G’day Swordians! I trust you had a great Australia Day. I had a very interesting time myself – did a bit of backpacking in Queensland and actually met up with an old aboriginal guy when I was doing a bit of walking there. He was boiling his billy, and as I was feeling a bit peckish myself, I stopped and took the opportunity to have a bit of a chin-wag with him. We chatted about this and that and when he asked me was I doing anything special for Australia Day, I optimistically said that, whatever happened, “I was going to have a whale of a time!” He laughed, and then began to tell me a story about how Australia Day came to his people way back in the mists of time. He said my mention of having a “whale” of a time reminded him of this yarn and, more or less in his own words, the following is how it happened: [more]
“Way back before the whitefellas came with their convict ships in 1788, we had already been visited by another mob from that same part of the world...They said they were descended from WHALES and spoke a strange language called GALELICK...They were also very fond of playing a game called RUGBEE...However, they weren’t very good at this game and kept getting hammered by every team they played against...Then, they heard about a team beyond the southern horizon that was supposed to be very easy to beat at RUGBEE...They were called the ANTARCTIC PENGUINS...So, the RUGBEE team headed off in their boat to find these PENGUINS, but, unfortunately, were blown off-course and ended up making landfall around here on the Queensland coast, where they married into our local people, and that is why the indigenous people around here today speak three languages – our local aboriginal tongue, English, and GALELICK...
“We’ve got a right one here”, I thought to myself, and was half-thinking about hitting the road and leaving this old codger to share his fairy-tales with the breeze...But, I hadn’t finished my can of Coke and packet of Munchies, so I let him carry on...
“Then, many years later, another group of whitefellas came – it was the First Fleet of convicts in 1788. Everybody knows that most of the ships landed way south from here in CIDKNEE, but, few realise that one of the ships made a mistake and went further north and was wrecked on the rocks over there... [he pointed to a row of treacherous rocks girding the coast close to where we were sitting]
“Mockingly behind his back, the leader of the unfortunate convict ship was called Captain TOE-KNEE by both convicts and crew. They called him this because he exercised so much on deck he gave himself a bad dose of ARTHURITIS...
“Anyway, TOE-KNEE was not a very good captain of his ship. He was very harsh. In fact, he put much store in a big book he always carried around with him...He called it, the BUYBELL and he was fond of one bloke mentioned in particular in his BUYBELL, called LEVY...TOE-KNEE used to take a portion of the crew’s and convicts’ rations and said that he could do this because LEVY in his BUYBELL told him he could...So TOE-KNEE put a LEVY on the crew’s flintlocks...and to help pay for the holiday he planned in a place called EESTTEAMORE...and also on the crew’s and convicts’ rations of milk and sugar...and if anyone complained, TOE-KNEE would whack them fifty times with his BUYBELL...which they called, BUYBELLBASHING. However, TOE-KNEE said this treatment was for their own good and should more accurately be described as GUYDEAD-DEMOCKRASSEE...
“So, when TOE-KNEE’s ship was still on the rocks, a canoe containing some of my people went out with some food for them...However, TOE-KNEE was in a bad mood and kept hollering, “STOBTHEEBOTES!”...They captured my people and rowed them over the horizon where, they said, the great sea monster, NOWEROO, would eat them...Even today, when the kids are playing up, we tell them to behave or NOWEROO will get them...hee...hee...
“And they used to laugh at TOE-KNEE when he shouted into his empty tin of baked beans with the string attached...’There’s no need to shout, Captain’, the first mate would say, ‘I’m right beside you’...hee...hee...
“One day, after they had landed, TOE-KNEE sent out the crew and convicts to explore the surrounding area...he gave them the other empty baked beans tin with an extra-long string attached to his, and told them to keep in regular contact with him...However, he decided to keep the two most notorious convicts with him, as he couldn’t trust them to be out of his sight for even one second...As TOE-KNEE did his habitual exercises, the two convicts were left twiddling their thumbs. The chief convict was called JOOLEEAH, and the other was called DAFFID...JOOLEEAH had been sentenced to seven years for being WELSH, and when she appealed such a ludicrous charge and penalty, she was given an extra seven years for having dangly earlobes! DAFFID, for his part, had been given a not-so-straight fourteen years for claiming to be the only gay in the village...hee...hee...
“Anyway, JOOLEEAH and DAFFID were conversing in WELSHGALELICK when one of my indigenous ancestors overheard and, being tri-lingual, immediately recognised the language...He happily joined in their conversation. Meanwhile, TOE-KNEE was getting TOEWEE at the lack of response from the exploration party...He kept bellowing into his empty baked beans can, but there was no response...Then, my indigenous ancestor picked up a shiny rock from the ground and, using the sunlight reflected off it, was able to communicate in a form of indigenous semaphore, with another of my indigenous ancestors who was standing on a hill-top in the far distance...
“TOE-KNEE could hear JOOLEEAH, DAFFID and my ancestor speaking in WELSHGALELICK and presumed it was the local tongue...”But, but, but...what is this damn chappie saying, for god’s sake?” demanded TOE-KNEE. “And what is that infernal piece of stone he’s flashing?” JOOLEEAH told TOE-KNEE that my ancestor called it an EN-BEE-EN, but she didn’t add that he also said, because it used light, it was a lot better way to communicate than that old rusty tin can of baked beans he was holding...hee...hee...
“Anyway, JOOLEEAH spun TOE-KNEE the yarn that my ancestor on the far hill had reported the string had been dragged over the back of a frill-necked lizard and had been severed, so everyone was out of contact...In reality, my ancestor on the hill had reported with his EN-BEE-EN that the crew and convicts were fed up with TOE-KNEE’s GUYDEAD-DEMOCKRASSIE regime, and had BOLTED...And, to this day, we say that when someone is running away from their problems, they are ‘doing an Andrew’...hee...hee...”
And so, the old Aboriginal bloke concluded the guts of his story about how Australia Day came to that particular part of Queensland. He added, ominously, that just to the north of where we were standing, “the still-troubled spirit of TOE-KNEE continues to haunt that particular area”, and, if I knew what was good for me, “I would give it a miss and go in another direction”. He also said that even to this day, when the old folks are getting gip from their ARTHURITIS, they say that “TOE-KNEE is in there doing his exercises!”...hee...hee...
So, I took his advice and headed off somewhere else. And I was made all the richer for having listened.
So, what was your Australia day like?
Was it just an excuse for having a day off, or did you try to get into the true spirit of the day?
Should one of the purposes of Australia Day be recognition of the effects of White Settlement on the indigenous people?
How can the positive effects of both White Settlement and our indigenous heritage be built on today and in the future?
TOE-KNEE claimed that in his BUYBELL, it says it was warmer in Jesus’ time than it is now, so global warming is a load of crap! Can anyone give me chapter and verse on this one, cos I haven’t come across it in the bible I own!
Should an exorcist be dispatched immediately to Queensland to finally put TOE-KNEE out of his misery?
Whaddya think?
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