17/05/2023
New and Ancient Sacred Places.
A Story About Making and Righting History.
Not long after I returned to live permanently here in my hometown of Maryborough I stood in Sussex Street before the then recently completed Gallipoli to Armistice Memorial and listened to Butchulla Elder Glen Miller deliver one of the most powerful speeches I have ever heard. It was Saturday, July 21, 2018, and searching back through my daypads recently, I located my notes on the ceremony, attended by Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, Premier Annastasia Palaszczuk, and Brendan Nelson, a former Leader of the Federal Liberal Party and then Director of the Australian War Memorial. Glen Miller made a very simple yet elegantly powerful point as he welcomed us to the country of his ancestors: there were no monuments, no ANZAC Days for Aboriginal warriors who had died in the defence of that country, upon which we were even then standing. In the circumstances, it would be hard to think of a better example of telling truth to power, and I know I was not the only person who registered the point the polite and softly-spoken Miller had made.
That 2018 opening of the Gallipoli to Armistice Memorial represented the culminating moment of four years of commemorations for the centenary of the 1914 -18 war – the so-called “Great War” – that included what many still think of as the “blooding” of the barely adolescent country called Australia at what became known as ANZAC Cove on the Turkish coastline in April of 1915. It was a disastrous campaign, where so many of this country’s young men met a bloody and muddy end, their campaign to take the peninsula for the Allies lasting more than six months, and only concluded by an ignominious (though immaculately executed) retreat. The story has entered the mythology of modern Australia, a country that presents itself as a peacefully settled democracy, and one seemingly unwilling to acknowledge that much warfare and bloodshed had actually attended the aggressive acquisition of an entire continent by successive British Colonial governments during the period 1788 – 1901, a continent the British Foreign Office had declared “Terra Nullius”, a land belonging to nobody.
But that land was not devoid of people; it was in fact populated by hundreds of thousands of Aborigines, the original inhabitants, those here quite literally “from the beginning”. Recognising that these original inhabitants – organised into discrete and networked societies with language and culture – had fought from the outset against their wholesale dispossession in thousands of skirmishes, pitched battles, murder sprees, poisonings, strategic subterfuges and other acts of non-compliance has been the work of more than a hundred years of scholarship, political organisation and advocacy. Having spent more than 30 years working through disparate historical archives, two things became abundantly clear to me as a storyteller; firstly, this was a long and on-going war rolling along a moving frontier – or battle line – and secondly, that sovereignty of the various communities fighting in defence of their countries and their cultures was never ceded to those who eventually claimed a silent victory over them.
This long, violent and heartbreaking period of our joint history has since become known collectively as the Frontier Wars, and for many years now there has been a campaign to commemorate them in the Australian National War Memorial in Canberra, an institution that has resolutely resisted such recognition with what seems like a churlish and stubborn vigour. Glen Miller’s point that day seemed to me at least to be a well-aimed, well-timed and perfectly lobbed challenge to Brendan Nelson’s rejection of such a recognition, and Nelson’s claims in response – that recognition of First Nations, or “your people”, in the War Memorial already exists in the form of artworks by the likes of Rover Thomas and Queenie McKenzie – came off as peevish and embarrassing. Yes, Brendan, nothing like a few native motifs to tizzy up a mausoleum, eh?
But Glen Miller was undeterred in his quest to raise his own monument, to his own ancestors, that recognised their defence of this country – his country – and which commemorates their ultimate sacrifice. In the almost five years since that day, he has clearly worked quietly, consistently and cooperatively to realise that vision. I must confess to some trepidation when I heard that a new memorial was planned for our beautiful Queen’s Park, which this year celebrates 150 years as a recognised park of the people. Every new monument is an intervention in an existing narrative, and such interventions have the effect of changing the story we tell to ourselves, of ourselves, and also flags to visitors just what it is we want to project to the world about what we hold nearest and dearest. Could we expect another statue?
The raising of statues is a contentious business, particularly in an age when so many of them are being reviled, vandalized or knocked down altogether for either our revised beliefs about the achievements of the subjects, a change in the ideologies underpinning our commemorations, or new knowledge about their activities that has the effect of lowering our esteem for them. Despite Maryborough’s extensive European heritage, our parks and public places have been refreshingly clear of such potentially divisive or ridiculous statuary. Outside of the little sandstone digger on the Granville War Memorial, a mask of George Ambrose White at Town Hall, the Mother Mary atop the entrance to St. Mary’s, and the statuary of the Cenotaph, it wasn’t until 1973 and the Lions memorial to working men at the corner of Ferry and Queen streets that full-sized representations of the human form began appearing in our town. However, the Lions statues – as grotesque as they might appear to some – are not specific identities, but like the sandstone digger, are representative of all those being commemorated. Not until the bronze of the fictitious character of Mary Poppins landed on the corner of Richmond and Kent streets in September 2005 did Maryborough have a genuine statue upon whose memorial validity we might pontificate. (An earlier, rejected version of the same character sits on private property in a Granville front garden, although still clearly visible at the end of Admiral Street.)
Our first relatively life-sized statue of a real person did not appear until 4.28am on the 25th of April, 2015, when Duncan Chapman was unveiled as the first stage of the monument that over the next 4 years became the Gallipoli to Armistice Memorial, which includes two more full-sized bronze statues and a mask of Mustafa Ataturk, although, again, with the exception of the latter, these are representational types – a letter-reading mother and a wounded digger using a gun as a crutch – as opposed to identifiable people. Of course, the complete memorial was designed to conclude in the existing Cenotaph, with its four representations of the services in World War 1, and Nike, the goddess of victory aloft, but even this beautiful and unique example carved of Carrara marble was argued about extensively prior to its commissioning, and was not consecrated until the week after Armistice Day, 1922, a full four years after the war had ended, at a ceremony boycotted by some.
As a daily visitor to the Gardens, I was keenly anticipating the appearance of the Butchulla Warriors Memorial. Getting wind of the date of the dedication ceremony and putting it in my diary, I then expected to see works begin, but only a small rectangular concrete plinth gave any clue as to where the memorial was to be located – beneath the ancient Bonyi Bonyi, the so-called “Bidwill Bunya” – and it was only when I checked at 3.30pm on the Friday afternoon before the Saturday ceremony, the didactics and the monument had finally made their entrance, shrouded by tarpaulins, and with the actual monument buried in a pile of woodchips. I thought it would be surprising if the concrete onto which it is set would even be dry by the morning, let alone proven, but better heads than mine have set their minds to this, and the wait was almost over. At least it’s not a statue. All will reveal itself.
The ancient Bonyi Bonyi, the one supposedly grown from a specimen spudded up in the Sunshine Coast hinterland in the early 1840s by John Carne Bidwill, the botanist-come-first Commissioner of Crown Lands here, and grown from stock taken from his property at the mouth of Tinana Creek after his early death in 1853 may have seen better days, but it is still an impressive native. A replica of Bidwill’s grave at Tinana was later erected beside the tree along with other didactics about Henry Palmer and the history of these very gardens, and the proximity of the rock commemorating the landfall here of the Petrie expedition of 1842 point towards the area being a kind of Founders’ garden.
The Bonyi Bonyi is actually a native endemic to neighbouring Gubbi Gubbi and Wakka Wakka country, with a long history in those cultures as the providore to thousands of years of feasting festivals at several locations to the south and west of here. Of course, such trees have a natural migration area, and certainly were found here in limited numbers, but nowhere near in number to the native tree endemic to these middle and lower reaches of Moonaboola, the misnamed Queensland Kauri Pine, which like Bonyi and Goonyam, the Hoop Pine, are not pines at all, the latter two being Araucarias and the Kauri, or Nunmulu, being botanically identified after much dispute as Agathis robusta. There are two wonderful specimens of this landscape’s sacred tree in the gardens, the stately elder over on the Lennox Street side near the lotus pond and an adolescent in the regenerated sub-tropical rainforest – the upper branches of which are visible from the Founders’ garden, making possible the thought that the leaves cast into the bronze of the new memorial’s base-plate may just have fallen from one or the other. It is also a salient fact that Nunmulu, once prolific here, was milled almost to extinction by the first Europeans, creating great wealth for them, but denuding this landscape of its icon tree.
But the site of the new memorial is certainly apt, and one obviously selected with great care and knowledge of the history of this place. I have previously heard Glen Miller talk of this high ridge above Moonaboola being a place of gathering, of storytelling, of journeying from place to place along ancient pathways, and of crossing the river. Since the Europeans first penetrated this landscape by that same river, her banks were the places where many of the warriors of the original inhabitants, the Butchulla, actually met their fate, defending their land. As such, the Butchulla Warriors’ Memorial commemorates the oldest war fought upon this continent, a war that was at the time openly acknowledged as such, but upon which a silence fell for many years. Here, the bloodshed and carnage was not confined to discrete and distant battlefields such as Gallipoli or the Western Front, but was all-encompassing in terms of the disputed ground, with every step those first Europeans took here, and every defensive step of every original inhabitants being contested, either openly or not. In this respect, the battlefields of the Frontier Wars are quite literally all around us, in every step we take. So here, then, is a deeply symbolic place of “First Contact”, as the didactics that flank the memorial are titled with such simple eloquence.
The site occupies the highest point of the ridge that rises up through the gardens from the low point of Sussex and Lennox Streets, the very ridge that also houses both the Gallipoli to Armistice Memorial and the Cenotaph, and in a very real sense the new memorial completes this avenue of commemoration of all of the warriors who laid down their lives in defence of this country. The site’s connectivity to the other heritage rooms and features of the people’s park is impeccable, and is also within sight of the waters of Moonaboola. Using very little imagination, it is possible to make of the aged Bonyi a new but ancient “Lone Pine”, the iconic tree celebrated in our nation’s commemorative efforts since 1915. Thankfully, unlike the Gallipoli to Armistice Memorial, the site is also less flood-prone, and although the Cenotaph is also above the levels of our worst floods – though not the 1893 whopper – the two major flood events of 2022 saw Duncan Chapman wading through water up to his chest, with the rest of the memorial – including its electrics – completely submerged. While this inundation did deliver an ironic authenticity to Chapman’s heroic first steps, it also meant that the electrics were ruined, and have been turned off ever since, although I notice a limited number of them are once again audible, though not, thankfully, the sound effect of boots on the march, a terrifying sound for so many at the best of times, and clearly audible in the adjacent parklands, which are intended as a place of peace and contemplation.
***
And so to 11am Saturday, April 22, 2023. Whether the date was chosen deliberately or not, at just three days before the annual ceremony for ANZAC Day, it might be seen as highly appropriate, given that the Butchulla warriors whom we are gathering here to commemorate all lost their lives long before 1915. In light of the calls for more recognition of the Frontier Wars, April 22 would easily serve as an annual day for their remembrance. It is overcast, threatening to rain, and as windy as it gets, with several strong south-easterly gusts threatening to bring down the Bonyi before which a crowd of about 350 have gathered. Two large marquees erected on what will surely now be known as the Butchulla Warriors Lawn don’t offer much protection from the threatening elements.
Introduced by Mayor George Seymour, Glen Miller welcomes us and delivers another very fine, considered and heartfelt speech reflecting upon the sometimes difficult journey he had in realising this monument – it was initially rejected as “too confronting” by certain elements within Council – and was unabashed about its focus on Aboriginal men, those warriors who existed here in “a state of war”. Stating plainly that “the truth needs to be told”, it being “morally correct” to do so, Miller lamented the absence from the ceremony of Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Premier Annastasia Palaszczuk, and on reflection it was a lost opportunity for both, considering their support for the “Yes” case in the Aboriginal Voice referendum later this year, and this occasion being such a strong example of reconciliation in action.
In successive speeches from State Minister, Maryborough M.L.A., retired Brigadier, but most particularly Glen Miller’s friend of 30 years and consultant John Phelan, the audience was fully apprised in the almost hour-long formal speechifying of the profound importance of what we had gathered here to memorialize. Believed to be the first monument of its kind in Australia, one which “serves not to attach blame or guilt, but to recognise what took place and honour those Aboriginal men who lost their lives”, the memorial is a work of stunning simplicity, inviting the celebrant to reflect upon what happened in this very place “when Butchulla men armed with spears met the European invaders armed with firearms.” (Glen Miller, April 22, 2023.) As part of his presentation, John Phelan invoked Oodgeroo of the Nunukel’s 1964 poem, “Dawn Wail for the Dead”:
Dim light of daybreak now
Faintly over the sleeping camp.
Old lubra first to wake remembers:
First thing every dawn
Remember the dead, cry for them.
Softly at first her wail begins,
One by one as they wake and hear
Join in the cry, and the whole camp
Wails for the dead, the poor dead
Gone from here to the Dark Place:
They are remembered.
Then it is over, life now,
Fires lit, laughter now,
And a new day calling.
It’s also worth reproducing this later quote from Oodgeroo that illuminates her intentions when creating the poem, since it gives resonance to this new memorial:
“Unlike those in the invading field, in the Aboriginal world, we mourn our dead every day of every week of every month of every year. Matter of fact, some of the tribes will not start the day unless they first wail for the dead. But even as we wail for the dead, we know we have a responsibility to the living. So, after we've wailed for the dead, we go about the business of looking after the living. And what I've tried to do in capturing the wail – the best way I can explain it is if you can imagine that I've tried to capture our type of 'Last Post'.” (Oodgeroo.)
The time had arrived for the formal unveiling, and rather miraculously, the wind stopped gusting and the sun broke through the cloud cover. A new day was indeed calling. As the Aboriginal flag draping the monument was removed, the full realization of what Glen Miller has achieved on behalf of his ancestry, those who have called this place home since Time Immemorial, seemed to well up in the collective soul of those gathered, our hearts brimming with pride and respect for the fact that we are finally remembering those warriors, are reconciling with them, recognising a truth, and cherishing their spirit in a place we now value as much as they once did.
At this point, Glen introduced his “language woman” and cultural consultant, Butchulla elder Aunty Joyce Bonner, to give the “Women’s Lament”, a poem she has composed especially for this occasion, utilizing both the Butchulla language and song, and dedicated to the thirteen apical ancestors of the Butchulla Native Title group. Aunty Joyce is an accomplished orator, her voice steady and calm, and it is the phrase “fighting for country” that serves to sum up a renewed recognition of a now shared purpose. In his closing remarks, and clearly moved by what Aunty Joyce had said, Glen Miller cites her sentiments as “the epitome of how we should move forward together”.
As the chimes of the Town Hall Clock struck noon, Glen Miller invited songman John Vea Vea to lead the choral group Mansong and the whole assembly in the full version of a song he had decided upon right from the outset of his efforts, and that ran the risk of seeming worn out and trite, but which in the circumstances, and with the full force of the significance of what we have gathered to do, becomes an emotionally charged affirmation: “I Am Australian”. The song is infectious, with the crowd clapping rhythmically in the verses and singing along to the now well-known chorus, and takes us across high noon in the blustery autumn sunshine. In his brief wrap up after the song, Glen Miller declares that we have marked “a new day” and that “things will get better from here”.
There are now photo ops, and the crowd lingers and files past the monument, getting our first look. People have clearly been moved and want to spend time in the company of the others who bore witness to history being righted, the truth being told, at long last, and a very real sense of completion. I certainly feel that something very special happened that day, and I know I wasn’t alone. The deep emotional bond that embraced us all continued well after the ceremony had concluded, and I have since incorporated the monument into my daily ritualistic circuit of the park. In a former story about the 150th anniversary of the commissioning of Queen’s Park this year, I suggested that we should make a gift to the place so many of us adore. Here is that gift, a jewel of truth that crowns the ‘Peoples’ Park’, and one that completes the avenue of memorials to our fallen warriors.
The monument itself – consisting of 240 kilograms of bronze, expertly cast by Olds Engineering – though confronting, is simplicity itself, and sits beautifully in its immediate surrounds. Three Butchulla shields – the models carved by Glen Miller, and each with a bullet hole created by firing real bullets at them – lay abandoned where they were dropped upon a ground littered with leaves of Nunmulu, and imprinted with several bare footprints of the absent warriors who once held them. It is this absence of the warriors themselves, along with the residue of their defensive attempts at defending their country, that sheets home the profoundly moving realisation the monument evokes effortlessly, and with great subtlety. They are no longer here, this is why, and we will remember them.
I encourage you to visit the Queen’s Park, and bear witness to the Butchulla Warriors Memorial, our newest and most ancient sacred place. If you would like to know more of the untold history of the Europeans’ engagement with the Butchulla people from first contact to the present day, including some of Glen Miller’s Wondunna ancestry, you will find as much in my memoir “Golden Child”.
