entrepreneurs. A small army of unofficial, at times dirt-poor raggle-taggle
frontiersmen, these were the sandalwooders, pearlers, trochus shell and bêche-de-mer getters
of the north, and the whalers and sealers of the south (Staniforth, this volume). Many of these
industries were seasonal, temporary and dangerous. They were also, for many Australians, the
context of their first taste of European, Makassarese, Japanese, Malay, Torres Strait and other
cultures (Macknight, Clarke & Frederick, McIntosh, this volume). It was also usually their first
contact with firearms and their possibilities, and with woven clothes, alcohol, tobacco, opium,
tea, unleavened bread and sugar. Many of their first contacts were with tough, at times rough
and abusive, wild colonial boys. The empire’s men pushing out into increasingly remote coastal
areas were hardly a representative sample of colonial society, and yet they belonged to it if
only by default, and it provided them the infrastructural framework within which they made
their money.
Aboriginal people cannot be accurately portrayed only as passive, helpless victims in these
historical circumstances, in spite of their great losses. The stories and documents are too
numerously against that condescending, if piteous, interpretation. Not all sought engagement
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 4 S trangers on the shore
with the strangers, but many did. Many engaged the outsiders in acts of repulsion and rejection.
Many others hugged and took dance steps with them, or gave them food (Clendinnen 2003).
The Australians, and, it has to be said, the explorers and colonials, acted as human beings,
as people of their time and place, not as timeless ideological cardboard cut-outs (Collard &
Palmer, this volume).
Nonetheless, failures of communication were the norm rather than the exception (Nugent,
this volume). To Europeans the absence of agriculture, metals, clothes or settled villages in
Australia could not be understood as much other than a state of nature. The arrival of civil
society in this imagined wilderness was officially meant to be kept company by a policy of
conciliation towards the ‘Indians’, but the divide between the two cosmologies and sociologies
that met at Port Jackson was to be found tragically unbridgeable as time wore on (Warden,
this volume).
Children’s history books in Australian schools in the 1950s and 1960s usually showed the
expansion of colonisation or of ‘exploration’ as a series of ever greater blobs creeping across
the Australian landscape, as explorers, squatters, adventurers and surveyors claimed new
geographical knowledge, or new geography, on their own or their colony’s behalf (Figure 1.1).
Figure 1.1. A century of exploration 1788–1888 (from Lines 1992:23, fig. 2.1)
StrangersontheShoreTEXT08.indd 4-5
i n t roduc t ion a n d t heme s 5
These maps show land-based exploration, but sea-borne contact was usually historically well
ahead of the growing overland reach of pastoralists, farmers and miners. The histories of these
often poorly recorded coastal encounters are not widely known beyond those of the Sydney
area. The entrepreneurs who spearheaded them seldom left much in the way of documents.
For example, Fred Gray’s role in the Groote Eylandt and Arnhem Land areas is well known but
that of Hughie Giblet in Cape York Peninsula, who played a significant role in early historical
times there, is not. Equally, Charles Broadhurst’s role as the quintessential Western Australian
entrepreneur from the 1840s onwards had to be deduced from historic records, oral interviews
and the analysis of wreck sites (McCarthy 2000, and this volume). Broadhurst’s actions see
the start (and failure) of nearly every conceivable coastal initiative from pearling, steamship
transport, guano extraction and sardine cannery to the Camden Harbour and Denison Plains
pastoral fiascos. Broadhurst began by copying Aboriginal dry shellers in the Nickol Bay area
of the north-west Pilbara, and then enticed Aboriginal prisoners from Rottnest Prison to
‘volunteer’ for hard-hat pearl-shell diving in the same area — the Flying Foam Passage —
where the local Yubuarra had been all but exterminated during a massacre only several years
before (McCarthy 2000). There are many further entangled histories to be told from these
coastal frontiers.
We hope this volume will stimulate further research on these and other aspects of
Australia’s coastal past, and particularly the dynamics that characterised the relations between
Australians and the strangers who landed on their shores.
References
Clendinnen, I 2003, Dancing with Strangers, Text
Publishing, Melbourne.
Harrison, R, Veth, P & McDonald, J (eds) 2005, ‘Native
title and archaeology’, Australian Aboriginal Studies
2005/1, AIATSIS, Canberra.
Hercus, L & Sutton, P (eds) 1986, This is What Happened:
Historical Narratives by Aborigines, Australian Institute
of Aboriginal Studies, Canberra.
Keen, I 2004, Aboriginal Economy and Society: Australia at
the Threshold of Colonisation, Oxford University Press,
Melbourne.
Lightfoot, KG 2005, Indians, Missionaries, and Merchants:
The Legacy of Colonial Encounters on the California
Frontiers, University of California Press, Berkeley.
Lines, JD 1992, Australia on Paper: The History of Australian
Mapping, Fortune Publications, Melbourne.
McCarthy, M 2000, Iron and Steamship Archaeology: Success
and Failure on the SS Xantho, The Plenum Series in
Underwater Archaeology, Kluwer Academic/Plenum
Publishers, New York.
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 6 S trangers on the shore
2. Strangers and servants of the company
The United East India Company and the Dutch voyages to Australia
Colin Sheehan
Department of Natural Resources and Water, Queensland
Introduction
Between 1606 and 1756 the Dutch explored, mapped and named parts of the Australian coast.
Willem Janszoon (about 1570–1630) and the other Dutch navigators who followed him to
Australia were servants (dienaren) of the Dutch United East India Company, their vessels were
part of the company’s fleet and their voyages were undertaken on the company’s instructions
to further the company’s interests (Gaastra 2002a:19).
The United East India Company (Verenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie, or VOC) was the
largest and most impressive of the early modern European trading companies operating in
Asia, surpassing its nearest rival, the (English) East India Company, and became one of the
most important factors in the globalisation of the trade of this period (Gaastra 1997:109).
‘Between 1602 and 1795 the Company sent almost a million people to work in the Asia trade
on 4,785 ships and netted for their efforts more than 2.5 million tons of Asian trade goods’
(Gaastra 2005a).
The Australian voyages were a small element in the remarkable history of the VOC and those
interested in the first European contacts with Australia and in the history and development
of Australia’s northern neighbours should take an interest in this company. The land masses
now known as Australia, New Guinea and New Zealand fell within the company’s trade zone
(octrooigebied), defined in the founding charter as extending from the Cape of Good Hope to the
Straits of Magellan (Gaastra 1997:110; Jacobs 1991:12). Over time, the company’s actual trade
zone became focused on the area between the Cape of Good Hope and Japan. Although New
Guinea and Australia lay at the periphery of the Indonesian1 archipelago (Gaastra 2002a:53),
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s t r a nger s a n d serva nt s of t he compa n y 7
the Dutch still considered that Australia and New Guinea fell within their sphere of influence2;
for example, the expedition proposed in 1622 for Jan Vos in the Haring and Hazewind and
then undertaken by Jan Carstenszoon in 1623 could be considered a response to the voyage of
the English ship Triall, and the expeditions of Maartin van Delft and Jacob Weyland in 1705
as a response to the voyages of William Dampier (1651–1715) in 1688 and 1697–1701 (Haga
1884:1:33–40, 159–89; Grote atlas, p. 382).
The Dutch contacts with Australia should be understood in the context of the company’s
priorities in its commercial expansion and consolidation in Asia and its economic position in
the Netherlands. The voyages, according to Jan Heeres (1899:xv), were undertaken ‘for the
enlargement, increase and improvement of the Dutch East India Company’s standing and
commerce in the East’. To provide some of this historical context, I begin this chapter with a
more detailed historical review of the Dutch state which gave rise to the company, and then of
the VOC in Europe and in Asia, than might be expected in a discussion of the Dutch voyages to
Australia. The relationship between the VOC — and after 1816, the Netherlands Indies — and
several of the states in the Indonesian archipelago with New Guinea is much more complex
and is beyond the scope of this chapter (Bone 1964; Haga 1884).
The Dutch Republic (1581–1795)
The VOC was established in 1602, a time of great change in the Netherlands (Israel 1995:vi).
The small Dutch state known as the United Provinces of the Netherlands was fighting for its
independence against Spain and was establishing itself as a major political and economic power
in Europe. The company reflected this society and the state, as Jonathan Israel (1989:71) states:
The VOC was a unique politico-commercial institution, and one that could
be imitated nowhere else in the world, because the United Provinces
were the world’s only federal republic in which a collectivity of town
governments, committed to the advancement of trade, industry and
navigation also wielded great military and naval power.
The rise of the Dutch State
The United Provinces had its origins in ‘complex congeries’ of towns, feudal states and
bishoprics that occupied a geographical area known in Dutch as Nederlanden and in English
as the Low Countries. Until 1425 the Low Countries in effect formed two separate political
entities with little linkage between areas to the north of the great rivers (e.g. the Maas [Meuse]
and the Waal) where the County of Holland sought hegemony and areas to the south where
there were two main power centres: the counties of Flanders and Brabant (Israel 1995:21).
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 8 S trangers on the shore
This situation ended when Philip the Good (1419–61), Duke of Burgundy, became Count of
Holland, Zeeland and Frisia in 1432. This personal union of states by the Dukes of Burgundy
resulted in areas to the north of the great rivers being united into a large European state for
the first time since the Carolingian Empire in the ninth century (Israel 1995:21). It was during
the Burgundian period that state institutions were established; for example, in the 1430s
the States-General was founded as a gathering of representatives from the various provincial
states of the Burgundian Netherlands. This body continued through subsequent periods of
Dutch history to the present where the bicameral legislature of the Netherlands is known as
the States-General. The Dukes of Burgundy had resided in Brussels and were represented in
the other provinces by a stadhouder. The Habsburgs would continue this office and during the
Republic the stadhouder became the most important functionary in the provinces.
The Dutch revolt (1568–1648) and the foundation of the Dutch Republic
The last heir of the Burgundian lands, Mary of Valois (1457–82), married Maximilian I
(1493–1519), the Holy Roman Emperor, in 1477, and at her death in 1482 the Burgundian
Netherlands passed to the Habsburgs. The Transaction of Augsburg, promulgated in 1548
by the Imperial Diet and the Pragmatic Sanction of 1579, determined that the 17 Habsburg
provinces would remain a separate entity within the empire and that the sovereignty over
the Habsburg Netherlands would pass to the emperor’s heirs (Israel 1995:64; Prak 2002:14).3
The provinces were divided by language and from 1519 they would increasingly be divided
by religion as Protestantism attracted support among the lower classes, the lesser nobility
and town leaders (Israel 1995:79). The Emperor Charles V (1520–55) abdicated in 1555
and the Habsburg lands were partitioned, with the 17 provinces passing to his son, Philip II
(1554–98), who became King of Spain and the Americas (Israel 1995:135). The Low Countries
were the only part of Philip’s domains where Protestantism was a serious threat and the king
was determined to stamp out the new religion. Tensions and grievances flared into open
revolt in 1568 and the 80-year war that followed further divided the 17 provinces, leading to
‘the breakup into northern and southern Netherlands of the Circle of Burgundy, which had
fulfilled both their greatness and their century-old struggle against the ambitions of France’
(Quaghebeur 2002:115). The seven Dutch-speaking and predominantly Protestant northern
provinces formed the United Provinces of the Netherlands4, and the 10 Dutch- and French-
speaking and largely Catholic southern provinces were reconquered by the Habsburgs between
1579 and 1583 (Israel 1995:205–20). The southern provinces were known, until 1713, as the
Spanish Netherlands5 and from 1713 to 1794 as the Austrian Netherlands.
Protestantism should not be underestimated as a factor in the prosecution of the war
against Spain and Portugal in Europe, Asia and the Americas, in the rise of the Dutch state,
and its commercial success in Europe and Asia (Prak 2002:221–42). The religious persecution
StrangersontheShoreTEXT08.indd 8-9
s t r a nger s a n d serva nt s of t he compa n y 9
(e.g. the Duke of Alva’s ‘Council of Blood’ established in 1597 and the Inquisition), unjust taxation
by the Spanish Crown (such as the ‘tax of the one hundredth, twentieth, and tenth penny’
introduced by Alva to pay for military operations in the Netherlands) and the behaviour of the
Spanish troops in the Low Countries (e.g. the Spanish Fury in Antwerp in 1576) strengthened
Dutch resolve to resist the Spanish king (Schutte 2002:15). The German sociologist Max Weber,
in his 1904–05 essay Die protestantische Ethik und der ‘Geist’ des Kapitalismus (The Protestant
Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism), argued that certain types of Protestantism — notably
Calvinism — were favourable to rational pursuit of economic gain, and that worldly activities
had been given positive spiritual and moral meaning. The Reformation view that all the spheres
of life were sacred when dedicated to God and His purposes of nurturing and furthering life
profoundly affected the view of work (Bendix 1977:60–1). The religious view that commerce
was a profession worthy in the eyes of God accorded well with the commercial expansion in
the Netherlands through the VOC and the Dutch West India Company.6 The Dutch Reformed
Church followed the VOC and ministered to the company’s servants, conducted educational
and charitable organisations, and undertook missionary work in Asia, especially among those
converted to Catholicism by the Spanish and Portuguese (Schutte 2002:15).
The United Provinces was not a unitary but a federated7 state. Dutch ‘allegiance and identity
were based on provincial, civic and sometimes local rural sentiment rather than the Republic
as a whole. In this respect, the loose federal structure which evolved was well suited to the
disposition, and attitude, of its population’ (Israel 1995:vi). The Union of Utrecht, concluded
between the northern provinces in 1579–80, provided for an alliance of sovereign regions,
each of which was governed by its Provincial States. The chief organ of the United Provinces
was the States-General. This body, after 1579, presented a united front to the outside world,
but was in reality ‘an assembly of delegates from the seven provincial States closely bound
by the instructions they had received from their respective provinces’ (Boxer 1973a:12), and
relationships between the provinces were not always harmonious.
Although known as the Dutch Republic, the United Provinces was a compromise between
a republic and a monarchy (Boxer 1973a:11). The most important functionary in the seven
provinces was the stadhouder, a position that came to be held by members of the House of
Orange-Nassau. During the republic’s history a practical arrangement was never worked out
between the power of the states (with the estates of Holland predominant) and the stadhouder,
and conflicts led to constant strife (Enthoven 2002b:36).
The Dutch entry into the Asian spice trade in 1595 and the foundation of the VOC in
1602 made reconciliation with Spain difficult. At the conclusion of the Thirty Years War in
1648, Spain, considerably weakened in Europe, had no great reason for maintaining a colonial
war with the Dutch. The Treaty of Münster brought peace with Spain and recognition of the
republic’s independence (Prak 2002:51–3). In 1580 the Crowns of Portugal and Spain were
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 10 S trangers on the shore
united after the death of the Cardinal-King Henrique I (1512–80), the last king of Portugal’s
Aviz dynasty (Boxer 1973b:109). Because of the revolt against Spain, the Dutch were also at
war with Portugal. For Portugal this proved disastrous as ‘it was on the Portuguese rather than
the Spanish colonial possessions that their [Dutch] heaviest and most persistent attacks were
concentrated’ (Boxer 1973b:108). Although Portugal regained its independence from Spain in
1640, Dutch commercial interests lay principally with Portugal’s Asian and Brazilian colonies,
so the Dutch continued their war with Portugal until 1663 when the Dutch captured the
Portuguese settlements on the Malabar coast of India (Boxer 1973b:111; van Goor 1998:195).
From the outbreak of the war with Spain, the Dutch sought the support of their powerful
neighbours — England and France — but both were guarded in supporting the Dutch (Prak
2002:26–32). By 1648 the Dutch had become a major European power. Trade and control of the
sea lanes determined relations with England. Their commercial rivalry in Asia led to a growing
list of grievances and resulted in four Anglo–Dutch Wars (1652–64, 1665–67, 1672–74 and
1780–84). The republic also fought several wars with France to contain the ambitions of Louis
XIV (1654–1715) in the Spanish Netherlands (1667–68, 1672–78, 1688–97, 1701–14).
The decline and end of the Dutch Republic
By 1674 the United Provinces were in difficult times. The republic’s finances were exhausted
and the Dutch state was no longer considered one of the great powers of Europe. Its geographic
position meant that the wars between England and France affected fundamentally Dutch
foreign and domestic policies. The republic tried to follow a policy of peace and abstention
from participation in European complications (Enthoven 2002a). The Netherlands remained
neutral during the Seven Years War (1756–63) and the American War of Independence
(1775–83) (Israel 1995:1096–7; Teitler 2002). Dutch sympathy for the Americans and British
interference with neutral shipping brought about the Fourth Anglo–Dutch War (1780–84) that
was disastrous for the Dutch Republic and the VOC. The republic was swept away by a French
revolutionary army in 1795 and replaced by the Batavian Republic (Israel 1995:1120–1). In
1815 the Congress of Vienna united the former republic and the Austrian Netherlands in
the Kingdom of the Netherlands as an ‘attempt to recreate between France and Germany a
space roughly equivalent to that which had been occupied by the patrimonial Estates of the
seventh Duke of Burgundy [Charles V]’ (Quaghebeur 2002:116). The son of the republic’s
last stadhouder Willem V (1751–95) became King Willem I (1815–43) of the Netherlands.
Following the Belgian Revolution of 1830, King Willem I recognised the Belgian state in the
Treaty of London of 1839. In 1816 the Dutch returned to Java and in 1817 to the outlying
parts of the Indonesian archipelago, and the Netherlands Indies (Nederlands-Indië) — the
‘second Dutch state in the Indies’ and the heir to the VOC — continued Dutch presence in
Indonesia until 1949 and in western New Guinea until 1962.
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s t r a nger s a n d serva nt s of t he compa n y 11
The United East India Company (1602–1800)
Jonathan Israel (1989:1, 3) notes that after Columbus’s voyage in 1492, western Europe’s
expansion:
was rapid, relentless, and on a vast scale ... Western Europeans forged a
world-trade network which linked all the major zones of the globe, often
via intermediary depots, with the great commercial and maritime emporia
of the west, channelling wealth, and resources from every quarter back to
the European heartland. Aside from some sparsely inhabited wastelands,
few parts of the globe remained even partially outside western Europe’s
Weltwirtschaft [world economy]
Europeans directly entered the Asian markets in 1498 when Vasco de Gama (1469–1524)
landed near Kozhikode (Calicut) in southern India after sailing from Lisbon, establishing a direct
sea route to Asia. His second voyage to India in 1502 might be taken conveniently as the beginning
of the Portuguese colonial empire and the development of an Asian trade that brought to the
Portuguese Crown substantial wealth and important commercial privileges. The Portuguese
were able to enjoy their claims to the monopoly of their ‘conquest, navigation and commerce’8 of
the Indian Ocean for a century prior to the arrival of the Dutch (Boxer 1973b:123).
The establishment of the VOC
The geographical position of the Low Countries was influential in the Dutch developing
extensive trading networks by land and sea since the Middle Ages (Israel 1989:14, 1995:16).
Their seaborne commerce had taken them north to England, Scandinavia and the Baltic, and
south to the Iberian Peninsula and the Mediterranean (Boxer 1973b:21–2; Israel 1989:18,
1995:16). In 1585 Phillip II excluded the Dutch from the Iberian Peninsula and thus access
to the products of the Spanish and Portuguese Indies. This embargo was not lifted until 1590
(Israel 1989:12–37, 1995:319). By 1594 the Dutch decided to enter the Asian trade themselves
(Gaastra 2002a:13) when nine merchants planned a commercial voyage to Asia. They sought
the advice of Jan Huyghen van Linschoten (1563–1611), a Dutch merchant who had travelled
to Goa (Parr 1964:xv, xxv–xxvii) and appointed an experienced navigator, Cornelis de Houtman
(1565–99), to command the expedition (Jacobs 1991:7). The venture was financed through a
company — the Compagnie van Verre (Israel 1995:319) — as ‘it was the usual method of
proceeding at that time for large hazardous undertakings’ (Jacobs 1991:10) and ‘the spice
trade with Asia was one of the riskiest and one of the longest trades in which Europeans
engaged’ (Musgrave 1981:11).
Houtman’s lengthy voyage met many disasters, but brought back a valuable cargo of pepper
and a treaty negotiated with the Sultan of Banten9 (Israel 1989:67; Stapel 1938:2:338). Between
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 12 S trangers on the shore s t r a nger s a n d serva nt s of t he compa n y 13

1595 and 1601 eight different trading companies were established in different cities in the
Netherlands and some 65 ships sailed in 15 fleets to Asia (Jacobs 1991:11). Under pressure
from the States of Holland, the Advocate of Holland Johan van Oldenbarnevelt (1547–1619)
and the States-General, the private companies combined into one united company — the
VOC (Israel 1989:68–9). The States-General established the company by charter on 20 March
1602 (Gaastra 2002a:21–3), ‘as only the States-General could confer on it the delegated,
sovereign, rights to maintain troops and garrisons, fit out warships, impose governors upon
Asian populations, and conduct diplomacy with eastern potentates as well as sign treaties and
make alliances’ (Israel 1995:322) to achieve its commercial goals (Henderson 1999:22–3). The
charter granted the company a monopoly for all Dutch trade and voyages to Asia in its vast
trade zone (Gaastra 1997:110; Jacobs 1991:12). Jurrien van Goor (1998:195) characterised
the VOC ‘as a “hybrid state”, in that it was a trading company that evolved into a “state-like”
organization’ — a situation that created significant pressures on the VOC and its resources.

The organisation of the VOC

The charter defined the company’s organisation. The six regional companies became divisions
or chambers (kamers) of the VOC. Directors of the old regional companies became the directors
of the chambers and were responsible for directing the trade of their own districts (Glamann
1981:3, 5; Jacobs 1991:18). The charter provided for a general directorate of 60 chosen by
Figure 2.1. Orbis Terrarum Typus de Integro Multis in Locis Emendatus, 1599, by Petrus Plancius (1552–1622).
the local boards (Jacobs 1991:17). An executive committee — the collegium of 17 (the Heren National Library of Australia
XVII, or Zeventien) — was the real governing authority. Sixteen were chosen by the general
directorate to represent, on a proportional basis, the chambers. The seventeenth was appointed
However, the distance from the Netherlands was great and this link could be lost sight of when
in a manner to ensure Amsterdam did not dominate the affairs of the company rather than
it came to conducting war or drawing up treaties with Asian governments. Disputes between
provide the most adequate system to deal with Asian trade and shipping (Gaastra 1997:110).
the governing bodies in the Netherlands and the governor-general and council occurred over
In 1749 the stadhouder Willem IV was appointed as a senior director (opperbewindhebber), with
the exercise of authority in Asia. The governor-general was not all-powerful, but rather the first
the prerogative of chosing new directors. Neither Willem IV (1711–51) nor his son Willem V
officer ‘in council’ and was not permitted to make important decisions outside of the council.
(1748–1806) took any interest in the company’s administration and was represented at the
The VOC establishments differed in size, economic importance and political status. Their
meetings of the XVII by a representant [representative] (Gaastra 2002a:164; Gaastra 2005a).
administrative structure largely reflected the structure in Batavia, with local officials making
Up to 1609 the supreme command in Asia was held by the admiral of the outgoing fleet.
important decisions in council. Collegiate decision-making was also reflected in the command
‘After a few years it became apparent that this way of going about things did not have much to
structure on board VOC vessels.
recommend it and that the Portuguese example — a central authority in one fixed place — was
worthy of imitation’ (Gaastra 2005a). In 1609 the supreme authority was placed in the hands
The rise and decline of the VOC
of a governor-general assisted by a Council for the Indies (Raad van Indië), and the company’s
administrative and mercantile operations were directed from a central point — to 1619 from The VOC was established during the Golden Age (1590–1648) (Israel 1995:10) when the arts,
Ambon and then from Batavia (Stapel 1939:3:82–3). literature, science and technology flowered in the Netherlands. The VOC contributed to, and
The governor-general, councillors and senior officers in the overseas establishments were benefited from, the prosperity of the Dutch Republic (Gaastra 2005b). The VOC participated
appointed by the XVII and, in turn, they were responsible to this collegium (Boxer 1973a:96–7). in, and benefited from, the scientific and technological advancements in the Netherlands

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 14 S trangers on the shore
Figure 2.2. Johannes Janssonius, 1588–1664. Mar di India. In Hendrick Doncker, 1626–99, De zee-atlas ofte water-
waerld ... 1659. National Library of Australia MAP Ra 10. (Reproduced by permission of National Library of Australia)
during the seventeenth century (Gaastra 2005b:31–46). Shipbuilding was highly advanced
and the VOC dockyards were among the most efficient in Europe. Cartography was developed
to a high standard and astronomy, especially in its use in navigation, was important for the
safe and efficient passage of their fleet (Icke 2002). The Dutch mapped the coasts of Australia
that they encountered and with these printed maps European knowledge of the South Land
was taken from myth and imagination — as can be seen in Petrus Plancius’s world map that
appeared in editions of van Linschoten’s Itinerario in 1596 — to geographic reality, as shown
in the Johannes Janssonius map of Mar di India of 1650 (see Figures 2.1 and 2.2).
Contact with Asia exerted an important impact on Europe, for example in the sciences,
and European sciences would, in turn, impact on Asia (Boxer 1968; Zurndorfer 1988). Pieter
Baas (2002:124) stated that ‘the role of the United East India Company in the development
of western knowledge of the plant world of the areas under its sphere of influence cannot be
overestimated’. To this knowledge may be added, by the end of the seventeenth century, data
StrangersontheShoreTEXT08.indd 14-15
s t r a nger s a n d serva nt s of t he compa n y 15
concerning some of Australia’s wildlife from reports of Dutch navigators and in particular by
the expedition of Willem de Vlamingh (1640–about 1698).
Willem Janszoon sailed from the Netherlands some 18 months after the company’s
foundation in 1602 and Janszoon’s career (1603–28) coincided with the establishment of VOC
power. In 1605 — the year the Duyfken departed on the voyage that brought it in contact with
the South Land — the company achieved its first conquests when it captured the ‘spice islands’
of Ternate, Tidore and Ambon from the Portuguese and Spanish (Israel 1995:322). These
conquests enabled the VOC, by 1670, to establish its desired monopoly over the Moluccan
spice trade (Gaastra 1997:110–11). The company reached its zenith of power, wealth and
influence by the 1680s when some 80 to 90 VOC ships serviced the trading network between
Iran and Japan, and the company boasted some 11,500 employees. Around 1700:
the VOC had developed into a formidable power comparable to many
European middle powers. With sixty-six big ships in Asia and 9,000
troops on its payroll, it surpassed the navies of Sweden and Denmark
and the armies of many European states in numbers. The combination
of sea power, a standing army, which could easily be moved thanks to the
availability of big ships, and substantial financial resources, all directed
from one central headquarters, made the VOC a formidable power in
Asian waters. (van Goor 1998:216)
The majority of Dutch voyages to Australia occurred during these favourable times for the
company. When Jean Gonzal and Lavienne van Asschens entered the Gulf of Carpentaria
in 1756, the VOC had lost its driving momentum, returns on investments had declined
(Gaastra 1997:114) and the company had lost ground in several operational areas to the
East India Company (EIC). The VOC had established primacy in the spice trade by 1670, but
outside of Indonesian waters the Dutch ‘could not establish a monopoly of seaborne trade
in any region nor did they seriously attempt to do so, after the failure of [Governor-General
Jan Pieterszoon] Coen’s policy of “frightfulness” against Chinese junks trading with Spanish
Manila’ (Boxer 1973a:196). New products (e.g. coffee, tea, sugar, rice, opium, silk, printed
and coloured cotton cloth from India, and porcelain) rose in commercial importance (Boxer
1973a:200–1; Israel 1989:325–6). The VOC was unable to exercise a monopoly over these
commodities in Asia or in Europe and would be overtaken by its rivals, particularly the
EIC. The financial consequences for the company were significant, as the Asian business
made low returns (Gaastra 2002b:81–93; Steur 1984). By 1780, the VOC was ‘driven into the
hands of the State’ to keep it afloat. In 1796 the directors resigned and the Batavian Republic
handed management to a government committee, and the charter was not renewed after
31 December 1800.
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 16 S trangers on the shore s t r a nger s a n d serva nt s of t he compa n y 17

The VOC in Asia

The Portuguese and then the Dutch established themselves at the crossroads of the important
Asian trade routes, such as those from the Moluccas and the South China Sea to the Malacca
Strait, and from there on to the Indian subcontinent and the Middle East (Musgrave 1981:15;
van Goor 1998:195). The VOC founded its commercial and political power in Asia within long-
established trade networks and within changing political conditions in China, Japan, Iran,
India and the smaller states in the Indonesian and Malayan archipelagos. It was largely in
these archipelagos that it took on the function of a ‘quasi-state’ where:

the VOC state, though in many respects a loose construction, a seaborne

empire, acted as the superpower in the archipelago. When challenged
by any other power in the area, it would retaliate swiftly and come to
the defence of its allies, vassals and subjects. Its ability to wage war on
several fronts simultaneously was tested time and time again. (van Goor
1998:213)

The United Provinces ‘owed their origin to war and war had settled their boundaries, helped
create the social structure of their towns and gave them much of their impetus to commercial
expansion’ (Boxer 1973a:xx). The VOC found itself engaged in almost continuous warfare.
Willem Janszoon, for example, won promotion in the company not for his voyages to new
lands, but for his naval prowess against the Spanish and Portuguese (Sigmond & Zuiderbaan
1993:23–6). Antonio van Diemen (1593–1645), who sent Abel Tasman (1603–59) on his
two voyages to the South Land, broke the back of Portuguese sea power in south-east Asia
(Figure 2.3). His interests in finding a passage to the South Sea had a military motive as such a
shortened route would give the Dutch strategic advantage in being able to strike at the Spanish
possessions in South America, such as the expedition of Admiral Oliver van Noort. In Europe
the VOC contributed to the republic’s wars (Gaastra 2002a:37; Teitler 2002:59), and in Asia it
went to war with a number of regional powers: Kandy (1670–75), Banda (1621), Ambon (1618,
1625, 1636–37, 1641–46, 1650, 1658–61, 1680–81), Makassar (1667–69), Mataram (1628–29,
1677–81) and Banten (1619, 1633–39, 1656–59, 1680–83) (Knaap 2004; Talens 2004). The
company was not as successful when it tested the larger states, such as China (Andrade 2004;
Blussé 2002), which were ‘by no means willing simply to acquiesce in Dutch trade supremacy’
(Israel 1989:186). Warfare consumed resources through naval and military actions, maintaining
a standing army and naval forces as mobile and effective fighting forces, constructing fortresses
and maintaining garrisons (Gaastra 2002b; Zandervliet 2002). Enthoven (2002b:42) estimated
that war cost the VOC 17 million guilders between 1603 and 1617 — a figure estimated to be in
the vicinity of €211.57 million (A$350.32 million) in ‘purchasing power’ in 2006.10
Figure 2.3. Portrait of Abel Tasman, His Wife and Daughter, about 1637, by Jacob Gerritsz Cuyp (1594 – about 1651).
National Library of Australia
Gaastra described the VOC as a ‘reluctant imperialist’ because it became, despite its
desires, involved in Asian internal political and dynastic matters (Gaastra 2002a:60–2),
arbitrating rival claims (van Goor 1998:199), settling traditional rivalries (Haga 1884:1:75–7)
or exploiting traditional rivalries (Knaap 2004; Sutherland 2004). Europeans assisted Asian
governments against their European rivals (Vermeulen 1963–64:151), and wars between the
European powers were fought with the support of Asian allies. The company adapted local
practices such as the hongi voyages in the southern Moluccas to maintain its interests (Boxer
1973a:99; Knaap 2002).
The VOC servants gathered and analysed commercial intelligence — for example, one reason
for the despatch of the last Dutch expedition to Australian waters in 1756 was to investigate
reports of Chinese merchants to Daniël van Burgh, head of the Dutch fort on Timor, about
the discovery of a rich supply of tortoiseshell to the south of the island of Roti (Sigmond &
Zuiderbaan 1993:133–4) — reported on political conditions and commercial opportunities,
and negotiated commercial agreements. They needed commercial skill and an ability to act in
a diplomatic manner (Boxer 1973a:233–5), such as the requirement to comply with formal
court ceremonial (Wills 2002), while knowing that they were generally despised (Blussé 2002;

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 18 S trangers on the shore s t r a nger s a n d serva nt s of t he compa n y 19

Boxer 1973a:234–8). Leaving aside the question of the fees, imposts of local governments and
bribes (Musgrave 1981:12), diplomatic missions to Asian rulers were expensive matters for
the VOC as they were elaborate undertakings often requiring absences from trading posts.
The VOC servant needed a capacity with languages to conduct business. Most experienced
employees in Asia learnt a smattering of Portuguese because Portuguese had become ‘the
lingua franca of most of the coastal region which they [the Portuguese] opened up to European
trade and enterprise on both sides of the globe’ (Boxer 1973b:127–9). They also acquired a
practical knowledge of Asian languages. The VOC used Asian languages in correspondence,
contracts and notices (Maier & Putten 2002). Malay (Maleis) was adopted as the language
used in its commercial and administrative dealings with the local rulers in linguistically diverse
parts of the Indonesian archipelago such as the Moluccas and by clergy of the Dutch Reformed
Church for propagating Christianity.
The VOC purchased goods with silver as few European trade goods were accepted by Asian
consumers in exchange for local manufactures and agricultural products (Israel 1989:121; van
Goor 1998:202), despite European goods such as woollen and linen materials from Haarlem or
Leiden, French and Spanish wines, beer, vermilion and quicksilver being introduced into Asian
markets (Jacobs 1991:52). Silver was shipped from the Netherlands under strict security on
the company’s ships (Gaastra 2002a:139–48), and later the company acquired a cheap supply
of silver in Japan (Gaastra 1992:11; Israel 1989:121).
Slavery and the slave trade were well-established in Asia prior to the arrival of the VOC, Figure 2.4. Uitslaande Kaart van den Maleischen Archipel, de Noord- en West-kusten van Australie, 1690–1714 [Folding
and the company extensively used slaves in its operations (Boxer 1973a:239–41). Demand for chart of the Malay Archipelago, the North- and West-coast of Australia], by Isaac de Graaff (1667–1743). In Heeres
1899. National Library of Australia
slaves increased with wars and the spread of epidemics. Slaves were employed in developing
and maintaining settlements, infrastructure, shipping operations, trading operations and as
his countrymen from 1606 visited, documented, mapped, and took possession of parts of the
personal servants (Roeper & van Gelder 2002:122). The Dutch followed the Portuguese use of
southern continent.
freed slaves as military recruits. By 1700 a group of freed slaves, known as Mardijkers, formed
Scholarly opinion remains divided as to which European or Asian power might claim
an important part of the VOC reserve forces (Raben 2002).
primacy in the ‘discovery’ by outsiders of Australia and diverse views can be found in the
literature.11 Suffice it to say that Dutch historians assert their primacy in the ‘discovery’ of
The VOC and Australia Australia, rejecting other claims as unproven (Heeres 1899:iii; Richardson 2006). Günther
Spices had provided the impetus for the Dutch expedition to Asia in 1595 and rumours of gold Schilder’s statement (1976:43) that Willem Janszoon’s voyage began ‘the Dutch discovery of
in New Guinea compelled the VOC to send Willem Janszoon on the voyage that brought him the fifth continent’ may be accepted as a commencement point for these discussions.
to the western coast of Cape York Peninsula in 1606. Between 1606 and 1756 the VOC played Of the 4875 VOC vessels engaged in the company’s Asian trade, a preliminary estimate
a primary role in the development of European knowledge of the South Land. indicates that fewer than 60 sailed into Australian waters between 1606 and 1756. Of these,
Exploration has been a major theme in Australian history. Historians such as Oskar Spate some 19 vessels were sent on eight expeditions of discovery to the South Land.12 The first
(1988:69–85), Kenneth McIntyre (1977) and George Collingridge (1895) have outlined the expedition was in 1605–06, and ‘the Dutch discoveries in Australia reached their climax
largely European documentation of Terra Australis from the postulations by the classical with Tasman’s two voyages in 1642–43 and 1644’ (Schilder 1976:139) where he mapped the
authors about the existence of a southern continent to the seventeenth century. While Jan northern, western and southern coasts of Australia and the southern coast of Tasmania before
van Linschoten recorded European knowledge of this presumed continent (Heeres 1899:1–3), sailing eastwards and reaching New Zealand and then Tonga.

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 20 S trangers on the shore
Figure 2.5. Hollandia Nova Detecta 1644 ; Terre Australe Decouuerte l’An 1644 [New Holland Discovered in 1644; South
Land Discovered in the Year 1644], 1663, by Melchisédech Thévenot (about 1620-92). National Library of Australia
The VOC organised the voyages to Australia when ‘the Company prospered and the
management in Amsterdam and Batavia felt confident about the future’ (Gaastra 1997:115),
when the voyages had the support of Governors-General Jan Pieterszoon Coen (1619–23,
1627–29), Hendrik Brouwer (1632–36) and Antonio van Diemen (1636–45). Why, asked
Gaastra (1997:109), was the ‘impact [of the Dutch voyages] … limited’; why did the VOC ‘not
use its resources for a more systematic and thorough exploration of the new land’; and, by
extension, why did it not establish a settlement on the Australian mainland? Rejecting the view
that ‘the Company was a trading organization, that had to earn profits for its investors’ (Gaastra
1997:114), Gaastra (1997:115) considered that ‘apparently, the directors of the Company were
no longer interested in these voyages of discovery that had given such disappointing results’.
Voyages between Europe and Asia became a communication system, where vessels
departed at fixed times and followed well-understood routes (Gaastra 2002a:111–19). Prior to
1617 the Dutch followed the earlier Portuguese routes along the African and Malagasy coasts
(Heeres 1899:xiii). In 1610–11 Hendrik Brouwer sailed south from the Cape of Good Hope
and then eastwards along the 38th latitude where the ships could catch the prevailing winds —
the roaring forties — providing a quicker passage to the Indonesian archipelago and avoiding
StrangersontheShoreTEXT08.indd 20-21
s t r a nger s a n d serva nt s of t he compa n y 21
pirates along the coastal route (Boxer 1973a:197–8; Heeres 1899:xiv; Musgrave 1981:12).
In 1617 the company issued a sailing instruction or sailing order (seynbrief or seylaesorder)
that VOC ships were to follow this route. This sailing order ‘directly related to the subsequent
contacts made by Dutch ships with the Australian coast’ (Schilder 1985:49–50; Sigmond &
Zuiderbaan 1993:31–5).13
It is estimated that about 32 actual or conjectured ‘subsequent contacts’ touched part of
the Western Australian coast and one arrived off the southern part of Western Australia and
then along some 1800 kilometres of the Great Australian Bight. The Dutch navigators never
charted the eastern coast of Australia nor found the straits separating Tasmania from the
Australian mainland and Australia from New Guinea (Figures 2.4 and 2.5). At least six of the
company’s fleet became wrecks on the Australian coast.
Dutch impressions of Australia
The general opinion that can be drawn from the navigators’ matter-of-fact journals is one of
disappointment. The navigators were unimpressed with, to them, an alien land, its resources
and people, and the company officials were disappointed with the lack of tangible results.
Manning Clark (1992:23) opined that ‘the whole story of the Dutch contribution was contained
in the scrappy accounts which have survived of the first of their seamen to sight the coast of
Australia [Willem Janszoon]’. The view that the South Land had ‘nothing of value for trade …
only a dry infertile coast without fresh water, inhabited by uncivilized people. No gold, only
sand’ (Sigmond & Zuiderbaan 1993:23) was echoed by later voyages to Cape York Peninsula,
the Gulf of Carpentaria and to the Western Australian coast (as can be seen from Mandrop
Tort’s comment that ‘one glass after sunrise our skipper left de Vlaming’s ship and five guns
were fired, and our ship fired three to farewell the miserable South land’). The most positive
of the Dutch views about Australia is to be found in Gerrit de Haan’s report of the last Dutch
voyage in 1756 (see Heeres 1899:92–100).
The instructions issued to the commanders of the voyages of exploration provide a useful
point for approaching the information about Australia in the Dutch historical record because
they:
give us a detailed insight into the object the undertaking was to try
and achieve in various places and also contains directions for activities
to be carried out during the different stages of the voyage. In addition,
the instructions tell us what papers and charts were issued; helping us
to determine what information the captain had at his disposal before
his departure about the several territories he was supposed to explore.
(Schilder 1985:73)14
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 22 S trangers on the shore
These official instructions changed with each voyage. They generally contained a recitation
of data from previous voyages before addressing the specific matters for investigation and the
command structure on the vessels.
Reporting of the voyages
The commanders were to keep detailed reports so that the ‘company [can] obtain due and
perfect knowledge of the situation and natural features of these regions, in return for the heavy
expenses to which she is put by this expedition’ (Heeres 1899:20). These records remained
company property and its servants were forbidden to retain copies. The extant journals provide,
for example, some of the first European information on Australian geography, demography,
flora and fauna that the Dutch encountered, including descriptions of:
• the dingo: Gerrit de Haan, 1756 (Heeres 1899:94)
• the black swan: Antonie Caen, 1630 (Pearson 2005:table 1(21); at the Swan
River: Willem de Vlamingh, 1696 (Schilder 1985:pl. 27)
• the tammar wallaby (Macropus eugenii derbianus) on the Abrolhos archipelago:
Pelsaert, 1629 (Heeres 1899:61); de Vlamingh, 1696 (Schilder 1985:60)
• turtles: de Vlamingh, 1696 (Schilder 1985:219)
• tracks of a large bird that they did not see, ‘as if they were cassowaries or
ostriches’: de Vlamingh, 1696 (Schilder 1985:60, 219)
• bark canoes: Gonzal and van Asschens, 1756 (Robert 1973:155–6, 163).
Taking possession of new lands
Navigators were to survey the coast in detail and to report on the country, its peoples and
natural resources (Heeres 1899:19). They were also instructed to follow up matters left
unresolved from previous expeditions; for example, a passage to the South Sea (Tasman
1964:112, 2006:42), and to determine if New Guinea was separated from the South Land
(Tasman 1964:110).
Commanders were to take possession of lands encountered:
to prevent any other European nation from reaping (perhaps) the fruits
of our labour and expenses in these discoveries, you are everywhere to
take possession, in the name and by the orders of the Dutch East India
Company, of the countries and islands you may arrive at not inhabited by
savages. (Tasman 1964:116, 2006:46)
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s t r a nger s a n d serva nt s of t he compa n y 23
Markers describing the arrival of VOC vessels were erected by Dirk Hartog (1616),
Carstenszoon (1623), Tasman (1642) and de Vlamingh (1696–97). Historian Bill Gammage
(1981:524) considered that Abel Tasman was ‘the first Dutchman actually to claim part
of Australia’:
On 3 December 1642 he lay off Cape Frederick Henry in southern
Tasmania, and sent ashore his carpenter bearing a pole with the East India
Company’s mark on it, and the flag of the prince of Holland, so that, as he
wrote ‘those who shall come after us may become aware that we have …
taken possession of the said land as our lawful property’.
Tasman gave his ‘said land’ no northern boundary and he left unclear precisely what he
took for the Netherlands and his claim could also be interpreted as confined to the coastline
he actually saw (Gammage 1981:524). James Cook (1728–79) knew of and was sensitive to
the Dutch discoveries. Cook’s act of possession was:
not a claim to the entire Australian east coast, which Europeans then
believed included Tasmania, but only to that part of it north of Point
Hicks, to that part which Cook actually saw. He sought the coast where
Tasman had left it in order to claim all that the Dutch had not claimed; in
the event he claimed only what he saw because his claim, like Tasman’s,
was by right of discovery. (Gammage 1981:525)
In 1788, the British ignored Tasman’s claim in the location of the southern boundary of
New South Wales (Gammage 1981:529).
Place names
The navigators were to name parts of the new country after ‘the United Provinces or the towns
situated therein or any other appellations that you may deem fitting and worthy’ (Heeres
1899:20). Parts of the Australian mainland were given names either to honour institutions in
the Netherlands (e.g. the Staten River for the States-General), the Governor-General (e.g. Coen
River, Van Diemen’s Land) or after VOC vessels (e.g. Eendrachtsland, Arnhem Land), officials
of the VOC (e.g. Pieter Nuytsland), or captains of VOC ships (e.g. Gerrit de Witt’s Land), while
others reflect the nature of the country, such as Carstenszoon’s River with bush (Revier met het
Bosch) (Wharton 2005:37–40) (see Figures 2.4 and 2.5).
The land encountered by the Dutch navigators was generally referred to as the South
Land (Zuidland). The English and Dutch names translate the Latin terra australis. The idea
of an unknown southern continent (Terra Australis Incognita) was postulated by Aristotle
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 24 S trangers on the shore
Figure 2.6. General Chart of Terra Australis or Australia: Showing the Parts Explored between 1798 and 1803, 1814,
by Matthew Flinders. In Flinders 1966:pl. 1. National Library of Australia
and developed by Ptolemy of Alexandria to balance the lands in the Northern Hemisphere
(Tasman 2006:8–9). The Latin adjective australis is perpetuated in the name ‘Australia’.
Although that name or variants of it can be found in European literature in the seventeenth
and eighteenth centuries — for example, the Australische Compagnie established in 1614 by
the Amsterdam merchant Isaac Lemaire (1558–1624) (Sigmond & Zuiderbaan 1993:27–9) —
Matthew Flinders (1774–1814) considered that when New Holland and the British Colony of
New South Wales ‘were known to form one land, there should be a general name applicable to
the whole’:
[I] ventured upon the re-adoption of the original Terra Australis; and of
this term I shall hereafter make use, when speaking of New Holland and
New South Wales, in a collective sense; and when using it in the most
extensive signification, the adjacent isles, including that of Van Diemen,
must be understood to be comprehended. (Flinders 1966[1814]:iii)
In 1824 the British Admiralty agreed that the continent should be known as Australia.
Some time after Tasman’s second voyage in 1644, those parts of the South Land known to
the Dutch later came to be called New Holland (Hollandia Nova, Nova Hollandia or Nieuw
StrangersontheShoreTEXT08.indd 24-25
s t r a nger s a n d serva nt s of t he compa n y 25
Holland), as shown on Isaac de Graaff’s manuscript map (see Figure 2.4) or Johannes
Vingboon’s manuscript map of 1650 (Tasman 2006:29). They did not determine the extent of
New Holland, even though some maps such as the anonymous map of the Compagnie Nieuw
Nederland of 1695 provided an artificial eastern coastline running from central Tasmania to
northern New Guinea (Tasman 2006:32). Geographical knowledge remained uncertain as to
whether there was still a Terra Australis further to the east, as can be seen on Melchisédech
Thévenot’s 1663 map of Hollandia Nova Detecta 1644: Terre Australe Decouverte l’An 1644 (New
Holland Discovered in 1644: South Land Discovered in the Year 1644) (see Figure 2.5).
In 1770 the eastern coast of the South Land was chartered by James Cook. When the British
established their penal settlement at Port Jackson on this coastline in 1788, maps showed the
British possession of New South Wales (with its western boundary at 135° east longitude) and
New Holland to the west (Figure 2.6). The western boundary of New South Wales was extended
to 129° east longitude in 1825, and in 1829 the western part of the continent was annexed
as Western Australia. When Captain Charles Fremantle read the proclamation taking formal
possession of the western part of New Holland on 2 May 1829. The entire mainland of Australia
and Tasmania had been brought under British sovereignty (McLelland 1971:672–3, 676).
British sovereignty over the Torres Strait Islands was not established until 1872 and 1879.
Contacts with Aboriginal people
The Dutch navigators found that the South Land was occupied by Aboriginal people (Heeres
1899:57) and their journals provide brief descriptions of the Aboriginal people’s food, body
painting, fire sticks, huts, canoes and weapons (Heeres 1899:94–7; Schilder 1985:211, 221),
and corroborees (Heeres 1899:94; Jack 1922:80). Willem de Vlamingh brought back to the
Netherlands a ‘leather bag put together with straw or dried rushes’ that he took from a hut
(Schilder 1985:218), and in 1756 Governor-General Jacob Mossel (1750–61) reported that
Gonzal and van Asschens had brought back ‘a little vessel of tree-bark of Carpentaria’ (Robert
1973:162–3).
Shore parties were to go armed. Gerrit Pool (1636), Abel Tasman (1644) and Maarten
van Delft (1705) were instructed to act with caution, but with kindness, to the people they
encountered and to ‘take due care that they suffer no molestation from our men’ (Heeres
1899:21). Commanders were instructed to be observant of the people they encountered and
their resources:
Close attention should be paid to the disposition of the people, their character,
condition and humours; to the religion they profess and to the manner of
government, their wars, their arms and weapons, the food they eat and the
clothes they wear and what they mainly subsist on. (Heeres 1899:66)
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 26 S trangers on the shore
Removals
The desire for intelligence prompted Governor-General Coen to go beyond reliance on the
observance and reporting of his officers and to include the following instruction:
In places where you meet with natives, you will either by adroit
management or by other means endeavour to get hold of a number of
full-grown persons, or better still, of boys and girls, to the end that the
latter may be brought up here and be turned to useful purpose in the said
quarters when occasion shall serve. (Heeres 1899:21)
Such a practice was not restricted to encounters with the South Land. In 1621 Bandanese
not killed in the Dutch military action were deported (Boxer 1973a:235–7; Stapel
1939:3:146–51). In 1622, in the campaign against the Fujian coast of China, ‘villages were
leveled, ships sunk and hundreds of inhabitants were kidnapped and shipped to the Pescadores
and from there transferred again to Batavia’. The Grand Coordinator of Fujian, Nan Jiuyi, gave
in a memorial of 23 September 1623 ‘the kidnapping of our merchants’ as one reason for
strengthening the Ming government’s resolve to drive the Dutch from the Pescadores Islands
(Blussé 2002:218).
Jan Carstenszoon, commander of the Arnhem and Pera, offered a reward to any of the
crew who secured an Aboriginal person (Heeres 1899:37) and describes how the seizure was
affected:
our men accordingly diverted their attention by showing them iron and
beads, and espying vantage, seized one of the blacks by a string which he
wore round his neck, and carried him off to the pinnace … as regards their
customs and policy and nature of the country, Your Worships will in time
be able to get information from the black man we have got hold of, to
whom I would beg leave to refer you. (Heeres 1899:40)
On 7 May 1623 Carstenszoon captured another Aboriginal man, but this time one of the
Aboriginal men was shot attempting to stop the removal of their kinsmen (Heeres 1899:40;
Loos 1974).
The bluntness of Jan Pieterszoon Coen’s 1622 wording was modified in 1636, 1644 and
1705 by requiring the crew to obtain consent of the Aboriginal people to accompany the
ship’s party (Heeres 1899:66). A reading of Gerrit de Haan’s report in 1756 showed that this
instruction was not followed (Heeres 1899:94–6).
Little is known of the fate of the Aboriginal people taken on board the Dutch vessels and
brought to Batavia. The Aboriginal men captured by Carstenszoon were taken to Ambon:
StrangersontheShoreTEXT08.indd 26-27
s t r a nger s a n d serva nt s of t he compa n y 27
When they, taken captive, had to leave their Country they have a look at
the Coast bravely as if to recognize it when returning which happened
for when the Steersman saw that he could not find anything of value and
would need certainly five Months for his voyage coming as far as the 17th
degree he turned and when they were again on this Coast where our men
caught one of the captives this one went to the rail sat down on it making
signs as if he wanted to unfasten the ropes and seeing his chance jumped
overboard and swam away: the Sailors seeing this knavery jumped into the
Boat rowing after him till they overtook him and threw him into the Boat.
On the Ship they bound him to the mast though he made signs that he
would not do it again: faith was lost. They were both put in Irons till our
men were on their way to Amboina where they were brought as curiosities
and could live on our food very well: one died being some time there the
other stayed alive until the aforesaid Steersman left. (Robert 1973:179;
line markings in original text omitted)
Governor-General Jacob Mossel referred in a letter of 31 December 1756 to the XVII that
the two Aboriginal men captured by Gonzal and van Asschens and brought to Batavia were
still alive and that one ‘is already speaking Malay’ and ‘that it is possible that in future some
information touching these lands will follow’ (Robert 1973:162–3).
Conflict
Apart from the removals, violence accompanied the contact between the Dutch and the
Indigenous people they encountered. Janszsoon and Carstenszoon lost men in New Guinea
and along Cape York Peninsula, with casualties on both sides (Heeres 1899:6, 24). Janszoon
came into conflict with the coastal Aboriginal people — thought by Henderson (1999:40–2)
to be in the vicinity of the Batavia River (after 1939 the Wenlock River) — where a member of
the crew was killed. Violence characterised Carstenszoon’s contacts in several places. He stated
that ‘in all places where we landed, we have treated the blacks … with especial kindness, but
that … the blacks received us as enemies everywhere’ (Heeres 1899:41). Given the ability of
Aboriginal people to communicate quickly over long distances, it could be argued that Dutch
attempts to kidnap their countrymen may have been widely known and equally interpreted by
the Indigenous people of western Cape York Peninsula as acts of treachery (Wharton 2005:41).
He attributed his inability to ascertain detailed information concerning the country and its
resources to the hostility of the Aboriginal people, noting that:
in our landings between 13° and 11° we have but two times seen black
men or savages, who received us much more hostilely than those more to
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 28 S trangers on the shore
southward; they are also acquainted with muskets, of which they would
seem to have experienced the fatal effect when in 1606 the men of the
Duyfken made a landing there. (Heeres 1899:43)
Establishment of settlements
Navigators were instructed to ascertain ‘whether it has any good harbours and fertile tracts’
and to discover ‘where it would be possible to establish settlements, which might be expected
to yield satisfactory returns’ (Heeres 1899:21). The journals referred to shallow waters
preventing ease of access for vessels and the presence of dangerous reefs and shoals (Heeres
1899:15, 19, 69).
Neither the navigators nor the company’s administrators and directors recommended
establishing settlements in Australia. In 1718 Jan Pieter Purry submitted a proposal to
Governor-General Christoffel van Swoll (1713–18) to explore and colonise ‘Landt van Pieter
Nuyt’ (on the southern coast of Australia) to forestall the British and French. Meeting no
success in Batavia, he returned to the Netherlands where he had two prospectuses published to
convince the directors, but the proposal was rejected (Migliazzo 2002; Schilder 1976:106–7).
They did, however, enunciate an important policy that reflected an attitude towards Australia
that ‘the Dutch had discovered the continent, but they had made no use of it, and never would
make use of it till either their trade declines in the East Indies, or till they are obliged to exert
themselves to exclude other nations’ (Gaastra 1997:114; Sigmond & Zuiderbaan 1993:133).
Concern over English intentions prompted the governor-general and the council on 20 January
1705 to despatch Jacob Weyland in the Geelvink, the Kraanvogel and the Nova Guinea to New
Guinea waters, and Maarten van Delft in the Vossenbosch, the Waaier and the Nieuw Holland to
northern Australian waters (Haga 1884:1:159–89).
Shipwrecked sailors
The fate of shipwrecked sailors motivated the company’s desire to know more about the South
Land. Officials learnt about shipwrecks when some of the crews travelled vast distances in
long boats to reach Batavia and raise the alarm. In sending expeditions to the South Land, the
company took into consideration the need to look for survivors. Crews of English and VOC
ships that foundered on the West Australian coast became the first European residents in
Australia.
In 1622, 45 crew of the Triall managed to sail two boats to Batavia, leaving 93 behind. The fate
of the Batavia and the return of Francisco Pelsaert on the Sardam have been described by Pelsaert
(1647), Roeper (1994), Drake-Brockman (2000) and Dash (2002). Pelsaert and the officers of
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s t r a nger s a n d serva nt s of t he compa n y 29
the Sardam convened the first European criminal court in Australia. In addition to trying and
executing the ringleaders of the Batavia mutiny, the court sentenced two mutineers — soldier
Wouter Loos and cabin boy Jan Pelgrom — to be ‘put ashore as scoundrels and death-deserving
delinquents, in order to know once, for certain what happens in this Land’ (Dash 2002:287).
Marooning recalcitrants or slaves on distant shores was a standard punishment at the time.
Nothing further was heard from Loos and Pelgrom after they were put ashore, thought to be
near the Murchison River on 16 November 1629 (Dash 2002:281–314). In 1636 Gerrit Pool
was instructed to look for these mutineers (Heeres 1899:66). Tasman and de Vlamingh were
also instructed to look for wrecked ships and their crews (Schilder 1985:165).
Conclusion
The smell of nutmeg, cloves, pepper and cinnamon has disappeared from the old VOC
warehouses. The legacy of the prosperity brought to the Netherlands in the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries by the company remains evident, more than the material remains, in
the buildings in the Netherlands and overseas or in museum exhibits. For researchers, its
greatest legacy, both cultural and material, is the comprehensiveness of the VOC archives held
in repositories throughout the world.
The company and the role it played in Australian history are not just events in a distant
time with little relevance to contemporary interpretations of Australia’s European past. While
the company’s officials expressed disappointment that their captains had not answered all the
questions posed to them in their instructions, the questions remained relevant to European
inquiries and would be taken up and answered in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries
by the British and the French, such as the mapping of the Australian continent by James Cook
(1770), Jean-François de Galaup Comte de La Pérouse (1785–88) and, above all, by Matthew
Flinders (1798–1803).
While the VOC did not create settlements in Australia, its establishments elsewhere
played a role in the early history of the British penal colony. The long voyage from England
to Port Jackson required the early fleets to reprovision, thus making Rio de Janeiro and the
Cape of Good Hope — a VOC establishment — important in the infancy of the Colony of
New South Wales. The Dutch settlements such as Timor were the goal of escaped convicts
and seamen wrecked or marooned in Australian or Pacific waters — Bounty’s launch (1789),
Pandora’s longboat (1791), Shah Hormuzeer’s and Chesterfield’s whaleboat (1793) — and offered
a welcome port of call for vessels carrying out maritime exploration in Australian waters:
Investigator (1803), Beagle (1839), Astrolabe and Zélée (1840), or the Fly (1843).
The search for precious metals — one motivating factor for the Duyfken’s voyage in
1605–06 was ‘for the discovery of the land called Nova Guinea which, as it is said, affordeth
great store of Gold’ (John Saris in Heeres 1899:4) — continued through the nineteenth and
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 30 S trangers on the shore
twentieth centuries and contributed significantly to the economic development of Australia.
It is ironic that gold was found by an Aboriginal man named Pluto in October 1910 on the
Batavia (now Wenlock) River, ‘7 miles N of Bairdsville 58 miles N of Coen’ (Batavia River Gold
Field 1911:307, 366–7). If James Henderson’s identification is correct, this is the same river
(albeit some 220 kilometres upstream; Wharton 2007, pers. comm.) where Aboriginal people
came into contact (and conflict) in 1606 with some of the Duyfken’s crew, who were the first
European strangers to arrive on the Australian shore.
Notes
1. ‘Indonesian’ is taken here, recognising Hendrick
Hoetink’s (1949:20) ‘anachronistic conceptualisation’,
as a convenient reference. The term includes
areas of the present Republic of Indonesia and
the historical states centred within the present
Indonesian Archipelago, including parts of western
New Guinea. These historical states include the early
Hindu kingdoms such as Srïvijaya (Cribb 2000:76)
or Majapahit (Cribb 2000:86–8), the Moluccan
sultanates of Tidore or Ternate (Cribb 2000:103)
and the European colonial administrations — the
Portuguese, Spanish, VOC, British and Netherlands
Indies (Cribb 2000).
2. The geographical extent of the official VOC trade
zone and the actual trade zone can be seen in two
maps found at http://www.tanap.net/content/voc/
tradezone/tradezone.htm. The Johannes Loots map in
1700 is reproduced in Tasman (2006:30–1).
3. A French version of the Pragmatic Sanction of 1549
can be found at http://dutchrevolt.leidenuniv.nl/
default.htm. The Seventeen Provinces at the time of
the Pragmatic Sanction incorporated the lands of the
present Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, a large
part of northern France (Artois and Nord) and a small
part of western Germany.
4. The provinces of the republic included the Duchy
of Gelre, the counties of Holland and Zeeland,
the former bishopric of Utrecht, the dependency
of Overijssel, and the free provinces of Friesland
and Groningen. There was an eighth province,
the dependency of Drenthe, but the area was so
impoverished that it was exempt from paying taxes
to the Union, but was denied representation in the
States-General.
StrangersontheShoreTEXT08.indd 30-31
5. The Spanish Netherlands at the time of the Oath of
Abjuration in 1581 included the counties of Flanders,
Artois, Hainault, Mechelen and Namur, the city
of Tournai, Cambrai, the duchies of Luxembourg,
Limburg and Brabant, and part of the duchy of
Guelders.
6. Dutch West India Company or Chartered West India
Company (Geoctroyeerde Westindische Compagnie
[GWC]) was established following the success of the
VOC. The GWC was granted a charter by the States-
General in 1621 for a trade monopoly in the West
Indies and jurisdiction over the African slave trade,
Brazil, the Caribbean and North America. Its trading
zone included West Africa (between the Tropic of
Cancer and the Cape of Good Hope), and between
Newfoundland and the Straits of Magellan, the
Pacific Ocean and eastern New Guinea. The company
challenged the Spanish and Portuguese commerce in
the Americas and played a significant role in a Dutch
presence in the Americas. The GWC was organised
into chambers like the VOC, but the GWC was not
permitted to undertake military operations without
the approval of the republic. After initial successes,
the company ceased operations in 1674. A new
company was formed and was granted a charter by
the States-General. It continued trading operations,
especially in the African slave trade. In 1791 the
company could no longer continue. The charter was
not renewed, the company’s stock was purchased by
the government and its trading posts placed under the
government control.
7. This term is preferred here as it is derived from the
republic’s Latin name, Belgica fœderata.
8. This phrase derives from one of the titles — Senhor
do Comércio, da Conquista e da Navegação da
Arábia, Pérsia e Índia, etc. (Lord of the Commerce,
s t r a nger s a n d serva nt s of t he compa n y
Conquest and Navigation of Arabia, Persia and India,
etc.) — borne by several Portuguese kings, such as
João II (1481–95) and Manuel I (The Fortunate)
(1495–1521).
9. The contemporary Indonesian placenames have been
used for parts of the Indonesian archipelago, rather
than the historical names (except in quotations), such
as Banten or Ambon rather than Bantam or Amboina.
10. International Institute of Social History, Prices and
Wages. Value of the guilder from 1450. Available at
http://www.iisg.nl/hpw/calculate.php. I am most
grateful to Mr Kim de Rijke at the Central Queensland
Land Council, Mackay, for providing me with this
reference.
11. Claims to primacy in the ‘discovery’ of Australia have
been advanced in favour of the Portuguese by Richard
Henry Major (1859, 1863), George Collingridge
(1895), Charles Ralph Boxer (1973b) and Kenneth
McIntyre (1977); in favour of the Spanish by Celsus
Kelly (1964–74), Colin Jack-Hinton (1969) and Oskar
Spate (1979); in favour of the French by Jacques
Brosses (1983) and John Dunmore (1965); and in
favour of the Chinese by Louise Levathes (1994), Eric
Rolls (1996) and Gavin Menzies (2002).
12. This figure is based on a provisional estimate of the
number of VOC ships that sailed into Australian
waters between 1606 and 1765, using a number
of published studies of Dutch maritime voyages to
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(Heeres 1899:18–21) — given to Jan Carstenszoon in
1623; the Cleen Amsterdam and Wesel, 1636 (Heeres
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Bibliothek Klassiker der Nationalökonomie Dutch–Australian contact in Cape York Peninsula, 1606–1756
Düsseldorf.
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De Verenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie, Verhandelingen The first Europeans reliably recorded as having made contact with Australia and its Indigenous
van het Koninklijk Instituut voor Taal- , Land- , en people were the Dutch, in 1606 on the north-west of Cape York Peninsula (Heeres 1899).
Volkenkunde, 197, KITLV, Leiden, pp. [239]–55.
Zandervliet, K 2002, ‘Vestingbouw in de Oost’, in G For the next 150 years, until 1756, the Dutch played the principal role in the first charting of
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Compagnie, Verhandelingen van het Koninklijk
Australia’s huge coastline. The main gap left by this extraordinary navigational and cartographic
Instituut voor Taal- , Land- , en Volkenkunde, 197, feat, during which the Dutch were operating at sailing distances up to 30,000 kilometres from
KITLV, Leiden, pp. [151]–80.
Zurndorfer, HT 1988, ‘Comment la science et la their ultimate home base, was on the east coast of Australia.1 The gap was plugged significantly
technologie se vendaient à la Chine au XVII siècle: by the Englishman James Cook in 1770, who then took possession of eastern New Holland
essai d’analyse interne’, Études chinoises 7(2):[59]–90.
on behalf of the British Crown. And ‘New Holland’ Australia was to remain from the time of
Abel Tasman’s coastal mapping (1642–44) for another 150 years or so. Even so, it is Cook who
remains a household name for Australians, not the skipper of the Duyfken in 1606, Willem
Janszoon (Jansz).2 The anglification of Australian history is a resistant strain.
Records of Dutch–Aboriginal contact, 1606–1756, are not plentiful and they preserve
only what these particular European strangers to Australian shores thought to say about the
encounters. That includes, as always, the possibility that they were self-interestedly selective
or unfaithful to what they had actually experienced. With that caveat always sitting on
our shoulders, but with the benefit of ethnographic hindsight and comparison with other,
parallel, historical records, these early sources can nonetheless still be read with profit. In
this chapter I concentrate on accounts of Indigenous reactions to the Dutch rather than the
reverse, and I restrict my examination to Cape York Peninsula, a region with which I have had
a long familiarity. I also concentrate on what the recorded reactions of the Australians may
tell us about their feelings towards the Dutch, and who or what they thought the Dutch to
be.3 In particular I try to understand the Aboriginal people’s emotions, as recorded by Dutch
observers. At the same time I seek to clean up a record that has become muddied over the years
by layers of misrepresentation. I begin with the swabbing down.

StrangersontheShoreTEXT08.indd 34-35 28/3/08 3:20:22 PM

 36 S trangers on the shore s tor i e s a bou t feel i ng 37

Part 1: The palimpsest

The extent to which historical writers have mythologised Aboriginal experiences of Dutch–
Australian contact is striking. Some have re-crafted the facts to suit an ideologically grounded
resistance model of Indigenous responses, reading Aboriginal acts of aggression and repulsion
towards the first Europeans simply as a matter of invaders being resisted by the invaded,
and sidestepping evidence of friendship or displays of profound indifference towards the
Europeans. Some have over-interpreted the Dutch kidnapping of potential guides as being
part of the slave trade. Others have grasped at straws, trying to prove the existence of a pre-
British Dutch settlement that allegedly left behind linguistic, genetic and technological traces.
In a similar vein but mythologising in the opposite direction, Dutch historical priority in
the European exploration of Australia has quite often been suppressed or ignored in Anglo
narratives. In this section I look at how political desire has at various times dressed records in
the cloth of romance.4 This also is a story about feeling.

Australian history as folklore

Figure 3.1. Map showing part of the journey of the
The earliest reference to Dutchmen being killed on any voyage to and from Australia is the Duyfken, 1606 (from Henderson 1999:34).
diary entry by John Saris for 15 June 1606: Reproduced by kind permission of Marion Henderson

Heere arrived Nockhoda [i.e. Skipper] Tongall, a Kling man from Banda,
in a Java Juncke … He told me that the Flemmings Pinasse which went
upon discovery for Nova Ginny was returned to Banda, having found the
iland; but on sending their men on shoare to intreat of Trade, there were
nine of them killed by the Heathens, which are man-eaters. So they were
constrained to returne, finding no good to be done there. (quoted in Jack
1922:25)
Robert Logan Jack, formerly the Government Geologist of Queensland, whose monumental
history of Cape York Peninsula was published in 1922, made this comment:
The exact locality of the greater disaster which, according to the Kling
skipper, resulted in the deaths of nine of the ‘Duyfken’s’ crew, is not
stated. It may, however, be presumed that the slaughter took place at
Cape Keerweer, and finally determined the fate of the enterprise. (Jack
1922:26)
There is no record of the Dutch in 1606 landing at Cape Keerweer. It was, as far as we know,
merely the southernmost point mapped by Jansz’s men before they sailed north again and
then returned to Bantam, on Java, via New Guinea (Figure 3.1). Their first point of contact
with Cape York Peninsula has been established with high probability as what is now known
as the Pennefather River, 160 kilometres north of Cape Keerweer, but there is no evidence of
human contact or even of the Dutch going ashore in that case either (Wharton 2005:48–9).
The place where they made first recorded contact with the Australians appears likely to have
been the Wenlock River, just north of the Pennefather, where one Dutchman was killed (see
further below).5
There is no evidence in John Saris’s 1606 account of the slaughter of nine Dutchmen as
to where exactly it took place.6 It could well have been in what is now West Papua, given that
the sources place it in Nova Guinea, a name that then covered both New Guinea and Cape
York Peninsula. Indeed, several historians have concluded this. Sigmond and Zuiderbaan
(1976:22) concluded that Jansz lost eight crew to Papuans, and did so before reaching Cape
York Peninsula, but do not say how they came to this view. Günter Schilder (1988:84) wrote:
At one of the landings [of the initial part of the voyage], eight of the
crew were killed in an encounter with the Papuans. Despite this setback,
Willem Jansz continued along the coast … His first landfall on Cape York
Peninsula … indicates what is now Pennefather River … Curiously, the
mouth of the Batavia River, the scene of the conflict with the Aborigines,
is not shown [on the chart].

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 38 S trangers on the shore
The Batavia, now officially the Wenlock, enters the same bay, Port Musgrave, as the Ducie.
The weight of opinion at present is that it was at the Wenlock that the Australians killed
Jansz’s man.
William Eisler (1995:69) backed Schilder’s view that Jansz lost eight men in New Guinea,
and, later, another man at the ‘Batavia’ River in Cape York Peninsula. Again, Miriam Estensen
(1998:121) placed the killing of eight of Jansz’s men in New Guinea and the ninth in Cape York
Peninsula, albeit at the Ducie River. Unfortunately she did not indicate a source. Campbell
Macknight (1994:82) referred to the lone killing at the Batavia (Wenlock), but steered clear of
the eight other deaths.
Logan Jack, as we have seen, considered it presumable that ‘the slaughter … finally
determined the abandonment of the enterprise’ (Jack 1922:26). But this view is open to
doubt, in spite of Saris’s implication (see above) that loss of crew was a trigger. Tasman’s 1644
instructions actually do assign a cause for the return of the men of the Duyfken from Cape
Keerweer in 1606, but they refer only to their ‘want of provision and other necessaries’, and
not to their loss of comrades (in Robert 1973:87). Sigmond and Zuiderbaan (1976:23) also
concluded that ‘lack of water and victuals forced Jansz and Lodewijksz to turn Duyfken’s bow
and to end their voyage of discovery’. This interpretation would be consistent with the major
loss of men having occurred not before but after they left Cape Keerweer and were on their way
home, given that a loss of nine men would nearly have halved the crew’s total. Menno Leenstra
has come to the view that the most probable location of the major killings was during a landfall
in New Guinea on the Duyfken’s return voyage to Java (pers. comm., Nijmegen, 2006).
Curiously, nine crewmen were also killed on Jan Carstenszoon’s 1623 expedition (and
another died of wounds), but that was much more certainly located in New Guinea (Heeres
1899:24). The probability of nine Dutchmen being killed in a single event would be higher at
the hands of New Guineans, with their different social organisation and their use of bows and
arrows, than at the hands of the Australians. In any case, I think the weight of quality, in the
historical interpretations of the past century, rather than the weight of quantity, favours the
view that Jansz lost one man in Cape York Peninsula, in the Port Musgrave area, and eight
others in New Guinea.
Selecting conflict
It seems that some historians, however, have been rather drawn to the maximising of violence on
the Australian exploratory frontier, both by attaching eight of the 1606 killings to Queensland,
and by detaching the non-violent episodes from the early Dutch–Australian story altogether.
John Mulvaney’s 1958 and somewhat abbreviated version of Dutch–Aboriginal contact
history made reference to the slaying of sailors in 1606 without making it clear that the
location might have been other than Cape York Peninsula. He then moved on to refer to ‘several
armed attacks’ by the Australians and ‘shootings and attempted kidnapping’ by the men of
StrangersontheShoreTEXT08.indd 38-39
s tor i e s a bou t feel i ng 39
Carstenszoon (Carstensz) in 1623 (Mulvaney 1958:131–2). Several more trusting, ambiguous
and even quite mysterious forms of contact between Australians and Europeans, as recorded
by the Dutch (see below), were omitted in this account. And by describing the Carstensz 1623
voyage to ‘Carpentaria’ as ‘largely a repetition of the experiences of Duyffken’s crew’ (but not
saying where), Mulvaney may have left some readers with the understanding that both Jansz
and Carstensz had lost nine men to Aboriginal attack in Cape York Peninsula — which would
be without foundation.7
Thirty years later, Mulvaney’s chapter title ‘Confrontation near Cape Keerweer’ appears to
have been chosen in reference to the spearing death of a Dutch sailor in 1606 at the ‘Wenloch
(Batavia) River’ (Mulvaney 1989:8). This later account by Mulvaney of Dutch–Australian
contact in Cape York Peninsula is in my view more balanced than the first (e.g. 1989:12–13).
But as the 1989 book was about sites of historic Aboriginal–outsider face-to-face contact,
the choice of Cape Keerweer as the focal point, along with the reproduction of an airphoto
of it (Mulvaney 1989:xvi, 9), at least resonated with Logan Jack’s folkloric battle between
Australians and Dutchmen at Cape Keerweer in 1606. The spatial context was muddied by
Mulvaney’s map (1989:11), which put Cape Keerweer about 100 kilometres north of its true
position and at about Pera Head, and thus much closer to the Wenlock River, where the first
recorded encounter between Europeans and Australians is widely considered to have occurred.
Still, even this placement was 100  kilometres from the Wenlock itself. The first encounter
between the two peoples on the 1623 voyage of the Arnhem and Pera under Carstensz was also
far from Cape Keerweer, and took place well to the south between the Holroyd and Coleman
rivers (Robert 1973:19). Mulvaney made no mention of the armed skirmish between locals
and Carstensz and his men on 5 May 1623 at 14° 5´ south latitude (in Robert 1973:105), which
has been interpreted as being at (just south of) Cape Keerweer (Pike 1978:157). On 7 and 8
May 1623 they landed in the vicinity of Archer Bay and Archer River, 60 kilometres north of
Cape Keerweer (Robert 1973:23).There is no record of Tasman touching shore anywhere in
this region on his 1644 voyage. And the last Dutch exploratory visit to western Cape York
Peninsula, that of the Rijder under Gonzal and the Buijs under Asschens, went no further
south than Pera Head, 200 kilometres from Cape Keerweer (Robert 1973:45–7).
John William Bleakley, Chief Protector of Aborigines in Queensland, 1914–42, in a book
commended to its readers by Professor AP Elkin (in its preface), turned the Logan Jack Cape
Keerweer presumption into a fact, and collapsed two distinct episodes into one:
A party of sailors was landed at a cape which they afterwards named
Keerweer or Turnagain. A most unfortunate conflict occurred, which,
doubtless, laid the seeds of the hostility with which their subsequent visits
were met. Nine of the Duyfken’s party were speared. (Bleakley 1961:66)
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 40 S trangers on the shore
Andrew Abbie, in The Original Australians (1969:18), like so many others, also selected
conflict as the leitmotiv of 1606, and also made the Logan Jack leap, repeating the view that
‘some men were lost in an encounter with “wild, cruel, black savages” — the first records of
the Aborigines’. Abbie did not evince any sort of doubt about where these Dutch deaths might
have taken place.
Geoffrey Bolton’s classic history of far north Queensland, A Thousand Miles Away, devoted
about a page to the Dutch exploration of Cape York Peninsula (1970:7–8). The only two specific
events referred to by Bolton were the killing of nine Dutchmen at Cape Keerweer in 1606,
by now deeply folkloric, but presented as fact, and the attack on the Dutch in 1623 by 200
Australians who were then fired upon (based on original documents, Bolton 1970:8). And the
scenario is again uniformly, and selectively, combative. The confident personal interactions and
the three different occasions of mysterious and studious ignore, which might have tempered
the picture (see below), were once again omitted.
Bolton (1970:8) pulled no punches and, like Bleakley, also merged two killing events
into one:
The Aborigines attacked and killed nine Dutchmen. This deterred Jansz
from investigating further. Naming the scene of the attack Cape Keerweer
(meaning ‘turn-again’), Jansz returned to his employers in Batavia, where
he reported the new land ‘for the greater part uncultivated, and certain
parts inhabited by savage, cruel black barbarians’.
Bolton sources the quotation to its location in Heeres (1899:6) — although it is not a
document with Jansz as its author — but does not source the rest of his statement. It cannot
rest on the Heeres documents. It looks instead like another unacknowledged summary of Logan
Jack’s (1922:26, see above), who had at least qualified his conclusion as a presumption.
At the height of political tensions between western Cape York Peninsula Aboriginal people
and the bauxite mining industry, activists under the banner of International Development
Action published the ‘Mapoon Books’ (e.g. Roberts et al. 1975; Roberts & McLean 1976). Their
account of how the Australians reacted to the Dutch in 1606 and 1623 was again a tale of
nothing but valiant shows of military resistance. They also merged aspects of the documentary
record with local oral histories, managing to combine parts of both the 1606 and 1623 records
as one event in 1606, and accepting as fact the Wik legend of Dutch settlement at Cape
Keerweer (Roberts et al. 1975:17; Roberts & McLean 1976:35–6; cf. Karntin & Sutton 1986).
Roberts shortly afterwards published a book in which there was a summary account of the
same material, indicating that the massacre of the Dutch by the Aurukun people ended their
‘settlement’ (1978:15). The only factual support for all this, offered in a solitary self-referential
footnote, was Roberts, Russell & Parsons (1975:17) and Roberts & McLean (1976:35–6).
StrangersontheShoreTEXT08.indd 40-41
s tor i e s a bou t feel i ng 41
According to Roberts’s own résumé (n.d.), ‘Humphrey McQueen, Australian historian,
reviewed [the Mapoon Books] as “the finest, best researched and thorough study appearing in
the Whitlam era”’. The McQueen connection reappears in our story (see below).
One of the most purple of the folkloristic passages of Australian history came from Fergus
Robinson and Barry York (1977:39):
In 1609 [sic], a Dutch vessel in search of gold and slaves [sic] landed on the
northern [sic] side of Cape York. The purpose of this visit was to commit
aggression, to plunder the region’s wealth and to use the people as slaves.8
The aggressors were immediately repulsed by the Australian Aborigines
in an awesome show of strength. It has been said that this was the first
recorded place at which the Aborigine struck a blow in defence of his
country.
An intriguing endnote supporting this paragraph led the reader to ‘Laurie, The Black War of
Resistance in Queensland, p155’ (see Laurie 1959). Who were these people?
Robinson and York, along with the author of their preface, Humphrey McQueen, were
professional historians, recently described somewhat alliteratively by Keith Windschuttle
(2005:28) as ‘Monash Maoists’.9 Arthur Laurie (about 1889–1970) was a Queensland trade
unionist, Australian Labor Party stalwart and member of the Royal Historical Society of
Queensland who had left school at 13 and was an autodidact (Wharton 2006).10 Laurie was
perhaps the first historical writer to espouse the strong version of the resistance model of
Aboriginal contact history. Fittingly, he was a man of the Left.11
Laurie was forthright, taking a few liberties with his unacknowledged source, which looks,
once more, to have been leaping Logan Jack (1920):
In the area which is now the State of Queensland the first recorded clash
between the aboriginals and white men was on the western side of Cape
York Peninsula, at a point marked on the map as Cape Keerweer (turn
again). Captain Wilhelm Janzoon, a Dutch navigator and explorer in the
ship ‘Duyfken’, in 1606, landed at this point and was met by the blacks.
A fight occurred; the cause of it is unknown, but a Dutchman was killed.
The Dutch objective was trade, and slavery was then in existence all over
the world and no doubt the husky blacks looked like a good commodity.
This was the first place at which the Australian native struck a blow in the
defence of his country. (Laurie 1959:155)
Brief histories even by professional historians are by definition selective, but it is relevant
here to question selectivities that leave behind a distorted picture of events, which this is.
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 42 S trangers on the shore
Robert Logan Jack, Arthur Laurie, DJ Mulvaney, JW Bleakley, AA Abbie, Geoffrey Bolton,
Fergus Robinson, Barry York, Glenville Pike, and others I have not mentioned, have left a
palimpsest of historical writing about the early Dutch in Cape York Peninsula that as a whole
fails to reflect the ultimate documentary sources that we have. In such ways, through multiple
publications sharing a common thread, are received narratives built up to the point where they
become common knowledge. At that point a check back to the archival sources we actually
have is well overdue.
What that record says is that there were times when Australians’ reactions to the early
Dutch were noted as curious, fearful, ignoring, demanding, friendly, generous and aggressive.
It would be a mistake to assume that each of these feelings and attitudes was simply created
by the behaviour of the Dutch. As was to be so clear in the records from Port Jackson in
1788–90, Australians from the same vicinity could react in very individualised ways to the
same newcomers (Clendinnen 2003).
Part 2: Stories about feeling
Aggression
We have little record of Indigenous reactions to the first documented European encounter with
what is now Australia, but there is a record of conflict. This was the 1606 voyage of the Dutch
East India Company ship Duyfken with its skipper Willem Janszoon (Jansz) and his crew,
from what is now Indonesia to New Guinea, western Cape York Peninsula (see Figure 3.1),
and back to Indonesia via New Guinea.12 That the Dutch and Australian people had some kind
of armed conflict in 1606 is indicated by those who probably had the benefit of the now-lost
journals of Jansz and the subcargo (Dutch East India Company merchant) on that voyage, Jan
Lodewycksz van Rosengijn. An instruction dated 1618 refers to this voyage and names Jansz
and ‘van Rosingijn’ (whose name appears in different spellings), and refers to their ‘discoveries
on the same coast as is narrated extensively in their journals’ (in Robert 1973:85).
These journals were probably the source of later records that refer to events on that
journey.13 The 1623 journal of Jan Carstenszoon van Embden (known as Carstensz) records
his ships Pera and Aernem passing a river ‘which those of the Duyffken A.D. 1606 went up with
the boat and lost a man by the throwing of the savages’ (in Robert 1973:87). This happened
not on the first Dutch contact with the Australian coast, which had already occurred at a river
now identified as the Pennefather on western Cape York Peninsula. The clash seems to have
occurred about where the Wenlock empties into Port Musgrave (Heeres 1899:42; Robert
1973:9, 23; Wharton 2005:37–8, and below). The ‘throwing’ would have meant the throwing
of spears. The Australians had shown aggression.
StrangersontheShoreTEXT08.indd 42-43
s tor i e s a bou t feel i ng 43
On his own voyage Carstensz recorded that in 1623 the people they met in the more
southerly part of Cape York Peninsula met them with less hostility than those further north,
and suggested that the northern Cape York people’s behaviour possibly reflected their
experience of combat against muskets ‘[of] which they would seem to have experienced
the fatal [e]ffect in 1606 by the men of the Duyffken’ who had landed there also (in Robert
1973:87). In 1606 the Dutch had shown aggression too.
A more hostile reaction to strangers by the inhabitants of the north of the peninsula than by
those in the south may have indicated a history of earlier clashes with non-European northern
visitors as well, or instead, especially intruders from the Torres Strait Islands or New Guinea.
The less hostile reaction of the southerners may simply have been a sign of freedom from
outside contact in any areas well away from the Torres Strait, which was the meeting point of
Melanesia and Australia, and a region of ocean-going canoes. While the Islanders known as
Kaurareg were in ‘constant and friendly communication’ with Cape York mainlanders referred
to as Gudang and Unduyamo, their relationship with other mainlanders to the immediate south
and south-west, referred to as Gumakudin and Yadhaigana, ‘was one of inveterate hostility
and hatred’, and was also described as ‘unusually vicious and destructive’. The Kaurareg used
large ocean-going canoes (Moore 1979:312, 313).14
Cape York Peninsula people quickly learned to be cautious of firearms. This was even though,
in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, their spears were almost a match for flintlock and
matchlock firearms and, under certain conditions such as heavy rain, more than a match for
them.15 Carstensz (in Jack 1922:50) wrote that ‘in any further landings, we should have to look
out for rain which, at times when need for muskets might arise, would be very damaging to
them, whereas the weapons of the savages would not be injuriously affected’. Muskets of the
day were also extremely heavy, and were usually fired from a rest, which had to be positioned
before aim could be taken. On the other side, spears weighed little (about 0.25 kilograms) and
could be thrown on the move. Further, muzzle-loading was a time-consuming process, while a
spear-thrower could be reloaded in an instant. On these counts, spears outclassed muskets.
It was probably in the area of lethal impact and range that the musket provided more
competition with the spear:
Muskets were wildly inaccurate but when firing at a target several times
bigger than the proverbial barn door, a volley at close range could do
appalling damage … As late as the Napoleonic Wars the ‘common musket’
had a maximum effective range of between 200 and 300 yards (183
and 274 metres), whilst Roquerol’s L’artillerie au début des guerres de la
Révolution estimates that only 0.2 to 0.5 per cent of bullets fired hit their
target. (Haythornthwaite 1983:33–4)
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 44 S trangers on the shore
A range of 90–125 metres is recorded for spears thrown with the spear-thrower, although
an exceptional throw of 180 metres has been recorded (Falkenberg 1968). Even when the long
Cape York Peninsula spear-thrower is used, a spear’s lethal accuracy generally tapers off after
about 30 metres (Kim Akerman 2007, pers. comm., 8 March). Still, Cotterell and Kamminga
(1992:166–70) found that a light spear thrown with a spear-thrower was more efficient than
a heavier one thrown by hand. Tasmanian spears fell into the latter category, while Cape York
Peninsula ones belong in the former.16 It took a lot less energy to throw a light spear with
a spear-thrower 100 metres than to throw a heavier one by hand (Cotterell & Kamminga
1992:168). The weaponry, and the fortunes, of Australians in violent early contact situations
with Europeans were not uniform.
It is interesting that few early records indicate any armed Aboriginal attempt to prevent
any Dutch landings at all. One exception is that of 7 May 1623 when:
more than 100 blacks were on the beach with their weapons and tried to
prevent the landing of our men with strong arms; these fired a shot to
frighten them with a musket, upon which the blacks fled … and retired
into the wood and from there they tried every means and evil practices to
surprise and attack our men. (Carstensz in Robert 1973:105)
Aboriginal courage and caution, or perhaps the power to act, were not apparent in a uniform
way within the same group. At a place in the more southerly part of Cape York Peninsula,
Carstensz recorded that some people emerged from the bush while others lay hidden (Robert
1973:95). Nor were fear or aggression the only options for Aboriginal response. A little further
south, when the skipper of the Pera made landfall with boats and men ‘equipped for defence’:
as soon as the party had landed, a great number of blacks (some armed,
some not) came up to them, [and] were so forward and so bold that they
grasped the muskets of our men and even tried to take the same off the
shoulders and they wanted to have all they saw. (Robert 1973:97)
On this evidence, at least, Carstensz’s comment about the lack of fear of musketry in the
southern region is borne out. The approach includes indications of trust other than the close
voluntary physical contact. Not all the Aboriginal men were armed, for example. And the fact
that ‘they wanted to have all they saw’ is possibly revealing. ‘Demand sharing’ is something
normally operative between reasonably close kin in traditionally oriented Aboriginal society
(Peterson 1993). In terms of Cape York cultural traditions as we have known them in the last
century, asking for things from others is not merely a way of obtaining desired objects, but
also a way of establishing and reinforcing claims of kinship, of mutual dependency and amity.
StrangersontheShoreTEXT08.indd 44-45
s tor i e s a bou t feel i ng 45
Asking is dependent upon a perceived relationship, and is also a testing of relatedness. Such
transactions normally carry the complex social emotions of the gift. James Cook’s men did not
seem to have had this in mind when they refused locally caught turtles to Aboriginal people who
were demanding them at Endeavour River in 1770 (Cook 1893:289). The theme of Aboriginal
demand-sharing in European fish catches recurs frequently in the records of the first months
of the Port Jackson settlement, as also does the gifting of seafood to the Europeans by the
Australians (see, for example, Cobley 1980:27, 29, 38, 169, 183, 206). Asking, or demanding,
was far from a spear-on-sight attitude.
Betrayal
But this possible signing of connectedness, trust and relative lack of fear in 1623, when local
people wanted to have the things the Dutch had, was immediately dealt what must have been a
heavy blow. The Dutchmen of the Carstensz voyage enticed people with proffered gifts of iron
and beads and then seized one of the men and took him on board ship as a potential source of
local information (Robert 1973:97). This and other kidnappings have been over-interpreted by
some historians simply as attempts to extract slaves from this coast, but the sources suggest
that it was information, at least in the first instance, not labour, that was sought by the Dutch
in the taking of captives on early visits to Australia.17 The instructions for this voyage given
to Carstensz in 1622 had commanded him to ‘get hold of a number of full-grown persons or,
better still, of boys and girls, to the end that the latter may be brought up here [Fort Jacatra]
and be turned to useful purpose in the said quarters when occasion shall serve’ (in Heeres
1899:21).18 I understand this to mean that the captives would be used as guides on return
visits to the ‘said quarters’, a reference to the South Land (Suyderlant) just mentioned in the
preceding paragraph, because the original text reads voorschreven quartieren, literally ‘the above-
written quarters’ (in Heeres 1899:21). This suggests using the captives for further exploration
after some form of communication and cooperation had been established with them.19 There
certainly was a commercial intent, and it lay in the discovery of precious commodities.
Logan Jack admitted to having created his own rephrasing of this particular Heeres source
translation, a rephrasing which changed the meaning and in fact rendered the instruction
somewhat absurd: ‘get hold of some adults, or, still better, young lads or girls, to the end that they
should be brought up here, and later, when opportunity offers, be broken in at the said quarters’
(Jack 1922:28, 30). He then followed this obfuscation with a surge of speculative excess:
The sailors made no mistake in interpreting their orders to mean that
they were to capture slaves, with a minimum of friction, if possible, but
in any case to capture them somehow. It is not so written, but it is easy
to understand that the voyagers were expected, by the capture of ‘adults,
or, still better, young lads or girls,’ to do something substantial towards
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 46 S trangers on the shore
recouping the expenses of the expedition … it is open to argument that for
savage races a probationary period of servitude is preferable to its only
alternative, extinction. (Jack 1922:31)
Perhaps unsurprisingly, some who have used Logan Jack’s words as their source on Dutch
slave-catching have preferred not to cite his comments on the benefits of servitude that
appeared immediately below them.
Consistent with his instructions, Carstensz described a second kidnapping on the same coast,
at what he called the Coen River, in terms of the gaining of information about the peoples’:
manners, ceremonies and how the land is populated, [but] of that we
cannot give any account and that owing to the few opportunities and
possibilities (to explore and observe everything) we have had … Your
Worships will in time get information (with God’s help) from the captive,
to whom I refer. (in Robert 1973:107; emphasis added)
In the case of a third man taken wounded on board some days later, Carstensz reported that
he died soon afterwards (in Robert 1973:109). In fact, there is no record of any Dutch capture
of significant numbers of individuals from Australia that could be interpreted as slaving.
The practice of kidnapping and detainment for information was widespread on Australia’s
frontiers as a means of discovery and even of intruder survival in a land where water sources,
although present, were often relatively invisible without local knowledge of wells, soakages
and rockholes. Governor Phillip’s men captured and detained people in the early years of the
Port Jackson settlement for the purpose of establishing communication lines with local people
(Clendinnen 2003). Detainment was said to have been used in one north Queensland case
to secure a go-between as a means of making a ‘compact’ with local people in order to avoid
conflict (Bennett 1927:57). But none of the Dutch kidnappings has left us with any record of
what the Dutch would have regarded as a success story.
Grief?
Carstensz described the reaction of the other Australians to the first abduction. They ‘raised
an outcry and made much noise’ (Robert 1973:97). This is as consistent with traditional
manifestations of grief and formal mourning as it is with expressions of rage, and indeed the
two braces of feeling are rarely easy to separate in the way Aboriginal people of classical thought
experience the emotions of death. It can be part of the propriety of grief to show vengeful
anger at a supposed sorcerer whose acts have caused a death. Given that the most likely initial
interpretation would have been that the Dutch were spirits of deceased Aboriginal people, and
StrangersontheShoreTEXT08.indd 46-47
s tor i e s a bou t feel i ng 47
indeed the dead kin of those who encountered them (see further below), this outcry and much
noise may have been a reaction to a belief that a living kinsman was being spirited away to the
land of the dead. The physical whiteness of the Dutch, if it had similar effects to those reported
from elsewhere on the frontier of Australian contact, may have been the most important basis
for an Aboriginal view that they were the people’s own lost kin. Certainly in the Wik area of
Cape York Peninsula, the land of the inner souls of the dead lies over the sea to the west of the
mainland, the direction from which the Dutch had originally arrived (see Figure 3.1). As late
as 1927 the monthly steamer passing down the west coast of the peninsula was understood by
at least some Wik people to be the ship of the dead, or more exactly ‘a corpse in the course of
cremation — inspiring, appropriately enough, a funeral dirge’ (McConnel 1957:xiii).
The day after the first Dutch abduction, the Aboriginal people’s approach to contact on the
shore is described by Carstensz quite differently from that of the day before. This time more
than 200 men ‘used every means to surprise and overcome our men’, who were cutting wood,
‘so that it was necessary to fire 2 times, upon which they fled and withdrew’ (Robert 1973:97).
It would be surprising if this sudden display of hostility were not a result of the previous day’s
betrayal. In any case, the behaviours of the two days are starkly opposed: the previous day, the
strangers had been treated more or less as members of society, dead or otherwise. The next day
they were treated as if they were full outsiders, subject to automatic attack. This is more the
scenario of some of the folkloristic Australian history that has been written.
Fear
The Dutch behaved in provocative ways on Australian shores, but no matter how they had
behaved, it is likely that the very composition of their groups could itself have been read by
the Cape York Australians as cause for caution and fear, if not as a provocation, even without
the kidnappings and shootings. In three important ways the Dutch, like virtually all other
exploration parties in Australia’s early contact history, were behaving like Aboriginal war-
making parties or squads of revenge raiders: they were made up of men who had no women or
children with them; they were ‘strangers’; and they came armed. The category of ‘stranger’, in
Aboriginal cultural tradition, was one that automatically attracted emotions of suspicion, fear
and animadversion. Security was a daily, and nightly, consideration. But real ‘strangers’ were
fellow Indigenes. The Dutch were white.
To return to the 1623 narrative, having failed two key tests of local sociality and amity — by
refusing a demanded gift and abducting a local man by force — an armed all-male party would
now perhaps have seemed, curiously, even more familiar and ‘readable’ to the Australians. It
would be ironic if a dawning Aboriginal realisation that they shared a common living humanity
with Dutchmen had been contingent, in this case and perhaps many others, on conflict rather
than friendship.
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 48 S trangers on the shore s tor i e s a bou t feel i ng 49

Studious ignore
Several of the early Dutch reports describe an appearance of indifference on the part of the
Australians, more or less immediately upon contact. The response in one 1623 instance, for
example, near the Staaten River in southern Cape York Peninsula, was that the seven or eight
people the Dutch encountered simply would not talk to them, nor would the others they
encountered the next day, nor yet others three days later and still further north (Carstensz in
Robert 1973:99, 101, 103).20
Was this apparent lack of reaction, this studious ignore, the disguise of inner fear? It
certainly seems to have been based on some kind of decision not to attempt interaction. There
are times when the best reaction to approaching danger is to pretend that one has not seen
one’s stalker. Realising one is being noticed could itself trigger an attack. On the other hand, in
Cape York Peninsula, visiting etiquette between people of distant relatedness, as recorded by
Donald Thomson at Edward River in 1928, included much studious ignore on the part of those
being visited. The following account was said to be typical:

Three men, each carrying a bundle of spears, spear-thrower and fire

stick, appeared out of the scrub to the north of the camp. Although their Figure 3.2. Newly arrived visitors, near Edward River, Cape York Peninsula, 1932. Photograph by DF Thomson.
Courtesy Mrs DM Thomson and Museum Victoria
approach was at once observed, causing an undercurrent of excitement in
camp, no apparent notice whatever was taken of the men, who approached
slowly to within about 40 feet of the northern fringe of the camp, where
each squatted on the ground a few feet apart, placing his weapons in
front of him [Figure 3.2]. Not a word was spoken, and apparently no notice
whatever was taken of their presence for about 10 or 15 minutes. Then a ‘big’
man left the camp unarmed and strolled casually towards the man on the
left, scraped a shallow depression in the ground close to him with his foot,
as a native does before sitting down, and then squatted on the ground
about a yard away from the visitor [Figure 3.3]. Still not a word was spoken.
They did not even look at one another, but kept their eyes downcast. After
a few minutes had elapsed the old man of the camp spoke a few words
in a low tone — inaudible to me where I stood a few yards away — and
the other replied in the same casual way. Still neither looked up — lest he
might betray to the watching camp the slightest interest or emotion. (Thomson
1932:163–4; emphasis added)

Thomson’s description ends with the presentation fire to the visitors, an exchange of gifts, Figure 3.3. A member of the host camp (left, with small fire) sitting with newly arrived visitors, near Edward River,
and the entry of the visitors and the rest of their party into the host camp (1932:164). Cape York Peninsula, 1932. Photograph by DF Thomson. Courtesy Mrs DM Thomson and Museum Victoria

StrangersontheShoreTEXT08.indd 48-49 28/3/08 3:20:25 PM

 50 S trangers on the shore s tor i e s a bou t feel i ng 51

Part 3: The returned ghosts theory One thing is clear: even at the same place and time, opposite reactions to the Europeans
could be recorded. For example, on 17 August 1788 Governor Phillip and his party were met
Smoking out the spirits with friendship and gifts of shellfish in upper Sydney Harbour, while at the north arm of the
harbour on the same day a spear was thrown which narrowly cleared one of the party’s boats
In the historical record of first contact in Australia there are a number of recorded cases where
(Bradley in Cobley 1980:206). This was at a time when Phillip and his officers were preaching
bushfire smoke was created by Aboriginal people, and it appeared deliberately lit so as to
and practising friendship with the local people, and the convicts in their charge were at times
have an impact on the Europeans. The most famous instance of this for most Australians
doing the opposite. It would be wrong to assume that a common view of the ‘Other’ prevailed
is probably the experience of Cook’s party at the Endeavour River on 19 July 1770 (Cook
on either side.
1893:289). But long before this, Carstensz had reported that in 1623, on the west of Cape York
Peninsula, at a time when there was a powerful offshore breeze, ‘the blacks on land sent up The Dutch as Australian ghosts
such an enormous fire that the same was hardly visible’ (in Robert 1973:101). April, when this
It is extremely unlikely that the Aboriginal people of Cape York Peninsula in 1623 conceived
occurred, is unusually early for major firing of the land during foraging, as opposed to localised
of the Dutch as being at all human like themselves, or at least as being alive in the usual
mosaic burning, in this particular economic regime. The season of major firings, known in
fleshly sense. The words meaning ‘European’ in languages of the west coast of the peninsula
regional Aboriginal English as ‘burn-grass time’, and which has its various Indigenous names
are revealing of this viewpoint, although I make no suggestion that these reflect continuous
in Cape York Peninsula languages, is generally around June to August (Chase & Sutton 1981;
transmission of memories of the early Dutch contacts (see table).
Thomson 1939).
Some historical writers have interpreted this kind of ‘smoking’ attack, if such it was, and Western Cape York
other first-contact acts of repulsion such as yelling, grimacing, gesturing, and brandishing of Peninsula area Language Term for European Original meaning
weapons, as not much more than a form of guerrilla warfare between invaded and invader.
Cape York
It is Eurocentric to make land as property central to such encounters. These readings would Anggamuthi umany (a) ghost
(‘Seven Rivers’, west coast)
arguably be very different had they been made against the backdrop of a detailed knowledge
giawate (b); light in colour;
of Aboriginal cultures as they were. Can one be at all sure, for example, that ‘other people, Pennefather River area Nggerikudi
kai-worda-ngai (c) bark-sap-spirit
like themselves’ were the intended targets of these acts of repulsion? I do not think so. And
Albatross Bay Thaynakwith mbu’ (d) ghost, devil
the same applies to the reverse — to those very many instances where the white strangers
were met with embraces, laughter, singing and dancing. I suspect that it was usually a case of Archer River Wik-Mungkan oony (e) ghost, spirit
dancing with the relatives. But was this always the case?
Kendall River Wik-Ngathan koetheth (f) ghost, spirit
Inga Clendinnen, in Dancing with Strangers (2003), was inclined to cast doubt on ‘the
popular “ghosts returned” hypothesis’ in relation to the reception of the British at Port Edward River Kuuk-Thaayorre wang (g) ghost, spirit
Jackson in 1788. She pointed out that there was no abruptly marked transition of attitude to Mitchell River Yir Yoront wangrr (h) ghost, spirit
the Europeans after the settlement was formed, and the Europeans created less anxiety than
Mitchell River Oykangand agngar (i) ghost, ‘shade’
beings actually apprehended as ghosts would have done. Instead, ‘the strangers were humans
too’ (2003:88, 93). Partially agreeing, I do not think one can assume that the reception of Staaten River Gog-Nar mukaneng (j) (uncertain) (k)
Europeans was uniform across Australia, although the consistency with which they are named
‘ghosts’ in score after score of Australian languages is impressive. It is true that the Indigenous Notes: (a) Harper 1992:13. (b) Hey 1903:5, 17. (c) Shortened to kai-worda (Roth 1903:16), probably just a different spelling
of the same word spelled by Hey as giawate; originally kai-worda-ngai ‘bark-sap-spirit’, after the lighter sap-side of tree bark
Sydney word for the Europeans that we have is bereewolgal ‘people from afar’, and not a term (ibid.). Had we been left only with Hey’s version of the term it might have been mistaken as merely connoting lightness of
hue instead of the after-life. (d) Fletcher 2007:40. (e) Kilham et al. 1986:162; now archaic, replaced by waypal (from English
for a ghost (Troy 1990:48). On the other hand, in places where the ghosts-returned hypothesis ‘white fellow’). (f) Sutton 1995:24. (g) Foote & Hall 1992:176. (h) Alpher 1991:583–4. (i) Sommer 2006:144, 206. (j) Breen
holds strongly, such as Perth (see below), there was also no abruptly marked change of attitude, 1976:247, and pers. comm., February 2007. (k) Apart from muk likely being the word for ‘bone’, Gavan Breen is unable to
gloss the term further, and has not recorded ‘ghost’ as a meaning for this term (pers. comm., February 2007).
and plenty of low-anxiety embracing of the newcomers.

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 52 S trangers on the shore s tor i e s a bou t feel i ng 53

For a long time I was puzzled about the origin of the Wik-Mungkan name for English: Wik [The Native Tribes] believe that the spirits, or ‘goor-doo-mit,’ of deceased
Kiith (Kilham et al. 1986:63; Wik means ‘language’). Ian Smith and Steve Johnson (2000:480) persons pass, immediately after death, through the bosom of the sea to
had suggested that the southern Wik (Kugu-Nganhcara) word for Europeans, kiithana, had some unknown and distant land, which becomes thenceforth (as they
come from English itself, although they suggested no specific origin. Geoffrey O’Grady had believed before their intercourse with our settlers) their eternal residence.
recorded kiitha as meaning ‘English language’ in Umpila from eastern Cape York Peninsula. But in this particular the arrival of the whites has led to a total change of
The common stem /kiith-/ and an overlap of meanings in the three languages was intriguing. I creed.23 For they very soon recognised among their new visitors many of
thought Yir Yoront /kith/ ‘dead’, as in pam-kith (person-kith) ‘corpse’ (Alpher 1991:178), might their deceased relatives and friends — a delusion which exists to this day,
have been relevant, but Barry Alpher (pers. comm., 14 February 2007) could not confirm a as strongly as ever.24 They confidently recognise several hundreds of the
common origin.21 Had a common origin been established here, Wik Kiith might originally have Colonists by their countenances, voices, and scars of former wounds. They
meant ‘Corpse Language’. The mystery remains. are quite positive that the re-embodied spirits of Yagan and Heegan, who
Certainly there are Australian languages in which Europeans are not identified explicitly was shot along with him are already returned in the forms of two soldiers
with ghosts so much as with the resting place of the dead. Walter Roth (1903:16) was told of the 21st Regiment. The obstinacy with which they persist in this
by Cape Bedford people of eastern Cape York Peninsula that they originally called Europeans conviction, that the whites are all incarnations of the spirits of departed
nima-ga (‘grave-obtained’ or ‘received from’). Not far north of Cape Bedford, in the language of ancestors or friends, is so great, that notwithstanding the great confidence
the Flinders Islands and nearby mainland, Europeans were referred to as rrobayi. Obayi means they usually place in the Interpreter [i.e. the author], he has never been
‘grave’, and the rr- prefix is elsewhere used only on terms for certain senior kin.22 This was a able to persuade them of the contrary — at least the old persons; for the
region where the dead were initially buried where they died, then later dug up and reinterred younger persons begin to have their faith shaken on this point. The name
in bark coffins in caves in their own country. which they invariable apply to the whites, when talking of the latter among
On western Cape York Peninsula, however, north of Mitchell River, corpses were themselves, is ‘Djanga’ or ‘the dead’. (Armstrong 1836:186–7)
traditionally smoked and, after being carried about for a year or so in a desiccated state, were
cremated. After being smoked the corpse appeared white, the colour of ghosts: One of the incentives for retention of the ghost-theory of Europeans would have been its
role in the continuation of ideological dominance by senior people. So long as the Europeans
All ghosts [in the Mitchell River Yir Yoront area] are totems of the Head-
could be accounted for within the pre-contact Aboriginal world-view, those who were its key
to-the-East Corpse clan. They are thought of as white, and are, of course,
ritual custodians could maintain their standing as the keepers of true knowledge and wardens
closely associated with death. The white man, too, is white, and was closely
of the laws of marriage, for example. Metaphysical doubt was their enemy. The very existence
associated with death, so that he and all things pertaining to him are
of Europeans and their material and non-material culture ultimately called into question the
naturally assigned to the Corpse clan as totems. The steel axe, as a totem,
Dreaming itself, and thus the groundwork of Aboriginal thought and social life. As Sharp
was thus associated with the Corpse clan. (Sharp 1952:88)
(1952:87, 88) said, writing of Mitchell River in Cape York Peninsula:
The white appearance of the Dutch appearing on the west coast would have made it natural At a later stage of the contact situation … phenomena unaccounted for
for them to be taken, initially at least, as deceased relatives, as Aboriginal spirits, perhaps by the totemic ideological system begin to appear with regularity and
animated corpses. Under such circumstances caution and fear, and perhaps some placatory frequency and remain within the range of native experience. Accordingly
or welcoming ritual, rather than aggression, would be the more appropriate emotions and they cannot be ignored … and an attempt is made to assimilate them and
responses, unless there was provocation. account for them along the lines of principles inherent in the ideology …
While it was commonly recorded on the colonial frontier that Europeans were initially
The horrid suspicion arises that perhaps the origin myths are wrong, which
regarded as ghosts (Clarke 2007:143), we have little that is as detailed for any one location
took into account so little of this vast new universe of the white man.
as the report on Perth, Western Australia, published by the ‘Native Interpreter’, Francis
Armstrong, in 1836: Given time, Indigenous people abandoned their view of the Europeans as departed kin.

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 54 S trangers on the shore s tor i e s a bou t feel i ng 55

But all the early Cape York Peninsula Dutch contacts were quite fleeting, offering no Paul Carter, in his influential book The Road to Botany Bay, began with the Dutch, but as his
opportunity for the establishment of communicative relationships of any substance. This was book was ‘not about chronological priority: it is about historical beginnings’, he started with
not the case far to the west, in the case of Melville Island (e.g. Venbrux 2002), but that is Dirk Hartog who left an inscribed pewter plate on an Australian island in 1616, at a place later
beyond our purview here. named in 1801, for this reason, Cape Inscription.27 This approach rests on Carter’s view that
spatial history begins with the act of naming (Carter 1987:xxiii–xxiv).
Part 4: Conclusion The intellectual arbitrariness of this tack is striking. Even on this same linguophile basis,
why not choose to start with the prior inscription of ‘Cabo Keerweer’ on Jansz’s map of 1606,
For most Aboriginal people of a classical cast of thought there was no publicly ordained
translatable as ‘Cape Turnagain’?28 But perhaps this would have prompted a vision of Europeans
conception of territory as something that could be annexed, by force or without force. It was a
returning to home base at the outer limit of what had been an arduous journey, and in that
sacred endowment and not a secular achievement. Country was by and large inalienable.25 Mere
sense ‘Cape Keerweer’ was conceivably an inscription not of European domination but of a
occupation by others could not, in their eyes, lead to their own dispossession. Historians who
kind of defeat. The name physically marks the point of Jansz’s retreat before the forbidding
depict early European contact in such terms are careful when they recognise the dispossessive
fastnesses of monsoonal north Australia, during one among several Dutch forays which
process with the advantage of hindsight, but not so careful when they attribute it to the
resulted in a sense of repulsion from both the land and its people. Australia is notoriously
consciousness of all involved.
littered with placenames that are hardly records of the triumphalism of colonial winners, but
First encounters with Europeans were arguably experienced by Aboriginal people in
which, on the contrary, relentlessly inscribe the despair of the disappointed and beaten: Mount
anything but territorial terms. They were most often, it seems, primarily an encounter with
Misery, The Dismal Plain, Lake Disappointment, The Ophthalmia Range, Musca (‘Flies’, an aptly
relatives who had gone to the spirit world and returned. One could flee from them, ignore
named hill in the Tanami Desert), and so it goes. The list is long.
them, get annoyed with them or attack them, without abandoning the view that they were the
That there had been other non-Aboriginal visitors before the Dutch is more than probable.
dead, and one’s own dead. The dead were always a potentially malevolent and ‘tricky’ group
The arrival of the Asian native dog, our dingo, at about 4000 years ago makes it likely that
of social beings, as anyone who has camped with traditionally minded Aboriginal people will
some new human presence in Australia occurred about that time, and it has been suggested
know. They were family who remained part of one’s real world, even when long ago cremated
that the distinctive Kimberley points of the north-west, with their fine pressure-flaking, also
or buried in body. One should bear in mind here the matter-of-factness with which Aboriginal
reflect an Asian point of contact in the Holocene about 6000 years ago (O’Connor et al. 2005;
people of traditional mind conduct life in an environment richly peopled by the spirits of the
O’Connor & Veth 2000).
dead, by departed people to whom words are regularly said, and whose signs are often seen or
Globalisation of trade and the subsequent race for colonies made it inevitable that New
heard, especially at night, in the fleshly world. The cosmological normalcy of the presence of
Holland would at some stage come under the permanent attentions of a foreign power. Had
the Dutch in Aboriginal Cape York Peninsula in 1606 and 1623 would have surprised them.
it not been the British it could have been their eighteenth-century competitors the French. If
Whether or not this naturalised and very social spirit-world rested on a kind of cultural
not the French, then perhaps the Russians against whom cannon emplacements were built at
innocence that stood in the way of the protection of Aboriginal people’s own best interests could
Australian ports in the Victorian era. Or later, perhaps, the Germans who arrived tardily on the
possibly be debated. In any case, Aboriginal views would in time change, as the reality of their
colonial scene in Papua New Guinea, picking up the scraps left by other, more replete, empires.
displacement and dispossession under colonial regimes became apparent and secularisation of
If not the Germans, then the Japanese who in 1942 began their bombing of north Australia
the basis of knowledge proceeded.
and prepared to invade, as they expanded their ‘Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere’. If
One pattern that, while not universal, stands out among the ways the historical record
not the Japanese, then perhaps the modernising Indonesians adding to their archipelago after
has been treated has been the downplaying of the Dutch contribution to Aboriginal history.
independence, as they did with East Timor, and finding living space for crowded Javanese.
Even Donald Thomson, more than 50 years after Heeres published his ground-breaking
As it happened, the colonial power that annexed Nova Hollandia, although not Dutch, was
compendium of translated Dutch early sources on Australia in 1899, began his account
one whose social, legal, political and cultural institutions came from the same part of Europe
of early European views of the Australians with William Dampier, an English buccaneer
and shared a largely common heritage and future trajectory towards industrialised liberal
(Thomson 1954:70).26
democracies. Had the Dutch settled rather than kept sailing, it is doubtful that the historical
outcome would have been greatly different.

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 56 S trangers on the shore
Acknowledgements
Research for this paper was funded by the Australian Research Council (APF grant DP0452390). I am indebted for the
memorable expression ‘Stories about feeling’ to the words of Big Bill Neidjie (1989). Special thanks to Inga Clendinnen, Peter
Veth and Ann Curthoys for very helpful comments on an earlier draft. Marion Henderson kindly gave permission for the
use of James Henderson’s map from Sent Forth a Dove (Figure 3.1). I also thank the following for their assistance with this
paper: Kim Akerman, Barry Alpher, Frank Baarda, Kim De Rijke, Mary Filsell, Bill Gammage, Clair Hill, Philip Jones, Menno
Leenstra, David Nash, Bruce Rigsby, John Stanton, Stella van der Krogt, Rick van Velden and Eric Venbrux.
Notes
1. Data on sailing distances (Menno Leenstra 2007, pers.
comm.).
2. There are many spellings of the name of this ship
(e.g. Duyffke, Duyve, Duyfken, Duyfien, Duifken).
Willem Janszoon’s surname, in accordance with
Dutch practice in contracting patronymics, is usually
abbreviated to Jansz.
3. For an excellent account of contemporary Dutch
reactions, see Venbrux (2002). There has not
been space here to explore the broader aspects of
Dutch–Australian early contact, such as the Dutch
loan words that entered north Australian languages
via the Macassans, the role of Dutch artefacts in
Aboriginal material culture, the theories of Rupert
Gerritsen about evidence for Dutch cultural and
genetic influences on Western Australian Aboriginal
people (see Gerritsen and Blevins references), nor the
bizarre credence given to a fictive pre-British Dutch
colony in the Tanami Desert by television personality
Les Hiddins (1996, 2004). I have also had to exclude
discussion of the many versions of the Dutchmen
at Cape Keerweer legend of the Wik people of Cape
York Peninsula now available (cf. Karntin & Sutton
1986 for one early example). I intend to publish that
material elsewhere. I follow Inga Clendinnen’s (2003)
example here and at various other points where I
use ‘Australians’ rather than ‘Aborigines’ or any local
Indigenous category. Some writers assume that
Indigenous group names recorded in the nineteenth
century would have been the same, and in the same
localities, centuries earlier, and that anyone in that
area at the time must have been a member of such
a named group. There is no basis for either of these
assumptions.
4. Here I intend ‘romance’ in the sense of a fancied
or exaggerated story. It usually connotes the
abandonment of actual experience under the influence
of positive feeling, such as, in this case, the passionate
defence of the underdog, or ethnic nationalism.
5. Carstensz’s Revier de Carpentier, and Rivier Batavia
in the Pera chart (Robert 1973:23); long shown
on maps as the Batavia, it is now the Wenlock; see
also Wharton (2005:49) citing support for this
identification of the contact site but also different
views.
StrangersontheShoreTEXT08.indd 56-57
6. Saris 1625–26 in Heeres (1899:4).
7. Later Mulvaney was to cite Carstensz’s loss as 10 crew
(1989:12). This is consistent with the record which
says that nine men were killed on 11 February 1623,
and the skipper of the Arnhem, Dirck Melisz, who was
wounded at the same time, died on the 12th (Robert
1973:16).
8. It is not clear how the intended purpose of this trip
was divined by the authors.
9. This seems to be quite accurate (see Gould 2004).
10. It is notable that in a book subtitled Aboriginal
Resistance to the European Invasion of Australia, first
published four years after Robinson and York’s book
of 1977, and 22 years after Laurie’s 1959 article,
Henry Reynolds (1981) made no reference at all to
either.
11. Journalist Clive Turnbull had used the term ‘Black
war’ earlier than Laurie, in the title of his 1948 book,
but that was hardly an account from an heroic-
resistance ideological position, more a lament for
Aboriginal suffering and a raging at British brutality.
12. For a reconstruction of the whole route, see, for
example, Henderson (1999:32).
13. Robert (1973:11–13) discusses the fate of the
journal(s).
14. See also Sharp (1992:14–15) and Singe (1979:179).
15. For a fact-laden source on musketry of the period,
including the Dutch snaphaan (‘snapping hen’; English:
snaphance), see Haythornthwaite 1983:30–41.
16. It is not at all likely that the technology of Cape
York Peninsula in 1623 was much different from
that of the 1920s when Ursula McConnel began
her major collection in the Wik region (McConnel
1953). Carstensz described the throwing stick of
western Cape York Peninsula in his journal (see
Robert 1973:174). The sound-changes in cognate
terms and the number of non-cognate terms for
spear-thrower in Cape York Peninsula indicate that
centuries of phonological and lexical divergence have
occurred for this one referent against a background
of strong (but not complete) semantic consistency.
See, for example, cognate terms: thul (Wik-Mungkan),
thoel (Wik-Ngathan), thuli (Kugu-Nganhcara), thul(i)
(Thaayorre), thol (Yir Yoront), yuli (Umpila, Ayapathu,
Umpithamu); li (Aritinngithigh). Non-cognate: midhi
(Mpakwithi), thaen (Linngithigh), utjanpi (Uradhi)
(in these last three only, ‘woomera’ = ‘club’); milbiir
(Guugu Yimithirr), arama (Agwamin), tjaelpuyn
(Mbara).
17. Robert Logan Jack was an early writer who read the
abductions as being acts of slavery (1922:31). Those
who have probably simply followed him uncritically on
this point include Robinson and York (1977:39), and
Glenville Pike (1978:14).
18. ‘Ter plaetse daer ghylieden volck bejegent, sult met
behendicheyt ofte andersints eenige volvassene maer
insonderheyt jonghe knechtkens en de meyskens sien te
becomen, omme dezelve alhier optrecken, ende wanneer
‘t gelegen comt, weder op voorschreven quartieren te
gerbruycken mooghen’ (in Heeres 1899:21).
19. John Mulvaney (1989:12) was of the same opinion.
20. In the latter case, ‘the blacks showed themselves
from afar, but refused to come to parley, and it was
not possible in luring them by finesse’ (Carstensz in
Robert 1973:103).
21. Given that kiica would be a likely common ancestor
for kith and kiithana, a Yir Yoront derivative from this
would have been kiy, not kith (Barry Alpher 2007,
pers. comm., 14 February).
22. Rrabi FF, rrapi FM, rrathi MF, rrorrpi FB+ (Johnny
Flinders 1973–79, pers. comms.).
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pp. 82–6. Oxford University Press, Melbourne, pp. 83–115. Thomson, DF 1939, ‘The seasonal factor in human culture’,
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 60 S trangers on the shore
4. ‘Strange strangers’
First contact between Europeans and Karajarri people on the Kimberley
coast of Western Australia
Fiona Skyring
Historian
Sarah Yu
Anthropologist
with the Karajarri native title holders
Karajarri country encompasses the coastal region south of Broome, and extends inland to the
desert. Under the Native Title Act, Karajarri people applied to have their traditional ownership
recognised, and after a Federal Court trial and a lengthy negotiation process, native title was
determined in two judgments by North J in 2002 and 2004. We were both involved in the
preparation of historical and anthropological evidence for the Karajarri native title claim, and
were employed by the Kimberley Land Council, who represented the applicants. During the
trial, as ‘expert witnesses’, we were not permitted to collaborate with one another, but we are
no longer limited by these constraints. By combining research based on the archival records and
ethnographic research with Karajarri native title holders, we present the history of early contact
between the Karajarri and walanyu (non-Indigenous strangers) who worked and settled along
the coast of Karajarri country. The documentary and oral history records together provide a
deeper understanding of events than that which can be gleaned from the documentary records
alone, which in this case were entirely created by Europeans. By incorporating accounts from
Karajarri people, we have a more complete story of how the Karajarri resisted the occupation
of their country and maintained cultural integrity.
The first encounters between Karajarri people and Europeans — the pearlers and
prospective pastoralists who invaded their country in the 1860s and 1870s — were often
StrangersontheShoreTEXT08.indd 60-61
‘ S t r a nge S t r a nger s ’ 61
Figure 4.1. Traditional Karajarri stone fish trap near La Grange Bay. Photograph by Sarah Yu
violent. Europeans kidnapped, beat and sometimes murdered Karajarri and appropriated their
land and water sources. Karajarri people retaliated with violence, and on at least two occasions
killed European men. To Karajarri, these intruders were unlike other walanyu who had
previously travelled over their country, and they demonstrated no understanding of cultural
protocols in which ownership of traditional territories was acknowledged and respected.
We suggest the term ‘strange strangers’ to describe how Karajarri may have experienced the new
intruders. The conflict and violence of the first encounters highlighted a mis-communication
and misunderstanding between Europeans and Karajarri which endured through to the late
twentieth century. The assertion by Karajarri of ownership over their country was contested
by the Western Australian Government and other respondents from the time of registration
of their first native title claim in 1996. It was only after a Federal Court trial and further
negotiation that the parties agreed, and the Judge was able to deliver a consent determination.
In the first determination in 2002, North J wrote, ‘Today is the day of formal recognition
under the laws of Australia by all the people of Australia of the ancient rights and interests
of the Karajarri people in their land’ (Nangkiriny v. State of Western Australia [2002] FCA 660
12 February 2002).
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 62 S trangers on the shore
Figure 4.2. Karajarri Native Title Determination areas. Source: National Native Title Tribunal
Over a century prior to this act of recognition, mis-communication characterised the
interaction between Karajarri and Europeans. We interrogate the parallel yet often divergent
perceptions Karajarri and Europeans expressed of this experience during the period of first
contact through to the twentieth century. We also explore conterminous stories of other
walanyu on Karajarri country, specifically those of the men who crewed the pearling luggers
that plied the Kimberley coast in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. While
master pearlers were usually British, the lugger crews comprised indentured workers from
various centres in south-east and eastern Asia. These men were Japanese, Chinese, Filipino
(referred to as Manilamen), Malaysian (then called Malays), Javanese and Timorese (then
called Koepangers). The luggers stopped along the creeks and inlets for wood and water
supplies, and Karajarri conducted a barter trade with the crewmen. These walanyu accepted
a level of reciprocity with Karajarri that was in contrast to the assumption of dominance by
pearling masters and colonists over Karajarri people and their land. We suggest this illustrates
that the violence of first contact with Europeans was not a foregone conclusion. Karajarri had
ways of accepting walanyu on their country, but not when they behaved the way the pearling
masters and colonists did.
StrangersontheShoreTEXT08.indd 62-63
‘ S t r a nge S t r a nger s ’ 63
To appreciate the impact that the new strangers had, we need some understanding of the
world-view of the Karajarri, in which the landscape, its features and all forms of life are imbued
with cultural meaning. Donald Grey Wuntupu, a senior elder, explains:
Everything — all the animals, birds, people, seasonal changes, comes from
the country, and the country is pukarrikarrajangka (from the Dreaming).
(Grey Wuntupu 1999)
To the Karajarri, country is both a physical and metaphysical landscape for which they
assume responsibility of care. The people referred to in the above quote are those who
come from the country. Conversely, people who do not come from the country are walanyu
(strangers). John Dudu Nangkiriny described it thus:
People, strangers, shouldn’t come into our country. It can be dangerous
and first they must ask. That’s the proper way. If other people want to use
things from our country, like the water or the shell, or if they want to come
and get fish, they should ask Karajarri first. And after we can ask them for
something. They might give us fish, or tucker, or other things we need.
(Dudu Nangkiriny 1999b)
John Dudu further explained that the Karajarri have a ceremony — milyankurl — in which
visitors and strangers are introduced to Karajarri families.
Within the Karajarri world-view the concept of walanyu also extends to wirangu (dangerous
spirits), who may include malevolent characters from neighbouring groups, disgruntled spirits
who have not yet settled in their country, or fractious beings, such as pulany (pronounced
‘boolahn’; ‘water snakes’) who are metaphysical serpent-like beings who inhabit particular
places and can cause serious harm to people. Whether they are physical or metaphysical, all
strangers are considered threatening unless they are tamed, pacified or introduced correctly to
the country by those who have the role to care for the country. Within Karajarri society there is
a clear social hierarchy, at the top of which are pirrka, the senior men who are ritual bosses and
acknowledged leaders, and who take the major responsibility for the management of country
and care of the people.
Prior to the arrival of Europeans, experience of walanyu for the Karajarri would have probably
included Asian maritime traders (McCarthy 1993) and inland visitors from other Aboriginal
groups. Unlike later colonists, these strangers operated within the parameters of Karajarri
cosmology. Firstly, they came and went. Secondly, they did not assume territorial ownership
nor did they expect the Karajarri to relinquish it. These strangers could become ‘not-strangers’
if they acknowledged the pirrka of the country, were introduced correctly, and if they offered
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 64 S trangers on the shore ‘ S t r a nge S t r a nger s ’ 65

something in exchange. Relationships with walanyu did not disrupt the Karajarri world. They Injitana, to the north-east of La Grange
were relationships in which the different cultural mores were respected. But the Europeans, Bay, is pajalpi — spring country. Inland
imbued with notions of racial superiority, cared little that they were ignorant of the cultural from the tidal creeks and bays, this country
landscapes they entered. These ‘strange strangers’ showed no respect for cultural protocols in comprises a series of large permanent springs,
their focus on the economic expansion of their pastoral holdings and pearling enterprises. lush with vegetation. It is the location of many
The first attempt by Europeans to establish a permanent pastoral settlement in Karajarri culturally significant sites used by the Karajarri
country was in 1864, when representatives of the newly formed Roebuck Bay Pastoral for camping, ritual and the transmission of
Company and a contingent of police sailed from Fremantle. They set up a depot camp at a cultural knowledge. According to Karajarri,
Figure 4.3. Injitana Spring — pajalpi (spring) country. access to and knowledge of these sites was
site behind Cape Villaret, on the northern boundary of Karajarri country, and one of their
Photograph by Sarah Yu
first actions was to appropriate an existing well, or ‘native well’ as they were called in all of managed by pirrka, and transgression of their
the early documentary records. With very little surface fresh water along these coastal plains, authority could be severely punished and result in death. Karajarri believe that many of the
the springs and soaks, and the wells the Karajarri had constructed, were as important to the springs are inhabited by pulany. Their presence is often indicated by the panyjin reeds, which
prospective pastoralists as were the grazing pastures they came to occupy. These were always grow in the springs and are considered to be the whiskers of the pulany. People approach
the first sites of conflict between Europeans and Karajarri. The base camp at Cape Villaret was pulany-inhabited springs with caution. All pulany have the capacity to smell strangers, and
attacked a number of times by Aboriginal men in the months after their arrival. There were most pulany are considered dangerous and unpredictable.
also attacks on the expedition parties who ventured to appropriate more wells or cut timber.
Company representative Lockier Clere Burges described how over a period of two days a group
of hundreds of Aboriginal men tried to drive them out from the beach. Two armed Aboriginal
men approached the camp, and Burges described how ‘in their own language and by signs
they told us to “Woorra Arrah Yandelbarrow” which meant “To go away in a ship”’ (Burges
1913:10–13).
Burges did not explain how he came to know the local language, and it is unlikely that he in
fact did. In the context, the communication probably did not require a translator and Burges
clearly understood that he and his men were unwelcome intruders. After this, two Aboriginal
men advanced with spears ready and Burges shot one of them (Burges 1913:12).
Meanwhile, police troopers Panter and Goldwyer, and expedition manager Harding, had
travelled from the base camp and headed south towards La Grange Bay to prospect for more
pastoral land. They stopped at a spring or small lake, referred to in the documentary records
as Boolla Boolla or Boulla Boulla (Burges 1913:19; Logue 1865:diary entry 8 March). The three
intruders were killed; when their bodies were found they had multiple spear wounds and their Figure 4.4. Edna Hopiga Wapijawa introducing her grandchildren to the pulany. Photograph by Sarah Yu
heads were smashed in with clubs. Their journals, which were recovered by a search party several
months later, indicated that the men were attacked during the day while they camped at Boulla Senior Karajarri woman Cissy Everett Miaka explained what happened to her sons the first
Boulla. They shot at least three of their attackers, who returned with reinforcements. In the time they came to Injitana:
violence that followed, about 15 Karajarri men were shot and the Europeans were wounded by They have a snake in this water. People he know, he let them come. If he
spears. They were later murdered, and their horses were also killed (Skyring 2000a:21–3). The don’t know them he make the clouds get up. He can smell ngalkurru [body
site of the fatal conflict, Boulla Boulla, was also referred to as Ingedana in the documentary smell]. That snake smell you, then he let you come. When I came here with
records (called Injitana by Karajarri today). my two boys, who have grown up in the dormitory [the boy’s dormitory at

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 66 S trangers on the shore
La Grange mission], he didn’t know them. The water got up and frightened
them. It came like a tide. He made the water get up. I wash my hands and talk
here to the water to let him know that we’re here. (Everett Miaka 1998)
Karajarri have no knowledge of a site called Boulla Boulla, but boulla sounds like an incorrect
rendition of pulany, which is pronounced ‘boolahn’. In Karajarri it is not uncommon for words
to be repeated or doubled up to emphasise a point in conversation. So Boulla Boulla could be
a reference to pulany-pulany. As Cissy Everett’s account demonstrates, the spring country in
the area of Injitana is considered to be inhabited by dangerous pulany. If the spring or lake
where Panter, Harding and Goldwyer camped was in this area, it is a place of significance to
Karajarri and one that requires a proper introduction to the pulany who occupies the spring.
It is feasible that the three men were murdered by Karajarri because they had committed a
severe transgression by camping there without permission or correct introduction. Panter’s
last diary entry suggests that Aboriginal people had tried to warn them, in signs and language
the intruders did not understand (Scates 1989:27).
Figure 4.5. Plate showing the discovery of the bodies of Panter,
Harding and Goldwyer, La Grange Bay, 1864. Battye Library
Four months after Panter, Harding and Goldwyer went missing, a search expedition
departed Fremantle with more police in February 1865. Based on contemporary accounts, the
period during and after the discovery of the bodies at Ingedana/Injitana was one of regular
violent clashes between Karajarri and Europeans. Joseph Logue, one of the pastoral station
managers, described in his diary their pursuit of a group who had allegedly stolen some sheep.
Logue and his police companions raided the Aboriginal camp at daylight:
In about one hour they found the natives with some of the mutton on
them but did not succeed in taking any alive as the natives either ran
StrangersontheShoreTEXT08.indd 66-67
‘ S t r a nge S t r a nger s ’ 67
away or resisted which left but one course for the police to pursue. I was
present and saw the whole of the affair I can vouch for the truth of it
notwithstanding anything that may be said to the contrary by anyone else.
(Logue 1865:diary entry 17 April)
Doris Edgar, a senior Karajarri woman, gives this account of the early contact violence
along the coast to the north of La Grange Bay, not far from the Injitana area. She was then
in her eighties, so her grandmother would have been alive in the 1880s and possibly earlier.
There is no way of telling the exact time of these events. However, read in conjunction with
the historical records, such unchecked violence only occurred after the Roebuck Bay pastoral
company settlement in the 1860s. This incident could well be a conflation of a number of
events:
There was all people there getting nyari-nyari [bush onions collected from
the claypan country] and they didn’t see these people coming up. My
grandmother was young and the other people they went with malurlu
[young male initiates] to Burranan and then all these people come and
killed them all. Only my grandmother was alive and then he [she] tried
to get away. My grandmother take off to those people over there who
went with malurlu … my mother was telling me what granny was saying.
(Edgar 1999)
The first attempt by Europeans to colonise Karajarri country failed and the stations
established by the pastoral company were abandoned in 1866. There was no further settlement
by Europeans for at least a decade in Karajarri country (Skyring 2000a:25–6).
The north-west coastline to the top of the Dampier Peninsula was a rich pearling ground,
and by the 1880s a considerable fleet of pearling luggers operated out of Roebuck Bay. Karajarri
and other Aboriginal people worked as divers on the pearling luggers, and there were numerous
reports of abuses, such as kidnapping of men, women and children to work the luggers, and the
beating and murder of people once on board. The brutality of the industry, though condemned
by some protesters like the Rev. John Gribble and Roebourne Government Resident Colonel
Angelo, went virtually unchecked as often those with responsibility for policing the industry
were corrupt or in close relationships with the pearlers (Skyring 2000a:36–40).
Of the early pearling period, pirrka John Dudu Nangkiriny commented on how the Karajarri
felt about the exploitation of the pearl shell by the early pearlers:
In the first place they [the pearlers] came to take that shell from Karajarri
country. The pearl shell is important to us. They came and took it without
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 68 S trangers on the shore ‘ S t r a nge S t r a nger s ’ 69

asking. They [the Karajarri] had to show them where the shell was. They The example of Woods’ murder demonstrated that the Karajarri were prepared to have
didn’t just find it. Those poor buggers had to dive, naked. When they come relationships with walanyu (strangers) if cultural protocol was followed and there was adequate
up, if they had nothing, they hit ’em on the head. Make ’em go down again. exchange for knowledge, work or goods. However, pearlers such as Woods, who tried to extract
It was cruel what those kartiya [white people] did. It wasn’t right. (Dudu labour through violence and threats, and who were not prepared to accept a reasonable level of
Nangkiriny 1999a) reciprocity, caused conflict and prompted retribution.
What became La Grange ration depot was established in the late 1890s as a post office and
Aboriginal divers were supposed to be paid for their labour in food rations and returned station on the Telegraph Line. Archival records show that in 1899 the depot manager Tuckett
by master pearlers to their place of origin at the end of each season. Aboriginal people were distributed flour and blankets to Aboriginal people who camped at La Grange, and was paid for
well aware of the contractual nature of the relationship, as shown in the witness depositions this by the Aborigines Department. La Grange served as an outpost and communication stop
of several Karajarri men, or ‘Aboriginal natives of La Grange Bay’, as they were called in the for police when they patrolled the stations south of Broome. It was also on the stock route, and
Supreme Court documents. These men were accused of murdering pearler Joshua Woods in became a permanent camp for Aboriginal people referred to as ‘indigents’. The ration depot
1882. Woods had anchored his lugger at La Grange Bay and with 15 Karajarri men, several was run by the department through to the 1950s, and La Grange throughout this time was an
of whom were from Woods’ cutter Louisa, started working at the well. Woods was set upon area where people gathered for ceremony (Skyring 2000a:52, 2000b:29–31). Sometime prior
by a group of Karajarri men and killed with stones and tomahawks (Supreme Court records to 1920, CD Price was appointed Protector of Aborigines at La Grange depot, and died there in
1882). 1934 (Police record 1933; Skyring 2000b:19–21).
While it is probably significant that the site of the murder was another Karajarri water
source, the statements from witnesses and the nine Karajarri men accused of killing Woods
indicated there were a number of other issues involved. Their evidence was recorded in English
after it was translated by another of the accused, a man called Wommetty. ‘Walter’ of La Grange
Bay claimed: ‘The married men were complaining because they didn’t get enough flour. I always
had plenty to eat.’ The first accused, a Karajarri man named Karrada, also referred to not getting
enough flour, and that an Aboriginal man ‘belonging to the Louisa [Woods’ cutter]’ was dead.
Statements from the other Karajarri men accused of Woods’ murder told a story of violence from
the pearling master, and that they were not adequately paid. They referred to three Aboriginal
men who had died on the luggers, and that Woods had kidnapped women from the bush and
also beaten some of the Karajarri men accused of his murder. In several of the statements, the
accused referred to the ‘married men’ who gave the orders to kill Josh Woods:

Chingul alias Curly: Married men told us ‘That fellow (Josh) take ’em all
Figure 4.6. Ration depot at La Grange Bay, about 1918. Battye Library
young fellow; you kill ’em. What for come on this country? You kill ’em.’
The black fellow far away had no flour. (Supreme Court records 1882)
The Karajarri have their own views on how and why the La Grange depot was established.
They assert that Yuwari, also known as Jimiti (a creolisation of Timothy)1, who was pirrka
The nine men from La Grange Bay charged with Woods’ murder were sentenced to death
for the La Grange Bay area, was instrumental in securing a safe haven for the Karajarri
but none were hanged (Purdue 1993:67).
and neighbouring groups along the coast. Although the most brutal period of the pearling
There are no oral history accounts of Joshua Woods’ murder, but the documentary records
industry was over by the late nineteenth century, the Kimberley region was still a frontier of
indicate that the ‘married men’, that is the senior men who had been through all stages of
colonisation, where violence was commonplace. Donald Grey Wuntupu explained the Karajarri
Karajarri law and were therefore permitted to get married, were angry about the mistreatment
role in establishing the depot at La Grange:
of the younger men. They also objected to the lack of fair trade for their labour and knowledge.

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 70 S trangers on the shore
Jimiti saw all the people coming up … he had to look after them. He struck
up a good relationship with CD Price, the boss of the depot who taught
him to speak English. He used to fight for his people, travel around and
speak to government about his people. The government said ‘what are we
going to do for Jimiti? We have to find him and his people a place … A place
where they could sit down’ ... Jimiti was a king, the big boss, a big law man.
Old people sit him properly in this area ... they make him a big man on the
white side and the black side … he gave that place the name Bidyadanga
… he put the name there and we follow him today. He looked after people
and the Law, to keep them out from the white people so they can do what
they like … He knew the law from Jinjarlkurriny and he brought everyone
together. (Grey Wuntupu 2000)
Jinjarlkurriny was a culturally significant water source and known through song cycles
to groups across the country. It ensured Karajarri authority in that place. The arrival of other
groups into Karajarri country was seen as an invitation by Jimiti so that all the people were
looked after. In this context Karajarri authority was upheld and respected. It was an example of
an amicable relationship with walanyu, unusual in that in this case the walanyu was European.
CD Price was buried on the sandhills over La Grange Bay in the heart of Karajarri country, and
Jimiti was later buried alongside him.
With the arrival of the Thursday Island pearling fleet in the late 1880s and extension into
the deeper pearling beds off the coast, Aboriginal ‘skin’ divers, who dived without any breathing
apparatus at all, were gradually replaced as the main lugger workforce by indentured workers
from south-east and eastern Asia. Around the turn of the twentieth century, at La Grange
Bay and at the many creeks and inlets along the coast, Karajarri conducted a barter trade with
Figure 4.7. ‘Lay-up’ camp, Broome. Battye Library
StrangersontheShoreTEXT08.indd 70-71
‘ S t r a nge S t r a nger s ’ 71
these indentured pearling workers. Karajarri carted wood and water for the luggers in return
for flour, rice, tobacco, and sometimes liquor and other goods such as clothes and playing
cards. This was more, in both quantity and diversity, than the flour and occasional tobacco
rations Karajarri were paid by the station managers or received from the ration depot. Sex was
part of this barter trade, and women were paid in food as well as clothing and jewellery.
Karajarri oral histories refer to trade between the Asian crews and the local Aboriginal
people. For wood and fresh water, they received food and other goods including alcohol, and
many of the older Aboriginal men traded their young wives. In Karajarri society such exchange
was culturally acceptable if payment was negotiated and given. From their point of view this
trade was preferable to the more common experience of violent assault and exploitation of
Aboriginal women by white pearlers and station workers.
Edna Hopiga Wapijawa is the daughter of a senior Karajarri man and a mother whose
biological father was Malay. She speaks of what happened in the creeks in the following way:
All our grandpas used to sell their wives to the Malays to get tucker. Most of
my grannies had Malay kids. The Malays used to come to Whistler’s Creek.
My people used to live there. Old people would sell ’em young wives.
Lay up camps all around. They would come with dinghy into the creek.
Luggers used to come in once a month or more. Come in for wood and
water and sandalwood. All the grandpas used to cut the wood up. Have ’em
ready. And the women ready [laughs]. They [my grannies] used to go for
those Malays, because the grandfathers used to let them.
That was for tucker. They might run out. It was a long way to walk down
to the ration camp. Only get rations every two weeks. It was so they could
stay out in those places. They used to stay out. Never go to Bidyadanga all
the time. I think they might like them — all the young men. It was okay by
them. They might come in for water … might be they want women. They
stop long time at sea. Young people. That was like, something interesting.
(Hopiga 1999)
The documentary records show that local station owners and representatives of the
Aborigines Department condemned what they characterised as ‘prostitution’ and ‘debauchery’.
An official concern often expressed was the increase in what was referred to as a ‘coloured
population’ which would result from liaisons with ‘contaminating foreigners’, as the pearling
workers were described. But the emphasis by these commentators on prostitution obscured
a more serious concern about competition over Aboriginal labour. Aborigines Department
Travelling Inspector James Isdell complained in 1907 that Aboriginal people would not work
28/3/08 3:20:29 PM
 72 S trangers on the shore
for white people if they could get work from ‘coloured men’ (Skyring 2000a:53–7). Edna Hopiga
recalls that some of the men with whom Karajarri traded became family:
I used to call them [Malays] like uncle. They [the children] know their
father’s name. We have been asking who the fathers were. Some of us knew
who they were.
That’s a good idea for people. Help one another. Blackfella never worry
about it. There used to be whiskey too if they want ’em. But mainly tucker.
That’s not the blackfella or Malay fault. They did it for themselves.
Wasn’t wrong. (Hopiga 1999)
As well as the issue of competition for scarce labour resources, the barter trade represented
an autonomous economic activity for Karajarri, conducted beyond the control of local station
owners and Aborigines Department representatives. Police Constable Kuhlmann, who along
with other police stationed in Broome spent much of his time trying to prevent the barter
trade, recognised its value. In 1904 Kuhlmann suggested that he could direct an Aboriginal
workforce to gather wood and water, which he had already done on at least one occasion, and
keep the payment from the luggers. The Aborigines Department could then use the proceeds
to purchase further rations, clothes and tobacco. The department did not endorse Kuhlmann’s
idea, and focused instead on trying to eradicate the trade. A section of the Aborigines Act
introduced in 1905 prohibited Aboriginal women and girls from frequenting creeks between
sunset and sunrise. Another section of the Act allowed certain areas to be declared ‘prohibited’
to Aboriginal people, and this was done for several areas along the Karajarri coast in 1907
(Skyring 2000a:8–63). Despite these efforts, the police records showed that the barter trade
between Karajarri people and pearling workers continued through to the 1930s (Skyring
2000b:25–8).
The mis-communication between Karajarri and the ‘strange strangers’ who became more
numerous on their country was illustrated through police practices in the area. Records
from the early twentieth century refer to police shooting dogs in Aboriginal camps. Station
owners or managers complained that the dogs frightened cattle and sheep, and were a general
nuisance. Often these complaints were in the context of Karajarri people visiting station
outcamps, or deliberately burning the country along the stock route to destroy the feed for
cattle. The police destroyed dogs in camps often under the direct orders of station managers,
and remarked in their reports that the patrols by police had a ‘moral effect’ on Aboriginal
workers and their relatives. In 1901 Police Constable Zum Felde patrolled the area south of
Broome, from Thangoo to Edgar’s Station, and shot several dogs in the camps he went to. He
‘cautioned natives against burning the country’ (Police record 1901). Constable Mills in 1907
StrangersontheShoreTEXT08.indd 72-73
‘ S t r a nge S t r a nger s ’ 73
patrolled the La Grange Bay area. Over a period of six months he carried out carnage, shooting
a total of 59 dogs at Karajarri camps. In one place alone he shot 16 dogs and in another he shot
18 (Police record 1907, Aborigines Department record 1907). Constable Duncan patrolled the
camp at La Grange Telegraph Station in 1911 and wrote:
Visited Native Camp (Indigents) and ordered three young male natives to
leave there as they are only living on the food supplied to the indigents.
They said they had a right to stop in the camp as it was their own country,
but the killing of a couple of dogs soon convinced them that it was best to
go. (Aborigines Department record 1911)
These police practices would have inspired terror. However, to understand the full extent
of this terror we need to appreciate the significance of ‘dogs’ to the Karajarri. As mythical
beings, yukurru (dogs) are significant to Karajarri cosmology, and Karajarri train their dogs
to track and catch kangaroo, goanna and feral cat, and to find sugarbag (honey). Dogs are also
kept to protect people from strangers, and from wirangu (dangerous spirits). Edna Hopiga
Wapijawa explained that ‘dogs can smell wirangu. He can smell ngalkurru [body smell]. They
bark when wirangu coming’ (2000). John Dudu Nangkiriny, who had two dogs, said, ‘Dogs are
like family’ (1998). They are parrjarri, his sons. So close is this relationship that many Karajarri
predecessors, in particular most of the senior law bosses, are remembered by nicknames
derived from their hunting dogs. For example, Rinja-jartuyukurru, an uncle to Edna Hopiga,
literally means ‘a man belonging to that dog Rinja’. And there are many more ‘jartuyukurrus’
scattered throughout the Karajarrri genealogies, and for many their formal names are now
forgotten.
In this context, the police practice of shooting dogs as a strategy of intimidating Karajarri
prompted a reaction of horror that was possibly even more than what the police intended.
Steven Possum relates one such incident:
There was the biggest reserve here. Blackfella camp for Karajarri. We
used to live off pajarniny [wallaby]. We had no jilaman [gun], only dog.
Sometimes police come and kill dogs. Used to shoot dogs right between
their legs. I used to cry for the dogs. Really cruel. (Possum 1999)
It is no surprise that the Karajarri and other coastal dwellers maintained a dislike and fear
of the police, who were also responsible for taking away so-called ‘half-caste’ children, and
chaining Aboriginal prisoners on their journey to the courthouse in Broome. The action of
police in shooting dogs was further illustration of their unwillingness to negotiate with the
Karajarri owners of the country.
28/3/08 3:20:29 PM
 74 S trangers on the shore
Conclusion Acknowledgement
We wish to thank Karajarri native title holders for their permission to use in this chapter material that was presented as
From the earliest contact between Karajarri and Europeans, mis-communication and conflict evidence at their native title trial in the Federal Court.
defined the relationship. Competition over the use of land and water resources was often the
catalyst for violence, and in the case of the 1864 murders at Ingedana the records suggest that
the European men’s disregard for the cultural significance of the area into which they travelled Note
was a fatal misunderstanding. The consistent transgression of Karajarri cultural protocols 1. Jimiti or Yuwari (referred to by Elkin as Yuari-26 or
Yuwari –26, skin — Burrungu) is closely related to a
and laws by these ‘strange strangers’ made the relationship, with few exceptions, a hostile number of the Karajarri native title holders.
one. Whether in the context of land and water resources, or work by Aboriginal people, the
interchange was usually one in which Karajarri ownership and labour value were not respected
or even acknowledged by the intruders. Through to the twentieth century and the police
References
practice of raiding Karajarri camps to shoot their dogs, the actions of the European walanyu
Aborigines Department record 1911, State Records
emphasised that they had no concern for the rules and traditions of the people whose land Office of Western Australia, Accession (Acc.) 652:
they appropriated. 1042/1911, ‘La Grange Bay journal of Constable
Duncan 933 for July 1911’.
Burges, LC 1913, The Pioneers of the Nor’-West Australia,
Constantine & Gardner, Geraldton.
Dudu Nangkiriny, John 1998, interviewed by Sarah Yu,
Bidyadanga, 8 December.
Dudu Nangkiriny, John 1999a, interviewed by Sarah Yu,
Bidyadanga, 16 February.
Dudu Nangkiriny, John 1999b, interviewed by Sarah Yu,
Bidyadanga, 20 July.
Edgar, Doris 1999, interviewed by Sarah Yu, Broome.
Everett Miaka, Cissy 1998, interviewed by Sarah Yu,
Injitana spring (north of Bidyadanga), 27 August.
Grey Wuntupu, Donald 1999, interviewed by Sarah Yu,
Bidyadanga, 14 December.
Grey Wuntupu, Donald 2000, interviewed by Sarah Yu,
Bidyadanga, February.
Hopiga Wapijawa, Edna 1999, interviewed by Sarah Yu,
Broome, May.
Figure 4.8. ‘Aborigines – Corroborrie regalia’, Anna Plains, south of La Grange Bay, about 1928.
Hopiga Wapijawa, Edna 2000, interviewed by Sarah Yu,
Battye Library Broome, 16 March.
Logue, J 1865, Papers 1857–65, MN 1333, Acc. 4172A/1,
Part of our aim in combining the ethnographic and archival research is to humanise the Battye Library Private Archives.
McCarthy, M 1993, ‘Before Broome’, unpublished
documentary record in relation to this history. The people so often described in the police reports presentation to Australian Association for Maritime
and departmental records as simply ‘natives’ were Karajarri individuals with responsibilities History Conference, Fremantle.
to their people and their country. This determined the way they responded to walanyu. The
different responses outlined in this chapter show that violence and mis-communication
were not inevitable. There always existed the possibility of a more equitable and cooperative
relationship than that which characterised contact between Europeans and Karajarri, and this
was illustrated in the barter trade Karajarri conducted with the Asian pearling workers. The
Karajarri, in the face of an imposed governance structure and economic system that sought
to undermine their autonomy and dispossess them of their lands, never relinquished cultural
responsibilities for their country nor their traditional ownership.
StrangersontheShoreTEXT08.indd 74-75
‘ S t r a nge S t r a nger s ’ 75
Police record 1901, State Records Office of Western
Australia, Acc. 430, 1902/0798, ‘Derby — Journal
of Constable Qum [sic] Felde (330) 10 October to
3 November 1901’.
Police record 1907, State Records office of Western
Australia, Acc. 430, 1907/2887, ‘Derby — Journal
of Constable WT Mills (605) whilst at La Grange
Bay April 1907’ and Aborigines Department record,
Acc. 255, 1908/0880, ‘Police, Derby, La Grange Bay.
Journal of Constable Mills Oct 1907’
Police record 1933, State Records Office of Western
Australia, Acc. 430, 1933/0801, ‘Broome patrol
journals Vol. 5’.
Possum, Steven 1999, interviewed by Sarah Yu,
Bidyadanga, 1 January.
Purdue, B 1993, Legal Executions in Western Australia,
Foundation Press, Victoria Park, Western Australia.
Scates, B 1989, ‘A monument to murder: Celebrating
the conquest of Aboriginal Australia’, Celebrations
in Western Australian History: Studies in Western
Australian History 10:21–31.
Skyring, F 2000a, Karajarri expert report: History,
unpublished report filed 10 April 2000 re WAG 6100
of 1988.
Skyring, F 2000b, Karajarri expert report: History (Further
Report), filed 10 May 2000 re WAG 6100 of 1988.
Supreme Court records 1882, State Records Office of
Western Australia, WAS 122, Consignment 3473,
111/1882, Supreme Court Criminal Sittings, No. 985,
‘Regina against Karrada and 8 others’.
28/3/08 3:20:29 PM
 76 S trangers on the shore ‘out-of-country ’ 77

Across the Australian Indigenous world there

are many stories of early coastal contact, mostly
relegated to myth and legend, while ‘official’ history
continues to privilege the text-based sources of
the dominant culture.2 Those historians who give
validity to Indigenous sources as evidence, when
writing Indigenous histories, continue to clash
5. ‘Out-of-country’ with those who persist in denying its relevance.
A clear example of the debate surrounding the
Too many Cooks spoilt the broth
writing of Indigenous history is demonstrated
by the contemporary ‘history wars’ in Australia
Margo Neale
that resulted in an inability of the orthodoxy to
National Museum of Australia and The Australian National University
accommodate differences of opinion even within
the same western system of historiography,
You people try and dig little more deep — you bin digging only white soil. let alone accommodate Indigenous non-text-
Try and find black soil inside. (Paddy Roe in Benterrak et al. 1984:168) based history telling. Even academically trained
Aboriginal historians were not heard amidst
Too Many Captain Cooks is the title of a 1987 bark painting by the late Rembarrnga artist Paddy the noise of the warring non-Indigenous
Fordham Wainburranga, from the Katherine region in the Northern Territory (Figure 5.1). voices and remained outside the frame. Keith
I draw on this iconic work to focus discussion on the nature of Indigenous responses to the Windschuttle’s interpretation of black–white
settler narratives surrounding the arrival of Captain Cook and the foundational myths that relations in his telling of Australian history was at
ensued. loggerheads with those of other white historians
His work, along with other visual narratives in art, will give us some insights into how such as Stuart McIntyre and in particular Henry
Figure 5.1. Too Many Captain Cooks, 1987, by
those previously captive to anthropological discourse and unequal power relations increasingly Paddy Fordham Wainbarranga. Mimi Aboriginal Reynolds who drew upon a diverse range of
interrogate the histories that define them as ‘other’ and ‘lesser’. It will also look at how Arts & Crafts
evidence including Aboriginal oral history to
Indigenous people engage in self-liberating strategies through visual narratives, by challenging an apparently ‘unacceptable’ degree. Controversy erupted over the use of oral history in the
the plot lines of imposed colonial narratives. Contested Frontiers exhibit at the National Museum of Australia in 2001, erroneously but
In his seminal painting, Wainburranga illustrates his Captain Cook story, as a counter- conveniently referred to as the ‘Frontier Conflict’ exhibit, in relation to stories about the
narrative which incorporates the elements necessary for the story to find its proper place in massacres of Aboriginal people at Bell’s Falls Gorge in New South Wales.3 Though a number
a Yolngu society1, and one that deliciously subverts whitefella evidentiary-based history and of contemporary non-Indigenous historians such as Ann McGrath, Ann Curthoys, Inge
linear chronologies. In so doing, Wainburranga’s work offers us an opportunity to reflect on Clendinnen, Maria Nugent and Nicholas Thomas increasingly draw on oral sources, often at
ways in which visual art literacy is a master key to accessing and appreciating Indigenous their peril, in my view they still rarely use visual data as source material or evidence.
modes of history telling. The way figurative elements are dispersed across the picture plane and As an Indigenous art curator and history curator based at a social history museum I explore
the culturally specific use of spatial relationships, multiple perspective, scale and proportion an Indigenous take on the ‘foundational’ hero Captain Cook and his clan. Through inversion,
form a visual grammar that accords with the underlying structure of oral narratives; a cultural parody and irony, Indigenous history tellers challenge codes of entry into and exclusion from
imperative, I might emphasise, in which art/culture and history/story are not discrete the ‘official’ histories and suggest how Indigenous sources may be read back into history, a black
compartments. This is aside from, yet integral to, the narrative content, the treatment of time history which is complex and comprehensive, not limited to written modes of expression, nor
and the place of ritual. I will return to a more detailed examination of this work later.

StrangersontheShoreTEXT08.indd 76-77 28/3/08 3:20:30 PM

 78 S trangers on the shore ‘out-of-country ’ 79

confined to a past on the margins where it remains outside the mainframe and effectively
invisible.4 Cook is also alive and well for Indigenous people as a metaphor for black–white
relations and as an enduring legacy of colonial relations, representing the ‘archetype of all early
Europeans’ (Rose 2001:62).
Indigenous modes of telling the past challenge western ideas of time, place and
interpretation. These practices do not, as cultural historian Chris Healy (1997) observes, merely
relay a series of events in advancing chronological order but rather focus on what he refers to
as the ‘meaning of actions’, capturing their essence in non-linear narratives that are able to
enter and be integrated into complex Indigenous knowledge systems. From an Indigenous
perspective, these narratives as stories are history: history is story. Anthropologist Peter
Sutton suggests that they are told by Indigenous storytellers as ‘true stories’.5 As Professor
Ann McGrath (2006) has noted, ‘Some historians have tried to look at pre-1788 as a story
of culture … but then you miss the dynamics of change, which is what we define as history
… a narrative of dynamism (and change) through time’. It is common practice for western
historians to diminish these stories as myth and therefore not history.
If we are to shift our focus to Indigenous representations of history, we must look at the
artistic and philosophical paradigms out of which particular epistemological concerns spring.
Art, art history and interpretation, historiography and philosophy come together around
this point.
That is not to say, however, that whitefellas don’t ‘mythologise’ figures and events from
Figure 5.2. Lhooq Ere!, 2001, by Dianne Jones. Viscopy
the past. One need look no further than the ‘Encounters’ module that was on display in the
Horizons gallery at the National Museum. You’ll find Captain James Cook’s dress sword, his
tea caddy, teacup and saucer and telescope, not to mention bits of ballast that were ditched unauthorised signature in the form of a moustache (Figure 5.2) in subversive Duchampian style
from the Endeavour off the coast of Queensland, all of which is entirely fitting for a national (that is, twentieth-century French artist Marcel Duchamp) on an image of the Mona Lisa.
museum. At the National Library of Australia, the exhibition called Cook’s Sites (March–June These are the objects and cultural artefacts around which is built the figure of a foundational
2006), in which a number of the art works discussed below were included, was described in hero, one associated with the birth of a nation and the dawn of a new era, a figure of the
the catalogue as ‘documenting in images and text, significant places visited by Captain Cook in Enlightenment, who is interestingly enough not associated with wars or massacres or in fact
New Zealand, Australia and the Pacific, and sites associated with his memory and collections death of any kind, except his own, unlike the commemoration of many other heroes of our
in Europe’. In the State Library of New South Wales you’ll find a pair of his shoe buckles for nation. These objects embody the essence of the Cook upon which the whitefella creation story
ordinary wear, another for court wear, a glass drinking tumbler, a selection of flatwear and rests. It is actually a creation story that did not appear to gain full momentum, in the popular
cutlery, a mourning ring, a lock of his hair and a half-finished dress vest. Art galleries across imagination at least, until 1970 during the celebrations of Cook’s arrival. These celebrations
the continent house acres of portraits and herds of statues which stand looking eagerly to the attracted Koorie protests around the site of Cook’s cottage in Fitzroy Gardens, Melbourne,
horizon on every bend of every coast between here and Tonga, and now we have an entire further widening the space for the entry of new episodes to the growing historical counter-
series of a reality TV show dedicated to re-enacting the voyage of the Endeavour as it plies the
narrative.
coasts on its never-ending journey.
The Cook upon which blackfella history rests, on the other hand, is a character from a
Near the National Museum, the National Portrait Gallery houses its $5.3  million
different story. He may or may not have arrived here on the Endeavour, may or may not have
John Webber portrait of Captain Cook to which Aboriginal artist Dianne Jones added her
perpetrated massacres and random killings, and may or may not have introduced cattle into

StrangersontheShoreTEXT08.indd 78-79 28/3/08 3:20:30 PM

 80 S trangers on the shore
the environment. But in relation to the fundamentals he is clearly connected. He has a causal
relationship to the invasion, the theft of land, stolen children and dispossession. Indigenous
narratives release Cook from old plot lines of constructed narrative and locate him in stories,
to quote Chris Healy (1997:7), ‘closer to the spirit of social memory … about the importance
of being able to live with, rather than simply accumulating knowledge about, the past in
the present’.
The Captain Cook of most Indigenous narratives suffered from what I refer to as a
condition called ‘out-of-country’ — a potentially dangerous condition. That is, if you are in a
country that is not your own ancestral place to which you have rights and responsibilities and
enter it without permission, then ‘badness’ can be unleashed by your unlawful presence. It is a
condition that is harmful and breeds lawlessness, fear and bad behaviour. It is well understood
by Indigenous people that Cook was out-of-country and therefore out of order. He did not
observe the laws of the land or the rights of Indigenous people. Captain Cook neither turned
black (i.e. he never observed the laws of the land), nor turned back when he found the land
occupied. Turning neither back nor black is a theme that arises in several of the Captain Cook
histories, including those recorded by Deborah Rose and related in her ‘Captain Cook Sagas’.
Rose (2001:74) writes:
When I asked Yarralin people what would have happened if Captain Cook
had asked properly [to be in their country], I was told that either he would
have been denied permission and therefore would have gone away, or he
would have been allowed to stay but only on terms decided by the owners
of the country.
The well-known story told by Yarralin elder Hobbles Danayari to Rose in 1982, which is
too long to recount here, casts Captain Cook as the archetypal European, the invader who
popped up all over the country, making his way by sea from the Kimberley to Sydney and
Darwin, engaging in unfair battle with guns and not spears, not playing by the rules, stealing
the land and killing the people. Cook is not only exhibiting the symptoms associated with
the condition ‘out-of-country’ but also, and worse still, he comes from the sea. According to
Chris Healy in his excellent book From the Ruins of Colonisation (1997:58): ‘Many Aboriginal
histories of Cook, including accounts from non-coastal people, introduce Cook as coming from
the sea’. This denotes his ‘otherness’. As Healy goes on to explain, ‘Cook must come from the
sea because he brings disruption to order and life’. Conversely the land created in ancestral
times is immutable and moral and therefore the source of order (Healy 2000:94). Rose and
others have observed that once Captain Cook has transformed into a character that carries the
story of the origins of colonisation, then he becomes code for ‘whitefellas’ — a characteristic
common to all Aboriginal Cook stories.
StrangersontheShoreTEXT08.indd 80-81
‘out-of-country ’ 81
But not all ‘whitefellas’ are bad, as Wainburranga describes in his bark painting Too Many
Captain Cooks. He incorporates aspects of western history into Rembarrnga structures of
telling and emphatically states:
You think you white people know Australia. White people don’t know
Australia. We know it from the beginning. We Rembarrnga know. We
know the laws because we have dance and songs from the early days.
(Healy 1997:68)
While he did come from the sea he did not come from
a strange and unfamiliar land like England. He came from
a more familiar place called Mosquito Island, east of New
Guinea, with strong connections to Australia. According to
Wainburranga, Cook ‘was a Yirritja man from the Yirritja
group’, he came with law, had ceremony and business. He
was not cast as the invader in Hobbles Danayari’s story,
but as a provider. His business in Sydney was to build his
boat, Barrapa, and to introduce material things to Aboriginal
people ‘proper way’, useful material things like axes,
steel knives, calico, trousers and flags. In line with other
Figure 5.3. Paddy Fordham traditional Indigenous cultural heroes, and those of many
Wainburranga. Mimi Aboriginal other cultures, his morality and ‘lawfulness’ were tested in
Arts & Crafts
conflict. In Wainburranga’s depiction, Cook struggled and
triumphed over the evil Satan or Ngayang figure before his eventual fall and death much later.
Biblical overtones reflect not only Wainburranga’s exposure to Christianity but probably more
significantly the universality of ‘creator beings’ across cultures.
Wainburranga goes on to explain how Cook never wanted
trouble. Satan (Ngayang), representing evil and temptation
(baser side of nature), picked a fight to steal Cook’s wives and
possessions, with the collusion of his wives whom Satan won
over with his powers. Together they plotted Cook’s demise.
However, Cook, epitomising good, laid down the rules of the
encounter, insisting that it be fair and equal. No weapons
or magic, just hands. Cook eventually won after a protracted
Figure 5.4. T-shirt, drawn by battle. He threw Satan at a rising, creating a tunnel which is
Margo Neale, which featured at the recorded in the landscape today as the Cahill Expressway in
presentation of this paper at the
Strangers on the Shore conference. Sydney. Cook resumed work on his boat and on completion
National Museum of Australia he sailed off to visit his relatives on Mosquito Island. There
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 82 S trangers on the shore ‘out-of-country ’ 83

he was betrayed by his own tribe and speared. But being a lawman of this land he came back
to Sydney with his wounds, to die in his proper place. He is buried in Sydney Harbour. The
Mackinolty version says he is buried under Garden Island, across the harbour from the Captain
Cook Graving Dock. Wainburranga places Cook in a time frame before Adam and Eve, before
his grandfather’s grandfather had lived: ‘The first men knew him, because we’ve got the song
(from them). We call the song barrambarra’. It is at this point in the story that he moves from
the ‘olden days’ to the ‘new world’ of the recent past. It is at this point that Wainburranga uses
Cook to analyse the ethical dilemma and traumatic changes of the colonial experience in a
most creative way.
The next chapter, which I have abbreviated, goes like this and I quote Wainburranga:
Figure 5.5a. Draughtsman Making a Perspective Drawing of a Woman, 1525, by Albrecht Dürer (Edwards 1979: 116, fig. 8-1)
When the old Captain Cook died, other people started thinking they could
make Captain Cook another way. New people. Maybe all his sons. They
started shooting people then. New Captain Cook people. They were the ones
who have been stealing all the women and killing people. They have made
war … those New Captain Cooks. They all fought the wars. The new ones.
Mr White, Bill Harney, Mr Sweeney, not old Captain Cook. He’s dead. He
didn’t interfere and make war … All the Captain Cook mob came and called
themselves ‘welfare mob’ ... They wanted to take all Australia. They wanted
the whole of the country. But now we’ve got our culture back. No-one can
change our law … our culture. We have only one law from Captain Cook.
That’s all. That’s the story now. (Mackinolty & Wainburranga 1988:359)
Figure 5.5b. What Dürer saw; an Figure 5.6a. Illustration of the dualism of mind and body, by René
approximation. Instructional drawing by Descartes (1596–1650). Figure 5.6b. The Cartesian grid: a system
It was the impostors who came later that brought the disorder referred to in the title of this Betty Edwards (Edwards 1979: 117, fig. 8-2) for recording space, after Descartes
paper as the Cooks who spoilt the broth.
Clearly this form of history telling has an ongoing engagement with the present, where the western modes of visual representation, based on the single point perspective principle — that
narrative is not fixed but is able to adapt to and incorporate new and important information, is, the viewer is the centre of the universe from which all lines and frames of reference emanate.
living with the past in the present, and active in both black and white worlds — a technique This view is epitomised by the development of the Dürer grid, a device used by Renaissance
that resonates with stories from many cultures across time and place and forming the basis of artists to control the representation of the three-dimensional world through coordinates that
many religions. enable the artist to record it as a two-dimensional space (Figures 5.5a and b).6 Similarly the
Unlike non-Indigenous versions of the tales of Captain Cook, this version has significant Cartesian grid from Descartes in the seventeenth century gives further mathematical expression
Indigenous agency. Cook in this story is a historic character authorised through ceremony and to this notion in which the imperfections of the physical world can be corrected and ordered by
included in the pantheon of ancestral beings. And just as clearly, it is collective history handed man based on his view that the physical world is mechanistic and entirely divorced from the
down through an economy of knowledge, a method of both preservation and dissemination mind (Figures 5.6a and b). These ordering systems, which effectively place man at the centre of
that stands in stark contrast to the traditional authored and footnoted history of the western the universe and above nature, are alien to an Indigenous world-view.
academy. You will find little of this thinking in a Wainburranga painting, or indeed in bark paintings
What can we learn about Indigenous history telling from a visual reading of Wainburranga’s in general. If this structured view of the world with its horizon line transecting the image, and
painting? First we can tell that it does not accord with the perspectival system of traditional a vanishing point midway across the Golden Mean, represents western orthodox thinking,

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 84 S trangers on the shore
let us consider what insights into Indigenous historiography we might gain from Wainburranga’s
work.7 There is no formulaic structuring of the picture plane, typical of traditional western
history paintings, nor the accompanying division of the picture plane into three unequal
sections, in an attempt to reduce the story to an objective reality. That is, an ‘accurate’ visual
representation of what is before your eyes (read code for facts or truth). This disembodied
variety of objectivity that occupies the mind of the western academic historian in their
attempts to relay ‘truth’ is the converse of the Indigenous historian’s approach. In this context,
subjectivity and not objectivity is the desired goal of the Indigenous history teller, referred to
as ‘meaning from actions’, mentioned above. This is not to say that Indigenous history tellers
do not authorise their rendition of ‘truth’. Instead they refer to the lineage of authorities who
came before them. Embellishment by each storyteller and reader is encouraged depending on
their relationship to the story and its relevance to the time and place of its telling. Because
Wainburranga’s story painting is for the present and largely for the education of non-
Indigenous audiences, the vocabulary (i.e. the content) is figurative and explicit in contrast to
the more abstracted symbolic paintings Aboriginal artists paint for ceremonial purposes and
for ‘inside’ audiences. The grammar or organising principles, known as composition in pictorial
terms, reveals a combination of Indigenous and non-Indigenous structures, which supports
Wainburranga’s intent of communication across cultures.
The painting is structured into an upper world and a lower world, somewhat mediaeval
in character and not characteristic of traditional bark painting. The lower world is akin to the
underworld where the bad guys like Satan, painted upside down, inhabit. Other graphic elements,
such as Mosquito Island where Cook was betrayed by his relatives, his mortuary ceremony and
the hole where Satan hid to ambush Cook, are also consigned to the underworld. A shovel-
nosed spear, the instrument that brought death to Captain Cook and unleashed badness upon
the Aboriginal world from that time forward, significantly separates these two worlds. Here the
orientation and location of figures are in relationships that reveal their meaning within a lived
and anecdotal experience. The centrality of Cook’s boat to the narrative is communicated by its
elevation to the top of the painting, assuming iconic status in the way a western painting might
elevate a relic or person of special significance. This is a practice contemporary artist Gordon
Bennett appropriates in his work Triptych (1989), and discussed further below. Cook similarly
assumes status through scale. The relationship between the key character and the key object is
reinforced by Cook’s hand, painted to touch the ship — the only instance in the painting where
physical connection occurs. Overlapping and other devices to create spatial illusion are rare if
not non-existent in conventional bark painting.
The picture plane can simultaneously be viewed as divided into three equal sections:
the upper world occupied by the boat, the object of greatest status; the middle world
of transformation, where mortals like Cook become ancestral beings; and the lower or
StrangersontheShoreTEXT08.indd 84-85
‘out-of-country ’ 85
underworld, where Satan and other features associated with bad deeds reside. The ascendancy
from evil reads from the base of the painting in a vertical fashion to the elevation to goodness
in the upper section.
This episodic structure accords with the structure of the narrative and not with the
recreation of an illusion of visual reality employed in classical western history painting based
on the science of optics; that is, the construction of foreground, middle ground and background
to convey an illusion of three-dimensional reality. Of course, this linear episodic structure has
some parallels with the structure of literary and historic writings and with some forms of
western folkloric and religious art and, in particular, Renaissance art.
Wainburranga’s use of multiple perspectives reveals his attempt to impart information
beyond the constraints imposed by the eye. Western avant-garde painters of the late nineteenth
and early twentieth centuries, such as the cubists and surrealists, also exploited this device for
similar reasons and were viewed at that time by the establishment as iconoclasts. Each figure
in Wainburranga’s bark painting reveals a combination of frontal and profile views, typical
of traditional Aboriginal visual texts and those found in many other ancient cultures such as
Egyptian and Mycenaean art. Notice Satan’s cloven bullock feet, manipulated to give full effect
denoting a sorcery figure, while Cook’s equally pronounced feet and toes by contrast denote
humanness. The rest of their torsos are frontal. An interesting exception is the more western
and therefore foreign style of the single perspective depiction of the foreign and unwelcome
Cooks with guns, who enter from the right side of the painting and confront Cook. Through
the organisation of space in this work, Wainburranga offers a comprehensive history that is
integrated into and reliant on access to complex cross-cultural knowledge systems (though to
a much lesser degree than more traditional barks).
Let us consider the possibility that the visual structures used to objectify reality in
traditional western art practices are not dissimilar in intent to those found in the thinking
behind orthodox western historiography. In other words, the visual image has a text-based
equivalence. The western kind of knowing, at least in the telling of the authorised histories
I refer to, tend to demand conformity to the reductive frame of the official or establishment
history of the day, in which the rules for inclusion and exclusion are tightly drawn. It is a system
that is generally not readily able to accommodate as primary evidence the dynamics of oral
histories, deal with ancestral histories or take into account the emotional and social indices of
human experience and relationships of the kind that occur in Wainburranga’s history telling.8
In other words, the chances of Wainburranga’s version of history being treated as the true
story of Captain Cook in Australia or being given equal value in school textbooks is remote.
It can only be true for a handful of Australians but the western version must be true for all
Australians. From a western historical viewpoint it would be considered not factual, unable
to be proven empirically and the timeline as all wrong. How can one assimilate the concept of
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 86 S trangers on the shore ‘out-of-country ’ 87

Figure 5.8a. Terra Nullius, 1989, by Gordon Bennett. Gold Coast Art Gallery

is undoubtedly a relationship between the propensity for aerial views in Indigenous art and
the way knowledge is intellectualised wholistically, a topic that falls outside the ambit of this
chapter though worthy of further exploration.
Other artists, such as Gordon Bennett from Queensland, consciously subvert the colonial
narrative with its underlying ideological position by exploiting the western perspectival
systems to re-insert Indigenous people into European structures of seeing and knowing that
for generations excluded Indigenous historical perspectives. In Requiem, a detail of Triptych
(1989), Bennett replaces a western icon with ours — namely, Christ with Trugannini — at the
peak of the converging lines (Figure 5.7). That is, he aims to reverse this erasure by exposing
the use of reductivist formulaic systems that keep the ‘other’ out.
It is the footnoted histories of the
dominant order that Bennett, who refers
Figure 5.7. Triptych (detail: Requiem), 1989, by Gordon Bennett. Courtesy the artist
to himself as a history painter, directly
interrogates in works such as Terra Nullius
projecting contemporary events into the past, that is conflate Captain Cook of 1770 with an
(1989) (Figures 5.8a and b). This highly
ancestral past? Maybe it is an inappropriate measuring stick and perhaps the answer lies with
politicised and intellectual artist, although
Herodotus’s form of history telling.9 The conservative side of the ‘history wars’ mentioned
contrasting in both style and content
above were perhaps even more offended that the oral histories were being (re)told by white with Paddy Wainburranga, is nevertheless
settlers and not Aboriginal people and thus not so readily dismissed as mythmaking. These speaking from within the same historical
relatively rigid structures of western historiography in combination with political colonialist context. Coming from an urban background,
Figure 5.8b. Detail of Terra Nullius, 1989, by Gordon
ideologies put Indigenous people, our views of history and our modes of historic discourse, Bennett, familiar with European texts,
Bennett. Gold Coast Art Gallery
outside the frame on each account. uses appropriation as a tool for analysing
On the other hand, Wainburranga’s grammatical structure accommodates both western the experience of invasion from a black perspective. Re-occupying images from within the
and non-western systems of recording and interpreting history and resonates in particular with canon of ‘whitefella’ history (for example, Figure 5.9), he uses irony to dismantle notions
oral modes of history telling, which are inextricably linked to the visual record, thus providing of authorship and erasure. In this work he plays with archival sources, taking an illustration
a more three-dimensional view of events, consistent with the Indigenous world-view. There from a school history text and a photograph of an imprisoned Aboriginal man. Juxtaposing

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 88 S trangers on the shore ‘out-of-country ’ 89

Figure 5.9. Captain Cook Taking Possession of the Australian Continent on Behalf of the British Crown, AD 1770,
under the Name of New South Wales, 1865, by Samuel Calvert (from Illustrated Sydney News, December 1865)
Figure 5.10. Possession Island, 1991, by Gordon Bennett. Courtesy the artist
these with the bars of the Union Jack by which the man is incarcerated and the footsteps of a
liberated Indigenous presence that float outside of the single perspective illustration, he draws
together a narrative that makes explicit Aboriginal presence in authorised history.
In Possession Island (1991) (Figure 5.10), he again draws from the canon of western art
traditions, by directly incorporating the Cartesian grid and its accompanying discourses into
the frame. In this work the native has been re-inserted up front and centre, commenting on
Australian Indigenous experiences but on racist paradigms across the board — the figure could
be any black person from any number of stories trapped in the ‘Eurocentric perceptual grid’
that freezes him into a system which is only able to represent him as a ‘primitive’ and a ‘savage’.
This richly researched work is loaded with intriguing references.
Bennett’s history paintings have found their place in the increasingly confronting and
unsettling histories Indigenous people are telling. Art historian and critic Ian McLean writes
that Bennett:
virtually re-wrote the history of Australian settlement as a story of invasion
and genocide … He is not just intent on replicating exciting images … but
uses [them] as a tool, which, by undoing the rules of representation in the
first place, uncovers the staging of an ideology; and in so doing institutes
a conundrum about the nature of language and being in the history of
Australian colonialism. (McLean & Bennett 1996:88–9)
With similar intent, Koorie artist Adam Hill in his Cook story Bennalong Time (2002)
(Figure 5.11) also draws on the European visual system of representation to paint an unsettling
picture of this early coastal contact with strangers. Through inversion and parody he diminishes
the grand narrative of Captain Cook’s triumphal entry into Sydney waters by reducing the
Endeavour to a Captain Cook tour boat, and reclaims the place as Aboriginal. He Indigenises
everything, from the shells of the Opera House, which are converted to humpies, to the use of
traditional watercraft circling what could be seen as a great white shark bringing destruction
in the form of the Cook tour ship — an out-of-place oddity worthy of a good snigger. Even the
landscape is signed as Aboriginal with the mark making of the Gadigal people. As these Gadigal
families go about their business, the Captain Cook Tours launch, perhaps with an office party
or a 21st birthday on board, enters the scene, bringing with it the tragedy which we know the
future holds. Intentional or otherwise, this image exhibits an interesting concurrence with
Cook’s accounts of how unmoved the local population were by his arrival. It shows how they
continued to fish in boats nearby and generally ignored the visitors as they went about their
everyday business. Cook could not comprehend how they could be so nonchalant at the arrival
of this ‘remarkable’ ship, as Cook describes it. Hill also captures the Indigenous understanding
of the past in the present exhibited in Wainburranga’s painting by pasting the traditional
activities of the Gadigal, as Cook would have observed them, over the present-day site.

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 90 S trangers on the shore
Figure 5.11. Bennalong Time, 2002, by Adam Hill. Casula Powerhouse and Liverpool Regional Museum
While Adam Hill draws on the tourist poster trope as archive, others like Kylie Kemarre, an
Ampilawatja woman from Utopia in Central Australia, draws on the filmic tradition of popular
culture to reinterpret white histories of Cook in her narrative painting Arrival of Captain Cook
(in the Titanic) (1998) (Figure 5.12). This wonderful mixed metaphor came to the artist after
she saw the film Titanic (1997) in Alice Springs. Having sat through three hours of it, Kemarre
knows full well that this story belongs not to Captain Cook and Joseph Banks but to Leonardo
Di Caprio and Kate Winslett, and now to her and her people. The conscious placing of the
image of the ship full of uninvited foreigners in the context of a first-contact story challenges
the notion of a peaceful takeover. Kylie liberates her people from the colonial plot lines that
cast them as passive, and she claims a historic truth either erased from many conservative
versions of history or diminished to ‘necessary police actions’: that of resistance. She also
claims a degree of Indigenous agency in both the recording and telling of Australian history.
In this interpretation, overwhelming numbers of ‘blackfellas’ resist the invaders and overturn
the unequal power relations. Her history telling is concerned with social memory, with the
issue of how one explains an experience and learns to live with it while finding a place for the
past in the present.
StrangersontheShoreTEXT08.indd 90-91
‘out-of-country ’ 91
Figure 5.12. Arrival of Captain Cook (in the Titanic), 1998, by Kylie Kemarre. Courtesy the artist
In this chapter I have aimed to make three main points. The first is that Captain Cook
narratives are told by Indigenous people to analyse, as Healy (1997) explains, the colonial
condition in an attempt to deal with the impact and traumatic change the contact episode
brought about and the ongoing ethical dilemma it poses. To return to Healy’s From the Ruins
of Colonialism (1997:72):
Instead of the sea-based chronicles of happening upon a silent continent,
these histories speak from land that cannot be discovered. Instead of
possession as a commedia dell’arte performance that only later comes to
be recognised as conferring legal authority or founding a nation, these
histories propose a narrative of intense dispossession acted out across
colonial deathscapes. Instead of an inheritance of a working-class navigator
made good, these histories remember Captain Cook as posing a continuing
problem for white Australia, a problem of how to both acknowledge and
rewrite the plot of ongoing colonial ruination.
My second point is that Indigenous agency is now a major factor in the doing or, in an
ironic way, the undoing of history. We have a need to correct history: to reverse the erasure
and draw ourselves back into the picture. History is not only about what has happened but also
about what has not happened, in the vein of what Donald Denoon (2003:295) has referred to
as mandatory forgetting, which can be just as political as what is chosen to remember. This
agency includes giving primacy to Indigenous modes of historic discourse which unsettles
conventional history telling through the use of non-text-based genres.
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 92 S trangers on the shore
The third point is that art is history in Indigenous society: always was and always will be, as Notes
that famous call to land rights proclaims. It is of course no coincidence that this expression is 1. Yolngu, a generic term meaning ‘Aboriginal person’,
just as applicable to art as land when one considers the following words from a Yirrkala elder: is used in the central and eastern parts of Arnhem
Land. While Paddy Wainburranga was from western
Art is messenger for the land: the land cannot speak. Arnhem Land, he lived for periods of time in central
Arnhem Land and often referred to himself as Yolngu.
Indigenous agency is working towards an acknowledgement that art in Indigenous society With the mobility of Aboriginal people across regions
is more than art as understood in the western world, that it is probably the most significant some Aboriginal people from Arnhem Land refer to
themselves in this way to outsiders.
primary cultural text available. It is a comprehensive evidentiary system that reveals different 2. My use of the term ‘official’ or ‘authorised’ history in
epistemological concerns embodied in part by the fact that science looks for answers but art is the context of this chapter refers to those versions
of history sanctioned for use in schools or indeed
more interested in questions — thus revealing one cause for the tension between Indigenous written by those few historians sanctioned by the
government of the past 11 years. While I acknowledge
and non-Indigenous systems of recording history. Art challenges assumptions about the nature that it is a variegated field in which non-Indigenous
of evidence, as seen in the 2005 publicity surrounding the National Museum of Australia’s authors have relied largely on documentary (nearly
always non-Indigenous) sources, there is an increasing
purchase of Mistake Creek Massacre, a painting by the acclaimed Kimberley painter, the late interest in using a range of contact archaeological,
Queenie McKenzie. oral and visual sources in an attempt to understand
Indigenous perspectives (see, for example, papers
Oscar Wilde’s observation that ‘the most successful art comes not from ambition but by Collard & Palmer, McDonald, Skyring & Yu, this
from necessity’ would seem to account for why more than 50 per cent of Australian artists are volume).
3. The irony of this example is that the oral history that
Indigenous, although Aboriginal people constitute only around 3.5 per cent of the population most caused offence was told by Wiradjuri man Bill
Allen and is believed to be part of white oral tradition,
(Newstead 2007). which constitutes a reverse form of appropriation.
The original source of the story is not substantiated.
Use of Indigenous oral and visual sources for history
Acknowledgements telling extend well beyond the ‘Contested frontiers’
module at the National Museum of Australia.
This paper is related to my work on an Australian Research Council project, ‘Unsettling histories: Indigenous modes of historic
4. As a participant in the Australian History Summit
practice’, with the Australian Centre for Indigenous History (ACIH), History Program, Australian National University. It is one
convened by the Hon. Julie Bishop on 17 August
of a number of partnerships with the National Museum of Australia. I am working with Professor Ann McGrath and Frances
2007 in Canberra, I was able to witness the difficulty
Peters-Little on exploring Indigenous history telling, which takes us out of the archives and into the communities, and away
that approved historians and commentators had in
from the textbooks and into the arts. The ACIH’s most recent work is a film called Frontier Conversations, with other films in
incorporating Indigenous views of history pre- and
production that deal with Lake Mungo, Wave Hill and Kalkaringa, all of which draw primarily on Indigenous sources in telling
post-1788.
history. I would like to thank Christine Hansen, PhD candidate, for her assistance with early drafts of this paper, and other 5. Peter Sutton, ARC Professorial Fellow, pers. comm.,
readers: Ann McGrath, Ann Curthoys, John Docker, Frances Peters-Little, Anna Edmundson, Marie Nugent and Chris Healy. 18 August 2007.
I am also grateful to Peter Veth for his support of Indigenous perspectives and for his constructive feedback. 6. Many western modernist artists have challenged this
representation of reality in their pursuit of the truth
and the answer to the question, ‘What is Art?’
7. This is not to imply that traditional bark paintings are
not structured.
8. As Curthoys and Docker remind us in Is History
Fiction? (2005), there are two opposing foundational
pillars supporting the western tradition: one from
Herodotus based on the arts focusing on the social
and cultural, and the other from Thucydides which is
more scientific, political and formal. The latter would
not be so conducive to Indigenous history tellers and
would appear, as suggested, more privileged in current
times.
9. Refer to Note 8.
StrangersontheShoreTEXT08.indd 92-93
‘out-of-country ’ 93
References
Bennett, T 2004, Pasts beyond Memory: Evolution, Museums,
Colonialism, Routledge, London.
Benterrak, K, Muecke, S, Roe, S & Roe, P 1984, Reading the
Country: Introduction to Nomadology, Fremantle Arts
Centre Press, Fremantle.
Curthoys, A & Docker, J 2005, Is History Fiction?
University of New South Wales Press, Sydney, and
University of Michigan Press.
Denoon, D 2003, ‘Re-membering Australasia: A repressed
memory’, Australian Historical Studies 122, Melbourne.
Edwards, B 1979, Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain:
A Course in Enhancing Creativity and Artistic Confidence,
JP Tarcher, Los Angeles/New York.
Healy, C 1997, From the Ruins of Colonisation: History as
Social Metaphor, Cambridge University Press, New
York.
Healy, C 2000, ‘Captain Cook: Between black and white’,
in S Kleinert & M Neale (eds), The Oxford Companion
to Aboriginal Art and Culture, Oxford University Press,
Melbourne, pp. 92–6.
Mackinolty, C & Wainburranga, P 1988, ‘Too many Captain
Cooks’, in T Swain & D Bird Rose (eds), Aboriginal
Australians and Christian Missions: Ethnographic and
Historical Studies, Australian Association for the Study
of Religions, Adelaide, pp. 355–60.
Maddock, K 1988, ‘Myth, history and a sense of oneself’,
in J Beckett (ed.), Past and Present: The Construction
of Aboriginality, Aboriginal Studies Press, Canberra,
pp. 11–30.
McGrath, A 2006, ‘A deep time history of civilisation
in Australia’, a workshop on the question: ‘Is it
possible to write a history of the past 60,000 years?’,
Australian History Association Conference: Genres
of History, Australian National University, Canberra,
6 July.
McLean, I & Bennett, G 1996, The Art of Gordon Bennett,
Craftsman House, Sydney.
Newstead, A 2007, Senior Aboriginal art specialist, Lawson
Menzies Auction House, pers. comm., January.
Nugent, M 2005, Botany Bay: Where Histories Meet, Allen &
Unwin, Sydney.
Rose, D 1984, ‘The saga of Captain Cook: Morality in
Aboriginal and European law’, Australian Aboriginal
Studies 2.
Rose, D 1989, ‘Remembrance’, Aboriginal History 13.
Rose, D 2001, ‘The saga of Captain Cook: Remembrance
and morality’, in B Attwood & F Magowan (eds),
Telling Stories: Indigenous History and Memory in
Australia and New Zealand, Bridget Williams Books Ltd
co-published with Allen & Unwin, Sydney.
Thomas, N 1999, Possessions: Indigenous Art/Colonial
Culture, Thames & Hudson, London.
Too Many Captain Cooks 1988, producer and director, Penny
McDonald, performer, Paddy Fordham Wainburranga,
Ronin Films, Canberra, VHS, c. 18 min.
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 94 S trangers on the shore rock art and cross-cultur al int er act ion 95

6. Rock art and cross-cultural interaction

in Sydney
How did each side perceive the other?

Jo McDonald
The Australian National University and Jo McDonald Cultural Heritage Management Pty Ltd

First contact
When Captain James Cook visited Botany Bay he stayed for eight days (Beaglehole 1955). The
Endeavour moored close to the southern shore of the bay known as Gwea (Collins 1798:453).
Fresh water was sought and many plants were collected and documented by Joseph Banks.
Both Cook and Banks made numerous comments regarding local inhabitants, the Gweagal.
These were generally based on fleeting glimpses of people undergoing their daily existence and
a number of incidents where the explorers were attacked by spear-throwing ‘Indians’. Figure
6.1 shows that first encounter from the perspective of the inhabitants.
Cook himself fired several rounds of shot on the Gweagal (Collins 1798:453) who ‘menaced
them’ as their boats attempted the first landing. An old and younger man armed with 10-foot-
long spears and woomeras (spear-throwers) were recorded as the welcoming party — and both
Banks and Cook record that the older man was struck in the legs by shot. His response to this
was to run to his ‘house’ 100 yards from the shore and arm himself with a shield. A further
shot from Cook dispersed the two men and the landing party set foot on Australia. It was
28 April 1770.
This moment has long been recorded by white Australia as the ‘birth of the nation’.
Modern perceptions of this encounter are significant (see Nugent, this volume), and moves
are currently afoot to rename ‘Captain Cook’s Landing’ as the ‘Meeting Place Precinct’. This
politically correct nomenclature still doesn’t do justice to the nature of this encounter between Figure 6.1. ‘Natives opposing Captain Cook’s landing’: Tupaia (the Hawaiian brought along by the Europeans as a
the locals and the white strangers on the shore. That moment of contact was the first recorded potential translator) is depicted at the front of the first longboat, offering gifts.
in English on the south-east coast of the continent. While fleeting in terms of the time spent

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 96 S trangers on the shore rock art and cross-cultur al int er act ion 97

there, this contact had profound implications for the Sydney Basin Aboriginal society. In terms
of the initial encounter, it would seem that the arrival of a relatively large sailing ship caused
only a minor ripple in the communities living around Gamay (Botany Bay).
Cook spent most of his time in Botany Bay charting its waters. He and his crew collected
the thrown spears and another 40–50 which they found outside one of the bark huts near
the shore. Unfortunately relatively few of these have since appeared in museum collections
(Coates 1999). The visitors attempted to ameliorate this dispossession by tossing trinkets
(nails, ribbons, mirrors and combs) among the local people. These items were not accepted
with any great enthusiasm and there was no real exchange of material culture at this time. The
local people do not appear to have been interested in the offered trinkets, although subsequent
offerings (e.g. metal axes, alcohol) appear to have made better purchase (McBryde 2000).
Cook and Banks recorded their observations regarding the population’s skin colour, the
nature of their houses — and the disappointing fact that these people only ‘seemed to want for
us to be gone’ (Cook in Beaglehole 1955:357). Members of the Cook expedition commented
on a number of items of the local material culture (see Megaw 1993). On 5 May the Endeavour
departed from Botany Bay, passed Port Jackson and spent several days becalmed around Figure 6.2. Aborigines attacking a sailor ‘gathering herbs’, drawing no. 44, by ‘Port Jackson Painter’, 1788–97.
Reproduced with permission of the Trustees of the Natural History Museum, London
Broken Bay at the mouth of the Hawkesbury River (the journals record some three leagues
from the shore), and then they were gone. In a strategy aimed to both increase the familiarity between the Indigenous population
and the settlers:
The First Fleet: European observations and perspectives
the Governor at length determined to adopt a decisive measure by
on cross-cultural exchange
capturing some of them and retaining them by force, which we supposed
Eighteen years after Cook departed the region, the 11 ships of the English First Fleet reached would either inflame the rest to signal vengeance (in which case we
Botany Bay (Phillip 1789). While again only briefly mooring in Botany Bay (before relocating would know the worst and provide accordingly) or else it would induce an
to Farm Cove), this time the colonial and penal intentions of the outsiders were clear — they intercourse, by the report that our prisoners would make of the mildness
were here to stay. From this moment in January 1788, the processes of cross-cultural exchange and indulgence with which we used them. And farther, it promised to
were irrevocable. Relatively quickly these resulted in the obliteration of a prehistoric society unveil the cause of their mysterious conduct. (Tench 1789:93, 94).
which had flourished here throughout the Holocene.
On 31 December 1788 Arabanoo was the first of these captives. He was at first called
The numerous diarists on the First Fleet tried to make sense of the Sydney Aboriginal
‘Manly’ by Phillip because of his stature — and because he refused to give his name, a resistance
people (e.g. Bradley 1786–92; Collins 1798, 1802, 1804; Dawes 1790; Hunter 1793; Phillip
he continued until the following February. Bennelong and Colebee soon followed.
1789, 1791; Tench 1793; Watling 1794; White 1790). This was made difficult in part by the
This strategy to escalate the intercourse between the inhabitants and settlers and to
unwillingness of the subjects of interest to communicate, or engage, with the settlers. Contacts
elucidate the nature of their culture, language and mores was severely impeded by the
within the initial six months of the landing were few and mostly marked by violence (Figure
smallpox epidemic of April 1789 (Butlin 1983; Curson 1985; although see Campbell 2002).
6.2). A total of 17 Europeans were killed or wounded within this time, without documented
Tench recorded (1789:102–3):
loss to the Indigenous population. Governor Phillip himself was speared at Manly Cove in
September 1790 (Tench 1793:54; White 1790:23), while the killing of his gamekeeper (in An extraordinary calamity was now observed among the natives. Repeated
December 1790) led to an increase in punitive action. accounts brought by our boats, of finding bodies of the Indians in all of

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 98 S trangers on the shore
the coves and inlets of the harbour … it appeared that all the parties had
died a natural death. Pustules similar to those occasioned by the smallpox,
were thickly spread on the bodies; but how a disease to which our former
observations had led us to suppose them strangers could at once have
introduced itself, and have spread so widely, is inexplicable.
Phillip estimated the 1788 population of ‘Botany Bay, Port Jackson, Broken Bay, and the
intermediate coast’ to be in the order of 1500 persons.1 This is thought to have halved as a
result of the smallpox epidemic, by late 1789.2 This caused major cultural upheaval that was
not restricted to the immediate environs of the white settlement. On visiting Broken Bay,
Collins (1798:496) noted:
The pox has not confined its effects to Port Jackson, for on many places
our path was covered with skeletons, and the same spectacles were to be
met with in the hollows of most of the rocks in the harbour.
The diabolical effect of the 1789 smallpox epidemic must have meant that social organisation
was severely affected. Linguistic evidence indicates that five languages were spoken in the
region at contact (Capell 1970; Troy 1994). Discrete bands with shared ritual responsibilities
accounted for stability in social behaviour and stylistic homogeneity in the region’s rock art
(McDonald 2007). These were described by early observers as speaking different dialects, but
were likely to have been multilingual in composition and speech because of intermarriage and
visiting (Peter Sutton, personal observation). Corroborees involving local and visiting bands
were observed in the first years at the settlement at Farm Cove (Collins 1798:486).
Ethnohistoric and later reports all describe the initiation ceremonies as involving a number
of neighbouring ‘tribes’ and large gatherings of people (Collins 1804:311; Mathews 1897:1–2;
Mathews & Everitt 1900:276). Only men took part in the initiation of young men, although
women were present at parts of the ceremony. Collins’ description of a Yoo-lang tooth avulsion
ceremony was based on an eyewitness account made between 25 January and 3 February
1795 (1798:466–86, plates 1–8; see also Attenbrow 2002:132–3). The ceremony was held in
Farm Cove in Gadigal territory, and was presided over by the Cameray elders. Also present was
‘Pemulwoy — a wood native’ (Collins 1798:466) and leader of the Botany Bay Bediagal tribe
(Dawes 1790). The mutual responsibilities of neighbouring dialect groups were an important
component of the social composition.
The early accounts of art in the region are minimal. None of the early writers sought
informed opinion about the art they observed, and the conclusion most often drawn was that
these were the doodles of children. The earliest reference (22 April 1788) to the widespread
distribution of engraved Aboriginal art was made by Governor Phillip (1789:58):
StrangersontheShoreTEXT08.indd 98-99
rock art and cross-cultur al int er act ion 99
In all the excursions of Governor Phillip, and in the neighbourhood of
Botany Bay and Port Jackson, the figures of animals, of shields, and
weapons, and even of men have been carved upon the rocks, roughly indeed,
but sufficiently well to ascertain very fully what was the object intended.
Fish were often represented, and in one place the form of a large lizard
was sketched out with tolerable accuracy. On the top of one of the hills the
figure of a man, in the attitude usually assumed by them when they begin
to dance, was executed in a still superior style.
Phillip expressed surprise that the local inhabitants had developed an art form prior to
other aspects of ‘civilisation’, illustrating the settlers’ total incomprehension of the nature of
the society confronting them:
That the arts of imitation and amusement should thus in any degree precede
those of necessity seems an exception to the rules laid down by theory for
the progress of invention. But perhaps it may better be considered proof that
the climate is never so severe as to make provision of covering and shelter
of absolute necessity. Had these men been exposed to a colder atmosphere,
they would doubtless have had clothes and houses, before they attempted
to become sculptors. (Phillip 1789:58)
In Botany Bay, ‘on many of the rocks are to be found delineations of the figures of men and
birds very poorly cut’ (Tench 1789:79). In Port Jackson:
various figures [are] cut on the smooth surfaces of large stones. They
consisted chiefly of representations of the natives in different attitudes;
of their canoes; of several sorts of fish and animals, and considering the
rudeness of the instruments with which the figures must have been executed,
they seemed to exhibit tolerably strong likenesses. (White 1790:141)
In the 1840s, George Angas ‘rediscovered’ the engravings ‘cut into the surfaces of flat rocks
in the neighbourhood, and especially on the summits of the various promontories about the
harbours of the coast’. He and one of his friends took ‘Old Queen Gooseberry’ (Boongaree’s
wife) as a guide to visit numerous groups of ‘carvings’ on North Head, and to tell them ‘what
she knew’ about them. Angas recorded that:
at first the old woman objected, saying that such places were all koradji
ground, or ‘priests’ ground’, and that she must not visit them; but at
length, becoming more communicative, she told us all she knew and all
that she had heard her father saying about them. (Angas 1847:201, 202)
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 100 S trangers on the shore rock art and cross-cultur al int er act ion 101

Unfortunately, Angas does not record what he was told by Gooseberry. Contact art: Indigenous perspective of the outsiders
As European settlement expanded, the Aboriginal population dwindled rapidly. The
While all of the diarists and journal keepers of the First Fleet recorded the presence of
combined ethnohistoric and historic evidence suggests that traditional life continued for only
Aboriginal art around the landscape, no one observed the art being produced in the early
a short time after contact. Initially the barter of food, particularly fish, in exchange for metal
contact period — and no one appears to have asked the local inhabitants about its function
items and other European items allowed for a relationship of reciprocity. When it became clear
and/or cultural significance.
that the dispossession of land and other resources would continue, the combined effects of
Relatively few contact motifs have been recorded in the region and these reflect an absence
disease and social disintegration led to changes in strategies for dealing with the changes in
of cross-cultural engagement by Indigenous artists with the outsiders. In all, there are 37
power relations. While there is evidence of agency in the initial cultural exchanges made by the
recorded engraved and/or pigment contact motifs (Table 6.1). These are found in 20 sites: 14
Indigenous parties, Isabel McBryde (2000:245, 272) identifies that these must be seen in the
pigment art sites and 6 engraving sites. None of these are around Botany Bay or Port Jackson
context of the ‘history of dispossession’:
(Figure 6.3). They mostly occur around the Hawkesbury River and where this river discharges
Both parties had well-defined determinants and aims that were embedded into the sea at Broken Bay. Only one is located south of Port Jackson (near the Georges River)
in their own cultural norms and experience, yet both used exchange as a and this documents a particular historic event (see below).
medium of communication and to transcend these norms. Table 6.1 Sydney contact motifs found in both art components

Man with
While exchanges between the Indigenous population and the outsiders continued to
introduced
negotiate differences throughout the first 40 years of European settlement, the rock art would Clothed material Clothed Sailing Introduced
suggest that the social dislocation was such that rock art ceased to be a conduit to negotiate Art media Metal axe man culture woman boat animal Total
identity among the Indigenous populations of the region. Pigment 2 0 1 0 13 5 21

Engravings 0 1 0 1 5 *9 16
Sydney Basin rock art
Total 2 1 1 1 18 14 37
The Sydney region has an extensive rock art corpus which includes both engravings (petroglyphs)
*Staples Lookout: ‘rabbits’
on open sandstone platforms, and pigment art (pictographs) in caves and rock shelters. These
can be found across the entire Sydney Basin, as defined by the extent of the sandstone geology RH Mathews (1895:56) recorded ‘blacks in the Wollombi district executing paintings in
(Branagan et al. 1976). Both art forms occur across the whole region (McDonald 2007). Within caves up till 1843’. The implication of Mathews’ observation is that Aboriginal people were
the pigment graphic is an extensive assemblage of stencilled, drawn and painted subjects: painting in a traditional fashion: an interesting observation given the presence of a recorded
human figures, land animals, birds and marine animals. Stencils of hands are common; human contact motif in the Wollombi area (at Site #45-3-1468). This particular motif shows a human
feet are less frequent. The varying sizes of the hand stencils indicate that all members of the figure with a ball and chain attached to his ankle: one presumes an early sighting of convicts
family group (men, women, children and sub-adults) participated in pigment art production in the area, perhaps during the construction of the Northern Road in the early 1810s. This
(McDonald 1995). Stencilling records the full range of pre-contact material culture, including charcoal drawing is schematically similar to anthropomorphs drawn in the Sydney style —
hafted stone axes, boomerangs, woomeras (spear-throwers), parrying shields, digging sticks, that is, it is a new subject traditionally depicted.
and natural subjects (e.g. fish tails, twigs, kangaroo pelts with feet, and kangaroo tails). The All of the contact motifs recorded in the region are produced using existing stylistic
two art components represent a single schematically similar art tradition which is thought to forms — that is, simple figurative engravings, drawings or stencils.3 The pre-contact schema
have been produced over the last 3000–5000 years and up until contact. The low frequency has been used and adapted to the new subject matter. Stencils of introduced material culture
and restricted distribution of contact art — that is, depictions of European subjects and/ are rare but accurate depictions of items which were introduced into the repertoire. These
or objects completed in the traditional schemata — provide an indication that the fabric of include a metal axe head (in Mangrove Creek) and a clay pipe (at Hallett’s Beach, Ku-ring-gai
society quickly disintegrated soon after contact occurred. Chase National Park).

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 102 S trangers on the shore
Figure 6.3. Distribution of all
recorded art sites (engraved and
pigment) with contact motifs.
Source: Jo McDonald
More than half of the recorded contact motifs are sailing boats (Figure 6.4). All of the
drawn depictions (in charcoal or white pigment) show the boats in full sail, as do most of the
engraved depictions (see Figure 6.5). These are all located well away from the first settlement
(i.e. Port Jackson). The drawn versions all occur in valleys which drain into the Hawkesbury
River — in the Darginung, Guringai and Darug language areas. The engravings of ships are all
located on ridgeline sites in areas where Europeans may have been first sighted in boats from
a distance across the water. These too are found in Guringai, Darginung and Darug language
areas. Some of these are incorporated into or among pre-contact subjects; others are in isolation
StrangersontheShoreTEXT08.indd 102-103
rock art and cross-cultur al int er act ion 103
Figure 6.4. Example of an engraved ship from
south of the Hawkesbury River near Maroota.
This has been engraved over a composition of a
macropod being struck by several boomerangs
and a spear (from McDonald 1986).
(Figure 6.5). One of the engraved examples only shows clearly the masts and what appear to
be portholes or gun emplacements along the sides of the craft (Figure 6.6). This could be a
depiction of a later steamer (Mark Staniforth, pers. comm., 2006). This type of example could
also reflect a transitional schema (or what Clegg calls a ‘bitsa-schema’; 1981:357).
Some of these sailing ship depictions could predate the arrival of the First Fleet and date
to Captain Cook’s 24-hour becalming at the mouth of Broken Bay. Most of the depicted ships
are fully sailed and double- or triple- masted. They are certainly not the open cutters used
by Phillip (and other early navigators) to explore Broken Bay and its surrounds. As well as
representing craft in full sail (presumably moving past the observers, not moored within
range of personal contact or experience), the degree of detail demonstrated suggests fleeting
encounters rather than strong familiarity (cf. the praus painted on Groote Eylandt: Clarke &
Frederick 2006:124–6).
Introduced fauna are also rarely depicted in the contact repertoire. They are found at
only one engraving site, and this interpretation is open to debate. The engravings at Staples
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 104 S trangers on the shore rock art and cross-cultur al int er act ion 105

upper tributary of the Hawkesbury).

These sites contain charcoal drawings of
horses — both with four legs and both
with streaming manes and tails. Their
proportions led their recorders to describe
them both as ‘ponies’. Interestingly,
most pre-contact land animals in this
part of the region are depicted with two
legs when shown in profile (McDonald
Figure 6.5. Tracing of two engraved ships from around the Hawkesbury River (left: Peats
Ridge; right: Lower Portland). Traced by the author from Aboriginal Heritage Information 2007; McMah 1965). This suggests that
Management System site file; original field recording by Ian Smith the schema being used to depict these
animals was slightly different, perhaps to
accommodate an unfamiliar subject. The
third shelter (known as Bull Cave), near
Campbelltown to the south of the region,
contains depictions of cattle (Figure 6.8).
In June 1788, five cows and a bull
— described by Tench as the ‘whole of
our black cattle’ (1789:52) — strayed
into the woods and could not be found.
These beasts remained missing for more
Figure 6.7. Drawing of an engraving, interpreted
than six years before being discovered in
as depicting rabbits, at Staples Lookout, 1899, by
1795 near Liverpool (the location was WD Campbell. Source: Aboriginal Heritage
subsequently named Cowpastures). There Information Management System site file
are three drawings of cattle in Bull Cave,
and the depictions of these beasts are schematically naïve. John Clegg (1981:357) has argued
that the red version, with its head like a bird and its insubstantial legs, was the first attempt,
Figure 6.6. Tracing of engraved ship with masts, sails and possibly portholes. Traced
by the author from Aboriginal Heritage Information Management System site file; while the black versions — which are more bull-like (in our perception) — may have been the
original field tracing by John Clegg subsequent attempt.
The fact that these cattle were found alive and well and multiplied significantly (to a herd
Lookout (near Gosford: Figure 6.7) have been interpreted as nine rabbits (Campbell 1899). of more than 60 beasts) indicates that the artist(s) certainly didn’t perceive these creatures
Given the much later introduction of this vermin (in the 1820s) and the pre-contact schema as a new addition to the menu. The fact that these drawings can be linked to a documented
and technique used in their production, this interpretation is dubious. John Clegg (1981; historic event is fascinating. The first land grant in the Cowpastures area (5000 acres to John
Stanbury & Clegg 1990:114) suggests it is more likely that this row of figures with long ears Macarthur) was made in 1805 (Ashton & Blackmore 1987). James Hassall (1977), whose
represents a conga-line of dancers (humans in profile) wearing headdresses. family purchased the Denbigh property in 1826, recalls up to 200 Aboriginal people working
There are three shelter art sites which have introduced fauna depicted. Two of these are on this land during burning-off periods as well as witnessing a number of corroborees. The
near the Hawkesbury River (one at Wiseman’s Ferry and the other near Mogo Creek, an Macarthur family recount stories of Aboriginal corroborees near Camden in 1839, 1846

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 106 S trangers on the shore rock art and cross-cultur al int er act ion 107

Figure 6.8. Tracings of two bull drawings from Bull Cave, near Campbelltown. Source: Jo McDonald

and 1850. Aboriginal people in this part of Sydney were still producing pigment art in 1788
(1795?) and were still conducting ceremonial activities 50 years later. There is no evidence,
however, that art was produced after the lost cattle incident.
The prehistoric art of the Sydney Basin includes a variety of human figures, accounting
for about 12 per cent of the shelter art assemblage and around 10 per cent of the engraved
component. These include males, females, ungendered figures, profile figures and culture
heroes. The small number of settlers depicted in the rock art — that is, people portrayed
in clothing or in association with introduced elements (i.e. the man with ball and chain on
his ankle) — is telling. Again, the known sites with post-contact human figures are located
well away from Port Jackson. The drawn anthropomorph with the ball and chain is the most
northerly of these motifs; the other two motifs occur south of Wiseman’s Ferry near Maroota Figure 6.9. Traced examples of engravings with European clothing, both from Devil’s Rock, Maroota (McDonald 1986)
(on the same rock platform as the boat engraved over the macropod: see Figure 6.6).
The engraved contact figures are depicted in a different schema to the pre-contact graphic Rock art and cross-cultural interaction
(Figure 6.9). The man in the top hat has a punctured outline. It is in profile and shows the upper
This chapter has discussed how Indigenous rock art — and in particular the inclusion of post-
body only: arms are added stick figures. The engraved contact woman has ankles but no legs,
contact motifs into a prehistoric assemblage’s graphic — might provide insights into the
arms or breasts. The female figure is engraved on top of a conventional male anthropomorph
which is part of an extensive engraved assemblage. The three contact motifs at Maroota are nature of culture-contact interaction in Sydney with the arrival of the First Fleet.
each engraved with a thinner and shallower groove than the preceding prehistoric motifs. The This study has shown a very different type of social engagement occurred in the Sydney
man in the top hat’s outline of unjoined punctures, which have not been joined by a subsequent region to that which has been documented in northern Australia, where the seasonal arrival
groove, suggest this motif may have been incomplete. of Macassan fishing fleets for the collection of trepang (bêche-de-mer) resulted in familiarity
with the visitors’ watercraft and possessions — with a distinct and reflective record of material

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 108 S trangers on the shore
culture (Clarke 2000; Clarke & Frederick 2006). Clarke’s work on the contact archaeology of
Groote Eylandt, and the subsequent work with Frederick, have demonstrated:
that the boat images, praus in particular, represent not merely a
fascination with new forms or introduced technology but reflects
Indigenous social agency and cross-cultural relations. They represent
creative and communicative acts which attempt to close the distance
between one place, one group of people and another … Dissimilarities
between the representations of Macassan and European boats indicate
further that Indigenous artists distinguished and asserted the differences
of their experiences of these two groups of outsiders. (Clarke & Frederick
2006:129)
The Groote Islander people had a great familiarity with the construction of the praus, with
their crew and with the visitors’ social customs (Berndt & Berndt 1954:45, 46). Paintings
of the praus show internal details of the hulls, have numerous passengers depicted, and are
consistently portrayed with several key graphic attributes (mast, decking, rudders, rigging and
sails). Depictions of European boats, conversely, lack stylistic conventions, have less detail in
their depictions and are never drawn with people. The fact that the European sailing boats are
drawn and not painted is argued by Clarke and Frederick (2006:124) as further evidence that
they are spontaneous records of encounters ‘from some distance’.
The scarcity and distribution of the Sydney post-contact art suggests that there was very
little engagement by the Indigenous population with the new people and new objects that
were imposed on their landscape. The smallpox epidemic of 1789 (which may or may not
have resulted from British settlement: Campbell 2002; Curson 1985) may have truncated
this engagement; certainly it would appear that rock art production stopped being a socially
enacted process very soon after contact. With the exception of Mathew’s observation that art
was still produced by Aboriginal people in 1843 there is no record of pigment or engraved art
being produced in the vicinity of first contact, despite ceremonial activities being witnessed
first-hand by various early observers for up to 100 years after contact. The depiction of boats
away from the initial contact points suggests storytelling about a mysterious object observed
from a distance. While Clarke and Frederick (2006:124) argue that the production of praus
10–15 kilometres from the coast indicate that prau images were ‘internalised within memory
and carried further inland, away from the centre of the cross-cultural stage’, the Sydney ships
occur only at distance and reveal minimal cross-cultural engagement. The depictions of cattle as
‘mythical creatures’, or at least with mixed schemata, reveal a fascination with the unknown.
The ethnohistoric records reveal that many recorded observations of the colonisers were
coloured by their own cultural preconceptions and misconceptions. Neither side at initial
StrangersontheShoreTEXT08.indd 108-109
rock art and cross-cultur al int er act ion 109
contact (in 1770) had much opportunity to understand the significance of the social exchange
which had occurred, while the more permanent arrival of settlers almost two decades later, and
their focus on their own survival, meant that understanding the others’ social complexity and
developing this into cross-cultural interaction was fraught with misunderstanding and conflict.
Because of the nature of the impact on Aboriginal culture, in particular the catastrophic smallpox
epidemic of 1789, this opportunity for mutual understanding fast disappeared. There is no
evidence that the Sydney artists represented the outsiders in their art with any sense of shared
connection. The inclusion of outsider objects and subjects reveals no intentionality to grapple
with, comprehend or communicate an understanding of the outsiders and their culture.
The rock art evidence would suggest that the arrival of the outsiders resulted in the
termination of the Sydney region’s symbolical and artistic culture. There is no evidence that
rock art production continued with changed function (either in place of production or in
graphic vocabulary). This is in stark contrast to Central Australia, where rock art has been
used to demonstrate the effect that ‘telegraph operators, police, pastoralists, miners and
missionaries’ had in the ‘construction of a colonial interior’ (Frederick 2000:311). In the arid
centre of the continent, rock art reveals changes in the social, economic and physical spheres
of Indigenous reality (Frederick 2000:324):
Prior to sustained Aboriginal–European contact a greater number of
widely dispersed sites were used for the production of rock art than
during contact where fewer sites were used more intensively … this
indicates a shift from a wide-ranging use of an expansive landscape to a
more intensive use of a contracted landscape. Graphic designs … show
an increase in elaboration of form and detail … [this] reflects a process of
focussing artistic intent into matters of foremost concern, maintaining
links to land and tjukurrpa.
In the Sydney region prior to contact, I have argued that rock art functioned as a prehistoric
information network. Through stylistic behaviour, groups around the region, who were not in
constant verbal contact with each other, were able to communicate important social messages
and demonstrate both broad-scale group cohesion and within-group distinctiveness. Complex
patterns in the levels of stylistic variability across the region in both art media demonstrate the
nature of the contacts between language groups, as well as areas where the tensions resulting
from these contacts were greatest (McDonald 2007:350). There is evidence at contact that the
social system in the region was evolving, the introduction of fish hooks at around 1000 BP as
part of a dual social system (Walters 1988) being one of the clearest archaeological indicators
for this. The fact that rock art stopped being a mediator of cross-cultural (or inter-cultural)
interaction after contact is significant. The dropping of art from the information exchange
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 110 S trangers on the shore
repertoire — in a period of social upheaval and stress — is counter-intuitive to the premises
of information exchange theory, whereby it is proposed that in such periods there will be a
proliferation of new styles and statements of individual identity (e.g. Wiessner 1990).
No contact art is recorded in the immediate zone of contact between the outsiders and the
Sydney groups. Almost all of the contact rock art occurs to the north of Port Jackson (along
the Hawkesbury River and its major tributaries). With the exception of the Bull Cave site, all
the contact art is found within the territories of the Darginung, Guringai and Darug language
areas — the pigment art in shelter sites where the social context of art production would have
allowed for the demonstration of inter-group messaging. Most of the engraved contact motifs
occur along ridgelines either on identified access routes around the region (Peat’s Ridge, the
Old Northern Road) and at aggregation sites (in the sense used by Conkey 1980) such as
Devil’s Rock, Maroota. The production of contact art in these art contexts would suggest the
sharing of information between social groups.
Most of the contact art depicts boats, the detail of which suggests a perception of distant
observers rather than representations of knowledgeable cross-cultural experience. The
absence of evidence for a more extensive insertion of post-contact items and subjects into the
art repertoire suggests dramatically that the social context of art production was irrevocably
truncated as a result of cross-cultural contact. While there is evidence for continuing economic
cross-cultural exchange between the outsiders and the incumbents (McBryde 2000), the
dropping of rock art as a social mechanism for demonstrating stylistic messaging  — and
allowing non-verbal communication — suggests that social dislocation was rapid and
devastating. The contact motifs present in the region indicate that Sydney artists recognised
the coming of the outsiders. The paucity and distribution of this rock art evidence suggests
that their responses to this advent were short lived. The rock art provides an alternative
narrative to the ethnohistoric and historic accounts, further demonstrating the complexity of
cross-cultural exchange.
StrangersontheShoreTEXT08.indd 110-111
rock art and cross-cultur al int er act ion
Notes
1. Phillip to Sydney, 10 July 1788, PRO, CO 201:3.
2. HRA:I, 1:159.
3. There are several engravings recorded in the region
which have been created using a metal object. Both are
located on the Hawkesbury River, north of Richmond,
south of Wiseman’s Ferry. One is of a boat (with
masts but not sails); the other also adopts a more
European schema (a striding man with an axe over his
shoulder). While these are patinated (i.e. they don’t
look particularly fresh), they have not been included
here as they could be post-contact efforts by settlers.
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language and initiation ceremonies of the Aborigines
of the south-east coast of NSW’, Journal and
Proceedings of the Royal Society of NSW 34:262–81.
McBryde, I 2000, ‘Barter immediately commenced to the
satisfaction of both parties: Cross-cultural exchange
at Port Jackson 1788–1828’, in A Clarke & R Torrence
(eds), Negotiating Difference: Re-interpretations
of Intercultural Encounters in Oceania, One World
Archaeology, Routledge, London, pp. 238–77.
McDonald, JJ 1986, ‘Maroota historic site: Archaeological
survey’, unpublished report to NSW NPWS, report
held at AHIMS Register, NSW National Parks &
Wildlife Service.
McDonald, JJ 1995, ‘Looking for a woman’s touch:
Indications of gender in shelter sites in the Sydney
Basin’, in J Balme & W Beck (eds), Gendered
Archaeology: The Second Australian Women in
Archaeology Conference, ANH Publications, Research
School of Pacific and Asian Studies, Australian
National University, Canberra, pp. 92–6.
McDonald, JJ 2007, Dreamtime Superhighway: An
Analysis of the Sydney Basin Rock Art and Prehistoric
Information Exchange, Terra Australis 25, Pandanus
Books, Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies,
Australian National University, Canberra.
McMah, L 1965, ‘A quantitative analysis of the Aboriginal
rock carvings in the District of Sydney and the
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Governor of New South Wales to Lord Sydney, Debrett,
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Editions, no. 15, Public Library of South Australia,
Adelaide.
Stanbury, P & Clegg, J 1990, A Field Guide to Aboriginal
Rock Engravings: With Special Reference to Those around
Sydney, Sydney University Press, Sydney.
Tench, W 1789, Sydney’s First Four Years: Being a Reprint of
A Narrative of the Expedition to Botany Bay. Reprinted
1961, Angus & Robertson in association with RAHS.
Tench, W 1793, A Complete Account of the Settlement at Port
Jackson, G Nichol, Pall Mall.
Troy, J 1994, ‘The Sydney language’, in N Theiberger
& W McGregor (eds), Macquarie Aboriginal Words,
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pp. 61–78.
Walters, I 1988, ‘Fish hooks: Evidence for dual social
systems in south-eastern Australia?’, Australian
Archaeology 27:98–114.
Watling, T 1794, Letters from an Exile at Botany Bay ...,
printed by Ann Bell, Penrith.
White, J 1790, Journal of a Voyage to New South Wales,
London. Reprinted 1962 (ed. AH Chisolm), Angus &
Robertson, Sydney.
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John Mulvaney
The Australian National University
While Captain Cook is celebrated in cultural institutions around Australia, it is time that the
d’Entrecasteaux expedition of 1792–93 received attention; because its Indigenous contacts
were remarkable and its technology for surveying was superior to that of the British.
Appropriate, because of prior neglect. Take Charles Long’s Stories of Australian Exploration,
written for Victorian schools in 1903, which was still used as a text during my schooldays
in the 1930s. This was the heyday of British seadogs. In Long’s version, William Dampier
received seven pages, Cook 18, while Bass and Flinders merited 28 pages. D’Entrecasteaux was
dismissed in a two-line endnote (Long 1903:70). In Ernest Scott’s (1939[1916]:90) even more
enduring A Short History of Australia, Cook and Flinders each required about six pages, but
d’Entrecasteaux was listed among three other French expeditions in one line. Manning Clark
(1962:187) was no better. Cook was the centrepiece in a 14-page chapter in his monumental
volume one, while d’Entrecasteaux received a few lines, entirely concerning his fleeting visits
to Bruny Island. His significant sojourn at Recherche Bay was not mentioned.
Today d’Entrecasteaux merits one of the first 20 National Heritage listings under the
new heritage provisions of the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act
1999–2004. This place concerns the cultural landscape on the north-eastern peninsula at
Recherche Bay, two hours drive south from Hobart. The bay’s history epitomises Tasmania’s
story, but in particular it features its Indigenous people. Trugannini and Wooraddy belonged to
this area, while William Lanney crewed a whaleboat there.
This chapter examines the contacts between the French strangers and Tasmanians on this
remote shore. The journals of several French officers and scientists during an almost eight
weeks stay provide contemporary Tasmanians with insight into their cultural heritage and the
temperament and personality of their ancestors at this critical first extended mainland contact.

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 114 S trangers on the shore
Rear-Admiral Bruny d’Entrecasteaux was in command of two 350-tonne frigates, renamed
Recherche and Esperance, with some 110 men on each vessel. There was one female, a steward
disguised as a man with a tiny cabin to herself. Louise Girardin was always suspected, but
never proven, to be a woman until the expedition imploded in Java. Their chief purpose was
to find La Pérouse (wrecked on Vanikoro in 1788). The commander of the Recherche was Flag-
Captain d’Auribeau and Esperance was captained by Huon de Kermadec. Lieutenant Rossel,
a competent astronomer and surveyor, eventually commanded the enterprise following the
death of all the above officers.
The scientists, or savants, included a distinguished botanist Labillardière, whose account
of the voyage was published in 1800, in French and in two separate English translations. His
botanical colleagues were chaplain Ventenat and the gardener, Delahaye, who eventually became
Empress Josephine’s head gardener at her Malmaison palace. Riche was another competent
naturalist. Beautemps-Beaupré surveyed the newly discovered D’Entrecasteaux Channel with
recently improved instruments. He was commended by Flinders (1814:1:xciii) for achieving
‘some of the finest specimens of marine surveying, perhaps ever made in a new country’.
Aboard there were seven civilian scientists and one artist, Jean Piron. Due to a navigational
error, they anchored in the northern arm of Recherche Bay, in April 1792. Twenty years before
the French arrival in Recherche Bay, however, their countryman Marion Dufresne stepped
ashore further north at Marion Bay in 1772. Although a slave trader, he was imbued with
notions of noble primitive societies, innocent of Western ways, living in a pure state of Nature.
A few years earlier Bougainville had circumnavigated the world and ‘discovered’ such people
living in the Pacific. He returned to France in 1769, so Marion was familiar with their romantic
exploits in Tahiti. ‘Everywhere’, Bougainville reported (Smith 1961:14), ‘we found hospitality,
ease, innocent joy, and every appearance of happiness amongst them’. Innocent joys or not,
their experiences supported current Rousseauesque notions of a surviving age of noble
primitivism independent of the corruption introduced by European society.
Even though Marion Dufresne acted the part, by ordering two crew members to strip
naked and emerge from the surf as ‘natural men’ to face agitated Tasmanians, the ruse proved
temporary. Calm ended with the approach of a second boat which alarmed the onlookers. In
the ensuing fracas a Tasmanian was shot and others presumably were wounded (Mulvaney
1989:29–31). The era of the peaceful savage may have ended abruptly on this distant beach, but
both French and British attitudes to undiscovered peoples remained essentially humanitarian
and philosophically concerned with Natural Man.
The instructions provided for d’Entrecasteaux could have been lifted from the same manual
as Captain Cook’s. High-minded opinions on restraint to be shown to native populations
were accompanied by precise details of what should be mapped, studied and collected.
D’Entrecasteaux, according to the King’s orders, was:
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fr enc h s t r a nger s on ta sm a n i a n shor e s 115
to recommend to every person among the crews, to live in a good
understanding with the natives, to endeavour to conciliate their
friendship by a proper way of acting and respect; and must forbid them ...
ever to employ force ... On every occasion ... act with great mildness and
humanity ... His Majesty will look upon it as one of the most successful
parts of the expedition that it may be terminated without costing the life
of a single man. (Dyer 2005:4)
That events in Paris would cost the king his own life in 1793 is one of the ironies of these
instructions.
It is evident that during the late eighteenth century both British and French humanitarian
and romantic views of new lands were linked with the growth of scientific rationalism, which
stressed empiricism. Even Marion Dufresne (Mulvaney 1958:139) felt curious concerning the
pigmentation of the dead Tasmanian, so they washed his body and found that ‘it was only
smoke and dirt which made him look so dark’ — he was a noble savage no longer, but an
experimental item.
The notion that the Pacific Ocean was a contemporary reproduction of a Greek Arcadia
populated with gentle folk took a severe blow with Cook’s bloody death in Hawaii, and a less
ennobling, romantic approach might have been expected. But even in revolutionary France
this was not so. While both officers and savants at Recherche Bay were at first wary of attack
from the inhabitants, they soon adjusted to conditions in this peaceful forested landscape. At
the conclusion of their visits, d’Entrecasteaux (2001:34) was pleased to note: ‘The encounters
we had with them later demonstrated that they are kind, without mistrust’.
To their vexation the Tasmanians remained unseen during their 1792 sojourn. Wherever
expeditions moved they saw ample proof of occupancy, including hearths, discarded utensils
and artefacts, brush shelters, shell refuse, distant smoke and many tracks, which they followed
to negotiate thick woodland. Yet the people remained concealed. This was a behavioural practice
common to this region. When Tobias Furneaux anchored in Adventure Bay for five days during
1773, not a single inhabitant appeared. Captain Cook was there for two days in 1777 before
people arrived, while Bligh waited vainly for 11 days in 1788, failing to meet anybody at close
quarters, before he sailed the Bounty on to filmic immortality. Bligh returned in 1792, this
time on HMS Providence, establishing only a fleeting contact with about 20 people (Mulvaney
1989:29–37).
One week before the expedition sailed from its 1793 Rocky Bay anchorage, in the southern
part of Recherche Bay, contact was made with Tasmanians. The first meeting took place near the
south shore of Southport Lagoon, to which Labillardière, Delahaye and two seamen had hiked.
They slept there overnight. The scientists went botanising on the following morning while the
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 116 S trangers on the shore
seamen slept. Then they heard voices in the bush, but armed only with their pruning knives
they beat a hasty retreat to the camp, secure there because the seamen had muskets. Prudently
armed, they set forth to meet the unknown but long-awaited Tasmanians. Labillardière (1800:
295–6) claimed that he approached the group holding out a biscuit to an older man. It was
accepted with ‘a very good grace’ (presumably better than the donor’s, who complained about
the weevils in the ship biscuits). Peaceful interaction was initiated.
The amount of what may be termed observant participation during those few days is
remarkable and so, also, is the agreement in the different accounts provided by officers and
scientists. Although some of it must have been communicated by Labillardière (d’Entrecasteaux,
for example, only mingled with the people once), the independent version by d’Auribeau is
testimony to their attempts at objectivity. Resulting from this first week’s encounter on the
Tasmanian mainland between inhabitants and Europeans is a precious record of Indigenous
culture only 10 years before British settlement overwhelmed traditional ways.
There were 42 persons at this first encounter — seven men, eight women and their
children  — so at least half a band was present, possibly constituting seven families. They
appeared fearless and eager to communicate. One piece of intelligence conveyed in mime
eased the visitors’ concerns and demonstrated the peaceful nature of these presumed savages.
During the night, while the French slumbered nearby in the bush, the Tasmanians visited,
leaving them to sleep soundly. Neither then nor upon any other occasion were objects stolen,
a virtue stressed by the French.
Simple gifts were exchanged — a neckcloth and a handkerchief added to the biscuit, while
a shell necklace was offered in return. Clothing then followed, presumably a form of charity,
because the French could not understand survival in that climate without clothes and they
wore plenty because of the chill nights, but were burdened with them during the warm day.
Although some people, including women, wore a wallaby or kangaroo skin on their shoulders,
their nether region was naked. Nakedness was a feature emphasised by all diarists. Labillardière
was amused to see seven girls watching events safely perched high above him on a branch;
Delahaye was interested to note that they rejected offers of food and, not surprisingly, ‘were
surprised to see hot water’. Labillardière (1800:296–302) made several careful ethnographic
observations concerning their beards and ‘woolly’ hair; skin colour made darker with charcoal
powder; and impressive cicatrices, incised, he later learned, with the edge of a mussel shell. He
also used his knowledge of exploration journals to remark that, unlike those New Hollanders
reported to knock out their upper front teeth, these people did not follow that custom.
The men had hidden their long spears, which they retrieved when the French prepared
to leave, but only to entrust them to the women to carry away according to Delahaye. The
unarmed men escorted the party by the shortest track to the boat station. Before they left,
however, Labillardière initiated the earliest episode in Tasmanian ethnographic technology.
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fr enc h s t r a nger s on ta sm a n i a n shor e s 117
He encouraged a man to demonstrate spear throwing. The man threw his spear at an
indicated target on several occasions with what the French judged to be impressive accuracy.
Labillardière’s (1800:301) important observation was that the man held the spear high and
horizontal, drawing it back three times ‘with a jerk, which gave it a very perceptible tremulous
movement at each extremity’, when it flew almost 100 paces. The tremulous movement, he
believed, accelerated its pace and prolonged its flight. When aimed at the indicated target, his
accuracy was impressive. Delahaye paid tribute to his ‘great dexterity at a great distance’.
On their return walk to the boat station, ‘the attentions lavished on us by the savages
astonished us’, exclaimed the grateful Labillardière. They cleared the track by removing dead
branches or breaking off obstructions (perhaps a normal procedure for keeping paths open?).
Somewhat to their irritation they also took them by the arm in slippery areas, as they guided
them to the beach. They went on arm-in-arm singing. Because the boat was not waiting, they
decided to visit the nearby garden, planted by Delahaye, in 1792. Another lesson in Tasmanian
comprehension followed. The two botanists left the sailors, hoping that they would detain the
Aborigines, so they would not harm the prospective vegetable crop (as though they had not
visited there previously!). One man, however, insisted on accompanying them. Of course there
was no crop, but Labillardière believed that the man distinguished those struggling European
plants from native flora. Whatever the meaning of the mime, it is relevant that Labillardière
(1800:304) favoured an interpretation which stressed the intelligence and inquisitiveness
of the Tasmanian, just as the spear-throwing demonstration showed skill. These sentiments
characterised all the French diarists. Tasmanian material existence may have been thought
primitive, but they had fully sentient minds.
On the following morning a larger party set out to meet the people; fortunately Piron
the artist was among them. This time they rowed along the shore ‘beyond the port and met
the welcoming people on higher land’, possibly near Blackswan Lagoon. There were 19 people
present, eating shellfish beside three fires. This extraordinary encounter of racial harmony was
eternalised by Piron (Figure 7.1), whose realistic sketch of the occasion possibly was spoiled
by the Paris engraver’s emphasis upon classical artistic forms which exaggerated Piron’s
classicism. Given the ethnographic accuracy in this image, the background hills and totally
unrealistic vegetation may also be the imaginative work of the engraver. Note, however, that
there is no understorey and the ground is clear, in contrast to present conditions — the result
of Aboriginal firing?
While classical ideals of bodily stature prevail, there is a remarkable degree of realism in
the scene. The setting includes three hearths with crayfish broiling and in the foreground are
depicted fine examples of basketry and seaweed water containers. Seventeen Tasmanians are
identifiable, although the sex of some is indeterminate. The probable tally is seven men, five
women and five children. Some women are seated with one foot concealing their genital area,
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 118 S trangers on the shore
Figure 7.1. ‘Sauvages du Cap de Diemen préparant leur repas.’ The second meeting with the Tasmanians, February
1793. Note the ethnographic detail of a basket, a seaweed container and a crayfish on the fires. Significantly, friendly
relations allowed a Frenchman to nurse a baby, thereby perhaps infecting it with TB. (Drawing by Jean Piron,
engraved by JL Copia, in Labillardière 1800)
a characteristic commented upon by most diarists, so this sketch represents keen ethnographic
accuracy.
To the left of the group, in friendly stance with a statuesque Tasmanian, is a well-dressed
man wearing a curled-brimmed beaver hat. This probably is Labillardière. Also in this group
is a figure in cap and pantaloons. Is he French or Tasmanian? Labillardière provides the likely
answer. He recounted that Piron expressed a ‘wish of having his skin covered like theirs with
the powder of charcoal’. His body was soon blackened by an obliging man, who even blew dust
from Piron’s eyes. Much to the delight of the charcoal artist, ‘Piron was presently as black as a
New-Hollander’, so Piron surely placed himself by his friend Labillardière and his new-found
body painter, whose hand appears blackened (Plomley & Piard-Berrier 1993:339).
Such carefree fraternisation indicates the degree of informality and equality which typified
the humanising spirit of the occasion. So too is the fact that a nursing mother allowed various
Frenchmen to hold her baby. This incident also is included by Piron. A man holds a baby aloft.
As sailors were present, he may be a crew member. On the other hand, his clothing and cap
look superior to a common seaman’s. There is no evidence concerning Riche’s attendance,
StrangersontheShoreTEXT08.indd 118-119
fr enc h s t r a nger s on ta sm a n i a n shor e s 119
but that may be because there is no surviving Riche journal. He seems a likely candidate for
Piron’s eye. Like many of the crew, Riche was tubercular, so we may be witnessing the symbolic
transfer of deadly European diseases. By 1831, when George Augustus Robinson assembled
regional Tasmanians at Recherche Bay, there were fewer than 10 persons out of possibly 150
in 1793.
At the next meeting Piron again used his artistic skills to picture an incident illustrating
Tasmanian economic and social life. The occasion probably took place in Quiet Cove. Gathered
around 10 fires, according to witnesses, were 10 men, 14 women and 24 children, 12 of each
sex (Labillardière 1800:308). This tally of 48 people was common to both Labillardière’s and
du Portail’s accounts. It suggested to them that each monogamous family had its own hearth.
D’Auribeau was present at this gathering and offered the comment on Piron’s sketch of the
scene: that ‘the drawing … of each particular individual, the whole meeting during the meal,
the fishing etc — the truth, the naturalness that this clever artist has had the talent to achieve
in every respect’ (Plomley & Piard-Berrier 1993:281, 283).
The special attraction was the preparation and eating of a meal. Food freshness was the
keynote, because the women dived for crayfish, shellfish and edible seaweed, placed them
on the coals and soon all were consumed (Figure 7.2). The fires also were maintained by the
women. As the female divers stayed under the cool water for twice the time that the French
thought possible, then had to prepare the meal, many attempts were made to influence
the men to help, but to no avail. This visual and written account of the female role in food
procurement was detailed, more so than by most nineteenth-century observers, who stressed
the male hunting role in mainland society. The women’s activities, in contrast with the men
who simply waited for the food to be caught and cooked, shocked the mores of French culture.
‘We witnessed a frightful scene’, Joseph Raoul reported. He simply deplored the women diving
to catch the meal, then having to cook it, while the men sat and waited. La Motte du Portail
expressed similar distaste (Plomley & Piard-Berrier 1993:305, 341).
Piron’s humans observe classical statuesque proportions. They also reflect the virtues
held by the French republicans of the era when Piron left France. To quote Bernard Smith’s
(1961:110) categories of virtue: ‘Simple in his needs and desires, self-disciplined, courageous,
and with great capacity for endurance’, symbols of freedom and romantic perfectibility. Piron’s
Tasmanians exemplified hard primitivism, as opposed to the soft, languorous, sensuous
Polynesians depicted in the art and literature of the Cook era. Piron’s people were ‘dry, wiry
natives’, supported in this character interpretation by all the diarists; and unlike in Polynesia,
there were no abandoned sexual liaisons. His females in this cross-section of activities
preparing this one meal are frozen in time, as they catch and cook shellfish and crayfish. An
archaeological midden may be visualised accumulating from the ashes mixed with discarded
shells and food debris.
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 120 S trangers on the shore
Figure 7.2. ‘Pêche des sauvages du Cap de Diemen.’ The third meeting with the Tasmanians. The women are diving
for shellfish, crayfish and seaweed. Note the open land which today is covered with vegetation. (Drawn by Jean
Piron, engraved by JL Copia, in Labillardière 1800)
Most diarists emphasised the desire shown by the Tasmanians to know the sex of each
visitor, because the male imbalance worried them. Consequently sailors were emboldened
to exhibit their gender, with Tasmanians concentrating upon young and beardless sailors.
They were disturbed to find that they were males also. La Motte du Portail (Plomley &
Piard-Berrier 1993:340) could not resist a sneer that had Louis Girardin dared to come ashore
for inspection: ‘They would have come across what they wished to find’. In the midst of such
amicable relations, only one incident appears to have jarred feelings. Three sailors attempted
to gain sexual favours from two girls, but they fled onto rocks to escape.
There are several salient observations to make concerning archaeological investigations
of the French visit. Archaeologists need to undertake an intensive site survey, concentrating
on a search for middens. Not all archaeological evidence needs to be adjacent to the sea or
lakeshores. There is a possibility that traces of bark and brush shelter sites, associated with
hearths, still exist. Then there is the frequent reference to Aboriginal paths, tracks or ‘roads’
which the French followed. Louis Ventenat reported that one major track ran his estimated 16
kilometres from Southport Lagoon to Southeast Cape (Plomley & Piard-Berrier 1993:359-60).
Aborigines avoided densely forested areas according to the French and this has been claimed
StrangersontheShoreTEXT08.indd 120-121
fr enc h s t r a nger s on ta sm a n i a n shor e s 121
as making it impossible for them to cross the north-east peninsula. However, a reading of the
diaries establishes that such crossings were made. On their journey from Southport Lagoon
to the harbour, when escorted by Tasmanians, Labillardière (1800:300) reported that the
Tasmanians made rest stops.
Ventenat (Plomley & Piard-Berrier 1993:359) made a significant reference to inferred
Tasmanian kangaroo hunting that had environmental impact:
My idea, after much thought about this and having examined the ground
carefully, is that one frequently comes across in the interior of the country
large open spaces which have been burnt. But by whom? Certainly it is by
the natives!
His opinion was that firing the bush drove the fleeing kangaroos into the spears of waiting
hunters astride animal paths. Whatever the reasons, his comments must rank as one of the
earliest references to ecological changes due to deliberate Aboriginal firing practices, resulting
in open land. This is one of the several reasons why the understorey today may be thicker than
it was in Piron’s 1793 portrayal.
It was the gift exchanges, which occurred during that last week in 1793, that provide
such potential for excavations documenting the period of contact. The exchange of European
goods took place on a surprisingly large scale, as by their final day together officers, scientists
and the entire crews became enthused with gift giving. D’Auribeau (Plomley & Piard-Berrier
1993:285, 339) remarked that ‘there was not one of us (without exception) who did not give
them something of his own’.
These goods included the conventional ‘trinkets for the natives’, such as mirrors, glass
beads, bracelets, coloured cloth and handkerchiefs. They were also supplied with unspecified
medals, as Captain Cook had done at Adventure Bay. D’Auribeau presented medals to eight
men. However, the main French intention was pragmatic and humanitarian, to provide tools
which made life easier. They provided careful demonstrations to teach their use. There are many
references to axes and hatchets. D’Auribeau (Plomley & Piard-Berrier 1993:279–80) concluded
‘that they preferred the axes above all else, and indeed I really think that the axe is the object
from which they can draw the greatest benefit’. D’Entrecasteaux (2001:147) reported with
gratification that Mara ‘used the axe that had been given to him very promptly and with great
skill’. He added that, before such gifts were bestowed, ‘none of them had been given without
its use being explained’.
Other common items were knives, saws and nails. D’Auribeau (Plomley & Piard-Berrier
1993:280) is again the most explicit source: ‘I showed them at leisure the use of axes, saws,
knives, nails, etc.: they understood very quickly — I will even go so far as to say with surprising
intelligence. And so they were generally very eager in desiring the objects that I was using.’
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 122 S trangers on the shore
Labillardière (1800:313) confirmed their adaptability to wielding axes. A tree trunk cut by a
Tasmanian was sawed in two, after which ‘we made them a present of some handsaws, which
they used with great readiness, as soon as we had shown them the way’.
The children busied themselves cutting off any buttons from clothing given to their mother,
using their newly acquired knives. ‘We gave them presents’, wrote pilot Joseph Raoul (Plomley
& Piard-Berrier 1993:304), ‘but we saw that they were quite indifferent to all the trifles we
gave them, even dropping them here and there’. ‘The small children who had been given knives
entertained themselves by cutting the buttons off our clothes’, remarked d’Entrecasteaux
(2001:146).
To conclude this shower of gifts, the reflections of d’Entrecasteaux (2001:145) on their
final meeting are appropriate:
Most members of both crews were ashore, competing with one another in
giving more garments to their new friends, who were attired with every
type of cloth. Medals, bells, mirrors, beads, etc. hung around their necks.
They looked like real carnival caricatures; besides, these objects made little
impression on them.
Readers are provided with scenes of lavish gift giving. In return it is inferred that the
French were offered food, and that aboard the Recherche were spears, baskets and kangaroo-
skin cloaks presumably collected from the Tasmanians (Plomley & Piard-Berrier 1993:284).
Buttons, medals and beads were presumably soon scattered and lost. To judge from the
accounts already quoted, many were discarded near the sites where they were presented. This
provides the middens on the peninsula with added meaning, because such durable objects may
be excavated there.
There was at least one exchange that assumed a mythological significance. Its occasion was
a carving on a tree. A gunner from Esperance carved an evidently realistic human head. From
the context of Labillardière (1800:306), it probably was on the peninsula. Labillardière was
walking in the company of a girl when they came upon it. She was ‘surprised’ to see it, then
pointed to and named the various anatomical features. It seemed a matter-of-fact occasion.
It recurred in different psychological mode in 1831, when George Augustus Robinson visited
Recherche Bay. Wooraddy, whose land was Bruny Island, told Robinson of a mythological being
named Wraeggowraper, a huge, ugly and bad spirit, a harbinger of death. He became specific
(Plomley 1966:374):
There is large tree at Recherche Bay on which is cut the head of a man
in large size … that the natives call Wraeggowraper and that children cry
when they see it, that the native men destroyed it, and that this was done
by the first white men.
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fr enc h s t r a nger s on ta sm a n i a n shor e s 123
This suggests that despite French satisfaction at their encounter, Tasmanians recognised
this as a truly fatal contact. Here is a hint that Tasmanian minds were fertile, as the French
would have agreed. Only 38 years had gone since the carving was made. It is helpful to compare
two other intellectual transfers which took place following the British settlement at Risdon
in 1803. Dogs were adapted into Aboriginal society and within a decade had become valued
items of exchange, while packs of dogs lived with the people. It is relevant that on Tasmania’s
west coast by 1832 dogs had been incorporated into mythology. This included a ferocious dog
which devoured humans wearing clothes. Dances also were invented depicting dogs. All these
incorporations were documented by GA Robinson and imaginatively retrieved by Rhys Jones
in a brilliant article in 1970 (Jones 1970).
It must be concluded that the officers and savants deserve greater credit than has been
paid them. In the history of ideas, Recherche Bay contributed vitally towards fostering an
intellectual approach to human society which, within its era, merits the term ‘scientific’. Above
all, this was a humane and peaceful interaction. Expeditioners credited these naked and exotic
people as sentient beings, not racial misfits or evolutionary survivals. These were people living
in a pristine environment with strong family ties and a sense of fun. While nobody envied
them their discomfort, the documentation established them as vibrant, intelligent people.
That is the significant message from this first encounter.
References Mulvaney, DJ 1958, ‘The Australian Aborigines
1606–1929: Opinion and fieldwork’, Historical Studies:
Clark, CMH 1962, A History of Australia, vol. 1, Melbourne Australia and New Zealand 8:131–51.
University Press, Carlton. Mulvaney, DJ 1989, Encounters in Place, University of
D’Entrecasteaux, D 2001, Voyage to Australia and the Queensland Press, St Lucia.
Pacific 1791–1793, ed. by E & M Duyker, Melbourne Plomley, B (ed.) 1966, Friendly Mission: The Tasman Journals
University Press, Melbourne. of George Augustus Robinson 1829–1843, Tasmanian
Dyer, C 2005. The French Explorers and the Aboriginal Historical Research Association, Hobart.
Australians, University of Queensland Press, St Lucia. Plomley, B & Piard-Berrier, J 1993, The General, Queen
Flinders, M 1814, A Voyage to Terra Australis, 2 vols, G & W Victoria Museum, Launceston.
Nicol, London. Scott, E 1939 (1916), A Short History of Australia, Oxford
Jones, RM 1970, ‘Tasmanian Aborigines and dogs’, University Press, Melbourne.
Mankind 7:256–71. Smith, B 1961, European Vision and the South Pacific, Oxford
Labillardière, M 1971 (1800), Voyage in Search of La Pérouse, University Press, London.
Stockdale, London.
Long, C [1903], Stories of Australian Exploration, Whitcomb
& Tombs, Melbourne.
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 124 S trangers on the shore
8. European–Indigenous contact
at shore-based whaling sites
Mark Staniforth
Department of Archaeology, Flinders University of South Australia
In Australia, as in other colonised and invaded places such as the Americas, the earliest contact
between Europeans and Indigenous peoples was sometimes between Europeans pursuing
a whale fishery and the local Indigenous populations. This chapter considers some of the
historical, ethnographic and archaeological evidence about the nature and extent of some of
these interactions.
One of the earliest examples of contact between European whalers and Indigenous people
can be traced back to at least the sixteenth century with evidence of interactions between the
Inuit and the Basques in the Straits of Belle Isle on the coast of Labrador, Canada. Ethnographic
reports from the sixteenth century by Richard Whitbourne (from Prowse 1895:63) and Lope de
Isasti (from Barkham 1980:54) suggest that Indigenous people, including both Iroquoians and
Inuit, may have assisted the Basques with the processing of whales. Archaeological excavations
on Twin Island near Red Bay, Labrador, have revealed both Basque and Inuit materials in
contexts that suggest that they were deposited ‘within a short time of one another’ (Tuck
1985:155). While there is a variety of Inuit material, the only Basque material consists of
roasting spits manufactured from barrel hoops, staves or boat planks which show clear evidence
of burning (Tuck 1985:155–6). The lack of any other Basque material on Twin Island suggests
that the Basques did not actually inhabit the island at any stage. Therefore it would appear that
the Inuit were obtaining whale meat directly from the Basques, possibly as a form of ‘payment’
for services rendered, such as assisting with the hunting or processing of the whales. The Inuit
were then returning to Twin Island and using discarded Basque materials (barrel hoops, staves
and boat planks) to provide spits for roasting the whale meat over an open fire.
StrangersontheShoreTEXT08.indd 124-125
con tac t at shor e-b a sed w h a l i ng si t e s 125
Indigenous peoples throughout North America are known to have actively hunted whales
before the Europeans arrived but there is some debate about which species of whales they
killed and how often and effectively they were able to kill the larger species of whales (see Little
1981:59). It is likely that the technique adopted, using stone- or bone-tipped arrows, spears and
harpoons, was to ‘harry the whale to death’ and this was probably only occasionally successful
(Stone 1993:41). During the colonial period, however, Native Americans were frequently
involved in the shore-based, and later the pelagic, whaling industries (Philbrick 1998; Stackpole
1953:16–17; Vickers 1981). Certainly by 1650, and probably well before that, the Montauk
Indians of Long Island, for example, were manning colonial whale boats and actively hunting
large whales such as the northern right whale (Eubalaena glacialis) (Stone 1993:41). From the
mid-seventeenth century onwards, shore-based whaling was a seasonal industry conducted
between December and June during the annual northward migration of the northern right
whale and seems to have been carried out along the shores of most, if not all, of the eastern
American colonies (see, for example, Reeves & Mitchell 1983, 1988). By the eighteenth century
in the shore-based whaling industry on Nantucket Island, ‘virtually all of the oarsmen and a
good portion of the skilled hands were Nantucket Indians’ (Vickers 1981:157).
Organisationally, there appear to be two, somewhat overlapping, models for shore-based
whaling activity that have their origins in the North American shore-based whaling industry
of this period. The first model was the farmer/whaler/settler model which consisted of groups
of local residents who owned, leased or simply lived on a conveniently located piece of land
and who worked at whaling, farming, fishing or some other task depending on the season.
In this way community members could work collectively to kill and process the whale and
then divide up the proceeds, thus providing an irregular, but sometimes substantial, cash
income for people who otherwise lived largely on a subsistence basis. The second model was
the industrial/commercial/seasonal model where a party of whalers was deposited by a small
vessel, such as a sloop or schooner, at a convenient location and left to conduct a shore-based
whale fishery during the season. Usually financed by an individual merchant or company, such
whalers frequently came from some distance away, perhaps from another colony, and they
usually went elsewhere at the end of each season. These two models became the pattern for
many shore-based whaling activities throughout the world in later periods and can be seen in
Australia and New Zealand, for example, in the nineteenth century.
Whaling in New Zealand waters was largely an offshoot of whaling activities around
Australia and many of the shore-based whaling stations were originally established by gangs of
whalers from Sydney. Their activities were seasonal in nature and operated on the industrial/
commercial/seasonal model similar to that found in the United States. The need for whalers to
build positive relations with Maori, and Maori interest in whaling, however, quickly resulted
in some significant adjustments to the standard seasonal model. Probably the most important
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 126 S trangers on the shore
was the provision of Maori ‘wives’ to many of the whalers (Rickard 1996:76–7). This practice
was largely controlled and regulated by Maori themselves and tended to encourage the
permanent settlement of the whalers, who often moved to a farmer/fisherman/settler model
within a very few years.
People and whales in Australia
In the late eighteenth and throughout the nineteenth century, most commercial whaling
activity in southern Australian waters was concentrated on three species of whale: the sperm
whale (Physeter macrocephalus), the humpback whale (Megaptera novaeangliae) and the southern
right or black whale (Eubalaena australis). The migration pattern of the southern right whales
brought them into the shallow coastal waters to breed between April and October each year
and so they were by far the most common whale killed by shore-based whalers (Townrow
1997:22).
Groups of Indigenous people in Australia had utilised beached (or stranded) whales as a food
source long before permanent European settlement in 1788 and whale strandings were occasions
for feasting (Clarke 2001). Cumpston (1973:8), for example, describes one such occasion: ‘Two
vessels [Norfolk and Nautilus] anchored in Twofold Bay on 11 October 1798, where they made
contact with the local Aborigines, who had been feasting on the remains of a whale’.
The archaeology of whaling
Official European settlement of South Australia began in 1836, but for many years before this
small numbers of Europeans (mainly men) are known to have frequented, and sometimes
lived on, the coastline, and particularly the offshore islands, of South Australia. The activities
of these men are largely unrecorded and even less is known of the contributions of Indigenous
people to this industry. While most were involved in sealing, a number of whaling operations
were established in remote bays and on offshore islands. Whaling stations were harsh, isolated
and inhospitable places. The interactions between whalers and Indigenous people could make
the beach dangerous and contested ground.
Archaeological fieldwork in South Australia (the Archaeology of Whaling in South
Australia, or AWSA, project) under the direction of Mark Staniforth commenced in April 1997.
Subsequently this involved the survey and excavation of whaling station sites on the Eyre
Peninsula, Kangaroo Island and at Cape Jervis (Figure 8.1). The AWSA project formed part of a
larger collaborative study: the Archaeology of Whaling in Southern Australia and New Zealand
(AWSANZ) project. One of the aims of the AWSA project was to investigate the activities of
whalers in South Australia, especially those involved in whaling who had been neglected in
previous studies, specifically women, children and Indigenous people (Staniforth et al. 2001).
StrangersontheShoreTEXT08.indd 126-127
con tac t at shor e-b a sed w h a l i ng si t e s 127
Figure 8.1. Archaeological excavation at Cape Jervis, South Australia,
2001. Photograph by Mark Staniforth
The whalers arrive
Whalers arrived early in southern Australia, often before ‘official’ settlement. There were more
than 100 shore-based whaling stations in Tasmania alone, with others in Western Australia,
Victoria, New South Wales and South Australia (Evans 1993a, 1993b; Gibbs 1995; Lawrence
2006; Nash 2003). At least 17 shore-based whaling stations are known to have existed on
the coastline of South Australia and it was the earliest, and subsequently the first official,
industry in that state (Bell 1991; Kostaglou & McCarthy 1991). Although some of the sites
associated with shore-based whaling are relatively well documented, some of the more isolated
sites remain either lost to us or remembered only through vague reflections in the memoirs
of people who took part in the industry (Firth 2006; Hosking 1973). Finding archaeological
evidence of these sites is frequently made more difficult due to the ephemeral nature of the
sites and the limited amount of material left by the whalers.
Shore-based whaling in South Australia in the earliest phase (before 1850) consisted of
two quite distinct operations. First there were those based in, and associated with, the official
settlement of South Australia (after 1836), including the whaling activities of the official
South Australian Company and partnerships like Hagan and Hart. Documentary records
for these whaling stations are relatively plentiful and easily accessible in Adelaide (Hosking
1973; South Australian Gazette and Colonial Register, 18 June 1836:6, 8). These ‘official’ stations
operated with the full consent, and sometimes involvement, of the South Australian colonial
government (South Australian Gazette and Colonial Register, 12 August 1837:3). While some
of these operations were primarily seasonal, the largest and most long lasting of the whaling
stations at Encounter Bay was also associated with permanent settlement of the area. The
second, and far less well known or documented, type of operation involved the activities of
some mainly Hobart- and Launceston-based whalers at whaling stations on the far west coast
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 128 S trangers on the shore
of South Australia (Chamberlain 1988). All of these unofficial stations were seasonal as well
as being privately owned and operated, with a number of them existing before the official
settlement of South Australia. Tasmanian-based whalers were active in at least three whaling
stations on the west coast of South Australia at places like Fowlers Bay, St Peter’s Island and
Streaky Bay (Jones & Staniforth 1996; South Australian Register, 9 December 1843:2).
Indigenous involvement in whaling in South Australia
Even before official European settlement in South Australia in 1836, there is clear documentary
evidence of direct interactions between whalers and Indigenous people. Henry Reed of
Launceston, for example, was involved in whaling activities in South Australia, on Kangaroo
Island and at Spalding Cove on Eyre Peninsula, during the early 1830s (Firth 2006; Fysh
1973:27). This 1832 account of the whaling activities at Spalding Cove by Frederick Homburg,
who was aboard the barque Socrates owned by Henry Reed, is revealing:
The object of his visit to Port Lincoln was to carry thither a party of thirty
persons, with five boats and the necessary implements for catching whales
… The natives were numerous and peaceful. They assisted him in carrying
water to the ship, and in other matters. For a little tobacco, and with kind
treatment, he is convinced they would work well. (Moore 1923:93)
It is equally clear that whalers operating on the South Australian coast were quick to
utilise Indigenous labour, and Indigenous people were keen to become involved. The Southern
Australian newspaper in 1839, for example, when describing the whaling activities at Encounter
Bay (Victor Harbor), mentioned: ‘It appears that a boat is employed in the fishery which is
entirely manned with natives. They take their part in the occupation equally with the white
men, and are found to be not less expert than they’ (Southern Australian, 7 August 1839:3). A
much later reminiscence from the Adelaide Chronicle suggests one of the principal reasons for
Indigenous interest in hunting the whale: ‘The blacks gave the whalers much help as watchers.
It was in their interest to do so, for … the capture of the big “fish” meant a royal feast for them.
Incidentally, one of the best harpoonists at the station was an aboriginal — Black Dick’ (Adelaide
Chronicle, 20 April 1933:44). Early ethnographic sources such as Leigh (1839:163–4) described
how, when a whale was caught at Encounter Bay, the local Indigenous people would come to
the whaling station for a feast. Robert Gouger (1838:53) also suggests that the establishment
of the whale fishery at Encounter Bay had made this area a favourite residence for Indigenous
people during the whaling season from April to October each year. Cameron (1979:4) goes
further to suggest that the whalers at Encounter Bay actively encouraged the local Indigenous
people to camp around the whaling station by distributing whale meat. He goes on to claim
that men were ‘employed’ to cart blubber to the trypots where the women boiled it up.
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Encounter Bay was not the only place in South Australia where whalers and Indigenous
people were in direct contact, as Captain Robinson (1906:54), recalling the Streaky Bay (Point
Collinson) whaling station in 1844, suggests: ‘The country near the beach is skirted by low
sand ridges, about from thirty to forty feet high. The natives were not allowed to come down
off the ridges to the fishery without permission.’
Archaeological evidence for the presence of Indigenous people at whaling stations is limited
and rarely unequivocal. During a survey of the Point Collinson whaling station site (Figure 8.2)
in 1997, for example, black glass bottle pieces that had been worked by Indigenous people
(Figure 8.3) were found at two locations near the whaling station (Staniforth et al. 2001).
While it is possible that the glass came from other European visitors to the area, the whaling
station is the most likely source. Such evidence is suggestive of direct interactions, particularly
when supported by documentary evidence, but it is not proof as it is quite possible that the
broken glass was obtained and used by Indigenous people after the whalers had left at the end
of the season.
Figure 8.2. Site of Point Collinson whaling station during Figure 8.3. Black glass bottle fragment showing
archaeological survey in 1997. Photograph by Mark Staniforth evidence of having been worked by Indigenous
people near the Point Collinson whaling station,
South Australia. Photograph by Mark Staniforth
Indigenous involvement in whaling in other parts of Australia
Whaling stations at other places along the southern Australian coastline have also provided
evidence of the presence of Indigenous people and their active involvement in whaling.
Interactions between whalers and Indigenous people in other parts of Australia often appear
to have followed a similar pattern to those in South Australia, resulting in direct Indigenous
involvement in whaling activities.
In Western Australia, for example, both Jack McIlroy (1986:49) and Martin Gibbs
(1995:85–93) have documented similar situations where groups of Indigenous people would
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 130 S trangers on the shore
spend several months of the whaling season camped near whaling stations. Gibbs has also
suggested that relationships ‘may have developed between the two groups as a form of
reciprocity. One form of this may well have been to “exchange” the whale meat in return for
other game as a means of supplementing the diet of the whalers’ (Gibbs 1995:88–9).
Michael Pearson (1985:8–10) has documented the Aboriginal boat crews employed by
the Imlay Brothers in the 1840s at Twofold Bay in southern New South Wales, and Denis
Gojak (1998:17), writing about the Davidson whaling station at Twofold Bay, mentions how
‘Aboriginal crews were employed in the whaling and that they received equal pay for their
work’. Blair and Bickford (1987:15) describe how ‘boat crews were made up of the Davidsons
and a small number of other local families, and included Aborigines, skilled in open-boat
whaling techniques’, and go on to suggest that ‘Aborigines were an important part of the
workforce at Davidson’s whaling station, based on a pattern of employment dating from the
1840s. Aborigines routinely made up one of George Davidson’s boat crews, working for a “lay”,
or share of the profits.’
Points of contact
Despite twentieth-century claims by the whaling industry about making use of the entire
whale, in the nineteenth century there was a limit to how much of the animal the whalers could
actually use. The parts they were most interested in were the blubber, which they rendered into
whale oil, and the whalebone (baleen). But what about the rest? Having removed the blubber
they were left with a large amount (literally tonnes) of meat and bone. The whalers saw the
meat as an unwanted by-product but to the Indigenous people it was a rich source of protein.
The differing uses that the two groups had for the whale encouraged positive collaboration.
The fact that whaling was a hunting activity, particularly one which was difficult or impossible
for Indigenous people to conduct without European technology, was another point of contact.
Finally the seasonal nature of the whale fishery, which meant the whalers came and went in a
way that was familiar to the local people rather than settling and alienating the land (as they
did in other cases), was another reason why Indigenous people could accept the activities of
whalers.
Nevertheless, there were long-term problems created by such collaboration. Frequently
payment for working in the whaling industry was in the form of alcohol and tobacco, which
subsequently resulted in health and social problems (Robinson 1975:17). Furthermore, it is
clear that direct Indigenous involvement in whaling allowed whale meat to quickly become
a major food for Indigenous groups whose territory included the site of a whaling station.
This probably contributed to increased Indigenous dependence on Europeans and hastened
dramatic cultural change within Indigenous communities.
StrangersontheShoreTEXT08.indd 130-131
con tac t at shor e-b a sed w h a l i ng si t e s 131
Points of conflict
It is not that there were no points of direct conflict between whalers and Indigenous people,
particularly over women and later, after permanent settlement, over land. Evidence of the
presence of Indigenous women at whaling stations, for example, comes from eyewitness
accounts that include mention of the abduction of Indigenous women and their children
as a source of extra labour and as ‘wives’ or, perhaps arguably, as slaves. In many cases,
Indigenous women were usually taken from the mainland and Tasmania to some of the more
isolated whaling stations. In South Australia these included Flinders Island and Kangaroo
Island, as islands provided more security from possible attacks carried out in retaliation for
kidnappings.
Evidence of Indigenous resistance to such kidnappings can be seen from the example
of the disappearance, and probable killing by local Indigenous people, of Micheal Sennitt,
a whaler who left the Streaky Bay (Point Collinson) whaling station one day in 1846, after
reportedly saying that ‘he was going to get a black woman and he would be home by night’
(Arnott 1999:7).
Conclusion
The study of Indigenous people involved in whaling in Australia during the nineteenth century
is still developing and faces many challenges. Documentary sources relating to Indigenous
involvement, for example, are scarce. Furthermore, archaeological evidence is limited and
rarely provides unequivocal proof. We are beginning to fill in some of the gaps, but this is a
ongoing process.
References Chamberlain, S 1988, ‘The Hobart whaling industry
1830–1900’, PhD thesis, La Trobe University, Vic.
Arnott, T 1999, ‘Mystery of Franklin Island finally solved’, Clarke, PA 2001, ‘The significance of whales to the
Heritage South Australia Newsletter (January) 14:5–7. Aboriginal people of southern South Australia’,
Barkham, S 1980, ‘A note on the Strait of Belle Isle during Records of the South Australian Museum 34(1):19–35.
the period of Basque contact with Indians and Inuit’, Cumpston, JS 1973, First Visitors to Bass Strait, Roebuck
Inuit Studies 4:51–8. Books, Canberra.
Bell, P 1991, ‘Research and management issues arising Evans, K 1993a, ‘Shore based whaling in Tasmania
from sites associated with the South Australian archaeological research project, Vol. 1: A social and
bay whaling and sealing industries’, Bulletin of economic history’, unpublished report for Tasmanian
the Australian Institute for Maritime Archaeology Parks and Wildlife Service, Hobart.
15(1):45–58. Evans, K 1993b, ‘Shore based whaling in Tasmania
Blair, S & Bickford, A 1987, ‘Davidson’s whaling station: archaeological research project, Vol. 2: Site histories’,
Twofold Bay’, Heritage Australia (Spring) 6(3):13–16. unpublished report for Tasmanian Parks and Wildlife
Cameron, J 1979, Yilki: A Place by the Sea, Yilki Uniting Service, Hobart.
Church, Victor Harbor. Firth, K 2006, Bound for South Australia: 19th Century
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Van Diemen’s Land Whaling Ships and Entrepreneurs,
Maritime Archaeology Monographs Series, Shannon
Research Press, Adelaide.
Fysh, Sir H 1973, Henry Reed: Van Diemen’s Land Pioneer,
Cat and Fiddle Press, Hobart.
Gibbs, M 1995, ‘The historical archaeology of shore based
whaling in Western Australia 1836–1879’, PhD thesis,
University of Western Australia.
Gojak, D 1998, ‘An historical and archaeological overview
of the whaling industry in New South Wales and
Norfolk Island’, in S Lawrence & M Staniforth (eds),
The Archaeology of Whaling in Southern Australia and
New Zealand, Special Publication 10, Australasian
Society for Historical Archaeology and the Australian
Institute for Maritime Archaeology, Gundaroo, NSW,
pp. 11–20.
Gouger, R 1838, South Australia in 1837, Harvey & Darton,
London.
Hosking, WJ 1973, ‘Whaling in South Australia
1837–1872’, BA (Hons) thesis, Flinders University of
South Australia.
Jones, MD & Staniforth, M 1996, ‘Fowlers Bay whaling
site archaeological program’, unpublished report for
South Australian Museum and Australia and New
Zealand Scientific Exploration Society, Adelaide.
Kostaglou, P & McCarthy, J 1991, Whaling and Sealing Sites
in South Australia, Special Publication no. 6, Australian
Institute for Maritime Archaeology, Western
Australian Maritime Museum, Fremantle.
Lawrence, S 2006, Whalers and Free Men: Life on Tasmania’s
Colonial Whaling Stations, Australian Scholarly
Publishing, Melbourne.
Leigh, WH 1839, Reconnoitering Voyages and Travels with
Adventures in the New Colonies of South Australia,
Smith, Elder & Co., London.
Little, E 1981, The Indian Contribution to Alongshore Whaling
at Nantucket, Nantucket Algonquin Studies no. 8,
Nantucket Historical Association, Nantucket, MA.
McIlroy, J 1986, ‘Bathers Bay Whaling Station, Fremantle,
Western Australia’, Australian Historical Archaeology
4:43–50.
Moore, HP 1923, ‘Notes on the early settlers in South
Australia prior to 1838’, Proceedings of the Society of the
Royal Geographical Society of Australasia (SA Branch)
XXV:81–135.
Nash, M 2003, The Bay Whalers: Tasmania’s Shore Based
Whaling Industry, Navarine Publishing, Canberra.
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Pearson, M 1985, ‘Shore-based whaling at Twofold Bay:
One hundred years of enterprise’, Journal of the Royal
Australian Historical Society 71(1):3–27.
Philbrick, N 1998, Abram’s Eyes: The Native American Legacy
of Nantucket Island, Mill Hill Press, Nantucket Island.
Prowse, DW 1895, A History of Newfoundland, Macmillan &
Co., London and New York.
Reeves, RR & Mitchell, E 1983, ‘The Long Island, New
York, Right Whale Fishery: 1650–1924’, Report of
the International Whaling Commission, Special Issue
9. Harvesting the memory
10:201–20.
Reeves, RR & Mitchell, E 1988, ‘History of whaling in and
near North Carolina’, Technical Report NMFS 65,
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration,
Washington DC.
Open beaches in Makassar and Arnhem Land
Rickard, LS 1996, The Whaling Trade in Old New Zealand,
Cadsonbury Publications, Christchurch.
Robinson, JW 1906, Reminiscences of Captain James William
Campbell Macknight
Robinson (1824–1906), 3 vols (Ref NS 222), Special The Australian National University
Collections, WL Crowther Library, State Library of
Tasmania.
Robinson, M 1975, Historical Highlights: Encounter Bay and
Goolwa, Lynton Publications, Adelaide. In twenty-first century Australia, the story of the Makassar-based trepang industry along
Stackpole, EA 1953, The Sea Hunters: The New England the Arnhem Land and the Kimberley coasts during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries
Whalemen during Two Centuries 1635–1835,
JB Lippmann Co., New York. should come as no surprise. Trepang (sea slugs or bêche-de-mer) were gathered, processed and
Staniforth, M, Briggs, S & Lewczak, C 2001, ‘Unearthing
the invisible people: European families and Aboriginal sold for eventual consumption as an expensive ingredient in Chinese cuisine. The existence
people at South Australian whaling stations’, Mains’l of the industry has long been known, even with recourse only to English-language sources.
Haul: A Journal of Pacific Maritime History 37(3 &
4):12–19. In 1769, Alexander Dalrymple published the information that traders from South Sulawesi,
Stone, G (ed.) 1993, The History and Archaeology of whom he called generically Bugis, had ‘penetrated to New-Holland on the south’, and he notes
the Montauk: Readings in Long Island Archaeology
and Ethnology, vol. III (2nd edn), Suffolk County that they ‘describe new Holland to yield gold, and the natives, who are Mahometans, to be well
Archaeological Association, Stonybrook, NY.
Townrow, K 1997, An Archaeological Survey of Sealing and inclined to commerce’ (Dalrymple 1769:83, 92). A Dalrymple manuscript, with essentially the
Whaling Sites in Victoria, Heritage Victoria, Melbourne. same information and dated to 1763, is held in the British Library (Ian Caldwell, pers. comm.).
Tuck, JA 1985, ‘Excavations at Red Bay, 1985’, in
JS Thomson & C Thomson (eds), Archaeology in In 1792 Thomas Forrest was rather better informed, probably most significantly by the captain
Newfoundland and Labrador 1985, Newfoundland of a local trading vessel at Kedah whom he had met 10 years before. He still refers to the Bugis
Museum, St John’s, Newfoundland, pp. 150–9.
Vickers, DF 1981, ‘Maritime labour in colonial and gold, but specifically mentions the trepang industry, thinks the Gulf of Carpentaria is the
Massachusetts: A case study of the Essex County
cod fishery and the whaling industry of Nantucket, most likely area for the activity, makes the link with the annual Chinese junk exporting the
1630–1775’, PhD thesis, Princeton University, trepang from Makassar and, by the time of publication, can even hazard a guess that there
University Microfilms International.
will be contact with the newly established colony of New South Wales (Forrest 1792:83).
This contact came to pass, and in the early nineteenth century Flinders and Baudin provided
accounts from direct observation. They were followed by many others throughout the century.
Macknight (1976) provides a detailed discussion of these sources relating to the conduct of
the industry itself.
This well-defined industry, carried on by praus from Makassar and based on the collection
and processing of trepang (even if other products played a minor role), came to an end when
the last prau returned from the Arnhem Land coast in early 1907. The situation on the
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 134 S trangers on the shore H a rv e s t i ng t he Memory 135

Kimberley coast has always been more complex, both in regard to the products collected and
the home ports of the vessels involved. There have also been varied and sporadic visits to this
coast throughout the twentieth century. Crawford (2001) and Morwood and Hobbs (1997)
are recent treatments of the Western Australian material. This chapter, however, is concerned
solely with the Makassar-based industry in Arnhem Land and immediately adjacent areas —
for, of course, trepang continues to be collected and consumed in many parts of the world.
Most nineteenth-century observers of the industry in Arnhem Land noticed the interaction
between the trepangers and local Aboriginal groups, though their accounts of the consequences
of this usually reflect their own interests and concerns. Then, in the 1920s, less than 20 years
after the end of the industry, various scholarly fieldworkers began to trace the effects, as they
observed them in the field, of contact with the trepangers in the several Aboriginal societies
involved. Tindale, Jennison and Warner were the first, and in the 1940s and 1950s they were
followed by others, notably Ronald and Catherine Berndt, Worsley, Rose, Thomson, McCarthy
and Mountford. Cense and Heeren provided perceptive comments on these accounts from
their knowledge of the trepangers’ background. When, in the early 1960s, Mulvaney began to
interest himself in the contact, it was initially with the aim of tracing change in the Aboriginal
past (Mulvaney 1966). Macknight (1972) exhaustively reviews the literature on this question
of the interaction between the trepangers and Aboriginal people, and the effects of the
interaction on both sides, as these matters were understood at that time.
Since the 1970s, the subject of the industry itself and more particularly the effects of Figure 9.1. Trepangers from Makassar visiting Sinclair and Robinson’s camp in Port Essington, Northern Territory,
the trepangers on Aboriginal societies and cultures have continued to attract attention from on 26 March 1875. Photograph by Paul Foelsche. State Library of South Australia
many sides. Various matters have been studied in detail, and some refinements introduced to
previous understanding. Macknight (1986) surveys work done up to the mid-1980s, but more had come to visit Sinclair and Robinson’s trepanging operation there (Figure 9.1). Even with
has been done since. For example, Pelras (2000) has explored the patron–client relationship in expert advice from these visitors, the business collapsed (Macknight 1976:102, 1990:251;
South Sulawesi societies that is hinted at in many other sources on the industry. Similarly, we Northern Territory Times, 24 April 1875).
can assume that Ammarell’s account (1999) of navigational knowledge and practice in a closely The archaeological evidence of the industry continues to attract attention. As discussed
comparable context gives us a good idea of the skills of prau captains coming to Arnhem Land. below, Annie Clarke has worked on Groote Eylandt, as well as later in Blue Mud Bay, and Scott
There has been much research on the details of the praus themselves, especially in relation to Mitchell on the Cobourg Peninsula. Stray artefacts occasionally turn up, but it is often difficult
the design and construction of the replica, Hati Marege. Rock art pictures of praus have even to show that they relate to the visits of trepangers from Makassar. A welcome development has
provided useful information (Burningham 1987, 1988, 1994, 2000). been the interest in conserving sites, especially the stone picture site near Yirrkala and possibly
More thorough study and publication of previously known sources have yielded fresh some preparation sites. Richard Baker’s unpublished survey in the Sir Edward Pellew Group of
details, such as the mention of a trepanging captain with leprosy in Collet Barker’s journal islands significantly extended the range of known sites. In relation to the actual operation of
from 1829 (Mulvaney & Green 1992:159). Barker also confirms many Makasar placenames the industry, however, this new archaeological evidence has consistently confirmed the earlier
for the Australian coast. In a 1839 document from the Port Essington settlement, there is also picture.
the earliest unequivocal reference to Aboriginal people themselves manufacturing dug-out Research with Aboriginal communities has, by contrast, filled out understanding of the
canoes (Cameron 1999:55). I am now persuaded that a photograph, taken by Paul Foelsche at effects of contact with the trepangers in important ways. Walker and Zorc (1981) offer a thorough
the settlement site in Port Essington on 26 March 1875, shows ‘Malays’ from Makassar who survey of language borrowing in one area and demonstrate the value of systematic work.

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 136 S trangers on the shore
Evans (1992, 1997) takes this up more broadly and suggests that some words were borrowed
earlier than others. An intriguing, if tragic, case is the likely derivation from a trepanger
ancestor of the hereditary Machado-Joseph disease in four families on Groote Eylandt (Burt
et al. 1993). No one has done more than the late Peter Spillett to enliven the memory of
the contact between Aboriginal groups and trepangers, especially through his work in tracing
family connections at both ends. His papers and many unpublished reports will continue to
provide useful data. Building in part on the basis laid by Spillett, there have now been many
visits in both directions, some of which are discussed further below. The personal impact of
such visiting is evident in Michael Cooke’s account (1987) of taking 10 students from Batchelor
College to Makassar in 1986.
Four new insights are of major significance; the first two relate to the industry itself and
the others to its effect in Australia. The most important is new confidence about when the
industry began. Knaap and Sutherland’s study of the extraordinarily detailed trade data for
Makassar in the eighteenth century makes it clear that, in their words (2004:101), in the 1720s
‘the trepang trade in Makassar was still in its infancy’. By 1754, we hear that the Australian
coast was ‘made now and then from Timor and Makassar, but produces so far [as] we know
nothing but trepang … and wax’ (Macknight 1976:95, following Leupe 1868:206–7). The first
trepanging voyages to Australia must lie somewhere between those dates. As we have seen
above, Dalrymple independently confirms knowledge of the Australian coast among South
Sulawesi seamen less than a decade after the latter date. It is not knowledge of the coast that
matters, however, and one can show that a good outline of the Australian coast had been
available to indigenous authorities in Makassar since the 1650s (Keuning 1935). The point on
which Knaap and Sutherland’s work is so precise and helpful is that it gives the earliest date
for any significant trepanging in the whole area of eastern Indonesia. Any claim for trepanging
in Australian waters before 1720, at the very earliest, is now unsustainable, though this is a
matter to which we will return below.
As Macknight (1986:69–70) explains, the eighteenth-century sources do not give a reliable
indication of the ultimate source of the trepang being brought to Makassar for sale. It is the
steady growth in the trepang trade, which by the 1780s had become substantial, that, together
with the comments already mentioned, suggests the Australian coast. As Knaap and Sutherland
(2004:101) observe, ‘it seems as if in the course of the century it came necessary to seek trepang
in ever more distant fishing grounds’. It is worth noting, however, that, among the eighteenth-
century comments, only Forrest suggests the Arnhem Land coast and his information is late
and not based on direct observation. Given that the 1754 comment arose from a report by
the Dutch representative in Kupang, one could suggest that it is more likely to refer to contact
with the Kimberley coast than further east. The incident that gave rise to the comment was not
contact with ‘the large sand-plate beyond Rotti’, but rather the coast further south (Macknight
StrangersontheShoreTEXT08.indd 136-137
H a rv e s t i ng t he Memory 137
1976:95). This distinction is noted by Flinders in his account of the information he picked up at
Kupang in April 1803. He says first that the ‘natives of Macassar had been long accustomed to
fish for the trepang among the islands in the vicinity of Java, and upon a dry shoal lying to the
south of Rottee’; that is, presumably, the same as the ‘large sand-plate’ and we know that ‘long
accustomed’ cannot be longer than the first appearance of trepang in the Makassar market in
about 1720. Flinders (1814:2:257) then goes on to say that:
about twenty years before, one of their [that is, belonging to the ‘natives
of Macassar’] prows was driven by the north-west monsoon to the coast
of New Holland, and finding the trepang to be abundant, they afterwards
returned; and had continued to fish there since that time.
It is a pity he did not specify whether by ‘the coast of New Holland’ he meant the Arnhem
Land coast of which he had such recent experience or the Western Australian coast which he
knew only from Dutch charting.
In the light of this evidence (and somewhat at variance with my earlier views), I am not
now so ready to dismiss Pobassoo’s comment when he met Flinders in February 1803 that he
was ‘one of the first who came’ to the Arnhem Land coast (Flinders 1814:2:231), or in Robert
Brown’s even more direct version, apparently written at the meeting itself, that Pobassoo
‘had been employed in this trade for 20 years [and] according to himself he was [the] first
person sent from Macassar in this service’ (quoted in Macknight 1976:162, n.19). Granted
that the industry began elsewhere in eastern Indonesia early in the eighteenth century and
that there was activity somewhere on the Australian coast by the middle of the century, there
is no evidence from or relating to Arnhem Land and adjacent areas that would require a date
earlier than about 1780; that is, we can accept Flinders’ information, both from Pobassoo and
at Kupang, at face value. After all, Flinders does correctly record a very great deal of other
information. Nor is this conclusion in significant conflict with any archaeological evidence as
set out in the thorough survey by Bulbeck and Rowley (2001).
The second new insight is the context of the whole trepang industry in island south-east
Asia in the expanding economic power of eighteenth-century China. This boom applied both
to internal trade (Rowe 1998) and, of direct relevance here, to trade and other contacts with
south-east Asia (Blussé 1999). The possibility of trade with China was in the minds of many
concerned with the European settlement of Australia (Ganter 2001). While I long ago made
some effort to place the trepang industry, which has always been focused on Makassar, in the
context of supplying China (Macknight 1976:6–16), much new information is now available.
Thus, for example, Knaap and Sutherland (2004:148, 246) show that the trepang export
from Makassar to Amoy roughly doubled in both volume and value between the 1770s and
the 1780s, though still making up over 70 per cent of the total value of exports to Amoy.
28/3/08 3:20:45 PM
 138 S trangers on the shore
The annual average trepang export to Amoy in the 1780s was 6000 pikuls, worth 147,000
rix-dollars. The demand these figures imply helps to explain the extension of the area being
harvested to Arnhem Land, as suggested above.
Some rather less reliable figures suggest that the demand continued into the early nineteenth
century. Flinders’ information implies a catch from Arnhem Land alone of 6000 pikuls in 1803
(Flinders 1814:2:230–1). In 1824, Governor-General van der Capellen (1855:375) reports that
the trepang export from Makassar to China was worth about 350,000 guilders, still about
88 per cent of the value in the 1780s. By the 1840s the trade had fallen away considerably. A
newly discovered source in the Jakarta archives gives detailed information on Makassar’s trade
from 1840 to 1842. In 1842, for example, 43 vessels with a total capacity of 446.5 lasten (893
tons) brought trepang worth 31,907 guilders from Marege, but this was only 47 per cent of
the value of the total trepang imported. The total trepang export worth 114,867.50 guilders
was still the largest item of export, comprising nearly 15 per cent of the value of total exports,
but this was worth only about 29 per cent of the figure from the 1780s (ANRI Mak. 354.3,4,5).
(See also Macknight 1976 for other statistics on the industry.)
The third new insight concerns the effect of the contact between trepangers and Aboriginal
groups. There is now no serious doubt that the several smallpox epidemics that affected
Aboriginal Australia between the 1780s and the 1870s arose from inadvertent introduction of
the infection through contacts with the Indonesian archipelago. While there is still room for
debate as to the scale of death and disruption, even at a minimal estimate this must rate as the
most significant and far-reaching effect of the contact (Campbell 2002).
The fourth insight, or issue, also concerns Aboriginal society; in accounting for observed
changes, there has been considerable debate on the question of agency. With some very elegant
archaeology, Mitchell (1994, 1995, 1996) has demonstrated changes in Aboriginal economy,
technology and settlement patterns, particularly on the Cobourg Peninsula, as a consequence
of the trepangers’ presence. Clarke (1994, 2000) has also addressed similar issues on Groote
Eylandt. While Mitchell does not address the matter of agency directly — though his detail
makes it clear that he assumes Aboriginal agency — Clarke (2000:333) is explicit in her wish
to assign agency to Aboriginal groups. She seeks to give due weight to ‘indigenous agency
in the processes of cultural change in the recent past’. It is, therefore, somewhat poignant
that she insists on the possibility of an impossibly early date for the beginning of the trepang
industry; a later date actually gives greater credit to Indigenous adaptability to reach the level
of influence about which there is general agreement.
The question of agency arises also in Tony Swain’s attempt to link the Mother cult of
northern Australia with Bugis and Toraja models. It is important to appreciate the subtlety of
Swain’s argument (1993:181):
StrangersontheShoreTEXT08.indd 138-139
H a rv e s t i ng t he Memory 139
I see no evidence suggesting a wholesale adoption of the rituals of
Sulawesi. The ceremonies are indeed authentically Aboriginal. Nonetheless
this does not obviate the possibility that something in the visitors’ beliefs
and practices ignited a fire of ceremonial creativity in this region. My view
is that the Macassans’ ‘Mother’ disclosed much about this agricultural
people’s relationship to land and it was precisely for this reason that
Aborigines sought to incorporate her being into their own order.
The problem with this argument is that Swain actually has no relevant evidence at all on
the ‘beliefs and practices’ of the trepangers either in Australia or at home in Makassar and its
environs — other than some well-acculturated Islam, of course. In the reality of eighteenth-
and nineteenth-century Sulawesi, it is quite a long way from the Bugis’ Sangiang Serri
(Koolhof 1999:373–4; Pelras 1974:358–62) to ‘the Macassans’ “Mother”’ — whatever that
might mean — and still further from the mountains of the Toraja. What Swain does seem to
think necessary, however, to ignite ‘a fire of ceremonial creativity’ in Aboriginal society is some
external influence and this is consistently argued throughout the book.
An even stranger case of assumed agency is presented in the work of Noel Butlin, especially
his book Our Original Aggression (1983). Butlin is determined to prove that the smallpox
epidemics that affected Aboriginal people in south-east Australia in the late eighteenth and
early nineteenth centuries were the result of infection from European sources, even in the
face of overwhelming contradictory evidence. As mentioned above, the trepangers were the
very probable source of the widespread epidemics. The insistence that all agency must remain
European, which is encapsulated in the title of his book, seems to be related to a need to assign
blame. This position then has consequences in contemporary cultural politics.
As suggested at the outset of this chapter, the existence of the trepang industry in northern
Australia and some of its effects on Aboriginal societies have long been known, at least to
those who cared to look. Let us now turn to a wider review of the purposes of those who
have looked at the industry and its effects over recent decades. How have the memory of
the trepang industry and an awareness of the industry’s consequences been made to serve
particular interests? There is, of course, nothing wrong or unusual about such political use of
the past; history is always in someone’s interest at some level. It is convenient to distinguish
three arenas within which these interests have been expressed: the national, the regional and
the Aboriginal.
In modern Australia, there is an understandable — and welcome — desire to expand the
scope of the nation’s history beyond the narrative of British settlement and the development
of that society in its many aspects. Reference to the trepang industry meets that desire in
several ways: it was essentially non-British; it was Asian, with specific links to Indonesia and
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 140 S trangers on the shore
China; it involved Aboriginal people; it was carried on in areas remote from modern cities, even
by the standards of northern Australia; and it appears to predate Captain Cook — though,
as suggested above, this may not be the case in respect of Arnhem Land. The contemporary
enthusiasm for this approach is very evident in Stephenson’s juxtaposition of examples of
interaction between diverse groups throughout Australia’s history and the memory of such
relationships. Stephenson (2007) devotes considerable attention to the trepangers and gives
further detail on some of the material discussed below. Many instances of such concern can be
found over recent decades. Take, for example, Allan Baillie’s well-researched novel for young
people, Songman (1994), that tells the story of a boy and his uncle from eastern Arnhem Land
who visit Makassar in the last phase of the industry. This excellent attempt to enlarge the
popular imagination meets almost all the concerns mentioned above. Greeves (2005), to
whom I am indebted for drawing my attention to Songman and other material, provides a
good example of the interest the subject provokes among students. Most journalists focus on
the trepangers’ connection with Aboriginal society as, for instance, in Souter’s (1987) well-
informed, but hypothetical, musings on the effects of more prolonged contact. Another common
hook is Islam; in a feature article in the Weekend Australian on Islam in modern Australia, the
trepangers and camel men of the Centre are trotted out to give historical depth (Brown 2000).
There is a very common tendency to push back the origins of the industry, usually with phrases
that clearly remove the matter from British settlement and its consequences. For example, a
current caption in the National Museum of Australia tells visitors, under the heading ‘cultural
exchange’, that:
Macassans [that is, trepangers] have visited north-eastern Arnhem Land
over the last 400 years. The Yolngu have adopted many Macassan words,
ideas and skills. Macassan influence is also apparent in Yolngu ceremonies
and art. Today, some Yolngu have both Aboriginal and Macassan
ancestry.
Regina Ganter has provided much scholarly weight to this wider view of Australian history.
In the opening sentences of her recent book, which begins with a section on the trepang
industry, she picks up many of these themes (2006:1):
This book approaches Australian history from the north, where it properly
begins. Long before any British interest in Australia, its northern shores
were enmeshed in a trading network that linked it to China.
In Indonesia too, there has been occasional mention of the industry at a national level. In
1983, a prominent Jakarta news magazine published a long insert rather alarmingly entitled
‘Koloni Makassar di Benua Selatan [Makasar colony in the southern continent]’ (Tempo 1983).
StrangersontheShoreTEXT08.indd 140-141
H a rv e s t i ng t he Memory 141
The text and illustrations were drawn almost exclusively from Macknight (1976) and there was
no suggestion of permanent settlement!
Interest at the regional level on both sides has been more sustained. Much of this has been
directed to the creation and maintenance of regional identity. This is most obvious in the task
of showing that north Australia has a distinctive history. The Northern Territory Department
of Education has, over the years, put out teaching resource materials to provide the content
for this claim in Territory schools. Among much else, I note a set of slides, a cassette and
cards dealing exclusively with ‘The Macassans’ (NT Department of Education 1985). An even
better example, not least because of its irony, was the Australian Bicentennial project to build,
sail and preserve the Hati Marege, a replica prau now a key exhibit in the boat collection of
the Northern Territory Museum and Art Gallery (Burningham 1988). Whatever the level of
awareness in the rest of Australia, knowledge of the trepang industry and its effects is now
pervasive in Darwin and especially in Aboriginal communities around the Arnhem Land coast.
For example, the term ‘balanda’ for any non-Aboriginal person, derived through the Makasar
from the Dutch ‘Hollander’, is now widely used throughout the Top End. The story of the
industry is seen as part of local distinctiveness.
There are even a few examples of the memory of the industry being used to support
local identity in South Sulawesi where, of course, its existence is well known to scholars and
historians. At least that is the interpretation I put on the map at the back of the standard
local history of the state of Gowa, which is the indigenous state around the city of Makassar
(Abdurrazak 1967). This shows the power of Gowa extending to various parts of the Indonesian
archipelago in the course of the first half of the seventeenth century; the Top End of the
Northern Territory is included with a date of ±1640 in the first edition of the work in 1967,
but ± is removed in the second edition of 1983. A more soundly based version of the power of
Gowa in the 1660s is now available elsewhere (Sutherland 2004:94). A display on the industry
currently features in the excellent Museum Kota Makassar (Makassar City Museum), with
much material being supplied through contacts with Australian colleagues.
The theme of regional identity is expressed particularly through the rhetoric of a special
linkage between north Australia and South Sulawesi, or at least eastern Indonesia more
generally. The concept of an Arafura region has had some attention in political circles in Darwin,
where it fits with the politics of the Northern Territory government’s capacity for independent
action. Such initiatives are well received in an era of regional autonomy in Indonesia. The
intellectual potential of the concept is well explored in the collection of papers on material
culture edited by Fredericksen and Walters (2001).
A more elaborate — and very particular — expression of this general relationship can
be seen in Andrish Saint-Clare’s Trepang project, an opera-style theatrical event built around
a story of relations between the trepangers and Aboriginal people. Performers from both
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 142 S trangers on the shore
Figure 9.2. A scene from the opera Trepang, as performed in Sungguminasa, South Sulawesi, in November 1997. The
Yolngu girl defends her lover, from Makassar, against her outraged father. Photograph by Andrish Saint-Clare
backgrounds were integral to the work, which was seen both in Darwin and South Sulawesi
in 1997 (Figure 9.2). In terms of judging local interest in the theme of regional connection
through memorialising history, the performances in Sulawesi attracted rather more notice
from the local press and official support than Australia could provide.
A comparable artistic link, but less precisely focused on the trepang industry, was evident
at the 2005 Garma Festival. Dr Halilintar Lathief and the famous drummer, Abdul Muis Daeng
Mile, led a group of musicians and dancers from Makassar to north Australia where they were
invited to perform as a re-affirmation of the past relationship (Figure 9.3). This assertion of
cultural values on both sides needs also to be seen in the context of the international links
between ethnomusicologists: Professor R Anderson Sutton (2002), with his experience in
Makassar; and Professor Alan Marrett and Dr Aaron Corn from the University of Sydney,
with their Australian experience. The visit raises various questions. To what extent can the
memory of a long-past contact serve as the peg on which to hang an ongoing relationship?
In what ways were the performances of the visitors from Makassar understood at Gulkula in
north-east Arnhem Land, where the memory of previous contacts is very clear and strong, and
StrangersontheShoreTEXT08.indd 142-143
H a rv e s t i ng t he Memory 143
Figure 9.3. Makassar dancers at the Garma Festival, 2005. Photograph by Jane Dermer. Courtesy Yothu Yindi
Foundation and the Garma Festival
in Darwin, where the links are far more general? Was there any sense, especially among the
visiting performers, that the very specific cultural forms from South Sulawesi related somehow
to a wider regional context, or was this, ultimately, a display of cultural distance?
This regional linkage is pushed to a suggestive extreme in the Crescent Moon exhibition
mounted in both the National Gallery of Australia in Canberra and the Art Gallery of
South Australia in 2006, and in its magnificent catalogue (Bennett 2005). Groote Eylandt
bark paintings and carvings from Yirrkala are included as art created in a Muslim context,
however attenuated. The result, if one accepts the premise, is to link north Australia with the
wider Islamic world of south-east Asia through the mediation of the trepangers. This may
be pushing the argument to the limit, or even beyond, but what is striking — in this most
self-conscious display of national cultural politics — is its acceptability to a contemporary
Australian audience.
The third arena in which the memory of the trepanging industry has been put to use is
Aboriginal cultural politics. The former presence of the visiting trepangers from Makassar in
north Australia provokes, for Aboriginal thinkers, comparison and contrast with other settlers,
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 144 S trangers on the shore
particularly Europeans. Many ethnographers through the twentieth century suspected
an element of idealisation in the accounts they heard from their Aboriginal informants of
relations between the trepangers and local people. Worsley, for example, working in the early
1950s on Groote Eylandt, believed that he could detect a systematic difference between his
information and the accounts of hostile relations collected by Tindale in the same area in the
early 1920s (Worsley 1954:11–12). What is at issue here is not the reality of relations before
1907, but the subsequent memory of that contact. Indeed, there are some recent instances of
quite deliberate gilding of the memory, even if only in tiny details. For example, any mention
of alcohol is carefully omitted among the items introduced by the trepangers in a school text
produced recently at Yirrkala (Yirrkala Community School n.d.).
There are also interests in claiming some degree of conflict. Denise Russell (2004:15)
makes a case that ‘in some places Aborigines did assert a right to exclude Makassan fishers’.
This assertion can then be used to support sea rights claims. Whatever the justice or success
of such claims, which have been tested both in the Croker Island area and in Blue Mud Bay,
the cases underscore the salience of the former trepangers in the historical memory of people
in these areas.
The most complex expression of this memory is to be found in the stories from north-east
Arnhem Land of baiini, reported initially by Mountford and the Berndts in the 1940s. Most
fortunately, Ronald Berndt was able, before he died, to prepare transcriptions and annotations
for all the original field recordings of the baiini song cycle, so that in due course we can expect
the full publication of these precious texts (John Stanton, pers. comm.). Meanwhile, Ian
McIntosh has written extensively on the topic, especially as developed in the thought of David
Burramarra. This is a most remarkable and moving body of material. What McIntosh brings
out so well is the cultural logic of the stories; that is, the stories explain relations between
Aboriginal people and others (see McIntosh 1994, 1995, 1997; and see other publications
cited in these papers). As for the origin and historicity of the baiini stories, I continue to see
them as a re-working of Aboriginal observations on visits to Makassar and, in particular, a
shift in the spatial association of the information from Sulawesi or some trepanging context
to particular sites in Arnhem Land (Macknight 1972:313, 1976:92).
It may just be a function of where research has been done, or perhaps of other developments
in the area, but a tendency that would be worth watching for in the future is the emphasis on
the experience of the Yolngu of north-eastern Arnhem Land as evident in some of the material
discussed above. The contact with the trepangers was shared along a much more extensive
stretch of the coast; can the memory of this be used as a means of drawing different groups
together or does the celebration of contact by Yolngu exclude others from the memory?
Finally, one might ask what I have got out of the memory, or the story, of the trepangers
from Makassar with which I have been concerned for over 40 years. Most obviously, it was a
StrangersontheShoreTEXT08.indd 144-145
H a rv e s t i ng t he Memory 145
topic for research well suited to my skills and training, and the resultant publications have, I
presume, contributed to my academic preferment. More than once, I have visited the grave of
the last entrepreneur of the industry, Puddu Daeng Tompo, in a lane off Jalan Somba Opu in
Makassar, to pay my respects. But this hints at something deeper.
I am proud to be a product of that ‘older’ Australian society created in the south during
the course of the nineteenth century; I have benefited from its institutions and support
many of its values. The study of the trepang industry, however, led me to walk the beaches
of Arnhem Land and to listen carefully to its people; then I came to the streets of Makassar
and learnt something of the history of that society. These new realms of imagining lie beyond
the intellectual and cultural compass of my forebears, but find an easy place in the outlook of
the Australia that is coming into being. I have been carried — and have tried to carry others
with me — from that older, more circumscribed view of the world to broader sympathies with
human experience.
Acknowledgements
I am grateful to Maggie Brady, Ian Caldwell, Aaron Corn, Darmawan Ma’sud Rahman, Jane Dermer, Karen George, Jan Leo
and Andrish Saint-Clare for assistance on particular matters in this paper.
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10. The mark of marvellous ideas

Groote Eylandt rock art and the performance of cross-cultural relations

Anne Clarke
School of Philosophical and Historical Inquiry, University of Sydney

Ursula Frederick
College of Arts and Social Sciences, The Australian National University Figure 10.1. Rock painting, believed to be of the Holly, from Ayuwawa, Groote Eylandt.
Photograph by Anne Clarke. Reproduced with permission of the Anindilyakwa Land Council

Long before European explorers mapped Australia into existence the Indigenous inhabitants
of this continent were singing, dancing, telling and drawing the creation of their land. They
inscribed their stories of country and their lives upon it as painted image, carved stone and
stencilled hand. In rocky outcrops across northern Australia Indigenous people also painted a
dynamic visual record of their encounters, engagements and experiences with non-Indigenous
outsiders (Chaloupka 1993; Layton 1992; Mulvaney 1989). These paintings depict the strangers’
physical characteristics, such as clothing and hair; their means of transport, including animals,
boats and even aeroplanes; and their material culture, such as metal axes, pots, smoking
pipes and guns. Some rock panels appear to document ceremonial activities based on cross-
cultural encounters where we can find continuing resonance with ceremonial performances in
the present day (Morphy 1998). Many images suggest literal renditions of particular events,
while others reflect a more formalised iconography representing the collective experiences of
interaction and engagement across landscapes and seascapes (Clarke & Frederick 2006). To
date, much of the research on this contact rock art, that which reflects, responds or relates to
outsiders and their cultural forms, has focused on documenting the specific characteristics of
the exotic and introduced — linking the images to known historical figures and incidents or
the technological specifics of material culture (e.g. Burningham 1994; Chaloupka 1993, 1996;
Edwards 1979; McCarthy 1979; Reynolds 1987).
In order to move past the kinds of singularities that present cross-cultural encounters and
interaction as events, or episodes of first or early contacts, we ask a broader question. How can Figure 10.2. Map of Groote Eylandt. Source: Winifred Mumford

StrangersontheShoreTEXT08.indd 148-149 28/3/08 3:20:49 PM

 150 S trangers on the shore
the study of rock art inform us about processes of interaction between Indigenous people and
outsiders beyond the immediate representation of the shock of the new and the unfamiliar
(Frederick 1997, 1999, 2000; McNiven & Russell 2002; Torrence & Clarke 2000)?
In this chapter we present one element of a larger study of rock art from Groote Eylandt
in northern Australia (Figure 10.2). In the broadest terms we are interested in examining the
archaeological signatures of art production to understand how cross-cultural engagements
between Indigenous Groote Eylandters and non-Indigenous outsiders might be communicated
through rock art. We are concerned with tracking cross-cultural relationships from the time of
historically documented interactions with Macassan fishing fleets into the present day by using
the framework of performance to examine two different sets of cross-cultural relationships:
those that are depicted in the rock art, and those that are depicted by the processes of recording
rock art. The keystone of this approach being that cross-cultural encounters and exchanges are
not merely something of the past but are ongoing processes reiterated and recontextualised in
the present. Dening (2004:52) has eloquently described how the transformations wrought by
past encounters continue into the present:
They never end. In a sense, too, they have no beginning. Encountering
otherness, finding cultural identity in the mirror of otherness, seeing the
metaphoric in something else — all these transforming processes are
ever-present in culture … This creative encountering is a repetitious,
reflective thing. It happens not once, but a myriad of times.
In short, the ways in which rock art has been recorded, described, presented, illustrated,
published and read are part of this entangled and ongoing history of cross-cultural relations.
The foreseeable pause in this trajectory is to embed ourselves and our own work in the ongoing
narrative of rock art recording and cross-cultural interactions and exchanges: ‘If we can trace
traditions of seeing, we can also recognize traditions of representation’ (Bradley 1997:68).
On the one hand the analysis presented here may be taken simply as a historical overview
of how different researchers have recorded and interpreted the rock art of Groote Eylandt.
On the other it is prompted by a more complex theoretical question. Namely, how might we
interpret the visual language of another culture’s history? How have we (that is, researchers
collectively) sought to understand and interpret rock art as a cultural product? Interrogating
our own historiography of rock art is an especially appropriate framework for exploring contact
rock art because, to some extent, rock art study entails a process not unlike that involved in
the original production of contact rock art where the challenge is to recognise and comprehend
something unfamiliar or strange. In order to first identify and then to re-communicate new
knowledge in our own custom or language, it is a process that requires us to recognise and
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distinguish, simultaneously, sameness and difference. Both the original image-maker and
the researcher share this endeavour towards understanding and interpretation via visual
representation.
The story of rock art recording on Groote Eylandt, we argue, lends itself to an exploration
of this process because of the long history of western scholarly engagement with the art of the
archipelago. But it is without doubt that the rich record of contact rock art has itself shaped our
thinking and influenced our ideas. The strong presence of ‘strangers’ in the images of Groote
Eylandt urged us to consider how to find familiar words for explaining something different
(Clarke & Frederick 2006).
Groote Eylandt
The Groote Eylandt archipelago, located on the western side of the Gulf of Carpentaria, consists
of over 100 islands, ranging in size from small coral outcrops to substantial islands capable
of sustaining a permanent human population. Throughout these islands there are sandstone
shelters and caves where Indigenous people have created paintings that reflect and respond
to their experiences of the world. In 1995 and 1996, 84 rock art sites were recorded during
an archaeological project, one aim of which was to investigate the distribution, location and
assemblage characteristics of contact rock art sites (Clarke n.d.; Frederick & Clarke 2006).
The first historically documented cross-cultural encounters experienced by Indigenous
Groote Eylandters were those involved in the seasonal visits by Macassan fishing fleets from
southern Sulawesi (Berndt & Berndt 1954; Flinders 1814; Macknight 1976; Warner 1932;
Worsley 1955). From the seventeenth to the early twentieth century the cross-cultural
encounters experienced by Groote Eylandters involved an initially sporadic but gradually
intensifying engagement with European explorers and settlers. In the early twentieth
century a small but permanent non-Indigenous population came to the archipelago with the
establishment of an Anglican (CMS) Mission on the Emerald River in 1921. Small towns were
later established at Angurugu, Umbakumba and Alyangula (Cole 1971; Dewar 1992; Egan 1996;
Flinders 1814; Schilder 1989; Sharp 1963; Warren [1918] in Macknight 1969:186–203).
Groote Eylandt rock art has been recorded and described in some form or another since
Matthew Flinders first sailed around the archipelago in the early nineteenth century (Flinders
1814). The main sources relating to Groote Eylandt rock art are William Westall, an artist
on Flinders’ expedition (Findlay 1998; Flinders 1814); Norman Tindale (1925–26), curator
and ethnologist from the South Australian Museum; anthropologists Frederick Rose (1942)
and David Turner (1973); archaeologists Frederick McCarthy (1960) and George Chaloupka
(1989, 1996); and the authors (Clarke & Frederick 2006; Frederick & Clarke 2006). Others
have photographed, observed and commented on Groote Eylandt rock art, including Wilkins
(1928), Worsley (1955), Green (in Cole 1973) and Macknight (Mulvaney 1989).
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Thinking through art
In this chapter we examine how Groote Eylandt rock art has been recorded by different scholars
to present an argument that the process of recording rock art is, in and of itself, a performance
of cross-cultural relationships. In developing this approach we take the view that art is good to
think with. Here we gain insight from Leonardo da Vinci’s writing (1956[1270]:51):
It should not be hard for you to stop sometime and look into the stains of
walls … in which, if you consider them well, you will find really marvellous
ideas … because the mind is stimulated to new inventions by obscure
things.
In drawing attention to the making and appreciation of marks, da Vinci traces a line of
connection between thinking, visual production and the creation of ideas. He aligns both the
practice of art and the observation of detail and difference with a process of discovery. We
suggest that this notion of art, ‘as a mode of thinking’ (Van Alphen 2005:193), is relevant to
the study of rock art and we use it here for two particular reasons.
To begin, this approach lends image and mark-making practices a degree of agency which
shifts the focus of how we think about them. Not only is art an object of framing, it may well
also be that art and other forms of imaging make culture by framing cultural knowledge and
thought (Davis 1985:9; Van Alphen 2005:193–4). Embracing the idea that the image-maker
thinks through art, and that the viewer is urged to think with it, may assist us in considering
how new signifiers, meanings and forms develop, both in the production and reading of rock art.
This approach also presupposes a more explicit link between image production and subsequent
acts of thinking, such as the acts of research and hermeneutic processes which reproduce it:
observation, recording, description, interpretation. As Dening (1996:43) succinctly observes:
Relics of what happened in the past are cultural artifacts of the moments
that produce them, but they also become cultural artifacts of all the
moments that give them permanence … They gain meaning out of every
social moment they survive.
We suggest that such moments, in the context of rock art, may be viewed as moments
of encounter and acts of engagement. This brings us to our second reason for contemplating
rock art as a mode of thinking; that is, its performative appeal. Not only can rock art images
reveal something about the cross-cultural performances of the past, their locations are sites
of performance in their own right. Rock art sites and their associated images are places
where thinking occurs, where communicative exchanges take place, and where cross-cultural
encounters happen.
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Such encounters are clearly not the same as physical contact between people. Nor do we
suggest that they allow us entry into the mind of the original image-maker. We do propose,
however, that rock art can give an indication of the way Indigenous societies of the past
understood their cultural encounters. The way other cultures were perceived and experienced
by image-makers would have a direct bearing on the form, style and composition by which they
were represented in rock art and, consequently, how they are understood by scholars as traces
of the past in contemporary contexts (Bradley 2002; Montelle 2006). Similarly, the recordings
of different researchers give us insight into their encounters with Groote Eylandt culture and
rock art. So these encounters of past image-making and more recent research production may
be conceived as performances of thinking and attempts towards understanding. In the words
of da Vinci, they are the marvellous ideas and new inventions that arise from the consideration
of obscure things.
Rock art as cross-cultural performance
In conceptualising the recording of rock art as a form of cultural performance and an act of
cross-cultural interaction we have been drawn in particular to the writings of Michael Shanks.
In a recent article on archaeology and performance he wrote of the ever-present dilemma
that archaeologists face in conveying the lived experiences of peoples from the past through
contemporary practices of representation:
Performance is about re-iterating, re-mediating, re-working, re-presenting,
re-storing … For me this is archaeology. We seek in vain a representation
that will explain the ruins of history. In dealing with remains, the
archaeologist is always working upon relationships between past and
present that circle around the impossible irony of trying to turn action
and experience, material form and body, remediated, into representation.
(Shanks 2004:150)
Writing on the temporality of archaeological photography as a mode of visual
representation, Shanks (1997:89) states: ‘Photographs turn the now into the past, or more
grandly, into history, depending on the rhetoric’, and in doing so makes the point that our own
methods and techniques of documentation are an important contribution to archaeology’s
formation processes and the stories that archaeology tells. In an earlier work, Experiencing
Archaeology, he developed ideas about the processes and practices of archaeology, as both
narrative and performance. In relation to drawing, which is a key element of image-making
practices from the past and of the methods that archaeologists use to record those practices,
he wrote: ‘Drawing is a performance of systematic choices and judgements, individual marks
on a surface which join to form a translation of their subject’ (Shanks 1992:185). His point
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 154 S trangers on the shore
is that both the past practices of image creation and the contemporary methods used to
record those images involve processes of choice, judgement and translation. While Shanks
is not alone in recognising that acts of seeing, recording, reconstructing and representing
archaeological research are significant as processes of theorising the past (see, for example,
Bradley 1997; Gamble 1992; Molyneaux 1997; Moser 1992; Renfrew 2003), his comments
stand out through the ideas of performative exchange within which they are framed. The idea
that archaeological practice involves a performance with and of the past is in keeping with the
agency of art (a notion outlined above). That is, art thinks.
A drawing may be seen as a plane of narration, a sequence of perceptions,
intentions, actions inscribed on a surface which we may read in whatever
order we wish, and whose story is the depiction of a subject. And just as
the life of the drawing is the artist’s presence and skill, so too the past lives
in its retelling by a storyteller. (Shanks 1992:186)
As Shanks (2004:150) further notes, ‘performance is a process of “translation,
transformation and metamorphosis”’. This view of the relationship between performance and
archaeological interpretation is an especially appropriate framework for exploring how rock
art acts to mediate a whole range of cross-cultural encounters; those between the Indigenous
artist and the outsiders represented, between the outsider (as image) and Indigenous viewers,
between the Indigenous artist and the rock art scholar, and so on. That many of these exchanges
occur indirectly, at a temporal distance, emphasises other kinds of crossing: the crossing of
cultural boundaries that lie between past and present (Dening 1996:42). Such exchanges are
mediated further still through a vast array of rock art representation techniques, including
photographs, drawings and written descriptions. Through these techniques of reproduction
and representation cross-cultural relationships and exchanges are created between the rock
art recorder and the reader, and recursively between the reader, the strangers and the artists.
More imaginatively perhaps, we can envisage the rock art site as a stage for both past and
present performances, where the rock art is structured as the script to be performed by two
sets of actors in a sequence ordered by history and by cultural practice. We can see both past
and present actors with their props in place — the Indigenous artists with their hair brushes,
ochre crayons and stone grinding plates creating their original works of art, followed by the
rock art recorders with their cameras, pencils, notebooks and graph paper.
In terms of thinking about drawing, one of the most interesting aspects of rock art
recording is the variety of technical approaches to recording and what each method may
elicit about the focus, motivations and limitations of each recorder. Although removed from
the original act of image creation, each recorder becomes involved in a series of embodied
responses to the art that serve to connect the recorder and the artist, the past and the present.
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t he m a r k of M a rv el l ous i de a s 155
The mind is thinking, the eye observing, the hand making a mark of some kind. For many,
rock art recording involves a process of re-creating the images through tracing, photographing
or describing. Through this embodied engagement we are all in some way performing acts
of translation, transformation and metamorphosis through attempting to engage with the
traces of another culture, as Turner (1988:107) noted, ‘And so we find performances about
performances about performances multiplying’.
Recording performances
The analysis presented here is intended to illustrate how the act of rock art recording is a
form of cross-cultural interaction and the rock art record mediates a kind of contact with the
past. We explore three specific rock art (re-)presentations — texts, illustrations and research
outcomes — from three different encounters with Groote Eylandt rock art in order to consider
how past cross-cultural interactions have come to be constructed and represented through
the analysis and interpretation of rock art. These attempts at understanding reflect their own
set of relational values and tell us something about the way in which rock art is perceived and
conceptualised. The context within which these products circulate help us to see the ways in
which our own interpretive findings proceed. They make more explicit the history of Groote
Eylandt rock art recording and our own engagement with it.
William Westall
The first rock art recordings to be considered are from Chasm Island, a large island off the north-
west coast of Groote Eylandt. They were painted by William Westall, who was engaged as the
illustrator for Matthew Flinders’ early nineteenth-century expedition to Australia (Flinders
1814). As art historian Elisabeth Findlay (1998:xi) has documented, Westall created some 140
sketches and paintings during his voyage on board the Investigator. Among the landscapes,
portraits and topographic views of the coastline are two watercolours of Indigenous rock art.
They depict, firstly, a red ochre painting of a boat and its occupants, together with two hand
stencils, and secondly, a group of marine mammals (Figure 10.3).
In looking at these paintings what can we understand about the nature of Westall’s
engagement with Indigenous culture through his rendition of the rock art? What sort of cross-
cultural interaction is Westall performing? In An Arcadian Quest: William Westall’s Australian
Sketches, Findlay presents a very perceptive analysis of Westall’s paintings from the perspective
of his personal history and in relation to the intellectual and artistic traditions within which
he practised. Findlay (1998:39) notes that Westall was interested in Indigenous culture and
people, as is evident from his portraits of individuals and his paintings of artefacts and
dwelling, particularly those in Port Jackson. She (1998:19–40) describes how Westall painted
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 156 S trangers on the shore
Figure 10.3. Watercolour by William Westall of rock art from Chasm Island, 1801–03. National Library of Australia
within the picturesque tradition — a movement which came with a defined ideology and
cultural purpose, particularly in relationship to the depiction of landscape. As Findlay notes
(1998:21–4), the artistic conventions of representation used by Westall allowed illustrations
of the unfamiliar to be presented and published in a form that would be understood by the
intended audience back in Britain.
Painting the rock art in this picturesque manner and as a landscape, Westall uses light
and dark to create a naturalistic, rough-hewn background framing the paintings which are set
on lighter tones. There is an allusion to place through the re-creation of the rock shelter as
background, but there is little sense of patination, superpositioning, fading or rock fracturing.
They are arranged as if illuminated in the centre of the image. So, in Westall’s paintings the
unfamiliar rock art is set within a clearly signified frame, the viewer is given to understand
that they are looking at art even though the context and motifs are unfamiliar. This is a
particularly revealing point because it demonstrates Westall’s identification of the images as
art and his effort to compose them as such. The rock art images are presented as wholly intact,
timeless and enduring artworks, rather than as fragmented traces disappearing before our
eyes. What becomes apparent only with the benefit of recordings by Fred McCarthy in 1948
StrangersontheShoreTEXT08.indd 156-157
t he m a r k of M a rv el l ous i de a s 157
is that Westall’s renditions of the rock art are not an accurate documentation in the way that
his topographic coastal profiles are. Like many of the Australian landscape scenes he later
re-composed, they are more artistic impression than (scientific) information, loosely based on
the rock art he observed. However, accuracy is not really the point; what Westall’s watercolours
do establish are the first elements of what is today well understood, but at the time would have
been quite novel, as a graphic vocabulary for Indigenous rock art. By using watercolours rather
than black and white linear sketches, the familiar ochre hues of the reds — together with
graphic elements of hand stencils, marine mammals, geometric infill and the compositional
relationships of the different motifs — are established as elements of the canon of Indigenous
rock art. However, as records of cross-cultural interaction they are curiously disengaged. While
this may be a reflection of the distant nature of contact with Groote Eylandters, it may also be
part of what Findlay notes (1998:54–5) as a deliberate artistic strategy aimed at ‘converting
the land into scenes which the British felt comfortable with and could relate to’.
Norman Tindale
We have to wait some 120 years for the next scientific encounter with Groote Eylandt rock
art — by Norman Tindale, entomologist, ethnographer, curator and writer. Between 1921
and 1922 Tindale spent six months living on Groote Eylandt and another nine months in the
vicinity of Groote Eylandt and the Roper River (Tindale 1925–26:61). He first accompanied
the Reverend Hubert E Warren on a boat trip around the archipelago inspecting sites for an
Anglican mission station, later returning with Alfred Dyer to a site on the west coast of the
main island which became the Emerald River Mission. Tindale provided the first detailed
descriptions of Groote Eylandt Indigenous society, as a two-part report in the Records of the
South Australian Museum in 1925–26. In his account of Groote Eylandt society the cross-
cultural interactions with Macassans are acknowledged as an integral element of recent
history and clearly marked and presented as a separate section of text. Even though he was
the first European to describe Groote Eylandt society in any detail, one of the notable aspects
of Tindale’s account is the extent to which materials and artefacts introduced by Macassans
were integrated into the existing material culture and economy.
Tindale uses photographs, word lists, drawings and artefact typologies as his illustrative
media. There are many photographs throughout the two-part study, interestingly more than
appear in later studies, and this may be a reflection of the growing popularity of and access
to photography as a documentary method. The photographs are primarily used to document
objects arranged in type sets. These reflect the established curatorial practices of the time,
and act to mark Tindale as a serious curator of ethnology. His photographs also record people
engaged in a range of traditional activities, such as camping, canoe-making and painting, and in
these instances serve the purpose of establishing a visual confirmation of his written account.
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 158 S trangers on the shore
Tindale’s published account of Indigenous society on Groote Eylandt contains a short
section called ‘Pictorial Art’ (Tindale 1925–26:116–9). In this section, observations on rock art
comprise only a small component of a composite picture of Groote Eylandt life. Three photos
(1925–26, figs 59–61) show rock art, all from the one site complex which we know from our
own research to be an area called Ayuwawa. Tindale groups these images with a photograph
of men creating bark paintings. The barks depict images of a prau, a canoe scene and a fishing
scene. By composing the four images together he draws an interpretive link between the bark
painting in the present with the tradition of painting rock art in the past. In tying the two
Figure 10.4. Norman Tindale’s tracings of rock art images from Ayuwawa
(Tindale 1925–26:120, fig. 63). Museum Board of South Australia
StrangersontheShoreTEXT08.indd 158-159
t he m a r k of M a rv el l ous i de a s 159
practices of painting he creates a sense of cultural continuity and engenders the rock art with
a living presence. This is reinforced by his selection of rock art images which depict a dynamic
group of anthropomorphs from a suite of rock art images which are in fact dominated by
marine fauna and fishing scenes. The photographic record of rock art stands in contrast to the
one drawing in his report where rock art motifs are reproduced (Figure 10.4) (1925–26:120,
fig. 63). In this illustration they are presented as a type series of images, without any detail as
to where they come from or how they relate to each other, if at all, much in the way that the
artefacts are documented. The rock art is transformed into a curated exhibit for display.
Tindale’s written description emphasises the material and technical attributes of
painting production (1925–26:117–9). He indicates the processes by which ochre is ground
and applied. He describes pigments by their Indigenous names and notes where they come
from, thereby embedding the rock art in a local language and country. By highlighting the
exchange-value of a particular ochre he not only demonstrates the importance of art production
but also extrapolates a local activity into a broader network of social and trade connections.
Tindale’s illustration (Figure 10.4) is based on tracings he had made, selectively, from a
number of other painted figures from the ceiling of the same site. He created line drawings
and observed their scale. His means of creating tone is by shading in a way not in keeping
with the style of Groote art: they are not ‘accurate’ in this sense but notational. Similarly his
way of distinguishing colour is by means of establishing a key. The arrangement of the motifs
reflects an aesthetic that is evident in his other photographs of objects, such as throwing sticks,
harpoons, didgeridoos and armlets (plates VII–XI) arranged as typological series.
Tindale emphasises the significance of art as a narrative. In his account, rock art is only
one of a series of pictorial processes, such as sand drawing, bark painting and rock painting,
that serve similar functions and social contexts. The rock art is not isolated or detached
from other aspects of Groote Eylandt life and this seems to reflect his own position as an
observer of all aspects of Indigenous life rather than art alone. Tindale also focuses on ‘scenes’,
perhaps because they serve to represent visually his interpretation of art as single storytelling
episodes. The scenes he chooses to depict are among the most clear. He makes no reference to
the layering of art over time, despite the fact that this particular site at Ayuwawa contains a
very complex sequence of superimpositioned motifs.
In Tindale’s account, rock art production is placed within the broader social context of
Groote Eylandt life, material culture and landscape. The juxtapositioning of the photographs
of rock art and bark paintings acts to create a sense that rock art production was neither
isolated nor distant from the Groote Eylandters whom Tindale encountered and wrote about.
However, individual motifs are also collected together and re-presented as a type series, a
process of transformation and metamorphosis that allows rock art to become the subject
of museology. So while Westall established an iconography for rock art, Tindale, it could be
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 160 S trangers on the shore t he m a r k of M a rv el l ous i de a s 161

argued, created practices of documentation and curation, all elements that the next character
in the performance of Groote Eylandt rock art takes up with fervent enthusiasm.

Fred McCarthy
In 1948, the archaeologist and curator from the Australian Museum, Fred McCarthy, travelled
to Groote Eylandt as part of the American–Australian Scientific Expedition to Arnhem Land.
At Umbakumba, Milingimbi, Yirrkala and Oenpelli, McCarthy carried out studies of rock
art, excavated rock shelters with American archaeologist Frank Setzler (McCarthy & Setzler
1960), and collaborated with Margaret McArthur on a pioneering study of time-budgeting
by Indigenous hunters and gatherers (McCarthy & McArthur 1960). On Groote Eylandt the
main focus of his research effort was the detailed recording of 45 rock art sites which, by his
account, contained some 2400 figures. The focus of his investigations was an area near the
mission town of Angurugu known locally as Top Crossing, various sites on Chasm Island and
a site called Junduruna, somewhere to the south of Bartalumba Bay.
In McCarthy’s account of Groote Eylandt rock art, the subject of contact with outsiders is
barely apparent. Certainly, the sites that he had access to and recorded in detail do not contain
the spectacular paintings of Macassan praus, but there are depictions of dugout canoes and
metal axes, items of material culture introduced to northern Australia by outsiders. This
silence is interesting because McCarthy had access to the writings of a range of anthropologists
(e.g. Berndt & Berndt 1954; Rose 1942; Thomson 1949; Warner 1932; Worsley 1955), all of
whom wrote about the influence of Macassans on Indigenous society in Arnhem Land. The
Macassan presence is seen from a very limited viewpoint. In the chapter on the archaeology
Figure 10.5. Fred McCarthy and Kumbiala using McCarthy’s grid system to record rock art in Arnhem Land (from
of Arnhem Land (McCarthy & Setzler 1960), the presence of Macassans is only considered in National Geographic, December 1948, p. 782). Reproduced with permission of Howell Walker/National Geographic
relation to providing a chronological framework for Aboriginal material culture. However, in Image Collection
both the archaeology and rock art chapters, McCarthy’s concerns for systematic descriptions,
chronology, cultural origins and affinities in relation to the known Australian archaeological stating that he analysed the range of subjects, styles, colours and their frequencies along with
record are quite apparent and what we see through the rock art chapter is a clear demarcation superimpositioning to ascertain the chronological development of art styles. His assertion is
of rock art as a subject for archaeological analysis. that this systematic approach would reveal the underlying structure and core traits of the art
In the first paragraph of his chapter on rock art, McCarthy (1960:297) criticises the way system, something which we can see is very much part of his culture-historical framework of
in which the rock art literature in Australia focuses on a ‘selection of outstanding figures interpretation.
in a particular site’, a direct jab at Tindale with whom he sparred throughout his career. McCarthy’s approach to the recording of the rock art was primarily about methodology,
He further notes: ‘In the few papers where all of the figures are described they are usually attempting to make it scientific and systematic. He asserted throughout his text that his aim
arranged conveniently for illustration so that their position in relationship to one another was to make a complete recording of images in the sites. Despite the stated intention, we can
is not apparent’. He is at pains to assert that he has developed and applied a systematic, see from the images reproduced that his recordings were drawn without ambiguity, without
analytical approach to recording rock art: his famous grid method system (Figure 10.5). He reference to the texture, the grain of the rock shelter walls or indeed the spaces between the
noted that the grid was important because it allowed him to place the art in scale and in true images. Nor did the recordings reveal the architecture of the sites, such as the location of
position. His other concern was to provide a complete record of the art represented, further different art panels and the spatial relationships between them.

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 162 S trangers on the shore
In the case of McCarthy, the recording of the rock art was performed as an exercise in cross-cultural engagement simply as contact — as early, first, or as singular — as something
systematics. He used the body of art on Groote Eylandt as a case study to develop his from history, something from the past, and from a time before, is to continue that trope
methodology and to back up his arguments for a more rigorous and objective approach to of archaeological discourse that widens the division and dissonance between the past and
its study. The script and props he used for us to read or understand and interpret the art are the present.
perhaps more familiar to us, schooled as we are in the methodological rigour of contemporary
archaeological practice, than those of Westall or even Tindale. He used tables of frequencies,
scale drawings, charts with their cardinal orientations in place, declarations of completeness in References
Berndt, R & Berndt, C 1954, Arnhem Land: Its History and
the recording process — we might see this in many ways as a performance of modernism — or
Its People, FW Cheshire, Melbourne.
of the genesis, in an Australian context at least, of scientific approaches to the production of Bradley, R 1997, ‘To see is to have seen’, in B Molyneaux
(ed.), The Cultural Life of Images, Routledge, London &
archaeological knowledge. New York, pp. 62–72.
McCarthy’s main interpretation of the art was that it was didactic, the product of on-the- Bradley, R 2002, The Past in Prehistoric Societies, Routledge,
London & New York.
spot storytelling, a rendition of literal events or the record of everyday life. Using his grid Burningham, N 1994, ‘Aboriginal nautical art: A record of
system, he imposed a sense of scale and composition upon the rock art much like Westall the Macassans and the pearling industry in northern
Australia’, The Great Circle 16(2):139–51.
did in his watercolours when he created a frame around the rock art. Unlike Tindale there Chaloupka, G 1989, ‘Groote Eylandt archipelago rock art
is little sense of the past in the present. Although McCarthy created a sense of distance or a survey 1988’, unpublished report to Heritage Branch,
Conservation Commission of the Northern Territory,
dissonance between himself, his study and the Indigenous people of Groote Eylandt through Darwin.
Chaloupka, G 1993, Journey in Time, Reed, Sydney.
his methodology (see Clarke 1998), he quite literally engaged in a performance with the art
Chaloupka, G 1996, ‘Praus in Marege: Makassan
through his process of recording and reproducing the drawings both on-site and later for subjects in Aboriginal rock art of Arnhem Land,
Northern Territory, Australia’, Anthropologie
publication. XXXIV/1–2:131–42.
Clarke, A n.d., ‘Archaeological fieldwork, Groote Eylandt
1995 and 1996’, unpublished report to Australian
Conclusion Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander
Studies, Canberra.
What begins to emerge from this preliminary analysis of different readings and recordings Clarke, A 1998, ‘Engendered fields: The language of the
American–Australian Expedition to Arnhem Land’,
of Groote Eylandt rock art is that, from 1802 to the present day, rock art images and sites in M Casey, J Hope, D Donlon & S Wellfare (eds),
are places where cross-cultural engagements have been, in the words of Michael Shanks Redefining Archaeology: Feminist Perspectives, ANH
Publications, Research School of Pacific and Asian
(2004:150), ‘re-iterated, re-mediated, re-worked, re-presented, re-stored’. The rock art sites not Studies, Australian National University, Canberra,
only represent an Indigenous archive of cross-cultural interactions with the strangers on the pp. 13–18.
Clarke, A & Frederick, U 2006, ‘Closing the distance:
shores but they also become, over time, the locations for continuing performances of contact Interpreting cross-cultural engagements through
through which Groote Eylandt culture is translated, transformed and metamorphosed. Indigenous rock art’, in I Lilley (ed.), Archaeology of
Oceania: Australia and the Pacific Islands, Blackwell,
The process of tracing this trajectory is an important step in realising our own place in this Oxford, pp. 116–33.
complex history of cultural exchanges. We suggest that it is important to recognise that the act Cole, K 1971, Groote Eylandt Pioneer: A Biography of
the Reverend Hubert Ernest de Mey Warren, Pioneer
of rock art recording is carried out according to a script, a set of methodological conventions Missionary and Explorer among the Aborigines of Arnhem
Land, Church Missionary Historical Publications
and intellectual traditions, and presented to a readership according to received and culturally Trust, Melbourne.
understood iconographies (Scott 2006). The point for us of starting up a series of conversations, Cole, K 1973, Totems and Tamarinds: Aborigines and
Macassans in Eastern Arnhem Land, Nungalinya
between ourselves, the art, artists, the other outsiders as depicted in the art, together with the Publications, Darwin.
other recorders of rock art, is to recognise the complexities and continuities of cross-cultural Davis, W 1985, ‘Present and future directions in the
study of rock art’, South African Archaeological Bulletin
interaction and how we come to understand them. We also become one of the many strangers 40:5–10.
on the shore, drawing into and onto a landscape of encounters. Writing and recording Da Vinci, L 1956 (1270), Codex Urbinas Latinus [Treatise
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on Painting], trans. and ed. by A Philip McMahon,
Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ.
Dening, G 1996, Performances, Melbourne University
Press, Melbourne.
Dening, G 2004, Beach Crossings: Voyaging across Times,
Cultures, Selves, University of Pennsylvania Press,
Pennsylvania.
Dewar, M 1992, The ‘Black War’ in Arnhem Land:
Missionaries and the Yolngu 1908–1940, North
Australian Research Unit, Darwin.
Edwards, R 1979, Australian Aboriginal Art: The Art of the
Alligator Rivers Region, Northern Territory, Australian
Institute of Aboriginal Studies, Canberra.
Egan, T 1996, Justice All Their Own: The Caledon Bay
and Woodah Island Killings 1932–1933, Melbourne
University Press, Melbourne.
Findlay, E 1998, Arcadian Quest: William Westall’s Australian
Sketches, National Library of Australia, Canberra.
Flinders, M 1814, A Voyage to Terra Australis, 2 vols, atlas
and charts, G & W Nicol, London.
Frederick U 1997, ‘Drawing in differences: Changing social
contexts of rock art production in Watarrka (Kings
Canyon) National Park, Central Australia’, MA thesis,
Australian National University, Canberra.
Frederick, U 1999, ‘At the centre of it all: Considering
“contact” through the rock art of Watarrka (Kings
Canyon) National Park’, Archaeology in Oceania
34(3):132–44.
Frederick U 2000, ‘Keeping the land alive: Changing
social contexts of landscape and rock art production
over the course of Aboriginal–European contact’, in
R Torrence & A Clarke (eds), Negotiating Difference:
Re-interpretations of Intercultural Encounters in
Oceania, One World Archaeology, Routledge, London,
pp. 301–30.
Frederick, U & Clarke, A 2006, ‘Signs of contact: Groote
Eylandt rock art and cross-cultural exchange’, Picturing
Relations: Groote Eylandt Barks Symposium, online
transcripts, Ian Potter Museum of Art, University of
Melbourne, http://www.art-museum.unimelb.edu.au/
events_transcripts.
Gamble, C 1992, ‘Figures of fun: Theories about cavemen’,
Archaeological Review from Cambridge 11(2):357–72.
Layton, R 1992, Australian Rock Art: A New Synthesis,
Cambridge University Press, Melbourne.
Macknight, CC 1969, The Farthest Coast: A Selection of
Writings Relating to the History of the Northern Coast of
Australia, Melbourne University Press, Melbourne.
Macknight, CC 1976, The Voyage to Marege’: Macassan
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Trepangers in Northern Australia, Melbourne University
Press, Melbourne.
McCarthy, FD 1960, ‘The cave paintings of Groote Eylandt
and Chasm Island’, in CP Mountford (ed.), Records of
the American–Australian Expedition to Arnhem Land:
Volume 2, Anthropology and Nutrition, Melbourne
University Press, Melbourne, pp. 297–414.
McCarthy, FD 1979, Australian Aboriginal Rock Art, 4th
edn, The Australian Museum, Sydney.
McCarthy, FD & McArthur, M 1960, ‘The food quest and
the time factor in Aboriginal life’, in CP Mountford
(ed.), Records of the American–Australian Expedition to
Arnhem Land: Volume 2, Anthropology and Nutrition,
Melbourne University Press, Melbourne, pp. 145–94.
McCarthy, FD & Setzler, FM 1960, ‘The archaeology of
Arnhem Land’, in CP Mountford (ed.), Records of
the American–Australian Expedition to Arnhem Land:
Volume 2, Anthropology and Nutrition, Melbourne
University Press, Melbourne, pp. 215–95.
McNiven, I & Russell, L 2002, ‘Ritual response: Place
marking and the colonial frontier in Australia’, in
B David & M Wilson (eds), Inscribed Landscapes:
Marking and Making Place, University of Hawai’i Press,
Honolulu, pp. 27–41.
Molyneaux, B 1997, ‘Introduction’, in B Molyneaux (ed.),
The Cultural Life of Images: Visual Representation
in Archaeology, Routledge, London & New York,
pp. 1–10.
Montelle, Y 2006, ‘Rock art and hermeneutics: The
question of interpretation’, Rock Art Research
23(1):122–4.
Morphy, H 1998, Aboriginal Art, Phaidon Press, London.
Moser, S 1992, ‘The visual language of archaeology: A case
study of the Neanderthals’, Antiquity 66:831–44.
Mulvaney, DJ 1989, Encounters in Place: Outsiders and
Aboriginal Australians 1606–1985, University of
Queensland Press, St Lucia.
Renfrew, C 2003, Figuring it Out, Thames & Hudson,
London.
Reynolds, R 1987, ‘The Indenoona contact site:
A preliminary report of an engraving site in the
Pilbara region of Western Australia’, Australian
Archaeology 25:80–7.
Rose, FGG 1942, ‘Paintings of the Groote Eylandt
Aborigines’, Oceania 13(2):170–6.
Schilder, G 1989, ‘From secret to common knowledge: The
Dutch discoveries’, in J Hardy & A Frost (eds), Studies
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from Terra Australis to Australia, Highland Press,
Canberra, pp. 71–86.
Scott, S 2006, ‘Art and the archaeologist’, World Archaeology
38(4):628–43.
Shanks, M, 1992, Experiencing Archaeology: On the Character
of Archaeology, Routledge, London & New York.
Shanks, M 1997, ‘Photography and archaeology’, in
B Molyneaux (ed.), The Cultural Life of Images: Visual
Representation in Archaeology, Routledge, London &
New York, pp. 73–107.
Shanks, M 2004, ‘Three rooms: Archaeology and
performance’, Journal of Social Archaeology
11. Pre-Macassans at Dholtji?
4(2):147–80. Exploring one of north-east Arnhem Land’s great conundrums
Sharp, A 1963, The Discovery of Australia, Oxford University
Press, Oxford.
Thomson, D 1949, Economic Structure and the Ceremonial Ian S McIntosh
Exchange Cycle in Arnhem Land, McMillan & Co.,
Melbourne. Indiana University–Purdue University, Indianapolis
Tindale, NB 1925–26, ‘Natives of Groote Eylandt and of
the west coast of the Gulf of Carpentaria: Parts 1–2’,
Records of the South Australian Museum 3:61–143.
Torrence, R & Clarke, A 2000, ‘Negotiating difference: Much has been written about the Australian trepang (bêche-de-mer) industry initiated by
Practice makes theory for contemporary archaeology Muslim fishermen from the Sulawesi port of Makassar (see Macknight 1976). From at least
in Oceania’, in R Torrence & A Clarke (eds), The
Archaeology of Difference: Negotiating Cross-Cultural 1720 to 1906, these ‘Macassans’ plied their trade along the Northern Territory and northern
Engagements in Oceania, One World Archaeology 38, Western Australian coastlines. Chinese interest in this seafood, famed its for aphrodisiac
Routledge, London, pp. 1–31.
Turner, DH 1973, ‘The rock art of Bickerton Island in qualities, had fuelled the development of this industry, and also the seasonal visits by Macassans
comparative perspective’, Oceania 43:286–325. to Australia1 (Sutherland 2000). Aboriginal people were often employed in gathering and
Turner, DH 1974, Tradition and Transformation: A Study
of Aborigines in the Groote Eylandt Area, Northern processing of the ‘sea cucumber’ for the markets of south-east Asia.
Australia, Australian Aboriginal Studies no. 53,
Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies, Canberra.
The foremost authority on the history of trepangers in Aboriginal Australia, Campbell
Turner, V 1988, The Anthropology of Performance, PAJ Macknight, argues that while the influence of Macassans on Aboriginal people was quite
Publications, New York.
Van Alphen, E 2005, ‘What history, whose history, history extensive, it did not transform the fundamental basis of their societies (1972:316, 1986:71).
to what purpose? Notions of history in art history This minimalist conclusion was open to review, however, with Macknight (1986:71, 72) calling
and visual culture studies’, Journal of Visual Culture
4(2):191–202. for further research into:
Warner WL 1932, ‘Malay influence on Aboriginal cultures
of north-eastern Arnhem Land’, Oceania II:476–95. • the effects on Aborigines of the thoughts and practices of Macassans, both in
Wilkins, GH 1928, Undiscovered Australia, Ernest Benn Ltd,
London.
Arnhem Land and during their sojourns in various Asian ports
Worsley, PM 1955, ‘Early Asian contacts with Australia’, • how particular elements of Macassan culture have been localised by
Past and Present 1–11.
Aboriginal groups, taking on new meaning in vastly different social and
economic contexts
• how the memory of the trepang industry has been transformed and put to
use in north Australian politics.
These three research topics have guided my examination of Aboriginal accounts of the
trepang industry in north-east Arnhem Land (see McIntosh 1994a, 1994b, 1995, 1996, 2000,
2004a, 2004b, 2006). Macknight’s broad conclusion is supported by my findings, but with
reservation. Despite the development of working relationships between Aboriginal people and
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 166 S trangers on the shore pr e-M ac a s s a ns at Dholtj i ? 167

Macassans that were sometimes of long duration, and evidence that the visitors paid tribute to
Aboriginal elders for access to the land (Langton et al. 2006; McIntosh 2006; Thomson 1957),
oral history records that more than one Aboriginal clan, and possibly many, became extinct as a
consequence of this contact (see McIntosh 1996). It is not hard to imagine that the fundamental
basis of Aboriginal lifeways would be transformed under such circumstances. Ethnographic
data that I have collected from north-east Arnhem Land suggests otherwise. Here, as in earlier
papers, I make the case that extensive cultural borrowings and innovations in the Dreaming
facilitated the rejuvenation of severely impacted populations (see McIntosh 2006).
Recent summations of Aboriginal memories of the trepang industry, such as Russell (2004),
however, tend to obfuscate and even trivialise the Macassan legacy. Targeted research in areas
such as music (Toner 2000) and archaeology (Mitchell 2000) are an exception. The Oxford
Companion on Australian History (Davison et al. 2001), for example, in its entry on Macassans
(p. 406), notes how the visits are remembered in Aboriginal art and music in the northern
coastal region. The remains of trepanging camps, with their distinctive tamarind trees and stone
lines, are a visible reminder of this old industry. Such an entry is inadequate and misleading
and does a serious disservice to those Aboriginal thinkers — the bricoleurs or mythmakers
of Australia’s past — who negotiated this complex and at times troubling period to find a way
forward in a world that had radically changed. As Urry and Walsh (1981: 98) have declared,
‘mere tabulations of assumed cultural connections … are an insult to Aboriginal creativity’.
There is a need to consider Macassan impacts on the total pattern of Aboriginal existence.
In this chapter, I present a case study from Dholtji (Cape Wilberforce), the most north-
easterly point of mainland Arnhem Land (see Figure 11.1), in order to shed light on the
enduring significance of the Macassan presence. A longstanding puzzle in north Australian
ethnography, the question of the existence of pre-Macassans (Baiini or Bayini), is my entry
point for this investigation. The chief sources of information that I draw upon are those bodies
of knowledge that Aboriginal people (or Yolngu, as they refer to themselves) have at their
disposal in interpreting the past: Dreaming narratives, songs and ceremonies, personal names, Figure 11.1. Map of north-east Arnhem Land. Source: Cartographic Services, Research School of Pacific and Asian
Studies, College of Asia and the Pacific, Australian National University
sacred objects, and a land and seascape alive with meaning and memories.
Dholtji narratives span the full gamut, from recollections of men striding ashore dressed in
It is impossible to disentangle the many exotic threads of myths and history in Yolngu
‘mirror’ (or armour) — perhaps Portuguese or Dutch explorers — to less substantiated tales
accounts of their past, but to rely solely upon so-called hard evidence is to blind oneself to more
of major settlements in north-east Arnhem Land with rice paddies, iron forges and pottery
workshops — images of south-east Asia transposed in Aboriginal imaginations onto local subtle truths (Vansina 1985). As my previous research has shown, Yolngu from Dholtji created
shores. These awe-inspiring narratives look back in time to a period well prior to the arrival a sacred pre-Macassan ‘history’ as a benchmark for their dealings with transient Macassan and
of Macassans, to an idyllic (and mythical) age when pre-Macassans were settled there. For the Japanese fishermen, and then European settlers. Sacred history is writ large in the landscape
Yolngu, this pre-Macassan era represents the high-water mark in terms of interaction between at Dholtji and it calls upon the Yolngu to reflect upon their contemporary interactions with
‘black’ and ‘white’. There was equality and reciprocity, the sharing of resources and knowledge, non-Aborigines of European descent (or Balanda), and consider the very possibility of a future
and joint participation in sacred ceremonies honouring the land (McIntosh 2006). rapprochement of Indigenous and non-Indigenous interests. As Bourdieu (1977:82) says, we

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 168 S trangers on the shore pr e-M ac a s s a ns at Dholtj i ? 169

carry with us at all times and places a set of dispositions that are artefacts of history — a
habitus — which produces individual and collective practices, and hence history, in accordance
with the schemes engendered by history. ‘The past therefore survives into the present and
tends to perpetuate itself into the future by making itself present in practices structured
according to its principles’ (Bourdieu 1977:82).
My objective, then, apart from calling for a more nuanced view of the Macassan legacy, is
to shed light on that complex ideology centred on Dholtji and the mysterious pre-Macassans
that speaks to an ideal of justice and equality which eludes us yet, but which continues to guide
Yolngu in the manner in which they pursue relationships with the outside world.

A conundrum extraordinaire
The long narrow Cape Wilberforce (Dholtji) peninsula is predominantly Warramiri clan
land, but it is also of great significance to those Yirritja moiety clans2, including the Gumatj,
Wangurri and Birrkili3, members of which had congregated there at the very beginning of
the Macassan trepang industry, lured by the promise of access to the Macassans’ advanced
technologies and material riches (McIntosh 2006). The Dhuwa moiety Galpu (Golumala) clan
shares the Cape with the Warramiri, and members of that clan maintain an outstation just to
the south.
In 1988, elders from the Warramiri clan requested that a survey of their homeland be
completed by the Sacred Sites Authority4 as a protective measure against mining activities, Figure 11.2. The bricoleur at work: Warramirri elder David Burrumarra MBE. (Drawing by Julia Blackburn)
illegal fishing, and tourism operations. The Authority’s response was immediate. Major
Dreaming sites including ‘the place of Birrinydji, the king’ were identified and recorded in the
According to the Warramiri leader, the Yolngu could no longer ‘lean’ or rely upon beliefs
register of sacred places. Sign boards warning the general public to keep out were despatched
associated with Dholtji — including Birrinydji, a Dreaming entity loosely based on a European
by barge to the nearest landing site. But they were never erected on Dholtji’s deserted
or Macassan boat captain and traditional iron-maker (once a mystical profession), and also
windswept beaches. The elders were torn between the need to protect sites, and yet not draw
the sky-based Walitha’walitha, inspired by the God of Islam (McIntosh 1996). Their world had
public attention to them. The Birrinydji sign board, for example, was last seen being used by
changed beyond measure. Christianity was now the spiritual backbone of most north-east
custodians as a convenient flat surface for the making of damper or ‘sand bread’.
Arnhem Land communities.
Then leader of the Warramiri clan, the late David Burrumarra MBE5, was concerned about
revealing too much about the Dholtji Dreamings, but he also believed that the message of the And yet a great conundrum lay at the heart of the Dholtji narratives, making revelation
Cape’s past and its relevance for the present was too important to remain hidden. As one of that much more contentious: the Cape was understood by Yolngu to be the living embodiment
the leaders of the 1957 Adjustment Movement in Arnhem Land (see Berndt 1962), through of Birrinydji, and Birrinydji was white, though he could change his skin colour to black at will.
which sacred paraphernalia and narratives were openly revealed for the first time, Burrumarra Followers of Birrinydji’s law believed that ‘white men’6 — Birinydji’s ‘replacements’ and the
felt there was still much ‘unfinished business’ in reconciling Yolngu and Balanda world-views ancestors of Yolngu — were the very first inhabitants of Arnhem Land’s north-eastern tip.7
and priorities. Land rights legislation had been proclaimed in 1976 in the Northern Territory The identity of these tall bearded men who sang the Yolngu land into existence, and then
but self-management and autonomy still eluded the first peoples. Burrumarra believed that lay down on the sand to rest, is unknown. According to Burrumarra, since they shared the
telling the story of Dholtji would help to complete or fulfil this necessary ‘adjustment’ (see ‘one ceremony’ honouring Dholtji, they were brothers to the Yolngu, regardless of their skin
McIntosh 2000, 2004a). colour. Their songs and dances are a treasured part of the Yolngu cultural heritage, but who

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 170 S trangers on the shore
were these ancestors? Yolngu oral history describes their colourful sarongs, distinctive hats
shaped like the tail of a whale, and how they sailed under a blue, red and blue striped flag.
Were they Macassans? One alluring anecdote emanating from Makassar describes how four
praus from the Macassan Kingdom of Gowa escaped the Dutch and Bugis onslaught of their
port in 1667 and took refuge in north-east Arnhem Land, dwelling there for over 25 years
(Macknight 1976:121). Corroborating evidence in support of this vision of the past is limited,
but nonetheless noteworthy (see later).8
A timeless gift
As a place name, Dholtji refers both to the entire Cape and also a specific site near its base
opposite Pobasso Island. This island, one of the English Company’s group, was named by the
English explorer Matthew Flinders in 1803 in recognition of the Macassan trepanging fleet
captain he encountered during his circumnavigation of Australia (Flannery 2001).
Dholtji has many names of Macassan derivation, including Ujung Tana, Ujung Djalatjirri and
Manunu, among others. The word Dholtji itself means ‘hidden gift’ and may be of Portuguese
derivation.9 In Burrumarra’s understanding, Dholtji was the gift of Birrinydji, the Dreaming
entity synonymous with the Cape. He buried something beneath the sands that promised a
long and prosperous life for the followers of his law, and power over their enemies — whether
white or black.
A camp site, or ‘regional headquarters’, is maintained at Dholtji for the infrequent visits
of Warramiri custodians. It is located on top of a low wide dune fringed with casuarina trees
adjacent to a white sandy beach which faces north to Cotton Island, in the English Company’s
island group. The site extends back to a paperbark swamp or ‘jungle’ where a water bore and
pump are located. Non-Aboriginal visitors to Dholtji, as well as the uninitiated, are escorted
wherever they go, and are asked to always keep their backs to the jungle area behind the beach.
Their vision is to be directed out to sea to the ‘Malay Road’, also named by Flinders because of
the large number of Macassan or ‘Malay’ praus traversing those waters in 1803.
Just near the camp site, an extraordinary line of sedimentary slabs standing three metres
in height — the ‘anchor chain’ of Birrinydji’s boat in Warramiri mythology — protrudes east
from the coast into the sea. At low tide this line of slabs is visible for over 500 metres, but
according to Warramiri elder Terry Dhurritjini it continues along the sea floor parallel to
the Cape for many kilometres until it curves away and terminates at a small offshore island.
According to Berndt and Berndt (1954), Macassans would honour with prayer and tribute
such conspicuous navigational hazards.
At its north-eastern extremity, Cape Wilberforce consists of steep cliffs and a rocky
headland. Here, at a major barramundi site, fresh water from Arnhem Bay is believed to flow
underground into the sea, mixing with salt water and symbolically uniting the ‘saltwater’
StrangersontheShoreTEXT08.indd 170-171
pr e-M ac a s s a ns at Dholtj i ? 171
Warramiri with the ‘freshwater’ Yirritja moiety peoples to the south. On the headland is a site
commemorating the dingo, and a nearby island is associated with an important Warramiri sea-
based totem, the cuttlefish. Elsewhere on the Cape there is ‘sickness country’ and Macassan
trepanging bays, which both represent a low rung in the site significance hierarchy. There is also
one area where the creators did nothing at all. It bears the imprint of no Dreaming entities.
Abandoned but not forgotten
No one has lived at Dholtji in any permanent fashion for more than 100 years, but in the late
1980s the site was still alive with the memory — real or imagined — of a rich and celebrated
past. Warramiri, Gumatj and Wangurri elders, for example, contributed a number of vivid
word pictures of Dholtji from its pre-Macassan glory days:
• hundreds of houses stretching along the Cape: vibrant settlements where
Yolngu and Balanda men practise iron-making (McIntosh 2004a, 2004b) and
women make pottery, weave cloth and grow rice (Berndt & Berndt 1947)
• men adorned with ‘mirror’ (armour) frequenting both the Cape and the
English Company Islands
• a mighty pre-Macassan sea captain named Luki addressing his assembled
troops, men drawn from all nations, black and white
• animated dances involving flags, masts and swords, performed by Aboriginal
and non-Aboriginal men and women to honour Dholtji
• ‘black’ whale hunters (known collectively as Gelurru, Dhurritjini, Papayili and
Wurramala10) working alongside the ‘whites’
• Allah, a sky-dwelling entity living high in the clouds over Cape Wilberforce
and in the red clouds of the sunset.11
There may be little solid evidence for many of these visions, but there are certainly some
tantalising clues that something very significant occurred at Dholtji. The name ‘Birrinydji’, for
instance, is a variation of a word for the ‘white man’ found throughout the former colonised
world. In the Middle Ages, Crusaders referred to the so-called infidel Muslims as ‘Saracens’.
Infidel Crusaders, in a similar way, were known to Muslims as al-frani or ‘the Franks’ (French or
‘European’). Wherever the Portuguese were most active in the 1500s and 1600s, variations of
the term for these crusading freebooters are still current: Birrinydji is just one. Others include
Parrangi, Feringghi, Feranji, Fo-Lag-ki, and so on (McIntosh 2000).
It is not uncommon for a Warramiri clan member to refer to Dholtji as Mecca.12 This is
not only because of the many Islamic references in Warramiri cosmology (McIntosh 1996),
but because Dholtji once attracted Yolngu and outsiders from far and wide. Actual historical
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 172 S trangers on the shore
occurrences at Dholtji might be traced if only the records were available from Portuguese and
Dutch sources. Explorer Abel Tasman rounded Cape Wilberforce in 1644 and anchored nearby,
but only a composite map of his and other Dutch discoveries remains in existence (Sharp 1968:
88). Anecdotal evidence also suggests that Sama-Bajau (sea-gypsies) who owed allegiance to
the King of Gowa in Makassar may have been in contact with Warramiri and other Yolngu
clans from as far back as the mid-1600s. Without a written history of their own, Yolngu can
rely only upon their understanding of the land and its natural features, their ownership and
participation in ceremonies, stories handed down over time, and of course current realities,
with which to make sense of where they came from and who they interacted with in the past.
As Burrumarra once remarked to me, ‘Our [Dholtji] songs and stories talk about places far
away across the seas and sometimes we think we must have come from there’.
The pre-Macassan enigma
Looking back in the 1980s, Yolngu recalled the Macassan era in a mixed light. Elders
reminisced about certain long-term friendships between individual Yolngu (their fathers and
grandfathers) and particular Macassan captains who had spent much of their lifetimes visiting
Marege (Arnhem Land). They also spoke of the adventure-filled journey to Makassar aboard
the praus. Overall, there was an acknowledgement that the Yolngu enjoyed access to highly
desired items of trade like tobacco, alcohol, cloth, and metal tools, but there was also a residual
bitterness over the theft of women and the plundering of natural resources (McIntosh 2006).
There was no equivalent ambivalence towards the pre-Macassans. Rather, these enigmatic
voyagers were the heroes of Dholtji and other localities in north-east Arnhem Land.
In writing Burrumarra’s biography (McIntosh 1994a), I searched through the works of
pioneering Arnhem Land anthropologists for information on Yolngu beliefs associated with
Cape Wilberforce and also clues to their meaning. Veiled references to Birrinydji (the Wangarr
or ‘Dreaming’ Macassan) and to a supposed moon-dwelling deity (Allah) in Yolngu funerary
rites appear in the work of Lloyd Warner from the 1920s. Warner was working closely with
Burrumarra’s classificatory brother Makarrwola from the Wangurri clan. Recorded also was
the fascinating myth of the transformation of empowered ‘white’ Yolngu into impoverished
‘blacks’ following the fateful meeting of the Macassans and the dingo (see McIntosh 1994b;
Warner 1969:421). In the 1940s, Ronald and Catherine Berndt identified Dholtji as the ‘anchor’
site, the place from where pre-Macassan law spread to other parts of Arnhem Land. But the
activities of these pre-Macassans, especially those of the men, were shrouded in mystery
(Berndt & Berndt 1949:221, 1954). In the 1960s, historian Campbell Macknight completed a
study of Arnhem Land Macassan sites but found only confusion surrounding the identity of
pre-Macassans. Burrumarra, for example, told him that they came from the moon (field notes,
27 June 1967) .
StrangersontheShoreTEXT08.indd 172-173
pr e-M ac a s s a ns at Dholtj i ? 173
Anthropologist Charles Mountford (1956–64:333–8) and also the Berndts (1949:219–20)
compared and contrasted the memories of Macassans and pre-Macassans, who they called
Baiini or Bayini. Thirty years later, Burrumarra’s account was essentially the same one that he
shared with the Berndts (McIntosh 1995). There are no references to trepang in Dholtji songs
and for Burrumarra this was evidence of a fundamental difference between the Macassan
fishermen and Dholtji’s pre-Macassans — the whites of old. Burrumarra would mention in
passing the similarities in their languages, but stressed that pre-Macassans came much earlier
and that they ‘lived for the land and for the Yolngu’. Macassans lived for their trepang trade,
made profitable by cheap Aboriginal labour.13
In the late 1980s, the ancient conundrum centred on the identity of those light-skinned
ancestors was considered an anachronism by some Yolngu, and too politically challenging and
potentially counter-productive by others, and was not openly shared with non-Aboriginal
people. Warramiri elder the late George Liwukang, for example, was worried that ‘whites’
might come to see themselves as traditional owners, and that was an unacceptable proposition
(McIntosh 2004a). Clan leader David Burrumarra did not agree. He felt that sharing some of
Dholtji’s stories — even if the conundrum reveals more questions than it answers — would
help bring Balanda and Yolngu together. But north-east Arnhem Landers were still embroiled
in legal and political battles with the government and mining companies. The search for
justice and equality was far from realised. As a consequence, the deeper meaning of the very
popular Dholtji ceremonies with their many foreign elements — long swords, and flags —
remained largely a private matter for Yirritja moiety Yolngu.14 The telltale signs of Birrinydji,
like Arnhem Land’s ubiquitous bamboo flagpoles, and ship’s masts stationed in the centre of
many communities, however, were a testimony to the enduring significance of this body of
Dreaming law in Yolngu lives.
Personal names and Dholtji’s heyday
Many hundreds of Yolngu personal names that were in circulation in the late 1980s were
drawn from the songs of Birrinydji, and they provide us with a grand picture of Dholtji’s pre-
Macassan days (McIntosh 2004a). A note of caution is required. This utopian image does not
match, in any way, with what is known from archaeologists and historians about life in Arnhem
Land’s trepanging camps (see Macknight 1976). The vision is nevertheless impressive. Names
recall the era of trade (called gumanda), the items that were traded (marthakal), and even the
Dutch East India Company or Gompania, which is a name for Birrinydji used by the Dhalwangu
clan. Diverse peoples are working together, honouring the land and sharing its riches through
participation in jointly held ceremonies (see McIntosh 2006).
There is a hierarchy of command in Birrinydji’s settlement. Tall men with long beards and
moustaches (bolutju) are carrying swords with jewel-encrusted handles. They are assembled on
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 174 S trangers on the shore
the beaches in military-style (dhawima15) out of respect for their garandalu or king. The first
and greatest of these is a man called Luki, but there are many others that Yolngu celebrate in
their personal names. There are names for the admiral of Birrinydji’s fleet (Lela), the captain of
Birrinydji’s boat (Djammangi) as well as leaders of the land-based troops (Djarrambi), and also
spiritual leaders.
The people of Dholtji perform ceremonies, including Rrondhu, when the men sit on either
side of a detached mast and sing. Similarly, the Djambayang (from the Indonesian Semayang or
Islamic prayer; Macknight 1972:296) unites ‘white and black alike’. Both of these ceremonies
are still performed today, typically at Yolngu funerals.
In the Birrinydji narratives, iron, as well as red, white and yellow pottery, is manufactured
from the red rock and clay so freely available along the shoreline (cf. McIntosh 2004b). A great
number of Yolngu names refer to the variety of skills the people of Dholtji mastered. Batingarra
makes swords (birrirrapi is his furnace), Mawunggi is a dressmaker, as is datiyalan. Daymtharra
is a cook, while Djalinda and Galanini make cloth in the dela, or sewing centre. They sing as they
work (gelung). Stone houses (balapathu) are built, as well as those with timber frames (bununga
or dhangatja), iron roofing (djarrikang) and nails. Dhundhana describes an area at Dholtji that
is thoroughly cleaned. Here the many inhabitants have planted trees and flowers. ‘Rice fields’
can still be identified at specific locations along the Cape, though different plant species now
grow in the former paddies.
While it is more than likely that such images of Dholtji are based on Yolngu experiences
in south-east Asia — personal names recollect Yolngu knowledge of ports such as Djakapurra
(Singapore) and Banda — the Warramiri hold strongly to the truth of their vision. The very
mention of the word Dholtji conjures up the image of mutuality. When both black and white
respect and honour that which is most sacred to the other, and recognise that strength lies in
unity, then we have clear picture of what Dholtji and Birrinydji represent in the Yirritja moiety
and Warramiri clan world-view.
The evidence
While many stories associated with Dholtji’s past might be seen to rank low on the probability
scale, there is some evidence that cannot be denied. Dholtji houses what might be the most
significant burial ground in all of north-east Arnhem Land, a site that is perhaps unique in
Australia. Under the shade of a spreading Buyama tree, hundreds of Yolngu lie buried beneath
a small circular mound and a depression surrounded by bamboo masts, tattered flags and long
knives. The dead are mostly Warramiri, but include Gumatj, Birrkili and Wangurri Yolngu,
and members of the Dhuwa moiety Golumala and Datiwuy clans. While this burial site
bears no resemblance to Macassan graves identified and excavated by Macknight in western
Arnhem Land (Macknight & Thorne 1968), the Yolngu acknowledge its Macassan (and not
StrangersontheShoreTEXT08.indd 174-175
pr e-M ac a s s a ns at Dholtj i ? 175
pre-Macassan) origins. I have estimated that it dates to the mid-1800s (McIntosh 2006).16
In Burrumarra’s reckoning, this mass grave was built by Macassans to honour the memory
of their Yolngu trading partners who had been killed, self-destructed, or died as a result of
introduced diseases, in the wake of contact with these trepang fishermen. The long knives
that surround the grave site are periodically replaced as they rust away, and new flags are
erected. The last time I am aware of this happening was the late 1970s, undertaken by the late
Warramiri elder Wulanybuma and a group of young clan members.
The ceremony that the Macassans performed for the deceased back in the mid-1800s is
still enacted today when a Warramiri or related clan member dies. Anthropologists Catherine
and Ronald Berndt recorded the ceremony at Elcho Island in the 1950s (Berndt & Berndt
1954). I saw it performed on Elcho Island at a Warramiri funeral in the late 1980s. Just as the
Macassans had done, men stand in a circle around a ‘totemic’ post representing the deceased.
As the Berndts describe it, the dancers bend forward with their backs to the post, eyes closed
and heads bowed. They then open their eyes and sing djialji, djilalji, and this continues for a
considerable time.
Burrumarra, reflecting on this very special memory, said that his Warramiri clan and others
connected to Dholtji took this funeral rite ‘as their standard’. It was seen to be part of a ‘code of
honour’, an indication that the Macassans recognised that the Yolngu were of ‘one blood’ and
that both had at one time been followers of a single law, that of Birrinydji.
Australia’s early historical record has few examples of encounters of a positive nature
where a reconciliatory message has been handed down to the present in the form of Aboriginal
ceremonies and sacred narratives. Tales of rejection tend to predominate in the memories
of the living. At Cape Keerweer in Cape York, for example, the ‘defeat’ or retreat of Dutch
explorers following a bloody shoot-out is a celebrated legend of Aboriginal people (Sutton
1988), as is the rejection of Captain Cook’s trinkets and rock-like sea biscuits by New South
Wales Aboriginal people (Maddock 1980). Aboriginal groups were self-sufficient, desiring
nothing from the outsider. But this is not the message of Dholtji.
The south-west corner of Western Australia provides a rare and celebrated instance of
harmonious interaction that had lasting consequences. In King George Sound, explorers and
early colonists owed the success of their missions to Nyungar traditions of diplomacy and
hospitality. In 1803, Matthew Flinders had his marines perform a military salute to honour
the Nyungar for their assistance over a three-week rest period (White 1980). For at least half a
century or longer, the Nyungar would enact a variation of this ceremony, with Aboriginal men
assembled in rows, military-style, with white pipe clay and red crosses painted on their chests,
with sticks as guns — mimicking the ‘redcoats’. By the early 1900s, however, this branch of
the Nyungar clan had become extinct, victims of colonial expansion from the Swan River penal
settlement and also of introduced diseases.
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 176 S trangers on the shore
That a three-week cross-cultural encounter could inspire a Nyungar ceremony that
presumably upheld the principles of reciprocity to guide Nyungar expectations in their dealings
with the Europeans is striking. Imagine, then, what must have happened at Dholtji. Apart
from the funeral ceremony gleaned from contact with Macassans mentioned earlier, there are
several other Macassan rituals in the Warramiri repertoire, like ‘Wathi Katika’ (cf. McIntosh
2004b). But there are also over 100 dances that are sourced to Dholtji’s pre-Macassans. Two
of these have already been mentioned: the Rrondhu and the Djambayang. The Berndts listed
these and many others in the ‘Badu’, ‘Bayini’ and ‘Macassar’ song cycles, but in Burrumarra’s
understanding all were inspired by, and originate with, Birrinydji (McIntosh 2000). There is
no collective memory of pre-Macassan ceremonies being gifted to Yolngu. Rather, they are
considered to be Yolngu ceremonies first performed at Dholtji at the beginning of time by
Birrinydji and his replacements, the pre-Macassans — the white ancestors of Warramiri
Yolngu.
Dreaming-inspired coexistence
Oral history lends support to a view that beliefs formerly associated with Cape Wilberforce were
swept away by the extraordinary events at Dholtji, leading to the emergence of entirely new
foundational narratives centred on Birrinydji. On the nearby English Company Islands, sacred
sites honour all the Warramiri sea totems, like the whale, octopus, squid, crayfish, and so on,
but Dholtji is primarily for Birrinydji. As Burrumarra said, ‘Birrinydji was like a blanket over
the land … Everything came under him’. All of the Dhuwa and Yirritja moiety epics, including
those of the Dreaming entities Djang’kawu and Lany’tjung, are silent on the significance or
even the possibility of cross-cultural encounters of the likes described at Dholtji. To talk of
Birrinydji today is to talk about ‘black’ and ‘white’ relationships and the new world thrust
upon the Yolngu. Birrinydji alone speaks to the possibility that Yolngu and Balanda might live
together in peace and harmony.
Birrinydji manifested itself in at least three locations in north-east Arnhem Land — in the
Warramiri, Dhalwangu and Lamamirri (now Gumatj) territories — and bequeathed a great
legacy in song and dance, painting and sculpture, so that the Yolngu might honour him and seek
the joy of his inheritance. But only at Dholtji do the pre-Macassan narratives make reference
to a cherished golden era of reciprocity and increase. Through many hands and interpretive
processes, this legacy became a beacon for Yolngu interactions with outsiders, especially in the
post-Macassan (1907–1930s) and mission (1930s–1970s) eras. As Burrumarra said:
Two thousand years ago, people came to our land. They had a job to do.
They wanted to make the land and the people strong. It was at Birrinydji’s
command that they came … [Birrinydji] was very rich and had many
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pr e-M ac a s s a ns at Dholtj i ? 177
things. He was an iron-maker. [His wife] … made clothing, planted rice,
and directed Yolngu women in this … Visitors to Dholtji had settlements
all along Cape Wilberforce. There were thousands of people, men, women
and children … When we followed Birrinydji’s law we prospered. But then
things started to go wrong. We wanted only good but bad came too … We
turned our back on the laws of Birrinydji and we lost everything … We
don’t like to bring it up. Today … we have only [Birrinydji’s] song and the
ceremony but we have lost the ability to make iron. But if we follow this
law, maybe these things will come to us again. (McIntosh 1994)
Dholtji was the inspiration for Burrumarra’s reconciliatory agenda as well as his tireless
fight for the recognition of Aboriginal rights to the land and sea, and equality for Indigenous
Australians (cf. McIntosh 1994, 2000). And the conundrum, that powerful but obscure ideal
of harmony, was the driving mechanism for seeking redress. Burrumarra would look back
to Dholtji as the measure for how Yolngu and Balanda should interact, and what north-east
Arnhem Land communities should look like in an ideal future.17
A sacred anachronism or reconciliation’s beacon?
One of the most significant clues in interpreting the narratives of Dholtji’s past comes from
an oft-repeated claim that the Yolngu men and women lying beneath the sands at Dholtji
were no mere mortals. Unlike the humans of today, they enjoyed certain special powers. They
possessed the magic to transform the red rock of the beaches into iron, and they enjoyed an
elevated standard of living unknown to the current generation, all because they lived ‘close on’
Birrinydji’s law. To refer to the heroes of Dholtji past, both black and white, as trepangers is
therefore quite misleading.
There were undoubtedly a number of different stages of Macassan visitation to north-east
Arnhem Land and it is probable that, at Dholtji, the nature of contact changed significantly from
one stage to the next, lending support to glorified visions of earlier periods of friendship and
prosperity. Echoes of such a mindset were clearly evident in the mid-twentieth century when
Yolngu were reflecting on their relationships with Europeans. As Thomson (1957:32) says, the
contrast between Aboriginal resistance to European policies of assimilation and the way that
Aborigines freely adopted many aspects of Macassan culture was enlightening. In establishing
often good working relations with Aborigines, the Macassans left behind a tradition that
amounted almost to hero-worship. Indeed, Macknight (1986:71) argues that Aborigines would
put to use this image of a largely peaceful and productive contact with Macassans to highlight
inadequacies in their contemporary relationships with non-Aborigines. Could this also have
been the case in the various stages of the Macassan era, with the earliest trepangers (or those
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 178 S trangers on the shore
Macassans exiled from the Kingdom of Gowa in 1667) becoming associated with a golden era? Notes
Oral history hints at this possibility. Burrumarra said that when the Macassans first arrived in 1. In 1906, Macassan involvement was curtailed by
Arnhem Land, the Yolngu wanted to turn them away, but then some remembered the stories South Australian government authorities (Macknight
1976).
of the old people about ‘whites’ on Arnhem Land shores, so they let them stay. 2. The Yolngu world is divided into halves or moieties,
which are called Dhuwa and Yirritja. Yirritja moiety
The dispassionate observer, whether Yolngu or Balanda, will argue that Dholtji’s pre-
clans include the Warramiri clan, as well as the
Macassan narratives are based on encounters with trepangers and are largely fictitious. But Gumatj, Dhalwangu, Wangurri, Birrkili, and so on.
3. The now-extinct Lamamirri clan was also linked to
this was an unsatisfactory conclusion for the Warramiri in the 1980s. It is far better for Dholtji.
the identity of these ancients to remain a mystery. For Burrumarra, the endless search by 4. Now the Aboriginal Areas Protection Authority
(AAPA).
outsiders to confirm the historical reality of the Bayini was irrelevant to the bigger picture. The 5. Burrumarra (1917–94) was a significant figure in the
designation ‘pre-Macassan’ signalled the existence of two quite separate and distinct realms development of the Arnhem Land communities of
Yirrkala and Elcho Island (see McIntosh 1994a).
in Yolngu thinking: the sacred and the profane — the pre-Macassan instigators of law who 6. In the literature, these pre-Macassans are known
are indistinguishable from law-abiding Yolngu, and the seafaring trepangers who were neither as the Baiini or Bayini. In some accounts, these
‘replacements’ for Birrinydji are gold- or copper-
instigators nor followers of Yolngu law. coloured (Berndt & Berndt 1949:219; McIntosh
2004b).
In all probability, events surrounding the loss of life and the creation of a unique burial
7. It was only later, when their descendants turned
ground at Dholtji became the foundation for constructing a vision of the past which, as their backs on Birrinydji’s law, that their skin colour
permanently changed from white to black, symbolic of
Bakhtin (1981) argues, can only be associated with a world still to come. The inexplicable a mythical fall from grace, from power and prosperity
and the unknown, especially the Dholtji conundrum, are treasured commodities for Yolngu, to impoverishment and dependence upon the other.
8. Port Bradshaw, one of three Birrinydji sites in north-
driving their visions and dreams. In the case of Cape Wilberforce, the songs and stories of east Arnhem Land, is identified in this anecdote as
Birrinydji contribute to building a sense of wonder in what the Yolngu once achieved on their the place of exile, but on the basis of oral history, it is
much more likely to have been Dholtji.
land, and belief remains strong for the Warramiri that such greatness could and certainly will 9. Dote is Portuguese for ‘gift’ but it is pronounced
be replicated in the future. ‘Dotchi’ in old Portuguese.
10. These are the names of recognised ‘Sea Gypsy’ or
The enduring significance of the Macassan presence for Yolngu is not limited to art work Sama Bajau groups. These ‘whale hunters’ stand guard
over the souls of the Warramiri in a mythical place
or music, or even ceremonial innovations or borrowings. These are but a shallow reflection
called Badu, the ‘land of the dead’ to the north-east of
of a far greater truth that is implicit in a habitus: that set of dispositions born of history that Dholtji (McIntosh 2000).
11. Allah, also known as Walitha’walitha by the
produces individual and collective practices. In this instance, an ideal or benchmark has been Warramiri, is also as a personal familiar inherited by
set by Yolngu thinkers for their cross-cultural aspirations, and the preconditions for justice individuals from generation to generation, providing
and equality are yet to be realised. Until that day, Dholtji will remain for Yolngu a special place
for considering reconciliation’s trajectory.
References
Bakhtin, MM 1981, ‘Forms of time and the chronotype
in the novel: Notes toward a historical poetics’, in
M Holquist (ed.), The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays
by MM Bakhtin, University of Texas Press, Austin,
pp. 84–258.
Berndt, R 1962, An Adjustment Movement in Arnhem Land,
Mouton, Paris.
Berndt, RM & Berndt, CH 1947, ‘Discovery of pottery
in north-eastern Arnhem Land’, Journal of the Royal
StrangersontheShoreTEXT08.indd 178-179
pr e-M ac a s s a ns at Dholtj i ? 179
guidance and protection in times of need (McIntosh
1996).
12. Yolngu also call Dholtji Jerusalem because of its
significance for Christians (see McIntosh 1996).
13. Many of the stories of pre-Macassans make
reference to the flying fox or Mattjurr, and
Mountford (1956–64:336), in his report on the
American–Australian scientific expedition, describes
how they could freely transform from one to the
other. In Warramiri mythology, the Dreaming entity
Marryalyan, the ‘god’ of the coral reef, is credited
with the creation of the flying fox and various other
clan totems like the octopus and cuttlefish in a vast
laboratory beneath the reef. At particular times of the
year, flying foxes gather in immense numbers along
the coast. This is just prior to their final trip out to sea
towards Indonesia, where the Yolngu believe that they
grow fat in a mythical place that coincides with the
Warramiri ‘land of the dead’.
14. Simultaneously, the reconciliatory theme of the
Dholtji Dreamings was being publicised by the Yolngu
rock group Yothu Yindi in their hit songs, like ‘Matjala’
or ‘Djapana’, which draw inspiration and song titles
from Dholtji and Birrinydji.
15. Also means new or ‘flash’.
16. This date is my estimate based on interviews with
Warramiri and Birrkili clan members and their stories
of migration to Elcho Island (see McIntosh 2006).
17. As I have described elsewhere (McIntosh 2004a),
when European missionaries and their south-sea
island associates came to Arnhem Land in the early
twentieth century, the Yolngu believed that they
were, like the Macassans, children of Birrinydji, long
separated by time and circumstance. As Burrumarra
said, ‘All the old Wangurri and Warramiri men
believed this’ (McIntosh 2004a). But they kept this
story to themselves because there was strong reason
to doubt that whites knew or even understood the
principles by which the Birrinydji’s followers should
abide.
Anthropological Institute 7:133–40.
Berndt, RM & Berndt, CH 1949, ‘Secular figures of
northeastern Arnhem Land’, American Anthropologist
51(2):213–22.
Berndt, RM & Berndt, CH 1954, Arnhem Land, Its History
and Its People, FW Cheshire, Melbourne.
Bourdieu, P 1977, Outline of a Theory of Practice, Cambridge
University Press, Cambridge.
Davison, G, Hirst, J & McIntyre, S (eds) 2001, The Oxford
Companion to Australian History, Oxford University
Press, Melbourne.
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Flannery, T 2001, Terra Australis: Matthew Flinders’ Great
Adventures in the Circumnavigation of Australia, Text
Publishing, Melbourne.
Langton, M, Mazel, O & Palmer, L 2006, ‘The “spirit” of
the thing: The boundaries of Aboriginal economic
relations at Australian common law’, Australian
Journal of Anthropology Special Issue 18:307–21.
Macknight, CC 1972, ‘Macassans and Aborigines’, Oceania
42(4):283–321.
Macknight CC 1976, The Voyage to Marege’: Macassan
Trepangers in Northern Australia, Melbourne University
Press, Melbourne.
Macknight, CC 1986, ‘Macassans and the Aboriginal past’,
Archaeology in Oceania 21:69–75.
Macknight, CC & Thorne, A 1968, ‘Two Macassan
burials in Arnhem Land’, Archaeology and Physical
Anthropology in Oceania 3(3):216–22.
Maddock, K 1980, ‘Myth, history, and a sense of oneself’,
in J Beckett (ed.), Past and Present: Construction of
Aboriginality, Aboriginal Studies Press, Canberra,
pp. 11–30.
McIntosh, IS 1994a, The Whale and the Cross: Conversations
with David Burrumarra MBE, Historical Society of the
Northern Territory, Darwin.
McIntosh, IS 1994b, ‘The dog and the myth maker:
Macassans and Aborigines in northern Australia’,
Australian Folklore 9:77–81.
McIntosh, IS 1995, ‘Who are the Bayini?’, The Beagle:
Records of the Museums and Art Galleries of the Northern
Territory 12:193–208.
McIntosh, IS 1996, ‘Islam and Australia’s Aborigines? A
perspective from north-east Arnhem Land’, Journal of
Religious History 20(1):53–77.
McIntosh, IS 2000, Aboriginal Reconciliation and the
Dreaming: Warramiri Yolngu and the Quest for Equality,
Allyn & Bacon, Boston.
McIntosh, IS 2004a, ‘Personal names and the negotiation
of change: Reconsidering Arnhem Land’s adjustment
movement’, Anthropological Forum 14(2):141–62.
McIntosh, IS 2004b, ‘The iron furnace of Birrinydji’, in
A Rumsey & J Wiener (eds), Mining and Indigenous
Lifeworlds in Australia and Papua New Guinea, Sean
Kingston Publishing, Wantage, UK, pp. 12–30.
McIntosh, IS 2006, ‘A treaty with the Macassans?
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Burrumarra and the Dholtji ideal’, Asia Pacific Journal
of Anthropology (7):2:153–72.
Mitchell, S 2000, ‘Guns or barter? Indigenous exchange
networks and the mediation of conflict in post-
contact western Arnhem Land’, in R Torrence &
A Clarke (eds), The Archaeology of Difference, Microsoft
Reader eBooks, pp. 182–214.
12. Looking for the residents of Terra Australis
Mountford, CP 1956–64, Records of the American–
Australian Scientific Expedition to Arnhem Land: Volume The importance of Nyungar in early European coastal exploration
One, Art, Myth, and Symbolism, Melbourne University
Press, Melbourne.
Russell, D 2004, ‘Aboriginal–Makassan interactions in Len Collard
the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in northern
Australia and contemporary sea rights claims’,
Indigenous Australian Studies, Murdoch University
Australian Aboriginal Studies 2004(1):3–17.
Sharp, A 1968, The Discovery of Australia, Clarendon Press,
Dave Palmer
Oxford.
Sutherland, H 2000, ‘Trepang and wangkang: The China Sociology and Community Development, Murdoch University
trade of eighteenth-century Makassar c.1720s–
1840s’, in R Tol, K van Dijk & G Acciaioli (eds),
Authority and Enterprise among the Peoples of South
Sulawesi, KITLV Press, Leiden, pp. 73–94. Even before European coastal occupation of south-west Australia, there were contradictions
Sutton, P 1988, ‘Myth as history, history as myth’, at the heart of the colonial enterprise. On the one hand many of those who navigated
in I Keen (ed.), Being Black: Aboriginal Cultures in
Settled Australia, Aboriginal Studies Press, Canberra, the Western Australian coast possessed openly hostile attitudes towards the Indigenous
pp. 251–68. inhabitants. However, this did not mean Nyungar were always peripheral or invisible in the
Thomson, D 1949, Economic Structure and the Ceremonial
Exchange Cycle in Arnhem Land, Macmillan Press, minds of European coastal navigators. As their diaries, journals, ship’s logs and other historical
Melbourne.
Thomson, D 1957, ‘Early Macassar visitors to Arnhem
documents demonstrate, European mariners and scientists had a deep yearning and need for
Land and their influence on its people’, Walkabout contact with Nyungar.
1 July, pp. 29–32.
Toner, P 2000, ‘Ideology, influence and innovation: The In this chapter we revisit some of these historical accounts of coastal exploration along the
impact of Macassan contact on Yolngu music’, Perfect south-west of Australia, drawing upon instances where scientists with post-Enlightenment
Beat 5(1):21–41.
Urry, J & Walsh, M 1981, ‘The lost “Macassar” language of ideals and mariners with expansionist interests were shaped by an interest in, a desire for and
northern Australia’, Aboriginal History 5(2):91–122.
Vansina, J 1985, Oral Tradition as History, University of
in some instances a reliance on Aboriginal people and Aboriginal knowledge. As a consequence,
Wisconsin Press, Madison. Nyungar were central figures in the minds and practices of European mariners.
Warner, L 1969, A Black Civilization: A Social Study of an
Australian Tribe, Harper & Rowe, Chicago. We also offer a new approach to conventional history-telling by combining the cultural
White, I 1980, ‘The birth and death of a ceremony’, experience and knowledge of a Nyungar scholar with material from the written historical
Aboriginal History (4):32–41.
record. We will take some liberties and employ techniques that some historians may find
unorthodox in order to buttress our history-making with respect to the relationship between
mariners and Nyungar. There have been and will continue to be three discursive spaces used.
One taken up by Len, one by Dave and a third place somewhere in the middle where we both
speak together. By drawing on Len’s cultural experience and knowledge we will take some
licence to reinterpret how Nyungar may well have made sense of the visitors from the ocean.
This of course is not to imply that these accounts are unproblematic or ‘stand on their own’,
represent the definitive history, or that the author’s interpretive voice can be totally suspended.
However, it is acknowledged that all history-making involves an imaginative engagement with
the events of the past and is deeply informed by the cultural, social and theoretical perspectives
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which historians bring to their work (Attwood et al. 1994:198). As Neumann (1992:291) argues,
all historical accounts must rely on the borrowing of additional material from the imagination
of authors and readers.
To offer space for a Nyungar account we have chosen to engage the imaginary and the
mythical with the historical record (see Maushart 1993). This will involve one of the authors
‘calling up’ Nyungar memory, combining his own personal and cultural knowledge of Nyungar
life and history with documented history. While these ‘stories’ might be considered by some
to be speculative in style they give a distinctly Nyungar interpretive voice and expression to
Nyungar history-making (for example, see Bennell 1993; Collard 1994; Davis 1982; Van den
Berg 1994; Winmar in Collard et al. 2004).
The ‘stories’ offered have their origins in Nyungar accounts and in that sense are ‘true’.
It would be foolish to deny the existence of such things as selective hearing and telling, the
embellishing of certain events, the use of animated language, or romantic ideas about the
past. However, little would be gained by ‘making up’ stories and hence the reader is invited to
respect the integrity of narratives largely as they are. We will shade these sections to signpost
where we are engaging in this kind of narrative.
I will tell you a story from kura or a long time ago. Many Nyungar remember this story
and tell it in a number of ways. I think it might help explain how some Nyungar think
about the coming of European coastal explorers.
When they first realised that the big ships carried people Nyungar thought the coastal
explorers were djanga or returned spirits of their noitch moort or dead relatives coming
home again. They were happy, and they welcomed the white spirit beings as members
of their family.
Nyungar would have known that they had important protocols to carry out. It was
their responsibility to teach their moort, their relatives, all about Nyungar katitjin or
knowledge of the boodjar or land, because they had obviously forgotten everything
when they had ‘died’.
Some were frightened and ran and hid.
Others invited the djanga back into their country and into their worlds literally as their
brothers and sisters. They invited them to relearn about their boodjar or country.
Clearly, without Nyungar katitjin or help, the djanga were dwangabert, meeowert and
kaat warra nyidiyung. They were blind, deaf and without knowledge. They stumbled
about in the bush as if they were lost. Sometimes Nyungar helped the newcomers,
reminding them of where they were and how to stay safe.
Nyungar still tell this story today and elaborate on different parts of it.
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At the Vasse River, the scientist Peron, seeing in the sand something like
the outlines of an amphitheatre, measured it, calculated its proportions and
immediately made reference comparisons with the highest civilisations —
Mexico, Egypt. At the same time, not far away, another party stumbled
across an Aboriginal couple. The man ran away, but his pregnant wife was
caught. She left beneath her excrement ‘like an animal’, and the officers
found her so unattractive and dirty that ‘even the most deprived (or
depraved) of their sailors would not want her’. A first glimpse of Australia
and a first contradiction. Australians today should not be amused by this
contradiction. In the birth of a continent, as in all births, there is always
something ambiguous but there is also something moving. (Jean-Francois
Deniau, French Minister for Overseas Trade, 1978–81, cited in Marchant
1982:xv)
Even before the colonisation of the west coast of Australia there were complex social
interactions going on between the Indigenes and Europeans. On the one hand the locals
would have seen bizarre things upon the oceans and may well have met strange creatures
who periodically landed and stayed for a short time. At the same time Europeans were on
the look-out for new horizons, creating stories about the inhabitants of the Great Southern
Land and later seeking out contact with them. The response on both sides would have been
mixed. Some Nyungar would likely have been enormously fearful of these odd newcomers
while others appear to have been hospitable. On the other side of the cultural and physical
divide, some of the Dutch, French and English explorers took for granted the idea that the
‘new’ country was not inhabited by any civilised and sovereign people and were openly hostile
towards the Indigenes.
Before we launch into the detailed content of the chapter it is worth reminding ourselves
of two often-neglected points. First of all, the mariners who visited the west coast of Australia,
like those who were later to ‘explore’ the interior, were of many minds and characters, sailed at
different times, came from various regions and had a range of objectives. Therefore we ought
to expect some degree of variance in the accounts offered by various European mariners.
The second point is that accounts of the activities of European mariners are not only
confined to European records but also recorded in the rich stories of the coastal Nyungars.
Unfortunately we have limited records of these accounts as theirs was not a literature-based
culture. Instead we are reliant on the oral histories told to early colonists by Nyungar. However,
this should not stop us from seeking out Nyungar interpretations of the activities of coastal
mariners. From the available records and what we now know about Nyungar culture and
knowledge we can speculate about how they might have accounted for coastal explorers. We
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are also fortunate that, despite what many imagine to be the total destruction of Nyungar
culture and life, there exist today many who possess the traditions and knowledge to offer
interpretive accounts of what it may have been like for Nyungar who watched as the coastal
explorers attempted to make contact.
Kaya! nyuny Len. Nyuny Nyungar. Baal Dave. Nidja Noonarwal karla.
Kaya Nyungar, kaya Wedjela. Gnulluck koort kwoppa noonook nidja koorliny yeye. Gnulla
koort boola boominy djinany noonookurt ni nyuny wangkiny yeye.
Nidja Noonarwal boodjar ngulluck nyinniny. Noonarwal boordier nidja boodjar, koora yeye
boorda. Bulla Nyungar katitjin nidja.
Our names are Len and Dave. Len is a Nyungar and Dave a Wedjela or non-Aboriginal
Australian. We both call the south-west of Australia our home.
This paper is concerned with events and interactions that occurred in the south-
west of Australia. This is Nyungar country we are talking about. In this part of the
world Nyungar have contributed much to cultural and economic life. Here Nyungar
knowledge and systems have had and continue to have much influence.
Coastal exploration and the importance of signs of human habitation
Wardandi Nyungar from down around Busselton way say that years ago there was a big
bird that lived down around the southern part of the country. It was a huge white bird.
One day the bird flew away and went across the wardan or sea. Nyungar didn’t know
where it went. But when they saw the white people’s ships coming in with the big sails
up, they thought it was the bird coming back. So they all went down to greet the bird
that was coming back. As they were waiting they realised that it was the djanga white
people who were about to land on the shore.
Initially some were frightened and ran away saying to each other:
‘Kaya moort djinanyiny. Nartj barl nyinniny nidja wardan wa. Kaya barlupiny djanga unna.’
One relation said to the other:
‘Hey, relation. What is on the seawater? Is that a devil or what is it?’
Later, other Nyungar became more curious and were prompted to say:
‘Kaya! Nyuny koorliny djinang nidja djanak koorliny wardan nyinniny unna. Natch barl
koorliny.’
Translated this means, ‘Look at these devils over on the ocean. Let’s go and have a look
at them and see where they going.’
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The early European navigators who spent time along the south-west coast were mostly
interested in the area for its economic and strategic advantages. They were principally traders
keen to exploit rich sources of spices and other natural resources known to exist in places
such as the East Indies. For example, in the 1820s, the French mariner Dumont d’Urville
sought out Nyungar in King George Sound for the purpose of trading local products. Van
den Berg (1994) suggests that this was the first early example of Nyungar involvement in
the tourist trade. D’Urville (cited in Green 1984:37) notes that ‘the Nyungar (Aborigine) not
only welcomed the sailors [in 1821] but eagerly engaged in what was possibly the first tourist
trading in Western Australia’
In addition, there were sound and important reasons to collect intelligence about and
map terrain that was potentially useful for groups such as the Dutch East Indies Company.
Knowledge of coastal areas south of the East Indies lacked detail and was far from accurate
(Marchant 1988:70). It should then come as no surprise that there was considerable evidence
of Dutch interest in the inhabitants of the west coast.
There are many examples of the importance the Dutch attached to seeking out Indigenous
contact. In addition to being instructed to search for and rescue survivors of ships such as the
Vergulde Draeck (Gilt Dragon), to salvage as much merchandise as possible, and to chart the
coast carefully, the captains of vessels such as the Waeckende Boey (Watchful or Wakeful Buoy)
were also instructed to ‘find out whether the land was inhabited and, if so, to try and establish
trade with Aborigines’ (Appleyard & Manford 1979:19).
Imagine what Nyungar must have thought. Here they were having watched the very
conspicuous djanga come ashore and prepare to explore their boodjar or land. Without
doubt Nyungar would have had enough warning to make themselves scarce and likely
would have hidden and observed these strange people. Nyungar families would come
to say many times over they would have given each other instructions to:
Balayi, barl koorliny nidja. Nguny koorliny djinang baal unna.
Look out, here they come. We’ll go and hide in the bush and watch them, eh?
This would have been followed by the whispering of questions such as:
Nearn barl djinang nitja boodjar? Naitj barl kaititjin? Naitj barl djinang.
What are they looking at this ground for? What are they thinking about? Why are they
looking for?
Or as Tom Bennell (1993:23–4) said:
They used to say ngala maam, ngangk h’an maam, mother h’an father see, balap
nyinanginy nidja wardan, thas Fremantle sea, baal balap djinangany, wardany nidja
wadjela yaarl koorliny, in the boat see, they seen ’em come on the boat … Red Coat
fullahs, h’an’ they used to go from ’ere, h’an’ when they got off the boat from ’ere, they
went through from Fremantle.
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Many of the commanders of these exploration ships were nervous about landing and
sending parties ashore. This is understandable given their lack of knowledge of the coast
and the perceived inhospitability of the country and its inhabitants. However, this did not
necessarily stop them from seeking out signs of Nyungar. In fact it is clear that evidence of
human habitation was of immense importance. Indeed, Hallam (1979:66) concludes that
from the earliest of coastal explorations, signs of Nyungar use of country were instrumental
in leading coastal explorers to water and good land.
Like others who had gone before them and others who were to come after, sailors on
Flinders’ expedition were instructed to take careful note of signs of fire so that evidence of
Nyungar habitation could be recorded. While exploring in the King George Sound area in
December 1801 he noted that there were many ‘“smokes” on the coast’ and that ‘marks of the
country being inhabited were found everywhere’ (cited in Hallam 1979:21, 115).
However, numerous coastal expedition leaders were not satisfied to record signs of Nyungar
from the relative distance of their ships. Many landed search parties specifically so that closer
and more detailed observations could be made of local life. Landing parties were often given
specific instructions to search the interior for signs of Nyungar, collect intelligence on their
whereabouts and, where possible, make contact and establish intercourse.
Other explorers also carefully sought out evidence of the existence of Nyungar. Willem de
Vlamingh’s men regularly recorded signs of local people. They recorded observing fresh foot
and hand prints, water wells, notches cut into trunks for climbing, abandoned camps, lighted
fires, and both eaten and uneaten fish. They also drank from Nyungar wells, nervously occupied
at least one camp overnight, and ate the untreated toxic nuts of Macrozamia riedlei, which they
recognised as part of the diet of Nyungar (Playford 1998:34–6; Weaver 1991:59). 1
While exploring Nyungar karla or campfire on the Swan River, Vlamingh’s crew ate
zamia nuts without preparing them by leaching out the poison. This had almost tragic
consequences.
Nyungar would have also no doubt been bewildered by what they saw as the mariners’
careless attitude to food. Nyungar may well have been bemused by watching mariners
poisoning themselves with food they knew little about.
Kaya, djinang barl ngarniny nidja warra boyi wa. Choo. Barlup ngarniny nidja. Choo boorda
barl geenniny wa?
Hey look, if they eat that nut they’re going to get sick later on, you wait and see, you
watch.
Nyoorn, Djinang baal wa. Balapiny kobal minditj wa. Nyoorn choo balang bulla narndin
warra boyi wa. Yeye barl bulla kobal unna!
Dear me, look at that, eh! Their stomach is gonna get sick, eh? Dear me, oh sorry, they
ate lots of poison nut. Now they’ll get very sick in the stomach.
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Barlang minditj wa. Barlung korbal minditj, kaat minditj, goona minditj. Balaminy ngarniny
nitja warra boyi wa?
The white people are sick, aren’t they? They’ve got a head ache, guts ache, and they’ve
got shitting sickness. They ate that nut, eh?
Noorn djanga balapiny katitjinburt unna? Choo karnya nyoorn djanga katitjinburt nitja.
Poor devils, they’ve got no idea, eh? Oh shame, those poor devils don’t know anything
without us.
Making direct contact with Nyungar was high on the agenda for many coastal mariners.
However, there were few landing parties that were able to successfully do so but this did not
stop landing parties making attempts. Nor did it stop them regularly finding evidence of
Nyungar material culture. Although few were successful even at this, it is apparent from the
regularity of references to attempted contact that coastal mariners would dearly have liked
more extensive contact with Nyungar.
It is equally conceivable that Nyungar were less than excited about the prospect of being
tracked down by the creatures many understood as djanga or spirit beings from the warndan
or ocean to the west.
For example, in January of 1697, while anchored in Cockburn Sound, five members of de
Vlamingh’s crew were quietly sent ahead of a larger landing party in an attempt to contact
Nyungar without frightening them. This tactic proved unsuccessful and no Nyungar were
found, let alone contacted. On the next morning, the larger group split into three parties and
set out in different directions to ‘catch’ and ‘lay aboard’ a Nyungar (Playford 1998:36). On
another occasion several of de Vlamingh’s men went ashore at a place where they thought
they had briefly glimpsed two Nyungar. Despite their attempt and some evidence of Nyungar
camps, fires and footprints, no direct contact was established (Playford 1998:38).
So driven were some mariners to establish direct contact with Nyungar that they made
concerted attempts to capture the locals. Indeed, de Vlamingh’s senior, Nicolaes Witsen,
asked him to ‘catch a South Lander and bring him hither’. According to Playford (1998:16),
there is little doubt that the intent of this order was to teach the Dutch language to Nyungar
captives, so that they could advise officers of the Dutch East Indies Company. As Witsen (cited
in Schilder 1985:220) records, ‘We had given the order that some natives should be conveyed
here either by purchase or voluntarily, in order to learn the Dutch language so as to give an
account of everything’.
When parties came upon other evidence of Nyungar material culture their existence was
painstakingly recorded. Vlamingh’s party carefully recorded evidence of human footprints on
the riverbanks and near the ocean beach. In the bush near what we now know as Freshwater
Bay they found a number of mia mia or bark huts (Williams 1984:8). On Sunday, 2 October
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 188 S trangers on the shore
1791, while set ashore at King George Sound, George Vancouver found a small shallow stream
of excellent water: ‘On tracing its meanders through a copse, it brought us to a deserted village
of the natives, amidst the trees, on nearly a level spot of ground, consisting of about two
dozen miserable huts, mostly of the same fashion and dimensions with that before described’
(Bartlett 1938:44).
Indeed, so intrigued by Nyungar diet and material culture were members of some crews
that they found and dissected Nyungar human faeces. From this they were able to deduce that
while Nyungar ate some fish, their diet was mainly vegetable in origin (Weaver 1991:39 citing
Witsen 1705).
Nyungar have always thought that Wedjela have projected their wam or strangeness
onto us and tended to show us their own hand pretty readily. Many of the mariners
had the attitude that Nyungar were dirty, uncivilised and barbaric. This is pretty funny
when you consider what the scientists did with our goona or faeces. They were regularly
into it, poking around, analysing it, checking to see what had been inside us. They even
watched while one boodjari yorga (pregnant woman) did a goona. I bet Sigmund Freud
would have something to say about how the French spent much of their time checking
Nyungar rubbish, and being fascinated by Nyungar goona or human waste. We suspect
he might have said that European science is a little anal.
At the time Nyungar must have found it very amusing and confusing watching these
kaat warra (crazy) fellas sniffing around our goona. They would have been perplexed at
the strange behaviour of people who were so obsessed with learning about Nyungar
that they played with the faeces of our people. Some Nyungar might have watched and
said:
Karnya nidja, Choo kaat warra djanga kooliny djinang Nyungar goona wa? Nyoorn barl
goona djinang barl kaat warra unna?
Shame this. Oh, those crazy devils are going looking at people’s faeces, eh? Shame that
they are doing this. They must be mad, eh?
Naitj barl djinang nyunya goon wa? Ngearn balapiny kaitijin nidja?
Why is he looking at our faeces? What do they mean by doing this?
Coastal explorers also sought out Nyungar fishing practices as there was much to be
gained from knowledge of local use of fish stocks. There are details of Dutch interest in this
regard as early as 1697 when, according to Weaver (1991:39), explorers under the command
of de Vlamingh recorded evidence of Nyungar fishing practices in the Swan River region. In
another instance, while exploring Oyster Harbour, Vancouver’s party came upon several fish
weirs, some constructed with loose stones, others with sticks and stumps of wood (Bartlett
1938:44).
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Water resources were also of much interest to mariners. Vlamingh makes regular mention
of observations of Nyungar water sources on the banks of the Swan River. Indeed, he carefully
directed his party to search for footprints of Nyungar as they found that these often directed
them to several small pools of fresh water (cited in Major 1859:92).
Likewise, French mariners regularly made mention of their attempts to establish contact
with Nyungar so they could establish where quality water sources existed. South of Geographe
Bay, Peron observed that Nyungar huts were exclusively along the river and marsh, a good
sign of saline wells that explorers themselves could use (Peron & Freycinet, cited in Hallam
1979:79).
There can be little doubt from the frequency and detail of these accounts that, while they
would have preferred more success in establishing physical contact with Nyungar, there was
much to be gained from direct and close examination of evidence of Nyungar life. Indeed,
in many cases it appears that collecting ‘intelligence’ on Nyungar was something that was
undertaken with enormous care.
Shipwrecked and abandoned sailors and Nyungar hospitality
Nyungar were not only important to those mariners who left soon after arriving. They were
also critical to some of those mariners shipwrecked, lost, put to land, or who deserted, as a
consequence of mutiny or criminal activities. Later Dutch exploration parties certainly believed
that Nyungar had taken in shipwrecked sailors. Indeed, one of de Vlamingh’s objectives in
making contact with Nyungar was to establish what had happened to these people. Referring
to their lack of success in making contact with Nyungar, Witsen (cited in Schilder 1985:220)
lamented that this failure meant that the destiny of shipwrecked sailors would remain a
mystery. He commented that ‘we remain in the same obscurity as before, not knowing where
so many Dutchmen who have been wrecked here earlier have ended up, whether they have
been killed or perhaps transported deep into the land and still alive’.
Gerritsen’s (1994) thesis claims that there is considerable indirect evidence of interaction
between Nyungar and Dutch sailors who were shipwrecked, abandoned or marooned on
the west coast. He reviews a range of sources in relation to Nyungar stories and traditions,
art, cultural language and genetic characteristics, and concludes that Dutch sailors not only
survived but also were accommodated into Nyungar and other Indigenous societies.
Gerritsen is not the first to make claims about the possible evidence of the long-term
settlement of European sailors along the west coast. In 1697 de Vlamingh reported being
mystified by the discovery of huts of clay, dwellings different from anything else he had seen
on the west coast (Witsen cited in Schilder 1985:218). Others make reference to these huts,
implying that their difference from other Nyungar dwellings suggest some outside influence.
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 190 S trangers on the shore
In 1839, while in the Victoria District in the northern reaches of Nyungar country, George
Grey (cited in Gerritsen 1994:89) made the following observations:
The huts of which they were composed differed from those in the southern
districts, in being built, and very nicely plastered together over the outside
with clay and clods of turf, so that although now uninhabited they were
evidently intended for fixed places of residence.
As early as 1836 George Fletcher Moore, one of the Swan River colony’s first settlers,
implied that Nyungar had been interacting with Europeans long before the first British
settlement of the colony in 1829. He seems to have suggested that there must have been some
previous sexual liaison between Nyungar and Europeans when he says that in 1836, some
159 kilometres east of Perth, he met a Nyungar woman with features like that of a European:
On this day we saw (near Mount Anne …) a native and his ‘cardo’ (wife) a
young woman of a very pleasing countenance and something of European
features and long wavy hair, almost flaxen-coloured hair. (Perth Gazette
18 June 1836)
Later Moore provided an account of the French sailor Timothy Vasse being lost from
the Naturaliste while the vessel was somewhere around Geographe Bay during 1801 (Green
1984:34).2 Although it was believed that Vasse had drowned at sea, reports from Nyungar
seem to suggest that he survived and was cared for by local people.
There are numerous accounts of Nyungar maintaining stories about the djanga, or
white spirits who travel from Kuranup in the west. Bates (see White 1985:224) makes
reference to such stories in the lower coastal south-west regions. Stories have been
passed down ‘from father to son for about four generations or more’ of mythical white
figures who inhabited the region.
Mrs Dorothy Winmar (cited in Collard et al. 2004) puts it this way:
When the Wedjelas first came here the Nyungars lived on top of Kings Park and they
saw the ship coming in. Grandmother said they thought it was the spirit of their
people coming back and they were scared of what was coming back, that they were
ghosts. But then they learnt that they were another sort of people, white people.
European science and the desire for knowledge of Nyungar
Those who were driven by the more noble and enlightened desire to further scientific
knowledge likewise saw the south-west as being rich in intellectual resources. What was then
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l ook i ng for t he r e si den t s of T er r a Aust r a l is 191
known as New Holland presented tremendous opportunities and challenges to those who were
motivated to extend knowledge and fill remaining gaps in relation to science and the study of
‘man’. The west coast was considered pristine. Unlike Europe, the Americas, Africa and Asia,
it remained largely unaffected and unspoiled by international commerce, trade, politics and
Enlightenment thinking. Scientists saw the region as one where they could carry out fieldwork
examining and describing places and people that were ‘only slightly, if at all, affected by the
expansion of Europe’ (Marchant 1988:70–1).
The French commander Joseph-Antoine Raymond de Bruni d’Entrecasteaux was one of
the first charged with the responsibility of scientific exploration on the south-west coast of
Australia. where he was instructed to make comprehensive surveys on the land and sea. He
was also told to make a detailed study of the variety of natural resources, to assess the potential
for agriculture and other commercial use, and, of particular significance to this chapter, to
undertake a detailed study of the culture and life of the people who inhabited the region. One
scientist under his command was a botanist named Riche, who was not only interested in the
study of new plant specimens but also sought to make contact with Nyungar. We first hear
of Claude Antoine Gaspar Riche when he was sent ashore from the Espérance. Upon seeing
campfires in the distance he embarked on a mission, seeking contact with Nyungar who he
supposed had been in the area. Unfortunately for him, the smoke he saw was much further
than he had initially imagined and he found himself lost without making direct contact. Like
so many other Europeans, Riche was unsuccessful in making much of a study of south coast
Nyungar people. However, we can see from his attempts that the study of Nyungar was of
considerable importance to him. Indeed, his conclusions that Nyungar were a unique species of
human who could live on salt water and on special types of nourishment were commented on
and investigated by subsequent French exploratory missions. If anything, his failure to make
contact seems to have motivated the French to send parties to especially study the lives of
Nyungar (Marchant 1982:81, 98, 99–100).
By the late eighteenth century there had been limited success in learning more about the
Australian natural environment or about the Indigenous inhabitants (though see Mulvaney, this
volume). The French government of the time was then especially supportive of Nicolas Baudin’s
scientific exploration of the west coast of Australia for scientific purposes (Jacob & Vellios
1987:98). Indeed, central to Napoleon Bonaparte’s personal approval for Baudin’s trip to the
west Australian coast was his support for a study of the lifestyles and customs of the Aboriginal
people. It was no surprise then that Baudin recruited scientists who were deeply interested
in the scientific investigation of the lives and cultures of Indigenous people of the west coast
of Australia. As well as being expected to study, keep records and collect samples in a variety
of different fields such as astronomy, geography, mineralogy and botany, the scientists were
told that they must make the study of humans prominent. Baudin’s scientists were specifically
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instructed to exhaustively investigate the physical and ‘moral conditions’ of the Indigenous
people living in the western part of Australia. According to Marchant (1982:115–16):
The comprehensive orders given to the naturalists in this regard represent
a turning point in the study of man which occurred in France as a result of
the revolution, and resulted in the foundation of scientific anthropology,
which soon took a place alongside archaeology in the general effort being
made to explain the origin and nature of the human race.
Not surprisingly, the records of Baudin’s voyage contain a wealth of information about
Nyungar physical features, life, material culture and diet (Marchant 1982:116–17).3
As mentioned earlier, the early explorers and scientists of the eighteenth and nineteenth
centuries who followed Dutch routes along the west coast conveyed much excitement not only
at seeing the unique vegetation and landscape but also at seeing the Indigenous people for the
first time (Appleyard & Manford 1979:27). Nowhere is this excitement more conspicuous than
in the diary of François Peron, a French naturalist (Appleyard 1986:93). Peron, a member of
the scientific staff of the French expedition headed by Baudin between 1801 and 1804, was
described as one who was ‘deeply interested in the lifestyles and cultures of different societies’
(Jacob & Vellios 1987:102).
Peron was a particularly fascinating character who appears to have been very keen to make
contact with Nyungar. We see something of this enthusiasm in the records of his activities
when he got the chance to go ashore in the lower south-west. Frustrated at not being able to
land and establish contact earlier, Peron immediately set out to find Nyungar on first setting
foot on Australian soil at Geographe Bay:
As soon as the boat landed us, I ran towards the interior in search of the
natives with whom I had a strong desire to be acquainted. In vain I explored
the forests, following the print of their footsteps … all my endeavours
were useless and after three hours fatiguing walk I returned to the sea
shore where I found my companions waiting for me, and rather alarmed
by my absence. (cited in Marchant 1982:132)
While in the area he saw Nyungar for the first time when he came upon an old man
searching for shellfish. However, this contact was brief after the old Nyungar disappeared in
haste. On the following day Peron, on another of his attempts to make contact, decided to
cross a river and go further inland to look for Nyungar. His colleagues refused to go and tried
to prevent him as they feared for his safety. Peron was so driven that he continued on despite
warnings by other members of his party. Undeterred Peron removed his clothes, plunged into
the river and went into the tuart forest.
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We can only imagine what Peron must have looked like to Nyungar who may have
watched as he eagerly ran naked through the tuart forest, excited at the prospect
of meeting the ‘noble’ locals. Peron, a man who represented the epitome of
Enlightenment Europe, was a ‘civilised’ French intellectual. However, Nyungar would
likely have been intrigued by a white man running naked through the south-west
forest happy at his newfound freedom.
Today this is something of a familiar scene to some Nyungar who tell stories of white
romantics, hippies and ferals walking, camping and dancing nude through the great
forests of the south-west in an attempt to ‘connect with their tribal roots’.
Perhaps Nyungar today may well respond in a similar way to how their ancestors did in
the 1600s:
Ni. Balyi.
Listen, look out.
Djanga koorliny.
Devil coming.
Nyuny moordiup bookadja koorliny yeye nyuny djinang qwunbarn djanga maam unna?
Winja qwunbarn djanga maam koorliny. Natch qwunbarn djanga maam kaitijin wa. Barl
wam djanga maam unna?
Hurry over to there now to watch the naked crazy devil man, eh? Where is he going?
What is this naked crazy devil man thinking? He’s a strange devil man, eh?
Kaya. Bala kaitijin nyungn Nyungar unna. Naitj noonook qwungbarn koorliny. Balung
kaitijin noonook Nyungar unna. Baal waam maam.
Yes. He thinks he’s a Nyungar, doesn’t he? He wants to get naked like a Nyungar. He’s
a strange one, isn’t he?
Kaya kaya. Baal nyung moort unna? Nyunga yeye koorliny nidja qwungbarn koorliny nyung
boodjar noonook nyuny moort unna. Kaya widjabal koorliny naitj noon nyuny katitijin nidja?
Who does he think he is? Does he think he’s one of our relations, running around with
no clothes on?
There are many other instances from Baudin’s explorations where scientists record their
interest in things Nyungar. Jean Baptiste Louis Claude Leschenault was likewise keen to record
details of Nyungar life. Although he was interested in a botanical survey of the coastal areas,
a great part of his journal is taken up with a description of Nyungar his party encountered
inland. Although he too made many unsuccessful attempts to establish friendly contact,
Marchant (1982:142) characterises Leschenault’s work as ‘a most valuable and detailed report
on Aboriginal artifacts, weapons and houses’.
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 194 S trangers on the shore
It was not only the French who possessed such an interest in Nyungar people and culture.
In late 1791 the English coastal explorer George Vancouver sailed around the southern coast
of Western Australian to the east until he arrived at King George Sound. Vancouver’s interest
was not only reserved for the study of the natural environment. During his two-week stay in
the area he also spent considerable time meeting with Nyungar and studying their lives (Jacob
& Vellios 1987:137).
In 1801 in the Investigator, Matthew Flinders sailed through similar areas of the southern
coast. Using Vancouver’s charts to guide him, Flinders found King George Sound where he
stayed a month studying the landscape, observing and drawing plants and animals, and
making contact with and recording his observations about Nyungar (Appleyard & Manford
1979:25; Jacob & Vellios 1987:145–6).
Between 1818 and 1822 Phillip Parker King made a number of voyages along the Australian
coast. His descriptions of the King George Sound region in 1821 offer another example of
scientific interest in Nyungar life and culture. During his stay he made a great deal of contact
with Nyungar and the crew of his ship, the Bathurst, were able to collect for study 100 spears,
300 throwing sticks, 150 knives and many other artefacts (Green 1984:37).
Conclusion
Historically Nyungar have not featured prominently in the story about European coastal
exploration of the west coast of Australia. However, one would be mistaken in believing that
Nyungar were largely unimportant to the mariners who sailed the south-west coast. By their
own accounts, European mariners were highly reliant on Nyungar, attested by close reading
of their journals in which the frequency of interest in Nyungar is remarkable. Many, including
commanders like de Vlamingh, went to considerable lengths to meet Nyungar, some even
attempting to capture them for the express purpose of interrogating them for information
about their country, culture and knowledge. Even those who were not keen to make physical
contact kept a careful watchout for signs of Nyungar habitation along the coast. For others
there was an almost obsessive preoccupation with the possibility of meeting Nyungar and
the opportunity to study in minute detail the life and culture of those they believed to be the
oldest living versions of humankind.
This chapter has begun the process of examining how important Nyungar were to early
European coastal exploration. We can see that Europeans and subsequently non-Nyungar
living in the south-west of Australia owe much more to Nyungar than many of us might
have previously imagined. European mariners learnt a great deal about the south-west
and its capacity for human habitation from the signs Nyungar left of their presence. They
learnt much about water supplies, consumable vegetation, dangers to be avoided and safe
harbourage from evidence left of Nyungar occupation. The records mariners kept tell us that
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they very much understood the value of gathering intelligence from Nyungar. There is also
some evidence that Nyungar were important to the Europeans who were shipwrecked or cast
ashore on the south-west coast. There is also little doubt that European science is indebted to
Nyungar. Anthropological knowledge about Nyungar was one of the most important things
to be exported back to Europe by those scientists who visited the region before the mid-1800s
(Marchant cited in Weaver 1991:61).
We can better understand Nyungar responses to mariners if we take into account
two related aspects of Nyungar culture and life. The first is that among Nyungar it
was and is customary to incorporate outsiders into the social relationships of the
group. To understand the reasons for this it is necessary to see Nyungar, as with
other Aboriginal groups, as kin-based family societies. Within such societies it is
not wealth or lineage that is important but one’s relationship to everyone else in the
world. Such relationships determine marriage groups, positions at ceremonies, the
gathering and distribution of food, avoidance, reciprocity, mortuary rituals, vendetta.
In fact one would be pressed to find some activity in traditional Nyungar life that was
not influenced by kinship relationships. The importance of such relationships is still
evident today.
A second feature that shaped Nyungar response to the arrival of mariners was that in
Nyungar ontology it is inconceivable that a stranger would arrive in another person’s
karleep or homefire and assert ownership unless they had some form of relationship
with the boodjar or land in a previous existence. Therefore many of those Nyungar
who saw the mariners for the first time would have simply assumed that the mariners
had enjoyed a previous connection with Nyungar boodjar. As a consequence, Nyungar
would have been among the most obliging of Indigenous groups.
Knowing this, one can then appreciate the dilemma of early Nyungar confronting
a group of mariners. There would have been a high priority given to identifying the
relationship of the strangers to Nyungar. If the newcomers did not know or could
not tell their relationship to Nyungar it was up to Nyungar to provide them with a
basic education. Nyungar would have felt obliged to refresh the memory of those they
perhaps saw as their dearly departed and teach them what they had clearly forgotten
about the land.
Indeed, permutations of the following account exist in a range of sources:4
Other Nyungar were not frightened by the mariners. They said:
Balang djanga ngalang moort.
We must go and meet our relations.
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 196 S trangers on the shore l ook i ng for t he r e si den t s of T er r a Aust r a l is 197

Murdoch University, Murdoch University, Murdoch, Press, Fremantle.

They took the mariners to their karla or home fires and said, ‘Noonook ngalang moort, WA.
Davis, J 1982, Kullark: The Dreamers, Currency Press,
you are our relations. You must kadadjiny or learn important things about our boodjar Sydney.
or land.’ Forsyth, J 1957, ‘The visit of the Yacht Grootenbroeck
to the coast of the South-land in 1631’, Western
Nyungar showed the mariners their boodjar and they wangkiny or talked to them, Australian Historical Society Journal and Proceedings
telling them important things. 5(3):17–26.
Gerritsen, R 1994, And Their Ghosts May Be Heard…,
Nyungar said, ‘Kaya, ngalang moort. Yes, our family. Noonook koorliny noonook karla. You Fremantle Arts Centre, Fremantle.
Green, N 1984, Broken Spears: Aborigines and Europeans in
have come home. Ngalang koort kwop. Our hearts are happy.’ the Southwest of Australia, Focus Education, Perth.
Hallam, SJ 1979, Fire and Hearth: A Study of Aboriginal
They would have said, ‘Boorda noonook kwop wangkiny, noonook bulla kadijiny. Later you Usage and European Usurpation of South-Western
will be good speakers and understand much.’ Australia, Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies,
Canberra.
Now Nyungar believe that as a consequence of their generosity and hospitality, ‘Yeye, Hasluck, A 1955, Portrait with a Background: The Life
of Georgiana Molloy, Melbourne University Press,
ngalang moort bulla kaitijiny, kwop wangkiny. Today, because Nyungar have welcomed Melbourne.
the ousiders many have lots of knowledge and can speak well.’ Jacob, TK & Vellios, J 1987, Southland: The Maritime
Exploration of Australia, Ministry of Education, Perth.
Jennings, R 1983, Busselton: Outstation on the Vasse,
1830–1850, Shire of Busselton, Busselton, WA.
Jordan, G & Weedon, C 1995, Cultural Politics: Class,
Notes Gender, Race and the Postmodern World, Blackwell,
Oxford.
1. Within three hours after eating the nuts, those Major, RH 1859, Early Voyages to Terra Australis, Now Called
who had consumed them began to violently vomit. Australia, Hakluyt Society, London.
Unfortunately for them, the men had been unaware Marchant, L 1969, A List of French Naval Records and
of the extremely poisonous nature of the nuts when Illustrations Relating to Australian and Tasmanian
untreated (Playford 1998:36). Aborigines, 1771 to 1828, Australian Aboriginal
2. Some have suggested that this is a myth, preferring Studies, Canberra.
the claim by mariners that Vasse drowned over Marchant, L 1982, France Australe: A Study of French
Nyungar oral accounts (see Marchant 1982:145). Explorations and Attempts to Found a Penal Colony and
3. Although it must also be remembered that much of Strategic Base in South Western Australia 1503–1826,
this study, Aboriginalist (see Attwood 1992) as it is, Artlook, Perth.
tells us at least as great a deal about the scientists and Marchant, L 1988, ‘The Baudin expedition 1800–04 and
their attitudes to Nyungar. the French scientific exploration of Australia’, Western
4. See Bussell (1930:4), Hasluck (1955:113), and Roth Australian Historical Society Journal and Proceedings
(1902:51). 9(6):65–72.
Maushart, S 1993, Sort of a Place like Home: Remembering
Moore River Native Settlement, Fremantle Arts Centre
Miller, T 1995, ‘Exporting truth from Aboriginal Australia:
Portions of our past become present again, where
only the melancholy light of origin shines’, Media
Information Australia 76(May):7–17.
Neumann, K 1992, ‘A postcolonial writing of Aboriginal
history’, Meanjin 2(Winter):277–98.
Perth Gazette, 12 July 1834.
Perth Gazette, 18 June 1836.
Perth Gazette, 9 August 1861.
Playford, P 1998, Voyage of Discovery to Terra Australis by
Willem de Vlamingh in 1696–97, Western Australian
Museum, Perth.
Roth, WE 1902, ‘Notes of savage life in the early days of
West Australian settlement’, Proceedings of the Royal
Society of Queensland 17:45–69.
Said, E 1978, Orientalism, Penguin, London.
Said, E 1993, Culture and Imperialism, Vintage, London.
Sanders, T 1975, Bunbury: Some Early History, Roebuck,
Canberra.
Schilder, G 1985, Voyage to the Great South Land: Willem
de Vlamingh 1696–1697, Royal Australian Historical
Society, Sydney.
Sharp, A 1963, The Discovery of Australia, Oxford
University, London.
Stormon, EJ 1977, The Salvado Memoirs, University of
Western Australia, Nedlands.
Van den Berg, R 1994, No Options No Choice! The Moore
River Experience, Magabala Books, Broome.
Weaver, P 1991, ‘An ethnohistorical study of the Swan-
Canning Fishery in Western Australia 1697–1837’,
Honours thesis, Edith Cowan University.
White, I (ed.) 1985, Daisy Bates: The Native Tribes of Western
Australia, National Library of Australia, Canberra.
Williams, AE 1984, Nedlands: From Campsite to City, City of
Nedlands, Nedlands.
Wood, ME 1943, ‘First contacts made with Western
Australian native’, Western Australian Historical Society
Journal and Proceedings (December):34–42.

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Appleyard, R 1986, ‘Vancouver’s discovery and exploration
of King George’s Sound’, Western Australian Historical
Society Journal and Proceedings 9(4):86–98.
Appleyard, R & Manford, T 1979, The Beginning: European
Discovery and Early Settlement of Swan River Western
Australia, University of Western Australia, Nedlands.
Attwood, B 1992, ‘Introduction’, in B Attwood & J Arnold
(eds), Power, Knowledge and Aborigines, La Trobe
University, Melbourne, pp. i–xvi.
Attwood, B, Burrage, W, Burrage, A & Stockie, E 1994,
A Life Together, a Life Apart: A History of Relations
between Europeans and Aborigines, Melbourne
University Press, Melbourne.
coast’, Western Australian Historical Society Journal and
Proceedings, October:39–48.
Bennell, T 1993, Kura, Nyungar Language Centre, Bunbury.
Bhabha, H 1983, ‘The other question’, Screen 24(6):18–36.
Bussell, AJ 1930, ‘South west Aboriginal language or
dialect, the Aboriginals’ term “Donderup Wongi” and
other things concerning Australia generally’, Busselton
Historical Society, transcript.
Collard, L 1994, A Nyungar (Aboriginal) Interpretation of
Wonnerup and Ellensbrook Homesteads, National Trust
and Edith Cowan University, Perth.
Collard, L, Harben, S & Van den Berg, R 2004, Nidja Beeliar
Boodjar Noonookurt Nyininy: A Nyungar Interpretive
History of the Use of Boodjar (Country) in the Vicinity of

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 198 S trangers on the shore
13. The encounter between Captain Cook
and Indigenous people at Botany Bay in
1770 reconsidered
Maria Nugent
School of Historical Studies, Monash University
Captain Cook’s arrival at Botany Bay in 1770 is an iconic episode in the story of Australia
(Carter 1987:1–2; Healy 1997:19–30; Nugent 2005:7–9). Botany Bay (so-named by Cook) was
the voyagers’ first landfall on the east coast of New Holland. As the first landfall of the maritime
expedition credited by the new arrivals with ‘discovering’ the continent’s east coast, the event
of Captain Cook making his first landing at Botany Bay was subsequently ascribed the status
of a foundational moment in Australia’s history. As historian Graeme Davison (2000:57)
reminds us, settler societies such as America, Australia and New Zealand ‘acquired historical
significance, firstly, as the destination of the voyagers who founded them’. While Cook was
himself no founder of colonies, in the story of Australia the esteemed British navigator has
nonetheless been considered a founding forefather by virtue of first discovering and taking
possession of territory that was afterwards occupied by the British when a penal settlement
was established at Sydney Cove in 1788.
The manner in which Cook first stepped ashore at the place he later named Botany Bay had
some elements to it that could be easily massaged into a story about British beginnings in the
continent. As Captain Cook approached the shore in company with 30 or 40 of his men in two
longboats, two local Indigenous men came onto the beach and, according to Cook, ‘seemed
resolved to oppose our landing’ (Cook 1955:305). When attempts to speak with them and to
appease them with gifts failed, and when the two local men’s resolve did not dissipate at all,
Cook took recourse to his gun. He writes (1955:305):
I fired a musket between the two which had no other effect than to make
them retire back where bundles of thier darts lay, and one of them took up
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t he encou n t er at bo ta n y B ay i n 1770 r econsi der ed 199
a stone and threw it at us which caused my fireing a second Musquet load
with small shott, and altho some of the shott struck the man yet it had
no other effect than to make him lay hold of a Shield or target to defend
himself. Emmidiatly after this we landed which we had no sooner done
than they throw’d two darts at us, this obliged me to fire a third shott soon
after which they both made off.
The first landing involved what appears to have been a contest between two opposing sides.
It included what Cook describes as ‘opposition’ from locals to his landing. He responds with
a show of his own force. This force is much stronger than the locals have at their disposal,
and thus the way becomes clear for Cook and company to step ashore, without any injury to
themselves or escalation of violence.
This opening episode in Cook’s encounter with the local Indigenous people at Botany Bay,
which ended with Cook and his men occupying the beach and the two local men eventually
retreating from the scene, was transformed, during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, into
a symbolic story about British presence and Aboriginal absence in the ‘imagined community’
of the nation. The subsequent symbolic weight given to the act of Cook’s first landing in its
popular representation in the Australian imagination has served to mask much about what
happened at Botany Bay over the course of the eight days the Endeavour was actually anchored
there. The use of this particular past as a founding myth has reduced to caricatures not only
Captain Cook, but also the local Indigenous people who were on the shore. On the one hand,
Cook is typically represented as a visionary — a man with future colonies at the forefront of his
mind, who deals decisively and heroically with the local people he comes into contact with. On
the other hand, the two Indigenous ‘warriors’ on the beach have been depicted either as brave
men — who heroically resisted the incursion of the sailors but ultimately failed because of the
primitiveness of their weaponry which was no match for the superior force of firearms — or as
cowardly men, because, despite demonstrating some initial resistance to the approach of the
sailors to shore, they eventually retreated from the scene when the strangers had disembarked
from their boats. Their retreat has been commonly interpreted as defeat or surrender, which
in past popular depictions served to underscore a story about the ‘rightfulness’ of British
possession of the territory.
In more recent times, this interpretation of the landing of Captain Cook at Botany Bay in
1770 has been undergoing revision. In the last few years, there is evidence that the encounter
between the locals and the strangers is being recast more as a ‘meeting’ and less as a clash or
contest between two cultures. This is most evident at the very place where the first landing
occurred, which is now a part of Botany Bay National Park. The area is in the process of being
renovated in ways that are aimed at updating and recasting the story that has long been told
there about Cook’s landing and the British birth of the nation. Most noteworthy in this regard
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 200 S trangers on the shore
is the recent informal adoption of the name ‘Meeting Place Precinct’ by the site’s managers to
replace ‘Captain Cook’s Landing Place Reserve’, which is what it has been known as officially
for over a century and unofficially for much longer. The re-inscription of the site as a ‘meeting
place’, as opposed to a ‘landing place’, is suggestive of the reinterpretation of this famous
historical event in a more even-handed way. No longer told exclusively from the point of view
of those making the landing, the concept of ‘meeting’ aims to even out the ways in which the
two groups present at this historical moment are represented. The recasting of the arrival of
Captain Cook at Botany Bay in 1770 as an original cross-cultural meeting from which the
nation sprang is suggestive of a new foundational myth, woven from the same event but better
suited to current times. As Davison (2000:57) observes: ‘National commemorations use the
events of history but the stories they tell are determined more by the politics of the present
than the ideals of the past’. But is it accurate to say that a ‘meeting’ took place at Botany Bay
in 1770? Soon after sailing from Botany Bay, Cook (1955:312) recorded in his journal his
regret that ‘we could know but very little of their customs as we were never able to form any
connections with them’.
In this essay, I return to the encounter between Cook’s expedition and local Indigenous
people at Botany Bay in 1770 to re-examine the first landing (the most well-known episode
in the entire encounter) as well as what happened in the days that followed it. The eight-day
encounter intrigues me precisely because its popular representations as either a contest on the
one hand, or as a meeting on the other, are both wide of the mark. I am interested in stripping
away these popular interpretations of this iconic historical event in order to consider more
fully what transpired between local and stranger on these shores during a week and one day in
late April, early May 1770. What is revealed, not surprisingly, is an encounter that is far more
equivocal than one might expect it to be, given its famous opening scene, and its foundational
mythology.
A failure?
The anthropologist Nicholas Thomas has recently drawn attention to the failure at the heart
of Cook’s encounter at Botany Bay. Discussing Cook’s decision to call the place Botany Bay
in recognition of the large collection of plants that the naturalists Joseph Banks and Daniel
Solander had acquired there, Thomas (2003:114) writes: ‘It is not surprising that the science
[the place-name] commemorated dealt with plants rather than people. What name could
better have expressed the failure of communication that took place here?’. Unlike many of
Cook’s other encounters in the Pacific, including those that had occurred earlier on his first
voyage, and even those which were as or more violent, the one at Botany Bay did not lead to
an exchange of things, or of words. Only a handful of images of the locals were produced as
the result of this encounter, and the art historian Bernard Smith blames this anomaly on the
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t he encou n t er at bo ta n y B ay i n 1770 r econsi der ed 201
absence of close interaction: ‘The main reason for this paucity of visual material is that Cook
and his company had difficulty in making contact of a kind stable and amicable enough to
permit detailed drawings to be produced’ (Smith 1985:21). Portraits require posers.
The failure of communication between voyagers and locals at Botany Bay in 1770 has
commonly been explained by reference to the predisposition of the locals rather than to
the imperatives or shortcomings of Cook and his men. The locals have been characterised
as possessing a natural propensity to keep their distance from strangers, or as always and
automatically opposed to strangers who stepped on their shores. There is something of this at
play, but it is not the whole story. In this chapter, I seek to contribute to an understanding of
why Cook was unable to form any connection with the local Indigenous people at Botany Bay
by considering how his own actions and those of his men influenced this state of affairs. I look
to his and Banks’ records of the eight days in Botany Bay for clues. In addition, I reconsider what
those records tell us about the local people’s actions and reactions, filtering my interpretation
through later ethnographic literature about Indigenous protocols for meetings between
strangers (cf. Hallam 1983; Mulvaney 1989:1–7; Sutton, this volume). This approach serves to
challenge and refine longstanding and popular representations of the locals’ actions as either
straightforward but ultimately ineffectual resistance, or as a stubborn and static refusal to
countenance strangers in their country. It also challenges the popular perception that Cook
was completely confident while at Botany Bay, and that his encounter was wholly successful.
The distance between local and stranger that was never bridged was for Cook a source of
disappointment and regret. But at least some of the burden of responsibility for it lies in his
own decisions and actions, including the way that he chose to make his first approach. His
initial ‘success’ in dealing with the locals in that opening scene at Botany Bay contributed
something to his ultimate ‘failure’ in forming a connection with them.
Meetings between strangers
As archaeologists Sylvia Hallam and John Mulvaney both observe, throughout Indigenous
Australia meetings between strangers were governed by protocol. Mulvaney (1989:2, 3)
explains that in such encounters ‘rituals of diplomacy governed different situations, but speed
was never a priority’ and ‘it all required much time and debate’. On the basis of her analysis of
descriptions of meetings between Indigenous people and strangers on the west coast of the
continent, ones that occurred before 1770 and ones that came afterwards, Hallam (1983:134)
states that ‘meetings between different Australian communities were, before the coming of
Europeans (and remain for Aboriginal Australians), highly structured affairs, with elements
of ceremonial preparedness for conflict, formal peacemaking, reciprocal exchange of gifts, and
sometimes actual conflict and resolution of conflict’. Using as an archetype a meeting between
two Aboriginal groups recorded by Baldwin Spencer and Frank Gillen in 1901 at Alice Springs,
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 202 S trangers on the shore
Hallam (1983:136) notes that ‘a meeting is an event, a stage event’ and ‘the entire proceedings
are formalized, ritualized, ceremonious — a staged drama’.
But not all meetings could be as expertly planned, staged and dramatised as the one
Spencer and Gillen witnessed, and all the more so when they involved participants who did
not share knowledge of protocols. ‘The European intruders must have caused bewilderment
and consternation’, writes Hallam (1983:134), ‘by totally inappropriate actions and sequences
of actions’. Their method of initial approach was often awry, insufficiently nonchalant and
unassuming. They did not wait patiently at a distance until invited in, but often approached
boldly with a lack of ‘restraint in movement and speech the Aboriginal code required’ (Hallam
1983:142). But while non-Indigenous outsiders blundered in, the local people they encountered
typically continued to behave in ways that conformed to the ‘proper rules regulating meetings
between groups’ (Hallam 1983:142). In her examination of more fragmentary accounts of early
chance and unprecedented encounters with maritime explorers, Hallam shows local people
following the sequence of behaviours they would have used in the presence of any group of
uninvited and unauthorised Indigenous intruders. This included variously ‘avoiding, ignoring
and repulsing’, which Hallam (1983:150) explains are ‘the Aboriginal reactions which form
a repeating pattern, and sometimes a sequence, in these encounters. The final movement is
retreat’. Avoidance, nonchalance, repulsion, retreat. All were to be found, as will be illustrated
below, repeated and sequenced, in the encounter between Cook’s expedition and the local
Indigenous people at Botany Bay in 1770.
The first landing
There was something performative about the manner in which the two local men, who came
onto the beach as Captain Cook and his men approached the shore in two longboats, addressed
the advancing strangers. That it was two men, one young and one old, who came forward as the
strangers approached suggests that protocols were being followed. That they shouted at the
strangers, and displayed their weapons by shaking them above their heads but did not initially
use them, is in keeping with what is known about meetings of this kind at other places at other
times. Cook no doubt suspected that what he was witnessing as he approached the shore was
stylised opposition, but he was taking no risks. The memory of the shockingly violent incident
during his first landfall in New Zealand seven months earlier remained fresh in his mind.1 On
this, his first voyage to the Pacific, Cook had already begun to learn the lesson that there was
always ‘a fine line between dramatised and actual threat’ (Thomas 2005:1).
If the behaviour of the two men on the beach as the first landing was made is interpreted as
part of the locals’ protocol for dealing with the arrival of strangers in their territory, and as such
constitutes an invitation of sorts to the strangers to enter into a ‘staged event’ that will help
to facilitate right relations being established, then the onus for the failure of communication
that ensued over the course of the encounter shifts to Cook. By deciding to make his way
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t he encou n t er at bo ta n y B ay i n 1770 r econsi der ed 203
onto the beach by firing some shots, had the possibility for forming a connection become
radically reduced, if not made completely impossible, for Cook? Was the opening scene of this
encounter the only chance for the ‘staged event’ to be performed which would help to bring
the strangers into local people’s territory on local people’s terms? Was it at the moment when
shots were fired that the possibility for ‘meeting’, or ‘connection’, foreclosed? The historian
Greg Dening (1980:21) has an apposite line in his book Islands and Beaches where, in relation
to Captain Cook’s encounters in the Marquesas during his second voyage, he notes that Cook
‘foreshortened the cultural lesson with a musket-ball’. Had the same happened here? Did this
drastic first meeting cancel out future meetings? If this were the case, then given that he had
sailed with instructions to form a connection with the natives he encountered, Cook must
have retrospectively rued his decision to make a hasty landing using his gun as a calling card.
But the situation was not so clear-cut.
Approach followed by retreat
Within the voyagers’ logs and published journal accounts there is ample evidence that for the
first few days of the Botany Bay encounter the locals continued to address the strangers in ways
consistent with what had happened during the initial landing. For instance, in the two days
immediately after the landing, the locals boldly approached the strangers, stood their ground
and retreated on at least a further two occasions. On one occasion, a group of between 15 and
18 local men came up to some of the voyagers in the late afternoon at the place the voyagers
referred to as the watering place on the southern shore. The local men were described as coming
up boldly to within about a hundred yards of the strangers, and making a stand (Banks 1962:56).
Two out of the group came forward and, in response, Lieutenant Hicks and one other went to
meet them. Hicks tried to entice them but, according to Banks’ account, they ‘did not wait for
a meeting but gently retired’ (Banks 1962:56). Note again the advance of two men followed
by retreat. A similar incident occurred on day three. In the morning, a group of Cook’s men
cutting grass were approached by a group of local men. Seeing what was happening, the sailors’
overseer called out to them and at his command they quickly gathered and rushed to join their
companions near the watering place. In his journal, Banks (1962:56) notes that:
the haycutters coming to the main body appeard like a flight so the Indians
pursued them, however but a very short way, for they never came nearer
than just to shout to each other, maybe a furlong [c. 200 m].
After a short time, the local men retreated, as was their practice. All of these actions could
have been attempts by the locals to expel summarily the strangers from their shore, and thus
should rightly be interpreted as resistance, opposition and a form of attack. This is presumably
Nicholas Thomas’s view (2003:113) when he writes: ‘It is clear what the Aboriginal attitude was:
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 204 S trangers on the shore
they wanted absolutely nothing to do with these intruders’. Alternatively, these approaches by
the locals towards the strangers could be interpreted as efforts to ‘stage an event’ that would
ultimately serve to establish acceptable relations (temporarily) between the two groups; quell
the potential for violence between them; and importantly assert the local people’s existing
rights to territory and resources. Had such an ‘event’ ensued, however bastardised in form, it
might have been given that the strangers did not know what moves to make, then perhaps the
failure of communication that took place here would not have been quite so great.
A turning point?
On day four, the locals continued to behave in ways that had now become predictable, but
some of the strangers it would appear overstepped whatever fragile mark existed between the
two groups. This was to have palpable and irredeemable effects on whatever hope Cook held
for forming a connection with the locals.
As Lieutenant John Gore walked across country after a boating expedition towards the
‘watering place’ on the southern shore, he was ‘overtaken by 22 Indians who followed him
often within 20 yards, parleying but never daring to attack him tho they were all armd with
lances’ (Banks 1962:57–8). Cook (1955:308) tells us that ‘whenever Mr Gore made a stand and
fac’d them they stood also and notwithstanding they were all arm’d they never offerd to attack
him’. The pattern is the same: an approach, parleying or shouting supposedly to entice them
to leave, but no direct attack.
Gore and his man made it back to the watering place without incident, but their prudence
in dealing with the locals was not matched by the expedition’s surgeon, Dr Monkhouse, and
his companions. What happened next is, in my view, a critical incident in the entire encounter
in terms of influencing the contours of relations between the two groups. It is as important as
the first landing, when Cook fired some shots at the local men, in shaping how things would
develop. In drawing this comparison between these two episodes, it is worth noting that the
Monkhouse incident is the only other occasion during the encounter when the locals threw
their spears in direct response to the provocation of the strangers.
This is what happened, according to Cook and Banks. Soon after Gore and his man arrived
back at the watering place, Monkhouse, along with one or two others, decided to approach
the group of local men, ‘who’, Banks (1962:58) tells us, ‘remained about half a mile from our
watering place’. But rather than simply approach the men, Monkhouse and his friends mocked
them. According to Banks (1962:58), ‘when they came pretty near them they pretended to be
afraid and ran from them’. In his journal, Cook (1955:308) describes Monkhouse and the others
as ‘makeing a sham retreat’. How much were they hamming up their fear? This provocation
immediately caused four of the locals to throw their ‘lances’, but they went beyond the men.2
Monkhouse and his men stopped, and slowly collected the thrown spears, ‘after which’, says
Banks (1962:58), ‘[the locals] began to retire’. The events of day four ended here.
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t he encou n t er at bo ta n y B ay i n 1770 r econsi der ed 205
Dr Monkhouse and his unnamed companions are responsible for one of those actions that
change in noticeable and perhaps irredeemable ways the cadence of a contact experience. The
encounter at Botany Bay up to this point was certainly not making great progress towards a
connection being established. It seems certain that locals would have preferred the strangers
to have never entered their territory, and wanted them above all to be gone. But up until this
point in the encounter they did seem prepared to seek to communicate those wishes to the
strangers, using a set of practised behaviours, but which did not include direct violence or
a challenge to fight man to man. After the Monkhouse incident, the locals stop doing even
this. They appear to remove themselves from the situation almost completely, except for one
last act of what appears to be retribution. Two days after Dr Monkhouse had played his little
game with the locals, he was the target of a spear thrown from a tree. According to Cook
(1955:310):
Dr Munkhouse and another man being in the woods not far from the
watering place discovered six more of the natives who at first seemd to
wait his coming but as he was going up to them had a dart thrown at
him out of a tree which narrowly escaped him, as soon as the fellow had
thrown the dart he descended the tree and made off and with him all the
rest and these were all that were met with in the course of this day.
This was no random assault; the locals had marked their man.
Absence and silence had come in the wake of Dr Monkhouse’s sport with the locals on day
four. Apart from the incident of the spear thrown from the tree, which did not occur until the
seventh day, in the remaining four days before the Endeavour set sail, the locals were hardly to
be seen at all, and they certainly did not present themselves to the strangers in the ways that
they had consistently done over the first four days. Cook had been troubled by the displays of
opposition that he and his men had experienced intermittently from the locals, but the silence
that descended from day five onwards appears to have been the most unsettling experience
of all. Cook’s log is replete with evidence that in the face of the local people’s elusiveness he
became more active in seeking them out.
In the remaining days, he tries to turn the situation around. On day six, Cook notes that
he and some men had in the morning gone in the ‘pinnace to the head of the bay in order to
examine the country and to try to form some connections with the natives’, and that later in the
day he ‘went thither in hopes of meeting with the people but they made off as we approached’
(Cook 1995:308, 309; emphasis added). On the following day, day seven, Cook ‘sent out
some parties into the Country to try to form some connections with the natives’ (Cook 1955:309;
emphasis added). His efforts to make contact had become more pronounced, more direct, in
the face of the absence of the local people, and as the days remaining before his departure
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 206 S trangers on the shore t he encou n t er at bo ta n y B ay i n 1770 r econsi der ed 207

became fewer. By contrast, Banks had given up on forming an acquaintance with the locals. Acknowledgement
Writing them off as ‘rank cowards’, he continued with his ‘botanising’ without fear of trouble
The author acknowledges the generous assistance of the National Museum of Australia
or distraction (Banks 1962:59).
through its National Museum Research Fellowship Program.
On day eight, the day before the Endeavour sailed, Banks (1962:60–1) noted that ‘no
Indians were seen by any body during the whole day’. The next morning it sailed. That the
Endeavour had sailed within days of the locals’ decision to make themselves scarce might well Notes
have made the latter believe that they had finally succeeded in their attempts to expel the 1. For a description and analysis of what happened
strangers from their territory. Retreat in this instance produced the outcome they desired, or during Cook’s first landfall in New Zealand in October
1769, see Thomas (2003:86–91).
so they might have thought, not knowing that Cook had arrived with the intention to leave as 2. For a discussion of spear-throwing which is more
soon as practicable. ceremonial than combative, see Clendinnen
(2003:110–32). See also Gibson (1999:48–9).

Conclusion
For generations now, the landing of Captain Cook at Botany Bay in 1770 has been popularly References Quicksands: Foundational Histories in Australia and
Aotearoa New Zealand, University of New South Wales
represented in Australian settler historical memory as an unequivocal contest between the Banks, J 1962, The Endeavour Journal of Joseph Banks Press, Sydney, pp. 39–55.
1768–1771: Volume II, JC Beaglehole (ed.), The Hallam, S 1983, ‘A view from the other side of the western
voyagers and the locals, in which the former always have the upper hand. But this confident Trustees of the Public Library of New South Wales in frontier: Or I met a man who wasn’t there …’,
association with Angus & Robertson, Sydney. Aboriginal History 7(2):134–56.
image is quickly unsettled by doing little more than having a closer look at Cook’s own records Carter, P 1987, The Road to Botany Bay: An Essay in Spatial Healy, C 1997, From the Ruins of Colonialism: History
and those of his companion traveller, Joseph Banks, and comparing those descriptions with History, Faber & Faber, London. as Social Memory, Cambridge University Press,
Clendinnen, I 2003, Dancing with Strangers, Text Melbourne.
other accounts of meetings between strangers in Indigenous Australia. By concentrating on Publishing, Melbourne. Mulvaney, DJ 1989, Encounters in Place: Outsiders and
what passed between the two groups, and their behaviour and responses to one another, while Cook, J 1955, The Journals of Captain James Cook on Aboriginal Australians 1606–1985, University of
His Voyages of Discovery: Volume I The Voyage of the Queensland Press, St Lucia.
they temporarily coexisted in the littoral landscape, the shifts in their relations over the course Endeavour 1768–1771, JC Beaglehole (ed.), Hakluyt Nugent, M 2005, Botany Bay: Where Histories Meet,
of the entire encounter come into view. Society, London. Allen & Unwin, Sydney.
Davison, G 2000, The Use and Abuse of Australian History, Smith, B 1985, ‘The first European depictions’, in
Cook begins by trying to control the encounter through recourse to his gun. But his desire Allen & Unwin, Sydney. I Donaldson & T Donaldson (eds), Seeing the First
for immediate control comes at the cost of later connection with the locals. In the end, however, Dening, G 1980, Islands and Beaches: Discourse on a Silent Australians, Allen & Unwin, Sydney, pp. 21–34.
Land, Marquesas 1774–1880, Melbourne University Thomas, N 2003, Discoveries: The Voyages of Captain Cook,
it is the actions of one of his officers that are just as influential in closing down any potential Press, Melbourne. Allen Lane, London.
Gibson, R 1999, ‘A history of quiet suspicion’, in Thomas, N 2005, Cook’s Sites, Historic Houses Trust,
for a connection to be formed. And whereas previous representations of this iconic encounter K Neumann, N Thomas & H Ericksen (eds), Sydney.
have interpreted the locals’ retreat as defeat, or their avoidance as cowardice, in this re-reading
these same actions have been revealed as elements in the locals’ repertoire for dealing with
strangers. Less signs of lack of engagement, they are evidence of intense engagement.
In their various actions, the local people reveal themselves as defenders of their territory,
but in ways that do not involve direct combat or that might lead to enduring trouble for them.
Even in their obvious desire for the strangers to be gone from their country, they behaved
in ways that appear primarily designed to ensure that proper or tolerable relations could be
temporarily established. Thought about in this way, these actions, recorded by Cook and Banks,
serve as signs that reveal something about the locals’ own sense of who they were and how
they saw their world before it was more devastatingly disrupted beginning 18 years later.

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 208 S trangers on the shore
14. The conciliation of strangers
James Warden
Cultural Heritage Studies, University of Canberra
In January 1788 the strangers arrived by boat, dropped anchor, came ashore, moved in and didn’t
leave. For the British, New South Wales was a place of vacant possession even though they saw
strangers in the bush and at the far end of the beach, people indeed who clearly lived there. One
hundred and eighty-two years had elapsed since 1606 when the first known visit was made to
the other end of the country by strangers like them.1 In the intervening period there were some
45 mostly glancing encounters with the continent (Pearson 2005:20–4). Of those expeditions,
about 20 came on shore with a few swept-on involuntarily.2 We now know that only eight or
nine of those onshore visits resulted in any real meeting between Europeans and Australians,
with just five that left a meaningful contemporary public record, including Dampier on the west
coast in 1688 and 1699, Cook on the east coast in 1770 and 1777, and Dufresne in 1772.3 In
comparison, the numerous Dutch encounters had generated maps but no contemporary public
account of the Aboriginal people of Australia. Any surviving Dutch observations lay in the
archives unpublished until the end of the nineteenth century (Heeres 1899).
The central concern of this chapter is to explain how, prior to their arrival in 1788,
Europeans came to understand the people of Australia on the basis of just a few meetings.
The paper seeks to place the main observations of those few expeditions into the intellectual
context of the time, to try to explain how the British saw the people they met in Australia.
The major concern here is to get back to the world of 1788 and beyond, to try to account for
what Europeans thought about the people of the new world — of New Holland and New South
Wales — to understand and explain how they saw things. The chapter is in three parts. Part one
is a brief account of the instructions to Phillip about relations with Aboriginal people of New
South Wales. He was told to conciliate the ‘natives’. To that moment, the empirical knowledge
that the British had about the Australians was meagre. By comparison almost nothing is known
about what the Australians contemporaneously made of Cook and his crew. However, what
Indigenous people have thought subsequently about Cook is very well known.4 Part two is a
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t he Conc i l i at ion of S t r a nger s 209
summary and an analysis of the empirical published records figuring the Australians. To 1787,
when the First Fleet embarked for Botany Bay, the only published chroniclers of the land and its
people were Dampier, Cook and Banks, while the French mariner Dufresne made some jottings
in 1772 (Duyker 1994). It was a narrow observational base. But, if empirical knowledge was
slight then theoretical knowledge was grand. The people of Australia had scarcely been met, yet
were nonetheless fixed solidly within axiomatic imperial beliefs. Part three is concerned with
the triangular sides of that structure: the origin of man in Genesis; the hierarchy of beings in
the Great Chain; the self-realisation of man in property made possible from well-reasoned first
principles. Crudely put, the superordinate beliefs of Europeans about Australians were that
they had degenerated from the sons of Noah, that they were low on the chain of being and that
they had no real property. On this basis, once conciliated, they could be more or less ignored.
In order to understand that eighteenth-century frame of reference the grand theories of
the nineteenth and twentieth centuries need to be bypassed, to be wilfully forgotten, to be
unlearned. We need to imaginatively travel back before we knew of evolutionary theory, the
industrial revolution, the nation-state, liberal democracy, the franchise, modern capitalism,
socialism, scientific racism, the panopticon and the presumptions of equality and general
education. An earlier frame of reference has to be visited. If Edward Said’s overworked term
‘the other’ may be evoked again, then in important respects the Georgian British, their Dutch
and French counterparts and all the others on the wooden boats are strangers too.5 From our
position surely all the people on that beach are strangers to us now.6
Part one
The conciliation of strangers
In 1786 Arthur Phillip was placed in command of the British expedition for the occupation of
Australia. His instructions were conveyed in three documents issued between October 1786
and April 1787. The instructions were modelled in general on those given to the governors of
the American colonies prior to the revolution of 1776. Phillip’s First Commission of 12 October
1786 was a brief but thorough geographical description of the boundaries of the ‘territory
called New South Wales’ (HRNSW 1978:22–3). The Second Commission, of 2 April 1787, was a
more detailed instrument covering such topics as territorial jurisdiction, oaths and offices of
state, pardons and reprieve, lunatics and their estates, armed forces, martial law, fortifications,
finances, land grants, commerce, and so forth (HRNSW 1978:61–76). Then, three weeks
later, on 25 April 1787, Phillip received further Instructions, which were an amplification of
the Second Commission (HRNSW 1978:85–91). He was instructed, inter alia, to establish the
settlement at Botany Bay; to explore the coast; to encourage religious observation; to grant
lands and, en route to New South Wales, to make two types of acquisitions.
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 210 S trangers on the shore
The first should be to purchase victuals and supplies, surely a prudent and predictable
action. The second kind of acquisition shows one of the several profound flaws in the plan to
found a colony in New South Wales which would take decades — if not a century — to correct,
which was the sex ratio. Phillip and the commanders of the several vessels of the fleet were to
visit islands in the seas and to take on board ‘any women who may be disposed to accompany
them to the said settlement’. While on no account were they to ‘exercise any compulsive
measures’, the need to correct the imbalance of the sex ratio was understood from the outset.
As it happened, no women seem to have accepted the invitation. A good question for the genre
of what-if speculative history would surely be: What would be the history of Australia if equal
numbers of men and women had been transported from the outset? Or another good question
would be: How would the historical relationship between Europeans and Aboriginal people
have been different from 1788 had the proportion of men and women been equal?
Speculative history is a diverting if futile exercise unless historians count themselves as
novelists. Amid the panoply of general and specific instructions to Phillip, perhaps the best
known is the admonition to ‘conciliate the affections of the natives’. It is to this quotation
that historians of Australia make frequent speculative reference in sorrow and in anger. It
should have been different, but could it have been different? Could the instruction to conciliate
the affections of the ‘natives’ have allowed the nation to acquire a different past? The full
instruction to Phillip is as follows (HRNSW 1978:89–90):
You are to endeavour by every possible means to open an intercourse with
the natives, and to conciliate their affections, enjoining all our subjects
to live in amity and kindness with them. And if any of our subjects shall
wantonly destroy them or give them any unnecessary interruption in the
exercise of their several occupations, it is our will and pleasure that you do
cause such offenders to be brought to punishment according to the degree
of the offence. You will endeavour to procure an account of the numbers
inhabiting the neighbourhood of the intended settlement, and report your
opinion to one of our Secretaries of State in what manner our intercourse
with these people may be turned to the advantage of this colony.
Phillip’s three sets of instructions amount to about 6000 words in total. Aside from just two
other singular remarks this paragraph is the only passage in the three documents concerning
the people of the territory about to be occupied for the Crown.7 The late and scant paragraph
on the ‘natives’ gives a reasonable guide to the scale or proportionality of the issue in the mind
of the British government. Strive as Phillip did, to implement faithfully and honourably the
terms of his instructions in this respect, he was unable to meet the magnitude of task that
unfolded. Seemingly it did not occur to Pitt, Sydney, Nepean, Phillip himself, King George or
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t he Conc i l i at ion of S t r a nger s 211
anyone else that the instructions to ‘live in amity and kindness’ with the ‘natives’ might be
directly and fundamentally at odds with the instructions to explore the coast, to grant lands,
to bring great and small cattle, and to proceed ‘to the cultivation and improvement of the land’
(HRNSW 1978:87). The ensuing correspondence between Phillip and his superiors, for the
duration of his tenure in New South Wales, shows both the scale of the problem with which he
had to grapple and the misjudgment of its relative importance in his original Commission. The
loss of amity, with a spear in his own body, almost cost Phillip his life on 7 September 1790. His
early proto-anthropological observations on Aboriginal people gave way initially to accounts
of the spiralling difficulties of maintaining peace (Frost 1987:194). Then, his correspondence
carries a prolonged silence about the ‘natives’. The more entrenched the settlement at Port
Jackson, the deeper the estrangement with the strangers and more intractable the eventual
conflict. Amity had turned to enmity. The ‘natives’ were quiet — too quiet.
Looking back into the past we now see flaws in the glass. Where he succeeded in his
instructions in other respects, Phillip was perhaps condemned to fail on that count at
least — on conciliation. Contact with the ‘natives’ was intermittent and difficult to maintain.
Fractiousness had turned to violence. No good estimate of numbers could be made and no
good way was found to make the ‘natives’ an advantage for the British colony. After reporting
the initial contacts — and then the gathering conflict — Phillip’s observations on the ‘natives’
disappear almost entirely from his official correspondence with London.8 For nearly three
years, from February 1790 to the day of his departure, he wrote very little about the ‘natives’
he was instructed to conciliate.9 He left New South Wales on 10 December 1792 on the
transport Atlantic to sail back to England and out of Australian history, to eventually take his
place as an enigmatic and still curiously marginal figure in the national story. The ambiguity of
Governor Phillip’s historical persona has left Captain Cook as the unequalled founding figure
in the popular historical imagination to represent both Discovery and Dispossession in the ever-
turning dispute about settlement, occupation, invasion and terra nullius.
British knowledge by 1787
The terms of the initial Instructions to Governor Phillip on the ‘natives’ were of course shaped
by the beliefs, knowledge and expectations held by the officials in Pitt’s government and their
expert advisers like Joseph Banks. One would suppose that their collective beliefs about the
distant territory and its inhabitants were informed by the reports of mariners, explorers and
adventurers who had visited those shores since the earliest times. Yet, while a good deal was
known about the coastline, virtually nothing was known about the territory on the other side
of the beach or the people who lived there. As can be seen in the historical evolution of charts
and maps, the addled coastline of Terra Australis Incognita, then seen only from sea-level,
was incrementally transformed into New Holland and New South Wales, eventually rising to
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the now familiar and patriotically comforting modern shape of Australia seen nightly as the An Aboriginal view of strangers
weather map. Prior to the arrival of the First Fleet in 1788, the extant record of the meetings between
The aggregation of cartographical and geographical knowledge increased from the initially Europeans and Australians is surprisingly small. That record is all the British then knew
imprecise sketches of the Dutch to their demonstrably accurate later charts until James Cook empirically of the Aboriginal people. The question when asked in reverse permits even less
fixed the missing eastern edge in 1770.10 Matthew Flinders then all but completed the littoral
knowledge. What, prior to 1788, did the Australians think of Europeans? Is such a question
survey and the outline of Australia emerged fully-formed, its shape pleasingly confirmed two
even able to be answered? Aside from some rock art from which we may intuit some ideas of
centuries later by satellite photography. But, at the time, charting the routes, hazards, currents
first contact, what direct knowledge do we have about what Australians thought about the
and coastal outlines was the maritime priority of trade and empire, and knowledge of the land
people they met — about the strangers who arrived on their shore? Elaborate and embroidered
was virtually nil beyond the beaches, headlands, estuaries and cliffs. Similarly, knowledge of
Captain Cook stories and legends are well known, but empirical or documentary Aboriginal
the people of the land was slight and incidental in the absence of the stimulus of potential
knowledge of Captain Cook is all but nonexistent except for one passage in a now-obscure
commercial benefit. If they were not deemed to be ‘of advantage’ then knowledge of the people
memoir. A visitor to Australia in the 1830s, William Bernard Ullathorne, recorded the only
would be of no utility. Thus, at the time when the instructions to Phillip were drafted, interest
example known to me that relates directly to pre-1788 contact from the Aboriginal side of
in and knowledge about the inhabitants of the distant territories of New Holland and New
the beach.11 A Catholic emissary to New South Wales, Ullathorne wrote down a story that
South Wales was both slight and of a low priority.
was told to both him and Father McEnroe in 1833 by ‘two young men of the Botany Bay
Of the 46 (odd) known expeditions to the Australian coastline from 1606 to 1787 some 20
made landfall. The Dutch, credited with 13 (or so) known landings, recorded little or nothing tribe’, Aboriginal men whose fathers had seen Captain Cook pass by. In Ullathorne’s account
that was translated into official British imperial knowledge. Among the British mariners only (1891:73–4), they told them of ‘their traditions of the arrival of Captain Cook in that bay’:
Dampier was curious and literate enough to report on his adventures. Cook and Banks left by far When they saw the two ships they thought them to be great birds. They
the most comprehensive record but they nonetheless thought the ‘natives’ of New South Wales took the men upon them in their clothes, and the officers and marines in
to be of no great significance in the world they had circled. Like the Dutch visits to the north
their cocked hats, for strange animals. When the wings (that is, the sails)
and west of the continent, Cook’s 1770 encounter in the south and the east was incidental to
were closed up, and the men went aloft, and they saw their tails hanging
other enterprises. A large part of his record derives from the unwelcome and accidental stay on
down (sailors wore pigtails in those days) they took them for long-tailed
the Endeavour River after the near catastrophe of grounding on the reef. Thus, Cook’s place in
possums. When the boat came ashore to land, the women were much
Australian history is still misconceived in the sense that he was not looking for Australia, was
frightened; they cried and tried to keep the men back. The men had plenty
not intending to visit for anything like the length of time that he was ashore and he was only
of spears, and would go on. Cook took a branch from a tree and held it
mapping the coastline while on a passage for elsewhere because he had failed to find the great
up. They came on, and they trembled. Then Cook took out a bottle and
southern land, although he had found New Zealand. As can be seen in their journals, Cook and
drank, and gave them it to drink. They spat it out – salt water! It was their
Banks had only a wearied distant interest and a jaded curiosity about the people of New South
first taste of rum. Cook took some biscuit and ate it, and gave them some.
Wales. The plants and animals may have intrigued Banks but the people did not. The enthusiasm
They spat it out – something dry! It was old ship-biscuit. Then Cook took a
both men exhibited for the peoples of the Pacific was not matched in New South Wales. Notably
tomahawk and chopped a tree. They liked the tomahawk and took it.
Cook himself would return twice to the South Seas but not to New South Wales other than for
the briefest replenishment at Adventure Bay on his third voyage. As his great biographer JC
Ullathorne completed the story with a poetically ironic point about the destiny of white
Beaglehole wrote, Cook’s journal ‘devotes some pages, as was proper, to the description of this
occupation of the country and the transformative and acquisitive potential of steel tools: ‘Thus
eastern side of New Holland. They do not convey the idea that the captain admired the country
the first gift they saw the value of was the axe that was destined to clear their woods and to
greatly, apart from its bays and harbours’ (Beaglehole 1974:251). While Banks made a lifelong
make way for the white man’.
career from facilitating knowledge about the world, and was considered an early expert on New
South Wales, his interest was not piqued by the people he had met.

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 214 S trangers on the shore
Part two
The strangers on the Australian shore
The Duyfken found the Gulf of Carpentaria and Cape York in 1606. This event is now celebrated
as the first positively documented European contact with Australia. Over the next 150 years
the Dutch visited the coastline of New Holland more than 30 times until 1756 when the Rijder
and the Buijs sailed into the Gulf of Carpentaria and to Arnhem Land. With that expedition the
United East India Company (Verenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie, or VOC) then abandoned
any further interest in New Holland. Any knowledge that old Holland had gained of the place
and its people remained closely held. The surviving records of those expeditions are archival and
archaeological, with traces in the nomenclature, but the only records of contemporary interest
to other eighteenth-century European powers were the cartographical records — the maps.
The two early British sightings of New Holland in 1622 (Tryall) and 1681 (London) rendered
no significant information so the Dutch-derived knowledge was increasingly valuable to the
British and the French as they competitively extended their own fleets and global reach. But,
in the absence of commercial prospects, any knowledge of the territory and its inhabitants was
of curiosity value only. As the north and west of the territory was deemed to offer miserable
prospects so the people of that place were incidental in the commercial scheme of things. The
south and east remained unknown until 1770 except for a few great shards of the coastline
mapped by Abel Tasman in 1642, who did not sight any Aboriginal people but still feared they
might be giants (Heeres 1942:15).
Between 1606 and 1787 there were just five encounters between Europeans and Australians
from which information about the people was recorded in a contemporaneous available public
form. Of those, two meetings were substantial and sustained over several weeks: Dampier
in 1688 and Cook and Banks in 1770. Three were fraught and brief, lasting just a day or two:
Dampier in 1699, Dufresne in 1772 and Cook again in 1777. The aggregate number of days
that Europeans spent on shore, in direct observation of Aboriginal people, is finite and fairly
accurately calculable. The number of words written contemporaneously from those encounters
is similarly finite. That material was published in London and in an era of expanding global
exploration a market was readily established for the tales of travel into ‘the remote nations
of the world’ as Jonathan Swift said on the title page of Gulliver’s Travels in 1726. The direct
observations were thus inflated into fabulist adventures.
1688: Dampier and the miserablest people
Dampier’s account of his visit to New Holland in 1688 provides the first viable printed record.
He was ashore for several weeks and had repeated meetings with ‘natives’. A New Voyage around
the World was published in 1697 and was a bestseller. It was the first published description of
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t he Conc i l i at ion of S t r a nger s 215
the First Australians. Dampier’s account of Australia, in chapter 16 of the book, runs for 18
short paragraphs (Dampier 1998:216–23). He recorded that the Cygnet went south to ‘touch
at New Holland, a part of Terra Australis Incognita, to see what that Country would afford us’.
On 4 January 1688 they ‘fell in with the Land of New Holland in the Lat. of 16d. 50m’ but
could find no convenient anchoring. He said that New Holland was a ‘very large tract of Land’
but they could not determine whether it was an island or a continent, but he was certain that
it was not joined to Asia, Africa or America.
Dampier and his crew were ashore for several weeks and clearly had numerous meetings
with the locals. His most famous passage has a fantastical quality. It is an indulgence in the
grotesque and foreshadows a kind of racialism that would later contort into a stereotype and a
paradigm of the eternally backward savage.12 It would also help generate literary fantasies and
exotica about far-flung places:
The inhabitants of this Country are the miserablest People in the World.
The Hodmadods of Monomatapa, though a nasty People, yet for Wealth
are Gentlemen to these. They have no Houses, or skin Garments, Sheep,
Poultry, Fruits of the Earth, Ostrich Eggs, &c., as the Hodmadods have.
And setting aside their Human Shape, they differ little from Brutes. They
are tall, straight-bodied and thin, with long Limbs. They have great Heads,
round Foreheads, and great Brows. Their Eyelids are always half closed,
to keep the Flies out of their Eyes, they being so troublesome here that
no fanning will keep them from coming to one’s Face. And without the
Assistance of both Hands to keep them off, they will creep into one’s
Nostrils, and Mouth too, if the Lips are not shut very close. So being thus
annoyed with these Insects from their Infancy, they never open their
Eyes as other People, and therefore cannot see far unless they hold up
their Heads, as if they were looking at something over them. (Dampier
1998[1697]:218)
Yet, as Bernard Smith (1984:170) noticed, the phrase ‘miserablest people in the world’ first
appeared in the published version, for it was not in his journal. According to Smith, the phrase
was likely included at the behest of the publisher who was looking for an adventurer’s tale that
would sell. Indeed, it did sell and the practice of adding colour to the otherwise monochrome
mariners’ journals — following Marco Polo, of course — allowed the invention of the traveller’s
tale, real or imagined. Dampier’s influence on Swift and Gulliver’s Travels is well recognised.13
Dampier made a range of anthropological notes on bodily decoration, the absence of
housing, the number of men and women in groups (up to 30 or so), the food they ate, methods
of fishing and gathering, the use of fire, weapons, canoes and swimming. He noted the absence
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 216 S trangers on the shore
of metals and the use of stone hatchets ‘as do some Indians in America’. The seemingly benign
observation on the absence of metals would resonate powerfully in the act of comprehensive
dispossession that would follow.
1770: Cook and the happier people
If Dampier met the miserablest people in the world, Cook (1955:399) famously wrote in
his journal that he met people who were happy, ‘far more happier than we’, even though he
apparently did not think much of what he saw of Australia. The binary opposition between
the miserablest people on one side of the continent and the happier on the other is a striking
and poetic tension. While Bernard Smith observed that Dampier’s opinion was later added to
the manuscript, so Beaglehole (1974:251–2) held that Cook’s opinion was an uncharacteristic
indulgence in hyperbole, influenced in the moment he judged by an oration by Banks on
fashionable topics.
In the context of the development of a global imperial opinion about ‘natives’ and our
retrospective understanding of such a big concept, the presence of Captain Cook in Australia
has attracted neither the magnitude nor the complexity of scholarship of Captain Cook in
the Pacific. A number of reasons account for this. Cook did not positively intend to explore
the unknown easterly coastline of New Holland so he opportunely assumed that task on his
way home, as there were few other options. In this sense their visit was largely accidental and
they were tired. In the opinion of Cook and Banks, the people they then met were better than
those observed by Dampier but they were elusive and their material culture less elaborate than
they had earlier seen and collected. Banks could indulge his compulsion to collect plants and
animals but there were few material objects to collect from the Australians. The peoples of the
Pacific had offered them so much more in terms of cultural contact and interesting things. The
records made by Cook and Banks about the peoples of the Pacific are thus so much stronger
than those made about the more hidden and circumspect Australians.
For Banks the kangaroo was the celebrated Australian discovery, whereas Cook wrote
despondently that the ‘Land naturly produces hardly any thing fit for man to eat and the
Natives know nothing of Cultivation’. That one sentence, written on 23 August 1770, carried
the singularly most damning idea about the possibility of Aboriginal ownership of the land —
the lack of cultivation. Cook also observed the absence of warlike tendencies, the smallness
of the bands of people and their high mobility. For Cook, they were ‘like wild Beasts in search
of food’. He believed they depended ‘wholy upon the success of the present day for their
subsistance’. He noted the tools and equipment used, including ‘wooden fish gigs with 2, 3
or 4 prongs each very ingeniously made’ to strike both fish and birds. They also had ‘wooden
Harpoons for striking Turtle’ of which, Cook said, they caught few except when on shore to
lay eggs. Like Dampier, Cook noted the absence of metals and the use of stone and bone. He
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t he Conc i l i at ion of S t r a nger s 217
thought their ‘Canoes are as mean as can be conceived’ and he expressed surprise that there
was evidence of people visiting Lizard Island, five leagues off shore, with houses and other
signs of habitation (Cook 1955:393, 396, 397).
From such seemingly casual observations he nevertheless drew a powerful conclusion that
would have enduring ramifications: ‘In short these people live wholy by fishing and hunting,
but mostly by the former, for we never saw one Inch of Cultivated land in the whole Country’.
Not one inch of land was cultivated. The people were nomadic. The destructive power of this
conclusion would last for two centuries or more:
We do not know that they Eat anything raw but roast or broil all they eat
on slow small fires. Their Houses are mean small hovels not much bigger
than an oven, made of pieces of Sticks, Bark, Grass &Ca, and even these
are seldom used but in the wet seasons for in the dry times we know that
they as often sleep in the open air as any where else. We have seen many
of their Sleeping places where there has been only some branches, or
pieces of bark rise a foot from the ground on the Windward side. (Cook
1955:396)
Overall the immediate economic prospects of country were negligible: the ‘Country it self
so far as we know doth not produce any one thing that can be traded so to invite Europeans
to fix a settlement upon it’. Even so, the eastern side of the country was not, wrote Cook, ‘that
barren and Miserable country that Dampier and others have described the western side to
be’. Cook thought that the prospects of cultivation would be good once grains and cattle were
introduced. He ended his account, as Dampier had done 80 years earlier, with a conclusive
summary paragraph about the people he met. For Cook (1955:399):
From what I have said of the Natives of New-Holland they may appear
to some to be the most wretched people upon Earth, but in reality they
are far more happier than we Europeans; being wholy unacquainted not
only with the superfluous but the necessary conveniences so much sought
after in Europe, they are happy in not knowing the use of them. They live
in a Tranquillity which is not disturb’d by the Inequality of Condition: The
Earth and sea of their own accord furnishes them with all things necessary
for life; they covet not Magnificent Houses, Houshold-stuff &Ca. they live
in a warm and fine Climate and enjoy a very wholsome Air, so that they
have very little need of Clothing and this they seem to be fully sencible of,
for many to whome we gave Cloth &Ca. to, left it carlessly upon the Sea
beach and in the woods as a thing they had no manner of use for. In short
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 218 S trangers on the shore
they seem’d to set no Value upon any thing we gave them, nor would they
ever part with anything of their own for any one article we could offer
them; this, in my opinion argues that they think themselves provided with
all the necessarys of Life and that they have no Superfluities.
Joseph Banks saved recording his impressions of Australia and the Australians until
passing through the Torres Strait, sailing away. He wrote several hundred words about the
visit to Australia (Banks 1962:111–12, 122–37). Nearly all of the account is descriptive and
detailed, with few general conclusions. His journal entry on New South Wales demonstrates his
limitations as a scientist and as a philosopher. He seems either unable or unwilling to advance
hypotheses or propose theories. Narrow empirical description, stripped of grander context,
is Banks’ way (except for his clear and abiding attachment to the Great Chain hypothesis, as
shown below). For Beaglehole, the great biographer of the Cook expeditions, Banks was not
really capable of sustaining a scientific or general proposition. Nor does he appear particularly
religious, and while there is no evidence of any tendency to atheism, in the absence of a
Darwinian alternative to the book of Genesis, Banks could do no more than record the detail
of what he saw. His conclusion about Australia is surprisingly lame (Banks 1962:ii:111–12):
I much wishd indeed to have had better opportunities of seeing and
observing the people, as they differ so much from the account that Dampier
(the only man I know of who has seen them besides us) has given of them.
He indeed saw them on a part of the coast very distant from where we
were and consequently the people might be different; but I should rather
conclude them to be the same, chiefly from having observd an universal
conformity in such of their customs as came under my observation in the
several places we landed upon during the run of 00 [sic] leagues along the
coast.
... These Indians when coverd with their filth which I believe they never
wash of are, if not coal black, very near it: as negroes then he might
well esteem them and add the wooly hair and want of two fore teeth
in consequence of the similitude in complexion between these and the
natives of Africa; but from whatever cause it might arise, certain it is that
Dampier either was mistaken very much in his account or else that he saw
a very different race of people from those we have seen.
New South Wales would help to make Banks famous and Cook would pass by seven
years later, but their immediate experience of the place, as recorded in their journals, was
indifference.14
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t he Conc i l i at ion of S t r a nger s 219
Part three
Genesis, the chain and property
Cook and Dampier notably adopted contrary adjectives by which to typify the people of
Australia, yet these convenient terms are as dispensable as they are quotable. The damning
significance of the observations of Australia in 1688 and 1770 was the scarcity of the population
and their apparently primitive mode of production, without cultivation. This was set against
the three prevailing and mutually reinforcing axioms of modern British imperial civilisation.
First, that the origin and distribution of mankind was explained theologically. Second, that
a natural order of all beings prevailed and that it was hierarchical and complete. Third, that
property in land was individual and derived from a labour theory of value on foundational first
principles. So, while guns, germs and steel may explain the brute action of modern imperial
conquest, so the principles of imperial settlement (permitted by conquest) dwell in another
trinity: the book of Genesis, the idea of the Great Chain of Being and the Second Treatise on
Government by John Locke.
Genesis: The expulsion, the flood and fruitfulness
Prior to the rise of geological science and the publication of On the Origin of Species, the
ontological framework of Europeans, that surpassed all understanding, was of course literal
scripture. The Bible tells it so. Hitherto, the best (or only) explanation of human origins was
derived from the Old Testament, wherein humans — Adam and Eve — were made in the
image of God. Yet they soon fell from favour and were cast out from the Garden. Later, when
the earth was corrupt and ‘the end of flesh’ was before God, so humanity and all the creatures
great and small were destroyed en masse in the Great Flood, except for the righteous Noah
(aged 600 years) and his family and the menagerie in sevens and in twos on the Ark, made of
gopher wood. Clean animals came in sevens (male and female) and unclean animals two by
two — a male and a female. After a week of heavy rain, the survivors (humans and animals)
left the Ark and went forth and multiplied over the empty earth. The three sons of Noah were
Shem, Ham and Japheth ‘and of them was the whole earth overspread’. The families of the
sons of Noah populated the earth ‘after their generations, in their nations: and by these were
the nations divided in the earth after the flood’. Even to Australia.
So, the progeny of the sons of Noah populated the nations of the earth. They spread far
and wide and if the inhabitants of Tierra del Fuego or Van Diemen’s Land were human then
theology dictated that they must have regressed — fallen backwards. The Greeks had held a
similar idea. Hesiod in the eighth century BC classically imagined there were gold, silver, bronze
and iron people in a descending order of degeneration. In the history of this idea, the discovery
of the stone people was only a further stage of degeneration. In the biblical version, regression
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 220 S trangers on the shore
eventually allowed for the sons of Shem, Ham and Japheth to be reinterpreted into white,
black and yellow races: the Caucasian, the Negro and the Mongol. Proof of degradation was the
loss of the common tongue (Braude 1997). Moreover, literal scriptural theology prevented any
attempt to expand sceptical rationalism. All explanation must be contained within the Genesis
origin story. Even for the most radically unchurched, like the philosopher and atheist David
Hume, there was little discursive alternative to Genesis as explicatory truth. Radical doubt of
itself could not present a positive alternative explanation of earthly origins.
Through the Enlightenment, scripture retained a monopoly on accounting for the origins
of all things. The findings of Columbus, the Portuguese, the Dutch, then Dampier, Cook and
Banks may have been set against the prevailing theological monopoly on the creation of man, but
such authority was hard to shake. At least within the Anglican Church a place would gradually
develop for rationalism, empiricism and scepticism. Theologians like Judicious Hooker and
John Locke sought historical explanations against which to understand the Old Testament.
Jonathan Swift, the Dean of St Patrick’s Dublin, would play with the idea of the Noarchian
Diaspora and the idea of degeneration in Gulliver’s Travels. One of his best informants for this
story was William Dampier.
The Great Chain of Being
If the Old Testament explained origins — how the Lord God made everything — then the Great
Chain of Being explained how all the creatures great and small fitted together. Originating
with the Greeks, the Great Chain explained the hierarchy of all things from rocks and lichen,
from turnips to daffodils, from butterflies to gnats, birds, bats, snakes, rats, dogs, cats and
the races of men. There was a hierarchy of non-sentient and sentient physical beings and then
there were the metaphysical divine beings: the saints, the choirs of angels, and God. The idea of
the chain had originated with Aristotle and had been incorporated into Christian thought and
into early modern science. Indeed, the Linnean kingdoms of animals, vegetables and minerals
still reflect the model, as does the periodic table.
If the idea of categories in a hierarchy was Aristotle’s, then the Church could easily adopt
the model as it allowed the heavenly hosts with the chosen peoples on the earth below headed
by the Pope, Cardinals, Bishops, Clergy, followed by the baptised lay folk and then the rest.
The idea of a hierarchy could certainly be accommodated into a feudal model with a monarch
at the top in England as the Defender of the Faith, after the Henrician Reformation. There
were lords in layers, earls, dukes and barons. The knights of the realm had the Garter and the
Thistle at the top and others descending. Peerage was the economic and social embodiment
of the chain and genealogical record keeping was the documentary proof of the hierarchy. The
Peerage of England was first published in 1709 and by 1768 it was in seven volumes, under the
editorship of Arthur Collins (Collins 1768).15 Below the peerage were the commoners. The
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t he Conc i l i at ion of S t r a nger s 221
rudest peasant workers were at the bottom. Then of course there were the barbarians and the
savages of the new world.16 In continuity beneath the societal gradation was the natural world
with the dumbest rocks at the bottom.
The authoritative study of the Great Chain of Being remains AO Lovejoy’s series of lectures
at Harvard University in 1936. In The Great Chain of Being, Lovejoy (1936:183) described
adroitly what he called ‘the history of this complex idea’ with a depth that has satisfied scholars
since:
It was in the eighteenth century that the conception of the universe as
a Chain of Being, and the principles which under lay this conception —
plenitude, continuity, gradation — attained their widest diffusion and
acceptance.
Joseph Banks, a giant figure in late eighteenth-century Europe, held a firm if perhaps
unexamined belief in the Chain of Being. Perhaps part of his mania for collecting specimens
was to incorporate new material into the chain, even if the principle of plenitude made
problematic the discovery of new material. Gaps in the chain were not really allowed, for it was
supposedly unbroken.
An entry in Banks’ Endeavour journal is concerned with the birds that were called penguins
by Sir John Narborough. The passage shows his puzzlement about the application of the
principles of gradation, continuity and plenitude when new creatures were found. For Banks,
penguins are ‘truly what the French call Nuance, between birds and fishes, as their feathers
especially their wings differ but little from Scales’ and their wings ‘might properly be called
fins’. Nuance meant gradation, as Buffon had made clear in his Histoire Naturelle, Generale et
Particuliere (1749–67). Banks similarly made the point about corals, even on the day after the
Endeavour had lifted off the reef. He lamented the lack of time to look at corals as he had been
so ‘intirly taken up with the more conspicuous links of the chain of creation as fish, Plants,
Birds &c &c. that it was impossible’ (Banks 1962:ii:108).
Banks’ journal (1962:ii:20) carries further evidence of his ontological assumptions about
the chain:
Among fish and insects indeed there are many instances which prove that
those who live by prey regard little whither what they take is of their own or
any other species. But any one who considers the admirable chain of nature
in which Man, alone endowed with reason, justly claims the highest rank
and next to him are placd the half reasoning Elephant, the sagacious dog,
the architect Beaver, &c. in Whoom instinct so nearly resembles reason
as to have been mistaken for it by men of no mean capacitys, from these
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descending through the less informed Quadrapeds and birds to the fish
and insects, which seem besides the instinct of Fear which is given them
for self preservation to be movd only by the stings of hunger to eat and
those of lust to progagate their species, which when born are left intirely
to their own care, and at last by the medium of the Oyster, &c which not
being able to move but as tost about by the waves must in themselves
be furnishd with both sexes that the species may be continued, shading
itself away into the vegetable kingdom for the preservation of whoom
neither sensation nor instinct is wanting — whoever considers this I say
will easily see that no Conclusion in favour of such a practice can be drawn
from the actions of a race of being placd so infinitely below us in the order
of Nature.
Beaglehole’s editorial comment on this passage of the journal (Banks 1962:20) is that:
‘Nothing more than this paragraph could place Banks so exactly in his period. The “order of
nature” or the “chain of nature” was one of the overruling ideas of the eighteenth century and
perhaps the nearest to a philosophical or general scientific notion that Banks ever had.’
Banks’ understanding of the chain also extended to people and could mesh neatly with the
idea of people as outcast from the sons of Noah. His impressions of the Hottentots of the Cape
are revealing (Banks 1962:ii:256):
There remains nothing now but to say a word or two concerning the
Hottentots so frequently spoken of by travelers, by whoom they are
generally represented as the outcast of the Human species, a race whose
intellectual faculties are so little superior to those of Beasts that some
have been inclined to suppose them nearly related to Baboons as Men.
Banks means here that the location of Hottentots on the hierarchy is nearer to baboons as
men, not the Darwinian assumption of an evolutionary development. Reading this passage as
a ‘missing link’ statement in 1770 is of course a gross anachronism. So, if Hottentots are down
the scale, then surely too, for Banks, were Australians.
Property and possessions
The third component in how the strangers on the shore understood the strangers they met was
the fundamental concept of property. If the Bible and the chain explained the origin and natural
hierarchy of men, then the labour theory of value explained how natural man could come
to own anything. On this, John Locke was the pervasive authority and almost impregnable.
James Cook, as almost everyone else of his kin, country and culture, absorbed Locke’s theory
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t he Conc i l i at ion of S t r a nger s 223
of property as mother’s milk. In a pure echo of Locke, Cook wrote of Australia that ‘we never
saw one Inch of Cultivated land in the whole Country’. He continued (Cook 1955:398):
We are to Consider that we see this Country in the pure state of Nature,
the Industry of Man has had nothing to do with any part of it and yet we
find all such things as nature hath bestow’d upon it in a flourishing state.
John Locke (1632–1703) wrote The Two Treatises as the Glorious Bloodless Revolution
was played out, as the Stuarts made their final claim to the divine right of kings. Locke argued
against divine right and for a claim to property and individualism from first principles that
were not divine or absolutist but from a labour theory of value. A man was entitled to own
property because through his own ingenuity and labour power he had transformed it from
the common to the individually possessed. It may be a fallen apple or a shot duck. It may
also be an acre of tilled soil. Locke on property became one of the most significant themes of
eighteenth-century politics and law. Indeed, the influence of Locke on property is so great that
the principles are not attributed to him but are just common sense.
Locke’s First Treatise was a refutation of the Filmer’s argument that absolutism and divine
right descended from Adam to the Kings of England. A Catholic succession might lead to a
threat to property, as embodied in the Duke of York. Locke denied the absolutist theory of
the state that might permit the monarch to assert original and patriarchal possession of all
property. By contemporary standards such a notion sounds ludicrous and medieval (Zwicker
1993:132). But for Locke property was natural and an inalienable right, and its possession was
in principle a resistance to tyranny (Zwicker 1993:146). The Second Treatise had to maintain
the philosophical direction of the First Treatise, thus natural man had freedom from coercive
unlimited power and the gift of self-preservation. The Second Treatise still reads as a modern
tract. It was informed by the state of nature so recently found in Virginia, for example.
Locke set out the state of nature as that pre-social condition from which men could liberate
themselves and enter into the congeniality of political society. Locke allowed men to enjoy
liberty, equality and reason, and civil society was a remedy to the ‘defects and imperfections’
of men (Locke 1988:278). If property was abundance governed by reason, savagery in contrast
was a matter of landscape and behaviour. Savages roamed, unlimited over a lawless terrain
owned by no one, to the full extent of their wild desires. Only with tillage and agricultural
settlement would land become property. Locke’s certainty about the right to self-preservation
extended to his concept of property in the immediate sense of possessing what one eats (Locke
1988:285–302) .The political society is thus joined for the protection of life and property.
So, if, as Cook observed, there was not one inch of cultivated land, then the state of nature
prevailed. The hunter would own the speared kangaroo or the clubbed possum but they could
not own the land on which they hunted. Cook’s observation would go to the very core of
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 224 S trangers on the shore
Phillip’s instructions. The affections of the ‘natives’ were to be conciliated, but they did not and Notes
indeed could not own the land on which they dwelt. 1. The debate on the earliest evidence of European
knowledge of Australia has continued since 1786
when Alexander Dalrymple advanced the Dauphin
Conclusion map that showed a great southern land. It was once
owned by Joseph Banks and is now held in the
Of all the visitors to Australia, all the strangers on the shore, only Dampier, Cook and Banks British Museum. The French map and its copies are
dated from the mid-sixteenth century and depict
were contemporaneously published chroniclers of the Australians. As noted, their visits Java la Grande. Discussion of its veracity continues
to Australia were as much circumstantial as deliberate. Much of the time on shore was (Richardson 2007; Sharp 1963; Wallis 1988).
2. The VOC ship Zuytdorp was wrecked in 1712 near the
involuntary, but under the circumstances that made it rather welcome. At the time when the Murchison River. Archaeological evidence suggests
survivors were cast ashore to an unknown and
instructions to Phillip were drafted, aside from the century-old account by Dampier from the
intriguing fate (Pearson 2005:44).
other side of the continent, the words of Cook and Banks were all that Pitt, Sydney, Nepean 3. Also Bligh landed at Adventure Bay in August 1788.
4. Thomas notes that the Australian Indigenous
and Phillip had to go by. Direct knowledge of the Australians was negligible. Theological and response of ‘grass-roots anti-colonialism’ is
historical presumptions were as formidable as they were unexamined. Scripture, the great exemplified in Paddy Wainburranga’s 1987 painting
Too Many Captain Cooks. On the other side are ‘the
chain, eighteenth-century notions of rationality, nature and property all gave structure but Cook idealizers’. Thomas himself tries to go beyond
were catastrophically contrary to a partnership with the Australians, whose structures and that binary opposition (Thomas 2003:xxxii).
5. ‘Orientalism’ is attributed as the source of the post-
needs were then only able to be accommodated as charity or amity. The fundamental difference colonial cliché ‘the Other’, yet Said deploys the term
on land, cultivation and progress could not be alleviated other than in the most temporary only lightly (Said 1978:327).
6. The beach, as the place of first encounters, has no
manner by the personal determination of Phillip himself. better storyteller than Greg Dening. In his abiding
metaphor: ‘I want to say that to perform the past we
must cross the beach in some way. I want to say that
Appendix 1 in performing the past we need to be beachcombers of
the past’ (Dening 2004:329).
Between the arrival of Janz and Phillip there were 45 other known visitations to the Australian mainland coastline. Only some 7. The other references to ‘natives’ in those instructions
of those visitors were bold enough to come ashore. We know those who came ashore: were to protect the settlement against their attacks or
1606 Willem Jansz Duyfken interruptions and to barter with them where possible.
8. During the administration of Grose, Patterson and
1616 Dirk Hartog Eendracht
Hunter there was scarcely a mention of the ‘natives’.
1618 Leneart Jacobszoon Mauritius They had dropped from official sight almost totally.
1623 Jan Carstensz Pera and Arnhem 9. A break in the silence was a note from Phillip to Lord
1623 Klaas Hermanszoon Leiden Grenville of 7 November 1791 with an enclosure
1642 Abel Tasman Heemskerck and Zeehan (Tasmania) dated 13 December 1790 that ‘several tribes of the
1656 Peter Albertsz Vergulde Draeck (west coast) natives still continuing to throw spears at any man
they meet unarmed’. He reiterated his position
1656 unknown Witte Valck and Goede Hoop (west coast, north of Swan River)
forbidding any fire upon them except in self-defence,
1658 Volckerts and Jonck Waeckende Boey and Emerloort (west coast) but that ‘severe examples’ would be made of those
1688 William Dampier Cygnet (King Sound, west coast) who transgressed (HRNSW 1978:545–6). See also
1699 William Dampier Roebuck (Dirk Hartog Island, Dampier Archipelago) Clendinnen (2003:172–81).
1697 Willem de Vlamingh Geelvinck, Nijptangh and Weseltje (Swan River to NW Cape) 10. Mike Pearson (2005:20–4) lists 40-odd encounters
1705 Maarten van Delft Vossenbosch, D’Waijer, Nova Hollandia (Tiwi Islands) between Jansz in 1606 and Cook in 1770. The power
of maps and charts had increased with the Mercator
1712 Martinus Wysvleit Zuytdorp (Geraldton)
projection of 1569 but the problem of longitude was
1727 Jan Steynes Zeewijk (and Sloepie) (Abrolhos to NW Cape) not satisfactorily resolved until the 1770s.
1756 Gonzal and Asschens in Rijder and Buis (Cape York Peninsula) 11. William Bernard Ullathorne (1806–89) is a largely
1770 James Cook Endeavour (east coast to Cape York) forgotten figure in Australian history. Ordained in
1772 Dufresne Le Mascarin (Tasmania) 1831 within the English Benedictine Order he spent
1772 Saint Allouarn Gros Ventre (Shark Bay)
1773 Tobias Furneaux HMS Adventure (Tasmania)
1777 Cook HMS Resolution (Tasmania)
1788 Arthur Phillip HMS Sirius and HMS Supply (New South Wales)
StrangersontheShoreTEXT08.indd 224-225
t he Conc i l i at ion of S t r a nger s 225
his life in the service of the Holy Roman Church. He
was pious, humble, well-organised and able to exercise
influence. In 1832, at the age of 26, he was sent to
Australia to impose order on the drifting, shambolic
and conflicted mission that comprised a few priests
in New South Wales and Van Diemen’s Land. They
were struggling and were overwhelmed by the
absolute number of Irish Catholic convicts nominally
under their spiritual care. On the authority of the
vicar-general of Mauritius, who was responsible for
the distant Church in Australia, Ullathorne prepared
the way for the appointment of a vicar apostolic to
Sydney. Thus in 1834 John Bede Polding became
Australia’s first Catholic bishop while Ullathorne
himself maintained an active association with
Australia but would refuse five offers of a See in the
Australian colonies, opting for Birmingham instead.
He has since subsided into the footnotes of Australian
history (if still prominent in Church history) where he
might forever dwell were it not for a remarkable and
unique episode that he recorded in his Autobiography
(Suttor 1967).
12. The emergence of modern racism is traced by
Fredrickson to the early modern to late medieval
period when the two main strains become identifiable:
colour-coded white suprematism and the essentialist
version typified by anti-Semitism. The idiom of
racism was then religious and not yet also scientific
(Fredrickson 2002:46).
13. AL Rowse, Swift’s biographer, attributed to Dampier
both the origin of the story of Gulliver’s Travels and
a style of writing adopted by Swift that was ‘plain,
factual, nautical’ (Rowse 1975:142).
14. Dufresne left a record of his few days in Van Diemen’s
Land in 1772. From 4 March to 7 March a French
expedition lead by Marc-Joseph Marion Dufresne
visited the south-east coast of Van Diemen’s Land.
The encounter with the Tasmanians was typically
suspicious, tense and distant. Only a few observations
were made about the culture and the people. At
least one was killed by musket fire and two others
wounded. Dufresne’s party sailed away. The next
strangers to visit would be Cook at Adventure Bay in
the Resolution on 26 January 1777.
15. Arthur Collins was the grandfather of David Collins,
first Judge Advocate of New South Wales and
Governor of Van Diemen’s Land, a sympathetic
chronicler of Indigenous Australians.
16. Disputation arose in the methods of incorporating
people of the new world into the scheme. Different
modes of classification were held: the climatic (Buffon,
for example), the subsistence (Locke, for example),
and the taxonomic (Linnaeus).
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 226 S trangers on the shore
References
Banks, J 1962, The Endeavour Journal of Joseph Banks
1768–1771, JC Beaglehole (ed.), 2 vols, Public Library
of New South Wales with Angus & Robertson, Sydney.
Beaglehole, JC 1974, The Life of Captain James Cook,
Stanford University Press, Stanford, CA.
Braude, B 1997, ‘The sons of Noah and the construction of
ethnic and geographical identities in the medieval and
early modern periods’, William and Mary Quarterly 54
(January):103–42.
Buffon, G 1749–67, Histoire Naturelle, Generale et
Particuliere, 15 vols, De L’Imprimerie Royale, Paris.
Clendinnen, I 2003, Dancing with Strangers, Text
Publishing, Melbourne.
Collins, A 1768, The Peerage of England, 7 vols, H Woodfall,
J Beecroft, W Strahan, J Rivington, London.
Cook, J 1955–68, The Journals of Captain James Cook on
His Voyages of Discovery, JC Beaglehole (ed.), 3 vols,
Hakluyt Society & Cambridge University Press,
Cambridge.
Dampier, W 1998 (1697), A New Voyage around the World,
Hummingbird Press, London.
Dening, G 2004, Beach Crossings: Voyages across Times
Cultures and Self, Melbourne University Press,
Melbourne.
Duyker, E 1994, An Officer of the Blue: Marc-Joseph Marion
Dufresne, South Sea Explorer, Miengunyah Press,
Melbourne.
Fredrickson, GM 2002, Racism: A Short History, Princeton
University Press, Princeton, NJ.
Frost, A 1981, ‘New South Wales as terra nullius: The
British denial of Aboriginal land rights’, Historical
Studies [Australia] 19/77:513–23.
Frost, A 1987, Arthur Phillip 1738–1814: His Voyaging,
Oxford University Press, Melbourne.
Heeres, JE 1899, The Part Borne by the Dutch in the
Discovery of Australia 1606–1765, Luzac & Co.,
London.
StrangersontheShoreTEXT08.indd 226-227
227
Heeres, JE 1942, The Discovery of Tasmania: Selections from
a Translation of Tasman’s Journal, August–December
1642, Hobart.
HRNSW (Historical Records of NSW [Phillip 1783–1792])
1978, A Britton (ed.), Lansdown Slattery & Co., Mona
Vale.
Locke, J 1988 (1689–90), Two Treatises on Government,
P Laslett (ed.), Cambridge University Press,
Cambridge.
Lovejoy, A 1936, The Great Chain of Being: A Study of
15. The Australian Contact Shipwrecks
the History of an Idea, Harvard University Press,
Cambridge, MA.
Pearson, M 2005, Great Southern Land: The Maritime
Program
Exploration of Terra Australis, Department of
Environment and Heritage, Canberra. Michael McCarthy
Richardson, WAR 2007, Was Australia Charted before 1606?
The Jave le Grande Inscriptions, National Library of Western Australian Maritime Museum
Australia, Canberra.
Rowse, AL 1975, Jonathan Swift, Charles Scribner & Sons,
New York. Prelude
Said, EW 1978, Orientalism, Pantheon, New York.
Sharp, A 1963, The Discovery of Australia, Oxford University
Press, Oxford.
The shipwreck provides insight into the attitude of coastal Indigenous peoples to unexpected
Smith, B 1984, European Vision and the South Pacific, Harper visitors. Indigenous accounts not only add to the European record but can also prove it lacking
& Row, Sydney.
Suttor, TL 1967, ‘William Bede Ullathorne’, in Australian or otherwise deficient. Sometimes the Indigenous account or pictorial record of an event or
Dictionary of Biography, Melbourne University Press, vessel is the only one that now exists and sometimes the shipwreck can help to fix a now-extinct
Melbourne, pp. 2554–6.
Thomas, N 2003, Discoveries: The Voyages of Captain Cook, Indigenous presence in place and time. The Contact Shipwrecks Program has three elements.
Penguin & Allen Lane, London. In ‘stage one’, survivors’ accounts, archaeological analyses, descriptions of the material record
Ullathorne, WB 1891, The Autobiography of Archbishop
Ullathorne, Burns & Oates, London. (including paintings by Indigenous people), contemporary European and Indigenous accounts
Wallis, H 1988, ‘Java la Grande: The enigma of the Dieppe
maps’, in G Williams & A Frost (eds), Terra Australis
of the loss, details of vessels and their crews, and identifications of those groups on whom they
to Australia, Melbourne University Press, Melbourne, impinged are catalogued. In ‘stage two’, the analysis of the Indigenous record of past shipwreck
pp. 39–81.
Zwicker, SN 1993, Lines of Authority: Politics and English events is documented. ‘Stage three’ examines other interactions, for example with explorers,
Literary Culture 1649–1689, Cornell University Press, merchants, pastoralists and with other Indigenous maritime art.
Ithaca, NY.
Introduction
The Australian Contact Shipwrecks Program commenced in June 1997 and had as its inspiration
studies into the loss of the Dutch East India ship Zuytdorp (1712), the Croatian trading barque
Stefano (1875) and the German Seaplane Atlantis (1932). Survivors from these wrecks travelled
on shores identified with the Malgana and Nhanta peoples of the southern Shark Bay region,
by the Thalanyji and Payungu of the North West Cape region, the Jinigudira sub-group of the
Thalanyji and by the Miwa, Kwini and Yiiji in the Kimberley region, respectively (orthography
after Horton 1994). Subsequent interactions and the enduring social effects — recorded at the
time and/or transmitted down through generations — were varied and far reaching.
The Zuytdorp, with men and women on board and hosting a multinational militia of Dutch,
Belgians, Germans, Norwegians, Swiss, Latvians and one Austrian, disappeared entirely from
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 228 S trangers on the shore
the record for over two centuries, rendering the Indigenous accounts of the survivors’ landing
the only descriptions available. For example, in 1834 two Aboriginal men came to Perth
advising that they had been told of a wreck that had occurred about 30 days walk north some
six months previously. Excerpts from the contemporary account read thus:
There was money nearby and the ship was broak and they made mention
how the water ran through it and the white men were all dead and the
money layed on the beach for about 30 yards ... their informants the Weel
men ... could reach the wreck, which had blankets flying ... the white men
gave the Weel men some Gentlemen’s biscuit and the latter gave in return
spears, shields, etc. (reproduced in Henderson 1980:126–7)
Initially thought to have been the Mercury lost in 1833, the Zuytdorp was later considered
far more likely, despite the temporal inconsistencies given the reference to the ‘Weel men’.
Though there is evidence that they inhabited Wayl Well just south of Shark Bay, a place that
later produced material from the wreck, further work is required in order to cement this
suggested link (McCarthy 2006; Playford 1996:213–14).
In the cases of the Stefano and the Atlantis, the survivors were found and assisted back to
safety by the Aboriginal people, but not without great effort, sacrifice and in some instances
great heroism. In both cases the events were celebrated in the contemporary press, ensuring
that the debt owed to these Aboriginal people received an international airing (Bertram 1933;
Scurla 1876). While elements of the Stefano story were fictionalised, in the case of the Atlantis
other works have since been produced, including a film Flight into Hell. Together with museum
exhibitions and a series of websites there are more accurate portrayals of the inferred events
(e.g. Winter 1979). In recent years and subsequent to the finding of the wreck of the Stefano,
a museum exhibit with particular emphasis on the part played by the Aboriginal people in
saving the crew has been produced. Finally, detailed multidisciplinary work examining the
interaction between survivors and their ‘saviours’ and the country over which they travelled is
forthcoming (Melville Jones ed.).
One element linking all three events was the realisation that the survivors of most wrecks
landed bereft of the trappings of power, such as uniforms, guns and ostentatious ‘ceremony’.
In contrast to an ordered landing, the wrecked survivor arrived in a destitute or even an
injured form; bleeding, sometimes without clothing, and almost always at a distinct physical
and psychological disadvantage. Their subsequent actions, state of abandonment, often-
delirious wanderings and loss of equipment, further served to redress any perceived balance
of power. The analysis of the events that followed is expected to provide useful insights into
the attitude of coastal Indigenous peoples to unexpected and needy — rather than threatening
or frightening — visitors.
StrangersontheShoreTEXT08.indd 228-229
Aus t r a l i a n Con tac t Ship w r eck s Progr a m 229
Stage one of the study
As first envisaged, the program was to be developed at the Department of Maritime
Archaeology at the Western Australian Maritime Museum. From there it was hoped it
would spread into other states, thereby seeding an Australia-wide picture. This stage was to
incorporate survivors’ accounts, archaeological analyses of wreck sites and their residues on
land, histories including previously recorded Indigenous accounts, descriptions of the material
record (including depictions of wrecks by Indigenous people) and records of the vessels and
their crews. Details appeared variously in the department’s database of known wrecks, in an
extensive file system containing all known references to each wreck, including Indigenous
accounts, and at the JS Battye Library of West Australian History (Battye Library). Once these
records were drawn into a coherent whole they were analysed, catalogued and presented,
together with publication lists as a tool for teachers and students, historians, archaeologists,
anthropologists and Indigenous studies units.
This stage was satisfactorily concluded in Western Australia largely due to the skills and
capacities of Lesley Silvester, a student from the Research Institute for Cultural Heritage
Studies, Curtin University, who was then completing an internship with the author at the
museum. The ‘hard copy’ of the ‘contact shipwreck database’ detailing 52 events appears in
the form of a report by the Department of Maritime Archaeology entitled Strangers on the
Shore and in a three-volume chronological working file also housed there (Silvester 1998).
A précis of these materials was then produced in an electronic database on the Department
of Maritime Archaeology’s website (Murray & Silvester 1999). Later, the reproduction of a
number of songs, including one entitled ‘Andumeri’s run’ — a celebration of his epic marathon
run through scrub and a heroic swim over crocodile-infested waters to save the German
aviators on the Atlantis — became the focal point of a musical play, also entitled Strangers on
the Shore. This well-received work was devised, composed, written and first presented by Lesley
Silvester, her partner Michael Murray and their colleagues in the museum’s Batavia gallery. It
has appeared regularly at folk festivals since. A popular celebration of both ‘contact events’ and
new arrivals, including modern refugees, on Indigenous shores, a CD of the music and songs
was also produced and put on sale. In the following year the project was assessed by another
student completing a practicum in the department, this time from the University of Western
Australia. In that work a predictive model and series of further research questions for the
program were produced (King 1999). Later a report on the progress of the Contact Shipwreck
Program was published in the Bulletin of the Australian Institute for Maritime Archaeology. It
concluded with the following note:
The Western Australian phase of the Australian National Contact
Shipwrecks Database project has achieved its ‘Stage one’ objective to
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 230 S trangers on the shore
provide a database as a cornerstone for future studies by others. The
database provides an opportunity to retrieve another aspect of Western
Australia’s history, this time from three perspectives: the European,
Macassan and the Aboriginal. It now remains for the rest of Australia
to gather their contact shipwreck information into similar accessible
form. This will allow further work into a little known part of Australian
history, and hopefully contribute to the process of reconciliation with our
indigenous people by broadening the appreciation and understanding of
past events. (McCarthy & Silvester 2000:134–5)
In looking eastwards, a study by Ross Anderson indicates that rumours surrounding the
fate of survivors from three ships (Sarah, Britomart and Britannia) wrecked in the Bass Strait
between 1837 and 1839 seem to have set the scene for a generalised fear of the Indigenous
inhabitants. Fears that the crews had been killed and the women held captive led to great
agitation and subsequent searches. These appear to also have resulted in deaths described as
being in the ‘hundreds’ from the Kurnai tribe, including two deaths in ‘custody’ (Anderson
2000). There are records of one European female survivor from the Britannia living with
Aboriginal groups and rumours of the existence of another from the Sarah. The hysteria
generated from these accounts resulted in large groups of survivors from vessels like the locally
based Clonmel (1841) and the German ship Magnat (1900) keeping vigilant guard against what
were described at the time as ‘native attackers’ and ‘savage aborigines’ (Anderson 2000:24).
A general study of contact on the west coast of South Australia (Arnott 2000) was augmented
by another centring on a group of 18 clans based along a large section of the south-east coast
of South Australia, including the Coorong region. Conducted by W Jeffery (2001), this study
showed that there were nine wrecks on these shores between 1838 and 1874. While there
are no details available for six of these events, in the case of the first, the Fanny in 1838, the
survivors stayed for seven weeks with an Aboriginal group in circumstances of the ‘greatest
friendship’, the benefactors later being described by the ship’s captain as ‘decidedly the most
inoffensive race I have ever met’ (Jeffery 2001:33). This contrasted with the situation a few
years later where in one case the survivors were threatened, and gained safety only after the
police and a group described as ‘Encounter Bay Aboriginals’ intervened. In the case of the Maria
in 1840, 26 passengers and crew were all killed. Though originally assisted in their trek through
what has been identified as Milmenrura tribal land, there was a ‘violent altercation’ just before
the survivors were due to be handed over to the next group north (Jeffery 2001:33). In his
examination of these events, one question put by Jeffery was whether they contributed to
contemporary race relations in the Coorong area of South Australia. Certainly in the case of the
Magnat, fear of the Indigenous inhabitants in remote locations was still evident at the dawn of
StrangersontheShoreTEXT08.indd 230-231
Aus t r a l i a n Con tac t Ship w r eck s Progr a m 231
the twentieth century. The Maria murders, the retribution, executions and random killings that
followed for many years after these events have since become incorporated into an Aboriginal
studies course for secondary students and in educational resource packs (Jeffery 2001).
The New South Wales Shipwreck Survivors and Aboriginal Contact Project identified 16
shipwreck events, allowing a ‘picture to be formed of changes of attitude between the two
groups, the effect that distance from Sydney played, and of the individuals concerned’ (NSW
Heritage Office 2002). The study, led by Tim Smith and David Nutley, showed that while in
the earlier days of settlement the ships’ crews impinging on coastal Aboriginal communities
were predominantly from Great Britain or were settlers and their descendants, those following
were often a far more varied group than previously imagined. In one remarkable instance,
that of the whaler Packet, lost in 1857, the local press stated that ‘the crew was the most
heterogenous we have ever seen, consisting of Spanish, Portuguese, Malay, New Zealanders,
Sandwich Islanders, Taheitians, with the majority being islanders’ (Sydney Morning Herald, 11
March 1857). While this range is undoubtedly noteworthy, to an extent it mirrors the range
noted in the Zuytdorp case, above. A ‘mix’ of nationalities among shipwrecked whalers and
sealers is also to be expected, as studies indicate that in the Australasian whaling industry
‘shore stations were far more ethnically diverse than almost any other colonial industry’ (Gibbs
2006:80), with many nationalities working alongside Aboriginal crews and impinging on the
local people in many ways (cf. Lawrence & Staniforth 1998).
The New South Wales and the Victorian studies note that on the eastern shores of Australia
the earliest recorded contact events outside of Sydney occurred when the trader Sydney Cove was
wrecked in Bass Strait in 1797. Seventeen of the crew landed on the south coast near Cape Howe
and walked up the coast to Sydney. Largely Indians from the Bengal area (commonly referred to
in maritime circles as Lascars) and a couple of British officers and merchants, only three survived
the gruelling trek. A contemporary published account shows that, over the months they were
in transit, Indigenous reactions to them ranged from ‘a mixture of genuine compassion ... to all
out conflict, probably as a result of territorial and resource infringements’ (NSW Heritage Office
2002). After European power had been firmly established on the New South Wales coast the vast
majority of Aboriginal–European interactions were not marked by direct conflict. For example,
in 1809 at the wreck of the sloop Hazard a boy was saved by Aboriginal people; at the wreck of
the Recovery in 1816 the survivors were stripped of their clothing and allowed to continue on,
and in 1835 the survivors from the convict transport Hive were assisted in communicating with
the settlers (Nutley 1995). In 1841 eleven people were saved from the Rover, at the Agnes Napier
in 1855 an Aboriginal man took survivors to his camp and ‘treated them very kindly’, and in
1879 at the Bertha watchers secured a line from the ship to the shore, thereby saving the crew.
These incidents appear in précis form and in an article entitled Shipwrecked Crews and Aboriginal
Contact in NSW on the Maritime Heritage Online Web Site (NSW Heritage Office 2002).
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 232 S trangers on the shore
Stage two studies
Though flagged originally as an essential part of this shipwreck/Indigenous contact project,
no systematic attempt has been made in Western Australia to visit the local communities
identified in the ‘stage one’ study to record oral histories and gauge modern Indigenous
attitudes as to the extent and effect of that contact on their respective societies (though see
Collard & Palmer, this volume). Nor was any attempt made to see if the events were passed
down in legend, or to see what opinion contemporary Aboriginal people might have of the
stories attributed to their forebears.
When recorded, the Aboriginal and European accounts were rarely in agreement on the
circumstances of the shipwreck event. One fascinating example is the differing accounts of the
loss of the iron steamship Sunbeam (1892) while at anchor in very calm and sheltered waters
at the Osborne Islands in the Kimberley region of Western Australia (Henderson & Cairns
1995:197–9). While the European record shows that the Sunbeam was old and that its loss
was purely due to corrosion of the hull, Gamberra people have stated that it was ‘pay back’ by
Unggud, their ancestral snake Spirit. Although there had been an agreement to allow women
on board for a specified period, as was the custom, the Spirit was called on to act when the
crew refused to send the women back ashore after an agreed period of time had elapsed. After
the ship was affixed to the seabed by the snake and as the Sunbeam slowly sank beneath them,
the women escaped overboard and returned to their men. In this way the vessel’s loss, and the
events surrounding it, became a part of Gamberra mythology (Crawford 2001:149–52). The
wreck is still visible at low water today and has been declared historic under Commonwealth
shipwreck legislation, rendering its remains protected and of cross-cultural significance —
clearly part of a shared Indigenous and European maritime heritage.
Another example relates to an incident or series of incidents near Point Cloates, a known
ship trap on the north-west coast of Australia. In one instance the narrative of an Aboriginal
person from North West Cape, reported in the press of 1876 (Inquirer, 19 January 1876), was
considered to be possibly linked to the previous loss of the Emma from the same region in 1867;
the survivors, including some women, are said to have been killed. The story was eventually
dismissed, primarily because contemporary accounts show there were no women on board the
Emma at all. There were credible Indigenous accounts of women on other wrecks, however, for
an account again from 1876 attributed to an Aboriginal man known to the Europeans as Tony
was to the effect that ‘about two winters ago a very large steamer had been wrecked down at
his country (Cape Cuvier) and all hands lost including a woman’ (Pemberton Walcott to Sholl,
21 June 1876). Later a report by the nineteenth-century ornithologist Thomas Carter, the
founder of Ningaloo Station at Point Cloates, appeared in his book No Sundays in the Bush
(1987:123):
StrangersontheShoreTEXT08.indd 232-233
Aus t r a l i a n Con tac t Ship w r eck s Progr a m 233
Some of the elderly natives [at Cape Farquhar between Point Cloates and
Cape Cuvier] spoke of a white man, woman and little girl who landed in
a boat (dinghy) years ago, evidently having been shipwrecked, and after
living quietly with the natives for a long time had started to walk south
along the coast. No one ever knew who they were or how they died.
Until recently these three reports were considered at best an agglomeration of many
stories unable to be fixed in time, and at best fanciful, given that a comprehensive database
of losses on the Western Australian coast had been compiled and there were no wrecks fitting
these descriptions known to be missing. In April 2004, however, remains found near Point
Cloates — anchors, rudder fittings (one with a piece of coal lodged in the pintle aperture), an
uninscribed bell and some fastenings — indicated that the museum had discovered a mystery
late nineteenth-century wooden-hulled sailing vessel of 400 tons plus (Gainsford et al. 2004 ).
Could this have been the wreck referred to by ‘Tony’ in 1876?
Other instances where Indigenous accounts fill out non-existent European records are
related by people of either the Njatjumay and Mirning socio-linguistic groups to AJ Carlisle
who had been in the area since 1928 and spoke the local dialects well. He conveyed these
reminiscences in a series of detailed letters and in an oral transcript to the museum and they
appear published in précis form thus:
Two lifetimes before Eyre’s journey of 1841 the Aborigines had seen a ship
moving towards the coast with smoke coming from it. A small boat left
the ship and came ashore, and several men were seen walking about, while
others were lying down. The next morning two white men lay dead and
the others had dug holes in the sand. Later in the day the ship drifted in
to shore and rolled over on its side. Five men had come ashore in the boat
and within eight days three had died. The fourth was speared and killed,
but the remaining man was spared because he had blonde hair. He lived
with the natives for some time and was then thought to have gone with
the adjoining tribe to the east of Eucla. (cited in Henderson 1980:73)
In 1976 this account, in respect of the wreck at least, was supported after Carlisle escorted
archaeologists to this place and they found evidence of a large wreck, possibly an early sealer
or whaler and also evidence in the form of small brass-copper fastenings where a smaller boat
had been dragged ashore and abandoned. A contemporary, self-explanatory work entitled The
Australian Captive; or, An authentic narrative of fifteen years in the life of William Jackman in which,
among other adventures, is included a forced residence of a year and a half among the cannibals of
Nuyt’s Land, on the coast of the Great Australian Bight (Chamberlayne 1855) has been tentatively
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 234 S trangers on the shore
linked to this event by Gibbs. In comparing it to other well-known examples (e.g. the contact
stories of survivors Richard Morrell, William Buckley and Eliza Fraser on the east coast), Gibbs
(2002:4) concluded that, if true, Jackman’s is the first evidence of a ‘sustained contact with
Aboriginal people’ in remote Australia. Of additional importance here and clearly evident in
the title, is the tendency of publishers and editors to encourage their authors to egregiously
embellish and pander to the sensational with an eye to sales (see also the Dampier and de
Rougement cases, below).
The shipwreck can also provide other insights. One is the ability of the events surrounding
a wreck to fix Aboriginal people in time and place. When the Japanese wheat ship Chofuku
Maru became stranded on the Ningaloo Reef in 1931, for example, the engineer at nearby Point
Cloates whaling station stated that the crew refused to come ashore for fear of the Aborigines:
It was Old Tommy and Mary Ann, his wife, who reported the wreck to
the whaling station. The leader of the native tribe was Dingo Charlie. All
the natives ... were full blood and could all speak English ... The Japanese
crew, totalling around 50, were not happy about coming ashore as they
could see about twenty aborigines — they had spears as they had been
fishing and getting turtles. Mac [referring to himself] went ashore to the
natives and told them that the Jerridy-Jerridies (rice eaters) were a bit
scared about coming ashore because of them. The natives thought that a
huge joke. (Macbolt 1976)
Yet it has been almost an orthodoxy that the inhabitants of the North West Cape had left
the region by then or were extinct due to disease and/or massacre (Silvester 1998).
Stage three of the project
In the proposed third stage of the project, comparative assessments of ‘contact’ events in an
exploration/acquisition mode, or in other modes such as trading, have been flagged. While
there are many hundreds of maritime examples from which to choose, a consideration of the
Jackman case shows that care needs be taken with heavily skewed and biased publications
aimed more at promoting sales than accurate historical knowledge. It is not widely known
that this is a recurring problem in William Dampier’s works, in that his published and much-
condemned description of what is believed to be the maritime Bardi people in the Kimberley
is at odds with his actual journal entries and draft (Preston & Preston 2004:175). A similar
situation occurred in the case of Louis de Rougemont, a Frenchman (aka Louis Grin), who
claimed to have mixed with ’Malays’ following a shipwreck while engaged in pearling and
lived with Aboriginal groups. His exploits were read avidly in Europe and to a lesser extent in
StrangersontheShoreTEXT08.indd 234-235
Aus t r a l i a n Con tac t Ship w r eck s Progr a m 235
Australia. His works had an enormous following, only to be eventually revealed as fictitious;
incongruities included a description of the flight of a wombat (Howard 2006)!
While depictions of actual shipwrecks are rare, with exceptions such as the painting of
the City of York attributed to a Rottnest Island convict (Jimmy Cudgely), there are many
Indigenous depictions of ‘intact’ ships and watercraft, and on occasion these may be the only
record of a particular vessel. As a case in point, depictions of the SS Xantho were first recognised
at Inthernoona in the hinterland of Cossack by Robert Reynolds (1987). The vessel’s owners,
the Broadhurst family, appear not to have produced or kept any illustrations of what to them
was one of their greatest failures, as it sank soon after its arrival from Britain. As the occasion
allowed, Broadhurst took it out of the pearling industry to carry assorted cargo and passengers,
including a number of north-west Aboriginal men from the port of Cossack and the courts
of nearby Roebourne to the Aboriginal prison at Rottnest Island near Fremantle (McCarthy
2000). As the first steamer to arrive on the coast the Xantho was doubly significant.
The famous Walga Rock painting may also be a depiction of the Xantho and most likely
produced by one of the 140 ‘Malay’ divers Broadhurst brought to Australia on the ship and
later abandoned at Shark Bay. Around 1917, some 45 years after the ‘Malays’ were landed, a
former Shark Bay pearler named Sammy Malay (aka Sammy Hassan) left his camp, now called
Sammys Well on Dirk Hartog Island, and joined an Aboriginal group at a soak near Walga
Rock. Soon after he arrived there a painting of a ship, clearly a steamer, appeared in the ancient
gallery (McCarthy 2000).
Conclusion
The shipwreck event provides a useful opportunity to assess Indigenous reactions to ‘strangers
on the shore’. Particularly valuable insights can be gained as a shipwreck often represents the
loss of an expensive and sometimes vital colonial asset, a varied cargo and often many lives.
The focus on them and their aftermath, including interactions with Indigenous peoples, can
surpass events on the land.
In the first stage of the Australian Contact Shipwrecks Program, survivors’ accounts, the
material record surviving underwater and on the adjacent land, details of vessels and their
crews, the identification of those groups on whom they impinged, have been catalogued along
with contemporary European and Indigenous accounts of the loss. The beginnings of the
second stage — the analysis of the Indigenous narratives of past shipwreck events by expert
anthropologists and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander scholars — is incipient in some of
the contributions to this volume. Stage three, comprising comparative assessment of ‘contact’
events in shipwreck, exploration, acquisition, and other modes, such as trading, surveying and
missionary activity, awaits commencement.
28/3/08 3:20:59 PM
 236 S trangers on the shore
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