Records>> Aboriginal People • Australia
The accounts of early contact between Aboriginal people and European settlers were unearthed during a forensic search of unpublished papers filed away in the basement of New South Wales state library in Australia.
The operation was led by linguist Michael Walsh from Sydney University, who spent two years combing the stacks. “I found it exciting in the midst of a lot of drudgery, because some of the material was buried in boxes and boxes of papers, so you get two pages out of 2,000,” he said. The library is the oldest in Australia. Opened in 1827, it holds records of many of those who helped establish the colony: explorers, government officials, settlers, soldiers and police.
As they claimed the land, their initial contact with its traditional owners was often bloody. But taking note of the words of the indigenous people allowed them to communicate and map the landscape. As recording vocabularies was not their primary task, the word lists remained largely overlooked until Walsh started his investigation.
In one case, Walsh was curious when he saw a particular book on a shelf. He opened it and found it was actually a box, disguising the journals of Victorian surveyor Charles Tyres. A seven-page vocabulary from the “Natives” of Raffles Bay was kept in it.
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