Rix, Darren and Craig Cormick.
Warra Warra Wai: How Indigenous Australians discovered Captain Cook & what they tell about the coming of the Ghost People.
Simon & Schuster.
2024.
ISBN 9781761424038.
333 pages.
Review One of Two
Many readers and members of the Captain Cook Society will appreciate the power of being able to visit places that have some personal and or historical interest. Seeing firsthand a landscape observed and often recorded by past travellers, or spoken about by family members, so often results in a sense of a greater connection with the past, place and personal present. History is complicated and many faceted. Often there is more than one perspective of a particular place, people or event. This is even more the case when a particular historical narrative is contested or even ignored.
As an Australian-born child of a migrant family from Northumberland, UK, who travelled from the north of England to create a new life, and to settle in Australia in the late 1950s, I have experienced and observed changes in historical narratives that convey stories about the land and seas of what is now called Australia.
In their book Warra Warra Wai, the authors have brought together narratives shared by First Nations people who connect with country along the eastern seaboard of Australia. The narratives are from 19 regions that have a direct link with the voyage of Endeavour, and the charting and naming of places by Cook and his men.
The narratives show the view from “shore to ship”. The chapters are “divided up into the different Countries, and the landmarks that Cook sighted”. Each of the places named by Cook is given with its original First Nations name followed by his name. Each of the chapters follows the same format, with an extract from Cook's journal relating to the period of the voyage, an introductory description of the country followed by narratives from community members that include “dream time” stories, observations of historical events, the impacts on the communities since colonisation by Europeans, and more recent concerns. Each chapter concludes with a section titled “Contact”.
In the Introduction, the authors explain their methodology, and how the work is very much a collaboration between themselves and people they talked to and interviewed. They state that the “stories we gathered belong to the individuals and communities we visited. This is their book”.
The publication has many black and white illustrations and 26 colour ones. They include excerpts from Cook’s charts, images of geographical features and members of First Nations Communities who are referenced in the text. They cover both contemporary and historical topics, and give the reader an indication of how the First Nations and Cook narratives have captured the imagination and stimulated creative endeavour. Readers wishing to find reference to particular places, events or individuals will be frustrated as there is no index. However, for readers wanting to learn more about some of the topics, each chapter has useful notes at the end of the publication.
Cook’s Australian landfall on 20 April, 1770, in the vicinity of Munda Bubal / Tolywiarar (Point Hicks) was on Gunaikurnai and Bidwell Countries, and the authors provide an insight into this land, which Cook did not traverse or even see beyond the distant horizon. The scrub-covered rocky outcrop reaches out wide into the Tasman Sea, shaped like a fist with the fingers and thumb half closed, defying the waves and swells that smash against it, having travelled from far out over the horizon. The strong wind here blows the clouds away one moment, leaving the point bathed in sunshine, and the next it blows low chill clouds back.
As many readers will know, the northern passage of Endeavour up the eastern seaboard of Australia resulted in 12 short landings primarily to fuel and water the ship, and in two extended stays at Botany Bay (for eight days) and at Endeavour River (48 days). So, the “Contact” narratives in each of the chapters refer to contact that is well beyond landings that were undertaken during the Endeavour voyage. For many historians this may be a challenge, but it reflects the duality of how Cook is viewed by many First Nations Community members.
Having either walked parts of the land or sailed through the waters of 17 of the regions covered by this book, I identify with so many places and natural features described by the authors. While the format is different from more “academic” volumes, and the juxtaposition of historical and contemporary narratives requires an adjustment in interpretation, the work captures and shares an important “truth telling” narrative that expands on more traditional histories of this aspect of Australian history.
Richard Ferguson
Review Two of Two
This book includes 20 chapters covering and discussing the landmarks of the eastern coastline of Australia commencing at Point Hicks in the south and ending with Possession Island in Far North Queensland. The 4,000 kilometre journey through the states of Victoria, New South Wales and Queensland is what makes the book so unusual. The chapters in this book are divided into the different regions to include the various landmarks that Cook sighted. The book also gives the original names as well as those assigned by Cook, such as Gooragang and Bustard Bay—now the town called 1770. References in each chapter include direct quotes from Cook's Endeavour Journal.
More than a hundred interviews and “yarning sessions” were conducted about “country” to engage with people who wanted to share their experiences and knowledge who had never before had an opportunity to share their wisdom and understandings.
While this book is written in the “voices” of those interviewed, references to the experiences of mob and connection to Country are of the authors. The central question asked of the people interviewed during the collection of their stories was “What is it that whitefellas most need to know about your mob”? Overwhelming the answer was truth telling.
In this regard, the contents of the book are both linear and circular, meaning the chapters move along the east coast of Australia recounting their mobs’ lived experiences in different locations, through different tellings and recountings.
The authors started out to write a book about Australia's history through a different lens, but they have admitted openly and frankly that their book tells a lot more about the consequences of colonisation that are still playing out in their communities. By giving First Peoples a voice and the courage to speak their “truth” about their lived experiences, the authors ask that we the readers balance and understand what is shared with “respectful listening” and the context of their personal journeys. From my perspective, it is about “walking in their shoes, in their skin”.
The authors aim to acknowledge that many First Nations Peoples in 2023/2024 reside away from their “Country of origin”, i.e., their traditional lands, but they maintain a strong connection to their Country. First Nations accounts of Endeavour and Cook's voyage have been handed down in local communities through the generations. Although the “ship” sailed on to England, the empire she represented returned in the form of the First Fleet in 1788, and impacted the lives and lands immeasurably from that moment in history. In placing these collected stories and accounts alongside the European ones, the book presents a new openness and acknowledgement of this life changing period of their history.
This book is a complex, sometimes very difficult, and poignant book to read, as it highlights the painful past of so many communities. The cause was the dispossession and the destruction of their knowledge systems due to their displacement, resulting in fractured communities and the “stolen generations”.
I commend the authors for taking the reader on a most impressive and thought provoking journey. I have travelled in my motorhome along the same 4,000 kilometres of the Cook trail, but have never walked in the shoes of the indigenous Australians. This book gives you an insight into that journey through their eyes and experiences.
Debbie Gibson
Originally published in Cook's Log, page 11, volume 48, number 1 (2025).