Last yr, one query took us on a 4,500km journey alongside the east coast of Australia. We knew the journey of Captain James Cook dinner, however we wished to ask what tales First Nations folks inform concerning the coming of Captain Cook dinner.
So from the tall forests of Gunai-Kurnai nation in Gippsland to the now developed shores of Dharawal land round southern Sydney and to the intense calm blue waters of the Kaurareg within the Torres Strait, we listened to the tales of how Cook dinner had misinterpret the land and the way he had stepped ashore with out the correct protocols. How he had stolen sources and instruments. How he had usually given inappropriate names to landscapes that already had names and deep tales referring to them.
We heard how completely different folks thought the HMS Endeavour an enormous pelican, or a cloud, and the Europeans on board had been maybe the spirts of ancestors returning.
We travelled the identical journey that the sign fires and message sticks travelled, all alongside the east coast, warning completely different peoples that this unusual vessel was approaching their land and sea – and we listened.
Many communities informed us: “Sure, we now have tales concerning the British explorer, however what we actually wish to speak about is reality telling.”
Having a blackfella (Darren) and whitefella (Craig) doing this journey collectively had its strengths in numerous methods – being informed tales solely one other blackfella can be informed, however having issues defined in easy phrases {that a} whitefella might perceive. This large street journey, together with encounters with crocodiles and dingy motels, shaped the backbone of a ebook, however the ebook itself just isn’t our story. It’s the tales of the 70 or so individuals who shared their lives, historical past and views with us.
Generally, we discovered First Nations tales about Cook dinner – or certainly later explorers – didn’t at all times agree with what had been written within the journals. However this demonstrated to us how advanced a number of interpretations of the previous may be. That is significantly so for figures corresponding to Cook dinner, who additionally exists as a metaphor for colonisation and so options in tales of his dangerous visits in lots of components of the nation that he by no means visited in written historical past.
We had been smoked and painted or given ceremony with salt water and informed how the spirit ancestors would then defend us on the nation of the Kabi Kabi of the Glasshouse Mountains, the Butchulla of Okay’gari, and the Kaurareg. We had been proven the shapes of ancestors and creation beings within the rocks and timber and even within the birds that got here to look at over us on Yuin nation on the south coast of NSW. And we understood how very important Nation is to First Nations folks by strolling it with them. Watching and listening and feeling.
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We’ve got been requested a number of instances: “How did you get so many individuals to share these tales with you?”
The easy reply is, we simply requested them.
However in fact it was a bit extra advanced than that. Each time we got here into a brand new group, or met with a household, we had been usually requested which college or authorities division we labored for. And after we defined we had been largely doing this mission on our personal, weren’t funded by public cash and didn’t wish to take any possession of the tales informed to us, and that whoever shared their tales would get the ultimate say on how they had been informed within the ebook – doorways opened.
There have been so many tales that folks wished extra Australians to know; tales that haven’t usually been included in our histories.
In fact, not everyone wished to speak to us and a few bluntly informed us to fuck off.
There’s a whole lot of anger in some locations, and there’s a lot of tolerance and forgiveness in others. Nobody story from one particular person in a single group can symbolize one other individual’s expertise.
Our journey and the ebook we wrote solely scratches the floor of the attainable tales that might be informed, however we hope it opens the door for extra such tales to be shared extra broadly. Within the classroom. Within the media. In communities.
We want it had been attainable for extra Australians to make journeys corresponding to this, experiencing First Nations lives and tradition in a deep method that not solely helps them higher perceive this huge and sumptuous nation they dwell in, but additionally higher perceive First Nations folks. To know the tales which have for too lengthy been lacking from our official historical past. One of many functions of our journey was to fill in these blanks in our personal minds – however we had been maybe unprepared for the emotive depth of non-public tales that stuffed these blanks.
It’s an understatement to say that the journey was life altering – and we hope the ebook allows readers to share slightly of what we skilled.
The ultimate phrases of the ebook got to us by Kaurareg cultural historian and a rightful proprietor, Waubin Richard Aken, within the Torres Strait. When requested what he felt whitefellas in Australia most wanted to know, he stated, “The reality. Coming from our folks. Inform them the reality, that they don’t be afraid of the reality … As soon as the nation recognises the reality, it’ll heal you wherever you might be.”
Warra Warra Wai: How Indigenous Australians found Captain Cook dinner, and what they inform concerning the coming of the Ghost Folks by Darren Rix and Craig Cormick is revealed by Simon & Schuster.
