Coffs Harbour and Dorrigo Advocate

Thursday 14 April 1927

Blacks Tribal Fight

A Unique Experience

       Mr. Walter Harvie of Coffs Harbour, who is now 83 years of age, was the only white witness of the biggest aboriginal tribal fight along this coast in the last 60 years. It was about 40 years ago. Mr. Harvie describes the unique incident as follows:
        I was drawing cedar from Bongal scubs to the Bellinger at the time, and employed two black boys. Their father was boss of the coast blacks from the Bellinger to a good distance north. We named him “Long Billy”. The boys were about 16 and 18 years of age and very intelligent. They were very useful to me in minding the bullocks. Naturally they wanted to go and see the fight, and they asked me to go with them. I went — partly because I was anxious as they were to see the fight and partly because I wanted to keep in touch with the boys, in case they might be enticed away. They had been with me about two years and could speak English. Later they joined the Queensland black police.

Aboriginal Customs

       The two boys I had were “Caperas”, which meant that they were a stage between boys and men. They had undergone their examinations by the heads of the tribes some time previously for promotion to manhood, although it was not in such a severe form as in former years. But they were barred from eating certain kinds of food. Bush turkeys, goannas and flying foxes were taboo, also several kinds of game, but fish, oysters, damper and any other food were allowed. They were debarred from living in the camp with other blacks, particularly if there were any women or girls about. They had an appointed chaperone, who was always with them. He was generally an old aborigine who, in addition to his fighting implements carried a nitched piece of thin wood with strings attached, which made a buzzing sound when whirled in the air. It was a “row row”, and when used in the right way would make a row all right. This was used by the man in charge to keep all stragglers away from where the caperas were. There were other caperas in the group besides my two boys.

The Battle Ground

      The battle ground was on the bald ridges between Bongal and Boambi Creeks and when we arrived there we met a great number of blacks. The fighting men were naked, except for strong belts in which they carried their fighting implements. Their bodies were painted with fantastic stripes of different colours. They carried spears and heelaman in their hands. The heelaman was a piece of light wood about 16 or 18 inches long and about 14 inches wide, rounded on one side, and it had a grip hold for the hand on the flat side. This was their shield for warding off spears and blows from other weapons. I was directed by the head men to stay with the boys, as I would be safe with them from any weapons flying about. The boys soon found a suitable spot from which we would have a good view, and all the time the old chap kept up a noise with his whirling machine to keep intruders away.

The Battle

       The fighting men were rushing about making an unearthly row on both sides, but after a time they got into two lines about 50 yards apart. Then a large number on either side fell back as reserves, some distance away. Two men who appeared to be distinguished warriors jumped out in front of each line and made short speeches. When they finished they threw the boomerangs, which was a signal for a general clash. There was a yell that could be heard a long distance away and boomerangs and throwing sticks filled the air like flocks of birds. After they had expended all these missiles they started with spears about 10 feet long, of which they had great numbers. It was wonderful to see how they could elude them, knocking them aside, catching them on the heelaman, jumping straight up to let them pass underneath their feet, and even catching them in their hands and returning them like a flash. But each man kept his eyes glued on his opponent. Spears were picked up by the toes and returned, and it was wonderful how they could protect themselves behind the heelaman.
        After about half-an-hour’s strenuous fighting the front line men had used up all their weapons. Then the front line fell back on both sides, removing all who had been put out of action. The reserves took their place in the line and the fighting went on as fierce as before.
        When all the spears and boomerangs were used up the others joined in and they started with copens, a very dangerous weapon about 3 feet long with a heavy knob at the end. The contestants then got scattered in pairs over about half-a-mile of clear ridge and there was very fierce hand to hand fighting. We had a good view from where we were and could hear their weapons clashing on the shields. There were desperate yells and we could see the men falling, but whether they were seriously wounded or not we could not tell.
       About an hour from the time the battle started we could see that both sides had had enough. The southerners began to get away to their camp in twos and threes, and shortly afterwards there was a general stampede and the battle was over, bar the shouting and rattle of weapons. When the noise had quietened down there was much talk between the leaders and the different tribes (there were a number of tribes engaged) and soon they came to an agreement and began to attend to the wounded, of whom there were many. Some were so seriously wounded that they never recovered. I was told that three were killed outright in the fight.
        I made a rough count and calculated that about 500 men were engaged in the battle. They were the finest crowd of men I’ve ever seen together — tall and muscular, and every one an athlete of no mean calibre. The lubras were very plucky. They ran about among the fighting men picking up weapons that had been used.
      I believe I am the only white man in New South Wales, and perhaps in Australia, who has ever witnessed such an exhibition. It would have made a fine picture, especially the hand to hand fighting near the finish, which was very fierce, and there were dozens lying about the ground in various attitudes. A great many had to be carried off to the different camps. The carriers made rough stretchers of saplings to carry those who could not walk and the wounded were attended to by old aborigines and lubras, who seemed to be experts at fixing up spear wounds and broken heads.

A Big Corroboree

       I saw some that had to be helped off the battlefield taking part in the big corroboree that was held at night. There must have been over 1000 blacks congregated there, all in nature’s garb except for short fringes worn around their hips by the lubras and pieces of skin of some animal hanging from the belts of the men. They had no blankets – the government dole had not reached this far. But they had plenty of rugs well tanned and sewn with a thread of their own make.
       All the tribes took part in the corroboree. I remember that one part was a kangaroo hunt. A number of the blacks camped at Boambi for a long time, feeding and tending the men who were were wounded in the fight. I was running my bullock team there and was often about my run. Although they must have been often on short allowances of food they never interfered with my bullocks.
        I noticed in a Sydney paper some months ago where a writer stated that aboriginals never used the boomerang in their fights. That is wrong. I have seen several, and the boomerang was always the principal weapon used. §

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE:
       The two sentences highlighted in italics immediately above have been inserted for the sake of historical completeness. They appeared in the original handwritten account submitted by Walter Harvie to the newspaper editor but were omitted from the published version. The heading and sub-headings were all inserted by that editor.
       In the language spoken by central and north coast of New South Wales aboriginal tribes the term caperas, said by Walter Harvie to have applied to youths of the mid-north coast tribes whilst they were undergoing the initiation into manhood process, is more usually spelt caparras or keeparras – for that spelling see a 1899 description of the keeparra initiation ceremonies practiced by the tribes of the Port Stephens area. The implement referred to by Walter Harvie as a “row row” is today generally termed a bullroarer, “copens” a nulla nulla, and “heelaman” a shield.
       Walter Harvie was born in Nova Scotia in 1843 and arrived in Australia in 1860. He was acknowledged by his peers as having been the first white settler in 1865 at Coffs Harbour on the Mid North Coast of New South Wales. His assumption he may have been the only person in NSW, or even in Australia, to have witnessed such a large tribal battle was astray. Other written accounts of persons witnessing similar have been noted. For instance an anglican minister Rev. James Hassell (1823-1904), in his 1902 published autobiography titled In Old Australia : records and reminiscences from 1794, mentioned when he was a scholar from 1832 to 1835 at The King’s School in the Sydney suburb of Parramatta in NSW he and other boys witnessed similar large tribal battles in that area.

Transcript by John Raymond, Brisbane, Australia – first posted 1999

The Rev James Hassell wrote about a fight he witnessed in 1832:

On one occasion, it being a holiday, the boys were allowed  to pay a visit to the blacks’ camp, some distance out of Parramatta, towards Prospect. The blacks had assembled  from various parts of the colony, for the annual feast given  them by the Governor, and to receive a blanket apiece. The  latter gift is still customary wherever any blacks remain.

Before the feast came off, quarrels had sometimes to be adjusted, and on this occasion a fight took place, which we had the opportunity of witnessing.

There were probably six or seven hundred blacks assembled at their camps. The women of each party had first to be placed at a safe distance. The men painted themselves with white pipe-clay and red ochre and thus, without any clothing, the two parties advanced towards each other in a half circle, in ranks three and four deep, armed with spears, boomerangs, nullah-nullahs, waddies, and shields. When within a hundred yards or so of each other, the battle began.

The spears flew cross the half circle in great profusion, but were well parried by the shields. Then came the boomerangs, striking the ground first and then redounding in all directions among the enemy.  These are dangerous weapons and cannot be warded off so well as the spears.  After a little time, the contending parties closed in, and a hand to-hand fight with their nulla-nullas or waddies ended the affray. Three blacks were killed and a number wounded. Not day, notwithstanding both parties assembled at tie feast together and made friends.

FEBRUARY 12, 2018 BY KEITH VINCENT SMITH

YOO-LONG ERAH-BA-DIANG 1795

Keith Vincent Smith

The engraving shows five Aboriginal boys among fifteen who have just graduated as men after facing the final ordeal in an initiation ceremony that took place in February 1795 at Wogganmagully, a shallow bay in Sydney Harbour we now call Farm Cove.

Initiation, the core of Aboriginal cultural and spiritual life, marked the entry of boys into the adult world through a series of rituals which, in the Sydney coastal area, reached a climax when the upper front incisor tooth of each boy was knocked out.

The new made men could now add to their name the title kebarrah , meaning a fully initiated man whose tooth has been knocked out by a stone, derived from the word kebba or gibba, a stone or rock.

At the end of January 1795 Aboriginal people began to gather at a place they called Yourong or Yoo-lahng, at the eastern side or bank of Farm Cove, close to the present Mrs. Macquarie’s Point.

The site of these ceremonies was identified by the young roving artist Augustus Earle, who in February 1827 painted a series of eight overlapping watercolour views of The Town of Sydney, New South Wales; the harbour of Port Jackson and surrounding country. These pictures were shipped to England and assembled and exhibited by Robert Burford (1791-1861) at his Panorama in Leicester Square, London, in 1829 and 1830.

No trace, alas, remains of the original great canvas circle in which Earle captured Sydney’s beautiful harbour vista,  including No. 48 Government Stables, the prominent castellated building designed by the convict architect Francis Greenway, built for the horses and carriages of Governor Lachlan Macquarie. It now houses the Conservatorium of Music in Macquarie Street, adjoining Sydney’s Royal Botanic Gardens.

This hand-coloured engraving is from the folding frontispiece of the sixpenny printed key to the Panorama, Description of a view of Sydney, published by Burford in 1829. It locates the site of the 1795 initiation bora ground as 58. Kangaroo & Dog Dance. 

There were no movie cameras or sound recorders in those days, but this Eora gathering is vividly evoked through the written account of Judge Advocate David Collins, an eyewitness at the ceremony, and the visuals of James Neagle (1760-1822), whose engravings appeared in Collins’s book An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, published in London three years later.

The black and white prints that follow were copied by Neagle from a series of watercolours by the artist Collins described as ‘a person well qualified to make drawings of every particular circumstance that occurred’. That person was the Scots artist and convicted forger Thomas Watling, who arrived in Sydney in October 1792.

The ceremonial ground selected for this ‘extraordinary exhibition’, wrote Collins, was a space which had been prepared for some days by clearing away grass and tree stumps. ‘It was of an oval figure, the dimensions of it 27 feet by 18, and was named Yoo-lahng.’ It occupied the peninsula at the top of the ridge (now Mrs. Macquarie’s Road in the Domain) from which the land sloped gradually to sandstone rocks, giving way to flats that in 1795 were tidal mangrove swamps.

INITIATES

‘Several youths well known among us, never having submitted to the operation, were now to be made men,’ wrote Collins. In all, fifteen youngsters were to be initiated by garadigal (clever men) and gooringal (elders and guardians) from the Gamaragal or Cameragal, who occupied the north shore of Sydney Harbour.

Among the boys were Nanbarry, nephew of the Gadigal leader Colebee, Boneda (Bundah or Punda), younger brother of Colebee’s wife Daringa, Caruey or Gurrooee (also Gadigal), called Carraway by the English, Yerinibe (a Burramattagal) and a candidate aged about twenty three, who was not known in Sydney.

‘Pe-mul-wy, a wood native, and many strangers, came in’, Collins remarked. No attempt was made to detain the Bijigal resistance leader Pemulwuy, who was responsible for spearing John McEntire (or McIntyre), game shooter to Governor Arthur Phillip, near Botany Bay in December 1790. Pemulwuy might have been the guardian of the older stranger.

While they waited impatiently for the Gamaragal ‘operators’ to cross from the north shore, the south harbour Eora spent the evenings singing and dancing, which was customary. One man Collins saw was ‘all together a frightful object’, painted white to his waist, except for his beard and eyebrows, while others had painted white circles around their eyes ‘which rendered them as terrific as can well be imagined.’

At nightfall on 2 February 1795 twenty Gamaragal beached their nawi (canoes) at Wogganmagully / Farm Cove. Their bodies were painted up and they carried shields, clubs, spears and womeras (spear-throwers). Each was wearing the waistband of an initiated man.

Collins named the senior carradhy or garadji (clever man) as ‘Boo-der-ro, the native who had throughout taken the principal part in the business’. Booderro is obviously the thin, white-bearded older man seen in Neagle’s engravings holding an ornamented shield, usually standing apart and giving directions.

Whenever they spoke about the ceremony, said Collins, his Aboriginal informants always used the words Yoo-lahng erah-ba-diahng.

The term Yoo-lahng erah-ba-diahng [sic] must therefore be considered as applying solely to this extraordinary occasion; it appears to be compounded of the name given to the spot where the principal scenes take place, and of the most material qualification that is derived from the whole ceremony, that of throwing the spear. I conceive it to be the import of the word erah-ba-diahng, erah being a part of the verb to throw, erah, throw you, erailley, throwing.

With hindsight this speculation has proved to be inaccurate.

The name of the ceremony is given as Yoo-long Erah-ba-diang in the captions to the illustrations, but as Era-bad-djang, translated as the ‘ceremony or operation of drawing the tooth’, in the handwritten wordlist collected by Governor Phillip and his aides, which I call the Governor’s Vocabulary (Anon 1791:17.17).  Its literal meaning, from yirra ‘tooth’ and badiang ‘hurt’, would mean ‘tooth hurting or wounding’. [For the ‘Governor’s Vocabulary’, now in the School of Oriental and African Languages at the University of London, see the Language entry on this blog.]

THE SKY WOULD FALL

At the start of the ceremony, the Gamaragal elders stand at one end of the ceremonial ground facing the novices. Abruptly, they advance towards them with a shout, rattling their spears against their shields, stamping their feet and sending up a thick cloud of dust.

In the uproar, each boy is seized by his guardian and thrust into the circle of gooringal where they are prevented ‘by a grove of spears from any attempts that his friends might make to rescue him’. The boys then sit at one end, their heads bowed, hands clasped and legs submissively crossed beneath them.

Collins was told the novices were forbidden to look up or to drink anything. In initiations in the Brisbane area about 1834, described in his Reminiscences (1904) by Tom Petrie, the boys were warned that ‘the sky would fall and smother them’ if they looked up. Bundjalung initiates at Woodenbong in northern New South Wales in 1898 were frequently ‘forced to hold down their heads so that they cannot see’.

In a ritual resembling a Balinese or Haitian trance dance, one garadji lay on the ground, writhing and gesturing as though in pain. He ‘appeared at length to be delivered of a bone, which was to be used in the ensuing ceremony’, wrote Collins. While this was going on, a crowd of men danced around the medium, singing loudly. One man beat the garadji on the back until he produced the bone, leaving him exhausted and bathed in sweat. Another man produced a second bone in the same way. Collins astutely noticed that the bone had been concealed ‘in the girdle [waistband] that he wore’.

In his published account, Collins was at pains to point out that he had not been deceived by these ‘mummeries’. At the same time he realised that the antics of the Aboriginal doctors were meant to ease the suffering of the initiates. The more the elders suffered, the less pain the boys would feel.

When Collins left at nightfall the boys were sitting silently in a position of subjection ‘in which they were told they were to remain until morning’.

The next morning (3 February) Collins found the Gamaragal operators sleeping apart in a group. Physical and mental exhaustion had overtaken the boys, who slept outside the circle and did not stir until sunrise. One by one the garadigal arrived, shouting on entering the circle, then running around it two or three times. The boys were brought in, again with their heads bent and hands clasped together, and seated on a low mound at the edge of the circle.

[Yoo-long Erah-ba-diang.1.]

The first plate illustrates the ceremony that Collins understood gave initiates ‘power over the dog’ (tungo : dingo) and endowed them with the good qualities of the animal. The late Dr. Frederick David McCarthy characterised this as the ‘dingo taboo rite’, which licensed men to hunt and kill dingoes. Six initiates, heads bowed, watch as the twelve operators run around the ring on hands and feet ‘imitating the dogs of the country’. Two older men supervise. Twelve men have curved wooden ‘sword clubs’ stuck in their waistbands to represent dingo tails. Each time they pass, the dancers throw up sand and dust with their hands and feet over the boys, who sit still and silent.

[Yoo-long Erah-ba-diang. 2.]

In the second scene the fifteen initiates sit together in a semicircle around some cut bushes. Two garadigal inside the circle approach the boys. The first, wrote Collins, carries on his shoulders ‘a pat-ta-go-rang or kangaroo made of grass’ (though it looks more like a big lizard), while the second, who bears ‘a load of brushwood’ also has a flowering branch thrust through the hole in the septum of his nose. Six men with clubs in their belts squat in a circle around Booderro, who sings as he beats his shield with clapsticks.

Limping and halting, the two actors give the impression that they are weighed down by a heavy burden. Finally, they drop their load at the feet of the young men.

Collins thought the brushwood might symbolise the haunt of the kangaroo. At the back of the circle, six spectators watch from a slight rise next to a large fallen log, where a dozen spears are stacked. A smoking campfire burns between the two groups.

[Yoo-long Erah-ba-diang.3.]

‘The boys were left seated at the Yoo-lahng for about half an hour,’ wrote Collins, ‘during which the actors went down into a valley near the place, where they fitted themselves with long tails made of grass, which they fastened to the hinder parts of their girdles, instead of the sword [club], which was laid aside during this scene.’

Here the dancers mimic kangaroos ‘now jumping along, then lying down and scratching themselves, as those animals do when basking in the sun.’

In this scene, nine initiates, huddled on a raised mound, witness the traditional Eora kangaroo hunt, involving nineteen Gamaragal operators. A songman at right beats time with a club on a shield while fourteen ‘kangaroo men’ hop along the pathway in a line, knees bent; arms and hands held out like paws.

At left are two ‘kangaroo hunters’ armed with spears and shields, one with a barbed spear poised in his womera, ready to throw. Two supervisors stand on an embankment just above the first kangaroo dancer, who looks towards them. The hunters stalked their quarry, said Collins, ‘pretending to steal upon them unobserved and spear them’. The boys being made men are now authorised to chase and spear kangaroos for the rest of their lives.

[Yoo-long Erah-ba-diang. 4.]

The dancers stand erect and quickly remove their grass ‘kangaroo’ tails. Each seizes a boy and places him on his shoulders. None of the boys’ friends and relations attempted to interfere or ‘molest these north shore natives in the execution of their business,’ Collins noted.

In the engraving, six initiates, arms outstretched, are carried on the shoulders of the Cameragal, who hold their hands to steady them. The men have put their clubs back into their waistbands.

Three men brandish flat-topped clubs like wooden mallets, probably used in tooth evulsion. Two quite small men at the front appear to be chanting.

The spearman standing on one leg to the right of Booderro is most likely Pemulwuy.

[Yoo-long Erah-ba-diang. 5.]

The boys are taken a short distance to a flat area, let down from the shoulders of the men and placed in a group, their heads lowered and hands clasped.

At this stage some of the operators disappeared for ten minutes ‘to arrange the figure of the next scene’ and Collins was excluded from this part of the rites. ‘I was not admitted to witness this business, about which they appeared to observe a greater degree of mystery and preparation than I had noticed in either of the preceding ceremonies,’ he wrote.

This was a significant and deeply spiritual part of initiation.

When Collins and Watling were allowed to return they saw the scene recreated in the fifth engraving.

Here two men sit on tree stumps, each with a man balanced on his shoulders; all four with their arms extended. The boys are guarded by men armed with spears. A dozen gooringal lie huddled closely together on the ground, some on top of others. Only the back of their heads and bodies can be seen.

As the boys and their attendants approach, the two men on the stump begin to move from side to side, ‘lolling out their tongues, and staring as wide and horribly with their eyes as they could open them’. The boys are guided over the bodies of the men on the ground, who writhe as if in agony, ‘uttering a mournful dismal sound, like very distant thunder’. The men on the second stump pull grotesque faces as the novices pass. Collins wrote:

A particular name, boo-roo-moo-roong, was given to this scene; but of its import I could learn very little. I made much inquiry; but could never obtain any other answer, than that it was very good; that the boys would now become brave men; that they would see well, and fight well.

In the language spoken by the Eora boo-roo-moo-roong literally meant ‘thunder in the clouds’, a good description of the ‘mournful dismal sound, like very distant thunder’ heard by Collins. In nearby coastal initiations, bullroarers, called variously boo-ro-wa or mooroonga, were sounded continually during this secret part of the ceremony.

The bullroarer, a flat piece of wood or hard animal skin used in sacred ceremonies, emits a low, humming sound when whirled through the air at the end of a string. Bullroarers might have been sounded at Farm Cove after David Collins had been led away.

This is a serious and shocking psychological moment for the initiates. As they slide over the prone and apparently bloody mass of bodies on the ground they are filled with dread of the unknown, fearing they are about to be eaten by a strange creature whose voice like rumbling thunder has been simulated by the moaning of the men (or the whirr of bullroarers). At this moment of transformation, the boys have been killed and reborn as men.

An old Aboriginal woman told A.W. Howitt: ‘All I know about Tharamulun (Daramulan) is that he comes down with a noise like thunder, to make the boys into men, We call him Papang (father).’ In some clans, the young initiates believed they would be eaten alive by Daramulan, who would restore them to human shape with their upper incisor tooth missing. Around Brisbane, the bullroarer or buggaram was said to be the noise made by the ‘great men’, who, it was thought, swallowed the boys and vomited them up again.

[Yoo-long Erah-ba-diang. 6.]

Having survived this ordeal, the boys, at the threshold of manhood, are seated in a semi-circle under a tree, their heads still averted.

Booderro has his back to them, facing a circle of Gamaragal officials armed with spears and shields as he rhythmically strikes his shield with his club. At every third beat, the warriors thrust their spears at Booderro, touching the centre of his shield.

‘It appeared significant of an exercise which was to form the principal business of their lives, the use of the spear,’ commented Collins.

[Yoo-long Erah-ba-diang.7.]

The moment had come for the great final shock of initiation: the removal of the upper front incisor. ‘The first subject they took was a boy of about ten years of age,’ Collins recorded. This boy, restrained by a man on each side, balances on the shoulders of his guardian who kneels in the grass.

A throwing stick is first cut about 8-10 inches from the end, by placing it upon a tree.  A sharpened bone magically produced by a carradhy the previous evening is used to loosen the boy’s tooth from his gum. The narrow end of the prepared stick is then placed against the top of the tooth. A goringal strikes the stick with a large stone,  pretending to hit it three times before the actual blow, repeating the operation as often as necessary. Another man holds the boy’s head in place. Collins:

They were full three minutes about this first operation, the tooth being, unfortunately for the boy, fixed very firm in the gum. It was at last forced out and the sufferer was taken away to a little distance, where the gum was now closed by his friends.

One by one, the teeth of the remaining initiates are knocked out in the same way, except for a ‘pretty boy about eight or nine years of age’, he could not endure the pain after one blow, broke free and escaped. This might have been Nanbree or Nanbarry, a Gadigal.

As each tooth was removed, the assistants ‘made the most hideous noise in the ears of the patients’, crying loudly and repeatedly ‘e-wah e–wah, ga-ga ga-ga’. This, said Collins, was to distract the boys’ attention and to drown out any cries, but they ‘made it a point of honour to bear the pain without a murmur’.

[Yoo-long Erah-ba-diang. 8.]

Fourteen newly initiated men sit together along the trunk of a fallen tree the evening following the tooth evulsion ceremony. Each graduate wears a headband, with white blades of the base of the grass tree (Xanthhorea) thrust into it to make a headdress like a small crown. Each has a wooden club in his initiation waistband and carries a waddy in his right hand. His left hand is placed over his mouth to stop him speaking. He is not permitted to eat any kind of food that day.

At right, Nanbarry is comforted by his uncle Colebee, who applies a cooked fish to quell the pain in his gum ‘which suffered from the stroke more than any others’.

Immediately afterwards the new men jump up and rush into Sydney Town ‘driving before them men, women, and children, who were glad to get out of their way’. Wherever they went, they set the grass on fire. Collins concluded:

They were now received into the class of men; were privileged to  wield the spear and the club, and to oppose their persons in  combat. They might now also seize such females as they chose for  wives. All this, however, must be understood to import, that having submitted to the operation, having endured the pain of it without a murmur, and having lost a front tooth, they received a qualification which they were to exercise whenever their years and their strength should be equal to it.

INSIGHT

David Collins described only one large oval shaped ceremonial ground at Farm Cove, but elsewhere in southeastern Australia, initiation were traditionally staged within two circles connected by a pathway. Collins, who did not witness some parts of the ritual, might have missed these features.

In the Kamilaroi and Wiradjuri cultures to the north and west of Sydney, the initiation rite was called bora and the circles bora rings, suggesting two circles rather than one.

In a vocabulary titled ‘Native of New South Wales’, sent in March 1791 by David Blackburn, Master of HM Storeship Supply, to Richard Knight at Devizes in England, bora is given as meaning ‘testicle’, again suggesting two circles.

However, the Reverend Charles Greenway (1878) interpreted bora or boorrah as the Kamilaroi name for the boorr or ‘belt of manhood’ given to initiated men.

Look more closely and you will see that Watling had drawn two circles, clearly shown in Neagle’s engravings. For instance, the circle in Yoo-long Erah-ba-diang 1 is surrounded by a low ridge of earth formed by scraping off bushes and topsoil. This is not seen in Plates3 to 8, in which the circles are surrounded by vegetation.

Plate 3 shows the muru or path running between steep banks with trees on a ridge in the background and low shrubs on the downhill side.

Bora grounds in what is now south-east Queensland  usually had two rings, with a path between them, said to symbolise the transition between childhood and manhood. Initiates there, aged 14 to 15, were called kippas. The placenames Kippa-Ring, 24 kilometres north of Brisbane and Keparra, meaning ‘young man standing’ were named for bora sites.

In Plate 8, the initiated men sit on a long log, which is otherwise only seen in Plate 2. A small creek or cove can be glimpsed in the background of these two views.

Reviewing the initiation at Farm Cove, David Collins said he would consider the ceremony as a tribute to the Cameragal (Gamaragal), except for the fact that ‘all the people of Cam-mer-ray, which were those who had extracted the tooth, were themselves proof that they had submitted to the operation. I never saw any among them who had not lost the front tooth.’

The practice of tooth evulsion in Australia is ancient. Archaeologist Dr. Alistair Campbell examined skulls of Aboriginal males, dated to 8000 years before the present, in which the upper right incisor teeth had been removed. Tooth evulsion was the central focus of initiation throughout southeastern Australia. While in Van Diemen’s Land (Tasmania) during 1792 the French botanist Jacques-Julien de Labillardière (1755-1834) observed some men ‘in whom one of the middle teeth of the upper jaw was wanting, and others in whom both were gone’.

Watkin Tench (1793) described the method used by the gooringal to extract the front tooth of initiates.

The tooth intended to be taken out is loosened, by the gum being scarified on both sides with a sharp shell. The end of a stick is then applied to the tooth, which is struck gently, several times, with a stone, until it becomes easily movable, when the coup de grace is given, by a smart stroke.

Thomas Watling drew a pencil sketch of one of the 1795 initiates Gur-roo-ee – that is Caruey or Carraway (garawi : white cockatoo) – clearly showing the gap where his incisor was knocked out during initiation. The portrait is in the Watling Colletion at the Natural History Museum in London.

Caruey, a Gadigal, exchanged names with a fellow initiate, Yeranibe, a Burramattagal, who was afterwards called Yeranibe Goruey. Caruey died from a spear wound in December 1805 and was buried, wrapped in paperbark, at the Brickfields (present Chippendale).

ANTHROPOLOGICAL BACKGROUND

There are astonishing parallels between the initiation rites described by David Collins in 1795 and  ceremonies observed by anthropologists in much later years and  in places a long way from Sydney.

The explorer and ethnologist Alfred William Howitt, who witnessed a Burbung (initiation) among the Wolgal (or Walgalu)  observed that the ceremonies usually lasted two or three days and new dances were shown and taught to others.

Howitt wrote:

While the people are waiting for the arrival of the contingents there is singing and dancing each evening. 

… a novice must not receive food from the hand of a woman, or speak in the presence of one, without covering his mouth with the corner of his skin rug or blanket.

The Yuin believe that the thunder is the voice of Duramana.

Howitt said that during the Burbung, the boys were repeatedly threatened by men with weapons ready to strike if they disclosed anything they had seen to the uninitiated.
 [See A.W. Howitt, The Native Tribes of south-east Australia, Macmillan, London, 1904]

ADDITIONAL TEXT AT 27 MARCH 2018

In a section titled ‘The Bora of the Kaimilaroi [Kamilaroi] Tribes’ in his paper Notes on the Aborigines of New South Wales, published by the Government Printer in Sydney in  1907 , the surveyor, linguist and ethnologist Robert Hamilton  Mathews (1841-1918),  described a Bora camp and initiation rite at which he was present in 1897.

Mathews wrote:

This camp was situated on the left bank of Redband Creek, a small tributary of the Weir River, in the parish of Tallwood, county of Carnarvon, Queensland.

The  hosts of the ceremony, the ‘Tallwood Tribe’ had sent invitations by messengers to Aboriginal people from the Goondiwindi, Welltown, St. George, Mugan, Mungindi and Gundablui ‘mobs’.

These extracts from Mathews’ description tally well with the Yoo-long erah-ba-diang ceremony a century before at Farm Cove.

 At some convenient place by the way a stoppage is made, and the boys are put standing in a row, with their heads bowed as usual. The men then pass along in front of them, imitating some animal, such as pelicans, kangaroos, or the like, and the novices are permitted to raise their heads and look at them … About the middle of this period, preparations are made for the extraction of one of the novices’ upper incisor teeth …

One man then bends down, and places the boy sitting on his knee, another man standing beside him to keep the boy steady. The tooth extractor then steps forward, and inserts his own lower teeth under one of the boy’s upper incisors, and gives a strong steady pull for the ostensible purpose of loosening the tooth. A small piece of wood, hardened in the fire, is then used as a chisel, being placed against the tooth, and a smart tap with a mallet on the other end completes the dental operation. The tooth is then taken out of the boy’s mouth with the man’s fingers, and held up to the public view, which is the signal for a shout from all the men present. The boys have to swallow the blood which flows from the wounded gum.

During these proceedings a bull-roarer is sounded in the adjacent bush just out of sight, and at the conclusion the boys are led back to their camp, and put sitting down with their hands over their mouths.

Copyright Keith Vincent Smith 2018

https://www.nationalquiltregister.org.au/aboriginal-skin-cloaks/

by Fabri Blacklock Assistant Curator, Koori History and Culture, Powerhouse Museum, Sydney

Aboriginal people throughout south-eastern and western Australia wore skin cloaks, as these temperate zones were much cooler than the northern parts of Australia. The cloaks were made from the skins of possums, kangaroos, wallabies and other fur bearing animals. Early European observations noted that many of the local Aboriginal people wore skin cloaks. These observations were recorded in literature, paintings and photography.

The many processes involved in the making of these cloaks were complex and often time consuming. Some cloaks were made using up to seventy skins taking over a year to collect before beginning the process of making them into a cloak. Once the skins were removed from the animal, the flesh was scraped off using a sharp stone implement or mussel shell. The skins were then stretched over bark and hung out to dry often near a fire as this would slightly tan the skins and protect them from insect attacks . After the skins were dried out they were then rubbed with fat, ochre and or ashes to make them pliable and keep them supple. The cloaks were sewn together using sinew, which was taken from the tail of kangaroos. Holes were pierced through the skins using a sharp pointed stick or a pointed bone needle. The sinew was then threaded through the pre made holes to sew the skins together making them into a cloak. There appears to be some difference in the manufacture of the cloaks across Australia. In New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia the skins were shaped into square pelts and then sewn together. In Western Australia the skin’s used were mainly kangaroo and the whole skin was sewn together with another leaving the tail to hang at the bottom of the cloak. The cloaks from Western Australia are called Buka or Boka.

Skin cloaks were often the main items of clothing worn by Aboriginal people in the cooler temperate zones. The cloak was worn by placing it over one shoulder and under the other it was then fastened at the neck using a small piece of bone or wood. By wearing the cloak this way it allowed for movement of both arms without any restrictions and allowed for daily activities to be carried out with ease. The cloaks were worn both with the fur on the outside and on the inside depending on the weather conditions. If it was raining the fur would be worn on the outside, providing the same waterproof qualities it did to the animal from which the skins came. The cloaks were also used as rugs to sleep on at night. Many women wore cloaks that had a special pouch at the back in which they could easily carry a small child. This is illustrated in the photo to the right of Nahraminyeri, a Ngarrindjeri woman from Point McLeay in South Australia; this photo was taken in about 1880.

When wearing the fur on the inside the spectacular designs incised onto the skin could be seen and this is well illustrated in the paintings of Aboriginal artist William Barak. Barak’s paintings illustrate the magnificent designs that the cloaks were decorated with. Many of his paintings depict ceremonies with people singing and dancing in their cloaks.

Designs were incised into the leathery side of the skin, this was done using a sharp mussel shell. The design’s incised onto the cloak were important to the wearer and their clan group. The combination of designs helped identify who the wearer was and what group they came from. The design’s often found on the cloaks from south eastern Australia include naturalistic figures, cross hatching, wavy lines, diamonds, geometric designs, lozenges and zigzag patterns.

In his book The Aborigines of New South Wales Fraser (1892:45) discusses the meaning of the designs found on the cloaks. He suggests that each family had their own design or what Aboriginal people called a ‘mombarrai’ incised onto the cloak, which helped identify who the owner was. He states:

…a friend tells me that he had an opossum cloak made for him long ago by a man of the Kamalarai (sic) tribe, who marked it with his own ‘mombarai’. When this cloak was shown to another black sometime after, he at once exclaimed, “I know who made this; here is his ‘mombarai’.”

Alfred Howitt also notes the importance of the designs found on the cloaks and how these could be used to identify the wearer. He states:

…each man’s rug is particularly marked to signify its particular ownership. A man’s designs from his Possum-skin rug were put onto trees around the site of his burial. Passing references by others note individual designs on each pelt could represent rivers, camps, animals like grub, snakes and lizards, and plants.

There are many reasons why the majority of skin cloaks did not survive to the present day. One of these reasons was because when a person died all their belongings were disposed of, also some people were wrapped in their skin cloaks after their death. During the early colonial days there was not an institution that was capable of collecting and preserving these cloaks and they were also highly susceptible to insect attacks. Also the introduction of European style clothing and with the annual issuing of blankets from the Crown in 1814 the manufacture and use of skin cloaks began to cease. The issuing of these blankets to the Aboriginal community also caused them to suffer colds and serious respiratory problems especially when it rained, as they did not provide the same waterproof qualities of the skin cloaks. Within Australia the most spectacular cloak is the Lake Condah cloak made in 1872 and held in the Museum of Victoria. The designs on this cloak feature square and diamond shaped lozenges, wavy lines, circles and naturalistic figures. Some of the pelts on this cloak have also been decorated with ochre. Diamond and square shaped designs were commonly used on cloaks as decoration, and they also made the skin more pliable. Louisa Eggington a Narranga woman from Southern Yorke Peninsula made one of the most beautiful cloaks I have seen. This wallaby cloak was made in the early 1900s. It features square pelts and magnificent geometric diamond shaped incisions on the skin. In 1928 Herbert Hale and Norman Tindale from the South Australian Museum interviewed Ivaritji a Kaurna woman from the Adelaide area. She specifically requested to be photographed in this wallaby skin cloak and this was typical of the clothing she remembered wearing as a child. This cloak is currently on display in the South Australian Museums Australian Aboriginal Cultures Gallery.

There are only fifteen skin cloaks located in Museums within Australia and overseas. In Australia there are skin cloaks held in the Western Australian Museum, Gloucester Lodge Museum, Western Australia, the South Australian Museum and the Museum of Victoria. Overseas there are cloaks in the Smithsonian Institution – Washington DC, The British Museum – London, Museum of Ethnology -Berlin, Germany and the Pigorini Museum in Italy. European anthropologists collected most of the cloaks found in museums overseas during field trips to Australia in the late 1800s and early 1900s.

During the International exhibitions of the 1800s there were two skin cloaks that were displayed. The Sydney International exhibition held in 1879 displayed an opossum rug from Tasmania, which was awarded a honourable mention. In the Centennial International Exhibition held in Melbourne during 1889, platypus and opossum rugs from NSW were displayed under the category of travelling apparatus and camp equipage.

Today many Aboriginal people have new cloaks and rugs made from kangaroo skins. They are used in performances or often as they were traditionally as a nice warm rug or cloak.

The western world has a tradition of written history.  It is detailed and extensive and dates back some thousands of years.  The first peoples of Australia have an oral tradition, which is perhaps less detailed and extensive, but is focused on what is most important, and it dates back some 65,000+ years. 

The western world’s description of this oral tradition, is of “songlines” and “the dreaming”.  Sadly, for all of the 20^th century, and to a certain extent, still today, it is so misunderstood as to be called “Walkabout”: a derogatory term to imply that first peoples are lazy and will just walk away from work and vanish for a long period.   

Far too complex for me to explain, I am quoting “What is the Connection Between the Dreamtime and Songlines?”. Japingka Aboriginal Art Gallery. 26 October 2017. Retrieved 16 January 2020.

“The Dreaming, or the Dreamtime, has been described as “a sacred narrative of Creation that is seen as a continuous process that links traditional Aboriginal people to their origins”. Ancestors are believed to play a large role in the establishment of sacred sites as they traversed the continent long ago. Animals were created in the Dreaming, and also played a part in creation of the lands and heavenly bodies. Songlines connect places and Creation events, and the ceremonies associated with those places. Oral history about places and the journeys are carried in song cycles, and each Aboriginal person has obligations to their birthplace. The songs become the basis of the ceremonies that are enacted in those specific places along the Songlines.”

The Dreaming stories, told in word, song, dance and art are a road map, a history and a bible.  They are the laws of “country”, the glue that has perpetuated social cohesion and allowed first peoples culture to survive invasion.

A 65,000 year old dreaming story, describes the first people to come onto this continent.

Barnumbirr, the creator-spirit, guided the first humans, the two Djanggawul sisters and their brother, to “Sahul”.  

Barnambirr and the Djanggawuls lived on Baralku, the island of the dead.  Barnumbirr rises every day into the sky as Venus and one day, after crossing the coastline, Barnumbirr flew across the land from East to West, creating a songline which named and created the animals, plants, and natural features of the land. He brought the two sisters and brother to people the land.

As they travelled in country, the older of the Dianggawul sisters gave birth to a child and her blood flowed into a water hole. Galeru emerged from the water hole and ate the sisters, however when bitten by an ant, it regurgitated the sisters.   The Serpent was then able to speak in the sisters’ voices and taught sacred ritual to the people of that land.

These first people were the Yolngu of north-eastern Arnhem Land.  Just as the people of coastal Sydney were called Eora by the early Europeans, both mean “people”.

“Barnumbirr in Yolngu culture. She is often associated with death, and is said to guide the spirits of the dead to their spirit-world.  Barnumbirr was a creator spirit who left her island of Baralku to lead the first humans to Australia. After crossing the coast of Australia, she continued flying across the land, describing the land below her in great detail, naming and creating the animals and places. As she flew westwards across the land, she named waterholes, rivers, and mountains in considerable detail, including defining the territory of clans, and the areas where people had fishing rights. Her song therefore not only forms a basis of Yolngu law, but describes a navigable route across the land. The path that she followed is now known as a ‘songline,’ or navigational route, across the Top End of Australia, so that her song is effectively an oral map.”

https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/publications-of-the-astronomical-society-of-australia/article/dawes-review-5-australian-aboriginal-astronomy-and-navigation/6485EEA891C19A2FC6F0C94DBC24DB75/core-reader