When English beads were pacifiers

Press, 26 January 1988, Page 13

When English beads were pacifiers

TWO HUNDRED years ago today, the beginning of European settlement in Australia was marked by the raising of the Union Jack at Sydney Cove. Using excerpts from the diaries and journals of members of the First Fleet, GEOFF MEIN recounts events of the week leading up to the first Australia Day ...

Eight months and one week after leaving England, the crew of His Majesty’s brig Supply peered through the sea mist to see a hill resembling the crown of a hat.

About three miles from shore, they steered north, sailing past a coastline “clothed with verdant wood with many beautiful slopes.” A high chalk cliff — noted by Captain James Cook on his voyage of discovery 17 years earlier — “rose perpendicular from the sea.”

Several “natives,” brandishing spears, were seen running along the shore as the small brig rounded Point Solander and headed towards anchorage on the north side of Botany Bay on January 18, 1788. This apparently hostile reception from the Aboriginals could not, however, have been the uppermost thought on the mind of Captain Arthur Phillip, Commodore of the First Fleet.

He had safely steered the 11ship fleet (the other 10 vessels would arrive in two days) on the long voyage from Portsmouth, with no loss of life. But his main task — to establish a penal colony in New South Wales on behalf of King George 111 — was just beginning. The ships’ crews,' soldiers, ad-

ministrative staff and 750 convicts would be eager to set foot on land after such a long voyage. But first, Captain Phillip had to make a historically crucial decision: the site for the settlement, of which he was to be first governor. Lieutenant Philip King, who accompanied Captain Phillip ashore on that first day, described the land as “very much like the moors in England, except that there is a great deal of very good grass and some small timber trees.”

The party went a little way up the bay in an unsuccessful search for fresh water, and re-

turned to find a group of Aboriginals beside two canoes on the shore. As the Englishmen approached, the Aboriginals picked up their spears. Captain Phillip offered them some beads, and made signals indicating that he wanted drinking water, and he was directed to a stream on the other side of the point. Lieutenant King described the Aboriginals as "perfectly naked,” but conceded that he and his fully clothed English friends must have appeared equally ridiculous to the “poor creatures.” A surgeon aboard the convict transport Lady Penrhyn, Arthur Bowes, provided the most detailed early account of the Aboriginals.... “They were all perfectly naked, rather slender made, of a dark black colour, their hair not woolly, but short and curly. “Everyone had the tooth next to the foretooth in the upper jaw knocked out and many of them

had a piece of stick about the size of a tobacco pipe.... run through ... the nostrils. They all cut their backs, bodies and arms which heal up in large ridges and scars. “They live in miserable wigwams near the water, which are nothing more than two or three pieces of the bark of a tree set up sideways against a ridge pole. “Their principal food consists of fish, which they in general eat raw. Sometimes they feast upon the kangaroo, but I believe them to be too stupid and indolent a set of people to be able often to catch them ... “The women are also quite naked, and go in miserable bad canoes to catch fish. The women in general fish with a hook and line, the men strike them with a kind of spear... “The natives do not besmear their hair or bodies with any kind of oil or paint as many Indians do. Their teeth are in

general white, but both their skin and hair have a remarkably strong fishy scent. “They did not appear hostile. Their language is excessively

loud and harsh, and seems to consist of a very short vocabulary. “They seemed surprised at the sight of the ships. I presented many of them with glass beads, and several gentlemen put ribbands and glass trinkets about their heads, but they seemed altogether a most stupid insensible set of beings.” Lieutenant King wrote of another encounter with Aboriginals, during a search for water. "The natives halloo’d and made signs for us to return to our boats.” - An offer of beads and baize prompted one of the Aboriginals to throw a lance wide of the Englishmen, who retreated to the brow of a hill. A second offer of gifts was also refused. “On descending the hill, they (the Aboriginals) showed themselves on top of it and were 10 times more .vociferous; very soon after a lance was thrown amongst us, on which I ordered

© © © one of the marines to fire with powder 0n1y... They ran off with great precipitation.” Soon after, beads were offered for a third time, and accepted. “Thus,” wrote Lieutenant King, “peace was re-established, much to the satisfaction of all parties.” He attributed some of the “puzzling aspects” of their reception to a case of mistaken identity; the Aboriginals seemed to think the Englishmen were women, because they did not have beards. He ordered one of the sailors to “undeceive” them. The sailor dropped his pants “to reveal that he was as male as they were, to their shouts of admiration.” A group of women and chil-

dren appeared, and Lieutenant King, “always a perfect gentleman, gave one of the women a handkerchief to wear as Eve did a fig leaf.”