The Land of Byamee: K. Langloh Parker, David Unaipon, and popular aboriginality in the assimilation era

Journal of Religious History

Volumn 22, Issue 2, 1998, Pages 200-218

  Carey, Hilary M ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF NEWCASTLE   (Australia)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 26244442663     PISSN: 00224227     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1111/1467-9809.00059     Document Type: Article

References (107)

1. This name is spelt in many ways. The Gamilaraay variant "Baiame" is used by Howitt in the work which represents the major ethnography of the south-eastern people of Australia and is used throughout this paper. A. W. Howitt, The Native Tribes of South-East Australia (1904; reprint, Canberra: Aboriginal Studies Press, 1996).
2. Keith C. McKeown, The Land of Byamee: Australian Wild Life in Legend and Fact (Sydney: Angus & Robertson, 1938).
3. W. Ramsay Smith, Myths and Legends of the Australian Aboriginals (London: Harrap, 1930). An active eugenicist, Smith also collected Aboriginal skulls.
4. For Parker herself, as opposed to her writing, see: Patricia Grimshaw and Julie Evans "Colonial Women on Intercultural Frontiers: Rosa Campbell Praed, Mary Bundock and Katie Langloh Parker," Australian Historical Studies 27, no. 106 (1996): 79-95.
5. Though see, for an extensive list (564 by my count) which includes both popular and scholarly works published between 1789 and 1993, Michael Organ, "Australian Aboriginal Dreaming Stories: A Chronological Bibliography of Published Works," Journal of Aboriginal History 18 (1994): 123-43.
6. Tony Swain, Interpreting Aboriginal Religion: An Historical Account (Adelaide: AASR, 1985) provides a bibliography of mostly academic writing about Aboriginal religion.
7. Bain Attwood, The Making of the Aborigines (Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1989).
8. Tony Swain, Aboriginal Religions in Australia: A Bibliographical Survey, Bibliographies and Indexes in Religious Studies Number 18 (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1991).
9. Swain, Bibliography, 268.
10. Citing comments from reports of accounts of religion in the South-East, items 0988, 0986, 0989.
11. Swain, Bibliography, item 1000, 271.
12. The debates are well summarized in Power, Knowledge and Aborigines, ed. Bain Attwood and John Arnold. Special issue of the Journal of Australian Studies, no. 35 (1996).
13. Both The Land - Our Mother and the Rainbow Serpent/Spirit continue to be popular choices among Aboriginal authors when seeking universal, indigenous religious symbols. Note, for example, Rainbow Spirit Elders, Rainbow Spirit Theology: Towards an Australian Aboriginal Theology (Melbourne: HarperCollins Religious, 1997).
14. In the course of the workshops which led to the production of this book, the working title: "Kookaburra Theology" was changed to refer instead to the Rainbow Spirit which was considered to be "a more profound and universal symbol for an indigenous Aboriginal theology." (A serpent, rather than a rainbow, appears on the cover.) For Mother Earth in the Aboriginal context, see Tony Swain, and note Patrick Dodson, This Land Our Mother, CCIP Occasional Paper, no. 9 (Melbourne: Collins Dove, 1973).
15. In contrast, see the collection edited by Anne Pattel-Gray, Aboriginal Spirituality: Past, Present and Future (Melbourne: HarperCollins Religious, 1996), which eschews all simple labels for an Aboriginal spirituality and critique of Christianity.
16. Patrick Wolfe, "On Being Woken Up: The Dreamtime in Anthropology and in Australian Settler Culture," Comparative Studies in Society and History 33 (1991).
17. See also, Tony Swain, A Place for Strangers: Towards a History of Australian Aboriginal Being (Melbourne: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 20-2.
18. See, for example: Djiniyini Gondarra, " 'Father, you Gave us the Dreaming ...' Aboriginal Theology and the Future," in From Here to Where? Australian Christians Owning the Past, Embracing the Future, ed. Andrew Dutney (Melbourne: University Church Press, 1988): 149-53.
19. Bain Attwood, "Introduction," Power, Knowledge and Aborigines, iv.
20. As noted by William Ridley, Kamilaroi and Other Australian Languages, 2d ed. (Sydney: Government Printer, 1875)
21. "Baia-me" or 'B-haia-me" is the Kamilaroi form which in Wiradhuri is pronounced "Baiamai." Orthography for language groups is adopted from R. M. W. Dixon, The Languages of Australia (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980), xix.
22. Mudrooroo, Aboriginal Mythology: An A-Z Spanning the History of Aboriginal Mythology from the Earliest Legends to the Present Day (London: Thorsons, 1994), 17.
23. Mudrooroo, 171.
24. Watson Journal, 10 April 1835, CMS C N/O 92/20 [AJCP M232], University of Birmingham Library, Birmingham. The Wesleyan missionary John Harper does not refer to Baiame in his report on the "superstitions" of the Wellington blacks printed in the Sydney Gazette, 29 September 1825, 3, but merely: "They have some notion of a Supreme Being whom they call 'Moorrooberrai' and who they believe produces the thunder and lightning." Much of what Harper reported appears to have been invented.
25. Watson Journal, 26 November 1834, CMS C N/O 92/18: "I asked the strange Natives who made them &c &c? They said they did not know. Byamy, they believed. It may perhaps yet appear that they believe in a first cause."
26. Howitt, 583-8.
27. R. M. Berndt, "Wuradjeri Magic and 'Clever Men'," Oceania 17 (4) (1946-7).
28. Tony Swain, A Place for Strangers, chap. 3.
29. Initially as the source of a dispute led by Andrew Lang as to the status of the high gods of south-eastern Australia: Andrew Lang, "Australian Gods: A Reply," Folk-Lore 10, no. 1 (1899): 1-46, and, most recently, Tony Swain's theories of the colonial origins of the cults. Swain, A Place for Strangers, chap. 3. The topic has been a perennial favourite and the card index of the library of the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies lists over 100 items relating to Baiame alone.
30. Even William Ridley, who actively promoted the identification of Baiame with God in his missionary work among the Gamilaraay, notes Baiame's moral limitations: "I have never heard [Aborigines] speak of Baiame as a ruler, nor ascribe wisdom and goodness to Him." See "Journal of a Missionary Tour Among the Aborigines of the Western Interior of Queensland in the year 1855," in John Dunmore Lang, Queensland Australia (London, 1861), Appendix I, 435-45.
31. Janet Matthews, The Two Worlds of Jimmie Barker (Canberra: Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies, rev. ed., 1988 [first published 1977]).
32. Watson Diary, 26 October 1834, CMS CN/O 92/16, University of Birmingham Library, Birmingham.
33. Watson Journal, 21 October 1834, CMS CN/0 92/17: "In the course of conversation with the natives at the camp I asked a yeener who made her. Yeener: I do not know. Mother I believe. Mr W: The Great God made you and everybody and everything. Yeener: Hy, Hy. Mr W: What place will you go to when you die? Yeener: To the clouds. Mr W: Who told you that? Yeener: I do not know." or, on 22 September 1834: "Several Natives (strangers) came up today. I asked them who made them? They replied that they did not know and they wished me to tell them. I spoke to them accordingly of the creation, of the gift of Jesus Christ to save them, of our errand here etc. Two of them expressed much surprise."
34. Ridley, Kamilaroi and Other Australian Languages, 2d ed., 136.
35. See William Ridley, Gurre Kamilaroi or Kamilaroi Sayings (Sydney, 1856). Ridley distributed the primer widely himself and asked, in the introduction, that European landowners do the same.
36. A. W. Howitt, "Australian Legends," Victorian Naturalist 8 (1891);
37. R. H. Mathews, "Ethnological Notes on the Aboriginal Tribes of New South Wales and Victoria," Royal Society of New South Wales 38 (1904);
38. Notes on the Aborigines of New South Wales (Sydney: Government Printer, 1907). Mathews' Baiame stories are included in the compilation of his grand-daughter, Janet Mathews, The Opal That Turned Into Fire, ed. Isobel White (Broome: Magabala Books, 1994).
39. Mathews, "Ethnological Notes."
40. Stow Papers, ML MS 2911, Mitchell Library, Sydney. A single folder holds four short manuscripts including one on Birrahgnooloo, the bride of Byanee (sic).
41. Australian Dictionary of Biography, s.v. "Muir, Marcie."
42. Ann Cornstalk, "Representative Women in Australia - K. Langloh Parker (Mrs Stow)," The Lone Hand, 2 December 1912, xxxvi.
43. This from ADB. See My Bush Book, published posthumously in 1982, ed. by Marcie Muir (Adelaide: Rigby, 1982). Muir includes a bibliography of Parker's writings.
44. Of these drawings, Lang noted: "The designs are from the sketch-book of an untaught Australian native ... Probably no other member of his dying race ever illustrated a book." K. Langloh Parker, Australian Legendary Tales (London, 1896), xvi;
45. for McRae see Andrew Sayers, Aboriginal Artists of the Nineteenth Century (Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1994).
46. Parker, Australian Legendary Tales, xii.
47. K. Langloh Parker, More Australian Legendary Tales (London, 1898).
48. Andrew Lang, "Australian Religion," Folk-Lore 10, no. 4 (1899): 489-94.
49. K. Langloh Parker, The Euahlayi Tribe (London: Archibald Constable, 1905), 4-9.
50. Andrew Lang, "The Alcheringa and the All-Father," Revue des Etudes Ethnographique Sociologique (Paris: Librairie Paul Geuthner, 1909), 1-14.
51. Woggheeguy: Australian Aboriginal Legends, collected by Catherine Stow (K. Langloh Parker), illustrated by Nora Heysen (Adelaide: F. W. Preece & Sons, 1930).
52. Parker, Woggheeguy, viii.
53. Parker, Woggheeguy, Preface: "In particular I should like to mention my indebtedness to Peter Hippi, king of the Noongahburrahs; and to Hippitha Mätah; Barahgurrie and Beemunny." The book is dedicated to Peter Hippi, "in grateful recognition of his long and faithful service to myself and my husband, which has extended, with few intervals, over a period of twenty years."
54. K. Langloh Parker to H. C. Russell, 5 April 1899. This letter was placed inside a copy of Parker's More Aboriginal Legendary Tales in Mitchell Library.
55. Grimshaw and Evans, "Colonial Women."
56. Parker, More Australian Legendary Tales, x.
57. My Best Boy and My Boy-in-Law; and Bobbity, a Bush Baby. (Sydney: W. Dymock, 1901).
58. Mary Grant Bruce, The Stone Axe of Burkamukk (London: Ward and Lock, 1922).
59. See, for example: Aldo Massola, "Bunjil's Cave Found", Victorian Naturalist 74, no. 2 (1957): 19-22;
60. Bunjil's Cave: Myths, Legends and Superstitions of South-East Australia (Melbourne: Lansdowne, 1968).
61. The Walkabouts of Wur-Run-Nah, comp. C. Stow from the published and unpublished legends collected by K. Langloh Parker (Adelaide: Hassell, 1918).
62. The Walkabouts of Wur-Run-Nah, 1.
63. The Opal That Turned Into Fire and Other Stories From the Wangkumara, comp. Janet Mathews, ed. Isobel White (Broome, WA: Magabala Books, 1994), 144-5.
64. Original recordings in AIATSIS, Canberra. For the decline of the "High Culture" in the south-east, see summary in Michael O'Rourke, The Kamilorai Lands (Canberra: The Author, 1997), 209-16.
65. David Unaipon, "Aboriginals: Their Traditions and Customs," Daily Telegraph, 2 August 1924;
66. "The Story of Mungingee," The Home, February 1925, 42-3;
67. Aboriginal Legends: Kinie Ger - the Native Cat, (Adelaide: Hunkin, Ellis & King, 1927);
68. Michael Sawtell and David Unaipon, "Why All Animals Peck at the Selfish Owl. Aboriginal Legends," Dawn, April 1955, 16-17;
69. "The Voice of the Great Spirit," Dawn, August 1959, 19. Dawn was the journal of the N.S.W. Aborigines Welfare Board. Unaipon published a number of short pieces in it in 1959.
70. David Unaipon, Native Legends (Adelaide: Hunkin, Ellis & King, 1929).
71. David Unaipon, Legendary Tales of the Australian Aborigines, 1924-25, MS A1929, Mitchell Library, Sydney.
72. Oceania 1 (1930): 373.
73. Francis Garnett, "The Most Extraordinary Black Man in Australia," My Magazine, July 1931, 593-5. I thank Ed Lacey for allowing me to read his paper, "Discourses of Entrapment: Exploring Relationships Between David Unaipon and the AFA," (paper presented at the AASR'95 National Conference, 6-9 July 1995) and for passing copies of Unaipon's autobiographical writings to me.
74. Unaipon, Legendary Tales, f.1. Compare Smith, Myths and Legends, 17: "The aboriginals of Australia have a vast number of legends, myths and folklore stories. They take great delight in telling stories to the younger members of the tribe. These stories and traditions have been handed down orally for thousands of years. In fact, a knowledge of the tribal laws and customs is first of all made known to the children of the tribe through the medium of stories. The mothers or the elders of the tribe tell the stories with a great deal of gesture."
75. Smith, Myths and Legends, 7.
76. Unaipon, Legendary Tales, 1. A typewritten note has been crossed out. It reads: "The writer of this article is a full-blooded Aboriginal who was born in South Australia. Educated among white people, Mr Unaipon became a brilliant scholar. He reads Greek and Latin, is a splendid speaker, and a fine pianist. He is also the inventor of several interesting mechanical appliances."
77. David Unaipon, "My Life Story," reprinted by the Aborigines' Friends' Association from its Annual Report (1951) 6.
78. Unaipon, Native Legends.
79. Ronald M. Berndt and Catherine H. Berndt, with John E. Stanton, A World That Was: The Yaraldi of the Murray River and the Lakes, South Australia (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press at the Miegunyah Press, 1993).
80. Hilary M. Carey, Believing in Australia (Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1996), 32.
81. David Unaipon, Legendary Tales.
82. Berndt and Berndt, A World that Was, 223-7.
83. Unaipon, Legendary Tales, frame 117.
84. Unaipon, "The Voice of the Great Spirit."
85. Quoted from a private letter to Brian Elliott, The Jindyworobaks (Brisbane: University of Queensland Press, 1979), Introduction, 1.
86. For the impact of government policy on Aboriginal people in New South Wales under the Assimilation Acts, see Peter Read, " 'A Rape of the Soul so Profound' : Some Reflections on the Dispersal Policy in New South Wales," Aboriginal History 7, no. 1 (1983): 23-33;
87. Peter Read, '"Breaking Up These Camps Entirely': The Dispersal Policy in Wiradjuri Country 1909-1929," Aboriginal History 8, no. 1 (1984): 45-55.
88. McKeown, The Land of Byamee, Introduction.
89. McKeown, Land of Byamee, 227.
90. Heather Goodall, "New South Wales," in Contested Ground. Australian Aborigines under the British Crown, ed. Ann McGrath (Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1995), 76-83.
91. Goodall, 97-103.
92. See Stella Lees and Pam Macintyre, The Oxford Companion to Australian Children's Literature (Melbourne: OUP, 1994), 1-2 for titles from this period.
93. (Sydney: Angus & Robertson, 1953), cited on jacket blurb.
94. Reed collections began in 1965 with A. W. Reed and E. H. Papps, Aboriginal Fables and Legendary Tales (Sydney: Reed, 1965)
95. and A. W. Reed, Myths and Legends of Australia (Sydney: Reed, 1965).
96. Recent editions include: A. W. Reed, Aboriginal Myths, Legends and Fables (Sydney: Reed, 1982, reprinted 1993, 1994).
97. For Parker, see A. W. Reed, Aboriginal Stories (Sydney: Reed, 1994), 9.
98. Dreamtime Heritage: Australian Aboriginal Myths in Paintings by Ainslie Roberts and text by Melva Jean Roberts (Melbourne: Rigby, 1973);
99. Robert Lawlor, Voices of the First Day: Awakening in the Aboriginal Dreamtime (Rochester, Vermont: Inner Traditions, 1991). Parker's Legendary Tales is the source for the lengthy extracts which begin six chapters of Lawlor's book.
100. Kath Walker, Stradbroke Dreamtime, illustrated by Lorraine Hannay (1972; reprint, Sydney: Angus & Robertson, 1982), 56.
101. Walker, Stradbroke Dreamtime, 56.
102. K. Maddock, "Metamorphosing the Sacred in Australia," in Reconsidering Aboriginality, ed. S. Thiele, special issue of Australian Journal of Anthropology 2 (1991): 233-46;
103. Lynne Hume, "Delivering the Word the Aboriginal Way: The Genesis of an Australian Aboriginal Theology," Colloquium 25, no. 2 (1993): 86-95;
104. Eugene D. Stockton, "Voice in the Desert: Aboriginal Influence on Australian spirituality," Australasian Catholic Record 68, no. 1 (1991): 56-64;
105. Eugene Stockton, The Aboriginal Gift: Spirituality for a Nation (Sydney: Millennium, 1995).
106. Note the exchange illustrating the gap between ethnographic and New Aboriginal religious sensibilities: Hugh Jackson, '"White Man Got No Dreaming': Religious Feeling in Australian History," Journal of Religious History 15 (1988): 1-11;
107. and the reply by Tony Swain, "Dreaming, Whites and the Australian Landscape: Some Popular Misconceptions," Journal of Religious History 15 (1989): 345-50.