Sunday . . . on finishing . . .

Our possessions talk to us. Yes, we can walk through our apartments, our homes, and all our 'things' present us with dialogue. African violet? "Have you watered me?" Laundry basket? "You're late!" Mending basket? "When are you going to tackle me?" Pile of unread magazines? Dishes in sink? And writerly types, "When will you update your synopsis?"

But some of what we choose to keep close to us carry memories: An ivory elephant, an indigo-cloth covered box from my aunt who lived in post World War II Japan, a print of mermaids by Melissa Cole, a Spokane artist, another of Frida Khalo, a Turkish bowl with vivid red tulips. These objects we surround ourselves with nurture us and define us. We keep close those things that remind us of who and what we love.

This week the daily writing goes well (those word counts are racking up). I would get a sticker from Rachel (who teaches music) for having exceeded my goals every day this week. Two books came through on interlibrary loan. One from the Library of Congress, Thomas Cook's An Exile's Lamentations, written probably about 1841 to record his experiences as a prisoner on infamous Norfolk Island. And the other, First Australians: An Illustrated History (eds. Rachel Perkins and Marcia Langton) told from an aboriginal point of view, lavish with discussion and photographs of artwork from the 19th Century. I'd much rather read either of these books than dig into that mending basket! And it's Sunday. Time to heed the bird calls just outside my window and walk amid the lilacs in Manito Park.

At the end of each day, I check my office to see that all is cleared away, whether writing, research, quilting, or whatever project is current. For morning begins with writing Years of Stone, and I want my fingers to know the story.

You can see a preview of First Australians in a slide show or a video. The book also is available on amazon.

Z is for Zed . . .

Z is for Zed, the last letter of the alphabet, the end of the A-Z Blogging Challenge, my 24-entry excursion into aspects of the history of Van Diemen's Land.

So today, I end with the beginning. The First Australians.

http://www.programs.sbs.com.au/firstaustralians/content/

This online video overview, hosted by Australian broadcasting company SBS, in 4-5 minute clips, introduces the longer seven 54-minute segments that took six years to create. The entire series traces the journey the first Australians have taken -- from migration and isolation from 'mainland' Australia (a time leap of some 70,000 years), to the first interactions with European explorers, from the 16th through the 21st Centuries, and ending with the great awakenings of self-awareness and the fight for political and legal recognition with very real land rights.

Two impressions stand out for me from this lovely overview. The first, a clumsy painting (most likely water color) that shows early aborigines dancing corroboree with English troops within a few days of the landing of the First Fleet in 1789. An early report says on first sight of the English led by Governor Arthur Phillip, the aborigines "danced furiously" and then vanished into the woods.

The second is harder to put into words. The faces of the descendants of these First Australians carry a sense of pride and sadness, commitment to change, sorrow for what had been lost. For the aborigines did not understand European concepts of land. To these First Australians, land was never something to be occupied and tamed. They were a part of the land, a gift from the ancient ancestors; they were the owners of the land, charged to care for it and protect it. Water holes were sacred. The geography was shaped by these ancient ones, and from father to son, certain responsibilities were transferred.  How could such a responsibility be taken away by the planting of a flag of a foreign king? The land was already occupied by these people and their traditions.

So as I continue to work on Years of Stone, even though essentially the story is not about them, somehow I want to capture some sense of their inner life, and in the 1840s the sense of cultural loss and displacement, the great divide that then existed between convicts, settlers, the government, and the First Australians.

NOTE: The complete "First Australians" is available online (in seven 54-minute segments) at http://www.sbs.com.au/firstaustralians/ or in book form through amazon. Wikipedia lists a brief description of each segment. If I lived in Australia or Tasmania, I would be haunting the library. Here in the wilds of eastern Washington, such research materials are scarce, so I am very grateful for online research and that this video program has been posted. If I had not written of this video today, I would not have learned the longer version is online! This means Z is for Zed, the end, but in reality, my research continues . . . as does the writing!

Y is for Yemmerrawannie . . .

Sometimes we are drawn by the new and different, that far place, unknown, that will shake us into becoming perhaps a different, better person. We don't realize that each day begins 'new and different,' that we define ourselves by our routines, even so small as writing an A-Z Challenge every day.

What if our established routine were something that to others was new and different?

Today's post explores such a person, Yemmerrawannie, born (historians guess) about 1775 in Botany Bay.  Governor Arthur Phillip pretty much adopted this young man (with another, more well known aborigine, Bennelong, the names of both aborigines reported with great variety of spelling). Both were taken to England in 1792 with Phillip. Yemmerrawannie died there in 1794, at 19.

I'm remembering Ghandi's descriptions of his visit to a cold and rainy London in the 20th Century. How different would Yemerawannie's experiences have been as a young man in the 18th Century, so far from his home, barely colonized New South Wales, as he visited crowded, industrial London. What were his impressions before he died, most likely of pneumonia?

But this contrast between a nomadic life lived close to nature and Victorian England is not the real story at all. I now have extreme book lust for Rachel Perkins and Marcia Langton's First Australians.

The real story is darker, not about experiencing the new, though that occurred. The real story is about what happened between the colonizers and the colonized in the early days of settling New South Wales, this great, unexplored and stark new land; the delicate negotiations between Governor Phillip, leading a starving colony, and those who knew the land. Interactions between the two groups were always fraught with cultural misunderstandings and violence. Letters, diaries, and records hint of paternalism and that great belief that English values and beliefs trump all else. This backdrop sets the tone for the next several hundred years.

I'm left realizing that history is not fiction.

I have ordered First Australians via interlibrary loan. Excerpts may be read online at Google Books. Sources consulted: The Folorn Hope, Google Books: First Australians. UPDATE: Just found the First Australians television production online. Another fascinating resource!