Evidence of Four New England Corroboree Songs Indicating Aboriginal Responses to European Invasion
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Evidence of four New England corroboree songs indicating Aboriginal responses to European invasion Barry McDonald To preface this examination of Aboriginal evidence for local contact relations, I will first briefly comment upon selected aspects of the history of those relations as presented by conventional European historical sources such as pastoralists' diaries, official reports, pioneers' reminiscences and so on. I will then introduce descriptions of four corroboree songs (using this musical category loosely), framing them within certain historical and cultural contexts to enable a better grasp of their significance. The idea of the incompatability of European and Aboriginal social and intellectual systems, and the consequent inevitability of conflict, has been promoted in academic publications up to the very recent past.' Again, some 'broad brush' historical examinations such as Tony Swain's discussed below, run the understandable risk of glossing over significant regional differences in the course of achieving a manageable overview. Still others interpret sketchy historical evidence in a way that perhaps exaggerates the level and extent of frontier conflict. Hopefully, the following survey will sufficiently highlight both the multiplex nature of the New England frontier situation and the possible uniqueness of this region's historical experience, to contribute useful detail to the discussion of Australian contact relations. Apart from John Oxley's fleeting visit to the southern edge of the Tableland in 1818, groups of Europeans did not visit New England, as far as is known, until Hamilton Collins Sempill established the Wolka sheep run in 1832. Very little evidence for the course of local black/white relations exists for the period before George Macdonald was appointed Commissioner of Crown Lands for New England in 1839, although the Sydney Herald did occasionally report on conflict with Tableland Aboriginal people, beginning with the following mention in January 1836: We hear that numerous outrages have been commenced by the aborigines in the newly-discovered country north-east of Liverpool Plains.1 23 It is possible that conflict occurred immediately upon 'first' contact in 1832,4 which may be inferred from evidence Sempill himself gave to the New South Wales Committee on the Crown Lands Bill in 1839: 1 Dingle 1988, p. 57. 2 Blomfield 1988, pp. 83, 84. ■’ Sydney Herald, January 28 1836, quoted in Campbell 1922, p. 245. NEW ENGLAND CORROBOREE SONGS 177 After a certain time, a person is as safe in the vicinity of the Aborigines as anywhere else; but on coming for the first time in contact with them, they are invariably hostile; that hostile feeling, however, wears off as soon as they become acquainted w ith White persons settling am ong them, and the power they possess.4 5 *1011 Commissioner Macdonald's first Report on the State of the Aborigines suggests that this may not have been the general rule,1’ and it would be fair to say that, at the very least, such hostility was not at all inevitable, nor did it follow a prescribed pattern. Other reliable evidence indicates that first relations could be friendly/ and numerous New England squattages such as Ollera, Clerkness, Oban, Aberfoil, Mihi, Kentucky, Ohio, Rimbanda, Looanga, Inglebah and Waterloo were known for at least accommodating customary Aboriginal usage of land. Not only this, but certain resident squatters such as the Everetts 5 and Captain S. Darby* expressed more than a passing interest in indigenous cultural matters, and displayed some understanding of local Aboriginal thought and languages. Obviously others were not so accommodating, and though the evidence relating to the period before 1839 is scant, the name of the stockman 'Terrible Billy' Stephenson has been associated with a number of pastoral stations at that time, including Saumarez,’" Gostwyck, Salisbury, Terrible Vale," and Niangala.12 This man may have held a brief to initiate aggressions that are now spoken of only in the haziest terms (e.g. on Saumarez, Gostwyck and Macdonald River stations), an insight prompted chiefly by the following statement of the Wallabadah pioneer William Telfer: went through a dense scrub for about four miles Passing mount Terrible Enroute which was called after a stockman named Terrible Billy in the old Times who was a terror to the aboriginals in the New England districts he after Comited suicide on Glydes Corner in 1851.13 Unofficial European action towards Aboriginal people in the first decade of contact seems to have followed no uniform policy, and instead depended to a great extent on the attitudes of individuals. Nor did it follow class lines as has been 4 Oxley considered that the Aboriginal people he met on New England had previous knowledge of Europeans (Oxley 1820, quoted in Gilbert & Elphick 1977, p. 61). 5 N.S.W. Legislative Council 1839a, p. 223. h Macdonald 1842, quoted in Gilbert & Elphick 1977, p. 104. Bundarra Young 1922, p. 395; Campbell 1971, pp.1-11; Gardner 1846, n.p. Jamieson 1987, pp. 10,11. h Macdonald 1842; the Everett Family Papers. I am indebted to John Ferry of the History Department at the University of New England for drawing my attention to the Everett correspondence and other sources, and for discussing with me some of the ideas presented in this article. M Fennell & Gray 1974, p. 84. 10 Gray 1982, p. 89. 11 Bundarra Young 1922, p. 401. 12 Moore 1991, pp. 1, 3. 13 Milliss 1980, p. 91. 178 ABORIGINAL HISTORY 1996 20 Figure 1 New England Pastoral District NEW ENGLAND Maryland r (S o Touttts,Village and Pastoral Stations Downfall( §\ I w <S( NEW ENGLAND CORROBOREE SONGS 179 postulated by I.C.Campbell, who attributes much of the hostility to the generally brutalized character of convict labour.14 The opinion of Susan Bundarra Young that: the convicts were not the hardened ruffians and criminals that they have been represented to be’4 has been echoed by Donald Jamieson and others.”1 Some records portray a close relationship between assigned labouring men and local Aboriginal people.1' Moreover, evidence given to the 1839 New South Wales Legislative Council Select Committee On Police and Gaols laid the blame for bad relations in the adjacent north-west region as much on the character of station superintendents as on their stockmen.18 And in the aftermath of Myall Creek, some of the sharpest disapprobation—issuing from both contemporary newspaper editorials11 and the published accounts of informed observers such as Judge R. Therry2'1- was reserved for several of the local squatters themselves. Much also must have depended on the varying attitudes of the Aboriginal groups concerned, and even upon individuals within groups.21 While it is probably the case that an anti-settler Aboriginal confederation’ was formed on the north-west slopes between 1836 and 1838,2 *4‘ there is no evidence that Tableland Aboriginal people acted with a similar unity of purpose.2 Indeed, it is possible that the European presence actually sharpened hostilities between local groups here, an idea supported both by contemporary newspaper reports and by oral historical evidence.24 Relations between black and white also varied over time during this early period, settlers living on Surveyor's Creek station, for example, for some years maintained good relations with local Aboriginal people. Documented familiarity includes the mutual celebration of Christmas in 1842, and the frequent employment of Aboriginal men and " Campbell 1971, p. 11 14 Bundarra Young 1922, p. 294. '"Jamieson 1987, p. 10. 17 Muswellbrook Bench Book 1838, evidence of Andrew Eaton given before Edward Denny Day J.P., 30 August 1838; Armidale Bench Book 1844-1859, evidence of John Reid given before Messrs. M.C. O'Connell J.P. and Gilbert Elliott J.P., 18 March 1847. 18 N.S.W. Legislative Council 1839b, p. 225. 19 Sydney Monitor and Commercial Advertiser, 10 December 1838, quoted in Gilbert & Elphick 1974, p. 118. 2" Therry, R. 1863, Reminiscences of Thirty Years' Residence In Neiv South Wales and Victoria, London, chapter XVI, quoted in Gilbert & Elphick, pp.120-122. 21 Jamieson 1987, p. 16. Bundarra Young 1922, p. 399; Gardner 1846, n.p.; N.S.W. Legislative Council 1839b, p. 23. 23 Macdonald 1842, described the Tablelands people thus: '...from the widely scattered state of the Tribes—their distrust and fear of each other;—their constant feuds...there is but a very remote probability of effecting any radical change in their moral or social Condition as a people...'(emphasis as in original). 4 Although the specific events took place well after initial contact, various issues of the Armidale Expess for June 1860 discuss troubles on the eastern border of New England, caused by Aboriginal people from the Macleay River being driven there by the N.S.W. Mounted Police. Current oral historical evidence links these troubles to stories of pitched battles between the Macleay River people and Tableland tribes (Mr. M. Kim 1996, pers. comm; Mr. B. Lockwood 1996, pers. comm; see also Scholes 1971, pp. 54, 57.) 180 ABORIGINAL HISTORY 1996 20 women on the property. But in 1844, the station overseer wrote the following in his journal: Thursday September 26th. 1844...I keep my gun & pistol loaded in the house. The Blacks attacked a neighbouring station, Rusden's, & nearly killed a shepherd, left him for dead & stole some of the sheep, the damn scoundrels, they ought to be shot. I had some of them here to-day working about the house & I heard to-night that one of the Blacks I had was one of those who attacked Rusden’s, they are treacherous dogs.25 Again, white attitudes in New England probably changed markedly after the perpetrators (or their agents) of the M yall Creek massacre were hanged in 1838.'" By this action, sections at least of the colonial government had shown a clear intention to enforce the protection of Aboriginal people, a principle laid out explicitly in the initial general instructions to the Commissioner of Crown Lands for New England.'' A general caveat against large-scale aggression had thus been published abroad before fully one- third of the 45 or so stations in New England had been taken up by the end of 1839.