Diary of a Sydney rock, 25th January 1788
Friday 25th January 1788
G’day! I’m a rock just up from the water’s edge in what you may know as Sydney
Cove. I’ve been sitting here for a long long time (I’ll let others argue about how
long).
The 25th of January 1788 was pretty much like any other day. Native
animals foraged for food while plants did what plants do. The first settlers
poked about with a bit of hunting and fishing, building shelters and sitting around
fires telling dreamtime stories. They had arrived from the north a long time after
I appeared, settled in tribal areas and made the place home. They disrupted
life in the cove, fought a bit among themselves and impacted on the landscape,
but basically the soil, plants, animals, people and we rocks all learned to get
along.
A few days ago, some other people appeared from down Kurnell way. It was
clear they didn’t belong. Their clothes were strange and unsuited to a Sydney
summer. Their pasty white skins soon burnt to a crisp. We had seen other people
like this in various parts of the big rock called Australia. The Dutch, French
and even the Chinese had come and poked about over the years. They all stayed
for a bit and then moved on, as had people from the islands just north. About 18 years ago a white skin called Captain Cook had landed a bit south of
Sydney Cove, stayed for eight days, collected some plants and raised a coloured
cloth on a pole. We should have known then that something was afoot.
Little did I know how life was to change forever the next day.
Saturday 26th January 1788
The day began like any other. The waters lapped nearby, smoke from the early
cooking fires drifted lazily skyward and the cool air of a summer’s morning gave
way to the heat of the day.
There was a buzz among the first peoples who looked towards the great
sea where the sun rose. One after another, sail boats came to view, made their
way to the cove, lowered sails and disgorged their load. Dinghy after dinghy
dropped more of the white-skinned ones. Some were in fancy clothes like the people
that appeared the other day. Most looked bedraggled and the worse for wear.
The number of the newcomers and the way they set up camp suggested this
was not a social visit. This second wave of immigrants soon made it clear that they
were here to stay.
Sunday 3rd February 1788
Well, the newcomer’s settlement grew over the last week, but it is clearly
going to be a struggle for them to make a go of it. They bought food with them
but, of course, didn’t yet understand the seasons and plants of a new country,
let alone the riches under the waters – Sydney rock oysters are a treat. And
they still wear silly clothes and their skins burn to a crisp.
Today was different.
There was a kind of parade that I later learned is called a church service.
People sang and prayed to their God who they called Lord and creator (at least
that helped me know where I came from and to whom I belong). And then another
of the white-skinned ones in funny clothes stood up, read from a special-looking
book and started to speak. His name was Richard Johnson. I remember his text: What shall I render unto
the Lord for all his benefits towards me? This was a startling event for me. Even as he
spoke, I felt that I was in touch with something deeper, higher and older than even
cousin Uluru and the earth itself. The first immigrants had their dreamtime
stories that overlapped with what he said, but this was different. Mr Johnson
spoke about Jesus as the saviour of all who believed and urged people to remember
their maker.
(If I can
indulge in a personal note, I later learnt that this Jesus is somewhere called a
rock – which I find kind of amusing and flattering given the usual indifference
to my lot. I love to rattle my pebbles in unison when they sing ‘Rock of Ages’,
so please keep singing it.)
Thursday 7th February 1788
Another
day another parade. The chief of the white skins, called Captain Arthur Philip,
dressed up in even more finery and read a proclamation with a loud voice. A distant
chief, called George III, claimed the island for himself and vested all its
land in his name. I later learned that this was based on a white dreamtime tale
called terra nullis, or ‘empty land’. Empty land my foot! I had learned from Mr
Johnson’s big book that the land was made by the creator God and belonged to
him before there were trees and rocks or dreamtime. It always was, and always will be, his land. And then there were the
first settlers that Captain Phillip certainly knew about and who came a long
time before the white skins. Really, you’d have to have pebbles for a brain to
say it was ‘empty land’. Or maybe it was deceit in your heart?
Sunday January 26th 2020
It’s been
a long time since I last wrote but I’m still here (we are not called rocks of
the ages for no reason). Of course, the place they call Sydney is very different
to those old days and you can hardly see this rock for all the tall buildings
made from a fake rock called concrete. The white skins have been joined by even
later waves of immigrants from all different places and the streets are full of
many colours and voices. I don’t see or hear much from the first settlers these
days.
They now
call this Australia Day. It’s been slow in coming to this. It was January 1808
before anyone much thought to make this a day of “drinking and
merriment". It will like that again today as people get drunk and add even
more smoke to the murky bushfire sky with their many BBQs. In 1818 Governor Macquarie
declared this to be a “Foundation Day” holiday with sports and festivities. In
1837 a boating regatta started on the harbour and I guess the ferries will race
again today. Only after 1888 did other states start celebrating this as some kind
of national day and only after 1935 did the day become the national holiday
that it now is. Some of the first settlers dubbed it a day of mourning in 1938
and invasion day in 1988.
I sometimes daydream back to 25th January 1788 and
long for the good old days.
I know things couldn’t stay the way they were and that someone
would come along to claim this wide brown land for themselves – it was just too
bountiful to be left to the first settlers. And I know that many of the things that
later settlers did have developed the land towards its potential. And I know that
its right for the white skins to celebrate the day they arrived to make this place
home.
But I also mourn.
I mourn for the scars the land bears from their hands. How long
will they dig up my rock cousins and send them away? How long will they pollute
the waterways and air, degrade the soil and threaten the creator’s creatures? And
I mourn for the first immigrants who are pushed to the edges of their society
in every way. And I mourn for the creator God who looks on this land that he
has blessed, and which still denies and defies him year by year.
Really, I wonder if January 26th is the right day for
the “drinking and merriment" that the white skins started around 1808.
Maybe it’s a day for all the people of the creator’s ‘one blood’ to be quiet
before him and think on Mr Johnson’s text.
_________
Writer’s note
I know that rocks cannot think or speak any more than the
animals in Narnia, but, hey, this is my blog! I am descended from later waves
of immigrants (Ireland in the 1840s and Cornwall in the 1870s). My lot have
been part of the dispossession of the first immigrants and are numbered among
the miners who dug up the rocks. I’m glad to live in Australia and enjoy the
fruits of its development. However, I mourn that the 1808 tradition of ‘drinking
and merriment’ has prevailed over a pondering of Richard Johnson’s text.
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