The Journal of History
and Heritage for
Southern Sydney
Volume 4 Number 2 May, 2011.
ISSN 1835-9817 (Print) ISSN 1835-9825 (Online)
Price $7.00 (Aus)
1
Doryanthes
Exec. Editor: Les Bursill OAM
Doryanthes
The Gymea Lily (spec. Doryanthes excelsa) From Greek “dory”: a spear and “anthos”: a flower, referring to the spearlike flowering stems; excelsa: from Latin excelsus: elevated, high, referring to the tall flower spikes. Go to
www.doryanthes.info
Editorial Policy;
Editorial Committee
.
Chair/Editor/Publisher: Les Bursill, OAM, BA
M.Litt UNE JP.
V/Chair: Garriock Duncan, BA(Hons) DipEd
Syd MA Macq GradDipEdStud NSW MEd
DipLangStud Syd.
Treasurer: Mary Jacobs, BEd Macq DipNat
Nutr AustCollNaturalTherapies.
Film Review Editor: Michael Cooke, BEc LaT
GradDipEd BA Melb MB VU.
Book Review Editor and Secretary: Adj. Prof.
Edward Duyker,
OAM, BA(Hons) LaT PhD
Melb FAHA FLS FRHistS JP.
Committee Members:
Sue Duyker, BEc BA(Asian Studies) ANU
BSc(Arch.) B Arch Syd.
Merle Kavanagh, DipFamHistStud
SocAustGenealogists AssDipLocAppHist UNE.
John Low, BA DipEd Syd DipLib CSU.
Index of Articles
Page
Number
Editorial - A/Prof Edward Duyker
3
Gleanings - Sue Duyker
4
Persian painting - Farzaneh
6
Sarvandi
Katyn - SHANNEN USSHER
9
Goannas, Whales and
Wallabies – Bruce Howell
13
WAS COOK A CAPTAIN? -
17
Caroline Davy
1. All views expressed are those of the
individual authors.
2. It is the Policy of this Journal that material
published will meet the requirements of the
Editorial Committee for content and style.
3. Appeals concerning non-publication will be
considered. However decisions of the
Editorial Committee will be final.
Les Bursill OAM on behalf of the Editorial
Committee
Index of Articles
Page
Number
The ‘Jindyworobaks’ Glenn Wells
22
François Péron’s secret Report Maryse Duyker
25
HERITAGE VESSELS OF THE
ROYAL AUSTRALIAN NAVY –
Garriock Duncan
30
Film Review - Michael Cooke
36
Book Reviews Gary Schoer & Lyn M. Fergusson
39
The articles published herein are copyright © and may not be reproduced without
permission of the author.
2
ISSN 1835-9817 (Print) - ISSN 1835-9825 (Online)
The publishers of this Journal known as “Doryanthes” are Leslie Bursill and Mary Jacobs trading as
“Dharawal Publishers Inc. 2009”
The business address of this publication is 10 Porter Road Engadine NSW, 2233.
Les.bursill@gmail.com www.doryanthes.info
Editorial –
One of my favourite words is ‘serendipity’.
We use it often for the faculty for (or the
instance of) making happy and unexpected
discoveries by accident. No historian can
do without it!
The word has a delightful provenance. It
has its origins in a story by Ab’ul Hasan
Yamīn ud-Dīn Khusrow (1253–1325 A.D.),
an Indian Sufi mystic and poet who wrote
in Persian and is better known as Amīr
Khusrow. He was the author of the HashtBihisht (=‘Eight Paradises’) a poem written
circa 1302 A.D., but based on an eleventhcentury
Persian
epic
poem,
The
Shahnameh (= ‘The Book of Kings’) written
by Hakīm Abu’l-Qāsim Firdowsī Tūsī (940–
1020 A.D.).
Among Khusrow’s many
embellishments, was a story entitled ‘The
Three Princes of Serendip’ about the
recovery of a missing camel. Serendib is,
in fact, the old Arabic/Persian name for Sri
Lanka.
However it was Horace Walpole (1717–
1797) who coined the word ‘serendipity’ in
a letter to his friend Sir Horace Mann
(1701–1786), the British Consul in
Florence, on 28 January 1754; this was
after remembering the fairy tale and the
characters ‘who were always making
discoveries, by accidents and sagacity, of
things they were not in quest of’ (Letter no.
90, The Letters of Horace Walpole, vol. 2).
There is a delightful element of Persian
serendipity in this present issue. During
our six-month sojourn in France in 2007,
chronicled of late in the ‘Scattered Seeds’
section Doryanthes, my wife Susan and I
met and befriended an Iranian painter
named Farzaneh Sarvandi. We were all
residents of the Cité internationale des
Arts, in Paris. Farzaneh was at the end of
her sojourn and we were at the beginning
of ours. Some friendships are meant to
happen–even if language, script, political
circumstance and haphazard e-mail
communication are against you. Perhaps
one day Farzaneh will have a sojourn as
an artist in residence at Hazelhurst
Regional Art Gallery. In the meantime, I
invite you to sample some of her vibrant
works and her reflections on the Sufi
artistic heritage in Iran.
The other element of serendipity in this
issue is Shannen Ussher’s essay on the
Katyn Forest massacre of 1940. Before
she began her Higher School Certificate
we talked about the massacre and its
bizarre and tragic historiography of Stalinist
lies and falsification. I was delighted when
Shannen chose Katyn as the subject for
her Extension History essay last and even
more delighted to discover, when I finally
read it, that it had been selected as one of
the best essays submitted in New South
Wales last year. In the meantime, the
events at Smolensk Airport and the crash
which killed Polish President Lech
Kaczynski and ninety-six of Poland’s elite
on 10 April 2010 had given her essay an
extraordinary poignancy and resonance.
How can one forget that Kaczynski and his
fellow passengers
were
about
to
commemorate the destruction of Poland’s
intellectual, political and military leadership
in 1940? Russian admissions of culpability
for the massacre in 1940 and the
broadcast of Polish director Andrzej
Wajda's chilling film ‘Katyn’ on prime time
Russian
television
are
remarkable
developments.
Shannen Ussher’s fine
essay, which we are proud to publish for
the first time, is just one of the thoughtful
offerings to be had in this current issue.
Edward Duyker
Australian Catholic University &
University of Sydney
3
Gleanings
With Sue Duyker
Exposed: Photography and the Classical Nude
relics from the 1915 campaign. With a focus on
From January 2011, Nicholson Museum,
University of Sydney.
the port infrastructure established to support the
Exposed is a celebration of the significant role
photography has played in capturing varying
interpretations of the classical nude. This
engaging exhibition brings together nearly 100
photographs involving the worlds of fashion,
theatre, film, music and dance, and canvassing
themes from the artist’s studio to the effects of
war. Sometimes surreal and often humorous,
this diverse collection includes works by some
of the great names, including Max Dupain,
Robert Doisneau, Lee Miller, Eadweard
Muybridge, Leni Riefenstahl, Clarence White
and Henri Cartier-Bresson. Also see the
continuation of this exhibition in the University
Art Gallery, Exposed: Art and the Naked Body.
10am–4.30pm Monday to Friday;12noon–4pm
Sunday. Closed on public holidays. Free
http://sydney.edu.au/museums/whatson/exhibitions/
nich_current.shtml
Term 2 and 3 Art Classes, Hazelhurst Regional
Gallery
2 May–2 July 2011 and 18 July–24 September
2011, 782 Kingsway, Gymea NSW
A wide range of classes are available including
painting and drawing, ceramics, sculpture,
porcelain painting, printmaking, jewellery,
mixed media and much more. Course
programs follow school terms and are generally
2 to 3 hours per week over ten weeks.
From $183 for a term
http://www.sutherlandshire.nsw.gov.au/Arts_Enterta
inment/Hazelhurst/Workshops/
8-month campaign, the team recorded the
remains of jetties, piers and relic deposits in
the near shore, and discovered never-seenbefore shipwrecks from the campaign. Building
on their work mapping the wreck of the
Australian submarine AE2 in the Dardanelles, a
different approach has been taken to document
the historical narrative of ANZAC Cove and
Gallipoli—i.e. from the sea! The project was a
sponsored expedition of the Australian
Geographic Society, and the talk is supported
by the National Trust of Australia. Join Tim
Smith and expedition photographer Dr Mark
Spencer as they reveal the team's unique
contribution to the study of the 96 year-old
Gallipoli battlefield.
A National Trust and Australian Geographic
Society event. Members $15; others $25.
Bookings essential
http://www.stickytickets.com.au/5228/Beneath_Galli
polli.aspx
National Archaeological Week
15 May–21 May 2011
National Archaeological Week aims to increase
public awareness of Australian archaeology
and the work of Australian archaeologists at
home and abroad. It also promotes the
importance of protecting Australia’s unique
Archaeological hertiage. A nationwide program
of events and exhibitions will be held during the
week. These incude public lectures, seminars,
demonstration excavations and displays.
Check out the website:
http://www.archaeologyweek.com/
Beneath Gallipoli: The seminal underwater
landscape survey of ANZAC Cove
Tues 3 May, 5.15pm–8pm, Anzac Memorial,
Hyde Park, Sydney.
Tim Smith led an archaeological team to the
infamous battlefields of the Dardanelles,
Turkey in May 2010 on a unique quest. The
joint Australia-Turkish expedition investigated
and mapped key underwater archaeological
Birchgrove Industrial Heritage Walk
Saturday 21 May 2011 2pm–5pm
Take a guided walk in Birchgrove and discover
two ex-industrial sites that are now two
contrasting modern harbour-side parks, Mort
Bay Park and Ballast Point Park, along with a
couple of enchanting private gardens in very
diverse locations.
Australian Garden History Society Members
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$15; guests $25. Bookings essential. Jeanne
Villani: 9997 5995
http://www.gardenhistorysociety.org.au/
Archibald, Wynn and Sulman Prizes,
2011
Until 26 June 2011, Art Gallery of New
South Wales, Art Gallery Rd, Sydney.
The Archibald Prize is one of Australia’s oldest
and most prestigious art awards. JF Archibald’s
primary aims were to foster portraiture, support
artists and perpetuate the memory of great
Australians.
Adults $10.00; members/concession $7.00;
family (2 adults + up to 3 children) $27.00
http://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/exhibitions/archiba
ld-wynne-sulman-prizes-2011/
Ildiko Kovacs: Down the Line 1980–2010
their traditional custodians.
10am-4.30pm Monday to Friday;12noon-4pm
Sunday. Free
http://sydney.edu.au/museums/whatson/ex
hibitions/macleay_current.shtml
The Enemy at Home
7 May 2011–11 September 2011, Museum of
Sydney, Corner Phillip and Bridge Streets,
Sydney
The story of German internees in World War 1
Australia. Newly discovered photographs by
internee Paul Dubotzki reveal what it was like
to be interned in Australia during World War 1.
Adults $10; child/concession $5; family $20;
Historic Houses Trust members free.
http://www.hht.net.au/whats_on/exhibitions/
exhibitions/the_enemy_at_home
14 May–3 July 2011, Hazelhurst Gallery, 782
Kingsway, Gymea NSW
Free Walking Tour: “Walking Through
History”
Ildiko Kovacs has amassed a striking body of
abstract paintings that reveal a unique and
singular sensiility. Situated somewhere
between the line and the land, Kovacs has
developed a gestural visual language drawn
from abstraction’s Indigenous and nonIndigenous ties. This exhibition uses the entire
regional gallery for a dazzling survey of key
works produced over a three-decade period.
Free
Monthly until 6 December, 12.15pm until 1.30pm,
Ultimo College
http://www.sutherlandshire.nsw.gov.au/Arts_Enterta
inment/Hazelhurst/Exhibitions/
As part of its 120th anniversary celebrations,
Ultimo College (part of TAFE NSW—Sydney
Institute) is giving lovers of history and
architecture the chance to join small personal
tours of its historical campus.
Taking about 60 minutes, the tour is filled with
interesting anecdotes of the times, of politics
and past students and will be led by expert
historian, Norm Neill
Free. Bookings essential.
Outlines—Koori Artefacts from the
Macleay Museum
Email SydneyTAFE.120years@tafensw.edu.au
or call 9217 3380.
Until July 2011, Macleay Museum, Gosper Lane,
off Science Road, University of Sydney.
The Quest for Red
Sydney is home to one of the largest outdoor
rock art sites in Australia, and the largest
population of Aboriginal people anywhere.
Across Aboriginal Australia is a great diversity
of art and belief practices. This exhibition
brings together painting tools, ochres, shields,
spears and clubs that all have their provenance
in Aboriginal language regions of New South
Wales, such as the Bundjulung, Wiradjuri and
Dharug. The exhibition also includes stone tool
artefacts from the Penrith lakes area thought to
be around 15,000 years old. From the deep
past to today the exhibition highlights the
continuing artistic traditions of Aboriginal
people of New South Wales. This exhibition
aims to highlight the largely untold story that
these objects can tell us about the regional
local knowledges of New South Wales and
Until 11 December 2011 Macleay Museum,
Macleay Building Gosper Lane, off Science
Road, The University of Sydney
Piracy, war, espionage, exploration and
international intrigue are all brought into play at
the Macleay Museum in this exhibition, which
explores the ways humans have exploited
pigments to make the colour red.
10am–4.30pm Monday to Friday;12noon–4pm
Sunday. Free
http://sydney.edu.au/museums/whatson/ex
hibitions/macleay_current.shtml
5
Persian Painting and Sufism
Farzaneh Sarvandi
Art and culture in Iran have long had links
to religious practice. In traditional Islamic
art there has inevitably been a link between
different types of art and literature. Each
has been dependent on its ability to
manifest aspects of eternal religious truth.
As one of the most important centres of art
and civilization in the world, Iran has
traditionally offered some kind of painting.
Various forms of art manifest a relationship
with the spiritual, especially in the form of
Islamic Sufism. This relationship is
particularly evident in the illustration of
literary and mystical texts. We value these
works in terms of content. Iranian painting
expresses the space and structure of
mystical works. We analyze paintings
based on the mystical themes of Sufism.
Analysis is based on the colour
combination of light, form, perspective and
symbolic elements. Colours, composition
and graphic forms reveal a spiritual spatial
ensemble away from reality. Despite the
hypothesized impact of mystical literature
on painting during the peak of Sufi
mysticism, images from different schools
are studied and analyzed. The definition of
art within the principles of Sufi reasoning
and doctrine has great authenticity.
Pre-Islamic Persian painting, particularly
when associated with the Zoroastrian
religion, tended to create an ideal
transcendental world. With the arrival of
Islam
and
restrictions
on
artistic
representation under Islamic law, painters
sought access to pure aesthetics as an
ultimate goal. The imitation of nature, color
and shadow found in Western painting did
not appear in Persian painting. Persian
painters
sought
to
represent
the
transcendental space of the mind through
symbols and allegory and to rely on Islamic
mysticism. Ultimately, Persian painting
found a place in the highest levels of
Islamic life. And despite the controversy
over whether or not it was permissible to
represent the Prophet (PBUH), Persian
painters did paint him and his life events.
Iranian Muslim painters therefore had a
profound impact enabling people to
stimulate his emotions and feelings. In
other cultures it is common and customary
to represent scenes and personalities, real
or fictional. There are sermons throughout
the history of Islam. In different eras there
emerged proverbs, pearls of wisdom, real
life stories and anecdotes from the
symbolic language of birds and animals or
fairy tales. But the assembly, expression
and perfection of these stories began with
the advent of Sufism. There is no doubt
that the tales and anecdotes of the Sufis
and Dervishes are full of extraordinary
sacrifice and efforts to deal with mental
risks in the correct way, providing rich
context for authors to write about whatever
they wished. Painters were inspired by
these poetic stories, and paintings were
created from them. They have the same
brightness, charm and elegance as the
texts of narrative poems. Sufism and
mysticism evolved in the third and fourth
centuries of the Muslim era in Iran. The
most important mystics of this period were
Bayazid Bastami (d. 261 anno Hegirae)
Mansur Hallaj (d. 309 anno Hegirae) and
Shebly.
The principal character of Persian painting
is abstract, far from reality, yet closer to
truth as a result of the impact of Sufism.
The painter is a product of revelation and
intuition, and does not sign his or her work.
Considering purely aesthetic principles, the
painter creates a transcendental space of
fantasy-based forms, refrains from applying
shadow and light, and uses bright colors.
In painting faces, they do not use actual
6
figures. They paint faces according to a
general
pattern.
Consequently,
the
symbolist and decorative became the main
principles of Persian painting. To quote
Prof. Arthur Upham Pope (1881-1969), this
is ‘an absolute art, and with regard to
aesthetic elements, the ideal combination
of components and companion of colors .
Persian Art is a visible music’.
Farzaneh Sarvandi was born in
Hamedan, Iran, in 1972, she holds a
Master's degree (M.A.) in painting from
the Art and Architectural University in
Tehran. She is a lecturer in the two arts
universities in Hamedan and is a
member of the Centre of Visual Arts
since 2003.
Farzaneh has held a
number of solo exhibitions and been an
active participant in group exhibitions
locally and abroad. She was the
resident artist, Cité internationale des
Arts, Paris, 2007. Farzaneh was also the
winner of both the 'West Country Visual
Arts Festival' (Iran) and the 'Iranian
Moghavemat National Festival'.
Her
email address is farsarv51@yahoo.com
Works by Farzaneh Sarvandi
I’ve painted these sets in two different
periods of my life. Considering that I am a
woman in Iran and there are limits on
expressing my thoughts, I’ve chosen
topics, secrets and dreams for my
paintings. And I express my ideas through
colours and forms.
7
Later Period
8
9
KATYN: DECIPHERING THE
PAST FROM THE HISTORY
SHANNEN USSHER
“Katyn is about two things. The Crime and
the Lie” – Andrzej Wajda1
We may never know the truth of the Katyn
Forest Massacre; exact locations and
numbers, names, dates and documents,
forever lost in the folds of Soviet propaganda.
Until the fall of communism in 1989, Eastern
Europe had dictated German culpability for
the mass execution of Polish intelligentsia2 by
the Russian NKVD3 during World War II. It is
a brutal twist of history, one that has seen the
Polish people relive the horror’s of Katyn
numerous times, as they were forced, for the
better part of 50 years, to accept a ‘history’, or
lie, as far removed from the ‘past’ as possible.
organizations,
former landowners,
factory owners,
former
Polish
Army
officers,
government officials and fugitives - to
be considered in a special manner with
the obligatory sentence of capital
punishment - shooting.
It has only been in the past 20 years that the
events of Katyn have revealed themself.
Hidden in the vaults of Russian archives, the
documentation of the Soviet crime was
released through a joint effort of Soviet and
Polish historians and archivists in 1990. On
the 13th of April that year, the forty-seventh
anniversary of the discovery of the graves,
President Mikhail Gorbachev admitted
profound remorse over the tragedy, and in
1992, after increased pressures, President
Boris Yeltsin released the top-secret
documents validating what so many had
already known. Amongst these papers, the
signature of Joseph Stalin condemned the
Polish officers, academics and elite. It read:
Here lies the past of Katyn, the truth of events
that was hidden so long. In the spring of 1940,
between April and May, approximately 22 000
Polish POW’s were systematically shot and
buried in mass graves in the forest outskirts of
Katyn, a small town just west of Smolensk in
Russia. Recent investigations have suggested
the killings took place in the basement of the
NKVD headquarters, and an abattoir, in
Smolensk, however the forest has, and will,
remain the “symbol of inhumanity4”, and the
Soviet bloodbath through which Stalin sought
to cripple the Polish nation. “Under those
circumstances,” states historian Gerhard
Weinberg, “depriving Poland of a large
proportion of its military and technical elite
1) The cases of 14 700 people
remaining in the prisoner-of-war camps
- former Polish Army officers,
government
officials,
landowners,
policemen, intelligence agents, military
policemen,
settlers
and
jailers,
2) and also the cases of arrested and
remaining in prisons in the western
districts of Ukraine and Belorussia
people in the number of 11 000 members
of
various
counterrevolutionary spy and sabotage
The Site of the Mass Grave near Katyn
Soldiers identity tags dug up at Katyn
10
would make it weaker.” Stalin sought to not
only weaken the Polish nation, but destroy
any chance of it rising to power again.
Events such as Katyn challenge the notion of
history. Through cover-ups they raise
questions of validity and evidence, political
interference and propaganda, as we are
forced to face the lies ‘official’ history has
taught. Can we decipher the past from the
history? And what do we mean by the truth?
Is it tangible, able to be analysed and
criticised from events and sources, or must
one look beyond what is written to the implied,
subjective ideas and philosophy’s? Do we
adhere to the recorded or believe in the
tradition?
In doing so we must make clear the distinction
between the ‘past’ and ‘history’. Developing
from Post Modern historians such as Keith
Jenkins, is the idea that the past comprises of
what has gone before us; the actual events,
never to be repeated or represented in the
perfect form through which they occurred.
Historiography, however, is the production of
texts and analysis of sources and events
through which explanation and opinion are
made. Progressing from Jenkins, it could be
argued that historiography informs the art of
history, whereby the past remains an entity
removed
from
human
confines
or
disfiguration, whilst history is the form through
which we attempt to explain such
phenomena.
History, and by extension historians, shall
never portray with certainty the events it
follows and through this one might question
the purpose of writing it, if not to produce the
truth. And then one must ask, if history does
not produce the truth, does that automatically
mean it produces fiction? Certainly it is the
argument of Post-Modern historiography, that
all historical discourse should be viewed as a
story5. But here we must also make distinction
between historical discourse, the engagement
and discussion between scholars and ‘official’
history, that is, history put forward by the
government, or state. For the people of
Poland, there was never any questioning of
the truth. The Polish Government in exile
knew all to well of the imprisonment and
subsequent disappearance of the Polish Elite
in the spring of 1940. In German occupied
Kraków, as the Katyn list was broadcast down
streets, families awaited the names of those
whose letters had stopped years earlier. Even
the International Red Cross, invited by
Germany, reported that the executions had
taken place in 1940, months before German
troops would occupy the Katyn area. How is it
then, that with such evidence, the past could
be so rapidly distorted?
From 1945 onwards, both Eastern European
communism and the allied nations of Britain
and America put forward a viewpoint claiming
Germany, not the Soviet Union, had been
responsible for the events of Katyn. This
‘official’ history, taught until the fall of
communism in 1989, was dictated by politics
and propaganda, the tight censorship of both
the Stalinist regime and Poland’s communist
government. Neither the past nor truth could
break the barriers of 20th century re-writing,
Polish Prisoners of War
and so the integrity of history flickered slowly
amongst the ruins of World Wars and
changing political ideology. It was the ‘official’
history of the governments, removed from the
independent works of historians, which
allowed the story to manifest, and alter the
truth.
By 1944 Germany had been forced from
Katyn, and a Soviet investigation, the
Burdenko Commission, was implemented.
Poland had already been painted comrades of
Hitler by Soviet Propaganda, and as a
member of the allied forces, they sought to
negate their guilt. Predictably, the Burdenko
Commission ruled against Soviet culpability,
stating the killings had taken place in 1941,
during German occupation. The ‘official’
history of German blame had begun.
11
Propaganda films would show how Soviet
scientists had proven Nazi’s guilt. Britain and
America could not conceive of incriminating
an ally, despite knowledge to the contrary,
particularly one who had played an
instrumental role in the destruction of
Germany months earlier, and the Nuremburg
Trials, though failing to produce a case
against the Germans, did not expose the
Soviet massacre either. In the years following
it would be a forbidden topic across Poland.
Censorship saw the period of time erased,
whilst children were fed the Katyn lie; the
‘official’ history, removed from the past. As
Andrzej Wajda states: “The lie was given to
us in school, everywhere, we were just
hearing the lie.6”
To a post-war population of mothers, wives
and children, Communism disallowed the
past. ‘Official’ history disallowed discussion or
grieving. The father of Modern History,
Leopold von Ranke once wrote, “It wants only
to show what actually happened.” This was
not the case across Eastern Europe. Here the
crime was the past event, but the lie was
taught as the history.
The ‘official’ history heralded by politics also
found claim in the works of Gabriel Kolko,
who in 1968 published “The Politics of War:
The World and United States Foreign
Policy, 1943-1945”. Kolko, an American
Revisionist historian and leading historian of
the early New Left7, goes as far as to
acknowledge the possibility of Soviet
responsibility, however believes it was “the
exception” to their conduct, and that “It’s
relative importance must be downgraded very
considerably.8” Whilst not openly supporting
the ‘official’ history of Soviet innocence, he
belittles the accountability of the NKVD and
even more so the death of 22 000 men. In
more recent times, Eric Hobsbawm’s
bestselling history of the 20th century, The
Age of Extremes, manages to achieve an
almighty one paragraph dedicated to Stalin’s
millions of victims, with no mention of Katyn
and the Polish elite. Written four years after
the Soviet admission of guilt, Hobsbawn, a
British historian and communist, echoes the
views of Eastern Europe in his failure to
recognize the massacre against the Polish
elite officers and the Polish people.
Within Russia there has been an insurgence of
Katyn denial. On September 18, 2007,
Rossiyskaya Gazeta, the official newspaper of
the Russian government published a comment
by Alexander Sabov, whereby it was claimed
the now accepted version of Katyn was based
on one, dubious document. Triggered by the
first public viewing of Andrzej Wajda film Katyn
in Russia, it was met by immediate criticism in
Polish newspapers the following day, whereby
the Gazeta Wyborcza gave an in depth outline
of the Soviet formal admission of guilt,
including a copy of the original signed death
warrants down one side. Interestingly, in
examining the phenomena of Communist
Katyn denial, China too has banned the film,
stating it was not in line with the ideology of the
state.
And so to return to the former question, what is
the purpose of history if it continuously perverts
the truth? Fifty years of Eastern communist
rule have preached a history as far removed
from the past as possible, subsequently
western (communist) historians have denied
the importance of Katyn and Soviet culpability
and in recent times, Russian deniers have
questioned the validity of Soviet guilt despite
overwhelming evidence. If through politics and
propaganda history is not able to “show what
actually happened”, it begs the question, why
do we write it?
We must keep in mind the difference between
the ‘official’ history of the state and that written
by historians. Whilst neither will expose the
truth of the past, the engagement of historical
discourse can be seen to shed light on matters
once resolved to darkness. During the early
1950’s, when Eastern European communism
dictated the course of Katyn, a U.S.
Congressional investigation chaired by Rep.
Ray J. Madden (The Madden Committee)
investigated the massacre. In the midst of the
Korean, and beginnings of the Cold Wars, it is
almost unsurprising that the verdict indicated
Soviet guilt, with proceedings recommending
they be tried before the International Court of
Justice. Perhaps another of the cruel
12
repercussions of Katyn, is that this chance of
accountability was never undertaken. To this
day, despite talks of the ‘crime’, the criminals of
Katyn are yet to be brought to trial.
The progression of Western thought on the
issue, and the fall of Communism across
Europe, led to numerous attempts by
historians and filmmakers to explore the ‘truth’
of Katyn. Perhaps the greatest example is
that of Andrzej Wajda’s film, released in 2007
after a 12-year writing process. It is the film
Wajda never believed could be made, his
father was one of the 22 000 officers, yet the
Polish government had continued to block all
forum of public debate on the issue until
19899. “The best medicine, the best remedy
for political and social problems is to show
them and speak truly about them,10” states
Wajda, who hopes his film will ‘sooth’ the lies
of ‘official’ communist history. Is it the purpose
of history then to show and speak truly on
issues? From Herodotus, the father of history,
to Von Ranke and his contemporaries,
speaking the truth has always been an
objective. Post Modernism had sought to
attack this notion, however we seem to have
entered a broader stage, whereby the benefits
of historical discourse are being made. From
the remains of Katyn we can see, it is
imperative that history continues to be
analysed and revised if the past and the truth
is to remain alive.
If we return, momentarily, to Von Ranke, we
may find the distinction “To history has been
assigned the office of judging the past.” The
historian shall never be able to say with
certainty if they have exposed the truth of the
past, instead onto them Ranke has bestowed
the honor of judgement. Reliant on total
objectivity, Ranke believed that the truth of
the times might be found in primary sources,
and that through analysis; one must let the
sources speak of the past. It could be argued
that
the
Soviet’s
abused
Rankean
methodology from the beginning. Their
‘evidence’ for the German crime of Katyn was
found in newspapers and diary entries from
1941 placed on the bodies of the Polish
intelligentsia, providing undeniable ‘proof’ that
the men had been killed during the German
time of Smolensk occupation.
Of course, Ranke’s system of analysis was
intended to involve objective individuals, of
which the Soviets were not, just as the
purpose of history must fall upon the historian,
not the propagators of ‘Official’ history.
Politics and propaganda will always be
involved in the turn out of history, and
perhaps it is the purpose of the modern
historian to ensure the past and truth is not
abandoned by the state. A continuous cycle of
historical discourse must be available through
which analysis and challenges may be made,
otherwise we stand at risk of reverting to the
ways of Eastern European Communist
history, whereby the ‘official’ viewpoint is that
that defends the state and government.
There are many lessons to be learnt from
Katyn. But perhaps most important, is that if
we continue to decipher the past from the
history, getting to the truth may preserve the
forgotten history of thousands.
1. Wajda, A. 2007 – Interview with Brian
Hanraham
2. Intelligentsia: The Polish elite forces,
containing those in complex, mental and
creative labor, including intellectuals and
social groups. Essentially the officers,
academics, teachers and thinkers of the
Polish social class.
3. NKVD: Narodnyy Komissariat Vnutrennikh
Del - People's Ministry of Internal Affairs. The
public and secret police force of the Soviet
Union that directly implemented the rulings
over the people, including political oppression.
4. Kenez, P. 1999, p. 154 – 158
5. For an extensive read of this view see Keith
Jenkins Re-thinking History
6. Wajda, A. 2007 – Interview with Brian
Hanraham
7. A term used mainly in the 1960’s and 1970’s
to describe, in America, activists, educators
and agitators seeking great reform across
social class and labour unionization
8. Kolko, G. 1968
9. Wajda, A. 2007 – Interview with Brian
Hanraham
10. Ibid.
13
Goannas, Whales and Wallabies
Part 4 – Shelter Art
(Bruce Howell 2011)
This rock shelter is 500 metres off Maianbar Road, in the Royal National Park.
The same Hawkesbury sandstone that
provided the medium for the original
inhabitants of Sydney to express themselves
through rock engravings, has also provided
thousands of rock overhangs, the result of
weathering of a softer layer of sandstone that
sits beneath a harder layer. These overhangs
provided a commodity that would have been
highly prized – shelter – shelter from wind and
rain, summer sun and winter cold, and
possibly a sense of protection from attack –
hence the name rock shelter.
Many shelters show signs of occupation,
mostly accumulated shells on the floor of the
shelter. In some cases, the shells form a thick
layer of soil, sometimes one or two metres
deep, indicating a very long period of
occupation. Some shelters also feature
perhaps the most interesting and revealing
record of the prehistory of the Sydney area –
charcoal and ochre drawings.
Five fish in red ochre, near Bundeena. The first is very faint, and the
fourth is the only one with its tail “up”, but this gives a clue as to how
the others’ tails originally appeared.
Very little has been published specifically
about the shelter art of southern Sydney,
nevertheless the Royal National Park
contains hundreds of sites that feature ochre
or charcoal drawings. But unlike the much
more robust rock engravings that bear the full
force of weathering and erosion, shelter art is
visible to us now only because it has been
sheltered, from both the weather and the
effects of direct sunlight, and given that there
is radiocarbon data to suggest at least 12 000
years1 of occupation in the Sutherland Shire
area, the art may provide a continuum of data
that reaches back for thousands of years,
instead of hundreds.
But as a consequence of the probable
antiquity of the art, most examples possess
only a hint of their original form and colour but this is part of what makes them so
exciting... they are ancient.
This fish, although once fully infilled in red ochre, and located in a
very well sheltered enclave near Bundeena, is now largely invisible.
Slight enhancement has been used here to reveal its shape, with its
sweeping tail to the left, but its current state of preservation suggests
considerable antiquity.
14
However, the dating of shelter art is
notoriously difficult. Ochre is essentially a
coloured clay, i.e. it is a mineral, so unless
it has been mixed with some organic
component, it cannot be dated using
radiometric methods. Even charcoal,
organic in origin, would appear to be a poor
material for dating. Techniques instead
focus on radiometric dating of organic
materials (for example shell) in the floor of
the shelter, left behind by occupation, and
making inferences about associations
between the occupation of the shelter and
the art found in it.
little is known of the people who created
the art.
It has been suggested that some art carries
symbolic meaning3, indecipherable to us
now.
Careful examination of examples where
one drawing is superimposed over another,
also allows broad conclusions to be made
about the relative ages of drawings.
Most of the figures in this shelter near Heathcote are
indeterminate. Only the shape on the right can be confidently
interpreted as representing the rear end of a kangaroo, with its
tail at centre. The two “crosses” to the upper left are good
examples of what is very likely to be symbolic representation.
Equally frustratingly, most shelters close to,
or within, suburban boundaries have been
seriously compromised by modern-day
graffiti, and any art contained within, either
totally lost or severely damaged.
This detail from a shelter near South West Arm, shows a
kangaroo in red, at centre, with a smaller kangaroo to the right,
barely visible. Drawn over the kangaroo is a charcoal figure, and
there may be another drawing beneath the kangaroo.
A major aid to trying to “date” shelter art is
the purely statistical approach of examining
hundreds of cases, applying statistical
theory to the data, and looking for patterns,
from which tentative conclusions can be
drawn2.
Frustratingly most of the figures are
“indeterminate”, i.e. it is virtually impossible
to interpret what the figure is meant to
represent. Many of these indeterminate
figures appear to be no more than a few
lines or squiggles but some are
tantalisingly familiar. Even when a figure is
seemingly unambiguous, it is only by
educated guesswork that a reason for
drawing it can be suggested, given that so
Graffiti in this shelter at the Basin in the Royal National Park is
not severe but it shows how easily prehistoric art can be
damaged.
An intricate design of charcoal “striations” can be seen just left of
centre, and a complex figure in red ochre is on the right.
In some shelters, for example in the Jannali area, shelter art has
been all but annihilated by graffiti.
Shelters come in all shapes and sizes,
from so tiny that a person could only barely
lie in it, to cavernous chambers that seem
to defy gravity. But not all such caverns
show signs of occupation. If the chamber
does not have a level floor, most likely it
will not show signs of occupation.
15
Also if the shelter is not reasonably close to
a supply of drinking water, then it is unlikely
to have been occupied for any significant
period of time. Furthermore, not all shelters
that show occupation, have art, and vice
versa.
This pair of figures located in Lilyvale in the Royal National Park,
shows an echidna (left of centre with snout pointing upwards)
and possibly a possum (right of centre). Both are drawn and fully
infilled with red ochre, and are oriented vertically as if seen from
above.
Position – position – position! This shelter overlooking the Basin
near Bundeena, has a flat floor, plenty of head room, is close to
drinking water and shows the strongest signs of occupation – a
very thick shell midden, dozens of hand stencils and charcoal
and ochre art.
Drawings are typically effected in white,
yellow, orange or red ochre, or charcoal,
usually depicting local animals or human or
human-like figures. There is a consistency
of style in most cases, with animals that lay
close to the ground, like goannas and
echidnas, almost always drawn as if
viewed directly from above, animals that
have some height, like kangaroos, drawn
as viewed from the side, fish are usually
drawn from the side, although eels in the
Basin area are drawn in a vertical
orientation as if viewed from above.
Human-like figures are usually always
drawn in full frontal view.
Sometimes small differences in the way the
outline has been drawn in different
localities can be seen. Overall stylistic
differences revolve mainly around whether
the outline of the drawing is infilled or not,
the manner in which it is infilled (fully
infilled, or infilled with basically parallel
lines, or intersecting lines) and the
combinations of colours used. Occasionally
a drawing is outlined in two or three colours
(bi-chrome or tri-chrome) and may have
been applied in a dry state, as if drawing
with a piece of chalk, or wet, as if painting.
This kangaroo, also located in Lilyvale, appears to originally have
been fully infilled in red ochre. As seen in virtually all depictions
of kangaroos, it is drawn from the side.
Two kangaroos located in a small shelter above the Waterfall
Flat picnic area near Waterfall. Although they are side by side,
they are stylistically quite different, one in charcoal and the other
yellow or orange ochre.They are both infilled by drawing a series
of lines.
This section of a gallery of fish and kangaroos is drawn in
charcoal in a shelter in the Heathcote National Park. Most are
fully infilled with charcoal. The fish are drawn vertically all with
their tails “up”.
16
The shelter art of the Sutherland and
Illawarra area, has the potential to reveal
the story of the occupation of our region
over many thousands of years, but only if
serious scientific study is undertaken.
Is a particular piece of art 200 years old? or is it 2000 years old - or is it something
that has been drawn in recent times by
someone trying to mimic prehistoric art?
This goanna located near Heathcote, is one of the clearest to be
seen in our area. It is boldly drawn in charcoal, but is also
outlined in yellow ochre, making it “bi-chrome”. Typically for
drawings of goannas, it is oriented vertically as if seen from
above. A charcoal line is drawn following the natural coloration of
the rock, passing beneath the goanna’s right foot, tempting one
to interpret that the goanna is depicted as crossing a boundary of
some kind.
Without the capability to scientifically date
the shelter art, by carbon dating or by any
other scientific methods available, including
statistical analysis, we can never know the
truth.
Was the most recent set of drawings done
150 years ago or 550 years ago?
Were there different eras of occupation?
If there were eras, were there centuries or
millennia between eras, or did one group
replace another by stealth?
If a timeline can be established for
occupation in our region, does it reflect the
rises in sea level in the last 12 000 years?
These are significant
deserve to be answered.
questions
that
This ethereal depiction of a human-like figure is located near
Gundamaian overlooking Port Hacking. It is drawn in full-frontal
view, and is holding something in its right hand.
1. See “Sydney’s Aboriginal Past”, by Val Attenbrow, (UNSW
Press 2010 second edition), see pages 18 and 19 for a table of
radiometric dating figures for the Sydney area, including many in
the Sutherland Shire. An excavated site at “Doughboy Head”
near Potter Point in the Kamay (Botany Bay) National Park
produced a dating of 12190 years before present.\
2. See “Dreamtime Superhighway”, by Josephine McDonald
(ANU Press 2008), chapters 6 and 10 which detail the statistical
methods used to reveal the archaeology of a study area.
This photo takes us back to the image of the five fish near
Bundeena, at the start of this article. Most of the shelter art in the
Sutherland area is very faint, and many of the images used here
have been enhanced to reveal the line and form (and hopefully
the original colour) of the art.
The view that greets the naked eye at the shelter site, is usually
more like that shown above, and even the above view benefits
from a flash being used.
3. See “Cleared Out”, 2008 by Sue Davenport, Peter Johnson
and Yuwali, (Aboriginal Studies Press), the story of a group of
aboriginal people from the Northern Territory who first
encountered mainstream Australian society in 1964. On page 86
a photograph shows a drawing in the salt crust, and explains
exactly what the symbols mean. Also featured in the DVD
“Contact” examining the same story.
All photographs taken by the author.
17
WAS COOK A
CAPTAIN?
By Caroline Davy
With Doryanthes based in the Sutherland Shire,
it might be appropriate to explore an issue
which crops up frequently concerning one of
the main protagonists in the visit of Endeavour
to Botany Bay in 1770. Captain Cook
himself.
Often, people referring to him as “Captain
Cook” find themselves ‘corrected’ by people
who insist that he should not be called a
Captain, saying something like “He was only a
Lieutenant . . . he wasn’t a Captain!”
Sometimes, they might follow up by saying
something to the effect that he was only made a
“proper” captain some years after his
Endeavour voyage. The same people might
point out that when describing events of the
Endeavour voyage, we don’t refer to Joseph
Banks as “Sir Joseph Banks” because at that
time he had not been knighted. Writers often
qualify their first reference to him with “(later
Sir Joseph Banks)” to acknowledge the later
honour. They argue that some parallel system
should be adopted for James Cook.
I have even heard some people decrying the
naming of the Captain Cook Bridge at Taren
Point!
Basically, the question is whether or not a man
with the position of 1st Lieutenant should be
accorded the title of Captain.
To answer the question, (it is helpful to keep
away from assumptions that things in 1768
were the same as they are now) we can consult
the naval regulations of the day and naval
custom; look at the way in which other
organisations (the Royal Society for example)
regarded Cook; how he was accepted by others
on board Endeavour: the Supernumerary
Scientific party, fellow Officers and the People
(the crew). All these things are documented in
many publications, and the primary sources are
also available for us to peruse.
The Oxford Companion to Ships and the Sea
can contribute usefully at this point with a
definition of the term “Captain”
James Cook by John Webber
National Portrait Gallery, Canberra
“CAPTAIN: in all navies the
commissioned rank next below that
of rear admiral; also by custom the
title of any commanding officer of
any naval ship irrespective of his
commissioned rank. . .”i
So we see that the navy may appoint any
commissioned officer to take command of one of its
ships, and that officer is customarily known as the
captain of that ship.
The route for promotion in Cook’s day was
clear:
“On promotion, lieutenants were
given the rank of captain and
appointed to the command of a small
ship. The equivalent rank today
would be that of commander”ii
The preparation for the Endeavour voyage was
not a straightforward matter: there were some
unusual aspects of it. It was firstly a voyage
both of exploration and science – one of the
first large undertakings of this kind mounted by
the British -- and it was funded jointly by the
18
Admiralty, the Royal Society and the King
himself had input to planning and funding.
Early in the negotiations, the Royal Society was
strongly of the opinion, that although a naval
ship was required to take scientists to observe
the Transit of Venus, the voyage should be
commanded by a scientist. The hydrographer,
Alexander Dalrymple, was adamant that he was
the only person able to perform this task. The
Admiralty, on the other hand was unwilling to
send one of its ships, and a company of its
personnel into unknown parts of the world
unless under the command of a suitable naval
officer.
Time constraints meant that the practical matter
of the type of ship to be selected and fitted out
for the voyage had to proceed before the
question of a commander was finally settled. In
March of 1768 four ships, including two
Whitby colliers were inspectediii -- the Earl of
Pembroke was preferred and work began on her
even though there had been no appointment as
captain.
The matter of a commander became critical as
the time for departure was dictated by the
known date of the transit of Venus, which
would not come again for another 105 years.
James Cook, a ship’s Master, on four ships over
about ten yearsiv had distinguished himself in
action at the Battle of Quebec and as Surveyor
of Newfoundland. His command of astronomy
and cartography were outstandingly superior,
and because of this, he came to the notice of the
Admiralty. He had also come to the attention
of the Royal Society, because two years earlier
it had published his observations of a solar
eclipse in the prestigious Philosophical
Transactions.v A perfect man for the
command of the newly-fitted Endeavour, and
for the conduct of the important voyage.
A Ship’s Master was not a commissioned
officer, but a warrant officer -- although as
Master he was at the top of normally possible
promotion in that career pathvi. But only
commissioned officers could be placed in
command of one of His Majesty’s ships, and
the Navy could not break its own rules. In
April, in an almost unprecedented move Cook
was promoted from Master to 1st Lieutenant, so
that as a 1st Lieutenant he could be made
Captain of the Endeavour. Not only that, he
was also appointed as the principal investigator
for the Transit of Venus for the Royal Society,
with another former naval officer (Charles
Green) assisting.
This satisfied all parties: the Admiralty was
prepared to place its ship under the command of
James Cook, the Royal Society would have safe
transport and competent leadership for its
contingent of scientists, and the Transit of
Venus would be observed by two of the most
suitable people for this task who could be
found. (In fact, the Cook/Green observations of
the Transit are still recognised as the most
accurate even taken by optical instruments,
even if they did have to use smoked glass to
protect their eyes.) Part of the decision, of
course recognised that in James Cook, the
Admiralty had an ideal person to conduct other
business of exploration on the return journey.
In May of 1768, Captain Samuel Wallis in the
Dolphin, returned from a voyage of exploration
to report the discovery of Islands in the Great
South Sea,vii the principal of them he named
King George’s Island (Tahiti). The Admiralty
and the Royal Society agreed and the decision
was made that the observations of the Transit of
Venus would be made from Tahiti.
Endeavour was going to the Great South Sea!
The young, wealthy, ambitious and adventurous
scientist, Joseph Banks was a latecomer to the
expedition, perhaps attracted by the prospect of
visiting these unknown parts, he organised
endorsement from the Royal Society, and
guaranteed payment for his whole party of
scientists and servants. In correspondence of 9th
June 1768, the Royal Society made the
following request to the Admiralty:
“Joseph Banks Esqr, Fellow of the
Royal Society, a Gentleman of large
fortune, who is well versed in
natural history, being Desirous of
undertaking the same voyage the
Council very earnestly request their
Lordships, that in regard to Mr.
Banks’s great personal merit, and
for the Advancement of useful
knowledge, He also, together with
his Suite, being seven persons more,
be received on board of the ship,
19
under the command of Captain
Cook.” viii
In this context, the final phrase “under the
command of Captain Cook” indicates the
formal and correct manner of address adopted
by the Royal Society for the commander of the
expedition.
The latest edition of the Navy’s bible was
issued in 1766:
“REGULATIONS AND INSTRUCTIONS
Relating to HIS MAJESTY’S
SERVICE AT SEA.
Eftablifhed by HIS MAJESTY in Council.
The Tenth Edition
London Printed in the Year MDCCLXVI.”
Part II The Captain or Commander.
Throughout the whole document the terms
“Captain” and “Commander” are
interchangeable.
ARTICLE LXV of Part II of the King’s
Regulations summarises the responsibilities of
the Captain, and it may be seen that Cook was
the only person on board Endeavour so
charged:
“Laftly, wheras the Charge and
Command of the Ship, and of the
Officers and Men ferving therein, and
entirely entrufted to the Captain, and the
Welfare and good Management of the
whole does in efpecial Manner depend
upon his Oeconomy and Prudence, he is
to underftand . . . that neverthelefs he is
himfelf refponfible for the whole
Conduct and good Government of the
Ship, and for the due Execution of all
Regulations here fet down, which
concern the feveral Duties of the
Officers and Company of the Ship, who
are to obey him in all Things, he fhall
direct them for His Majefty’s Service.”
ix
In other words, if Cook was not the captain of
that ship – who was?
From the commencement of appointing men to
the ship, as the Admiralty required, Richard
Orton, Captain’s Clerk on the Endeavour duly
wrote up the Muster Book.
Entry #1 was for James Cook, 1st Lieutenant,
Commander and Purser;
#40 Zachary Hicks, 2nd Lieutenant, duties of 1st
Lieutenant;
#90 John Gore, 3rd Lieutenant, duties of 2nd
Lieutenant. x
It is instructive to see how those making up the
ship’s company regarded their commander.
Presumably, if they refer to him as “the
Captain”, he was undisputed Captain. Typical
extracts from some journals show this.
Lieutenant Zachary Hicks, 1st Lieut (2nd
Lieut):xi
Tuesday, 29 May 1770: “. . . At 8a.m., came to
with ye best bower in 5 fathoms; the captain
and master examining ye coast.”
Stephen Forwood, Gunnerxii
Friday 20 July, 1770: “. . . A.M., the captain
and master went out to the bar to sound and
place the buoys.”
Richard Pickersgill, Master’s Matexiii
28 April, 1770: “. . . At 2 p.m., being within 2
miles of the shore, tacked and hoisted out the
yawl: the captain, Mr. Banks, &c, went
towards the shore; . . . “
John Bootie, Midshipmanxiv
Saturday 11 August, 1770: “. . . At 5 p.m. the
captain, &c, went ashore in the pinnace; saw a
smoke ashore. At 6 p.m. the captain was upon
the highest hill looking out to the north . . . “
Because the digitised text of The Endeavour
Journal of Sir Joseph Banks 1768-1771xv is
available, it is possible to search the text by
computer. A quick count of likely spellings
and abbreviations (bearing in mind that Banks
has been known to spell the same word
differently on the same page) yielded at least
126 mentions of “the Captain”, “Captn
Cooke”, and “Captn”. Examples show that
there is no doubt the reference is to Captain
Cook.
1769 11 January:
“ The Captain now resolved to put
in here if he can find a conv[en]ient
20
harbour to give us an opportunity of
searching countrey so entirely new.”
1769 April 14:
“Matts were spread and we were
desired to set down fronting an old
man who we had not before seen, he
immediately ordered a cock and hen
to be brought which were presented
to Captn Cooke and me, we
accepted the present.”
1771 May 10:
“Our Captn however did not
chuse to anchor . . .
It is perhaps indicative of the growing regard
Banks had for Cook that at the beginning of the
voyage off the coast of South America, Banks
wrote “The Captain” this did not appear
formally spelt out in the text after the first
months; by Tahiti it was “Captn Cooke” and by
the time they were well on the way home, it
was “Our Captn.”
While officers were required by the Admiralty
to keep journals, the rest of the ship’s company
were forbidden to do so. Almost nothing of any
writings of The People exist today. However, a
little gem of doggerel written on board
Resolution during the second voyage survives.
At the time of writing this Cook had yet to be
commissioned Post Captain.
Tom Perry, Able Seaman
“We are hearty and well and of good
constitution,
And have ranged the Globe round in the
brave Resolution.
Brave Capt Cook he was our Commander,
Has conducted the Ship from all eminent
danger.”xvi
Downs of the Endeavour, Captain
Cooke, from the East Indies.”xvii
Much is made of Cook’s eventual promotion to
the position of post captain by the
a-lieutenant-is-not-a-captain camp. The
position of post-captain is now obsolete and is
explained by Admiral William Henry Smith in
1867.
“POST-CAPTAIN. Formerly a
captain of three years’ standing.”xviii
The Oxford Companion to Ships and the Sea
further notes that:
“on promotion, Lieutenants were
given the rank of captain and
appointed to the command of a small
ship. . . After sufficient experience
in command of such a ship they were
‘posted’ i.e. given the command of a
rated ship and took the rank of postcaptain.”xix
The Endeavour voyage gave Cook some
months short of time in command than the
required three years, and as we saw earlier the
Navy cannot break its own rules, so he had to
wait until he returned from his second voyage
to receive his next promotion. For a man who
had contributed so much to the service of the
Crown and country, this delay might just have
been worth the wait, because on 9th August,
1775, Cook was handed the commission of
Post-Captain by the King himself.
The point we need to note here, is that he could
only have been made a post-captain AFTER at
least three years service as a captain. That
service began with his command of Endeavour.
It is not that he was made a “proper” captain, he
was recognised as a senior captain.
And finally, the Press:
London Evening Post, July 13, 1771
“On Saturday last an express
arrived at the Admiralty with the
agreeable news of the arrival in the
Die-hards in the Cook-was-not-a-Captain
brigade might bring up one more argument:
“Cook was not a Captain, because he was not
the Master of the ship. Someone else did that
job.” (Maybe some confusion caused by a
certain Russell Crowe depiction of a Patrick
21
O’Brian character!) It is true that Robert
Molyneaux was Endeavour’s Master, but the
positions of Master and Captain were very
different.
From the King’s Regulations of 1766:
“When a Mafter is warranted to
ferve in any of His Majefty’s
Ships, he is to repair on board,
and obferve the Orders of his
Captain or Commanding Officer,
for the Difpatch of what is to be
done . . . [here follow another nine
articles detailing the duties of the
Master].xx
This demonstrates that the Master was a
separate warrant officer, clearly required to
work under the Captain’s orders. Here is
another naval position no longer relevant after
the passing of the wooden sailing ships:
Masters were
“originally an officer in a warship
responsible for the navigation of the
ship . . . in addition to navigational
problems, included working the ship
into proper station in the line of battle.
He ranked with lieutenants, but was
subordinate to them in command. . . .
After 1814 masters in the navy ranked
with commanders and the rank was
known as master and commander, but
this term lapsed towards the end of the
19th century when the study of
navigation became a specialisation
within the executive hierarchy.”xxi
So we may see the James Cook was promoted
from Master to 1st Lieutenant so that he could
be appointed Captain. As a captain in the first
stage of his captaincy (i.e. before promotion to
post-captain) his rank, like all those in the same
position, was 1st lieutenant and his title showed
that he was appointed and paid as captain.
which he dealt; he was readily obeyed as
Captain by all in his ships’ companies; he was
trusted and accepted by the non-naval men who
benefitted from his leadership, and he is known
as Captain by academics, historians, writers,
museums and everyone interested in this part of
history. In every sense and practice of the
word, James Cook was a Captain. We do not
have to re-name the Captain Cook Bridge
i
Kemp (Ed), 1988 p138
Kemp (Ed), 1988 p664
iii Beaglehnole p cxxiv
iv Robson, 2004, p12-13
v Robson, 2004 P31
vi O’Brian, 1987, p63
vii Robson, 2004 p236
viii O”Brian, 1987, p64
ix Kings Regulations, Part II: The Captain or
Commander Article LXV
x Hough, 1994, p63-4
xi Lieutenant Hicks’s Journal: State Library NSW
p182
xii Gunner Forwood’s Journal: State Lib NSW p206
xiii Master’s Mate Pickersgill’s Journal: SLNSW
p214
xiv Midshipman John Bootie’s Journal: SLNSW
p265
xv Banks SLNSW and SYdUni: by search engine
xvi Hough, 1994, p308
xvii Press Extracts: SLNSW p485
xviii Smyth, 1867, alphabetical search
xix Kemp (Ed) 1988 p664
xx King’s Regulations Part III: The Master Article I
p95
xxi Kemp (Ed) 1988 p 534
ii
Captain Cook’s Last moments as he
faces the angry Polynesians.
His captaincy on his first and second voyages
was approved by the Naval Board of the day; it
was recognised by relevant organisations with
22
The ‘Jindyworobaks’
Glenn Wells
Reginald Charles (Rex) Ingamells (19131955), an Adelaide poet, was the father of
The Jindyworobaks literary movement in
1938. Ingamells selected the Aboriginal
name ‘Jindyworobak’ meaning “to annexe,
to join”, from a term used in the glossary of
James Devaney’s The Vanished Tribes. He
was influenced by P. R. Stephensen's The
Foundations of Culture in Australia (1936),
D. H. Lawrence's Kangaroo (1923) and his
reading on Aboriginal culture. His intention
was to revive a particular kind of Australian
nationalism by developing distinctive
Australian poetry in ‘Australian’ terms
incorporating Aboriginal culture and their
relationship to their environment as
inspiration. To fully appreciate the
movement, an exploration of Ingamells’
philosophy is necessary.
The early settlers would have seen a
landscape absent of anything ‘English’. By
ignoring the existing indigenous culture,
colonists went about constructing their own
culture in this ‘empty land’. Ingamells
suggests that the settlers would have
reacted favourably to the exotic and novel,
but the hardships, endless monotony and
the inhospitality of the Australian bush sent
some back ‘home’. However, he does say
that descendants of those pioneers who
stayed on the land, came to love the life of
the bush. But somehow, as a great influx
arrived from overseas, the growth of
industry, speedier communication and the
fact that most lived in cities, Australians
had undergone a profound change with
“distinctive physical and temperamental
characteristics.” (2)
Ingamells espouses that the populace
should shed European preconceptions and
live
“In accord with the laws of natural
environment…
This means that if Australians are
really to appreciate natural beauty at
first hand, they must seek to do so by
turning to indigenous nature.” (3)
He states that because our ancestors were
Englishmen that their idea, particularly in
literary works, was to describe Australia in
an English way. He wanted a break from
the spirit of English culture and a
development of an Australian culture. He
accuses poets, in particular, for their
descriptions of the bush in English
terminology, using exoticisms and
imitation: “Jewels? Not amid the stark,
contorted, shaggy informality of the
Australian bushland.” (5)
This is also akin to fitting fairies into the
mood of the bush, when Gumnut Babies
are more appropriate. He is astounded in
one of A A Bayldon’s poems ‘The Swamp’
exclaiming: “…’elfin’ and ‘goblin’…it may
be suitable to Europe, (it) is not suitable for
an Australian outback scene Integrity!
Integrity!” (7) Ingamells states that:
“Even in Lawson and Paterson we find
certain English tricks of thought and
23
expression, incongruous in poetry of the
Australian countryside.” However he adds:
“Australians should be prouder of these
two writers than they apparently are.”
Ingamells does accuse each of being
“jingoistic melodramatic and
sentimental…but, in their own way, they
are faithful to the spirit of the place. Such
poems as ‘Outback’ and ‘Clancy of the
Overflow’ have a significance…What is
wrong with our Australian literature? The
answer is: Our writers have not looked at
Australia with any honest perception of its
values.” (12) He suggested that Aboriginal
culture should be studied as it was totally
removed for influences of European life.
He fervently says of Australian that: “we
are influenced by her environment more
powerfully than we know.” (19)
Other poets who were associated with The
Jindyworobaks included; Ian Mudie, Max
Harris and Roland Robinson. Some in the
movement disagreed with Ingamell’s
philosophy although they accepted the
emphasis of Aboriginality in the poetry.
Rex Ingamells’ poems including: ‘Beside
the Range’, ‘The Wandering Tribes’, ‘The
Secret of Fire’, ‘Imagery’, and ‘Kuark’s
Mockery’ all show a highly developed
sense of environment and Aboriginal
culture. Observation of another poem of
Ingamells’ ‘The Old Innerah’, is a fine
example of the vivid language of the
Aboriginal dialect:
Flat upon her mooloona,
Innerah eats the kombora.
By dunawalla, ankle-deep,
she catches Brooweena asleep.
Crouched on dirrawan, she makes,
with dayoorl, flour for her nardoo
cakes.
She sees Korinya scuttle by,
brown Kerriki poised in the sky,
and loves to mark Koala play
and But-the-ward tease night away.
Yet best of all is weeroona,
with Wijiwijipi in sight,
where Buln-Buln struts about
bimbimbie,
fine as late allinga light.
Another Jindyworobak poet was Ian Mudie
who was born at Hawthorn, South
Australia, and worked as an editor and
lecturer in creative writing. He made
frequent public lectures on Australian
literature and regularly conducted the
Writers' School at the Adelaide Festival.
There are some similarities to Lawson’s
work depicted in some of Mudie’s poems:
‘To This Land Dedicated’ and ‘The Rolling
of the Drums’ are reminiscent of Lawson’s
‘Freedom on the Wallaby’ in calling for an
Australian identity free from overseas
influences. In ‘To This Land Dedicated’,
Mudie begins;
This is my continent, this is my land
(and further on into the poem;)
This land shall then know patriots
worthy
of its vast soil; no more shall petty
slaves
- each in his puny separate mind intent
on his immediate ends – forever dance
colonial puppets jigs to distant tunes;
no more shall this our people be
divided,
half-blind and wholly, blind to their
destiny
Then shall each one stand, Australian,
mighty
in unity beneath Australian skies,
Also, in ‘The Rolling of the Drums’ he
begins: “Stand fierce to your coasts,
Australians” – and ending with - “Now
comes your hour of nationhood, with the
rolling of the drums.” (1941)
I looked at a number of poems by Mudie
including: ‘This is Australia’, ‘Cause for
Song’, ‘If This be Treason’ and ‘Nation of
the Blind’. The recurrent theme of ‘national
identity’ was evident throughout these.
However, the two poems to be explored
are ‘Sitting Room, Strrzelecki Homestead’
and ‘They’ll Tell You About Me’.
24
After all, they were the ones that
created me,
even though I’m bigger than any of
them now
--in fact, I’m all of them rolled into one.
For anyone to kill me he’d have to kill
every single Australian,
every single one of them,
every single one.
Reginald Charles (Rex) Ingamells (19131955),
The entire poem fails to mention women or
indigenous people in their own right.
Mudie speaks only from a white man’s
point of view. This poem is an interesting
example because of its silences and the
fact that these silences went unnoticed
only fifty years ago.
The former poem, Sitting Room, is
descriptive of place, but generally it is a
nostalgic view of the past. However,
‘They’ll Tell You About Me’ is the poem
worthy of in-depth comment.
The Jindyworobaks were the subject of
ridicule. In 1941 the poet and critic A. D.
Hope, derided them as “the Boy Scout
School of Poetry” and particularly criticised
Rex Ingamells and Ian Mudie.
This poem supposedly represents the
Australian spirit. As with most of Mudie’s
poems that were mentioned above, one did
not observe the existence of Aboriginal
culture or worthy mention of the role of
women in the formation of the nation:
An overtly sexist view is demonstrated in
Ian Mudie’s 1952 poem, ‘They’ll Tell You
About Me’. Women are only mentioned in
two lines: “Not sure if he married Ned
Kelly’s sister”…and….”shot through with
the padre’s daughter”. These lines are
hardly a compassionate view of the
woman’s role. Then finally the last stanza:
However, one thing the movement did
achieve was to make poetry a subject of
debate and they were also seen as
creating an awareness of national
character and a concern for the welfare of
the nation. Conversely, the movement was
unsuccessful in its attempts to constrain
Australia’s literary evolution into
nationalistic ideas, this move was
considered to be parochial and isolationist.
The debate ended when, after WWII a new
sophistication aligned Australian society
with international ideas.
Me, yesterday I was rumour,
today I am legend,
tomorrow, history.
If you’d like to know more of me
inquire at the pub at Tennant Creek
or at any drover’s camp
or shearing-shed,
or shout any bloke in any bar a drink,
or yarn to any bloke asleep on any
beach;
they’ll tell you about me,
they’ll tell you more than I know
myself.
By the mid -1950s the movement had lost
a great deal of its force.
However Ivor Indyk, in ‘The Pastoral Poets’
in The Penguin New Literary History of
Australia in 1988 observes: “…traces of
that Aboriginal melancholy, which
appeared in Mary Gilmore’s and Judith
Wright’s poetry, in Patrick White’s Voss
and Randolph Stowe’s To the Islands. The
lingering legacy of the Jindyworobak
philosophy has enriched the Australian
artistic vision.” (358)
25
François
Report
Péron’s
Secret
François Péron’s Secret Report to
Captain General Decaen of the Isle de
France (Mauritius) on the British
colonies of New Holland, Archives du
général
Decaen,
Bibliothèque
municipale, Caen, volume 92, folio 2, 14
pages recto-verso.
Part II
translated from the original French by
Maryse Duyker
Port Nord-Ouest, 20 frimaire Year 12 [12
December 1803]
Let’s come back now to what we have just
said about the British establishments in this
part of the world. As proprietors of the
coast of New Holland, we are witnessing
their fast penetration into the interior of the
country.
Clearings are taking place
everywhere; the towns are multiplying.
There is everywhere the expectation of an
abundant future, of great agricultural
success. The South is threatened by an
approaching encroachment, and this might
have taken place already. Every port in the
south west will be occupied as well, and
sooner than generally expected.
Van
Diemen’s Land [and] all the neighbouring
islands, are to be occupied, if they have not
been already.
New Zealand, with its
excellent harbours will provide them with
an extraordinarily lucrative and abundant
fishing industry. Without comparison, this
vast region represents unequalled activity,
limitless prudent planning,
intolerable
ambition, and profound and vigilant
politics.
Now! let us advance far into these vast
seas, unknown for so long. We behold the
same picture, and the same results. Just
contemplate the immense southern seas.
Travel along all the archipelagoes, which
like many stepping-stones are scattered
between New-Holland and the east coast
of America. England expects to advance
to Peru. Norfolk Island has been occupied
François Péron
for a long time. The cedars on the island,
together with its high fertility, render the
island an important possession. There are
already 15 to 1,800 colonists there. As yet
there are no establishments on the other
islands, but investigations are taking place.
Landings occur on all the islands; active
trade with the natives is carried out. The
Sandwich Islands, the Friendly Islands,
Society Islands, the Navigators, the
[islands of the] Marquis of Mendaña
provide excellent salting. At Port Jackson,
vessels engaged in this traffic are
constantly arriving, proving the importance
and extension of that trade, proving its
profitability.
The government’s concern is to discover
on some of these archipelagoes some
important military post, a kind of military
stronghold closer to Peru and Chili.
The British government seems to focus on
these two countries in particular. It is
especially aware of Spain’s weakness in
that region. It is also aware that the
Chileans, still un-subdued, are fighting a
very unconventional war, appearing without
26
warning in large numbers of men on
horseback in the most vulnerable parts,
plundering and ravaging everything before
any Spanish retaliation is possible to
repress them. They retreat rapidly to wild
regions unknown to the Spanish, and they
are back very soon to commit more attacks
(see Lapérouse’s text). The British who
are never ignorant of whatever goes on in
these important regions, are also aware
that it is only the lack of weapons and
munitions preventing these indomitable
Chileans from pushing their attacks against
the Spanish any further. Supplying them is
the British government‘s aim. An active
clandestine trade should allow it to fulfill its
perfidious plan, providing at the same time
an outlet for its manufactured goods.
Another way of tormenting the Spanish in
Peru, is to send a horde of corsairs in
these regions. During the last war, rich
prizes were captured by simple whaling
vessels; just imagine the kind of attack that
can be delivered by the British government
itself.
The general direction of the winds in this
part of the world increases their
expectations and enhances their prospects
on these Spanish-American populations. A
fortunate experience has just informed the
British that the usual winds blowing in
these regions, the ones blowing more
fiercely and with constancy are the
Westerlies. Would you believe CitizenGeneral, that it is the reason why they do
not return to Europe via Bass Strait,
rounding Cape of Good-Hope, but sail
east, taking advantage of the favourable
wind and crossing the vast Southern
Ocean, with great speed rounding Cape
Horn, and only returning to England after a
voyage around the world? Therefore these
voyages, so dreadful not so long ago,
undertaken by illustrious navigators, have
[now] become familiar to the British sailors.
Even their fishing vessels take part in these
circumnavigations with the same security
as a voyage from Europe to the West
Indies.
This occurrence is not as
inopportune as it first appears. The fact of
having sailed around the world elates the
British sailor. What navigation would in
future be ordinary after voyages so grand
and so terrible? Whatever the case, and it
is the more unfortunate for the Spanish, it
is beyond doubt that the constancy of the
Westerlies will help with extraordinary
facility these plans of invasion and attack
on the part of the British, and everything
seems to confirm that these are the
general
plan
of
New-Holland’s
establishment,
which
seems
to
demonstrate greater interest day by day.
Great sacrifices are being made. A great
deal of effort is taking place to increase the
population.
Hardly a month goes by,
without the arrival of a vessel freighted by
the government, laden with victuals,
furniture, etc., but above all with men and
women, some deported and meant to work
as slaves, the others as voluntary
cultivators. You will somehow be surprised
to learn about honest men being
transported to the extremities of the world,
in a country still uncivilized, primitive and
actually inhabited by brigands rejected by
society.
But your astonishment will
increase when you understand the
conditions faced by individuals who have
agreed to exile themselves on these
shores, and what advantages they gain
from such hard sacrifices.
First of all, previous to their departure from
Europe, a sum is allotted to each
individual. It is sufficient for the needs of
the long voyage to be undertaken. Once
on board the vessel on which he is being
transported, a price is agreed for his own
food, his family’s, and his children’s, if
there are any.
Disembarked at Port
Jackson, some concessions are granted to
him. They are in proportion to the number
of individuals in his family, to the number of
convicts (this is the name given to the
deported) in proportion to the extent of the
concessions granted to him. A house is
built for him. He is supplied with all the
furniture, household utensils, all the clothes
he needs. He is given all the necessary
seeds to sow, all the tools he needs to
cultivate. One or several pairs of domestic
animals and several kinds of fowls are
27
supplied to him. Finally he, his family and
his [convict] slaves are fed for a period of
18 months, during which time he is
supplied with a full ration, then half a ration
for another 12 months. At the end of that
period the produce of his land is deemed
reasonable to feed him, and he is
abandoned by the government.
For the next five years he is exempt from
all contributions, accumulating the produce
of his land which are more fertile as they
are primeval. After that time a small tax is
imposed by the government, which will
increase progressively and imperceptibly.
But you will note here, Citizen-General, this
profound
wisdom
of
the
British
government, this enlightened policy which
governs every enterprise . . . If the new
cultivator has proven himself intelligent,
and above all industrious; if the clearings
have been undertaken, the flocks managed
prudently; if the yield of his land has
increased rapidly; instead of finding himself
indebted to the government, the reverse
will be true. As a reward new concessions
will be allotted, new [convict] slaves
provided, his franchise increased, every
new kind of assistance lavished on him . . .
such wonderful sacrifices! It is to such a
wonderful
administration
that
these
beautiful farms, multiplying daily amidst
these previously uncultivated and wild
forests, owe their existence. More than
anything else, industriousness, intelligence
and constancy lead to wealth; and some
farmers have already become very rich
property owners. The most noble desire to
excel is well established everywhere.
Many kinds of experiments are tried, and
multiplied; the government is always there
to support them and reward them when
they are successful.
The main proof of the particular interest
taken by the British government towards
this colony, is the enormous expenditure
involved to procure the comfort of the new
colonists. Nearly everything is provided by
the government. Large stores are filled
with every type of cloth, every kind of
fabric, from the most common to the best.
The most modest furniture and household
goods side with the most elegant. All the
inhabitants shop there at prices lower than
in England for all the necessities of life, as
well as its comfort and gratification.
Anxious to meet regular and inevitable
requirements, it is agriculture which is the
main source of every nation’s riches, and
the British government tries to determine
the tastes of the inhabitants of the new
colony. Diverse breeds of cattle have been
transported.
They all withstand it
extremely well. On the contrary instead of
losing, the very best breeds improve in
their proportions. But the improvement in
the lambs is remarkable. No country has
ever been so suitable than the portion of
New Holland occupied at present by the
British. Is it on account of the climate, or
rather I believe, the particular quality of
plants which are for the most part aromatic.
Flocks
of
lambs
have
multiplied
everywhere and are splendid. It is true that
only the best breeds have been
transported by the government. The very
best sheep from England and Ireland have
been naturalized first, then the breeds from
Bengal, the Cape of Good Hope.
Furthermore the good fortune that seems
to conspire to advantage the activities of
our rivals has provided them with several
pairs of sheep from Spain, which the
government was dispatching at great cost
to the viceroy of Peru on a vessel which
was captured on the coast of that country
by an English vessel leaving Port Jackson,
where they were delivered to the
gratification of the governor, who neglected
nothing to gain the greatest advantage
from such a precious present for his
colony.
The results have not been
disappointing. This breed, like the others,
has thrived, and it is likely that in a few
years the Port Jackson establishment will
be able to provide precious materials to
supply the British factories. The most
astonishing thing is that the Indian breed of
sheep whose fleece is just a short and
rough pile, changes in 3 or 4 generations to
a thick pile which is hardly different to the
ones provided by the English and Spanish
28
breeds.
At the governor’s I have been
able to see the various kinds of wool
whose destination is Lord Sydney, and I
can assure you that it would be difficult to
find better samples anywhere.
In an
excursion with Mr Patterson, Mr Marsden
and Mr Cox I have seen the flocks that
provide them, and one cannot but admire
in particular this invaluable influence of
man’s industry when it is sustained by wise
and just administrators.
Another product which seems to offer great
advantages to the British, is flax. It is as
beautiful as it is abundant; and a number of
people whose witness is not suspicious
have assure me that New-Holland could
supply everything that the British navy
needs, liberating England from the
considerable contribution paid to Northern
Europe at present.
The temperature and climate seem to be
favourable to the culture of vines. With a
similar latitude and temperature to the
Cape of Good-Hope’s, the government has
expectations regarding the introduction of
this plant on the New-Holland continent.
Therefore French vine-growers have been
sent from Europe at great cost for that
purpose. It is true that their first trials have
not been very successful, but this failure
was due exclusively to the obstinacy of the
English governor who forced them to make
their first plantings on the shore of a small
pleasant plateau which half encircles
Government House at Parramatta, but is
unfortunately exposed to the north-west
winds, scorching winds similar to the
mistral of Italy and Provence, to the
khamsin of Egypt, etc. The French vinegrowers whom I had the occasion to meet
at Parramatta with the lieutenant-governor
Mr Paterson, have assured me that they
had just discovered a very favourable hillside for new plantations, and they have
great hopes for success in their new
efforts.
Superior plants have been
transported from Madeira and the Cape.
It is obvious that there are great plans for
the future in all the British establishments
on these coasts. The whole mass of the
populace, which was originally composed
of miserable and bad people could have
spread out immoral and corrupt if the
government had not acted early on to
prevent fatal results. A house had been
established at the birth of the colony to
house young girls whose parents were too
poor or too short of cash in their early days
in the colony to give them proper care. In
their new situation, when some parents on
becoming free behaved in a manner which
could give rise to bad example and bad
discourse, they are removed at once. They
are received in the house I have
mentioned. Given regular education, they
are trained in all the skills proper to their
sex. They are taught to read and write, to
calculate, to sew, etc. Their instructors are
women chosen with great prudence; and
the wife of the governor-general herself is
in charge of this honourable establishment,
a supervision in which she is relieved and
assisted by the spouse of the commandant
general of the troops. Each one of them or
the two together visit, without fail, their
young family, as they call them. They
neglect nothing to make sure of
cleanliness, their instruction and the quality
of their food. I have accompanied these
two
respectable
ladies
in
this
establishment, and I have been touched
each time by their solicitous concern and
their caring attentions.
When they reach marrying age, these
young girls are not abandoned by the
government, and this is the political as well
as respectable manner adopted to provide
to their establishment. Among the free
individuals arriving at Port Jackson, some
are not yet married. There are also those
whose good conduct has earned their
freedom. If one of these boys intends to
take an honest spouse, he presents
himself to the wife of the governor who,
after making enquiries on his morality, on
his conduct, allows him to visit her young
flock. If someone has made his choice, he
informs the governor’s wife, who after
consulting the tastes and inclinations of the
young person, consents or withdraws her
29
from the applicant. In the event of the
partner being agreeable, the young girl is
endowed by the government with
interesting concessions, new slaves, etc.
These unions have become the breeding
place of many happy and good families.
These are undoubtedly admirable policies
which do not fail to amply indemnify the
British government after all the sacrifices
made to sustain them.
The country’s defence is not formidable,
still protected by the ignorance in Europe
concerning the state of this colony. The
British government’s main concern at the
moment is to convince everyone of the
importance of agriculture. It has, however,
not neglected to probe the actual condition
of the soil and the nature of the
establishment’s requirements.
Two
classes of men were to be feared and are
still feared to-day: 1 The bandits, most of
them condemned on a long slavery,
harshly treated, relinquished to the
harshest and exhausting work.
This
infamous class, vile reject of society,
always ready to commit more crime, needs
to be contained by violence and force . . .
The British government shows its
superiority in its police force, which is such
that amidst this infamous rabble, perfect
security reigns everywhere.
And what
might appear paradoxical to those who are
not familiar with the details of the
administration of this colony, is that less
crime is committed than in a European city
of the same size. I have never heard of
assassinations or murders, and I doubt if
they have ever happened since the
foundation of the colony. Whatever this
first circumstance, force is needed and the
government is prudently taking precautions
against these bandits. 2 The second class
of society, more terrible than the first, much
more respectable also, if not the worse off
and of most concern to us is that legion of
miserable Irish whose desire to free their
country from the yoke of England, took
arms with our support against the British
government. Oppressed by force, they
have been treated with ruthless harshness.
Nearly all those who took arms for our sake
have been deported unmercifully, mixed
with the thieves and assassins. The first
Irish families depend on their friends and
families on the coasts of New Holland.
Pursued with the most implacable hatred, a
hatred of nations and opinions, they are
treated cruelly, and the more so since they
are feared the most. It is obvious that left
to themselves they can do nothing, and
their stay in the country results in obvious
advantages. 1 A numerous and valuable
population is established on the coast. 2
Nearly everyone being condemned to a
state of slavery more or less lengthy, these
are as many working limbs employed at
considerable clearings. 3 The disgrace
shed on this establishment has ceased to
trouble and retained a lot of honest people
that its primitive composition might have
driven away. So many honest people
mingled with scoundrels seem to make
excuses for them. 4 Europe is getting rid
of daring implacable enemies.
It is
however obvious that these policies are
vicious. The Irish in chains are silent now,
but if ever our country’s government
alarmed by the rapid increase of this
colony planned to capture or destroy it in
the name of France, all the Irish arms
would rise. We have seen such a striking
example on our arrival at Port Jackson. At
the sight of a French flag, there was a
general alarm in the country. We were still
at war with England. Our second vessel
with which we had been separated was
forced to put into port at Port Jackson; on
realizing that it was a French vessel, the
Irish started to assemble.
From
everywhere they lifted their weighted
foreheads, and if their mistake had not
been so swiftly dissipated, a general
upheaval would have erupted amongst
them. One or two were put to death on this
occasion and several were deported to
Norfolk. No matter the circumstances, this
formidable part of the population will
always force the British to maintain a large
number of soldiers on this continent until
time has healed the wounds inflicted on the
poor Irish and softened their resentments .
..
To be continued
30
HERITAGE VESSELS OF THE ROYAL AUSTRALIAN NAVY
Garriock Duncan
The navy has had an intimate association
with Australian History. After all, it was a
vessel of the Royal Navy, HMB Endeavour
, which brought Captain Cook to these
shores and the First Fleet was
accompanied by two other naval vessels,
HMS’s Sirius and Supply. As Australians,
we should be conscious of this maritime
heritage: “Australia is, and always will be, a
maritime nation”.1 It is one aspect of this
maritime heritage I wish to look at Australia’s naval heritage. Much of
Australia’s naval heritage can be found in
and around Sydney - the mast of the first
HMAS Sydney at Bradley’s Head; (seen by
anyone, who catches a ferry to Manly);
appropriately, one of the guns of SMS
Emden overlooking Whitlam Square2; the
mast of HMAS Adelaide, sister ship of the
first HMAS Sydney, at the entrance to
Kuringai Chase National Park just past the
toll booth on Bobbin Head Rd; at the
ANMM, the engine of HMAS Karra Karra ,
a former Sydney car ferry, which survived
the bombing of Darwin and MV Krait used
by Z Force in the attack on Japanese
shipping in Singapore Harbour.3
1
D Stevens, ed., The Royal Australian Navy in World
War II, Allen & Unwin, 1996, p. v.
2
The A(ustralian)N(ational)M(aritime)M(useum), in its
Navy Gallery, has a good display on the clash between
Sydney and the Emden. Two highly detailed models of
the ships indicate why the outcome of the contest could
never have been in any doubt.
3
For many years the Krait was moored at the ferry
wharf in Gunamatta Bay before being acquired by the
ANMM. These days, the Krait is painted a nice shade of
black. For its previous appearance, see: R Darlington,
Understanding Australian History, Rigby Heinemann,
1993, p. 125. The story of the men who sailed in the
Krait is quite stirring. See: R Docker, “The Secret Strike
of the Krait “ in J McFarlane, ed., Australia Remembers,
NRMA Open Road, 1995, pp. 48-49; R McKie, The
Heroes, Hinkler Book Distributors, 1994; L Silver, Krait
- the Fishing Boat that went to War, Sally Milner
Publications, 1992. Thomas Kenneally wrote a popular
novel loosely based on the second Krait mission: The
Widow and her Hero, Vintage Books, 2007.
HMAS Sydney’s Mast WWI
I only have a small number of vessels to
talk about – eight. Four are in NSW 4and
one in each of Victoria, SA, WA and
Queensland., Three survive from the RAN
of World War II and five from the post war
RAN.
The number surviving from World War II is
quite small given that at the end of World
War II, the RAN had a strength of 337
vessels and had played a significant role in
Australia’s war.5 Most of Australia’s larger
vessels, the cruiser force, were sunk in
World War II, an indication of the exertions
of the RAN. However, one, HMAS Hobart
survived until 1962. Older readers can
probably still remember seeing it tied up in
Athol Blight near the Zoo wharf.6 In 1962,
4
Three are at the ANMM and one at the small county
town of Holbrook.
5
For useful summaries of Australia’s role, see: C
Coultham-Clark, White Ensign, Australia Post, 1993; A
Evans, Royal Australian Navy, Time Life Books, 1988;
A Fitzgerald, Victory, 1945: War and Peace, Gore and
Osment Publications, 1995, pp. 32-39; M Wilson,
Australia’s Navy in the Second World War, 50th
Anniversary Commemorative Profiles, n.5, Topmill
Publications, n.d.
6
On the Hobart , see: L Lind, HMAS Hobart , The Naval
Historical Society of Australia, 1979. For a last photo of
31
the Hobart was sold for scrap. Australia is
not the only country to have such a cavalier
attitude to historic ships. The Turkish
battle cruiser, Yavuz , survived until 1977.
This last ship is probably better known by
its former German name, SMS Goeben ,
one of the ships that persuaded Turkey to
join the Central Powers in World War1.7
1. Vessels from World War II.
As I have said, there are three vessels
surviving from World War II. Two Town
Class Corvettes (HMAS’s Castlemaine
and Whyalla) and one River Class Frigate
(HMAS Diamtina).
(i).The Town/Bathurst Class Corvette.
On the outbreak of war, the Royal Navy
found itself seriously short of escort
vessels for the convoy system which had
been rapidly re-established. A military
version of a North Seas trawler was quickly
developed These little ships were hardly
attractive and no doubt as a bit of a pun,
they were all named after flowers; hence,
the Flower Class Corvette. This was the
class of ship made famous by Nicholas
Monsarrat.8
The Royal Australian Navy found itself in a
similar position and responded with a
similar vessel. In Australian service, these
ships were all named after country towns
with HMAS Bathurst the first of the class.
So was born the “Town Class” or “Bathurst
Hobart , see: Cruisers, Australian Seapower Profile 4,
Topmill Publicatons, nd., pp. 54-55.
7
A Preston, Battleships, 1919 - 1971, Phoebus
Publications., 1977, p.63. Today, redundant RAN
vessels are scuttled to form artificial reefs, e.g. the
former HMAS Adelaide (www.hmasadelaide.com) sunk
off Avoca Beach, Wednesday, April 13 (“Dolphins delay
descent into the deep”, Daily Telegraph, Thursday, April
14, 2011, p, 9; “Oh, frigate! Ship fight endswith a bang”,
Sydney Morning Herald, Thursday, April 14, 2011, p. 4).
8
The Cruel Sea, Cassell, 1943; East Coast Corvette,
Cassell, 1943; HM Corvette, Cassell, 1942; Monsarrat at
Sea, Cassell, 1975. The last item contains two
short novellas, “Three Corvettes” (pp. 7-194), “It
was Cruel” (pp. 271-303).For a more recent account of
the Corvette experience: C H Bailey, The Battle of the
Atlantic, Royal Naval Museum & Alan Sutton, 1994.
Class” Corvette.9 The Bathurst Class
Corvette was used primarily for antisubmarine and anti-aircraft actions.10
They were 186 feet long, with a beam of
31 feet. Maximum loaded weight was
1025 tons. Armament would have varied
considerably but the following would be
indicative: 1 x 4 inch, 1 x 40 mm, 5-6 mg’s.
The maximum speed was about 16 knots
with a radius of 4000 miles.
4” Gun off SMS Emden
Two ships of this class survive. HMAS
Castlemaine was built at Williamstown in
1941-1942 and saw service in the northern
waters of Australia, the Pacific, the Indian
Ocean and the China Sea. Castlemaine
was paid off in December, 1945. After
modifications in 1958, she served in the
training role until 1971. In 1973,
Castlemaine was transferred to the
Maritime Trust of Australia. She has been
progressively restored and is now moored,
fittingly, at Williamston, Victoria. She is
9
On the Corvette in RAN service: Coultham-Clark, op.
cit. (n. 5), pp.26-31 (a colour plate on p. 31 lists the
names of all 56 corvettes); D Hummerstein, A Small
War, West Australian Newspapers, n.d; F B Walker,
Corvettes – Little Ships for Big Men, Kingfisher Press,
1995. On individual ship see: F Williams, HMAS
Armidale - the Ship that had to Die, Kingfisher
Publications, n.d; M Williams, HM Australian Ship,
Kapunda, Eureka Publications, n.d.
10
There was a largely unknown savage submarine war
off the NSW coastline during World War II, in which
the corvettes played a major role. See: R Wallace, The
Secret Battle, 1942-1944, Lamont Publishing, 1995
(contains illustrations of 20 of the corvettes). For some
additional references to this war, see: G Duncan,
“Australia – Submarines in World War II”, Sutherland
Shire Historical Society Bulletin, 6(4), November,
20003, p. 12.
32
HMAS Castlemaine
now part of the Victorian Maritime
Museum.11
HMAS Whyalla is a sister ship of the
Castlemaine and was the first ship to be
built by BHP at Whyalla. She was
ships were about 306 feet long and
displaced 2100 tons when fully loaded.
Maximum speed was about twenty knots.
Standard armament was 2 x 4 inch HA, 3 x
40 mm Bofors, 10 x 20 mm Oerlikons.
HMAS Diamantina, built by Walkers Ltd of
Maryborough, was launched in April, 1944.
She was first commissioned into the RAN
on April 27, 1945 and saw service in New
Guinea waters until the end of the war.
The surrender of Japanese forces on
Nauru, Ocean and Bouganville Islands was
signed on board her. Paid off in 1946,
Diamantina was converted to an
oceanographic vessel in 1958. Survey
work continued till 1980. Finally paid off in
1980, Diamantina was eventually
acquired by the Queensland Maritime
Museum and steamed from Sydney to
Brisbane. She is now on public display
while being restored to her original
configuration.14
HMAS Adelaide. In WWII
commissioned on January 8, 1942, and
spent most of her time on survey work.
After the war, Whyalla was paid off and
laid up in Brisbane pending disposal. She
was purchased by the Melbourne Ports
and Harbour Department in 1947 for use in
maintaining buoys and navigation markers
in Port Philip Bay. After disposal by the
Melbourne authority, she was acquired by
the City of Whyalla. Since then work has
begun on restoring her to her original
configuration.12
(ii).The River Class Frigate.
The River Class Frigates (all were named
after Australian rivers) were built in
Australia to an English design.13 These
11
See: www.hmascastlemaine.org.au.
See: www.navy.gov.au/HMAS-Whyalla.
13
Eventually, the class would comprise eight vessels.
Apart from the Diamantina there were the Barcoo ,
12
HMAS Vampire,
2. Post World War II Vessels
We should be thankful that any vessels
survive. Current practice (i.e. 2010-2011)
appears to be to scuttle ships to form
artificial reefs for recreational diving, e.g.
the former HMAS Adelaide. However,
there was a previous practice and five
vessels survive from the Ran post 1945;
Barwon , Burdekin , Gascoyne , Hawkesbury , Lachlan
and the Macquarie
14
On the Diamantina , see: Coultham-Clark, op. cit (n.
5), p. 22.
33
three in Sydney; one in country NSW; and
one at the West Australian Maritime
Museum at Fremantle. The vessels are
one Daring class destroyer; one Attack
class patrol boat and three Oberon class
submarines.
(i).Daring Class Destroyer.
The Daring Class Destroyer was another
British design.15 The Daring Class was
designed as a gun ship and the design
represents naval technology at the end of
World War II. The Darings - Australia built
three (HMAS’s Vendetta, Voyager, and
Vampire) - were the biggest destroyers and
the first large all-welded warships to be
built in Australia. Darings were about 120
m long and displaced 3672 tonnes when
fully loaded. Armament was 6 x 4.5 inch, 4
x twin 40 mm Bofors AA, 5 x 21 inch
torpedoes and a Limbo AS mortar.
HMAS Vampire, built at Cockatoo Island
Dockyard, Sydney, was the last of the
three Darings built in Australia and was
commissioned in 1959.16 During the
1960’s, she served in the British
Commonwealth Strategic Reserve. She
acted as a guardship during the
Confrontation between Malaysia and
Indonesia. Vampire also made two trips to
Vietnam in 1966 and 1967. A mid-life refit
in 1970-1971 saw the original
superstructure extensively modified to
accommodate modernised gun-firing
control and surveillance systems.
Light aluminium alloy was used in the
rebuilding, improving stability and.
accommodation. After a final refit in 1980,
Vampire became a training ship. Two of
the Bofors mounts, the torpedo tubes and
the Limbo mortar were removed. A
15
See: N McCart, Daring Class Destroyer, Maritime
Books, 2008; M Wilson, Destroyers, Australian
Seapower no.5,Topmill, n.d., pp.49-57
“HMAS Vampire “, Signals, Autumn, 1991,
p.11; L Shaw, HMAS Vampire, 2ed., ANMM,
2007; M Wilson, Destroyers, Australian
Seapower no. 5,Topmill, n.d., pp. 49-57; and
www.navy.gov.au/HMAS-Vampire-(II).
classroom was built aft. In 1991, the
Vampire was loaned to the Australian
Maritime Museum and was finally handed
over to the Museum by Bronwyn Bishop in
1997.
(ii).The Attack Class Patrol Boat.
The Attack Class Patrol Boat was designed
to fill the coastal surveillance role in
Australia occasioned by the withdrawal of
the British from Asian waters.17 The
vessels represented an amalgam between
the old reliance on the British and the new
emerging reliance on the Americans.
Twenty vessels were built between 1967
and 1969. Approximately 33 m long with a
displacement of 150 tonnes, they were
capable of 21 knots. They were relatively
lightly armed with 1 x 40 mm Bofors and 2
x 0.5 mg’s.
HMAS Advance
HMAS Advance , the third vessel of the
class, was commissioned in 1968.
Advance operated out of Darwin until 1980
and was the star of the ABC series, “Patrol
Boat”. When the Attack Class was
superseded by the larger Fremantle Class,
Advance became a training vessel.
Decommissioned in 1988, Advance was
transferred to the Maritime Museum in
operational condition
(iii).Oberon Class Submarines.
A British design, the Oberon class
submarine was considered to be the most
advanced type of conventional submarine
in the world. Some 90 m in length with a
beam of 8 m, the Oberons were equipped
16
17
On the Attack Class, see: M Wilson,
Maritime Patrol, RAN Profile, no.3, Topmill,
n.d., pp. 38-39; “HMAS Advance”, Signals,
Autumn, 1991, p. 12.
34
with six 21-inch bow torpedo tubes which
could launch torpedoes or anti-ship
missiles.18
HMAS Onslow
There were only six of this class built and
three survive. One, HMAS Otway, will be
found in a small NSW country town,
Holbrook. Actually, what you will find is
only the external skin of the submarine to
the waterline set in concrete. Bizarrely,
Holbrook, halfway between Sydney and
Melbourne, on the Hume Highway, lies
some 200 kms inland.19 Holbrook’s link
with submarines dates from World War 1,
when the name of the town was changed
from Germantown to Holbrook in honour of
Lt Norman Holbrook, commander of HMS
B11. 20
The other two are found in more
conventional locations. HMAS Onslow is
moored alongside HMAS Vampire at the
Australian National Maritime Museum
(Sydney).21 HMAS Ovens is on a slipway
in the old World War II submarine base, at
the WA Maritime Museum, in Fremantle.22
It would be good to visit both. Onslow
indicates how much of the vessel was
visible while running on the surface;
Ovens, out of the water, shows you how
large these submarines were - over 2000
tonnes.
3. The Future
That other significant vessels in the future
will be preserved for display currently seem
a forlorn hope. Admittedly, the preservation
of heritage vessels is a costly venture ,and
in current political discourse, heritage is
not seen as a vote winner. So, there
seems to be two approaches to the fate of
redundant vessels.
The first is exemplified by the fate of
HMAS Banks and her sister ship HMAS
Bass. They were both officer training
vessels, built at Maryborough in
Queensland in 1960. During a major refit,
Banks caught fire and was considered too
badly damaged to be repaired and so was
decommissioned.23 I chanced upon the
Banks at Ulladulla. I am, familiar with the
harbour of Ulladulla and among the motley
collection of fishing boats, one dark grey
shape looked very much out of place. The
18
On the Oberon class in RAN service, see:
www.submarineinstitute.com/?doc=64.
19
For Holbrook, see: holbrook.local-e.nsw.gov.au. You
will find the Otway under “About Holbrook” and then
“About the Submarine”..
20
On December 13, 1914, Holbrook earned himself the
VC by sinking, in the Dardanelles, the Turkish battleship,
Messudiyeh
(upperiscope.com.au/miscellaneous/holmuseum.html).
On HMS B11, see: en.wikipedia,org/wiki/HMS_B11.
For the full story of Holbrook’s feat (including the
citation ffor his VC), see:
www.greaterhume.nsw.gov.au/LinkClick.aspx?fileticket
=h_Vnu1M%3D&tabid=65.
21
See: L Shaw, HMAS Onslow, ANMM, 2005.
22 See: www.navy.gov.au/HMAS-Ovens. On the
submarine base, see: L Cairns, Fremantle’s Secret
HMS B11 Holbrook NSW Model
Banks was in the process of being
converted into a deep sea fishing charter
vessel to operate out of Ulladulla on the
NSW south coast. Bass had already
undergone a similar fate and when I last
saw her, she was moored alongside the
Fleet, WA Maritime Museum, 1995. You can find a
list of all the subs which operated from the base
at:www.mm.wa.gov.au/Museum/mhist/sub/freo.subs
.html
23
See; en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMAS-Banks.
35
Fish Markets at Sydney operating as a
longline fishing vessel.
I have already mentioned the fate of the
frigate, HMAS Adelaide, i.e. being scuttled
to form an artificial reef. However, virtually
unarmed training vessels may not be the
best candidates for preservation. This is
not the case with the three so called Perth
class guided missile , destroyers, actually
modified Charles F Adams class
destroyers. Ordered from the US in the
early 1960’s, HMAS’s Perth, Hobart and
Brisbane served in the Vietnam War as
gunnery ships. The Brisbane even served
in the 1st Gulf War. Yet, after
decommissioning between 1999 and
2001, all three were sunk to form artificial
reefs.24
No ships have been added to the
heritage fleet in recent years.
24
See:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perth_class_destroyer.
HMAS Ovens is on a slipway in the old World War II submarine base, at the WA Maritime Museum
36
Film Review
Michael Cooke
Glimpses of Empire
Part 1:
In the belly of the Empire
‘There must be some way out of here,’ said the
joker to the thief,
‘There’s too much confusion, I can’t get no relief.
Businessmen, they drink my wine, ploughmen dig
my earth,
None of them along the line know what any of it is
worth.’
Bob Dylan25
“You are not in Kansas anymore. You are in
Pandora. Respect that fact every day. If there is a
hell, go there for some R & R after a tour of
Pandora. Out there beyond the fence everything
that crawls, flies, squats in the mud wants to kill
you.”
Colonel Miles Quaritch26
One of the recurring motifs in American political
history is the concept of Manifest Destiny. It
was a quintessential American belief that the
North American continent from the Atlantic
seaboard to the Pacific Ocean was and is the
preserve of the white man. It was used as an
ideological tool to justify American expansion
into Mexico and the annihilation of the
American Indians and their culture. Many of
these states and territories that were annexed
or carved out like Texas were also strong
supporters of the continuation of slavery. In
time this pull of Empire pushed them into
Central and South America, Cuba, the
Philippines and South East Asia.
Hollywood, that exploiter of the status quo and
manufacturer of inessential dreams, endless
mined this portion of the American story. Firstrate directors like John Ford and Howard
Hawks were attracted to this aspect of their
country’s creation myth. For Ford it was never
more explicit than in his beautifully
photographed, emotionally charged, but flawed
‘cavalry trilogy’.27 Howard Hawks used it in his
unapologetically virile take on the Chisum
legend: Red River (1948). John Wayne starred
in these films, which all had oedipal
undertones. In the cavalry trilogy Wayne
played the older and wiser man who is not only
aware of the importance of his role in keeping
the frontier safe from the Native Americans, but
is also able to impart his knowledge, courage
and sense of duty to the younger generation. In
Red River these themes are explicit in the
conflict between the patriarch (the monumental
Wayne) and the troubled son, played with
all the grace that Montgomery Clift could
muster in his slender frame. Once the frontier
is won, man can impose his will on it,
regardless of the moral and ecological cost.
Wayne’s character is comfortable with the cost,
Clift’s character less so. The film, beautifully
photographed in black and white, climaxes in
one of the strangest and most Freudian gun
fights this side of the unconscious, between
father and son.
25
Dylan, Bob (1974): All Along the Watchtower in
Writings and Drawings, Granada Publishing, p.411.
26
A speech given to the principal villain by the director
and screenplay writer, James Cameron, for the film:
Avatar (2009). The speech expresses the view of an
industrial military superpower on why it is necessary to
subdue worlds outside its realm.
Its choreography, darkness, sense of unease
and Jacobean drama found little echo in later
27
The trilogy is Fort Apache (1948), She Wore a Yellow
Ribbon (1949) and Rio Grande (1950).
37
and never-ending TV horse operas like
Bonanza, The High Chaparral and The Big
Valley. In a strange parody, the later John
Wayne westerns began to imitate those on TV.
It was not unusual to see an increasingly
corpulent, bewigged Wayne, with an absurdly
slender gun belt, playing a significant pioneer
who was now a successful business man,
counselling virile young men, defeated and
tamed Native Americans, Mexicans and
women. This can best be seen in two Andrew
V. McLaglen (the poor man’s Ford) Westerns:
McLintock (1963) 28 and Chisum (1970). Nixon
cited Chisum as a defence of the American
Dream when it was under siege by the
counterculture in the late 1960s and early
1970s.
As the American dream soured during the
Vietnam era, anti-westerns like Little Big Man
(1970) and Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid (1973)
became the norm. So its iconography and
ideology went into space – the final frontier as
the voice-over in laconically reminds the
audience at the beginning of each Star Trek
episode and movie (44 years old and still going
strong). It is in this light one can see the motifs
and imperatives of the stunning artifice that is
Avatar (2009). 29
James Cameron is a director who revels in
blockbusters, whose appeal also extends to the
more discerning of the movie-going public. In
the first two Terminator films30 he skilfully
utilised the physical bulk of Arnold
Schwarzenegger, using catch-phrases to make
the most of his very limited acting skills. In both
films he used the motif of the chase, with a vast
increase in the noise, size and sheer variety of
firepower. His use of special effects was
judicious and he moved the action along, only
pausing to show an explosion or the effects of
gunfire on the human body. Intertwined with
this was the story of a mother’s primeval need
to protect her offspring. He combined his
command of camerawork and CGI in an
evergreen love story of two star-crossed lovers
The film is a version of Shakespeare’s Taming of the
Shrew, with the nuances toned down and the patriarchy
turned up.
28
divided by class in the very popular Titanic
(1997).
We had to wait over a decade for his next film:
Avatar. It cost USD300 million, took over a
decade to develop the storyline and technical
expertise, and employed 800 special effects
technicians. All this produced not only one of
the most expensive films ever made, but also
the most popular film so far (USD2 billion and
counting).
What audiences got was a visually stunning
film and a narrative arc replete with myth,
archetypes and pantheistic overtones. He
punctuates the story with spectacular action
set-pieces. Avatar is set in the year 2154 AD
on a planet with the unsubtle name of
Pandora.31 It is colonised by a large
multinational company to mine a much needed
mineral called unobtainium (I kid thee not)
which can save the earth from extinction. To
ensure the success of the mission, there is
large contingent of mercenaries who in
mannerism, armoury and patois sound like
your archetypical American marine.
The hero is a paraplegic ex-marine who has
none of the academic and linguistic skills of his
colleagues. Their project is called Avatar. They
are studying the ‘natives,’ getting to know their
habits and culture, with the aim of getting their
consent for the mining of their lands. This
involves them taking the form of the local
inhabitants. Their mission brings them into
conflict with Colonel Miles Quaritch, the military
chief, who wants to destroy their civilisation
and habitat.
The ‘natives’ are the Na’vi. They are ten feet
tall, slender, blue and completely at home in
their beautiful, mysterious and dangerous
jungle paradise. What follows is a love story, a
paean to nature and a condemnation of a
rapacious mechanised civilisation.
From the first shot one is drawn deep into this
artificial world, an Eden of forests and green
islands in the air. The colonists’ scientific
technology is very contemporary and given a
chic, crisp and tactile feel, while the technology
29
In the Hindu lexicon an Avatar is the human form
taken by a god so that earthly spectators will not be
blinded by the divine splendour.
30
Terminator (1984) and Terminator 2: Judgement Day
(1991)
31
Pandora (endowed/gifted) was a woman created by
Zeus. In a fit of curiosity she opened a forbidden jar, thus
releasing a multitude of plagues and diseases on the
inhabitants of the earth
38
of extraction and warfare is weighty, dirty,
ominous and ugly. The helicopters are
reminiscent of those flown during the Vietnam
War and the machines used to extract the ore
resemble giant angry locusts.
We are immediately aware that our political
and economic mores are still intact and well,
whilst the health of the earth is not. Our hero
could get his disability fixed but he does not
have the money to pay for the operation. The
earth’s vegetation is now a distant memory,
and the ore they mine earns the corporation
USD 20 million a kilo. Given this material
reality, we know there is not going to be a
negotiation between civilisations, but a clash.
The Nai’vis physical features and wilderness is
carefully created, reminiscent of the late Monet
channelled through those artists who deface
high powered motor cars with their art. Skin
tones have a metallic high gloss.
lacked the emotional and romantic drive that
Ford brought to his films. Again, unlike Howard
Hawks, Cameron lacks the ability to depict the
banter, wit and camaraderie of a group of men
under pressure or the changing relationship of
Typical Opening of “BONANZA”
Our hero immerses himself in an alien world
that in the end seems natural and right, not
only to him, but also to us. So when his
civilisation sets out to destroy this way of life,
he naturally has to side with what is right,
bringing his martial skills and cultural
knowledge to bear. One remembers James
Stewart in Broken Arrow (1950) and Kevin
Costner in Dances with Wolves (1990) doing
something similar. Avatar’s twist on this well
known trope is to let the colonised win in the
end.
In an interesting inversion of the oedipal myth
the young man is tutored initially by an older
father figure, played by the chiselled and
scarred Stephen Lang. The young man
gradually sees the path his mentor has
embarked on will only end in the destruction of
a way of life he has grown to cherish. In the
end he arms himself for an epic Freudian
conflict, with the help of the matriarch (played
by Sigourney Weaver), who realises what is at
stake.
Yet Cameron for all his technical virtuosity and
‘deconstruction’ of the frontier myth, is in the
end is a traditional film maker who in style is
reminiscent of the late Raoul Walsh.32 Walsh
The hands of the “High Chapparal”
a man and a woman reluctantly falling in love.
Like Cameron he was an excellent director of
action. Both Walsh and Cameron have the
ability to convey a brawling and sometimes
anarchic violence in a controlled way. Unlike
Walsh, Cameron has not used charismatic
actors like Cagney or Bogart to grace his films
and in no way questions the notion and the
ambivalence of a hero. Instead we are given
the robotic muscular performance of a
Schwarzenegger in the Terminator franchise,
the lean, intense and physical doggedness of
Sigourney Weaver in Aliens (1986) and that
pretty piece of fluff, Leonardo di Caprio, in the
teen fantasy Titanic.
32
Raoul Walsh (1887-1981) started his film career as an
actor, one of his most famous roles being that of
Lincoln’s assassin Booth in the ground-breaking (and
racist) D.W. Griffith film Birth of a Nation (1915). He
became a popular director of action films. One was High
Sierra (1941), in which Humphrey Bogart, as a fugitive
gangster, portrayed his character in a sympathetic and
romantic way. In White Heat (1949), in contrast, James
Cagney played a violent and mother-fixated hoodlum.
39
One of the irritating features of the film is
Cameron’s realisation of the world of the Na’vi
and their ‘organic’ relationship with nature. It is
a ’Hollywoodised’ culture: the Na’vi sound like
those cigar-store Indians (white actors in red
face) that populated Westerns in the 1940s and
1950s.33 Richness of culture and language is
reduced to New Age banalities.
Another failure in imagination is evident in the
depiction of nature. It is a world created by
computer programmers, and shown as a web
of network connections. The Na’vi tame their
beasts of burden via an organic current to their
creator and nurturer, the tree of life. Its
membranes resemble a wiring system of a
battery of personal computers.
But there is no such limitation when it comes to
the action set pieces with their terror,
exhilaration and violence. The viewer is swept
into the action and for a while feels that the
world that is depicted is real.
The destruction of the Na’vis’ home by the
colonist armada of helicopters and their futile
defence is carefully rendered and climaxes in
the destruction of their giant tree home ( the
size of medium sized suburb) is not only a
technical tour de force, but has direct echoes to
the colonial wars of the past and those taking
place now. The destruction was wrought
because under the tree there is a huge deposit
of unobtainium. Reminiscent of the Spanish
plunder of the Americas, Indonesia’s
exploitation of Western Papua, via their client’s
huge Freeport mine and Iraq for its oil.
The ebb and flow of the final battle depends on
the see-sawing fortunes of the two sides indigenous defenders with their stealth and the
colonists with their ‘state of the art’ technology.
The eventual indigenous victory provides, one
assumes, the opportunity for a sequel.
For all Cameron’s attempts to humanise the
‘other’ and his critique of imperial adventure, it
is at end of the day a movie from the bowels of
the Hollywood establishment, filtered through
the iconography of the Western. I cannot wait
for Bollywood in India or Nollywood in Nigeria
or our own film industry to make a film about an
indigenous culture under assault by forces
represented by those cheer leaders of
unfettered growth. Till the hitherto voiceless tell
their own stories, we will have to accept and
reluctantly admire spectacles like Avatar.
Such is life
Fine actors like CCH Pounder and Wes Studi
abilities and respective screen charismas are
drowned by the banal dialogue they are given to
enunciate. Only newcomer Zoe Saldana is given
room to breathe and behave in a natural way.
One of the several “TRAINED” animals featured in the movie.
40
Book Reviews
Gary Schoer &
Lyn M. Fergusson
“Dharawal”
The story of
the Dharawal speaking people of
Southern Sydney
Authors, Les Bursill, Mary Jacobs, Deborah
Lennis, Beryl Timbery-Beller and Merv
Ryan.
Dharawal Publications, Sydney, December
2007, maps, illustrations, bibliography, pp.
64, ISBN 9780646480138,
Cost; $20* (available from Les Bursill, 10
Porter Road, Engadine NSW 2233, phone
95207394 or 0419298018, or Mary Jacobs,
TAFE NSW – Sydney Institute, Sutherland
College, Pitt Street, Loftus, 2232).
That a ‘story’ of a whole language group of
Aboriginal people can be condensed into
64 pages s both a positive and a negative
for a book of this kind. If the reader wishes
to learn more about the archaeology
written and oral history about these people,
the general references at the rear of the
book will provide that. If however, like the
non indigenous author, Mary Jacobs, you
are keen to have a reader-friendly
summary of the Dharawal world to
enhance your role as a teacher, curious
observer of some of the many
engravings left by people from this
language group, or simply desire to know
more about ‘the other’, then this plain
English reader will satisfy the
needs of many.
The book is incredibly generous in putting
out a hand of friendship and
reconciliation to the non-aboriginal world.
Despite the necessary undercurrent in the
text that we know so little about these
people because of the swift devastation to
many of the traditional cultural practices as
European diseases and conflicts took their
toll, there is no lingering Bitterness. The
useful list of
Aboriginal
contacts willing
to speak to
groups
includes the
individual
coffee and tea
preferences of
these contacts.
This sense of
whimsy is balanced by many well written
and researched themes
that don¹t engage in high brow scientific or
archaeological speculations.
The authors have kept it simple as tools,
art styles, body decorations, men’s and
women¹s business, Aboriginal resistance
(including interesting information on
Pemulwey) and a little know (to nonindigenous Australians) massacre at
Broughton Pass and much more are
discussed.
Dharawal language is especially
emphasised in this publication, with the
Dharawal Translation of “Advance Australia
Fair” being a particularly suitable closing
note. Merv Ryan provides the Dharawal
translation for the final lines.
“Australian mob go together
We say and sing out
Australian Mob go together”
This is also the theme of this highly
informative and entertaining book
which should be compulsory reading for all
Australians to better understand
who we are in a broader context and how
the first Australians lived in
Southern and South Western Sydney and
the Northern Illawarra.
Gary Schoer
41
Arthur Phillip and an Out-of-body Experience
Lyn M. Fergusson
It wasn’t Phillip who had the out-of-body
experience, but me. My name is Lyn
Fergusson and I recently had my first book
launched by Her Excellency, Professor
Marie Bashir, 37th Governor of New South
Wales, at the Museum of Sydney.
This was appropriate on both counts – the
book is a biography of our 1st Governor of
New South Wales, Arthur Phillip RN, and
the museum as many of you probably
know sits on the site of the first government
house of the colony.
The out-of-body experience was simply the
inability to accept that this was in fact me;
me greeting the Governor, me making the
speech and most extraordinarily, me
signing the books for people who had just
purchased them, and one would imagine,
eventually read them!
My interest in Phillip goes back to 2004,
possibly even further. I was curious to
know what sort of man he was. I knew he
commanded the First Fleet and was New
South Wales’ first governor, but what
experiences influenced him as he matured
leading him to become a gentleman of the
Enlightenment? In an era of harshness
Phillip stood out as a humanitarian before
his time. His interest in the indigenous
people of this ancient land and their culture
formed a deep connection between himself
and the newly colonised country; his
understanding and fairness is history.
Little has been written about this incredible
man, one so significant in our country’s
history. What is available concentrates on
his naval career, term as governor, or both,
but that wasn’t enough for me. I wanted to
get ‘inside’ the man.
Dr Edward Duyker threw down a challenge
– I had spent much time researching
Elizabeth Breach’s (Phillip’s mother’s)
family uncovering a new line of relatives –
Dr Duyker suggested I do a little sleuthing
Phillip's childhood neighbourhood in the
shadow of St Paul's Cathederal
into Jacob (Phillip’s father’s) lineage. At
the time of my initial research this just
seemed too hard, but when a suggestion is
made by a person such as this, one takes
notice.
When reading about Arthur Phillip,
because there is so little to go on, records
tend to become fairly repetitive. The one
detail that never varied was to do with
Jacob – he hailed from Frankfurt-am-Main
and was Jewish according to the
historians. Fair enough, there aren’t any
records to go on, but if there really aren’t
any records to go on – who says?
In 1789, a mere twelve months after the
colonisation of New South Wales, John
Stockdale, a publisher of Piccadilly,
produced an account of Phillip’s voyage to
Botany Bay supported by many influential
subscribers. In this he stated Jacob Phillip
came from “Frankfort” – not Frankfurt-am42
Main, just Frankfurt. One would have to
imagine this to be correct as it was written
at the time. Many years later an historian
wrote Jacob came from Frankfurt-am-Main
and was Jewish and that is what has been
written and accepted in every publication
since. You wonder whether this was an
assumption by him because by then
Frankfurt-am-Main had become a large
city, recognised internationally. There are
no documents to substantiate either claim,
and it was this that stirred the investigative
journalist in me.
Did you know there are a number of
Frankfurts in Germany?
It certainly
surprised me; it also opened possibilities
regarding Jacob. The other historical fact
to pique my curiosity concerned the French
Huguenots. The time of persecution of
French Huguenots and their exodus by the
thousand from their homeland into
Germany could fit very neatly with Jacob’s
age. There are no records to show how
old he was when his son was born, so
naturally this is all supposition, but so is the
statement he was Jewish. Possibly it was
thought he was Jewish because of his
name, interestingly enough, in the late
seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries
Jacob was a very popular Huguenot name.
Stadtarchiv Frankfurt (Oder)
So I felt the question needed to be asked
did Arthur Phillip have French blood?
The Elector of Brandenburg, Friedrich
Wilhelm, encouraged the Huguenots to
settle in Germany. 15,000 accepted this
invitation and 6,000 remained in the Berlin
area; my research became interesting
when I found Frankfurt-an-der-Oder about
an hour east of Berlin on the Polish border.
Although Frankfurt (Oder) is a small,
sleepy university town now, in the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries it
was a large thriving commercial port and
location of Brandenburg’s first university.
This discovery made it obvious a visit to
archives in Germany was necessary. Had
it not been for the niece of a friend of mine
living in Berlin I really don’t know how this
Stadtarchiv, Frankfurt-an-der-Oder
would have happened as I don’t read or
speak German.
I spent time in the
Stadtarchiv in Frankfurt (Oder) where I had
access to manuscripts dating back to the
mid-1600s. There were Phillip families
recorded, both in the Jewish and Town
registers. Although I didn’t find anything
conclusive to link them directly to Jacob it
was enough for me to feel there really was
a plausible possibility Phillip could have
French blood either through Jacob being
born in France and coming to Germany as
a baby, or through French grandparents.
As the biography is really a personal look
at Phillip I was particularly excited to learn
43
during my visit to Bath Library that in 1998
two letters written by him to his second
wife,
Isabella,
were
found
during
renovations to a house there.
These
letters provide an interesting insight into
this marriage.
The narrative which includes a foreword by
Her Excellency moves through Georgian
London where Phillip spent his childhood
seventy-two years after the Great Fire, to
school in the beautiful buildings of
Greenwich. It touches on all periods of his
life but it is the significance of the
information found in the Portuguese
Rebello Transcipts that at last provide
clarification of Phillip’s service with the
Portuguese Navy and subsequent visits to
South America. It is here that we learn so
much about him.
Phillip’s name frequently disappeared from
Admiralty records; this was a mystery until I
found records of his service with the Home
Office as a spy in France reporting on their
naval capacity and movements.
Our first Governor was not idle after being
forced to return to England through ill
health, long before he was ready to
relinquish his control over the colony. He
returned to sea and served as Commander
of the Sea Fencibles before retiring to Bath
where his death in 1814 remains a
mystery.
I have concentrated on the man hopefully
giving readers an understanding of the
character of New South Wales’ first
governor. I believe the biography puts to
rest any notion Arthur Phillip’s capabilities
were unknown to the British Government
when commissioned to lead an expedition
of such magnitude to the far side of the
world.
Admiral Arthur Phillip – The Man – Lyn M.
Fergusson
ISBN: 978 0 646 54335 2
Publisher:
Pilar
Publishing
–
pilarpublishing@bigpond.com
“The book is available for purchase on-line at
www.pilarpublishing.com.au “
A Typical Group of Sydney Convicts.
44
Notice to Contributors
Doryanthes welcomes contributions, on any subject from members and non members,
alike. Preference may be given to articles relating to Southern Sydney or to articles
written by authors who live in southern Sydney.
Unless by prior arrangement, the preferred length for formal articles is 3000 words. Any
annotation must be in the form of footnotes. The editors also seek short notes, book and
film reviews.
Copyright of material published in Doryanthes is retained by the author. In the case of any
subsequent publication, the editors of Doryanthes merely seek a statement of the prior
publication in Doryanthes.
Contributions (articles, notes or reviews) may be sent to the publisher on disk or as email
attachment (in both cases as Word files) to the publisher Les Bursill (les.bursill.gmail.com).
Membership
Doryanthes Inc. has two classes of membership:
(i) Subscription Members. The Doryanthes year runs from November till October. The
annual subscription is $35 per year. In addition to the online version, subscription
members are entitled to receive, per year, four hard copy editions of Doryanthes.
Subscriptions should be forwarded to the Hon. Treasurer Mrs Mary Jacobs
10 Porter Road
Engadine 2233
(ii) On-line Members: On-line members pay no annual subscription fee and receive four
times per year the on-line copy of Doryanthes. Such members must provide the publisher,
Les Bursill (les.bursill@gmail.com) with a current email address.
45