Back from the dead...

[khiemtran]

Continuing on with the story, William Buckley spends his first night with the Wathaurong, presumably somewhere near what it is now called Lake Connewarre. He thinks of escaping, but is too weak to do so.

Again, from John Morgan's The Life and Adventures of William Buckley...

The women were all the time making frightful lamentations and wailings -- lacerating their faces in a dreadful manner. All this increased my anxiety and horror, which was added to in the morning, when I saw the frightful demons they had made themselves. They were covered with blood from the wounds they had inflicted, having cut their faces and legs into ridges, and burnt the edges with fire-sticks.

He was then taken across the Barwon river to a place "near an extensive lagoon". I haven't worked out where that was, but this is what the Barwon looks like today. (It's probably a bit higher than it was then because a weir was constructed by the early settlers to keep the salt out and provide a fresh water supply for the new township of Geelong.)



Buckley reports seeing "the black heads of the natives amongst the reeds; appearing to me like a large flock of crows". This almost certainly isn't the spot, since it's not by a lagoon, but here are some reeds by the Barwon. I've canoed along this river and it looks like this in quite a lot of places.



Buckley continues:

They motioned me to be seated, but I preferred at first keeping a standing position, in order to be better able to watch their movements: in the mean time, the women behind the huts were all fighting with clubs and sticks... What the fight was about I could not understand, but think it must have originated in the unfair division of food.

That night, after more grieving rituals, Buckley becomes increasingly alarmed at proceedings:

[T]he boys and girls set to work making a very large fire, probably to roast me -- who could tell? At any rate I supposed it not at all improbable, surrounded as I was by such a host of wild uncultivated savages: however that might be, it was impossible to escape, as I was too weak and terrified at the appearance of all around. At last all the women came out naked -- having taken off their skin rugs, which they carried in their hands. I was then brought out from the hut by the two men, the women surrounding me. I expected to be thrown immediately into the flames; but the women having seated themselves by the fire, the men joined the assemblage armed with clubs more than two feet long; having painted themselves with pipe-clay, which abounds on the banks of the lake.

Buckley then witnesses an amazing corroborree. The women have turned their skin rugs into drums by stretching them across their knees; the men beat time with their skins and "master of ceremonies" directs the singing, dancing and marching.

This scene must have lasted at least three hours, when, as a wind-up, they gave three tremendous shouts, at the same time pointing to the sky with their sticks; they each shook me heartily by the hand, again beating their breasts, as a token of friendship.

Relieved, Buckley at last began to understand that, aside from not being dinner, he was being welcomed (back) into the Wathaurong clan.

I need to stop here to provide a little more information. The larger set of people identified as the Wathaurong were divided into around twenty-five family groupings known as balugs or "clans". The clan that Buckley happened to run into were known as the wada wurrung balug according to wikipedia, and I believe that wada wurrung and wathaurong are both just different transliterations of the same word. So, the one Buckley actually met were the Wathaurong clan of the Wathaurong people. This is extra confusing because sometimes sources will refer to the entire Wathaurong people as the Wathaurong Clan and use other terms for the balugs.

Buckley would spend the next thirty-two years with the Wathaurong, far longer than he ever lived in England. In that time, he travelled with both the Wada Wurrung and Bengalat balugs, learning the local languages and customs, and seeing much of the area around southern Victoria.



He quickly formed a far more favourable outlook on his new family than his initial impressions. None-the-less, it was a comparatively violent society, with frequent mentions of battles, murders and punitive spearings. Because most of the people travelled in relatively small family groups, they needed to meet regularly not only to trade, but also to find prospective spouses and partners. From Buckley's account, a lot of the conflicts came about due to elopements, seductions or lapsed betrothals whenever different tribes met.

Here, Buckley describes how a battle with a hostile tribe, the Waarengbadawa, begins.

On their approach, our men retreated into the lake, and smeared their bodies all over with clay, preparatory to a fight. The women ran with their children into the bush, and hid themselves, and, being a living dead man, as they supposed, I was told to accompany them... In a very short time the fight began, by a shower of spears from the contending parties. One of our men advanced singly, as a sort of champion; he then began to dance and sing, and beat himself about with his war implements; presently they all sat down, and he seated himself also. For a few minutes all was silent; then our champion stood up, and commenced dancing and singing again. Seven or eight of the savages -- for so I must call them -- our opponents, then got up also and threw their spears at him; but, with great dexterity, he warded them off, or broke them every one, so that he did not receive a single wound. They then threw their boomerangs at him, but he warded them off also, with ease. After this, one man advanced as a sort of champion from their party, to within three yards of him, and threw his boomerang, but the other avoided the blow by falling on his hands and knees, and instantly jumping up again he shook himself like a dog coming out of the water. At seeing this, the enemy shouted out in their language 'enough', and the two men went and embraced each other. After this, the same two beat their own heads until the blood ran down in streams over their shoulders.

A general fight now commenced, of which all this had been the prelude, spears and boomerangs flying in all directions...

On another occasion, after a murder due to a broken betrothal, Buckley's clan is forced to hide out at what they called Godocut, which is now called Point Addis..



[W]e pitched our bark huts on a high projecting piece of land, form whence we could command an extensive view, so that no strangers could approach us unobserved. They evidently expected a hostile visit from some of the friends of the man who had been killed, and kept a good look-out. At this spot, however, nothing was to be had to eat but shell fish; so we soon left for another eight miles distant, going through a very thick scrub to reach it, which occasioned me great pain -- my trowsers being almost useless, and the skin rug being my only upper covering.



Today, near the same spot, you can go on a Koorie Cultural Walk and learn about the foods the Wathaurong gathered from the area.



Can you recognize this one?



(I think it's the Yepeurt... Interesting, the name for Golden Wattle is Gherinehap and there's a town called Gheringhap not far away and a Gheringhap street in Geelong.)

The Wathaurong also divided themselves into two moieties which were used for regulating marriage. Their respective totems were Bunjil, the eaglehawk, representing the solemn creator spirit; and Waa, the crow, being the trickster. It's easy to think of these as simply representing Order and Chaos, but I think there's something quite appealing in the notion of a binary split between Sense and Cleverness; with the implicit message that you should never have too much of one without the other.

I'll tell you Bunjil's story later (there's a special twist to it), but here's a story about Waa...

The reason is the crow is black is because once the only people who possessed fire were some women who lived by the Yarra. Having tasted cooked meat, Waa decided to steal some fire for himself, but first he had to work out how. The women were hardly going to leave their precious fire-sticks unattended. Waa's plan was to surprise the women with some snakes hidden in the bushes. When they tried to beat the snakes with their sticks, pieces broke from off the ends and one of them Waa was able to snatch up and steal. Unfortunately, for Waa, the commotion attracted the attention of Bunjil and some other birds were dispatched to chase him. In some stories, Waa's feathers became black in the fight over the hot embers, but in at least one story they became black because Waa flew so fast that the embers burst into flame (thus also passing on the knowledge of how to bring a smouldering fire-stick back to life).

There was also a great element of tragedy to Buckley's life with the Wathaurong. Over time, many of the people he became close to were murdered, often due to superstition. In one case, a blind boy he had become attached to was murdered simply because a boy from another tribe had suffered a fit while sharing a hut with him. In another, his adopted brother and niece were murdered in payback for the death of a beloved elder from another tribe who had been bitten by a snake while walking with them. At those times, there was one place he always retreated to; possibly his favourite place in all the world. I'll show you that place in my next post...

Comments

[heleninwales.livejournal.com]

This story is so intriguing. I eagerly await the next episode.

The account of the battle between the clans was uncannily like the descriptions of the battles in the ancient Irish myths and legends, like the Táin Bó Cúailnge.

[khiemtran.livejournal.com]

Yes, I expect a lot of it is universal.

[khiemtran.livejournal.com]

Yes, I expect a lot of it is universal.

[mnfaure.livejournal.com]

Wow, life's unexpected turns...

[khiemtran.livejournal.com]

I know! It's a great story...

[houseboatonstyx.livejournal.com]

they each shook me heartily by the hand, again beating their breasts, as a token of friendship.

Why the similarity to our custom?

[khiemtran.livejournal.com]

Good question. There wouldn't have been time for it to have come from European contact, so it must have independently evolved.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

Without flowers it's hard to tell, but the leaves of the actual plant seem smaller than the leaves of yepeurt as illustrated--I would have guessed gherinehap.

If only battles and wars today could be fought like the one Buckley described. That's an element of their society I'd like to see current societies emulate. The punitive murders, not so much.

What does Koorie mean? (You said "Koorie Cultural Walk," and I you used the term in your reply to my comment in the previous entry--is it the name of a particular clan?)

[khiemtran.livejournal.com]

'Koorie' (or 'Koori') is the name used by the Aboriginal people of New South Wales and Victoria to refer to themselves. You have to be careful using it though, since people from other parts of the country might not consider themselves Koories, and, on the flipside, things that apply to one small area might not apply to all Koories. In this case, the walking track is actually called the Point Addis Koorie Cultural Walk.

There's also another term, Kulin, which refers to the different peoples around Port Phillip Bay and central Victoria who all shared similar languages and customs. This includes the Wathaurong, Woiworung, Boonwurrung, Dja Dja Wurrung and Taungurrong.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

Thanks--it's great that you know this stuff.