We retraced Captain Cook dinner’s journey alongside the east coast of Australia, in search of the opposite aspect of historical past. It was life altering

Last yr, one query took us on a 4,500km journey alongside the east coast of Australia. We knew the journey of Captain James Cook dinner, however we wished to ask what tales First Nations folks inform concerning the coming of Captain Cook dinner.

So from the tall forests of Gunai-Kurnai nation in Gippsland to the now developed shores of Dharawal land round southern Sydney and to the brilliant calm blue waters of the Kaurareg within the Torres Strait, we listened to the tales of how Cook dinner had misinterpret the land and the way he had stepped ashore with out the right protocols. How he had stolen assets and instruments. How he had typically given inappropriate names to landscapes that already had names and deep tales referring to them.

We heard how totally different folks thought the HMS Endeavour a large pelican, or a cloud, and the Europeans on board have been maybe the spirts of ancestors returning.

We travelled the identical journey that the sign fires and message sticks travelled, all alongside the east coast, warning totally different peoples that this unusual vessel was approaching their land and sea – and we listened.

Many communities informed us: “Sure, now we have tales concerning the British explorer, however what we actually need to speak about is reality telling.”

Having a blackfella (Darren) and whitefella (Craig) doing this journey collectively had its strengths in numerous methods – being informed tales solely one other blackfella can be informed, however having issues defined in easy phrases {that a} whitefella might perceive. This enormous highway journey, together with encounters with crocodiles and dingy motels, fashioned the backbone of a ebook, however the ebook itself just isn’t our story. It’s the tales of the 70 or so individuals who shared their lives, historical past and views with us.

Typically, we discovered First Nations tales about Cook dinner – or certainly later explorers – didn’t at all times agree with what had been written within the journals. However this demonstrated to us how advanced a number of interpretations of the previous might be. That is notably so for figures resembling Cook dinner, who additionally exists as a metaphor for colonisation and so options in tales of his dangerous visits in lots of elements of the nation that he by no means visited in written historical past.

We have been smoked and painted or given ceremony with salt water and informed how the spirit ancestors would then shield us on the nation of the Kabi Kabi of the Glasshouse Mountains, the Butchulla of Ok’gari, and the Kaurareg. We have been proven the shapes of ancestors and creation beings within the rocks and timber and even within the birds that got here to look at over us on Yuin nation on the south coast of NSW. And we understood how very important Nation is to First Nations folks by strolling it with them. Watching and listening and feeling.

We have now been requested just a few occasions: “How did you get so many individuals to share these tales with you?”

The easy reply is, we simply requested them.

However in fact it was a bit extra advanced than that. At any time when we got here into a brand new neighborhood, or met with a household, we have been typically requested which college or authorities division we labored for. And once we defined we have been largely doing this mission on our personal, weren’t funded by public cash and didn’t need to take any possession of the tales informed to us, and that whoever shared their tales would get the ultimate say on how they have been informed within the ebook – doorways opened.

There have been so many tales that individuals wished extra Australians to know; tales that haven’t typically been included in our histories.

In fact, not everyone wished to speak to us and a few bluntly informed us to fuck off.

There may be a whole lot of anger in some locations, and there’s a lot of tolerance and forgiveness in others. Nobody story from one particular person in a single neighborhood can characterize one other particular person’s expertise.

Our journey and the ebook we wrote solely scratches the floor of the attainable tales that may very well be informed, however we hope it opens the door for extra such tales to be shared extra broadly. Within the classroom. Within the media. In communities.