Launch Of The Yalda Crossing

Noel Beddoe worked as a high school principal for 20 years and has been involved in Aboriginal education for most of his adult life, becoming the inaugural chairperson of the Aboriginal Education Reference Group. He is the author of a number of works and his most recent,  The Yalda Crossing, takes a little-known episode in Australia’s first-contact history and creates from it a gripping adventure about the desperate battle for land and its dreadful consequences, which live on to this day. On Thursday 12 July 2012, NSW Deputy Opposition Leader The Hon Linda Burney launched The Yalda Crossing – what follows is Noel Beddoe’s response.

LAUNCH OF THE YALDA CROSSING

NOEL BEDDOE

I acknowledge that we meet on the lands of the Gadagul Clan of the Eora Nation. You will know that when Philip landed, there were some 250 different nations occupying this land mass. They were as similar to each other and as different from each other as were the English and the French. My first digression will be to comment that, when I was contact person for Aboriginal education for the New South Wales Secondary Principals Council, from time to time some well-meaning person, charged with organising an event would be in touch to ask, “How do you say ‘welcome’ in Aborigine?” I would have to point out that there were some 600 separate dialects of language in Australia in 1788, and he should nominate one, and I’d do my best to oblige. Didn’t often hear back.

In any case, we are gathered on the lands of the Gadagul clan of the Eora nation, the big-water people, the great water people of the traditional nations of what is now New South Wales.

I don’t know so much about the Eora people as I know, for example, about the Barghinji, from whom I get my own little bit of Aboriginal blood, or as I know, for example, about the Wadi Wadi or the Wandandians, whose lands are down around where I now live. I don’t know as much about them as I know about the Kamilaroi, who came down from their country in the northwest of what now is the state to assist the Wiradjuri in their war of resistance of, well, we’ll say European settlement, though, from the other side of the frontier, the word used probably would be invasion. My friend Ross Fitzgerald does not speak of “Australia Day”. He speaks of “Invasion Day”.

I know most of all about the Wiradjuri, whose lands began at the western foot of the Blue Mountains near what is now Bathurst and extended to where the Murrumbidgee enters the plains from headwaters in the Snowy Mountains, and runs west to near what is now the township of Hay. I lived and worked for twelve years in Narrandera, in the heart of Wiradjuri country. I know most of all about the Wiradjuri nation, of the indigenous nations of Australia.

But we are gathered on the lands of the Eora nation.

We know this about the Eora people: they believe that their great god Baime made the earth with the help of certain great spirits, and then sent his son Daramulan to walk among human beings to be sure that they kept the lore of Baime and so achieved lives of dignity and grace. And they believed that the world was as Baime intended, so that a core responsibility of humanity was to keep the land unchanging as Baime had created it.

And this they did, for something more than 40,000 years. Forty thousand years. That doesn’t mean much if you say it quick and don’t think about it. People have moved across this land on which we’re gathered for 40,000 years, and kept it pristine – when Philip arrived the land, the foreshores, the waters of the harbor all were pristine. We have now been here for, what, three lifetimes? And look at us. Now if we caught a fish in the harbor and ate it probably it would poison us. The rivers of New South Wales which were such beautiful rivers in my childhood now, by and large, are muddy gutters – my grandkids never will see our great rivers as they were when I loved them so. Some worry that the behavior of our society and others has resulted in a situation such that the oceans will rise and obliterate some some island nations.

The Gadagul clan of the Eora nation kept these lands pristine for 40,000 years.

And here we are gathered.

The Gadagul clan didn’t ever give their land away. They never ceded it to anyone in treaty as a result of war. They never sold it to anyone. So I acknowledge where we are.

The Yalda Crossing, though, is about the Wiradjuri, Linda Burney’s people. It’s about The Second Wiradjuri War, which took place around what is now Narrandera between 1836 and 1842. The first thing to know about that is that, initially, the Wiradjuri won, and all white settlement along the Murrumbidgee, Narrandera, Wagga Wagga, Gundagai was driven in. There was a lot at stake down there in those times, though, wasn’t there? Great fortunes were available to be made. Families could come to security, to greatness, at least in their own eyes, and at least one person had knowledge as to how Wiradjuri resistance could be crushed.

In writing The Yalda Crossing, I was not so much interested in what happened. As Kate Beddoe has pointed out, that knowledge has been available for a century and a half, if you wanted to find it. What interested me, essentially, was to find answers to these questions: what sort of people could do what was done to the Wiradjuri? Who were they before they did it? Who were they afterwards? What does it mean for us as Australians that these acts were carried out?

I know what I believe. It’s in The Yalda Crossing. As to what others might make of those events that time ago down there in that beautiful country, clearly, that’s up to them.

Now, I have some people to thank.

Firstly, to Linda Burney for lending her enormous prestige to this project. I’m not a person who allows himself many heroes but, clearly, Linda’s is one of the most significant lives of our era. And she remains the same funny, loyal, generous person she was when I met her, more than 30 years ago.

To John Hunter – and I’m delighted, John, that you were able to come from Melbourne to join us – who saw potential, took a risk and acquired The Yalda Crossing for the University of Queensland Press; thank you.

To Madonna Duffy and the creative team at UQP for the job they did of producing this handsome volume; to Janet Huchison for her edit, my thanks. Janet’s instruction from UQP was “make it shorter”. She recommended the removal of 4000 words. I took out most of them then put in 2000 new ones. But Janet, you did your best.

To my friend Ross Fitzgerald, whose encouragement and support were vital, thanks a lot.

And to my long-time former agent Brian Cook who I’m delighted to say is here, my particular gratitude. There were times, Brian, when I thought that you were more committed to Crossing than I was. To Gilbert and Tobin for offering the use of this room and the drinks we had earlier, my warm gratitude. To Anne and Gerard Henderson, for including us in The Institute program, not only my thanks but my admiration. You play a vital role in keeping your society thinking.

And, finally and most of all, my profound gratitude to Julie Roberts, who can’t be here, Kate Beddoe who is, and to Vivienne Beddoe for the extraordinary patience with which they’ve accepted the fact of having a writer in the family.

Thanks for coming. Don’t send Christmas cards this year. Give each of your friends a copy of The Yalda Crossing.