On the Sacred Clay of Botany Bay: Landings, National Memorialization, and Multiple Sovereignties
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On the Sacred Clay of Botany Bay: Landings, National Memorialization, and Multiple Sovereignties by Ann McGrath (Australian National University) Abstract To mark the federation of the Australian colonies in January 1901, a re-enactment of the landing of British navigator Captain James Cook was performed at Botany Bay, New South Wales. This involved not only the arrival of Cook’s ‘discovery’ party ashore, but also a violent conflict with the local Gweagal/Dharawal people. The Landing Play brought together costumed professional actors and a troupe of Aboriginal performers from many parts of Australia. As indelible as the Cook landing story may seem as a foundational narrative replete with British flag raising performances, Australia’s national story has never been entirely unified, homogenous or settled. Spectacularly adorned in animal skins and bird feathers, the Indigenous troupe used sacred white clay to paint their faces and bodies in distinctive designs, signifying the deep history narratives of their respective Indigenous nations. Both the European and Indigenous Australian actors re-enacted histories associated with their respective ancestral heroes on lands they deemed sacred. These contested performances of sovereignty, of ‘landings’ and of history, were mutually witnessed and in conversation with each other. Yet, while contemporary politicians and elites were reifying Captain Cook’s legacy, much of the general audience ignored expectations, invading the VIP tent and cheering not the pompous Captain Cook oratory, but the Aboriginal actors who charged and attacked Cook’s party. A Maori Native Affairs Minister from New Zealand and three Maori chiefs watched the 1901 spectacle. In contrast to the Indigenous recognition enjoyed in neighboring New Zealand, the Australian government today continues to resist a constitutionally recognised Indigenous advisory body, let alone to discuss discrete parliamentary representation or a Treaty. Yet then, as now, multiple parallel sovereignties and their sacred histories continue to be enacted and re-enacted across the Australian continent.. Keywords: memorialization, landing, re-enactment, Indigenous sovereignty, Botany Bay, Australia, Captain Cook, sacred places, nationalism, violent conflict, Colonialism On the first of January 1901, after a peaceful but mental nation’ united by common feeling (Hirst drawn out debate and negotiation process, the 2000). By 1901, that liminal national identity six Australian colonies federated into a nation. was in full flight. New historical imaginings, set Queen Victoria signed the papers that autho- in particular sites in the landscape, promised to rised the Constitution of the new Common- bridge conflicting local, national and imperial wealth of Australia. Representatives from across agendas and identities. Ancestral heroes had the continent and the world came together to been selected, and their actions positioned upon witness festivities to mark the beginning of the symbolic grounds of entitlement. new nation. Suitable foundation narratives had Along the white sandy beaches and the clayey to be invented and enacted. After all, a scattered hinterlands of Botany Bay, on the seventh of population had to be transformed into a ‘senti- January in 1901, the new nation’s first histori- NEW DIVERSITIES Vol. 19, No. 2, 2017 ISSN ISSN-Print 2199-8108 ▪ ISSN-Internet 2199-8116 New Diversities 19 (2), 2017 Ann McGrath cal re-enactment was about to take place. It ing group ashore in a small dinghy, the Cook was The Landing of Lieutenant James Cook, R.N. actor cut an impressively noble figure. He wore at Botany Bay, 1770 (Gapps 2000:112). Despite a gold-braided uniform with a blue cutaway concerted efforts to inscribe a unifying, homoge- coat, white knee breeches, silken hose and a nous plotline, those attending the events partici- gold-laced three-cornered hat. Actors playing pated in competing visions of the national past the British scientist Joseph Banks and the Swed- and future. On a continent that shared multiple, ish naturalist and Linnaean acolyte Dr Daniel complex and contested sovereignties,1 Botany Solander wore more muted costumes, though Bay had long been a meeting place of contingent Banks’ aristocratic status was indicated by finer histories (Nugent 2005). cloth and golden ornamentation. A band of men This article explores how diverse performers in marine uniforms paced up and down, carry- and audiences engaged in an interpretation of ing antique muskets. According to the Sydney the ‘discovery moment’ in surprising ways. In the Morning Herald, the cast of sailors lolled around theatre of plein air, unpredictable things hap- looking like they were out of a scene from the pened. The formal Landing script is examined in Pirates of Penzance (SMH 8 Jan: 5). An actor the light of nationalist agendas, then we will con- from a local Comedy company played Tupia, the sider what actually took place on the day between voyage’s navigator, artist and mapmaker from various participants – including politicians, digni- Raiatea, Society Islands (Thomas: 2010). His was taries, diverse actors and audience members. Of an intermediary role: to attempt communication particular interest is how the Indigenous Austra- with and to offer European trade goods to the lian troupe played a key role, creating a multi- Aboriginal group. layered performance of nation. Their presence The already-landed group comprised twenty- alone, with muscular physiques and Australian five Aboriginal men who had travelled from ornamentations on display, undermined any sin- Queensland, the state adjoining the northern gular rendition of a British ‘great man’ narrative. border of New South Wales and extending in Beyond binary questions of whether the Aborigi- the far tropical north to the Torres Straits. At nal performers were captives or agents (Poignant first hidden from the crowd by thick bushes, the 2004; Taylor 2003), I consider the affective nature Aboriginal troupe applied clay and ochres to their of their performances (Edmonds 2016) and what torsos, arms and faces. Then, armed with fifteen- they brought with them. Tangible and intangible, foot-long barbed spears, nullah nullahs, boomer- what was that repertoire? In what ways did the angs and woomerahs, they suddenly appeared, live performances of the Landing Play and its charging down the hill, yelling loudly and hold- audiences disrupt a singular patriotic reading of ing their spears high, ready to throw. Spectacular Australia’s national sovereignty and history? in fine possum skins, the feathers and wings of parrots, cassowary, emu, galahs, black and white Landings cockatoos, they wore neckpieces of kangaroo The outdoor re-enactment of the Captain Cook teeth and nautilus shells. Beneath their human landing scene was to be the highlight of the hair waistbands were ‘Siberian trunks’ for mod- nation’s inaugural celebrations. Two sets of esty (Meston to Under Secy, Queensland, 15 Jan actors were required for the performance – a 1901). landing and a landed group. Leading the land- The Australasian wryly captioned its photo: ‘Queensland Aboriginals in Full War Paint: Cap- 1 Aboriginal Australia comprised hundreds of distinc- tain Cook’s Reception Committee’. As one news- tive landed and linguistically distinct groups that they understood as governing entities, polities or nations. paper reported, the Aboriginal men looked ‘mar- For a discussion of why the term ‘nation’ is helpful see velously picturesque and warlike, and would be McGrath 2015; for useful discussions of Indigenous ugly customers to meet in a hand-to-hand fight’ sovereignty, see Moreton-Robinson 2007. 86 On the Sacred Clay of Botany Bay New Diversities 19 (2), 2017 (TSM 12 Jan 1901: 80). With athletic, powerful viewed as a place of reconciliation between black physiques, some were over 6 foot 4 inches tall. and white Australia (McGrath 1991; 2015b). Their white clay and red ochre body paint, their Australian politicians reacted to the State- agility, litheness and dramatic talents greatly ment from the Heart as if it was a radical plan. impressed the audiences (Australasian 12 Jan Yet, amongst most British colonies, including the 1901:26, The Mercury 10 Jan 1901:2). The plot- United States, New Zealand and Canada, treaties line of the ‘landing’ play was of mutual threat, had been negotiated. Australia was different; it attempted conciliation, then a violent exchange was not conquered, but ‘settled’ – later argued to of fire and spears. After an Aboriginal man is be on the legal basis of terra nullius –unoccupied wounded his group retreats. It is a stand-off. or wasteland. As reflected in the 2017 Statement, Unlike William Penn’s much-mythologized story Aboriginal Australians saw their sovereignty, or of the foundational settlement in North America, authority over land, as a sacred entitlement. no treaty signing is involved. They did not concur with European assumptions that it had been annulled by colonization. Their Constituting a Nation proposed treaty would be a Makaratta, a Yolgnu In mid 2017, the National Constitutional Con- (eastern Arnhem Land) word for a process of vention of Aboriginal representatives at Uluru reaching agreement after a conflict. in Central Australia delivered a ‘Statement from Although Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Aus- the Heart’. It demanded a treaty, a representa- tralians alike proudly boast that Aborigines are tive body to advise government, and a truthful the world’s oldest continuing culture, historians telling of Australia’s national history.