Life

by Tim Flannery

  Despite the supreme role fire plays on the sandstone, there are a few sheltered places around Sydney where water has beaten fire, and it is here that we find patches of rainforest. Sometimes the balance has been tipped by a slightly richer soil, and sometimes just by the shelter granted by a grand old Port Jackson fig. These figs are a signature plant for the city, for it is about the harbour that they reach their finest form. Growing along the water’s edge, their twisted grey trunks support a dense canopy of leaves that are dark green on the upper side and a fiery rust colour underneath. The figs often start life on a bare rock where they are safe from fire, but as they grow they throw a dense shade and their basket-like roots hold humus. In the cool shade provided by the tree, and protected from fire, the humus rots to a rich soil. Then a stately red ash (or murrung to the Aboriginal people) might grow, its intricately mottled grey bark supporting orchids, moss and ferns. On the rocks below will spring up elkhorns, birds-nest ferns, cabbage palms and rock orchids with their spectacular yellow sprays, and there you have it—a rainforest in miniature.

  Such places are true jewels in the botanical crown of Sydney. There are myriad coves around the harbour where you can sit in the shade of such a mini-rainforest, listening to the call of the whip bird or wonga pigeon while looking out over the impossibly blue waters of a tiny bay with its white sand beaches and sparkling waves.

  When the Endeavour first sailed into Botany Bay in 1770 nothing amazed Captain James Cook as much as the stingrays he found basking in its shallows. What astonished him most was their abundance and size. Some were as broad across as a church pew, and these giants were not afraid to laze about right under the Endeavour’s keel. Ridiculously easy to hunt, they provided a free meal for the entire crew. The sailors harpooned the rays as they lay about the vessel, but found them so heavy that they had to be gutted before being hauled aboard with block and tackle. The largest, even without guts, weighed 200 kilograms! It doubtless took decades, perhaps centuries, for stingrays to grow to such prodigious proportions. Cook noted that stingray barbs were not used by the Aborigines for spear points and he mused, presciently as it turned out, that stingrays might be sacred to the people of the bay.

  The First Fleeters knew the Aborigines of the region as the Eora. Their culture was rapidly altered after 1788, and today we know little of the beliefs and ways of these people before European contact. All that I have been able to gather about their feelings toward stingrays is that the Eora believed that it was death to eat one. Why, and what significance it had for the ecology of the region, remains unknown. It does seem possible though, given the Aborigines’ frequent fights, that spears tipped with stingray barbs were just too dangerous to have about. An implicit policy of mutual deterrence may have outlawed the exploitation of these extraordinary marine creatures. Whatever the case the giants were eliminated by European hunting almost as quickly as Eora culture was changed by the settlement.

  Ever since the end of the last ice age the waters of Botany Bay and Sydney Harbour have provided a living to Aboriginal people. When the British arrived its bays and coves were dotted with Eora canoes, and the smoke of Eora campfires filtered from its caves and rock shelters. Women paddling fragile canoes even ventured outside the Heads on fishing expeditions. Governor Phillip estimated that about 1500 Eora lived in the area between Botany Bay and Broken Bay. Some of those living on the northern shores of Sydney Harbour called themselves Cadigaleans, for Cadi was their name for Sydney Harbour, and galeans means ‘the people of’. The Eora spoke a language that formed part of the Pama–Nyungan language family, thought to have originated about 5000 years ago somewhere in eastern Arnhem Land. By the time of European settlement it had spread over all of mainland Australia except for parts of the north and west. Because of this, some individual words spoken by the Eora would have been recognisable right across the continent. Consequently it may yet be possible to reconstruct the now vanished Eora language. A handful of its words survive in English: dingo, gin (for Aboriginal woman) and the cry coo-ee are all of Eora origin.

  The Cadigaleans and adjacent clans were a truly maritime people. Fish were their mainstay and they developed remarkable methods to catch them. They were one of very few Aboriginal groups to manufacture fishhooks, which they made by grinding down the shells of mud oysters. In late winter they journeyed into the bush to find suitable casuarina trees whose bark they used to build canoes up to five metres long. These they managed with astonishing dexterity. Mothers fished from them balancing infants on their shoulders, while men hunted with spears, their heads totally immersed in the water, as a friend counterbalanced the unstable craft. Often they would cook their meal at sea on a pad of clay, atop which sat a fire.

  Another favourite fishing technique was to stand in the lee of a point with a spear poised over the still water, spitting chewed-up mussels into the water as berley. The fish of the harbour have been hunted in these ways for 15,000 years. Many have become well attuned to the human predator, especially the harbour bream. It has acute vision and immediately recognises the human shape. It is as crafty as a fish can get, and its sheer intelligence is a source of wonder.

  In summer the waters of the harbour teem with life, and then it’s easy even for an inexperienced angler to catch a meal. In winter, however, the fish leave for the ocean or retire to the deeper reaches, and commercial fishermen sometimes have difficulty making ends meet. Winter must have been a trial for the Aborigines, and early accounts indicate that starvation was routine during this lean period. It seems likely that by May many Eora left the harbour to find food elsewhere. Some probably travelled into rugged areas such as the Lower Hawkesbury. It was not easy to spear fish in its murky waters (making it an undesirable location in summer), but rock oysters abounded there. These shellfish, along with whatever could be gathered, sustained life until the fish returned in spring.

  Cadi is a snug name for a snug harbour, so it’s a pity that Captain Cook casually dropped the name Port Jackson on the map. Still, Sir George Jackson, a secretary of the Admiralty who lived to be ninety-three, seems not to have been a bad old stick. A worse fate befell the cove Governor Phillip chose to settle in, for in an act of political brown-nosing that is hard to forgive he named it after his next-door neighbour and patron, Viscount Sydney. Sydney had been a ‘dissolute and philandering youth’. As secretary of state for the Home Department he was an incompetent bureaucrat, unequal to the most ordinary duties of his office. I find it an embarrassment to live in a city named after such an eminently forgettable personage, and even Phillip appears to have had second thoughts, for at one stage he inclined to the name Albion, which would have doubtless pleased the Irish convicts no end. I suppose that Phillip, as the son of an immigrant, needed all the patrons he could get, despite their shortcomings. Yet I dearly wish that Phillip had asked the dignified old Eora man he met on his reconnaissance of Port Jackson what the cove was called. If he had, we might now be the proud inhabitants of Warran, or Werrong.

  I have often wondered what the Eora thought about Werrong. It was clearly a strikingly beautiful location, for it was one of only a few places around the harbour with a permanent stream of water. Judge-Advocate Collins noted that a dense forest grew by the shore. This was probably composed of fire-sensitive rainforest species such as Port Jackson figs, cheese trees and red ash. This, along with the exceptionally large size of the trees growing on the site and the fact that the freshwater brook, later to be known as the Tank Stream, flowed all year, suggests to me that the cove experienced a different fire regime, or had different soils from the surrounding areas.

  Despite its beauty there is little mention of the Aborigines frequenting the place in the accounts of the First Fleeters. There may have been few if any shell middens there, for when oyster shells were required for mortar they had to be brought from adjacent coves. This apparent lack of use stands in striking contrast with nearby Farm Cove and Wallamola, now known as Woolloomooloo Bay, both of which were important gathering places for Eora
initiation rituals and other purposes.

  In some of these attributes Werrong bears a close resemblance to Aboriginal sacred sites recorded in other parts of Australia. These often had permanent water and were carefully burned around to exclude fire. Despite their being highly desirable locations, Aborigines rarely ventured into them and never camped in them, although important ritual sites might be found nearby. Was Werrong a sacred site, its margins burned around in spring by the Eora to prevent summer fires destroying the soil humus that fed the Tank Stream and the rainforest? Was it a place of spirits, and so an appropriate site for the apparently unearthly European invaders, whom the Eora may have believed to be their ghostly ancestors, to settle? We will probably never know the answers to these tantalising questions.

  The harbour acted as a sort of dividing line between two Aboriginal groups, the Camerigal who lived between Botany Bay and the south shore, and the Cadigal, who largely dwelt between the north shore and Broken Bay. As with most neighbours, relations between the groups seem to have alternated between feasting and fighting. The opportunity for a feast came only rarely to the Eora, for it was difficult to find sufficient food to satisfy a large group for any length of time. A gift from the sea in the form of a stranded whale seems to have offered the most common opportunity. The discoverers of a stranded whale would light fires to broadcast news of the discovery, and then people would converge for days of feasting.

  Young Cadigalean men were initiated during a ceremony known as Yoo-lahng Erah-ba-daihng. Surprisingly it was not held on their own land, but on Camerigal territory at Wallamola. There the tribes would gather and, after days of ceremony, the highlight came when the initiates had an upper incisor knocked out with a stone. The teeth were carefully kept by their Camerigal hosts, who returned them to the Cadigal at a ceremony some years later.

  This practice of knocking out a front incisor, incidentally, was to have some significance for the Europeans, for Governor Phillip was lacking just such a tooth. The Aborigines clearly viewed him as an important person, perhaps as an initiated elder who had returned from the dead. They called him Beeàna—father.

  The English found the Eora a stubborn and proud people, unwilling to conform to the habits the Europeans wished to force on them, such as the wearing of clothes and the adoption of a settled life. It is clear to me that the Eora did not view themselves as inferior to the Europeans in any way, and thus saw no reason to adopt their ways. It is not hard to imagine why, for early Sydney was a degenerate settlement, full of violent, starving and often immoral people. This must have been obvious to the Eora, many of whom—including Bennelong, a leading Eora whose name means ‘great fish’—considered themselves to be distinctly superior to the Europeans in everything that mattered, including hunting, fighting and managing the land. Indeed, the superior intellects and morality of many Eora were evident even to some European observers such as Watkin Tench. Late in 1789 Bennelong, along with another prominent man Colbee, was kidnapped by the Europeans, who wished to open relations with the Eora. A few days later Colbee escaped but Bennelong, although at first enraged, soon took advantage of the opportunity his captivity afforded him and became a favourite of Governor Phillip and the other leading Europeans. He lived with them until May 1790. Watkin Tench says of him:

  His powers of mind were certainly far above mediocrity…Love and war seemed his favourite pursuits…Whenever he recounted his battles, ‘poised his lance and shewed how fields were won’, the most violent exclamations of rage and vengeance against his competitors in arms, those of the tribe called Cameeregal in particular, would burst upon him.2

  The Eora held to their traditional way of life for a surprisingly long time. As late as 1820, members of a Russian exploring expedition were surprised to find proudly traditional Eora wandering the streets of Sydney stark naked. One can’t help but believe that they were making a statement, saying in effect, ‘We’re not bowed yet by you Europeans.’ Indeed, traditional Aboriginal life continued well into the 1830s in such rugged regions as the Lower Hawkesbury. Doubtless the Aborigines were aided in their fight for independence by the ruggedness of the sandstone country. To the Europeans it was worthless, terrifying and confusing, while to the Eora it was home.

  Sydney Harbour is loved by modern Cadigaleans above all else, for it is the centre—the great magnet—towards which the city is turned. So memorable is its beauty and so distinctive are its landmarks that one needs to travel it just once in order to develop a clear mental map of it. In order to set the city in its context let’s take an imaginary tour up the harbour, beginning at the Heads and ending at the bridge, visiting sites of historical and natural significance. Until the 1950s this is how most overseas visitors approached the city for the first time.

  On entering the harbour on our right we pass North Head. Rising abruptly from the restless ocean, its heathy summit is still undisturbed by signs of European conquest, for it is one of Sydney’s great national parks. It is without doubt the most important remaining refuge for Sydney’s wildlife, providing the last redoubt for fauna including the harbour’s last penguins, about sixty of which still nest around its sandy beaches and in rock crevices below the apartment buildings at Little Manly Bay. Although severely threatened by irresponsible residents who bring their pets to the park’s beaches, at least for the moment you can hear the penguins barking like dogs on a still day as they fish in the harbour.

  Just west of North Head lies that fine stretch of sand known as Manly Cove. Today it is highly urbanised and boasts a ferry terminal and aquarium, but in September 1790, fewer than two years after settlement, it presented a very different scene. We can imagine Governor Phillip approaching the strand in a longboat. On shore are hundreds of Aborigines feasting on the carcass of a beached sperm whale. They are formed into little groups, busy cutting up the blubber and roasting it over fires. Phillip, anxious to begin a conversation, steps ashore unarmed and calls for Bennelong, the only Aborigine he knows well. Bennelong finally comes forward and, as one contemporary recounted,

  They discoursed for some time, Bennelong expressing pleasure to see his old acquaintance, and inquiring by name for every person whom he could recollect at Sydney; and among others for a French cook, one of the governor’s servants, whom he had made the constant butt of his ridicule, by mimicking his voice, gait, and other peculiarities, all of which he again went through with his wonted exactness and drollery. He asked also particularly for a lady from whom he had once ventured to snatch a kiss; and on being told that she was well, by way of proving that the token was fresh in his remembrance, he kissed Lieutenant Waterhouse, and laughed aloud.3

  Things progressed well until an Aborigine, who had not seen Europeans before, arrived on the scene.

  He appeared to be a man of middle age, short of stature, sturdy and well set, seemingly a stranger, and but little acquainted with Bennelong and Colbee. The nearer the governor approached, the greater became the terror and agitation of the Indian. To remove his fear, Governor Phillip threw down a dirk which he wore at his side. The other, alarmed at the rattle of the dirk, and probably misconstruing the action, instantly fixed his lance in his throwing stick. To retreat, his Excellency now thought would be more dangerous than to advance. He therefore cried to the man, Wee-ree, Wee-ree (bad, you are doing wrong) displaying at the same time every token of amity and confidence. The words had, however, hardly gone forth when the Indian, stepping back with one foot, aimed his lance with such force and dexterity that, striking the governor’s right shoulder just above the collar-bone, the point, glancing downward, came out at his back, having made a wound many inches long. The man was observed to keep his eye steadily fixed on the lance until it struck its object, when he directly dashed into the woods and was seen no more.

  A more distressing situation than that of the governor…cannot readily be conceived: the pole of the spear, not less than ten feet in length, sticking out before him and impeding his flight, the butt frequently striking the ground and laceratin
g the wound.4

  Phillip eventually recovered, and today the spear tip that inflicted the damage is a treasured item in the National Museum of Australia. To his great credit, Phillip did not take revenge for the spearing. In fact, the incident served to open greater dialogue with the Eora, who thereafter visited town frequently. Perhaps they realised that the Europeans—even Beeàna—were mortal after all.

  On the south side of the harbour entrance lies South Head, and behind it a great sweep of sand backed by grass and stately Port Jackson figs. This is Watson’s Bay, which has long offered the most sublime views of the city. The trip out along Old South Head Road, the first road built in the colony, was a favourite weekend jaunt in the early days and a compulsory sightseeing expedition for distinguished visitors who could then admire the city’s lighthouse.

  Proceeding along the southern shore we come to Rose Bay where Bungaree, the first Aboriginal circumnavigator of Australia and ‘King of Sydney’, was buried in 1830. Further on is Point Piper, where Captain Piper, the celebrated ‘Prince of Australia’, built his magnificent residence that was so favourably commented upon by many new arrivals. Next is Double Bay, now known colloquially as Double Pay because of its exclusive shopping precinct. It was here, in the 1870s, that the great Italian explorer of New Guinea, Luigi Maria D’Albertis, rented a cottage among the trees. In his journal, D’Albertis recorded the enormous pleasure he found in the pleasant, solitary weeks he spent on his verandah, peeping out through the foliage to the pristine sands and blue waters.