Eight days in Kamay – texts and the human experience

Website

Students are learning to:

• understand, interpret and critically analyse a complex digital text
• think interpretively and discerningly about new ideas presented in a digital text

First voyage of the Endeavour

On an expedition that took them 1050 days and around the world, Lieutenant James Cook and 93 other crew and expedition members onboard HMB Endeavour were the first known Europeans to sight and chart the east coast of Australia, in 1770. They entered Kamay (Botany Bay) on 29 April 1770, forced their way onto the shore, and spent eight days collecting specimens and exploring before setting sail once more.

Kamay

James Cook, Joseph Banks and the crew of the Endeavour were in Kamay for eight days out of a 1050-day journey. Although this was a short time in the history of the Aboriginal people of Australia, who have inhabited this land for more than 65,000 years, the ramifications of these eight days were to be enormous for both the Aboriginal people of Australia and all those who have since moved to these shores.

The exhibition Eight Days in Kamay explores the visit of James Cook, Joseph Banks and the crew of the Endeavour to the shores of Kamay, telling the story largely from an Indigenous perspective. You can visit this exhibition online.

1970 Day of Mourning

The 200th anniversary of the Endeavour’s arrival in Kamay was marked in 1970. While celebrations and commemorations, including re-enactments, were held across the nation, for Indigenous Australians the anniversary was not cause for celebration. Instead, a ‘Day of Mourning’ was declared, and protests held. A feature of these protests was the wearing of red headbands, meant to symbolise the blood shed by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples on that day in 1770 and since.

Indigenous cultural systems

Country

When used by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, the term Country encompasses the lands, waterways, skies and seas. However, it is much more complex than just a collective term for physical land formations. Country speaks to complex ideas about every aspect of life. Not only is Country a place to call home, but it informs laws, customs, responsibilities, spiritual beliefs, cultural practices, family, identity and language. Compounding the complexity of the term further, is the idea that Country also informs physical and emotional relationships with the ancestral beings that inhabit places within Country and as such; Country is animate (alive) for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.

Ancestors play a significant role in the way in which Country has come to exist, and the relationship of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people to Country. The ancestors’ legacy in Country informs the complex social rules and kinship relationships that guide how people live, the names of places in Country, the language people speak and the songs and ceremonies required to keep the Country and its people healthy.

Despite popular assumptions, Aboriginal people were not opportunistic in the use of resources, but managed Country via highly complex systems, developed over thousands of years, that dictated patterns of hunting, fishing and agriculture. With extensive ecological knowledge, Aboriginal peoples lived a highly sustainable life.

Language

Approximately 250 distinct languages, and many hundreds of dialects, were spoken across Australia. Maps of language groups provide only an approximation of ‘boundaries’ as mapping traditional territories is very complex, requiring an understanding of the travels of ancestors through the land.

Kinship

Kinship locates all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in networks of belonging and webs of relationships that include not just people, but places, plants, animals and ancestors. Whilst the exact nature of kinship varies from place to place, it generally works to group together certain relatives, allocate specific roles and responsibilities, and dictate rules about marriage and contact between people. The principles of kinship remain very important for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples today.