EGL206: Reading Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander

Writing!
Daniel Geoffrey Morgan (DGM020)
Reflective Journal
Word Count: 458
Bennelong’s letter to Mr Phillips was written on August 29 th 1796. The text was
dictated by Woollarawarre Bennelong to a scribe in the Governor’s home and
contains quite of lot of formal language, with words such as Sir and Madam
being repeatedly used to address the letter’s recipient and his wife in a tone
that makes sure the reader is aware they have a previous, amicable
relationship. The scribe who was being dictated too hasn’t done anything to
change or ‘correct’ what Bennelong has said throughout the course of dictating
the letter, lines such as “Not me go to England no more” and “I have every day
dinner there” have been included by the Scribe writing out the letter, perhaps
to keep Bennelong’s exact meaning in the writing, or because Bennelong
wished for the recipient of the letter to have no doubt it was his own words.
Bennelong’s letter and the context surrounding it contains a multitude of
paratextual elements as seen above. When reading the text for the first time, it
was difficult as someone who has only interacted with Aboriginal culture
through school to take in all of the elements in and surrounding the text that
went into the Letter. While trying to work out context for the letter as I read
along, it was interesting to find unfamiliar words in Bennelong’s language and
finding their meaning after having done research, along with looking more into
Bennelong’s past and what became of him after the letter, and trying to find if
there was anything else that I may have missed during the first reading.
As a masculine presenting white person born into a middle-class family over
two hundred years after Bennelong’s letter was written, having read
Bennelong’s letter from a modern perspective, my viewpoint is limited by a
lack of cultural connection other than the tenuous connection of us both being
‘Australian’. Bennelong and I’s concept of being ‘Australian’ would be vastly
different because of how Australia was in 1796 for Bennelong and how it has
changed and developed into 2023. In the letter, Bennelong uses some of his
native language, words such as Carroway which, when translated, means
White Cockatoo and Muzzy which may be a transcription error instead of
Murri, which means ‘big’ in Bennelong’s native language (Metzenrath, 2017).
After having read the letter more than once, and having done research into the
circumstances around Bennelong and how it came about, it is important to
note just how different in perspective Bennelong and myself would be, and
that my understanding of the circumstances Bennelong was in come from a
descendant of First Fleet convicts, white modern perspective instead of
Bennelong or a person from a similar cultural understanding who could have a
similar perspective.
Bibliography
Bennelong, W. (1796, August 29). Letter to Mr Philips, Lord Sydney's Steward.

Metzenrath, R. (2017, August 21). Bennelong's Letter. Retrieved from australian institute of
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies: https://aiatsis.gov.au/blog/bennelongs-letter