Reconciliation Rocks

General

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Classification

State Heritage

Register status

Entered

Date entered

28 May 2021

Types

Natural Feature: Other - Natural Feature

Natural feature: Geological formation

Theme

1.3 Peopling places: Encounters between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples

Construction period

unknown, Not Applicable

Historical period

pre 1824 Pre-convict settlement

Location

Address

Cnr of Sherrin Esplanade and Adelaide Street, Cooktown

LGA

Cook Shire Council

Coordinates

-15.46738828, 145.2479429

Significance

Criterion AThe place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland’s history.

Reconciliation Rocks is important in demonstrating the evolution of both Queensland and Australian history, as the place where Australia’s first recorded act of reconciliation took place between Aboriginal peoples and Europeans, after conflict that followed several days of cultural exchange and contact at Gungardie or Gangaar (Cooktown) in July 1770. Peace was instigated and offered by the Guugu Yimithirr Bamangay (people) and accepted by the crew of His Majesty’s Bark Endeavour at the rocks on 19 July 1770 after a dispute over turtles on neutral ground, in violation of cultural law and lore. The event is unique in Queensland’s history.

Criterion BThe place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland’s cultural heritage.

Reconciliation Rocks demonstrates a unique aspect of Queensland’s cultural heritage, as the only recorded site of conflict resolution between Aboriginal and European peoples prior to European invasion and occupation of Queensland.

Criterion GThe place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons.

Reconciliation Rocks has a strong and special association with the Cooktown community. Many Aboriginal members of the community are descendants of the Guugu Yimithirr Bamangay who encountered Cook and the Endeavour crew in 1770. The community has expressed and demonstrated pride in and value of the site as a place of immense significance that reflects the complex cultural structure of the Bamangay, the story of Australia’s reconciliation and the place of the first recorded act of reconciliation between Aboriginal peoples and European explorers. Commemorations and re-enactments have been held annually by the Cooktown Re-enactment Association since 1959, with a growing understanding and recognition of the role of the Bamangay since 2008. Commemorations have been held at Reconciliation Rocks itself since 2018. This value also is expressed through the use of the site for modern acts of interpretation, storytelling and continuing reconciliation. The 250th anniversary of the reconciliation was recognised in 2020 through art, movies, exhibitions, and onsite events.

Criterion HThe place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland’s history.

Reconciliation Rocks has a special association with the Guugu Yimithirr elder Ngamu Yarrbarigu, recorded as initiating the reconciliation. Despite cultural misunderstandings and hostilities, Yarrbarigu offered peace and it was accepted by the European explorers at Reconciliation Rocks.

Reconciliation Rocks and the activities that occurred there also have a special association with Captain James Cook and Joseph Banks on their 1770 voyage along Australia’s east coast, as recorded in their journals.

History

Reconciliation Rocks is the site of the first recorded peaceful resolution of conflict between Aboriginal peoples and Europeans. Part of a broader site on which prolonged contact and cultural exchanges occurred between Guugu Yimithirr bamangay (people) and European explorers from His Majesty’s Bark (HMB) Endeavour in July 1770, the rocks was the place where conflict between the groups over turtles was reconciled on 19 July. The rocks site was modified in the 1880s when a railway line was surveyed through the rocks. Re-enactments of the Endeavour’s time in Cooktown began in 1959. The re-enactment was updated in 2009 to reflect the role of the Guugu Yimithirr bamangay, reconciliation and the rocks site, and in 2018 commemorations and re-enactments began to be held at Reconciliation Rocks.

Gungardie or Gangaar (Cooktown) is located within Guugu Yimithirr (or Yimidhirr) country, occupied continuously since at least 37,000BP.[1] The Guugu Yimithirr nation is comprised of 32 clans with a common language and a complex system of familial and social lore and law. The nation includes land from Yuku Baja (Annan River) in the south and Princess Charlotte Bay in the north. The area around Gungardie was home to the Waymburr clan of the Guugu Yimithirr,[2] but land between the south bank of Waalumbaal Birri (Endeavour River) and Yuku Baja was neutral ground accessed by both the Guugu Yimithirr and Kuku Yalanji nations for gun-gaar (white quartz), used in male initiation ceremonies.[3] The neutral ground was sacred land where blood could not be spilt, and was used for gatherings and to settle disputes.[4]

For millennia, the Guugu Yimithirr and Kuku Yalanji practised land management and careful, sustainable resource use of their country.[5] Most people were also multi-lingual, due to the diversity of the shared ground around Gungardie and linguistic variations between the clans.[6]

The first recorded sustained contact between Aboriginal peoples and Europeans occurred at Gungardie in July 1770. In August 1768, HMB Endeavour was despatched from England to Tahiti, via Rio de Janeiro, to observe the 1769 Transit of Venus. The bark,[7] captained by Lieutenant James Cook and with a contingent including botanist Joseph Banks, arrived in Tahiti in April 1769 for the June transit. Cook had been entrusted with secret orders from the British Lords of the Admiralty to search for and chart ‘a Continent or Land of great extent’, known in Europe as terra australis incognita.[8] Cook opened the orders in Tahiti, and Endeavour embarked on its expedition for the southern landmass.[9] After charting the New Zealand coast, the Endeavour crew sighted land (the east coast of Australia) in April 1770. They followed the coast north, stopping briefly at various harbours and coves to survey the land and attempt contact with people.

On 11 June, Endeavour struck a reef off Cape Tribulation, about 50km south of Gungardie, and was badly damaged. ‘[H]ere begun all our troubles,’[10] Cook wrote in his journal, as the crew nursed the injured bark into a nearby harbour (Waalumbaal Birri) over the following eight days. On 18 June, Endeavour landed near the neutral gun-gaar ground and was moored ‘along side of a Steep beach on the south side’ of the harbour,  then warped a little further inland and upended for repairs.[11] The Endeavour was fixed within eleven days, but unfavourable tides stranded the bark in the river until August 1770. Cook, Banks, and the crew used the time to explore the area and restock the ship’s stores.[12]

Reports of the Endeavour had been carried up the coast to the Guugu Yimithirr bamangay (people)[13] before the bark’s arrival in Waalumbaal Birri. Badjala and Dulingbara people on K’gari had watched the progress of the ‘mysterious white-winged object’, and the passage of the ‘strange large canoe’ was reported up the coast from Cape Tribulation.[14] The Guugu Yimithirr bamangay were accustomed to passing traders from Torres Strait Island and Makassar (now Sulawesi, Indonesia) looking for bêche-de-mer and shells,[15] and initially ‘considered these boat people like others who came and went would not cause problems.’[16] The Endeavour crew who disembarked on the river bank were white skinned (except Tahitians Tupaia and Taiata[17]), and their skin colour and direction of travel was associated with wangaar (ghosts or ancestor spirits) in Guugu Yimithirr spiritual culture.[18] Moreover, the crew had arrived and established a camp on the neutral ground on the southern side of the river. The Guugu Yimithirr people adopted a strategy of cautious observation; women moved to the northern bank, while the men observed the actions of the Europeans over the next several weeks:[19]

… the Bama-ngay would have watched the ship come in and pull up …They wouldn’t have known what it was. They would have been talking amongst themselves and saying, what is this thing? They would have had all kinds of conversations amongst themselves trying to figure out what was going on. The Waymburr Bama-Gaay, that’s this mob, they were all up the river. Because it blows in June, the wind comes and the rain comes so there was nobody here. All this time, our Bama-Gaay from across the river, they looked and they saw this ship come in. Before that the Kuku Yalandji mob down at Cape Tribulation, the Yalandji coast, they would have seen Captain Cook sailing up the coast too. Because he pulled into Weary Bay before he came here to Cooktown. So, they watched, our Bama-Gaay watched for over a month.[20]

The Europeans were keen to make contact. Cook had been instructed to ‘endeavour by all proper means to cultivate a friendship and alliance’[21] with any indigenous people he might encounter, but attempts at communicating with people in Kamay (Botany Bay) ended with conflict and other attempts at stopping points along the coast had met with limited success.[22] Since the Endeavour’s foundering they had sighted people from afar, and on 7 July Banks and a small group had approached a fire in the hopes that the people ‘who we had so long had a curiosity to see well, were there’. They found the people had departed, and Banks reported himself ‘disapointed of the only good chance we have had of seing the people since we came here by their unaccountable timidity.’[23] On 8 July he wrote that people had approached the ship, ‘but not come to them; Yesterday they had made a fire about a mile and a half of and this morn 2 had appeard on the beach opposite to the ship.’[24]

After three weeks of careful observation, the Guugu Yimithirr Bama made contact on 10 July. Four Guugu Yimithirr men entered Waalumbaal Birri from the northern shore, and two approached the Endeavour by canoe. Once they were within distance the Europeans threw to them ‘cloth, nails, paper, etc, etc,’ and finally a fish, which the men received, according to Banks, with ‘the greatest joy imaginable’. All four men met the Europeans on shore near the Endeavour and stayed until dinner time. They exchanged words, repeating the Europeans’ language after them, but the crew and interpreter Tupaia could not understand the Guugu Yimithirr men.[25]

The Guugu Yimithirr Bama returned to the Endeavour the next day with a fish for the Europeans,[26] and over the next nine days, the groups exchanged food, goods and language. ‘[They] seemed to have lost all fear of us and become quite familiar,’ wrote Banks.[27] A group of five men came to the camp early on 12 July and stayed with the Endeavour crew for the rest of the morning. During several meetings they accepted trinkets from the Endeavour crew, gave gulka (spear) demonstrations when requested (described by Banks as ‘lance throwing’[28]), and taught the crew a number of words in Guugu Yimithirr. Cook, Banks and botanical artist Sydney Parkinson recorded more than 130 of them in their journals. These included body parts, animals, natural features, and a small number of phrases, including one believed to mean, ‘I’m going to tell you something.’[29] The Guugu Yimithirr bamangay introduced themselves to the Europeans by name; Banks recorded one (Yaparico) and Parkinson nine in their journals.[30] The names indicated that the men came from several different clans within the Guugu Yimithirr tribe, as well as one Kuku Yalanji bama.[31] On 14 July the Endeavour crew hunted an animal they did not recognise; they received the name gangurru from the Guugu Yimithirr people, transcribing it as ‘kangaroo’.[32]

On 18 July, a group of Guugu Yimithirr men again approached the Endeavour. They boarded the bark and noticed a large number of turtles on the deck.[33] Turtle taking was managed sustainably by Guugu Yimithirr bamangay, and the breeding grounds from which the Endeavour crew likely took the turtles was part of a sacred songline.[34] Cook noted that the men ‘took more notice of these [turtles] than anything’, though Banks saw nothing amiss.[35] For the Endeavour crew, turtles were a valuable source of nutrition for the long voyage back to England, and the journal-keepers expressed delight at finding them. Female turtles were preferred as they kept better on long voyages than males,[36] but in Waalumbaal Birri marmiingu (female turtles) were vital for ongoing resource management.[37] The turtles on the bark, taken in large numbers and without permission, violated Guugu Yimithirr cultural laws:[38]

At that time, the ship had already been loaded with the tents and gun powder and all the stuff that was taken off the ship. It was already reloaded and ready to sail off. But they had to wait for the right wind to blow them out of the harbour. So they came on board and you know what they saw on the boat? Turtles. 13 turtles on board. That’s a lot of [ngawiya] to get, and to have on the boat, but they needed the turtles to take them back to England again. But you know where they got those [ngawiyagaay] from? Boulder Reef. Egrit, Boulder and Unchartered, Boulder is the more Northern one. A round ran coral, shaped like a boulder, some stick out on the high tide. In 1770 on those boulders there was a lot of [ngawiya]. They didn’t spear them, they just went and picked them up off the reef and put them in the boat and took them back to the ship. When our Bama-Gaay saw all those turtle on the boat, they got very, very angry. They wanted to throw things overboard, but they were stopped. Then they marched off the boat, left angry.[39]

… one morning ten of our men were invited to inspect the visitors’ boat. To their horror, they saw a number of turtles on board, presumably taken from our waters… To our Bama it became an offence. The sharing code was broken. They should have got permission from us as the owners or custodians.[40]

The bamangay departed without taking action. Later that day,

Ngamu Yarrbarigu an elder of the clans called all the members together to discuss the day’s events. A strategy was agreed on. Ngamu Yarrbarigu and a number of men would visit the stranger’s camp the next day and every effort would be made to make peace, because our Bama now knew that the visitors possessed a spirit which was more powerful than they had experienced. Next morning before our Bama left camp, a customary ritual was performed by the Elders. Each man was wiped with sweat from the armpit of the Elders – ‘ngaalaan thuulngal’ – and our women chanted – ‘ganhil gunday’. This was for them to be protected, to practice self-control and to leave camp with a blessing.[41]

Ten Bama returned to the Endeavour on 19 July. Their spears were left in the care of two others while they boarded the bark. ‘They soon let us know their errand which was by some means or other to get one of our [sic] Turtle,’ Banks wrote. Banks refused the request to return the turtles, and the men applied to another crew member. This was also refused. The men attempted to take the turtles off the Endeavour, but the crew deterred them. Angered, the men left the bark.[42]

‘Immediately upon their Landing,’ wrote Cook,

one of them took a Handful of dry grass and lighted it at a fire we had ashore, and before we know’d what he was going about he made a larger Circuit round about us, and set fire to the grass in his way, and in an instant the whole place was in flames…as soon as they had done all this they all went to a place where some of our people were washing and where all our nets and a good deal of our linen were laid out to dry, here with the greatest obstinacy they again set fire to the grass which I and some others who were present could not prevent until I was obliged to fire a musquet load with small shott at one of the ring leaders which sent them off.[43]

Cook ‘had no musquet with him,’ wrote Banks,

so soon returnd to fetch one for no threats or signs would make them desist. Mine was ashore and another loaded with shot, so we ran as fast as possible towards them and came just time enough to save the Seine by firing at an Indian who had already fird the grass in two places just to windward of it; on the shot striking him, tho he was full 40 yards from the Captn who fird, he dropd his fire and ran nimbly to his comrades who all ran off pretty fast. The Captn then loaded his musquet with a ball and fird it into the Mangroves abreast of where they ran to shew them that they were not yet out of our reach, they ran on quickening their pace on hearing the Ball and we soon lost sight of them.[44]

The Europeans put out the fire, and Cook realised ‘one [of the men] must have been a little hurt, because we saw a few drops of blood on some of the linnen he had gone over’.

[T]hey did not go far from us, for we soon after heard their Voices in the woods, upon which Mr Banks and I and 3 or 4 More went to look for them and very soon met them coming towards us. As they had each 4 or 5 darts, and not knowing their intention, we seized upon six or seven of the first darts we met with.[45]

… on seeing us come with our musquets they again retird leasurely after an old man had venturd quite to us and said something which we could not understand.  We followd for near a mile, then meeting with some rocks from whence we might observe their motions we sat down and they did so too about 100 yards from us.[46]

When our Bama confronted the strangers, each had four spears. The Elder Ngamu Yarrbarigu carried one spear which had no barb. Our elders were afraid to do anything that might result in the spirits of our departed ancestors being upset, in case Cook’s mob were indeed Wangaar or reincarnations of our ancestors. And so, with this doubt and fear in their minds, they used discretion, deciding against any rash actions.[47]

As the groups faced one another at the rocks, the Guugu Yimithirr people offered the Europeans peace:

…a little old man came out of the bush. He got sweat out of his arms, he blew it, he was mumbling something, and he came forward, with a spear, with a broken tip. He came forward and Cook recognised that that man was making peace. You know why he was making peace? Because he was a Waymburr Elder. Cook called him a little old man. He made peace here because he was following the Lore. The Lore says that was not blood to be spilt on this part of Country. So, they stuck to their laws. The Bama men were frustrated. Cook and his crew had taken so much from this land, from the rivers and from the seas. They’d taken lots of things. The Guugu Yimithirr people were hospitable to Cook, but when they did the wrong thing by taking too much [ngawiya] they got very angry and frustrated. And they couldn’t do anything, they couldn’t turn around and spear them. You could imagine, Cook had muskets, something they’d seen them kill birds with. To stop them from having a big clash and creating a war this little old man came forward and he reconciled by doing it. This here, taking sweat from under your arms, is called [Narrla Mumdamaay]. You’re being smeared with sweat. In the old days people would go up to welcome somebody by taking [Narrla] from under their arms and rub it all over you. And they didn’t have deodorant before! So, sweat [narrla] was a very important thing, because that was the smell of you. So, your ancestors would recognise you.[48]

Ngamu Yarrbarigu said to Cook’s men: Ngahthaan gadaai thawun maa naa thi hu ‘We come to make friends’. Sensing that the strangers were not sure of their intention and did not understand what their leader, Ngamu Yarrbarigu, said, our Bama then put their plan into action. They withdrew to an outcrop of rocks, where it is possible that more Bama were positioned. There they placed their spears on the ground and sat down. At this point, Cook may have become aware that his life was in danger. However, diplomacy was used by both sides. It may be that the caution on the part of the Guugu Yimithirr saved Cook’s life. A cautious agreement was reached.[49]

‘The little old man now came forward to us carrying in his hand a lance without a point,’ Banks wrote:

He halted several times and as he stood employd himself in collecting the moisture from under his arm pit with his finger which he every time drew through his mouth. We beckond to him to come: he then spoke to the others who all laid their lances against a tree and leaving them came forwards likewise and soon came quite to us.[50]

The actions of elder Ngamu Yarrbarigu,[51] described in Banks’ journal as the ‘little old man’, both asserted his cultural governance of the area[52] and calmed the conflict. Gathering sweat was a personal and welcoming gesture that allowed ancestors to recognise people,[53] and the use of sweat to mask the scent of others was a custom, ‘so that our spirits will believe that you’re one of us, they’ll look after you, hold you tight and keep you safe’.[54]

Cook ‘return’d the Darts we had taken from them, which reconcil’d everything’,[55] and the Guugu Yimithirr introduced the Europeans to three additional men who were part of the group. Banks reported the exchange of further ‘trinkets’ before the groups walked back to the Endeavour. ‘They could not be prevailed upon to come on board,’ wrote Banks. ‘They stayed about two hours and then departed.’[56]

Then Ngamu Yarrbarigu told his men to leave their spears and follow the strangers towards their camp-site. There were some men who wanted to have a close look at the boat but they agreed to be more cautious. They stayed for a while and then left. Before leaving to board their canoes, our Bama agreed between themselves that the things that the strangers gave were to be got rid of and that no further contact was to be made and that the visitors should have freedom of movement.[57]

The following day, Banks wrote, ‘No Indians [sic] came near us but all the hills about us for many miles were on fire and at night made the most beautifull [sic] appearance imaginable.’[58] The neutrality of the ground had been breached by the spilling of blood, and the fires were likely a cleansing action.[59]

The Endeavour crew attempted departure on 20 July, but were hampered by a strong wind. The Europeans spent the next sixteen days hunting and collecting specimens while they waited for conditions to improve, but further interactions with the Guugu Yimithirr were limited. On 22 July, a group of men cooking around a fire received a lost crew member for about half an hour before directing him back to the Endeavour.[60] ‘In botanizing today on the other side of the river’, Banks wrote the following day,

we accidentaly found the greatest part of the clothes which had been given to the Indians left all in a heap together, doubtless as lumber not worth carriage. May be had we lookd farther we should have found our other trinkets, for they seemd to set no value upon any thing we had except our turtle, which of all things we were the least able to spare them.[61]

While this sustained contact and knowledge of cultural practices between Guugu Yimithirr and Europeans occurred, after voyaging further north, on 22 August 1770 on Bendanug (Possession Island), Cook ‘took possession of the whole Eastern coast’ explored by the Endeavour ‘in the Name of His Majesty King George The Third’.[62]

The Guugu Yimithirr encountered another European expedition in 1819-1820,[63] but no further reports of Europeans were made until the 1870s. Following the discovery of gold at the Palmer River, a European settlement was established at the mouth of the Endeavour River, to serve as a port town for the goldfield.[64] The settlement, named ‘Cook’s Town’ or ‘Cooktown’ by its inhabitants, was situated near Grassy Hill, not far from the Endeavour campsite. Residential allotments and a post office reserve were surveyed near the rocks where the Guugu Yimithirr and Endeavour crew reconciliation had taken place.[65] Interactions between the Guugu Yimithirr bamangay and European settlers in the following years contrasted starkly with the 1770 contact.[66] In 1884, the rocks were gazetted as part of a reserve for a railway connecting Cooktown to the goldfield.[67] The railway line was constructed through the rocky outcrop, dividing it into an eastern and western section. The railway was closed in 1961 and dismantled,[68] and the site was gazetted for recreation.[69]

In 1959, the Cooktown Progress Association began an annual re-enactment of the arrival of Cook and HMB Endeavour and the 1770 encounters, later forming an official Re-enactment Society. In 2009, the re-enactment was reworked to include the Guugu Yimithirr perspective of Cook’s arrival.[70] Interpretative signs were installed at the rocks in 2012,[71] and the rocks site was increasingly recognised as a symbol of shared history and the power of reconciliation.[72] Gungardie / Cooktown was the first recorded site of prolonged interactions between Aboriginal peoples and Europeans. The encounters and contact at Gungardie generated one of the first written recordings of an Aboriginal language, and provided the origin of the word ‘kangaroo’. The event at Reconciliation Rocks, reconciling the misunderstanding and conflict between the parties, was initiated by the Guugu Yimithirr Bamangay and accepted by Europeans, who were under instructions to show the Aboriginal peoples every civility and regard. Books, papers and websites recounting the story of the reconciliation were published in the 2010s, and the site was named ‘Reconciliation Rocks’.[73] The Cooktown community began fundraising for statues to commemorate the reconciliation.[74]

In 2019 the Australian Prime Minister visited the site in anticipation of proposed celebrations for the 250th anniversary of the Endeavour voyage.[75] Commemoration of the 250th anniversary of the reconciliation was held at the site on 18 July 2020.[76] A large festival was planned but postponed due to the COVID19 pandemic.[77] A National Museum of Australia exhibition, Endeavour Voyage: The Untold Stories of Cook and the First Australians, highlighting the events at Reconciliation Rocks, was launched in April 2020. Artworks and a short film, The Message, both depicting the reconciliation, were commissioned for the exhibition.[78] In 2021, Reconciliation Rocks remains a site of interpretation and commemoration.

Description

Reconciliation Rocks occupies a large site at the northwest edge of Cooktown (traditionally part of Gangaar/Gungardie) in north Queensland. Located adjacent riparian mangroves at the mouth of the Endeavour River (Waalumbaal Birri), the place is accessed via and extends into the Adelaide Street road reserve at its east. To its other sides, the site is bounded by the junction of Sherrin Esplanade, Adelaide Street and Furneaux Street (to the north), mangroves (to the north and west), and a grassed area (to the south).

The place comprises an outcrop of granite rocks, separated into two sections by a central former railway cutting (1884; formerly a part of the Cooktown to Laura Railway) that runs north-south through the site. The eastern outcrop forms part of a rolling, grassed hill, and the western outcrop rises abruptly at its eastern (cutting) side and is comprised mostly of rock. Both outcrops narrow toward their north and south ends. An informal path runs through the former railway cutting. The place stands in an open, largely natural setting.

Features of state-level cultural heritage significance include:

• Western outcrop of granite rocks, approximately 30m wide, 61m long, and 2-3m high (at its widest, longest, and tallest points)
• Eastern outcrop of granite rocks, approximately 23m wide, 37m long and 2-3m high (at its widest, longest, and tallest points)
• Smaller, individual granite rocks, scattered to the north and south of the eastern rock outcrop
• Visual connection between eastern and western rock outcrops
• Views along, through, and over former railway line cutting (approximately 5m in width), including views of rock outcrops from within the cutting
• Open setting, facilitated by surrounding grassed areas

Features not of state-level cultural heritage significance include:

• Recent interpretive signs
• Trees, including self-seeded trees growing through the rocks, and surrounding mangroves
• Recent footpaths and roads, including alignments and surfaces

References

[1] State Library of Queensland, Indigenous Languages Map of Queensland, https://www.slq.qld.gov.au/discover/aboriginal-and-torres-strait-islander-cultures-and-stories/languages/queensland/indigenous-languages-map, accessed February 2021; Mark McKenna, From the Edge: Australia’s Lost Histories, Carlton, Victoria: The Miegunyah Press, 2016, p166.
[2] Waalumbaal Birri defined the clan boundaries: Waymburr and Bulguun were south of the river, Nguymbaarr-Gynumbaarr, Nugal and Gamay were north, while the river area was shared. Willie Gordon, Transcript for The Story of the River, National Museum of Australia, https://www.nma.gov.au/exhibitions/endeavour-voyage/waalumbaal-birri-endeavour-river/transcript-story-river, accessed February 2021.
[3] Kuku Yalanji land was south of Cooktown: Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies, ‘Map of Indigenous Australia’, https://aiatsis.gov.au/explore/map-indigenous-australia, accessed February 2021; Willie Gordon, ‘Cooktown – the small town whose history changed the world’, The Guurrbi Blog, http://guurrbitours.blogspot.com/2010/10/cooktown-small-town-whose-history.html, accessed February 2021.
[4] Alberta Hornsby, Bulgun, interviewed by Gretchen Miller in ABC Radio National, ‘Cook in Cooktown’, Earshot, 15 September 2015 (150915.1105); McKenna, From the Edge, 2016, p202.
[5] Harold Ludwig, Bulgun, ‘Gangurru – Guugu Yimithirr’s contact with Cook’, State Library of Queensland, Spoken exhibition, 2019, via https://www.slq.qld.gov.au/spoken, accessed February 2021; Bill Gammage, The Biggest Estate on Earth: How Aborigines Made Australia, Crows Nest: Allen & Unwin, 2012, pp5-6&35-36.
[6] John B Haviland, ‘The Life History of a Speech Community: Guugu Yimidhirr at Hopevale’, Aboriginal History, Vol 9 No 2, 1985, pp170-204, at p174.
[7] A bark, also spelled barque, is a sailing vessel having three or more masts, square-rigged on all but the aftermost mast, which is fore-and-aft rigged (The Macquarie: Australian Encyclopaedic dictionary, 2006). The spelling ‘bark’ has been adopted as it was used most commonly in the 18th sources.
[8] Secret Instructions and Additional Instructions issued to Cook by the Admiralty, 30 July 1768, part of Cook’s voyage 1768-71 [manuscript]: copies of correspondence, etc, National Library of Australia, MS2: https://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-229102048/view , accessed February 2021.
[9] Though intended to be secret, the Endeavour’s mission had been published in the London Gazetteer on 18 August 1768, before Endeavour’s departure from England. National Library of Australia, Cook’s Endeavour Journal: the inside story, Canberra: National Library of Australia, 2008, p23.
[10] James Cook, Journal of HMS Endeavour, Sunday 10 June 1770, [p102], National Library of Australia, MS 1: https://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-228958440/view
[11] Cook, Journal of HMS Endeavour, Monday 18 June and Friday 22 June 1770, [p105], National Library of Australia, MS 1: https://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-228958440/view. Spelling as per original.
[12] Cook, Journal of HMS Endeavour and Banks, The Endeavour Journal, 18 June – 4 August 1770.
[13] Bama (person) and bamangay (people), though Bama can also be used collectively: Pama Language Centre, Preliminary Guugu Yimidhirr lessons: Plurality of nouns, http://gylessons.blogspot.com/2017/08/9-preliminary-guugu-yimidhirr-lesson.html, accessed February 2021.
[14] McKenna, From the Edge, 2016, pp164&201. Gemma Cronin, Badtjala Song (ceremonial artefact, 2013), via Australian National Maritime Museum, 2018.
[15] McKenna, From the Edge, 2016, pp164&201.
[16] Eric Deeral, Gamay, cited in McKenna, From the Edge, 2016, p202
[17] Tupaia (or Tupia or Tupaea) and Taiata (or Tiata) had joined the Endeavour at Tahiti; Tupia, a Society Islands high priest and navigator, acted as an interpreter and liaison for the crew as they investigated New Zealand and Australia, while Taiata was his nephew, acolyte or – according to Cook – servant. Both died in Jakarta before the Endeavour returned to England.
[18] Alberta Hornsby, interviewed by Gretchen Miller in ABC Radio National, ‘Cook in Cooktown’, Earshot, 15 September 2015 (150915.1105) and Willie Gordon, ‘Cooktown – the small town whose history changed the world’, The Guurrbi Blog, http://guurrbitours.blogspot.com/2010/10/cooktown-small-town-whose-history.html, accessed February 2021; Eric Deeral, cited in McKenna, From the Edge, 2016, pp202-3.
[19] ‘[T]heir actions were dictated by law, and by beliefs’: Alberta Hornsby, ‘Cooktown 2020 – Alberta Hornsby interview’, Paykel Creative, 2018, https://vimeo.com/263281503, accessed February 2021.
[20] Alberta Hornsby, Cook250 NTAQ: A Commitment to Respectful Dialogue. Community Engagement Report, Relative Creative, July 2018, p16, cited in application for entry on the Queensland Heritage Register. Though the Bama ‘recognized the predicament these visitors were in, they were discreet because they needed to make sure the visitors were not reincarnations of “wawu-ngay”, spirits of our ancestors. Every effort was made to be tactful’[20]: Guugu Yimithirr Bama, cited in McKenna, From the Edge, 2016, p203.
[21] Secret Instructions and Additional Instructions issued to Cook by the Admiralty, 30 July 1768, part of Cook’s voyage 1768-71 [manuscript]: copies of correspondence, etc, National Library of Australia, MS2: https://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-229102048/view, accessed February 2021.
[22] In Kamay (Sting Ray Bay, later Botany Bay), Cook, Banks, Daniel Solander and Tupia had gone ashore and were opposed by two Gweagal men. Cook fired his musket thrice, hitting one of the men ‘with small Shott’ once. After this Cook and Banks reported that they were unable to make contact with anyone else. However, ship’s surgeon William Monkhouse, Able-seaman Isaac Smith and First Lieutenant Zachary Hicks recorded 60 words from the Dhurag and Dharawal language group in May 1770, suggesting some communication occurred between the groups. People at K’gari and further north sighted and were sighted by the Endeavour crew, but avoided the Europeans. Cook’s Journal, 29 April 1770; Australian Government ‘Recording Australian language’, Endeavour250, https://www.endeavour250.gov.au/news-and-media/recording-australian-language, 16 July 2020, accessed February 2021; McKenna, From the Edge, 2016, pp164&201.
[23] Banks, The Endeavour Journal, 8 July 1770. Spelling as per original.
[24] Banks, The Endeavour Journal, 8 July 1770. Spelling as per original.
[25] Banks, The Endeavour Journal, 10 July 1770 and Cook, Journal of HMS Endeavour, Tuesday 10 July 1770.
[26] According to Eric Deeral, ‘The strangers gave our Bama fish and beads. Next day four of our men went back and gave them the fish in return, which is customary.’ (cited in McKenna, From the Edge, pp202-3).
[27] Banks, The Endeavour Journal, 18 July 1770.
[28] Galga or gulka; the European journals recorded it as a ‘lance’ (Banks) or ‘dart’ (Cook): eg, Banks, The Endeavour Journal, 10 July 1770; Cook and Wharton, Some account of New Wales, via http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks/e00043.html.
[29] Alberta Hornsby, interviewed by Gretchen Miller in ABC Radio National, ‘Cook in Cooktown’, Earshot, 15 September 2015 (150915.1105). While many of the words recorded in the European journals are recognisable in 21st century Guugu Yimithirr language, some were incorrectly written, spelled or misunderstood by the Endeavour crew, making them difficult or impossible to translate.
[30] ‘They introduc’d their strangers (which they always made a point of doing) by name’: Banks, The Endeavour Journal, 12 July 1770 (spelling as per original). The nine names recorded by Parkinson were Yappa Gadugoo, Tapuolyer, Dunggrea, Yarconigo, Balgomee, Yaparico, Garranattoo, Goota and Taijaputta. Sydney Parkinson, A journal of a voyage to the South Seas, in his Majesty’s ship: the Endeavour. Faithfully transcribed from the papers of the late Sydney Parkinson, draughtsman to Joseph Banks, Esq on his late expedition, with Dr Solander, round the World, London; printed for Stanfield Parkinson, the editor, 1773, p153, via https://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-33743456/view?partId=nla.obj-611820420#page/n240/mode/1up, p152.
[31] Cooktown Re-enactment Association Inc, 48 Days: A shared history, Cooktown: Cooktown Re-enactment Association Inc, 2015.
[32] The name gungurru applies only to the eastern grey, but the Europeans, unaware of this, used the term to describe the entire species: Harold Ludwick, Bulgun, State Library of Queensland, ‘Gangurru – Guugu Yimithirr’s contact with Cook’, Spoken exhibition, 2019, via https://www.slq.qld.gov.au/spoken
[33] The number of turtles was reported differently in different sources, but was somewhere between 8-12: Cook, Journal of HMS Endeavour, Wednesday 18 July 1770, Banks, The Endeavour Journal, 18 July 1770, Alberta Hornsby, interviewed by Gretchen Miller in ABC Radio National, ‘Cook in Cooktown’, Earshot, 15 September 2015 (150915.1105)
[34] Alberta Hornsby, interviewed by Gretchen Miller in ABC Radio National, ‘Cook in Cooktown’, Earshot, 15 September 2015 (150915.1105).
[35] Cook, Journal of HMS Endeavour, Wednesday 18 July 1770; Banks, The Endeavour Journal, 18 July 1770.
[36] ‘One of our people on board the ship who has been a Turtler in the West Indies told me that they never sent male Turtle home to England from thence because they wasted in keeping much more than the females, which we found to be true’. Banks, The Endeavour Journal, 16 July 1770.
[37] Harold Ludwick, Bulgun, State Library of Queensland, ‘Gangurru – Guugu Yimithirr’s contact with Cook’, Spoken exhibition, 2019, via https://www.slq.qld.gov.au/spoken. Marmingo [marmiingu], meaning ‘female turtle’, was one of the words Cook had recorded in his journal: James Cook and WJL Wharton (ed), ‘Some account of New Wales [sic]’, Captain Cook’s Journal during his first voyage round the world made in HM Bark “Endeavour” 1768-71, a literal transcription of the original MSS with notes and introduction, London: Elliot Stock, 1893, via http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks/e00043.html; National Museum of Australia, ‘Some Guugu Yimidhirr words’, Talkin’ Guugu Yimidhirr, https://nma.gov.au/av/endeavour/guugu-yimidhirr/word-list/index.html, accessed February 2021.
[38] Eric Deeral, cited in National Museum of Australia, Turtle Trouble; Gertie Deeral, Dingaal, ‘They Burnt the Piggy-Piggies, 2019’; Madge Bowen, Bulgun, ‘Reconciliation Rocks, 2019’, and Wanda Gibson, Nugal, ‘No Blood will be Shed, 2019’ and ‘Twelve Turtles, 2019’, in National Museum of Australia, Reflecting on the 48 days, https://www.nma.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0003/732810/48-days.pdf, accessed February 2021.
[39] Hornsby, Cook250 NTAQ: A Commitment to Respectful Dialogue, 2018, p16.
[40] Eric Deeral, cited in McKenna, From the Edge, 2016, p203.
[41] Eric Deeral, cited in McKenna, From the Edge, 2016, pp204-205. This text also appears in the James Cook Museum, Cooktown.
[42] Banks, The Endeavour Journal, 19 July 1770; Alberta Hornsby, interviewed by Gretchen Miller in ABC Radio National, ‘Cook in Cooktown’, Earshot, 15 September 2015 (150915.1105).
[43] Cook, Journal of HMS Endeavour, Thursday 19 July 1770. Spelling as per original.
[44] Banks, The Endeavour Journal, 19 July 1770. Spelling as per original.
[45] Cook, Journal of HMS Endeavour, Thursday 19 July 1770. Spelling as per original.
[46] Banks, The Endeavour Journal, 19 July 1770. Spelling as per original.
[47] Deeral, cited in McKenna, From the Edge, 2016, pp204-205.
[48] Hornsby, Cook250 NTAQ: A Commitment to Respectful Dialogue, 2018, p16.
[49] Deeral, cited in McKenna, From the Edge, 2016, pp204-205.
[50] Banks, The Endeavour Journal, 19 July 1770. Spelling as per original. Parkinson wrote of the event: ‘The natives shewed a great antipathy to our tame birds [sic], and attempted to throw one of them over-board; and, a little after we left the land, they set fire to the grass round the spot where we had pitched our tent; but, luckily for us, most of our things were on board, or they would, in all probability, have been consumed, as the fire burnt very fiercely, and had like to have destroyed a litter of pigs, and some other things. We shot at one of them, who ran up the hill with a fire-brand, and wounded him. Several of them came to us afterwards, and made peace with us.’ Parkinson, A journal of a voyage to the South Seas, 1773, p153.
[51] McKenna, From the Edge, 2016, p206.
[52] Tracey Toovey and Jane Alexander, ‘Reconciliation Rocks, Cooktown’, in Signals: quarterly newsletter of the Australian National Maritime Museum, Vol 131, Winter 2020, pp50-53, at p53; Harold Ludwick, State Library of Queensland, ‘Gangurru – Guugu Yimithirr’s contact with Cook’, Spoken exhibition, 2019, via https://www.slq.qld.gov.au/spoken
[53] narrla mumdamaay: Alberta Hornsby, cited in application and interviewed by Gretchen Miller in ABC Radio National, ‘Cook in Cooktown’, Earshot, 15 September 2015 (150915.1105); or nagaalangun daamaay: National Museum of Australia, Turtle Trouble, https://www.nma.gov.au/exhibitions/endeavour-voyage/waalumbaal-birri-endeavour-river/turtle-trouble, accessed February 2021. The ritual is also ‘giving you a safe feeling of being here… It makes anyone’s heart clear. It gives you a pure heart and mind’: Fred Deeral, Waymbuur, cited in ‘The old man and the seafarer’, Courier Mail 25 January 2020 p8.
[54] Harold Ludwick, State Library of Queensland, ‘Gangurru – Guugu Yimithirr’s contact with Cook’, Spoken exhibition, 2019, via https://www.slq.qld.gov.au/spoken. ‘He was blowing his sweat over them… that’s what we do when people come onto our country. We smother them in our scent. It resets things and makes us all equal’: Harold Ludwick, National Museum of Australia, Turtle Trouble, https://www.nma.gov.au/exhibitions/endeavour-voyage/waalumbaal-birri-endeavour-river/turtle-trouble, accessed February 2021. Toovey and Alexander, ‘Reconciliation Rocks, Cooktown’, Signals, Winter 2020, p53.
[55] Cook, Journal of HMS Endeavour, Thursday 19 July 1770. Spelling as per original.
[56] Banks, The Endeavour Journal, 19 July 1770.
[57] Eric Deeral, cited in McKenna, From the Edge, 2016, p206.
[58] Banks, The Endeavour Journal, 20 July 1770. Spelling as per original.
[59] Alberta Hornsby, interviewed by Gretchen Miller in ABC Radio National, ‘Cook in Cooktown’, Earshot, 15 September 2015 (150915.1105) and Harold Ludwick, State Library of Queensland, ‘Gangurru – Guugu Yimithirr’s contact with Cook’, Spoken exhibition, 2019, via https://www.slq.qld.gov.au/spoken.
[60] Wanda Gibson, ‘Showing a Knife, 2019’, in National Museum of Australia, Reflecting on the 48 days, https://www.nma.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0003/732810/48-days.pdf, accessed February 2021. The European journals recorded the encounter in some detail: ‘I sent some people in the Country to gather greens, one of which stragled from the rest, and met with 4 of the Natives by a fire, on which they were broiling a Fowl, and the hind leg of one of the Animals before spoken of. He… went and set down by them; after he had set a little while, and they had felt his hands and other parts of his body, they suffer’d him to go away without offering the least insult, and perceiving that he did not go right for the Ship they directed him which way to go.’ (Cook’s journal, Sunday 22 July 1770); ‘At first he was much afraid and offerd them his knife, the only thing he thought might be acceptable to them; they took it and after handing it from one to another return’d it to him. They kept him about half an hour behaving most civily to him, only satisfying their curiosity in examining his body, which done they made him signs that he might go away which he did very well pleasd. They had hanging on a tree by them, he said, a quarter of the wild animal and a cocatoo [sic]; but how they had been clever enough to take these animals is almost beyond my conception, as both of them are most shy especialy the Cocatoos.’ (Banks, The Endeavour Journal, 22 July 1770. Spelling as per original.).
[61] Banks, The Endeavour Journal, 23 July 1770. Spelling as per original.
[62] Cook, Journal of HMS Endeavour, Wednesday 22 August 1770.
[63] Captain Philip Parker King and Allan Cunningham: McKenna, From the Edge, 2016, p194; Queensland Government, ‘Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community histories: Hope Vale’, https://www.qld.gov.au/atsi/cultural-awareness-heritage-arts/community-histories/community-histories-e-i/community-histories-hope-vale, accessed February 2021; Michael Davis, ‘Encountering Aboriginal Knowledge: Explorer narratives on north-east Queensland, 1770 to 1820’, Aboriginal History, Vol 37, 2013, pp29-50, at pp43-45.
[64] Haviland, ‘Life History of a Speech Community’, 1985, p172.
[65] Survey Plan C1791 (1874)
[66] The Guugu Yimithirr and Kuku Yalanji resisted European settlement. Conflict between 93 European miners and 150 Aboriginal warriors near the Normanby River in October 1873 gave rise to the name ‘Battle Camp’ at its site; the Europeans shot and killed 80 Aboriginal people. Native Police were brought to the region; in 1879 they killed 28 Aboriginal men north of Cooktown following the wounding of two European men by spears. Frontier violence resulted in hundreds of casualties, and despite fierce guerrilla resistance, ‘the resulting devastation of Aboriginal life was total’. Aboriginal people were pushed out of Cooktown, establishing fringe camps on the outskirts of town. By 1885 they were excluded from town after dark. In 1886 German Lutherans established a mission at Cape Bedford (Elim); later Hope Valley (1887-1942) and eventually Hope Vale. Aboriginal people from camps around Cape Bedford were encouraged to the mission and to work, employed within the town for domestic labour (often unpaid) and bush labour, fishing or at pastoral stations outside the town. The impact of European settlement was recorded in rock art at Laura in the Quinkan region between the 1870s and 1890s. Under the Aboriginals Protection and Restriction of the Sale of Opium Act 1897 the lives of Aboriginal people were placed under the control of (European) “Aboriginal Protectors”, including the Northern Protector based in Cooktown; versions of the Act continued to operate until the 1970s. The Guugu Yimithirr language continued to be spoken and taught at Hope Vale. In the 1980s an autonomous Hope Vale Aboriginal Council was established under the Community Services (Aborigines) Act 1984. The council area, previously an Aboriginal reserve held by the Queensland Government, was transferred to the trusteeship of the council under a Deed of Grant in Trust on 16 July 1986. John B Haviland, ‘The Life History of a Speech Community: Guugu Yimidhirr at Hopevale’, Aboriginal History, Vol 9 No 2, 1985, pp170-204, at pp172-4; Queensland Government, ‘Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community histories: Hope Vale’, https://www.qld.gov.au/atsi/cultural-awareness-heritage-arts/community-histories/community-histories-e-i/community-histories-hope-vale, accessed February 2021; Centre for 21st Century Humanities, Colonial Frontier Massacres Map, https://c21ch.newcastle.edu.au/colonialmassacres/map.php, accessed February 2021; Noelene Cole, ‘Painting the Police: Aboriginal Visual Culture and Identity in Colonial Cape York Peninsula’, Australian Archaeology, No 71, December 2010, pp17-28.
[67] Queensland Government Gazette, Vol 35 No 37, 6 September 1884 pp816-7; Centre for the Government of Queensland, ‘Queensland Places: Cooktown’, https://queenslandplaces.com.au/cooktown, accessed February 2021.
[68] John Kerr, Triumph of Narrow Gauge: A history of Queensland Railways, Bowen Hills: Boolarong Publications, 1990, p188.
[69] Survey Plan BS129; Queensland Government Gazette, 17 January 1970, No 5, p118.
[70] Alberta Hornsby and Loretta Sullivan, interviewed by Gretchen Miller in ABC Radio National, ‘Cook in Cooktown’, Earshot, 15 September 2015 (150915.1105); ‘Cooktown celebrates’, Tablelands Advertiser 3 June 2009 p12; ‘Discovering culture of Cook’, Port Douglas and Mossman Gazette 3 June 2010 p12; ‘Cooktown Shines’, Tablelands Advertiser 4 June 2010 p12.
[71] ‘Cooktown: Captain’s steps’, Cairns Post 2 March 2012 p2.
[72] Bama Aunty Alberta Hornsby believes, ‘we can’t change the past, we all have a history. But here in Cooktown we have chosen to show a balance.’ Local Aboriginal man Harold Ludwick states: “His arrival to Australia is documented more vividly and thoroughly at Cooktown than anywhere else – it is the perfect place to celebrate reconciliation – it shows the meaning of two cultures: one people, we live and breathe the reconciliation, and this story of reconciliation is of national significance.” In the place where Australia’s first act of reconciliation occurred, the local community believes that having this special story recognised is a modern act of reconciliation for Australia. Harold Ludwick says, ‘Cooktown shows a story of humanity of our people, when they met with Captain Cook. They instigated meetings with Captain Cook…and it was that understanding from both cultures that made that ground zero for the birth of Australia…It is vitally important because we have been working hard to mend this country, to try to understand the very fabric of who we are as people, as Australians. In order to do that, we got to find out who we are…it is the pedestal for both cultures to unite in a way that Australia hasn’t united since 1770. This could be the nucleus for other places to take notice of what can be achieved for the grandchildren and great grandchildren, otherwise what we have achieved in the last 248 years will be lost and we don’t have time to start again. These cultures should exist side by side, as it should be in this nation.’ Paykel Creative. April 5, 2018. Cooktown 2020 - Alberta Hornsby Interview. Accessed on 8 January 2019 via https://vimeo.com/263281503; and Harold Ludwick, James Cook Museum: A modern act of reconciliation, video interview, October 2018; Kerry Vander Jagt, ‘Rock with the ranger’, Sun Herald (Sydney), 29 September 2019 p30; Toovey and Alexander, ‘Reconciliation Rocks, Cooktown’, Signals, Winter 2020, p53.
[73] John Molony, ‘In their words: Uncovering Australia’s lost history’, ANU Reporter, Vol 46 No 1, Canberra Australian National University, https://reporter.anu.edu.au/uncovering-australia%E2%80%99s-lost-history, accessed February 2021.
[74] Willie Gordon, ‘Cooktown and the first reconciliation’, The Guurrbi Blog, http://guurrbitours.blogspot.com/2011/11/first-reconciliation.html, 2011, accessed February 2021; Cooktown Re-enactment Association Inc, 48 Days: A shared history, Cooktown: Cooktown Re-enactment Association Inc, 2015; Cooktown Re-enactment Association Inc, Historical Endeavours: the Endeavour River, Waalumbaal Birri, where Australia’s history began in 1770, Cooktown: Cooktown Re-enactment Association Inc, 2012; Mark McKenna, From the Edge: Australia’s Lost Histories, Carlton, Victoria: The Miegunyah Press, 2016, Chapter 4, pp163-212; Cook Shire Council, ‘HMB Endeavour – Reconciliation Rocks’, Explore Cooktown & Cape York, http://www.cooktownandcapeyork.com/do/history/reconciliationrocks, 2015, accessed February 2021; Stephanie Borys, ‘Cooktown wants monuments to mark first reconciliation between Aboriginal and European people in 1770’, ABC News, 1 September 2017, https://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-09-01/cooktown-eight-year-fight-for-statues-mark-1770-reconciliation/8862118, accessed February 2021.
[75] Prime Minister, Media Release, Cooktown, Queensland, https://www.pm.gov.au/media/doorstop-cooktown-queensland, 22 January 2019, accessed December 2020.
[76] Cooktown Re-enactment Association Facebook page, https://www.facebook.com/cooktownreenactment/videos/-reconciliation-rocks/341058876912827/, accessed February 2021.
[77] ‘Reconciliation ahead of its time’, Weekend Australian 4 April 2020 p8; ‘Tide Turns for Expo’, Cairns Post 16 January 2021 p36; Cooktown and Cake York Expo 2021: The Rising Tide, http://cooktownexpo.com.au/program/, accessed October 2020.
[78] Weekend Australian 4 April 2020 p8; National Museum of Australia, Endeavour Voyage: The Untold Stories of Cook and the First Australians, https://www.nma.gov.au/exhibitions/endeavour-voyage, accessed February 2021.

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