tag:theconversation.com,2011:/africa/topics/colonial-australia-49505/articlesColonial Australia – The Conversation2022-04-26T19:56:33Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1817892022-04-26T19:56:33Z2022-04-26T19:56:33ZFern syrup, stewed eel and native currant jam: this 1843 recipe collection may be Australia’s earliest cookbook<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/459246/original/file-20220422-23-v86g5j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C1400%2C1073&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">View of the town of Parramatta from May's Hill, ca. 1840. Painting attributed to G. E. Peacock.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">State Library New South Wales</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>A chance find in a colonial newspaper from 1843 has us very excited: have we discovered evidence of Australia’s earliest cookbook? </p>
<p>Until now <a href="https://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-9562000/view?partId=nla.obj-9566097#page/n8/mode/1up">The English and Australian Cookery Book: Cookery for the Many, as well as the Upper Ten Thousand</a> by Tasmanian Edward Abbott, published in London in 1864, have been credited with this honour.</p>
<p>But when searching the National Library of Australia’s digital archive, our colleague Paul Van Reyk came across <a href="https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/228248971">an advertisement</a> in the December 30, 1843, Parramatta Chronicle and Cumberland General Advertiser for a cookbook none of us knew about: The Housewife’s Guide; or an Economical and Domestic Art of Cookery.</p>
<p>If this is indeed Australia’s earliest colonial cookbook, it would set the date back by 20 years.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/459248/original/file-20220422-17038-z9v0yl.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/459248/original/file-20220422-17038-z9v0yl.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/459248/original/file-20220422-17038-z9v0yl.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=359&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/459248/original/file-20220422-17038-z9v0yl.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=359&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/459248/original/file-20220422-17038-z9v0yl.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=359&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/459248/original/file-20220422-17038-z9v0yl.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=451&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/459248/original/file-20220422-17038-z9v0yl.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=451&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/459248/original/file-20220422-17038-z9v0yl.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=451&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">The advertisement published December 1843.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Trove</span></span>
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<h2>A British recipe book</h2>
<p>The Housewife’s Guide was published by Edmund Mason, who also published the Parramatta Chronicle. </p>
<p>The son of printer William Mason of Clerkenwell, London, Edmund arrived in Sydney in 1840 to work at the Sydney Morning Herald. He was employed there for two years before setting up his own printing business in Parramatta.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/459245/original/file-20220422-26-fpahwk.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="The housewife's guide, or, An economical and domestic art of cookery" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/459245/original/file-20220422-26-fpahwk.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/459245/original/file-20220422-26-fpahwk.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=1163&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/459245/original/file-20220422-26-fpahwk.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=1163&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/459245/original/file-20220422-26-fpahwk.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=1163&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/459245/original/file-20220422-26-fpahwk.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1462&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/459245/original/file-20220422-26-fpahwk.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1462&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/459245/original/file-20220422-26-fpahwk.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1462&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">The title page of the original British version of the cook book.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wellcome Collection</span></span>
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<p>No author’s name is provided in the 1843 advertisement for The Housewife’s Guide, but a book with the <a href="https://wellcomecollection.org/works/uje5etww">identical title</a>, written by Mrs Deborah Irwin, “23 years cook to a tradesman with a large family”, had been published in England by Mason’s father in 1830. </p>
<p>At the time, Australia’s cookery texts were generally imported from Britain, but Mason asserted this Housewife’s Guide was “the only work of the kind published in the colony”. </p>
<p>Perhaps through his father’s connections, Mason was printing Mrs Irwin’s text in downtown Parramatta.</p>
<p>A locally reprinted text does not, to our minds, qualify as an Australian cookbook. But reading the list of contents given in Mason’s advertisement, “native currant jam” leapt off the page. </p>
<p>It is unlikely English Mrs Irwin would have had native currants in her repertoire.</p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/we-revisited-parramattas-archaeological-past-to-reveal-the-deep-time-history-of-the-heart-of-sydney-169827">We revisited Parramatta's archaeological past to reveal the deep-time history of the heart of Sydney</a>
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<h2>Australian ingredients</h2>
<p>The 1830 edition of Mrs Irwin’s Housewife’s Guide <a href="https://wellcomecollection.org/works/uje5etww/items?canvas=4">has been digitised</a>, allowing us to compare its contents more closely with the list provided in the Parramatta Chronicle. While there are clear similarities, with some sections possibly repeated verbatim, other significant differences convinced us this was a localised version of the original Irwin text.</p>
<p>Fish species common in Britain – sole, carp, haddock, grayling, trout, perch, tench and others – do not appear in the local listing. Varieties such as salmon, mackerel and eels, which are found in Australian waters, have been retained, and snapper has been added. </p>
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<span class="caption">The original advertisement listed the book’s recipes, including for fish available in Australia at the time.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Trove</span></span>
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<p>Irwin’s Housewife’s Guide contains several recipes for game – hare, partridge, pheasant – none of which are listed in the Australian edition. Recipes for rabbits and pigeons, on the other hand, are found in both.</p>
<p>The Parramatta edition also has sections not included in Irwin’s book. A section on preserved meat provides instructions for salting and smoking mutton and ham. </p>
<p>A new section on syrups includes two which may have been incorporated for their local appeal: <a href="https://escoffierathome.com/recipes/sirop-capillaire-capillaire-syrup/">capillaire</a> made from maiden hair fern – several species of which are native to Australia, and “Pine apply” (presumably pineapple) syrup. Highly exotic in Britain, pineapples were grown in colonial gardens and sold at produce markets.</p>
<p>Clearly this publication was not simply a reprint of Mrs Irwin’s text, but an upgraded, localised edition. It could also be the first formally published cookbook with recipes using native ingredients. </p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/remaking-history-cooking-slippery-slimy-and-oozy-historical-recipes-made-me-uncomfortably-conscious-of-my-own-anatomy-179283">Remaking history: cooking slippery, slimy and oozy historical recipes made me uncomfortably conscious of my own anatomy</a>
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<h2>New mysteries</h2>
<p>In July 1844 the Chronicle <a href="https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/228249511">advised</a> “a second impression has been thrown off and is ready for publication”. </p>
<p>This new round of advertising at last provided an author’s name, promoting the book as Mrs Irving’s Housewife’s Guide. The uncanny similarity between Irving and Irwin was impossible to ignore. Had Mason misspelled the name by accident or by intent? Was there indeed a Mrs Irving?</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/459253/original/file-20220422-17-orrhbn.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/459253/original/file-20220422-17-orrhbn.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/459253/original/file-20220422-17-orrhbn.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=215&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/459253/original/file-20220422-17-orrhbn.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=215&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/459253/original/file-20220422-17-orrhbn.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=215&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/459253/original/file-20220422-17-orrhbn.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=271&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/459253/original/file-20220422-17-orrhbn.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=271&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/459253/original/file-20220422-17-orrhbn.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=271&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">The cookbook was reprinted in 1844.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Trove</span></span>
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<p>We have not identified a Mrs Irving in the colony at this time, and we are yet to find a physical copy of this early colonial cookbook. It does not appear in library catalogues and has not been referenced in any bibliography of Australian cookbooks. </p>
<p>It is quite probable that no copies have survived the 175-plus years since they were published.</p>
<p>We can confidently claim however, that Mrs Irving’s Housewife’s Guide published by Edmund Mason in Parramatta is the first locally produced Australian cookbook. The majority of recipes may have been British by nature and origin, but departures from the British text are clearly aimed at localising the book for produce available in colonial New South Wales.</p>
<p>Mrs Irving’s Housewife’s Guide indicates there was an appetite for local culinary knowledge, and the use of native ingredients – rather than relying on British authority – 20 years before Edward Abbott’s The English and Australian Cookery Book. </p>
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<p><em>Correction: this article originally stated Edward Abbott was born in Tasmania. He was born in Sydney.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/181789/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>This collaborative research project is independent of Jacqueline Newling’s role as Assistant Curator at Sydney Living Museums.
</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>This research was conducted with Paul van Reyk, author of True to the Land: a History of Food in Australia (Reaktion, 2021).
</span></em></p>A chance encounter in the National Library of Australia’s digital archive holds clues about an 1843 cookbook published in Parramatta.Jacqueline Newling, Honorary Associate, History, University of SydneyAlison Vincent, Adjunct Senior Lecturer, CQUniversity AustraliaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1242742019-10-18T03:03:08Z2019-10-18T03:03:08ZSydney’s 9,189 ‘sister politicians’ who petitioned Queen Victoria<p>One spring morning in 1850, over 8,000 Sydneysiders marched through town to protest the resumption of <a href="https://www.nma.gov.au/defining-moments/resources/convict-transportation">transportation</a> – the act of sending British criminals to Australia. </p>
<p>It was the largest protest in Australia thus far, an event Henry Parkes (later Premier of NSW) <a href="https://catalogue.nla.gov.au/Record/3796239">described</a> as “the birthday of Australian democracy”.</p>
<p>Transportation ceased in New South Wales in 1840. Over the following decade, colonists worked hard to transform their penal colony into a respectable civil society. </p>
<p>By the late 1840s, people like Parkes believed they were on the brink of not only greater self-government but perhaps even democracy.</p>
<p>However, <a href="http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/grey-henry-george-2126">Henry George Grey</a> – <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secretary_of_State_for_the_Colonies">Colonial Secretary</a> in charge of all the United Kingdom’s colonial dependencies – had been planning to resume transportation. In 1849, he decided to test the waters by sending out a <a href="https://www.jenwilletts.com/convict_ship_hashemy_1849.htm">boat</a> of convicts. When the vessel sailed into Sydney Harbour, thousands rushed to Circular Quay to prevent it from docking.</p>
<p>The people had been triumphant and confident they had sent a firm message.</p>
<p>They were, therefore, deeply outraged in 1850 when they discovered Grey was so indifferent to their protests, he was planning to send another boat. </p>
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<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/stain-or-badge-of-honour-convict-heritage-inspires-mixed-feelings-41097">Stain or badge of honour? Convict heritage inspires mixed feelings</a>
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<p>Rallies and petitions were organised throughout NSW, including two, the press <a href="https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/12921404">snidely described</a> as “ladies petitions” in Sydney. </p>
<p>Of the 36,589 signatures collected, 9,189 were from Sydney women – at least 42% of Sydney’s female population at the time. </p>
<p>These were delivered to the NSW Legislative Council, then the UK House of Commons and Queen Victoria. </p>
<p>While historians have typically focused on the male orators and agitators of this age, these “ladies petitions” challenge the narrative of colonial democracy as created by men for men. These documents also suggest women could not have been completely confined to the domestic sphere, nor entirely excluded from politics. </p>
<p>For me, they also promised a rare encounter with voices difficult to hear within the colonial archive. </p>
<h2>Reading the petition</h2>
<p>Although the right to petition the monarchy had been enshrined in British law since the Magna Carta, in the 19th century petitions were <a href="https://www.parliament.uk/about/living-heritage/transformingsociety/electionsvoting/chartists/case-study/the-right-to-vote/the-chartists-and-birmingham/1842-and-1848-chartist-petitions/">regularly used to galvanise the masses</a> and give voice to those excluded from political processes. </p>
<p>By the time colonial women put ink to paper in 1850, over <a href="http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/auth/lib/uts/authorizeEBL.action?userid=51RfF8ZkGTQ%3d&tstamp=1570489157&ut=170&hash=3F916700FA004155823E3EC17FD93BC9D8BECF5F&ebcid=ec4d8aa31a4f4d12be872255d42bc4e0">10,000 petitions</a> were tabled to British parliament each year. </p>
<p>While most petitions of this era were destroyed once submitted, a few survived. Much to my delight, after weeks of searching the stacks, Rosemary Sempell, archivist at the New South Wales Parliamentary Records, found the original 207 pages from the “female inhabitants of Sydney.”</p>
<p>The opening address describes the “deep anxiety and alarm” these “wives and daughters of the citizens of Sydney” felt in regards to transportation and how it would prevent them fulfilling their “sacred and responsible duties [regarding the] moral instruction” of the colony and their children. </p>
<p>Most of all, these women were furious Grey had repeatedly ignored the colony’s “solemn and unanimous” rejection of transportation. </p>
<p>Ultimately, it was this disrespect for due process and local authority that compelled these women to petition the Queen directly.</p>
<p>The petition was signed by a broad range of Sydney women: members of the colonial elite such as <a href="http://oa.anu.edu.au/obituary/stephen-lady-eleanor-martha-1309">Lady Eleanor Stephens</a>, middle-class mothers who feared the corrupting influence of convicts, and those who signed their names with a simple cross that suggested they may have had firsthand experience of transportation. </p>
<h2>A rising of ‘sister politicians’</h2>
<p>When this petition was tabled in Legislative Council, it was described as “the first of its sort” in Australia and conservative politician William Wentworth was <a href="https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/12921512?browse=ndp%3Abrowse%2Ftitle%2FS%2Ftitle%2F35%2F1850%2F10%2F03%2Fpage%2F1510007%2Farticle%2F12921512">quick to question</a> whether members of the council should consent to such political activity.</p>
<p>He warned husbands “would have their dinners far better cooked, their shirts better washed” if their wives were not “political ladies”. </p>
<p>He also predicted such activity would encourage other petitions “praying for the rights of women”, perhaps even cause “some <a href="https://www.bbc.com/timelines/zy8y34j">Mary Wollstonecraft</a>” to rise up and instruct her “sister politicians” to ignore “their husbands” altogether.</p>
<p>Although the Australian suffragist movement did not begin in earnest for another 30 years, Wentworth may have been correct in connecting this moment of female activism with all that would unfold. At the very least, these petitions proved colonial women could unite against a common enemy.</p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/australian-politics-explainer-how-women-gained-the-right-to-vote-74080">Australian politics explainer: how women gained the right to vote</a>
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<h2>A role for women</h2>
<p>The women who signed this petition did so because they believed the colony was ready to chart its own course, and they wanted to be part of the process.</p>
<p>It might be telling that in the final sentence of the address the word “particularly” has been crossed out and replaced with “patriotically”. Although this may have been an editorial error, it suggests Parkes was correct: 1850 did represent a new spirit of “local feeling”. One that mattered to these women and was also effective in finally putting an end to transportation to NSW – as was resolved in the UK House of Commons <a href="https://dictionaryofsydney.org/entry/the_end_of_transportation">the following month</a>. </p>
<p>The colonial archive has encouraged us to assume only men were involved in the push for greater political freedoms in Australia. These “ladies petitions” confirm that thousands of Sydney women were not only present at the birthday of Australian democracy, but determined to play a role in its future. </p>
<p>In this first foray into the political domain, Australian women also proved they could have their voices heard: not only by other colonists and the British Parliament, but even, the Queen herself.</p>
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<p><em>The author would like to thank the following individuals and institutions for sharing their expertise in the search for these petitions: Edith Ho, State Library of NSW; Bonnie Wilde, State Records of NSW; and Rosemary Sempell, Parliament of NSW Archives.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/124274/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kiera Lindsey receives funding from the Australian Research Council and is an executive member of the History Council of New South Wales.</span></em></p>A newly-discovered petition from 1850 provides rare evidence of what might be women’s first moment of political activism in Australia.Kiera Lindsey, University of Technology SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1072802018-11-22T01:57:24Z2018-11-22T01:57:24ZWhy we should remember Boorong, Bennelong’s third wife, who is buried beside him<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/246753/original/file-20181121-161630-bjam3a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Sydney's Government House, circa 1802, where Boorong was brought when she fell sick with smallpox in 1789. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Mitchell library, State Library of New South Wales</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>More than 200 years after Woollarawarre <a href="https://dictionaryofsydney.org/entry/woollarawarre_bennelong">Bennelong</a>’s death, the NSW government has <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2018/nov/18/bennelongs-burial-site-to-be-turned-into-public-memorial">purchased the land</a> where he is buried. On the north side of the Parramatta river, the unmarked grave site will be turned into a memorial to the great Wangal leader. </p>
<p>But Bennelong is not the only person interred at the spot. Boorong, his third wife, lies alongside him. She has intrigued me for years, since I first began researching the role of Christianity in the encounter between Eora and Europeans. She is not famous like Bennelong, or his second wife Barangaroo. So who was Boorong? And why should we remember her too? </p>
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<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/indigenous-lives-the-cult-of-forgetfulness-and-the-australian-dictionary-of-biography-86302">Indigenous lives, the 'cult of forgetfulness' and the Australian Dictionary of Biography</a>
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<p>Colonial sources only give us a few glimpses of Boorong. She is discussed briefly in letters by the first chaplain, Richard Johnson, and his wife Mary, with whom she lived for about 18 months in 1789-90. </p>
<p>Other first fleet officers and a few later colonists also mention her in their journals, using a range of names including Abaroo, Araboo, Aboren and Aborough – as well as Booron or Booroong. These mainly incidental references are coloured by the Europeans’ perspectives and agendas. There are no surviving records produced by Boorong herself - no equivalent to <a href="https://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-557679852/view">Bennelong’s letter</a>. </p>
<p>Still, pieced together, these fragments suggest Boorong played a significant role in the initial interaction between black and white Australians. She was the first Indigenous person to have a <a href="https://www.newsouthbooks.com.au/books/bible-australia/">substantial encounter with Christianity and its Bible</a>. She was also a political go-between, a cross-cultural broker, and a survivor. </p>
<h2>Boorong’s background</h2>
<p>Boorong was the daughter of Maugoran, a Burrumattagal elder, and Goorooberra, whose name means “firestick”. She belonged to the Parramatta area, “the place where eels lie down”. Born there in the mid-1770s, she was about 12 when European colonists arrived. </p>
<p>Boorong caught smallpox during the epidemic of autumn 1789. Some of Governor Phillip’s men found her sick and brought her into their camp for attention. She was nursed by Arabanoo, an Eora captive at Government House. Arabanoo caught the disease and died – along with as many as half the local Eora, including Bennelong’s first wife, whose name is lost to history.</p>
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<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/four-thousand-fish-and-broken-glass-connect-sydneys-aboriginal-past-to-its-present-90106">Four Thousand Fish and Broken Glass connect Sydney's Aboriginal past to its present</a>
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<p>Boorong, like Bennelong, was one of the survivors. According to Lieutenant Watkin Tench, she was then “received as an inmate, with great kindness, in the family of Mrs Johnson, the clergyman’s wife”.</p>
<p>We don’t know what Boorong thought of the Johnsons, what her agenda was, or how free she felt to stay or leave their hut. But Richard and Mary encouraged her to wear clothes, to speak English and to make herself useful around the house. The clergyman – an evangelical – taught Boorong the Lord’s Prayer and tried to convey an idea of “a supreme being”. His hope, he <a href="http://www.sl.nsw.gov.au/collection-items/collection-18-letters-rev-richard-johnson-henry-fricker-30-may-1787-10-aug-1797-1">wrote to a friend</a>, was to see “these poor heathen brought to the Knowledge of Christianity”. </p>
<p>The Reverend Johnson also “took pains” to instruct Boorong in reading, presumably using the Bible as a text for lessons. She thus encountered a new language, a new kind of literacy, and the technology of books and writing. These language skills meant she later got caught up in the political negotiations between black and white.</p>
<h2>Early Sydney politics</h2>
<p>By 1789, Governor Phillip had made virtually no progress in understanding the Eora - and had <a href="https://dictionaryofsydney.org/entry/governor_phillip_and_the_eora">resorted to kidnapping people</a> to establish a channel of communication with the local tribes. </p>
<p>After Arabanoo’s death, Phillip’s officers took in two more warriors by force. Coleby soon escaped his shackles, but <a href="https://dictionaryofsydney.org/entry/governor_phillip_and_the_eora">Bennelong stayed longer</a> - gathering information about the colonists and forging strategic relationships with Phillip and others around Government House. But then Bennelong, too, escaped – dashing English hopes that he would broker some kind of understanding between the two sides. </p>
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<p>
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<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/rediscovered-the-aboriginal-names-for-ten-melbourne-suburbs-99139">Rediscovered: the Aboriginal names for ten Melbourne suburbs</a>
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<p>In this context, Phillip’s officers turned to Boorong, as well as a boy Nanberry, to act as go-betweens. On and off, between May 1789 and November 1790, they reluctantly relied on her as a translator and mediator with the Sydney tribes. </p>
<p>Boorong <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books?id=FPwFkFq4yKcC&lpg=PA87&ots=fimICo504X&dq=salvation%20and%20conciliation%20sydney%20cove%20meredith%20lake&pg=PA87#v=onepage&q=salvation%20and%20conciliation%20sydney%20cove%20meredith%20lake&f=false">translated</a> when Johnson and <a href="http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/dawes-william-1968">Lieutenant William Dawes</a> went to find out who had <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10314610208596189">speared Phillip</a> at Manly Cove in September 1790.</p>
<p>Boorong also accompanied the officers on several visits to Bennelong during the spring of 1790, and conveyed their repeated requests that he come back to the British camp. </p>
<p>In late October, Bennelong indicated a willingness to go and visit Phillip. Barangaroo, Bennelong’s wife at the time, opposed the trip so strenuously that the officers offered a guarantee of safety: “Mr Johnson, attended by Abaroo (i.e. Boorong), agreed to remain as a hostage until Baneelon should return”.</p>
<h2>Boorong rejects white society</h2>
<p>There was a rapproachment of sorts between Bennelong and Phillip. And by late summer 1791, numbers of Eora were routinely staying in the town. The Rev. Johnson thought this new state of affairs had been “principally brought about” by Boorong, the “little girl” he had taught. </p>
<p>Boorong herself did not stay in the English camp. In October 1790, she returned to the bush neither converted to Christianity nor convinced of the colonists’ way of life. She continued to visit the Johnsons occasionally for at least five years after that, but in Mary Johnson’s words she did so “quite naked” and “evidently preferred [her] own way of life”. An <a href="http://www.nhm.ac.uk/nature-online/art-nature-imaging/collections/first-fleet/art-collection/collections.dsml?lastDisp=list&stype=colls&coll=watling&notes=true&beginIndex=38&lastdisp=gall&beginindex=1">image of Boorong</a>, now held by the Natural History Museum in London, depicts her at her brother Ballooderry’s funeral in December 1791. </p>
<p>By 1797, Boorong was married to Bennelong. Barangaroo had died a few years previously, and Bennelong had survived a round trip to England. Boorong and Bennelong lived together with a band of perhaps 100 Eora survivors on the north side of the Parramatta river. </p>
<p>Around 1803 they had a son, known as Dickey, who as a young adult converted to Christianity, received baptism, and became probably the first Indigenous Australian evangelist. </p>
<p>We do not know the details of Boorong’s death, sometime around 1813. But in 1815, an Aboriginal elder known as “Old Philip” told ship’s surgeon Joseph Arnold that Bennelong had “died after a short illness about two years ago, & that <a href="http://press-files.anu.edu.au/downloads/press/p74631/pdf/ch0156.pdf">they buried him & his wife</a> at Kissing Point”. </p>
<p>In 1821 Nanberry, by his own request, was also buried alongside Bennelong – but that’s another story. In the meantime, let’s not memorialise Bennelong in a way that erases Boorong and her contributions as a negotiator and survivor.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/107280/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Research for this article was completed with the support of an Australian Postgraduate Award and a research fellowship with Anglican Deaconess Ministries, Sydney. Meredith Lake also receives occasional funding from Bible Society Australia, as a consultant on historical projects. </span></em></p>The NSW government has purchased the land where Bennelong is buried. His third wife played a key role in the early colonisation of Australia.Meredith Lake, Honorary Associate, Department of History, University of SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1021692018-08-30T18:54:22Z2018-08-30T18:54:22ZFriday essay: the art of the colonial kangaroo hunt<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233995/original/file-20180829-86147-rn0p9a.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">S.T. Gill, Kangaroo Hunting, The Death, from his Australian Sketchbook (1865). Colonial hunting clubs were established across Australia in the 1830s and 1840s.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">National Library of Australia</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Since the beginnings of settler occupation in Australia, the kangaroo has been claimed at once as a national symbol and as a type of vermin to be destroyed en masse. In Kate Clere McIntyre and Michael McIntyre’s recent award-winning film, <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6674514/">Kangaroo: A Love Hate Story</a>, Sydney academic Peter Chen sums up this stark contradiction: “Kangaroos are wonderful, fuzzy, they’re maternal, and they’re also a pest that should be eliminated wholesale”.</p>
<p>The killing of kangaroos by Europeans began at exactly the same time that the species was first identified. Shooting, naming, describing, scientifically classifying, sketching, dissecting, eating: these things all played out simultaneously as soon as Cook’s <em>Endeavour</em> got stranded on a reef in far north Queensland in June and July 1770.</p>
<p>Lieutenant John Gore was the first to shoot a kangaroo; Cook noted that Aboriginal people called this animal “Kangooroo, or Kanguru”; the ship’s artist Sydney Parkinson produced two beautiful sketches of these creatures; and Joseph Banks went ashore to hunt with his greyhound and “dress’d” a kangaroo for his dinner.</p>
<p>Bits and pieces of dead kangaroos were shipped back to England, where Banks presented them to George Stubbs, an artist famous for his anatomical accuracy – and who had made his name as a painter of thoroughbred horses and hunting scenes. Stubbs worked with a stuffed or inflated pelt and drew on Parkinson’s sketches to produce the first painting of this newly-identified species, Portrait of the Kongouro from New Holland (1770).</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233813/original/file-20180828-75978-1d2effe.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233813/original/file-20180828-75978-1d2effe.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233813/original/file-20180828-75978-1d2effe.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=419&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233813/original/file-20180828-75978-1d2effe.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=419&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233813/original/file-20180828-75978-1d2effe.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=419&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233813/original/file-20180828-75978-1d2effe.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=526&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233813/original/file-20180828-75978-1d2effe.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=526&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233813/original/file-20180828-75978-1d2effe.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=526&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">George Stubbs, Portrait of the Kongouro from New Holland (1770).</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>An engraving of this painting – with the kangaroo gazing back over its shoulder (curiously? Is someone pursuing it?) – was used to illustrate the bestselling 1773 publication of Cook’s journal. As Des Cowley and Brian Hubber <a href="http://www3.slv.vic.gov.au/latrobejournal/issue/latrobe-66/t1-g-t2.html">have noted</a>, further engravings were made, the image began to circulate, and soon “the kangaroo had entered the European popular imagination”.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233814/original/file-20180828-75984-kdheo.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233814/original/file-20180828-75984-kdheo.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233814/original/file-20180828-75984-kdheo.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=386&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233814/original/file-20180828-75984-kdheo.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=386&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233814/original/file-20180828-75984-kdheo.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=386&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233814/original/file-20180828-75984-kdheo.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=485&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233814/original/file-20180828-75984-kdheo.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=485&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233814/original/file-20180828-75984-kdheo.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=485&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Joseph Lycett, Aborigines using fire to hunt kangaroo (c.1817).</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">National Library of Australia.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The kangaroo hunt quickly became a recognisable genre in colonial Australian art. Joseph Lycett was transported to New South Wales in 1813, a convicted forger. His Aborigines using fire to hunt kangaroo (c. 1817) and Aborigines hunting kangaroos (1820) give us two early examples of “ethnographic” landscape painting where Aboriginal people hunt kangaroos in a fantasy precolonial space untouched by the impact of European settlement.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233824/original/file-20180828-75972-1endte4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233824/original/file-20180828-75972-1endte4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233824/original/file-20180828-75972-1endte4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=383&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233824/original/file-20180828-75972-1endte4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=383&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233824/original/file-20180828-75972-1endte4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=383&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233824/original/file-20180828-75972-1endte4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=482&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233824/original/file-20180828-75972-1endte4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=482&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233824/original/file-20180828-75972-1endte4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=482&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Joseph Lycett, Aborigines hunting kangaroos (1820)</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">National Library of Australia.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In other works, however, Lycett placed Aboriginal hunters alongside settlers as mutual participants in the developing social and economic life of the colony. In these early days of settlement, kangaroos were a vital food source. </p>
<p>Lycett’s Inner View of Newcastle (1818) depicts a settler, a convict and an Aboriginal man walking in single file with four kangaroo dogs (usually, greyhound, deerhound and wolfhound crossbreeds); the convict is carrying the carcass of a freshly killed kangaroo over his shoulder.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233815/original/file-20180828-75990-1cg8xyh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233815/original/file-20180828-75990-1cg8xyh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233815/original/file-20180828-75990-1cg8xyh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233815/original/file-20180828-75990-1cg8xyh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233815/original/file-20180828-75990-1cg8xyh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233815/original/file-20180828-75990-1cg8xyh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233815/original/file-20180828-75990-1cg8xyh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233815/original/file-20180828-75990-1cg8xyh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Joseph Lycett, Inner View of Newcastle (1818).</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Newcastle Art Gallery.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Lycett’s View on the Wingeecarrabee River, New South Wales (1824) takes us down to the Southern Highlands, inland from Wollongong – where a settler with a musket, an Aboriginal man with a spear and two kangaroo dogs are all chasing down a single kangaroo.</p>
<p>Augustus Earle was a freelance professional artist who had travelled around the world – with Charles Darwin, among others. He spent two and a half years in Australia in the mid-1820s, chronicling metropolitan and bush scenes. His painting A Bivouac of Travellers in Australia in a Cabbage Tree Forest, Day Break (1827) gives us an idyllic scene of Aboriginal and settler companionship in the wake of a kangaroo hunt. </p>
<p>A group of settlers and two Aboriginal men are arranged around a campfire, waking up, preparing breakfast, and tending to a horse. There are two kangaroo dogs curled up and sleeping, and in the foreground of the painting – in the shadows, lying beside a rifle – is a large, dead kangaroo.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233816/original/file-20180828-75999-oq5q7u.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233816/original/file-20180828-75999-oq5q7u.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233816/original/file-20180828-75999-oq5q7u.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=857&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233816/original/file-20180828-75999-oq5q7u.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=857&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233816/original/file-20180828-75999-oq5q7u.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=857&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233816/original/file-20180828-75999-oq5q7u.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1077&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233816/original/file-20180828-75999-oq5q7u.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1077&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233816/original/file-20180828-75999-oq5q7u.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1077&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Augustus Earle, A Bivouac of Travellers in Australia in a Cabbage Tree Forest, Day Break (1827).</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Hunting clubs</h2>
<p>S. T. Gill is probably the best known local artist to represent the kangaroo hunt as an organized recreational event. Colonial hunting clubs were established across Australia in the 1830s and 1840s; the first “meet” in Victoria, for example, was in 1839, organized near Geelong by the Indian-born military officer and pastoralist William Mercer. Squatters bred packs of hounds and wealthy locals and visiting dignitaries would be invited to join in the hunt and all the social occasions that went with it.</p>
<p><a href="http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/fyans-foster-2075">Foster Fyans</a> was the Police Magistrate of Geelong and helped to oversee the dispossession of Aboriginal people across the western district frontier. “A noble pack of hounds was kept up by gentlemen squatters who met every season”, he recalled much later on, “hunting twice and thrice a week, and meeting at each other’s houses, where good cheer and good and happy society were ever to be met”.</p>
<p>Kangaroo hunting helped to consolidate squatter power and influence, lending it an available rhetoric of pleasure and merriment. No longer dependent on the kangaroo as a source of food, landowning colonists soon learned how to enjoy the thrill of the chase and the kill for its own sake, as a blood sport that came to define their social world.</p>
<p>Gill was a prolific chronicler of colonial life; his Australian Sketchbook (1865) included one scene, Kangaroo Stalking, in which a settler with a gun and an Aboriginal man hunt kangaroos together. In 1858 he produced a series of three lithographs under the general title Kangaroo Hunting. The first, The Meet, shows a gathering of men outside a rustic colonial homestead, with their horses and dogs (and some chickens; and a magpie on the roof). One of them has the conspicuous trappings of a wealthy squatter, tall, commanding, elaborately styled in black riding boots, yellow waistcoat, and scarlet jacket.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233818/original/file-20180828-75984-1ol7580.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233818/original/file-20180828-75984-1ol7580.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233818/original/file-20180828-75984-1ol7580.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=413&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233818/original/file-20180828-75984-1ol7580.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=413&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233818/original/file-20180828-75984-1ol7580.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=413&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233818/original/file-20180828-75984-1ol7580.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=520&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233818/original/file-20180828-75984-1ol7580.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=520&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233818/original/file-20180828-75984-1ol7580.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=520&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">S.T. Gill, Kangaroo Hunting, The Meet, from his Australian Sketchbook (1865).</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">National Library of Australia.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The second, The Chase, puts the squatter into the foreground, leaping over a fallen log on his powerful white horse. The reckless excitement of the hunt is obvious as the settlers gallop across the dangerous terrain, whips raised. The dogs are chasing a kangaroo, which is retreating into the distance.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233817/original/file-20180828-75984-1ape3q7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233817/original/file-20180828-75984-1ape3q7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=410&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233817/original/file-20180828-75984-1ape3q7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=410&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233817/original/file-20180828-75984-1ape3q7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=410&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233817/original/file-20180828-75984-1ape3q7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=515&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233817/original/file-20180828-75984-1ape3q7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=515&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233817/original/file-20180828-75984-1ape3q7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=515&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">S.T. Gill Kangaroo Huntin, The Chase, from his Australian Sketchbook (1865).</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">National Library of Australia.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But the third lithograph, The Death, seals the animal’s fate. A squatter stands beside his exhausted hounds as a hunter readies his knife to take the dead kangaroo’s tail. Another hunter lifts his hat, looking back; perhaps he is greeting a group of Aboriginal people who are approaching in the background. The leader of this group – a family? – is carrying a spear; he may also be returning from a hunt. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233826/original/file-20180828-75975-o715p0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233826/original/file-20180828-75975-o715p0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233826/original/file-20180828-75975-o715p0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=381&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233826/original/file-20180828-75975-o715p0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=381&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233826/original/file-20180828-75975-o715p0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=381&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233826/original/file-20180828-75975-o715p0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=478&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233826/original/file-20180828-75975-o715p0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=478&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233826/original/file-20180828-75975-o715p0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=478&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">S.T. Gill, Kangaroo Hunting, The Death, from his Australian Sketchbook (1865).</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">National Library of Australia.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>There is no sense of impending frontier violence here, but the lithograph does seem to register the differences between settler and Aboriginal relationships to the body of the dead kangaroo: who claims possession of it, and for what purpose.</p>
<h2>Settler triumph</h2>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233994/original/file-20180829-86129-1hz81bo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233994/original/file-20180829-86129-1hz81bo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233994/original/file-20180829-86129-1hz81bo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=803&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233994/original/file-20180829-86129-1hz81bo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=803&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233994/original/file-20180829-86129-1hz81bo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=803&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233994/original/file-20180829-86129-1hz81bo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1009&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233994/original/file-20180829-86129-1hz81bo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1009&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233994/original/file-20180829-86129-1hz81bo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1009&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A portrait of Charles Darwin in the 1830s by George Richmond: he tried his hand at kangaroo hunting.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Many notable visitors participated in organized kangaroo hunts: Charles Darwin in 1836 (“my usual ill-fortune in sporting followed us”), Britain’s Admiral of the Fleet Henry Keppel in 1850, the novelist Anthony Trollope in 1871. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233834/original/file-20180828-75990-wdq0tg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233834/original/file-20180828-75990-wdq0tg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233834/original/file-20180828-75990-wdq0tg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=726&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233834/original/file-20180828-75990-wdq0tg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=726&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233834/original/file-20180828-75990-wdq0tg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=726&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233834/original/file-20180828-75990-wdq0tg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=912&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233834/original/file-20180828-75990-wdq0tg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=912&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233834/original/file-20180828-75990-wdq0tg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=912&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh, shot about 30 kangaroos trapped in a yard.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">State Library of Victoria</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The Duke of Edinburgh came to the colonies in 1867 – <a href="http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/edinburgh-duke-of-3467">the first royal visit</a> – hunting kangaroo in South Australia and then travelling out to Victoria’s western district for more sport.</p>
<p>The Russian-born colonial artist Nicholas Chevalier accompanied him on tour, staying at the squatter John Moffat’s luxurious homestead Chatsworth House at Hopkins Hill, where he sketched a number of hunting scenes. The Duke himself shot at close range over 30 kangaroos trapped in a yard; he got the locals to preserve the skins and claws.</p>
<p>A few years earlier, Chevalier had joined an expedition to the Grampians, producing two significant landscapes. <a href="http://www.hamiltongallery.org/collection/detail.asp?Artist_LastName=c&Artist_Name=Nicholas+Chevalier&AccNumber=2004.058">Mount Abrupt</a> (1864) shows an Aboriginal family peacefully camping on a plateau above a gully, with cattle grazing on the pastures behind and the mountain in the background. This family is not (yet) dispossessed from what is clearly settler property.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/234026/original/file-20180829-195301-qkbpcy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/234026/original/file-20180829-195301-qkbpcy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/234026/original/file-20180829-195301-qkbpcy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=425&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/234026/original/file-20180829-195301-qkbpcy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=425&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/234026/original/file-20180829-195301-qkbpcy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=425&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/234026/original/file-20180829-195301-qkbpcy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=534&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/234026/original/file-20180829-195301-qkbpcy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=534&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/234026/original/file-20180829-195301-qkbpcy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=534&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Nicholas Chevalier, Mount Abrupt (1864).</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Hamilton Art Gallery, purchased by Hamilton Art Gallery Trust Fund - M.L Foster Endowment with assistance from the Friends of Hamilton Art Gallery.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Mount Abrupt and The Grampians – produced the same year and published as a lithograph in Charles Troedel’s The Melbourne Album – gives us the same perspective of this mountain. But now there is no Aboriginal family. Instead, a group of settler hunters and their hounds ride roughshod over the place this family had once occupied, chasing kangaroos. It is as if the hunt itself has erased any trace of Aboriginal occupation of land. Its depiction is an expression of settler triumph over both native species (the kangaroo will surely be killed) and Indigeneity (Aboriginal people have been dispossessed).</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233829/original/file-20180828-75984-ekt33l.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233829/original/file-20180828-75984-ekt33l.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233829/original/file-20180828-75984-ekt33l.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233829/original/file-20180828-75984-ekt33l.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233829/original/file-20180828-75984-ekt33l.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233829/original/file-20180828-75984-ekt33l.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=510&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233829/original/file-20180828-75984-ekt33l.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=510&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233829/original/file-20180828-75984-ekt33l.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=510&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Nicholas Chevalier, Mount Abrupt and The Grampians (1864).</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">National Library of Australia.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Godfrey Mundy was another officer who had served in colonial India. He came to Australia in 1846, where he held a senior role in colonial military administration. He was also the cousin of Sir Charles Fitzroy, who by this time was Governor of New South Wales. Together, they went across the Blue Mountains on a month-long journey that became the basis for Mundy’s bestselling diary and narrative of colonial development, Our Antipodes (1852).</p>
<p>Mundy also illustrated his book; one of the illustrations is titled Hunting the Kangaroo. Here, two hunters are in hot pursuit of a kangaroo, with their hounds leading the way. One of the hounds has the kangaroo by the throat; the other lies injured at its feet. Interestingly, Mundy depicts himself as one of the hunters, with his initials “G.M.” branded on the shoulder of one of the horses.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233831/original/file-20180828-75975-1j4qvjc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233831/original/file-20180828-75975-1j4qvjc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233831/original/file-20180828-75975-1j4qvjc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=388&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233831/original/file-20180828-75975-1j4qvjc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=388&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233831/original/file-20180828-75975-1j4qvjc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=388&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233831/original/file-20180828-75975-1j4qvjc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=488&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233831/original/file-20180828-75975-1j4qvjc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=488&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233831/original/file-20180828-75975-1j4qvjc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=488&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Godfrey Mundy, Hunting the Kangaroo (1852).</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Our Antipodes.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>On 30 November 1846, Mundy writes, “the resident gentlemen of the vicinity…attempt to show [us] the sport, par excellence, of the country”. But they find only one kangaroo, which eludes them. The landscape makes the kangaroo hunt difficult and dangerous, with uneven ground, tree stumps, and so on. Mundy rides “at full speed into the fork of a fallen tree” and has to “retreat”. But in his sketch, he is still proudly mounted on his horse and in full pursuit; and the kangaroo is about to die. This is the kangaroo hunt sketch as wish-fulfilment, a fantasy conclusion.</p>
<h2>Sympathy for the kangaroo</h2>
<p>Edward Roper was a keen naturalist and artist who travelled around the world, coming to Australia in 1857. His landscape A Kangaroo Hunt under Mount Zero, the Grampians (1880) has four hunters galloping through a woodland of eucalypts and grass trees, chasing three kangaroos. A long brushwood fence separates the hunters from their quarry. The riders and their hounds are approaching the fence at break-neck speed, highlighting the thrills and dangers of the chase; this is their land now, and they ride across it as a post-frontier expression of settler freedom and exhilaration.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233830/original/file-20180828-75978-1u4vii6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233830/original/file-20180828-75978-1u4vii6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233830/original/file-20180828-75978-1u4vii6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233830/original/file-20180828-75978-1u4vii6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233830/original/file-20180828-75978-1u4vii6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233830/original/file-20180828-75978-1u4vii6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=500&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233830/original/file-20180828-75978-1u4vii6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=500&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233830/original/file-20180828-75978-1u4vii6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=500&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Edward Roper, A Kangaroo Hunt under Mount Zero, the Grampians (1880).</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">National Library of Australia.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Roper’s <a href="https://benallacollectionlab.com/2018/02/18/edward-roper/">After the Flying Doe</a> gives us a similar scene, although with a closer view of everything including Mount Zero, which now looms large in the background. There is no fence in this version: two hunters on horseback are pursuing kangaroos, with a couple of hounds racing along in front.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233823/original/file-20180828-75993-10hcrmr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233823/original/file-20180828-75993-10hcrmr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233823/original/file-20180828-75993-10hcrmr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=292&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233823/original/file-20180828-75993-10hcrmr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=292&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233823/original/file-20180828-75993-10hcrmr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=292&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233823/original/file-20180828-75993-10hcrmr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=367&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233823/original/file-20180828-75993-10hcrmr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=367&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233823/original/file-20180828-75993-10hcrmr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=367&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Edward Roper, After the Flying Doe.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Benalla Art Gallery. Source: Ledger Gift, 1985.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Unusually, the kangaroos themselves are in the foreground of the painting. The “doe’s” femininity is apparent in the delicate representation of her features, and possibly there is a joey peeking from her pouch. It looks like this painting wants to invite some sympathy for the female kangaroo’s plight by placing her in the foreground, emphasizing her gender and invoking her directly in the title.</p>
<p>What happens when male hunters kill a female kangaroo? “Colonial Hunt” is the first poem published in Australia on an Australian topic; it appeared in the Sydney Gazette in June 1805. Here, a female kangaroo (“Kanguroo”) is pursued and trapped by a hunter and his dog. “Fatigu’d, broken hearted, tears gush from her eyes”, the poet writes, as she realizes her fate.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
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<p>The kangaroo that weeps when it dies offers a rare moment of sentimental identification with a native species that by 1805 is already a target for extermination. We don’t see kangaroo tears again until Ethel C. Pedley’s <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6434489-dot-and-the-kangaroo">Dot and the Kangaroo</a> (1902). In this famous children’s story, a female kangaroo’s sadness over the ecological toll of settlement is now shared by all native species: “Every creature in the bush weeps”, she says, “that they should have come to take the beautiful bush away from us”.</p>
<p>Organised hunts could kill any number of kangaroos; alongside hunting meets that pursued individual roos as game, squatters also organised large scale drives or battues, which could see thousands of kangaroos rounded up, slaughtered and left to rot. </p>
<p>Kangaroos are no longer hunted on horseback, of course. But small - and large -scale killing continues unabated. Recently, the New South Wales government <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/rural/2018-08-08/kangaroo-protections-relaxed-by-nsw-in-100pc-drought-conditions/10088614">relaxed kangaroo culling licences</a>, consistent with the view of the kangaroo as a “pest” that competes with livestock for survival in drought conditions. If we add this to that government’s plan to expand and intensify forest logging, it’s easy to sympathise with the kangaroo’s complaint in Pedley’s turn-of-the century fantasy.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/102169/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ken Gelder receives funding from the Australian Research Council.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rachael Weaver receives funding from the Australian Research Council.</span></em></p>In the mid 19th century, kangaroo hunting was a sport. Colonial hunting clubs were established across Australia and everyone from Charles Darwin to Anthony Trollope tried their hand at shooting roos.Ken Gelder, Professor of English, The University of MelbourneRachael Weaver, ARC Senior Research Fellow in English, The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/959462018-05-14T20:14:09Z2018-05-14T20:14:09ZA history of the marsupial lion - with science, colonial politics and bunyips<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/218208/original/file-20180509-184630-1mpcsak.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The spectacular Wellington Caves are a tourist attraction - and a fossil site. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/winam/7558974668/in/photolist-7axSL5-7au52x-cvXHPs-8zH9pV-ccu8Hf-5tAUGN-5twxK8-BnvsKU-7axSqU">winam/flickr </a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>“<a href="https://theconversation.com/a-new-species-of-marsupial-lion-tells-us-about-australias-past-88633">Marsupial lions</a>” lived on the Australian continent from about 24 million years ago up until the end of the Pleistocene era, about 30,000 years ago. </p>
<p>Of course they weren’t really lions, but an extinct species of marsupial with lengthened premolar teeth. </p>
<p>I’ve recently published a <a href="http://www.publish.csiro.au/HR/HR18003">colonial history</a> of the scientific identification and naming of the species <em><a href="https://australianmuseum.net.au/thylacoleo-carnifex">Thylacoleo carnifex</a></em>. It reveals the power dynamics that existed within colonial science, and the important and overlooked roles played by Aboriginal knowledge and testimony. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/a-new-species-of-marsupial-lion-tells-us-about-australias-past-88633">A new species of marsupial lion tells us about Australia's past</a>
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<h2>Unknown beast of prey</h2>
<p>Colonial discussion of extinct predators began when New South Wales pastoralist George Rankin discovered the first herbivorous Australian megafauna fossils at the <a href="http://www.wellingtoncaves.com.au/">Wellington Caves</a> in 1830. He invited local polymath and Presbyterian minister <a href="http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/lang-john-dunmore-2326">John Dunmore Lang</a> to inspect his fossils. </p>
<p>Lang saw the Wellington site as akin to the UK’s <a href="https://whitbymuseum.org.uk/whats-here/collections/fossils/kirkdale-cave/">Kirkdale fossil caves</a>, discovered by William Buckland in 1821. The Kirkdale caves contained fossilised hyenas and their prey. Comparing the two sites led him to speculate that the Wellington fossils were dragged into the caves by some, as yet unknown, “<a href="https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/2195206">beast of prey</a>”. </p>
<p>According to Lang, in the absence of local palaeontological experts, the best way to determine whether a fossil was from an extinct or still living animal was to consult local Indigenous people. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-dreamtime-science-and-narratives-of-indigenous-australia-95919">The Dreamtime, science and narratives of Indigenous Australia</a>
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<p>In 1842, the Wellington finds and local Aboriginal knowledge led the Queensland squatter <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books?id=6GURYAAACAAJ&dq=Maurice+French,+Conflict+on+the+Condamine:+Aborigines+and+the+European+Invasion+(Toowoomba,+1989).&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwisya_ChPrZAhULU7wKHUcoBdkQ6AEIUzAI">Frederick Isaacs</a> to search for fossil sites in his recently acquired Darling Downs sheep station. The search was sandwiched between his farming and involvement with frontier conflict. </p>
<h2>Scientific imperialism</h2>
<p>Once he found fossils, Isaacs established contact with the British comparative anatomist <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Richard-Owen">Richard Owen</a>. During and after his life Owen gained a reputation as a controlling agent of scientific imperialism that “<a href="http://www.publish.csiro.au/HR/HR9760320041?CFID=31067612&CFTOKEN=6b91eb50c49ce843-62D8C786-F7AB-78EA-4AB72DCFB1FE6DDC">reached out its tentacles</a>” across the globe, robbing colonists of their scientific dues. </p>
<p>Unaware of or uncaring about Owen’s dubious character, Isaacs wrote to him detailing how the fossils were usually found in washed-out dry creek beds and waterholes. He also reported discussions with local Aboriginal people (the two main groups in the area were the Giabal and Jarowair) about a “<a href="http://www.publish.csiro.au/HR/HR18003">tradition relative to a very large animal having at one time existed in the large creeks and rivers</a>” and how local Aboriginal people, when shown large fossil bones, attributed them to this creature.</p>
<p>In 1843 the pastoralist <a href="https://www.daao.org.au/bio/william-adeney/biography/">William Adeney</a> found fragments of an animal skull at lake Colongulac in Victoria’s Western district. This skull was one of two specimens later used by Owen to describe <em>Thylacoleo carnifex</em>. </p>
<p>When describing the circumstances of his find to Owen, Adeney wrote how “the blacks” called the fossils “<a href="https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/3490289">old men’s bones and some said they were the remains of the bunyip</a>”.</p>
<p>This speculation was part of an emerging practice of crediting Aboriginal testimony and bunyip mythology when discussing extinct predators. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-when-did-australias-human-history-begin-87251">Friday essay: when did Australia’s human history begin?</a>
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<h2>Giant bunyip knee</h2>
<p>In 1845, Victorian colonists discovered the “<a href="https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/page/8166573">knee joint of some gigantic animal</a>” at Lake Colongulac (where Adeney found the <em>Thylacoleo</em> cranium) and showed it to a man described by them as an “intelligent black” who identified it as belonging to a bunyip. </p>
<p>Colonists repeated this procedure several times, and a picture emerged of a still living amphibious predatory creature that looked like a cross between an alligator and a bird. It was described as twelve to fifteen feet tall, “furnished with long claws” and usually killing its prey by “hugging it to death”. </p>
<p>One visiting Boonwurrung man, <a href="https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/92677130">Mumbowran</a>, even claimed that scars on his back were from a bunyip attack. There were serious discussions within the emerging Australian scientific press about whether bunyips still existed, were extinct predators, or were completely mythological. </p>
<p>Owen was emboldened by these debates, as well as his inspection of both Wellington Caves fossils sent to him by the explorer <a href="http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/mitchell-sir-thomas-livingstone-2463">Thomas Mitchell</a> and Adeney’s fossil cranium. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/new-dna-study-confirms-ancient-aborigines-were-the-first-australians-60616">New DNA study confirms ancient Aborigines were the First Australians</a>
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<h2>One man took the credit</h2>
<p>In 1845, Owen published an article arguing that the presence of large extinct herbivores mean that “<a href="https://ia801408.us.archive.org/4/items/annalsmagazineof12lond/annalsmagazineof12lond.pdf">some destructive species</a>” of carnivore must have existed. This prediction inspired the search for more fossil megafauna and further evidence of extinct marsupial predators.</p>
<p>In 1853 a fossil jaw fragment was discovered in the Darling Downs. Samuel Stutchbury, the NSW Mineralogical Surveyor, found the fossil. He speculated that it was from a marsupial predator and sent a cast to Owen. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-a-german-migrant-planted-citizen-science-in-australia-and-why-it-worked-91385">How a German migrant planted citizen science in Australia – and why it worked</a>
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<p>Four years after receiving the cast Owen combined Adeney and Stuchbury’s fragments and created <em>Thyalcoleo carnifex</em> and described it as one of “<a href="https://ia801902.us.archive.org/2/items/jstor-108702/108702.pdf">the fellest and most destructive of predatory beasts</a>.” </p>
<p>Owen’s classification validated his earlier prediction and helped him defend his methods from attack in both the United Kingdom and the Australian colonies. He downplayed the role of colonial contributors to his discovery and largely ignored the role of Aboriginal testimony and knowledge in creating the marsupial lion.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/95946/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Pete Minard does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The 19th-century British anatomist Richard Owen downplayed the role of colonial contributors and largely ignored the importance of Aboriginal testimony and knowledge in describing the marsupial lion.Pete Minard, Honorary Research Fellow, Centre for the Study of the Inland, La Trobe University., La Trobe UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/913852018-02-07T19:09:21Z2018-02-07T19:09:21ZHow a German migrant planted citizen science in Australia – and why it worked<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/205216/original/file-20180207-28340-lvg2ch.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Mueller came to Australia in the mid 19th century - and gave women a rare opportunity to be involved in science.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/state_library_south_australia/8552980195/in/photolist-po6pRm-po3Mnb-qgMLCu-po1kvr-pLdo7f-9A64Ei-oHDo4C-e2Ng2M-9A92iW-9A64Nk-B395rk-GG1vqo-AJsSAt-Q2u3nz-BoYW2n-Jcca4s-zf3hv3-zf9FSk-A6uEmP-yzM9mD-zMrbY3-B33hNY-BxqoMQ-qRwen8-nXg66r-PhnAZb-M12utf-MMcZds">state_library_south_australia/flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In 1847, a young German named <a href="http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/mueller-sir-ferdinand-jakob-heinrich-von-4266">Ferdinand Mueller</a> came to Adelaide, with a dream: to be the botanist who catalogued every plant species in Australia.</p>
<p>Off he went, collecting plants from Queensland to Victoria, up mountains and over deserts, for the better part of a decade.</p>
<p>He demonstrated beyond any doubt that Australia was very large and had a lot of plants.</p>
<p>Then inspiration dawned. </p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/exoplanet-discovery-by-an-amateur-astronomer-shows-the-power-of-citizen-science-75912">Exoplanet discovery by an amateur astronomer shows the power of citizen science</a>
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<h2>A collection of collectors</h2>
<p>Mueller realised that the way to catalogue plants wasn’t to walk around Australia collecting them – but to sit very comfortably in Melbourne, collecting collectors.</p>
<p>That’s <a href="https://www.rbg.vic.gov.au/documents/MuelleriaVol_32_-_p72_Maroske.pdf">exactly what he did</a>. He recruited through advertisements in the newspapers, teachers in country schools, and the contacts made on his travels. Over the next forty years, more than 1,300 amateur enthusiasts would contribute to Mueller’s flora of Australia. His network spanned the continent, decades before Australia was a country. It included more than two hundred women and twenty young girls, the youngest just six years old when she sent Mueller her first plant.</p>
<p>One of the most prolific collectors was Mary Kennedy. She lived on a sheep station in Wilcannia in New South Wales, about as far inland as you could go at the time without falling off the map, with eleven children to raise. We know she collected more than five hundred plants.</p>
<p>Along with the specimens themselves, she asked the local Indigenous people for the names of these plants and their uses; preserving a rich treasury of traditional knowledge that endures to this day.</p>
<p>Mueller gave her a legacy in exchange, a species of grevillea named in her honour: <em><a href="http://www.environment.nsw.gov.au/research-and-publications/publications-search/flame-spider-flower-grevillea-kennedyana-recovery-plan">Grevillea kennedyana</a></em>.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/205214/original/file-20180207-58182-tbwr49.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/205214/original/file-20180207-58182-tbwr49.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/205214/original/file-20180207-58182-tbwr49.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/205214/original/file-20180207-58182-tbwr49.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/205214/original/file-20180207-58182-tbwr49.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/205214/original/file-20180207-58182-tbwr49.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/205214/original/file-20180207-58182-tbwr49.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/205214/original/file-20180207-58182-tbwr49.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption"><em>Grevillea kennedyana</em>, named after a citizen scientist.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/80286256@N03/21720848794/in/photolist-z6p2B1">Michael Somerville/flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
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<p>A century would pass before the term “citizen science” entered into the academic lexicon, and decades again before it gained deep credibility.</p>
<p>In hindsight, we can see that’s exactly what Mueller’s project was: a pioneering scientific project powered by people. It satisfied the three criteria that we look for in any great citizen science endeavour today: quality science, linked with the community, and with a broader goal of making the world a better place. </p>
<h2>Citizen science has to be good science</h2>
<p>To be good science, citizen science must be consistent with the exacting standards we apply to every other experimental process.</p>
<p>Mueller knew that his claims to a comprehensive flora of Australia would be widely reported and intensely scrutinised. Tripping through the fields collecting wildflowers is easy. Peer-reviewed botany is hard. His collectors, including those with limited education or grounding in the scientific method, had to appreciate the difference. He made it his priority to explain.</p>
<p>When a woman on a sheep station picked up her basket and headed off into the scrub, or put the samples on the mantelpiece to dry, she did so in the name of science.</p>
<p>It gave purpose to the collectors, and rigour to Mueller’s research.</p>
<h2>Citizen science has to be a door to the world of science for the community</h2>
<p>Mueller was an opportunist in his advocacy for amateur botany.</p>
<p>He recruited children, because they were sharp-eyed and enthusiastic; school teachers, because they could outsource the work to students; and women, because he saw their talent going to waste.</p>
<p>In an era when women rarely went to university, or entered the professions, he offered a taste of a world that many longed to enter. They proved they were worthy of far more: full and equal access with men, on merit.</p>
<p>Times have changed, and very much for the better, thanks in large part to those female pioneers. The need for those doors to science in the community remains.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/205220/original/file-20180207-28333-6ewczt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/205220/original/file-20180207-28333-6ewczt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=421&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/205220/original/file-20180207-28333-6ewczt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=421&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/205220/original/file-20180207-28333-6ewczt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=421&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/205220/original/file-20180207-28333-6ewczt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=529&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/205220/original/file-20180207-28333-6ewczt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=529&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/205220/original/file-20180207-28333-6ewczt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=529&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Australia’s Chief Scientist Alan Finkel, with a bust of Ferdinand Mueller at the Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Alan Finkel</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
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<h2>Citizen science has to make the world a better place</h2>
<p>In the end, that’s what makes it worth doing.</p>
<p>That spirit shines through in the letters written to Mueller by farmers’ wives and stockmen’s daughters.</p>
<p>It’s the 1800s: the era of Banjo Paterson and Henry Lawson, when a newly prosperous people were falling in love with the bush. There’s talk of Federation in the newspapers.</p>
<p>Here was a project that united men and women from every colony, with a mighty vision, and a love of country.</p>
<p>We often focus on the “science” part of citizen science. The “citizen” is important as well. It reminds us that we are part of something greater than ourselves, with a duty to generations to come.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/finkels-law-robots-wont-replace-us-because-we-still-need-that-human-touch-82814">Finkel's Law: robots won't replace us because we still need that human touch</a>
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<p>There are some who believe that citizen science will be left in the twentieth century: a relic of an era before advances in artificial intelligence made human-power obsolete.</p>
<p>I disagree. If humans today are anything like the humans of Mueller’s day, we will never stop inventing new ways to be useful.</p>
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<p><em>This article is based on a speech Dr Finkel delivered to the Citizen Science Association Conference 2018 in Adelaide on February 7.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/91385/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alan Finkel does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>We often focus on the “science” part of citizen science. The “citizen” is important as well. It reminds us that we are part of something greater than ourselves, with a duty to generations to come.Alan Finkel, Australia’s Chief Scientist, Office of the Chief ScientistLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.