Zone of the Marvellous

by Martin Edmond

  The literature on James Cook is vast and no one now can read it all. The Explorations of Captain James Cook in the Pacific: As Told by Selections of His Own Journals 1768–1779 edited by Grenfell Price (Dover, 1971) is my source for direct quotations. The Trial of the Cannibal Dog by Anne Salmond (Allen Lane/Penguin Books, 2003) was consulted. The quote from the Book of Job is a part of the inscription on a monument to Cook erected by Admiral Sir Hugh Palliser in the park of his house ‘the Vache’ at Chalfont St Giles, England.

  Georg H. von Langsdorff in Voyages and Travels in Various Parts of the World During the Years 1803–7 (1813) begins the tale of Jean Cabri, which is later taken up by various others, including Greg Dening in Islands and Beaches: Discourse on a Silent Land: Marquesas 1774–1880 (University of Hawai‘i Press, 1980). The story of Bellingshausen’s parrots is told in an appendix to Alan Moorehead’s The Fatal Impact (The Reprint Society, 1967).

  VI. LOST TRIBES

  The Endeavour Journal of Sir Joseph Banks is available online here: http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks05/0501141h.html. The French Explorers and the Aboriginal Australians, 1772–1839 by Colin Dyer (University of Queensland Press, 2005) is the major source for my retellings of Tasmanian encounters. Joseph-Marie Degérando’s book has been published in English translation as The Observation of Savage Peoples (Routledge, 1969). Victorian Anthropology by George W. Stocking Jr (Free Press, 1987) summarises contemporary nineteenth-century attitudes and includes a scarifying epilogue: ‘The Extinction of Paleolithic Man’. The Aboriginal Tasmanians by Lyndall Ryan was published by University of Queensland Press in 1981 and again in a revised edition in 1997.

  The standard biography of Marsden is by Sandy Yarwood: Samuel Marsden: The Great Survivor (MUP, 1977, 1996). A curious addition to the corpus is Samuel Marsden: Altar Ego by Richard Quinn (Dunmore, 2008), a sustained polemic against the flogging parson himself and anyone else who may have written kindly about him. Mr Quinn is now writing a revisionist history of the Boyd massacre. Narrative of Voyage to New Zealand by J. L. Nicholas was republished in an undated two-volume facsimile edition by Wilson and Horton; I have had a copy for many years now. Like William Yate’s An Account of New Zealand, introduced by Judith Binney (Irish University Press, 1970), it includes material on both Marsden and Ruatara, as does Binney’s own book, A Legacy of Guilt: A Life of Thomas Kendall (AUP/OUP, 1968). Ruatara’s entry in the 1966 Encyclopaedia of New Zealand can be found at: www.teara.govt.nz/1966/R/Ruatara/Ruatara/en.

  M. P. K. Sorrenson’s Maori Origins and Migrations (AUP/OUP, 1979), subtitled The Genesis of Some Pakeha Myths and Legends is a brief and entertaining introduction to the sustained silliness of certain currents of European thought represented in my essay. ‘Hauhau’: The Pai Marire Search for Maori Identity by Paul Clark (AUP/OUP, 1975) is an excellent account of events in Taranaki and elsewhere in the 1860s and includes Pai Mārire documents and art works.

  A research group at Sydney University is preparing a monograph upon the history of terra nullius which, it is to be hoped, will bring together many scattered sources under one cover. There is a summary here: www.arts.usyd.edu.au/departs/history/research/projects/fitzmaurice_terra.shtml#collab. More about the Proclamation of Governor Bourke may be found here: www.migrationheritage.nsw.gov.au/exhibitions/objectsthroughtime/objects/bourketerra/. The story of Alan Wolf and his Aboriginality or lack thereof appeared in The Australian on 30 June 2008.

  VII. ULIMAROA, YONAGUNI & OTHER ENIGMAS

  ‘About Paradise Parrots and Other Australian Legends of Place and Identity’ is a longish essay by Paul Carter published in Haiku Review #3: www.haikureview.net/node/32. Most if not all of the voluminous writings of Madame Blavatsky are accessible online via this link: http://isisunveiled.net/. Queen M’oo and the Egyptian Sphinx by Augustus Le Plongeon was published by the author in 1896 and has been digitised. James Churchward’s The Lost Continent of Mu was recently (2007) republished by Adventures Unlimited Press in Illinois.

  For the Kerguelen Plateau, see: www.ga.gov.au/oceans/sa_Kergln.jsp; and also: www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/Kerguelen_Plateau. J. R. Mooneyham’s vast and arcane speculations are here: www.jmooneyham.com/anthis.html. In Search of Ancient New Zealand by Hamish Campbell and Gerard Hutching (Penguin, 2007) includes a detailed, if somewhat distracted, discussion of the lost continent of Zealandia. Daniel Djurberg’s 1797 map showing Australia as Ulimaroa can be viewed here: http://nla.gov.au/nla.map-rm2366. The possible origins of the Araucanian hen are explored here: www.gbwf.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=4258. The tradition that a canoe from Kiribati visited South America comes from Migrations, Myth and Magic from the Gilbert Islands: Early Writings of Sir Arthur Grimble, by Arthur and Rosemary Grimble (Routledge, 2004).

  The Desert Sea: The Miracle of Lake Eyre in Flood, by Vincent Serventy (Macmillan, 1985), gives some of the history of Australia’s inland waters. In a radio talk in 2008 called The Water Dreamers Michael Cathcart suggests that it was rivers, not lakes or seas, that the early explorers were looking for: www.abc.net.au/rn/hindsight/stories/2008/2272369.htm. Stephen Oppenheimer’s Eden in the East: The Drowned Continent of Southeast Asia was first published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson in 1998. The official Graham Hancock website is here: www.grahamhancock.com/.

  The Alfred Wallace quote is from his The Malay Archipelago (Periplus, 2000). Detail of monumental architecture in the Pacific is drawn from Man’s Conquest of the Pacific: The Prehistory of Southeast Asia and Oceania by Peter Bellwood (OUP, 1979).

  VIII. AFTER EREWHON

  An excerpt from Jeff Hopkins-Weise’s book Blood Brothers: The Anzac Genesis (Wakefield Press, 2009) was printed in the Australian Literary Review of 1 April 2009. Kingsley Amis’ afterword to Samuel Butler’s Erewhon or Over the Range appears in the Signet Classic edition of 1960.

  The Sidney Nolan quotes are from Nolan on Nolan: Sidney Nolan in his own Words, edited by Nancy Underhill (Viking, 2007). Brian Adams’s Sidney Nolan: Such is Life (Century Hutchinson, 1987) is the only extant biography and is largely written out of conversations with the author. As such it is, like the man, both entertaining and unreliable. There are two large catalogues of retrospectives, Sidney Nolan: Landscapes and Legends, curated by Jane Clark at the National Gallery of Victoria (CUP, 1987), and Sidney Nolan, curated by Barry Pearce (AGNSW, 2007). T. G. Rosenthal’s monograph, Sidney Nolan, was published by Thames and Hudson in 2002.

  The catalogue for Colin McCahon: A Question of Faith edited by Marja Bloem and Martin Brown (Craig Potton, 2002) includes both the Murray Bail and Francis Pound essays cited in the text; the extensive chronology in the back of the book is particularly good. Gordon Brown’s Colin McCahon: Artist (Reed, 1984, 1993), is more comprehensive but less accessible. As with Nolan, there are a number of exhibition catalogues that are useful; the two most significant are those for Colin McCahon: A Survey Exhibition curated by Ron O’Reilly at the Auckland City Art Gallery in 1972, which includes an extensive commentary by the artist on his own works; and that for the 1988 retrospective, Colin McCahon: Gates and Journeys, curated by Alexa Johnston at the same venue.

  The National Gallery of Victoria in 2007 staged a major Gordon Bennett retrospective that toured subsequently to Brisbane and Perth; the catalogue for this show is an important resource on the artist, along with The Art of Gordon Bennett by Ian McLean and Gordon Bennett (Craftsman House, 1996). This includes Bennett’s long autobiographical essay. A Shane Cotton retrospective, Shane Cotton Survey 1993– 2003, was curated by Lara Strongman at Wellington’s City Gallery and accompanied by a monograph (VUP/City Gallery, 2003). The rongo rongo speculation comes from Island at the End of the World: The Turbulent History of Easter Island by Steven Roger Fischer (Reaktion Books, 2005).

  Marian Maguire has an artist’s page here: www.papergraphica.co.nz/artist_detail.asp?id=22; which includes links to images of her works. The Robert Duncan quotes are from ‘A Poem Beginning With A Line By Pindar’ in The Opening of the Field (Grove Press, 1960). Fiona Hall: Force Field (2008) was curat
ed by Gregory O’Brien, Paula Savage and Vivienne Webb as a partnership between the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, and City Gallery, Wellington. A monograph accompanied the exhibition. Julie Ewington’s Fiona Hall came out from Piper Press in 2005. The possibility that When my boat comes in … may appear in book form was told to me by the artist during a conversation we had in baggage claim at Sydney Airport in July 2008.

  INDEX

  Aboriginal Australians, 92, 115, 121, 126, 127, 156, 159, 164–68, 168, 169, 183–87, 199–200, 237

  Acapulco, 86, 89, 108, 111, 115, 135

  Ackroyd, Peter, 95

  Africa, 10, 23, 26–28, 29–30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 55, 61, 62, 70, 72, 77, 80, 114, 131, 156, 174, 180, 182, 191, 192, 194, 223

  Afrikaansche Galei (ship), 134, 135, 136

  Ahutoru, 144, 145–46, 153, 162

  al-Din, Rashid, 47–48

  Jami al-Tawarikh (Compendium of Chronicles), 47–48

  Alexander the Great, 10, 24, 25, 28, 54

  Alexandria, 10, 31, 207, 210

  Alfraganus of Baghdad, 40

  Elements of Astronomy on the Celestial Motions, 40

  Alighieri, Dante, 32, 36, 37–41, 53, 55, 57, 58, 59, 98, 114, 191, 215, 216, 220, 224

  Divine Comedy, 37–41

  alphabets, 2, 56, 94, 229

  al-Sufi, ’Abd al-Rahman, Book of Fixed Stars, 129

  Alvarez, Al, 215

  Americas, the, 1, 22, 62, 63, 71, 72, 92, 174, 182

  Amis, Kingsley, 214, 215

  Amsterdam, 3, 5, 102, 110, 174

  Angry Penguins (magazine), 221

  Anjiro, 81–82

  Anson, George, 134, 151

  Antarctica, 31, 131, 149, 153–54, 155, 190, 191, 196, 198, 210, 223

  antipodes, 1, 8, 10, 19, 31–32, 33, 38, 55, 57, 63, 114, 126, 167, 211, 220, 236, 243–45; see also Great South Land

  ANZACs, 213, 215

  Arabian Peninsula, 24, 28, 29, 30, 33, 34, 61

  Arioi, 138–39, 143, 157, 197

  Armada de Molucca, 71, 72, 73, 78

  Assyria, 11, 27, 174

  Atkinson, A. S., 181

  Atlantic Ocean, 3, 20, 21, 23, 28, 33, 38, 72, 75, 98, 113, 119, 130, 131, 132, 134, 146, 149, 150, 151, 193

  Atlantis, 9, 10, 19–22, 23–24, 25, 26, 99, 182, 189, 192, 210, 244; see also Plato; Bacon, Francis

  Australia, 4, 60, 63, 89, 91, 92, 101–02, 108, 110, 115, 120–21, 122, 126–27, 147, 149, 154, 155, 156, 158–59, 16–61, 163, 164–68, 168–69, 184–87, 188, 190, 191, 194, 195, 197, 198–99, 200–01, 202, 204, 212, 213–14, 215–24, 225, 227, 237, 243

  Australia Felix, 212, 243; see also Parrots, Land of

  Avery, John (‘Long Ben’), 112, 120

  Babylon/Babylonians, 10, 11, 12, 13, 15, 24, 27, 28, 31, 53, 174, 177, 179, 194, 210

  Bacon, Francis (1561–1626), 92, 97, 98, 99, 100, 126, 194

  Natural History, 98, 99, 100

  The New Atlantis, 92, 97–100, 194

  Bacon, Francis (1909–92), 223

  Bail, Murray, 227

  Banks, Joseph, 90, 110, 126, 128, 139, 149–50, 153, 157–58, 189, 196, 197

  Baré, Jeanne, 144–45

  Barreto, Doña Isabel, 86

  Batavia, 101, 102, 103, 106, 108, 109, 123, 124, 149, 158, 197

  Baudelaire, Charles, 152, 244

  Voyage to Cythera, 152

  Baudin, Nicholas, 161, 163, 164

  Baxter, James K., 181, 225, 228, 230

  Bay of Islands, 161, 170, 172, 175, 176, 197

  Bayer, Johann, Uranometria, 130

  Beaglehole, Ernest, 197

  Becker, Ludwig, 167

  Bell, George, 219

  Bellew, Peter, 219

  Bellingshausen, Thaddeus, 128, 153–55, 159

  Bellwood, Peter, Man’s Conquest of the Pacific, 209

  Benjamin, Walter, 5

  Bennett, Gordon, 212, 237

  Haptic Painting Explorer (The Inland Sea), 237

  Bennett, Josephine, 51, 52

  The Rediscovery of John Mandeville, 51

  Bent, Thomas, 243

  Bible, the, 13, 18, 35, 43, 60, 70, 96, 99, 100, 142, 150, 156, 159, 169, 174, 175, 176, 177, 179, 222, 228, 229, 232, 233, 244

  Blackburn, Justice, 185–86

  Blavatsky, Madame (Elena van Hahn), 192–93

  Bligh, William, 114

  Blisset, Luther, 79

  Bonaparte, Napoleon, 162, 164

  Bonnefoy, Jean, see Baré, Jeanne

  Borges, Jorge Luis, 9

  Botany Bay, 126, 144, 158, 159, 164

  Bourke, Richard, 185, 186

  Boyd, Arthur, 228

  Bracken, Thomas, ‘God Defend New Zealand’, 243

  Brazil, 63, 72, 96, 119, 122, 123, 132, 190

  Britten, Benjamin, 223

  Brome, Richard, The Antipodes, 57

  Brown, Gordon, 230

  Brown, John Macmillan, 181–82

  Maori and Polynesian, 181–82

  Brunton, Alan, 5, 244

  Buchman, Frank, 226–27; see also Oxford Goup

  Bungaree, 164, 184 253

  Burdett, Basil, 217, 219

  Buridan, Jean, 55–56

  Burke, Robert O’Hara, 224, 237

  Burma, 45, 81, 81, 83, 201

  Butler, Samuel, 212, 214–15, 240–41

  Erewhon, 214, 215

  The Way of All Flesh, 214

  Byron, John, 128, 133, 134–35, 147

  Cabral, Pedro Álvares, 190–91

  Cabri, Jean, 152–53

  Callao, 85, 86, 87

  Cape of Good Hope, 62–63, 75, 101, 120, 131, 132, 147, 172, 191

  Cape Verde Islands, 33, 63, 72, 76, 113

  Carlos I, King (Spain) (later Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor), 70, 71, 78

  Caroline Islands, 63, 87, 209, 210

  Carteret, Philip, 136

  Caselberg, John, 227

  Cassander of Macedon, 24–25

  Cebu, 68, 74, 75, 76, 78

  Ceylon, 18, 24, 33, 45, 58, 64, 108, 194; see also Sri Lanka

  Chatham Islands (Rēkohu), 38, 179, 195, 197

  Chatwin, Bruce, In Patagonia, 58

  China, 30, 33, 44, 47, 57, 58, 61, 62, 65–67, 68, 79, 80, 83, 98, 102, 103, 115, 140, 146, 201, 204, 207, 236

  Christianity, 25, 38, 39, 40, 42, 43, 44, 49, 50, 62, 64, 66, 74, 78, 79, 82, 86, 90, 96–97, 98, 99, 103, 154, 159, 168, 173, 176–77, 179, 225, 226, 228, 229, 230, 231, 232

  Churchward, James, 193–94

  Clark, Kenneth, 222, 223, 224

  Cochin, 64, 65, 80, 81

  Colenso, William, 176

  Coleridge, Samuel, Rime of the Ancient Mariner, 152

  colonisation, 4, 9, 84–86, 98, 132, 140, 163, 166, 174, 183, 184, 223, 238

  Columbus, Christopher, 1, 55, 69, 70, 95

  Commerson, Philibert, 141, 144–45

  Constantinople, 41, 42, 53, 62

  Cook Islands, 88, 149, 197

  Cook, James, 74, 90, 106, 110, 114, 119, 126, 132, 136, 139, 140, 141, 146, 147–52, 153, 154, 157–59, 177, 183, 196–97, 198, 200, 240, 241

  Cook, John, 113

  Cortesão, Armando, 67, 68

  Cotton, Shane, 212, 231, 237–39, 240

  Courtney, Stephen, 123

  Crates of Mallus, 31–32, 33

  Crete, 23, 25, 70, 214

  Critias, 19–21, 22

  Crozet, Julien, 161

  Cygnet (ship), 114, 115

  da Gama, Vasco, 31, 62, 80

  Dampier, Judith, 113, 123

  Dampier, William, 92, 111–16, 117–27, 130, 132, 133, 134, 147, 152, 153, 156

  A New Voyage Around the World, 117–18, 125, 126

  A Voyage to New Holland etc. in the Year 1699, 122, 125

  Voyages and Descriptions, 118, 125

  Darien, 73, 75, 113

  Darwin, Charles, 1, 114, 126, 180, 215

  Davis Land, 134, 150, 189

  Davis, Edward, 134

  de Balboa, Vasco Núñez, 73

  de Bougainville, Hyacinthe, 163


  de Bougainville, Louis-Antoine, 140–42, 143, 144, 145, 146, 152, 163

  de Brosses, Charles, Histoire des Navigations aux Terre Australes, 132, 133

  de Camoens, Luís Vaz, 83–84

  Parnasso de Luís de Camões, 84

  The Lusiads, 83–84

  de Cartagena, Juan, 71, 72, 73

  de Courtonne, Canon Jean Paulmier, Memoirs Concerning the Establishment of a Christian Mission in the Austral Land, 133

  de Gonneville, Binot Paulmier, 132–33

  de la Reina, Padre Sanchez, 73

  de Leiria, Inês, 66–67, 80

  de Lozier Bouvet, Jean-Baptiste Charles, 133

  de Mendaña, Álvaro, 85–87, 88

  d’Entrecasteaux, Bruny, 163, 164

  de Quirós, Pedro Fernández, 60, 86, 87–91

  de Sade, Marquis Donatien Alphonse François, 142

  de Sainson, Louis Auguste, 239–40

  de Surville, Jean-François-Marie, 150–51

  de Torres, Luis Vaez, 88, 89

  Defoe, Daniel, 57, 92, 113, 117, 124, 126, 142

  Robinson Crusoe, 92, 113, 117, 126, 142

  Degérando, Joseph-Marie, Considerations on the Various Methods to Follow in the Observations of Savage Peoples, 161–63

  del Cano, Juan Sebastián, 72, 75–76

  Diderot, Denis, 143, 145

  Supplément au Voyage de Bougainville, 142

  Dire Straits, 3–4

  Djurberg, Daniel, 197

  Dolphin (ship), 133, 134, 135, 136, 137, 138, 139, 140, 141, 147, 152

  d’Outremeuse, Jean, 50, 51

  Ly Myreur des Histors, 51

  Drake, Francis, 72, 134

  Dryden, John, The Conquest of Granada, 115

  du Fresne, Marion, 146, 160–61, 163

  Duncan, Robert, 241

  d’Urville, Jules Dumont, 163, 167, 240

  Dutch East India Company (VOC), 101, 103, 104, 108, 111

  Dutch exploration, 90, 102–03, 110, 111, 133

  Dutch West India Company, 133–34

  Duyfken (ship), 89, 90

  dystopias, 22, 24, 26, 228; see also utopias; Utopia

  East Indies, 63, 87, 101, 114, 118, 136, 147, 242

  Easter Island (Rapanui), 85, 134, 155, 182, 194, 197, 205, 209, 238