edited By Ian D. Clark And Fred Carhir
CSIRO Publishing, 2013. 303 pages & index.
Review by Laurice Bondfield
The subtitle of this book of articles is: “Forgotten Narratives” but as Dr. Peter Thorne, Vice President of the Royal Society of Victoria points out in his introduction, “Few episodes in Australia’s history have received as much attention as the Victorian Exploring Expedition of 1860-61”. Books, films, music, paintings, poems, and memorials have been dedicated to commemorating, mourning, explaining or satirising the Burke and Wills expedition. Why another book? Dr. Thorne is Chair of the Burke and Wills Anniversary Advisory Committee, which was set up by the Royal Society of Victoria in 2008 to critically examine the historical and other studies of the expedition in order to identify any areas that had been overlooked previously. Two areas stood out. First, no study had been done on the scientific work carried out during the expedition. This oversight has been rectified and a book published. Second, no careful study had been done on “the interaction between Indigenous people and the expeditioners and their potential and actual contribution to the expedition.” This book is the result of a symposium on the topic held at the University of Ballarat under the guidance of the editors and contributors, Ian D. Clark and Fred Carhir.
Before I go on to discuss the actual contents of the book, I would like to say what a beautiful production it is. A hard backed copy (including bookmark ribbon!) with clear, well set out text and beautifully reproduced photographs and prints or drawings made on the expedition, it is a delight to look at and read. The book was shortlisted in the 2014 NSW Premier’s History Awards. Congratulations to CSIRO publishing!
Some of the articles may present a few difficulties for the non-specialist reader—perhaps the linguistic and anthropological studies use some unfamiliar technical terms—but most are straightforward historical studies.
Two articles that I found extremely interesting concerned the German members of the expedition. Both scientists, Ludvig Becker and Hermann Beckler were concerned to understand the land and the Aboriginal people. Both produced carefully documented and beautifully illustrated journals. Beckler even annotated some music he heard at a corroboree. Reproduction of these illustrations in the book are one of its pleasures. One article by Peta Jeffries shows how the land around Mootwingee influenced Ludvig Becker, how he began to get an idea of how Indigenous people regarded their country.
Some of the other fifteen papers discuss: the prior experience of members of the expedition working with Aboriginal people, the different groups that the expeditioners encountered and their protocols for dealing with visitors to their land, the way the Yandruwandha were able to live well in their lands while the expedition failed, the criticism by contemporaries of Burke’s lack of use of Indigenous guides and distrust of the Indigenous people he encountered and discussion of the follow up treks to discover what had happened. One paper by Darrell Lewis discusses the story that Burke was shot rather than died of exposure.
A Yandruwandha man, Aaron Paterson, writes of his knowledge of the way his ancestors perceived members of the expedition passing through their lands and how they lived well in what to others was forbidding country. Interestingly he counts as part of his family a descendant of Alice King, a daughter fathered by John King when he was living with the Yandruwandha before being found by the Howitt relief expedition.
For the casual reader, this book of seventeen articles can be dipped into and out of. It is aimed at an audience used to reading closely argued and annotated historical papers but is still not difficult to read. Nevertheless I can recommend it to you, not only for the interesting insights it provides into a disaster so often discussed before, but for the excellent maps, illustrations and general layout which greatly enhance the text.
Purchase The Aboriginal Story of Burke and Wills: Forgotten Narratives via CSIRO Publishing.
This article was first published in the March 2015 edition of our magazine.
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