Some notes of a talk I gave in various places after a pilgrimage to Flinders Island.

by ROWLAND CROUCHER

Cain said to his brother Abel, ‘Let us go out to the field.’ And when they were in the field, Cain rose up against his brother Abel, and killed him. Then the Lord said to Cain, ‘Where is your brother Abel?’ He said, ‘I do not know; am I my brother’s keeper?’ And the Lord said, ‘What have you done? Listen; your brother’s blood is crying out to me from the ground! And now you are cursed from the ground, which has opened its mouth to receive your brother’s blood from your hand… Then Cain went away from the presence of the Lord. (Genesis 4:8-11, 16 NRSV)

This is not a story of Yahweh preferring cowboys to farmers.

It’s a story about the human predicament then and now.

The name ‘Cain’ derives from the verb ‘to get’ – probably an ironic indication of humankind’s sinful acquisitive nature.

‘Abel’ means ‘breath’ – probably hinting at life’s transience.

(Meister Eckhart and other saints and mystics have taught us that the essence of true spirituality is in ‘subtraction’ rather than ‘addition’. Consumerist propaganda bombards us with messages that we are incomplete until we have acquired this or that.)

It’s is a story about conflict – between two different cultures or ways of relating to the earth. Abel was a shepherd, Cain an agriculturalist. It’s a story-in-miniature of the blood-stained history of the human race.

As with the Fall, and as often happens in biblical justice-drama God is on the spot immediately after the deed asking questions. At the Fall: ‘Where are you?’ – a personal question. Here: ‘Where is your brother?’ – a social question. To which Cain responds impertinently, ‘Shall I shepherd the shepherd?’

Cain learns that though the corpse may be covered with earth Abel’s blood cries out to God.

According to the Old Testament Scriptures blood and breath belong to God alone; whenever anyone kills another person, Yahweh, creator and protector of life becomes judge: the soil which Cain had ploughed and which had drunk his brother’s blood will now deny him its fruit…

Like Judas later, Cain was more sorry for himself rather than being truly repentant.

And humans are still expelled from Paradise…

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Here’s a paragraph from James Bonwick’s The Lost Tasmanian Race: ‘The woolly-haired Tasmanian no longer sings blithely on the gum-tree tiers, or twines the snowy clematis blossom for a bridal garland. Our awakened interest in their condition comes too late. The bell tolls their knell, and the Aeolian music of the she-oak is now their requiem. We cover our faces while the deep and solemn voice of our common Father echoes through the soul, ‘Where is your brother?’

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Last week I spent five days on two islands in the Bass Strait – islands of wild and rugged beauty (Certainly wild: 65 known shipwrecks lie around these islands).

We were there on a ‘pilgrimage of listening’ – twelve of us – to worship, pray, listen to aboriginal people, think in silence, and to repent…

I shared in some new experiences, like eating muttonbird, seeing the milky way in all its glory, and writing a poem (which I’ll read later). We concluded, Taize-style, kneeling around a cross formed with candles in the shape of the Southern Cross…

Hands up those who were taught Tasmanian aborigines died out with Truganini in 1876?

The Anglican priest appointed by his bishop to minister to aboriginals on Flinders Island told me there are 7000 Tasmanian people who call themselves ‘aboriginal’…

So what happened?

• Worldwide colonialism began in the 1500s.

• Since then the world’s 300 million indigenous and tribal peoples have suffered terribly from European conquest of their ancestral lands, through diseases and alcoholism and particularly through the loss of dignity, identity and self-respect.

• When the ‘first fleet’ arrived in 1788 there were an estimated 750,000 Aboriginals in Australia (7000 in Tasmania). In 1920 that number had fallen to 60,000. In 1971 Aboriginals were included in the national census for the first time.

• For our purposes, here’s what you need to know about what happened to the Tasmanian aboriginal people (I’ve culled some of the following from Henry Reynolds’ new book ‘Fate of a Free People: A Radical Re-examination of the Tasmanian Wars’ Penguin, 1995).

• British settlement began in Van Dieman’s Land in 1803-4/ Massacres began 3 May 1804 at Risdon when the 102 Regiment of the British Army shot dead 50 Oyster Bay people, including women and children. The Tasmanians had approached without spears and with green boughs in their hands, as a sign of peace. The commanding officer said afterwards he didn’t think the Aborigines would be any use to the British.• ‘The Black War’ lasted seven years – 1824 to 1831. Atrocities were committed by both sides, but although black men were castrated and black women raped, there wasn’t any record of rape committed by Aboriginals against any white woman.

• Governor George Arthur mobilized all available settlers and convicts to form the infamous ‘black line’, with 2200 men moving across the island over a six-week period, to try in a pincer movement to herd the remaining Aboriginals to the south east. They captured an old man and a child.

• By 1831, 175 Europeans had been killed, 200 wounded, 347 houses plundered or burnt. At least 700 Aboriginals were killed in the war. Meanwhile the European population grew from 5000 in 1820 to 24,000 in 1830.

• Many (most?) of the Europeans believed Aboriginals were an inferior race; some that they were the missing link between monkeys and humans; some that they were ‘savages’ who ought to be exterminated…

• In 1830, a builder and Methodist lay preacher, George Augustus Robinson went on a ‘Friendly Mission’ to negotiate a settlement. The Aboriginal remnant agreed to vacate Tasmania, and moved to Flinders Island (1833-1847). There Robinson tried to make the Aboriginals into Black Englishpeople, built East-London type terrace cottages for them, and taught them a catechism (with graphic questions and answers about heaven and hell). Eg. ‘What will God do to the world by and by?’ Burn it. What sort of place is heaven? A fine place. What sort of place is hell? A place of torment. But the exile was a disaster: over 200 Aboriginals died, and the 47 survivors were relocated back to Oyster Cove, on mainland Tasmania.

• Reynolds’ book centres around a petition presented to Queen Victoria signed by eight Aboriginal men who described themselves as a ‘free people’ who voluntarily gave up their country to the Governor (and complained that though they’d kept their side of the deal, the whites hadn’t)

• In 1870 the last full-blood male Aboriginal Tasmanian (William Lane) died; in 1876 Truganini, the last full-blood female died.

• But nine Aboriginal women had been abducted by sealers, and two married sealers voluntarily, and their descendents form the present Tasmanian Aboriginal population.

• Flinders Island Hotel had a separate bar for Aboriginals until the 1950s. They told us of a Chocolate Waltz won by group of Aboriginal young people, and the MC had to be forced to give them the prize!

• At Wybelenna (which means ‘Black Man’s Houses’) a few years ago, some aboriginal people put markers on the aboriginal graves. They lasted two days: someone dug them all up and destroyed them one night, but the white graves were left undisturbed…

• The UN proclaimed the years 1990 to 2000 as the International Decade for the Eradication of Colonialism.

• There has been remarkable progress since 1945 (then since 1989 in Eastern Europe) It’s one of history’s success stories.

• In the 1980s over 100 Aboriginal people died in the custody of the Australian police and prison systems. Finally, in 1987 the Australian Government formed a ‘Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody’. Four years and $30 million later it released a damning report.

One of our retreatants is a prison chaplain. He said, ‘Aboriginal people need each other. When they are isolated in an institution – any institution – they die…’

• In the Mabo case (1992), the High Court of Australia exploded the myth of ‘terra nullius’ (land belonging to no-one).

• We have been talking recently about a treaty between white and Aboriginal Australians. Mr Galarrwury Yunupingu from Arnhem Land has said: ‘What we want from a treaty is the creation of a just and mature society which black and white Australians can enjoy together. A treaty which recognizes our rights and our status will provide the basis for building a society in which people live in mutual respect. To those people who say they support the concept of ‘One Australia’ I can only say that I agree. There should be one Australia and we should be part of it. But our part should be on our terms.’

Some were taken to Victoria as mistresses of white men. Others captured and married to sealers living on islands off the Tasmanian coast.

(Australia is the most multi-cultural country in the world. One in three Australians were born overseas or their parents were born overseas).

• Realize, with Margaret Mead: ‘Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed citizens can change the world, indeed it’s the only thing that ever has’

• And realize, sure, that we can’t turn back the clock. But, whatever our political views (left-wing, right-wing, or wingless) we can agree with Prime Minister Paul Keating when he launched the International Year for the Indigenous 10 December 1992: ‘[We must] recognize that the problem starts with us non-Aboriginal Australians. It begins, I think, with that act of recognition. Recognition that it was we who did the dispossessing. We took the traditional lands and smashed the traditional way of life. We brought the diseases. The alcohol. We committed the murders. We took the children from their mothers. As a nation, we face the challenge of the consequences of dispossession, conquest, brutal treatment and equally inhuman neglect of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people – the first Australians.’

• Following two invitations in the 1980s to speak to national Aboriginal Christian conferences, I wrote to 40 Aboriginal Christian leaders, asking them this question. Their views on land rights varied across the political spectrum from very radical to quite conservative but they were unanimous about one thing: ‘Please, we would like white Australians to listen to our pain’

• Then we can agree (and is this too big an ‘ask’?) that aboriginal people ought to be consulted about their present and future. (‘White Australians have done so much to/against/for us but forgot to ask us ‘Is it OK?’)

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Then the word of the Lord came to Elijah the Tishbite, saying: Go down to meet King Ahab of Israel, who rules in Samaria; he is now in the vineyard of Naboth, where he has gone to take possession. You shall say to him, ‘Thus says the Lord: Have you killed, and also taken possession?’ You shall say to him, ‘Thus says the Lord: In the place where dogs licked up the blood of Naboth, dogs will also like up your blood.’

Ahab said to Elijah, ‘Have you found me, O my enemy?’ He answered, ‘I have found you. Because you have sold yourself to do what is evil in the sight of the Lord, I will bring disaster on you; I will consume you, and will cut off from Ahab every male, bond or free, in Israel… because you have provoked me to anger and have caused Israel to sin. Also concerning Jezebel the Lord said, “The dogs shall eat Jezebel within the bounds of Jezreel.” Anyone belonging to Ahab who dies in the city the dogs shall eat; and anyone of his who dies in the open country the birds of the air shall eat…’

When Ahab heard those words, he tore his clothes and put sackcloth over his bare flesh; he fasted, lay in the sackcloth, and went about dejectedly. Then the word of the Lord came to Elijah the Tishbite: ‘Have you seen how Ahab has humbled himself before me? Because he has humbled himself before me, I will not bring the disaster in his days; but in his son’s days I will bring disaster on his house.’ (1 Kings 21:17-24, 27-29).

Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you build the tombs of the prophets and decorate the graves of the righteous, and you say, ‘If we had lived in the days of our ancestors, we would not have taken part with them in shedding the blood of the prophets.’ Thus you testify against yourselves that you are descendents of those who murdered the prophets. Fill up, then, the measure of your ancestors… Upon you [will] come all the righteous blood shed on earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah son of Barachiah, whom you murdered… (Excerpts Matthew 23:29-35)

Woe to you! For you build the tombs of the prophets whom your ancestors killed. So you are witnesses and approve of the deeds of your ancestors; for they killed them, and you build their tombs… This generation [will] be charged with the blood of all the prophets shed since the foundation of the world, from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah… Yes, I tell you, it will be charged against this generation. (Excerpts Luke 11:47-51).

You stiff-necked people… are forever opposing the Holy Spirit, just as your ancestors used to do. Which of the prophets did your ancestors not persecute? They killed those who foretold the coming of the Righteous One, and now you have become his betrayers and murderers. You are the ones that received the law… and yet you have not kept it. (Acts 7:51-53)

When Pilate saw that he could do nothing, but rather that a riot was beginning, he took some water and washed his hands before the crowd, saying, ‘I am innocent of this man’s blood; see to it yourselves.’ Then the people as a whole answered, ‘His blood be on us and on our children!’ … After flogging Jesus, he handed him over to be crucified. (Matthew 27:24-26. All NRSV).

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Gentle robins, red and black,
flitting here and flitting there,
foraging among the graves…
What dark secrets lie beneath this soil?
Gentle kooris, sad and wistful –
for a dream-time killed and buried
by foreign ‘Christian’ civilizers…
Where’s dignity, identity now?
Gentle farm-folk, toiling, reaping
on forefathers’ stolen, fertile land,
some red-necked – and others wondering
Why the fuss? We were not there…
Gentle Christian, guilty? musing
what’s all this to do with me?
Listen! Learn! Lament! and ask
What, Lord, will you have me do?
Gentle Jesus, friend of outcasts
when beneath your Southern Cross
red blood stained the earth again:
Were you wailing with their kin?
Gentle-folk did you to death –
were not aware of what they did…
And judgment-day has come to us:
‘Where are you when I need mercy?’
Rowland Croucher

[Written at Wybelenna, Flinders Island, Tasmania, in an aboriginal graveyard, attended by a flock of red-breasted robins. April 1995]

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God who gave this land its shape and its colour,
You who have walked in it from the beginning of time,
Who moulds its mountains and valleys and rivers, and level out its plains,
Who gives the eucalypts their bark and their oil,
who paints the wattles yellow,
and the desert peas scarlet,
God we worship you and we adore you…

In the processes of history you have brought to this great land people from many nations to live together. We give thanks for those Aboriginal and other Australians who during the last two centuries have tried to live with justice, compassion and respect and have attempted to develop understanding across racial, cultural and denominational differences, who have walked lightly and lived gently on the land.

We confess that often we have not shared the land with justice. We pray for the will to change and make amends.

[Silence]

Our relationships have been marred by misunderstanding, lack of respect and racism. We pray for the will to change and make amends.

[Silence]

My brothers and sisters, if we say we have no sin we deceive ourselves and do not tell the truth. If we confess our sins, God keeps covenant faithfulness and forgives us our sins. So we hear the words of Christ: ‘Your sins are forgiven!’ Thanks be to God.

[Silence]

Lord Jesus Christ, in your suffering and death, and your abandonment on the Cross you show your solidarity with all who suffer unjustly.

God, teach us to follow in the way of Christ and to cry out with those who protest the injustice of their lot.

In raising Jesus from the dead, you have given us hope that the last word is not death but life, not abandonment but love that holds us tightly.

Help us always to hold onto the vision of the unity of the whole Church, and to do separately only those things which we cannot do together. Hold before us also the vision that your will is life for all your creation, and to protest and struggle against the forces of death. Help us to live as brothers and sisters in the one family into which you have brought us. Help us to build a community in which Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal live together in harmony, where we stand together, listen to one another and understand and respect each other.

Amen.

(Adapted from prayers for the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity and Reconciliation, 28 May – 4 June, 1995)

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(Tune: Ye banks and braes, key F)
We cannot measure how you heal
Or answer every sufferer’s prayer.
Yet we believe your grace responds
Where faith and doubt unite to care.
Your hands, though bloodied on the cross
Survive to hold and heal and warn,
To carry all through death to life
And cradle children yet unborn.
The pain that will not go away,
The guilt that clings from things long past,
The fear of what the future holds,
Are present as if meant to last.
But present too is love which tends
The hurt we never hoped to find,
The private agonies inside,
The memories that haunt the mind.
So some have come who need your help,
And some have come to make amends,
As hands which shaped and saved the world
Are present in the touch of friends.
Lord, let your Spirit meet us here
To mend the body, mind and soul,
To disentangle peace from pain
And make your broken people whole.
(Iona Community)

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A Benediction: May the Holy Spirit be your strength, guide, healer and source of reconciliation with yourself, with God, and with others, all your days. Amen.

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COMMENTS/RESPONSES:
Date: Mon, 08 May 1995

From: (Neil Waller, on a Usenet Christian newsgroup):

Subject: Re: Cain/Aussie: ‘Where is your brother?’ sermon
I must correct your historical facts on the sad demise of the full blood Tasmanians. You have made a common mistake that most Australians make: that Trucanninie was the last full-blood woman. As well as the women companions of the Bass Strait Sealers there were 3 women taken by simi lar sealers to Kangaroo Island. At least two of these women outlived Trucannie: my ancestor “Betty Thomas” who died in 1878 and Suke who died in 1888, the last confirmed full blood female (Cassandra Pybus claims in her book “Community of Thieves” that one Fanny Cochraine who died in Hobart in 1905 was the last). This is but a small point and does not in any way detract from your message for which I congratulate you. PS: the Everett in Tasmania family may well be descended from the Sealer Everett on KI – he was a companion of my ancestor Nat Thomas who arrived on KI in 1827.
Kind Regards Neil Waller
[Later post]:
Rowland. My spelling (and if you look closely there are actually 2 different spellings) of Truganini is I guess just phonetic and no more should be assumed than that! The women on Kangaroo Island were out of the influence of the Tasmanian Government so I suppose they did not come into consideration when the last of the Tasmanian people died in that colony. “Betty” Thomas’s elder daughter Mary was the first recorded child of a European settler born in South Australia in May 1833. Various books on the history of Kangaroo Island contain photos of Mary. (A particularly good book is “This Southern Land ” by Jean Nunn. The Tasmanian library may have a copy). There is a considerable amount of folk-lore surrounding Suke which you may care to use to illustrate mateship. Apparently in later life she had a companion named Sal, a woman from near Port Lincoln. Sal had lost part of her foot in a fire and was lame. Suke was blind. For many years the two women came into Stokes Bay on the North Coast of KI to draw Government Rations, the lame Sal leading the blind Suke. When Sal died in the bush Suke made her way into Stokes Bay and led a party back to Sal feeling the way with her feet. She never found her. Suke died near Antechamber Bay a little while later in 1888. You must wonder about the emotions of these women who lived most of their lives apart from their people. (And in deed of all migrants – what yearning did they have for their culture and people and homeland?) There is another KI connection to the last of the Tasmanians: Robert Wallen, often refered to as “Governor Wallen” who arrived on KI in 1819 had a Tasmanian companion and by her a son, Robert whom he sent to Hobart for an education. The young Robert was said to be a pall bearer at William Lanne’s funeral. By the way the Everett on Kangaroo Island was James who lived for a time at Antechamber Bay (on Backstairs Passage).
Regards Neil Waller

~~

In aus.religion you write: ‘When Australian Aboriginal babies are buried alive with their heads above the ground, and the British ‘civilizers’ have a competition to see how far they can kick those heads – with the parents forced to watch?’ I have heard of it before, but no-one seems to know where and when it was supposed to have happened. Do you happen to to know a reference where it is mentioned? It’s in a book ‘Massacres to Mining’ by Jan Someone: a good bookshop will only need the title to get it for you.

For future reference: From Massacres to Mining: the Colonisation of Aboriginal Australia by Janine P Roberts. I looked it up in the NSW State Library, and I have a few comments. Firstly, it describes an incident which allegedly took place in NEVictoria around 1860 (date inferred from context). The alleged villains are not identified (not even as white): but from context are not British, but most likely settlers. Secondly, I use the word ‘alleged’ because the evidence that this ever took place is very weak: a third hand account passed anonymously to the author. Now, although this crime is almost unbelievably appalling, I would not say that it could not have taken place. No-one who knows any history or reads the news can put limits on human brutality. Certainly massacres and assaults on aborigines took place. But this particular account may well be wrong or exaggerated. Any tale passed through three tellers could be fabricated at any point and is almost certain to have changed. As we know, these sort of things tend to grow with the retelling. Your own interpolation of the word ‘British’, which did _not_ appear in the written account, is a small example of this. So I personally would be very hesitant to repeat this claim as if it were historical fact.
Regards, Andrew Parle