Teacher notes
Kindergarten, year 1 and year 2 learning resource
Kindergarten, year 1 and year 2 learning resource
This resource can be used by students as part of a guided inquiry. The resource draws heavily on the events that occured during the eight days that the Endeavour was in Kamay Botany Bay. It includes primary sources including sketches and illustrations, as well as contemporary videos and photographs.
The resource comprises three sets of activities, organised as three tabs. Activities within each tab can stand alone and do not need to be completed sequentially.
The Early Stage 1 and Stage 1 activities are presented in a way to encourage students to consider varying viewpoints of the events that occurred at Kamay Botany Bay in 1770.
Tasks are aimed to be teacher led, guided and directed. There are prompting questions and activities to encourage active participation by students. An optional summative task for students to complete is available for educators to evaluate a summary of children's understanding.
Through the journals kept by the men who sailed on HMB Endeavour we are able to find out details of the events that occurred when Captain Cook first landed in Kamay Botany Bay and their responses to these events. These journals are written from the British point of view. We do not have access to records of the feelings and perceptions that the Aboriginal people had but we can infer their feelings during several events through the journals of the British men. This resource encourages children to consider varying perspectives.
Allow students to read, individually or as a class, the background information about the HMB Endeavour, the date of the landing and the initial contact. After reading, it is advised that the teacher facilitates a discussion about where Kamay Botany Bay is, the significance of the landing in 1770 and its lasting legacy. To test prior knowledge, staff can encourage students to create a KWL chart in their books and get students to document:
These activities focus on children engaging with the initial reactions and thoughts of the Aboriginal people of Kamay. Children can reflect, respond and explain feelings and perspectives of people both from the shore and from the ship.
In this set of activities, students:
The focus of these activities is on the landscape of Kamay, Botany Bay. The intent is for students to develop an understanding of the significance of the environment of Kamay Botany Bay.
In this set of activities, students:
The focus activities allow children to use current understanding of events to think critically. Children elaborate and further extend their thinking, whilst challenging their beliefs.
In this set of activities, students:
The first voyage was an epoch making voyage, in the sense that it was the first voyage I can think of that was deliberately there for scientific exploration. Cook himself theoretically was responsible simply for the sea going part of it. And there was a young very wealthy young landowner, he didn't have a title, Joseph Banks, who was a passionate naturalist. He embraced this idea of discovery with enormous gusto and enthusiasm and that echoes throughout the whole of that first voyage. And he was, of cours,e when he got back a huge celebrity and he eventually became the great panjandrum of British science. You couldn't do anything in British science in the 18th century, or the second half of it, unless you had Joseph Banks’ approval really.
It's very salutary to read the accounts of people like Banks and Cook and the Forsters. You can feel that excitement of revelation of coming across a new facet of creation that you didn't know existed. There is an animal there that the hops you know on its hind legs and proceeds in the most extraordinary fashion in a way that nobody had ever seen before. And you can still feel it when you go to Australia as an English naturalist when you when suddenly you see all these things doing extraordinary things. And you can get just a flavour, just a hint, of the excitement that there must have been in someone like Banks who was a great naturalist in European terms, suddenly seeing these amazing variations on something that you thought you knew something about.
Waluwani ninyuan. Waluwani nugala. Hello everyone, Welcome to Ulladulla. My name is Vic Channell, I’m a proud Maramarang man. My Aboriginal ancestors, all Maramarang people so I’m happy and proud to be living on the land that they catered for and cared for, for so many thousands of years. A lot of the knowledge that we hold, is not knowledge that’s found in books. A lot of the knowledge that we’ve got comes down from our Aboriginal ancestors, all passed on through generations and generations. Now we talk about our local sites Didthul Pigeon House. Places like that are part of our songlines. They connect the mountains to the sea. A lot of other places around the area hold significant value. Sacred sites, Maramarang reserve, holds a lot of history, especially about the events that happened back in the early days when Cook first arrived. A lot of other sites that we have around town here, close to us, rock shelters, bush tucker tracks, local history tracks, are all significant to us and we’re proud to have them in our own backyard. We do our best as Aboriginal people, as Maramarang people, to hold our culture, protect our history, and educate people in the local history of the Maramarang people. Now Maramarang people have been here for many thousands of years. When they refer to Aboriginal people, people think it’s only in the North, the whole of Australia was occupied by Aboriginal people. Not just the Northern Territory. The whole of Australia. The whole of Australia is a sacred site to Aboriginal people. So, significantly, it’s not just one parcel of land that holds value to tribes and communities. It’s the whole of Australia.
Waluwani nugala, or in English that means Welcome to Ulladulla. So in late April 1770 when Captain Cook sailed past this part of the coastline he would have seen my ancestors on the beaches with their fires going and smoke rising. Smoke and fires was used by Aboriginal people to signal to other Aboriginal people that there were already somebody in this vicinity so they could, ah, actually meet up together. My people have lived in this area for millennia. Pigeon House, or Didthul as we call it, is a very sacred place to us. It has men’s sites and women’s sites. It has art sites. It is not a site that we visit constantly but it is a place that we hold very dear to our heart. It was also very well known outside our area and was also a very sacred place for other Aboriginal people who lived both North, South, and West, of us.
SARAH LARSEN, REPORTER: We fly it, we parade it, we wave it, we wear it. On Australia day more than any other day the Aussie flag is in.
REPORTER: But have you ever wondered where the flag came from? Or just what these lines and stars represent? When British people colonised what's now Australia they brought their own flag with them known as the Union Jack. When Australia became a federation in 1901 it got a new flag but the Union Jack stayed. It was joined by new symbols, like the Southern Cross which is a constellation that can always be seen from Australia. And a six pointed star to represent each of the six states, with an extra point added later to represent the territories. Since then the flag has been the main symbol of Australia. It flies over Parliament house, at official ceremonies and over official buildings. It's on ships and the uniforms of soldiers. And it's flown whenever an Aussie stands at a sporting podium. Except scenes like this at last year's Olympics had some wondering whether Australia's flag really sets us apart.
ROBERT WEBSTER, AUSFLAG CHAIRMAN: Australia, New Zealand and Great Britain finished first, second and third and the three flags went up the flag pole. I imagine people watching in China or the United States or somewhere looking and thinking hmm, there's three British flags just gone up the flag pole because you're immediately drawn to the Union Jack. And that was what really started me on my crusade to change the Australian flag. Robert Webster is the chairman of Ausflag, an organisation which reckons the Aussie flag has an image problem. It's not just the UK and New Zealand that bear the Union Jack. It's on the flags of many countries that used to be British colonies. So to avoid the confusion, Ausflag is trying to get a new flag flown at sporting events. But some reckon a new sporting flag isn't enough and that it's time Australia changed its official flag for good. One argument is that the current flag with its Union Jack doesn't represent Indigenous Australians. Many suffered when their land was colonised by Britain. Now there are separate flags for Aboriginal Australia and the Torres Strait Islands but some people reckon it'd be better to have one flag that represents everyone, including Aussies with no British ancestors. There have been plenty of attempts to design a new one. This one was launched on Australia day by an Aussie academic who tried to incorporate bits of the old flag with symbols of Aboriginal Australia and the country's many migrants. Some loved it, but others thought they could do better. While there disagreements about just what a new flag should look like some reckon we shouldn't be changing it at all. They say it's an important part of Australia's history a symbol that's meant a lot to people including the many soldiers who fought for their country. It's an issue that always stirs up debate. So what do you think?
KID: I don't think the flag should be changed simply because of the all of the history that's happened in Australia and the flag's been part of it.
KID: I think it should be change due to we're not a part of England we've expanded we've had immigrants coming over here.
REPORTER: These are the two designs that people have come up with so what do you think of them?
KIDS: They're all right. That one's better than that one.
KID: That one I think is really good for the new Australian flag because it's got the Aboriginal colours.
KID: This one I think would look better as the Australian flag than the one at the moment.
It is customary for some Indigenous communities not to mention names or reproduce images associated with the recently deceased. Members of these communities are respectfully advised that a number of people mentioned in writing or depicted in image in the following pages have passed away.
This story may also contain words and descriptions that might be culturally sensitive, not normally used in certain public or community contexts. In some circumstances, terms and annotations of the period in which a text was written may be considered inappropriate today.
History, every history student learns, is written by the victors. But in writing about themselves, the victors must also write about those whose lands they have occupied.
This is the story of the Eora, created through a close and innovative interrogation of the European records of early colonisation. Compiled from letters, maps, prints, books and drawings, we can piece together a surprisingly rich account of Aboriginal lives and families after contact. Running contrary to the notion that colonisation completely displaced Aboriginal people, this account gives testimony to a continuing Indigenous presence in Sydney.
They lived here in the place we call Sydney, now a city of over 4 million people. It was a different country then.
United by a common language, strong ties of kinship, and a rich saltwater economy, the indigenous inhabitants survived as skilled hunter-fisher-gatherers in family groups or clans scattered along the coast.
They identified themselves as Eora (pronounced ‘yura’), meaning simply ‘the people’. A word drived from Ed (yes) and ora (here, or this place), it revealed their deep connection to the land.
Engraved in the sandstone throughout the Sydney Basin, the Eora created hundreds of galleries filled with totemic figures. Outlines represented sky heroes, men and women, clubs, shields, whales, sharks, fish, kangaroos, echidnas, birds and lizards.
These drawings were an eloquent witness to their culture, art, and spiritual beliefs, marking a time before the arrival of ‘the people from the clouds’.
1788 marked the arrival of the Beerewalgal, ‘people from the clouds’.
In January of 1788, after rejecting Botany Bay as unsuitable, Governor Arthur Phillip chose Sydney Cove in the harbour of Port Jackson as the site of the first English outpost and convict colony in Australia.
By early February, two boats commanded by Captain John Hunter of HMS Sirius had begun to survey, chart and rename the features of Port Jackson. Warrane became Sydney Cove, Wogganmagule (Farm Cove), Pannerong (Rose Bay) and Booragy (Bradleys Head). Burramatta (‘eel water place’) was at first called Rose Hill, but would later be renamed Parramatta by Governor Phillip.
During this time, the Eora were also documented. Different drawings and descriptions of the Eora within their landscape began to emerge: fishing from bark canoes, gathering by campfires, taking part in initiation ceremonies, burial rites and ritual revenge combats.
Much of what we know of the Eora betwe3en 1770-1850 has come from these early drawings and texts.
Mapping together documents from the Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales, Sydney and other generous institutions including the National Library of Australia, Canberra, the following chapters tell a story of Aboriginal lives and families after contact. Arranged into four main sections (East, West, North and South), this story reflects the geographical location of the Eora clans (-gal) of Port Jackson and coastal Sydney.
The east was known as Gadigal country.
Deriving from Cadi (gadi), the name of the grass trees (Xanthorrhoea species) found in the area, the Cadibal was a harbour-dwelling clan, inhabiting the area from South Head, through the present Eastern Suburbs to Sydney Cove (Warrane), and ending at Darling Harbour (Gomora).
The Eora cut sections of spear shafts from cadi stems and cemented them together with its resin.
Scrolling down, you can see another depiction of these grass trees in the foreground of a print by Joseph Lycett. An English artist and engraver transported for forgery, Lycett’s work captures the Cadigal heartland around inner South Head (Burrawara), Camp Cove (Cadi) and Watsons Bay (Kutti).
The Eora of coastal Sydney were overwhelmed by the shocking influx of new arrivals, many taken by smallpox within the first two years of contact with the Europeans.
Exclusion from traditional lands often led to violence and facilitated the severing of spiritual bonds to country. However, the Eora were resilient in their responses to the invasion.
German-born Charles Rodius was another European artist, known for documenting the Eora after contact. Working as a draughtsman and engraver in Paris, he was charged for theft and sent to New South Wales in 1829. Once in Australia, he was assigned, without salary, to the Department of Public Works.
Rodius frequented the nearby Domain, where he made many sketches of Aboriginal people, including the ‘View from the Government Domain, Sydney 1833, in which fishermen at Woolloomooloo Bay (Walla-mulla) wore cut-off trousers, yet still used the traditional mooting or pronged fishing spear.
Wangal territory began at Memel (Goat Island), rounded the Balmain peninsula and ran west along the south shore of the Parramatta River, almost to Parramatta, home of the Burramattagal (Eel Place Clan).
Woollarawarre Bennelong (c.1764-1813), considered one of the most significant Indigenous men in early Sydney, was a Wangal. Throughout his life, he served as an interlocutor between the Eora and the British, both in Sydney and the United Kingdom.
Under instructions from King George III to establish relationships with the indigenous populations, Governor Arthur Phillip kidnapped Bennelong in late 1789 and brought him to the settlement at Sydney Cove.
He was described as being ‘of good stature, stoutly made’, with a ‘bold, intrepid countenance’ at the time of his capture. Estimated to be around 25, he had an appetite such that ‘the ration of a week was insufficient to have kept him for a day’.
Bennelong stayed in the Sydney Cove for about six months, before escaping from the settlement and renewing contact with Phillip as a free man. Learning to speak English, he maintained ongoing relations with the colony and in a gesture of kinship, gave Phillip the Aboriginal name Wolawaree.
In 1790, Bennelong asked the governor to build him a home on what became known as Bennelong Point, today the site of the Sydney Opera House. Two years later, accompanied by Yemmerrawanie, He travelled with Governor Phillip to England.
He returned in 1795 and died at Kissing Point, in Sydney’s North West suburb of Putney, on 3 January 1813.
While Bennelong was in England, his brother-in-law, Gnung-a Gnung-a Murremurgan (or Anganángan), sailed across the Pacific Ocean on the storeship HMS Daedalus. A husband of Bennelong’s sister Warreeweer, Gnung-a Gnung-a was given the name ‘Collins’ by the English colonists, adopting it from Judge Advocate David Collins.
He travelled to Norfolk Island, Nootka Sound (Vancouver) and Hawaii, where King Kamehameha offered to buy him. In December 1795 Gnung-a Gnung-a was crippled by a spear in the back, thrown by Pemulwuy. He survived, but was found dead behind the Dry Store (the present Sirius Park, near Bridge Street) in January 1809.
Whilst the south side of Parramatta River was Wangal country, the north side, west of its intersection with the Lane Cove River, was home to the Wallumedegal, a name derived from wallumai, the snapper fish.
An Aboriginal man, with his long hair wrapped in paperbark strips, told the French artist Nicolas-Martin Petit that his name was ‘Cour-rou-bari-gal’. As Booragy or Burroggy was the Aboriginal name for Bradleys Head, it is likely that he had replied to the artist’s question ‘What is your name?’ with kuri (man) and Boregegal (Bradleys Head Clan).
Other clans on the north shore of Port Jackson were the Cannalgal at Manly Beach, Birrabirrigal at The Spit and Gorualgal at Georges Head near Mosman.
First Fleet accounts also refer to the Cameragal, Cammeragal or Cameraigal, along the north shoreline opposite the Cadigal. While the Sydney suburb of Cammeray is named after the clan, its people were not only confined to that place.
The Cameragal heartland was Kayyeemy (Manly Cove), taken from the word camy or kami, the generic word for ‘spear’. It was the scene of much of the Eora’s early resistance to the white invaders, as well as the place where Arabanoo, Bennelong and Colebee were abducted under the order of Governor Phillip.
Bungaree (c;1775-1830) was an Eora man from Broken Bay, north of Sydney. He played a key role in Australia’s early coastal exploration. Accompanying Matthew Flinders on HMS Investigator between 1802-1803, Bungaree became known as the first Aboriginal man to circumnavigate the continent.
As part of this trip, Flinders was able to create the first complete map of Australia, filling in the gaps from previous cartographic expeditions. He regarded Bungaree as ‘a worthy and brave fellow’ who saved the expedition on more than one occasion. Bungaree acted as the crew’s interpreter and guide, using his knowledge of Aboriginal protocol to negotiate peaceful meetings with the local Indigenous people.
Bungaree continued to act as a mediator between the English colonists and Aboriginal people throughout his life, ceremonially welcoming visitors to Australia.
In 1815, Governor Lachlan Macquarie presented Bungaree with a crescent-shaped metal breastplate and named him ‘Chief of the Broken Bay Tribe’. He was given 15 acres (61,000 m2) of land on George’s Head to ‘settle and cultivate’, a fishing boat, clothing, seeds and farming implements.
Mrs Elizabeth Macquarie also gave Bungaree a sow and pigs, a pair of Muscovy ducks and outfits for his wife and daughter. Bungaree’s primary wife Cora Gooseberry, also known as Queen Gooseberry, was also given breastplates.
On the afternoon of 28 April 1770, the families of the Gweagal and Kameygal glimpsed a ‘big bird’, a vision from another world. This was the discovery ship, HM Bark Endeavour.
Gweagal (Fire Clan) country covered the southern shore of Botany Bay at Kundul (Kurnell) and Kurunulla (Cronulla), extending to the Woronora River in the west and the Georges River to the south.
The Kameygal (Spear Clan) occupied Kamay, the north shore of Botany Bay, and the country east of the Cooks River, including present day Botany and La Perouse. Their territory also followed the coast northwards to outer South Head, including Bondi.
‘Natives of Botany Bay’, 1789, is perhaps the first image of Australian Indigenous people published in England after the arrival of the First Fleet in 1788.
While the bark canoe is realistically portrayed, the three men are depicted as ‘Noble Savages’, or classical Greek statues, with marble-like skin. Bringing to light the inaccuracies in early European documentation of the Eora, we now know that during this time only Aboriginal women used handlines when fishing from canoes.
Bidjigal (River Flat Clan) country spread west from Botany Bay to Salt Pan Creek, a Georges River tributary stretching north to Bankstown.
Pemulwuy (a name derived from bimul, meaning ‘earth’) was a leader of the Bidjigal. Considered a formidable Aboriginal resistance leader, he ambushed and fatally speared Governor Phillip’s convict game hunter John McEntire in December 1790.
Samuel John Neele’s 1804 engraving of ‘Pimbloy’ is the only known image of Pemulwuy. ‘The resemblance is thought to be striking by those who have seen him,’ wrote James Grant, captain of the sloop Lady Nelson.
Described by Marine Captain Watkin Tench as a ‘young man, with a speck, or blemish, on his left eye’, Pemulwuy let raids against the colonists, burning crops and killing livestock all over Sydney.
In 1801, Philip Gidley King outlawed Pemulwuy, offering spirits and other rewards for his capture, ‘dead or alive’. Pemulwuy was shot on 2 June 1802. He was decapitated and his head, preserved in spirits, was sent to Sir Joseph Banks in London. Whilst Sydney’s indigenous community has requested repatriation of the skull of Pemulwuy, at present its whereabouts is unknown.
This resource was published by NSW Department of Education in 2020 in support of the project, Endeavour - Eight days in Kamay.
Find out more at Endeavour: Eight days in Kamay