History revisited - geography contributes to language diversity

Last week I spoke of the way that Aboriginal society centred on family groups with their own way of speaking, of the way that that these local languages could be grouped in various ways from the local though dialects into broader language groups.

I mentioned, too, the confusion this could create in the minds of observers.

This point helps interpret the map of New England Aboriginal languages drawn from the 1994 Encyclopaedia of Aboriginal Australia, to understand why there is dispute among Aboriginal groups, that boundaries were not precise lines on a map.

In general terms, language boundaries were linked in to river catchments because the boundaries between catchments often created a natural divide. Thus the Moonbi Range marked a clear divide between the Gamilaraay speakers of the Western Slopes and Plains and the Anaiwan or Nganjaywana speakers of the Southern Tablelands.

Why two names for the Anaiwan? There were many, but Anaiwan was the most commonly accepted spelling, But then linguist Terry Crowley coined the name Nganjaywana (ng+anaywana+a) as a more accurate language description. So we can think of Anaiwan as the people, Nganjaywana as the language.

The linkage between catchments and language was not exact. Major geographic regions were also important, since areas with similar environments were more likely to have commonalities in life and culture. This is true of New England.

On the west, Kamilaroi (Gamilaraay) was the largest language group by area. It merged with Wiradjuri to the south, Bigambul to the north. These languages occupied the river valleys flowing west from the Great Dividing Range. Expansion was facilitated by geography.

There is a dense distribution of languages along the coast and adjoining ranges. North-south, most language groups are directly related to catchments. One partial exception is the Clarence, the big river. Its size made it the divide between two very different language groups, Gumbainggir and Bandjalung. A third Gumbainggir related language, Yaygirr, occupied the areas around the mouth of the Clarence.

East-west, languages shade inland, with coastal and linked upper river languages. For example, Bainbaa, the language spoken in the headwaters of the Nymboida River, appears to be a version of Gumbainggir.

The two Tablelands’ language groups shown, Nganjaywana and Ngrarabal, are longer north-south than east-west, squeezed between Gamilaraay and multiple coastal languages; both show some general similarities to the coastal languages.

Nganjaywana is especially interesting, because the north- south shifts in dialect mirror to some degree the shifts in the coastal languages. Northern Anaiwan contains Gumbainggir elements, while southern Anaiwan displays Dianggati (Macleay Valley) influences.

Nganjaywana’s geographic position among so many language groups explains something that often puzzles people, the number of different Aboriginal groups in Armidale that have some historic connection to the Tablelands.

Note to readers: This post appeared as a column in the Armidale Express Extra on 15 May 2013. I am repeating the columns here with a lag because the columns are not on line outside subscription. You can see all the Belshaw World and History Revisited columns by clicking here for 2009, here for 2010, here for 2011, here for 2012, here for 2013

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History revisited - family's role in a language

My last column introduced you to Australia’s 250 or so Aboriginal languages and more  than 700 dialects. There I noted that all the languages spoken across the broader New England could be classified as Pama-Nyungan, the dominant language grouping over much of Australia.

In this column, I want to start digging down, focusing on the languages spoken across the broader New England. To do this, I need to tell you a little about Aboriginal life in New England before the disruptions that came with the First Fleet.

The family was the basic Aboriginal social unit. The family group might be quite small - 10 or less - but could also be a larger group or band of up to 50 or more people linked by kinship. In turn, the bands were linked to other groups in a variety of sometimes complex ways through kinship, language, ceremonies and cooperative activities.

Each family group occupied a defined territory or run.

In desert areas, family groups might be small and the runs large, in some cases up to 25,000 square kilometres. In more fertile areas, the bands could be much larger and the territories smaller. In some fertile places such as the North Coast, there were effectively villages occupied for more extended periods by some groups.

Each band had its own language and its own way of speaking. Groups could understand the language spoken by those around - the Aborigines were multilingual - but language differences increased with distance as interaction diminished.

This created a language hierarchy in which local languages with common features formed dialects and the dialects in turn formed broader language groups.

This is actually no different from the position in Europe, before the rise of the nation state and the process of language standardisation.

If we now look at the broader New England, on the west, the Gamilaraay (Kamilaroi) language group occupied a vast sweep of territory from the Upper Hunter through the western slopes and plains into what is now Queensland and had at least five major dialects or up to seven if the related languages of Yuwaalaraay and Yuwaaliyaay are included.

To the east, the Bundjalung language group occupied the Northern Rivers north from the Clarence extending into Queensland.

In geographic terms, the Gamilaraay territory was larger, but the richness of Bundjalung territory made it the largest language group in New England measured by population. There may have been as many as twenty separate Bundjalung dialects!

The Anaiwan or Nganyaywana Aboriginal peoples from the southern areas of the New England Tablelands appear to have been relatively homogeneous and limited in number. Even here, there were several dialects with language differences shading from north to south.

You can see why the early recorders of Aboriginal language might have struggled to understand the pattern! You can also see why there might be so many inconsistencies in our records.

Note to readers: This post appeared as a column in the Armidale Express Extra on 8 May 2013. I am repeating the columns here with a lag because the columns are not on line outside subscription. You can see all the Belshaw World and History Revisited columns by clicking here for 2009, here for 2010, here for 2011, here for 2012, here for 2013

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History revisited - traditional speech revived

In April, the NSW Government released Ochre, a new framework for Aboriginal policy in NSW. This accepted a recommendation from the Ministerial Taskforce on Aboriginal Affairs that Aboriginal Language and Culture Nests should be trialled initially in one location each for five Aboriginal language groups: Gamilaraay; Gumbaynggirr; Bundjalung; Paarkintji/Barkindji; and Wiradjuri. Three of the five language groups and both the coastal languages are centered in the broader New England. All three Northern language groups have modern relevance to Armidale.

Beneath this simple recommendation lies a remarkable story of loss and now partial recovery. That recovery would not have been possible without the work of scholars especially from the University of New England but also the ANU, nor would it have been possible without the dedication of a relatively small number of Aboriginal elders across the broader New England who fought to revive their language.

I thought that I might explore a little of that story over my next few columns. It’s too complicated to explain in just five hundred words. In this column, I want to introduce you to Aboriginal languages.

In 1788 there were perhaps 250 Aboriginal language groups in Australia incorporating perhaps 700 dialects. The precise distinction between language and dialect can be a difficult one and has become a very real issue among some Aboriginal people who object to their language being classified as a dialect of another. From my perspective, the question of the relationship between languages and between languages and dialects should be seen as a technical one.

In considering languages, we need to make a clear distinction between language and political or territorial boundaries. The broad language groups often covered substantial geographic areas. There were a variety of shifting territorial and political boundaries within each language group. Just speaking the same or a related language did not make for everlasting friendship!

Within this language diversity, all the New England language groups belong to what has come to be called Pama-Nyungan, the dominant language grouping over much of Australia. For a long time, one New England language, Anaiwan, found on the southern New England Tablelands, was seen as distinct, not related to other Aboriginal languages. It took the pioneering work of linguist Terry Crowley to show that Anaiwan was in fact related to adjoining languages.

All the Pama-Nyungan languages have relatively free word order, allowing all possible ordering of subject, verb, object. Verbs and nouns have markers added to indicate who does what to whom, when and how. New words are formed by adding other meaningful segments.

This can make for very long words, really sentences in themselves. The combination of this with the free word order makes for great variety. In my next column, I will tell you about the New England languages themselves. In the meantime, if you would like to listen to a New England language, follow this link - http://www.yuwaalaraay.org/stories.html.

Note to readers: This post appeared as a column in the Armidale Express Extra on 1 May 2013. I am repeating the columns here with a lag because the columns are not on line outside subscription. You can see all the Belshaw World and History Revisited columns by clicking here for 2009, here for 2010, here for 2011, here for 2012, here for 2013

The other columns in this series are:

• History revisited - family's role in a language
• History revisited - geography contributes to language diversity
• History revisited - the destruction of language and how it can really survive

History revisited - the untold story of our Chinese community

In August, 1983, a new display opened at McCrossin’s Mill, Uralla. It was a rather special display on New England’s Chinese heritage.

Growing up, I knew a little of New England’s Chinese heritage. I knew that the Chinese had been here, but beyond a few gravestones in the Other Denominations’ section of the Armidale cemetery and store names in other New England towns. Beyond that, I knew nothing of our Chinese connection. It was all very vague,

I knew from novels that many Chinese had been attracted to the Californian gold fields and had gone on to do things like help build railways. I did not know that California had been called the Gold Mountain, that after the discovery of gold in Australia California became the Old Gold Mountain, Australia the New Gold Mountain.

The first Chinese did not come for gold. They came because NSW had a labour shortage with the ending of transportation, and the regular trade routes between China and England via NSW provided an easy entry route.

In September 1849, at least two Chinese workers entered into the service of J Pike of Pikedale run in what is now the Queensland Granite Belt. In May 1850, M H Marsh employed ten Chinese workers from Amoy, all of whom arrived on one ship, the Cadet. By the end of 1852, Chinese workers were widely if thinly dispersed across New England.

Life could be dangerous for our early Chinese. In May 1852, the Phoenix sank on its way to the Clarence River with 12 Chinese on board. A thirteenth was found wandering the beach with the Aborigines. He was reportedly quite mad, although no-one knew how he had got there.

The discovery of gold in New England brought thousands of Chinese to the New England gold fields from Nundle North. As the gold petered out at Rocky River, the Chinese moved to the tin fields on the Western Slopes and beyond into Queensland. The Chinese influence lingered, especially in Tingha, but for most of us, this early period had become a distant memory.

In September 1982, Kent Mayo and Ron Alexander from the Uralla Historical Society were shown dust coated, water damaged, Chinese artifacts that had come from Tingha piled in a galvanised iron shed. Recognising their significance, they arranged to purchase them for the Society.

Other artifacts were collected across New England

The resulting display that opened in August 1983 provided a remarkable insight into a forgotten part of New England’s life.

Note to readers: This post appeared as a column in the Armidale Express Extra on 24 April 2013. I am repeating the columns here with a lag because the columns are not on line outside subscription. You can see all the Belshaw World and History Revisited columns by clicking here for 2009, here for 2010, here for 2011, here for 2012, here for 2013

History Revisited - early UNE rebellions

Sometimes it can hard to sort fact from fiction, fiction from simple failures of an imperfect memory. Some of my first memories as a child are of the still very small University College. The Teachers’ College was just up the hill from home. Many of the people who feature in the early history of both are not just names. They were friends of my parents or grandparents. I often played with their children.

All these years later, I still have some degree of involvement with the University. In the intervening years I have been an undergraduate student, later a postgraduate student and have been involved with the place in a variety of activities. It can be difficult to disentangle it all, although stories stand out in my mind.

Orientation Week 1963 was very well organised indeed: “study hard,” the new students were told, “but also participate fully in university life.” This wasn’t hard, for apart from the Colleges and the Unions there were no less than fifty-eight clubs and societies on campus. There was little sign that February that the first great student revolt was about to break out.

Some University Council members had become concerned, or so the official line ran, with failure rates in the previous year; student social activities were detracting from study. Students took a different view, that the Council members and one in particular were concerned at perceived sexual immorality and the risk of pregnancy. Whatever the reason, Council decided to restrict room visiting between members of the opposite sex.

This decision was met with protest from colleges, some academic staff and from students. Should inter-collegiate visits be further restricted, Council was warned, “the student body will not feel constrained to obey such regulations.”

With Council to meet to further consider the matter, a major demonstration was organised on the day of the October meeting: 400 students blocked the Elm Avenue bridge, blocking access to Booloominbah until police cleared the road. The students then re-gathered on the lawns outside the Council room to continue their protest.

Council would not be moved. It considered itself in loco parentis at a time when most students lived in college, while many of the first years were seventeen, some sixteen It resolved that from January 1964, room-visiting would be banned. With term ending, the matter rested, but the ground was set for major confrontation in the new year.

Throughout 1964, student opposition continued, strengthening in 1965. Faced with an organised rule breaking campaign including mass room visits, a growing unwillingness of the Proctorial Board to impose fines and increasing opposition from college senior fellows, Council wilted. In September 1965, limited room visiting was reinstated. Agitation continued. Finally, in October 1967, Council handed the whole matter back to the Colleges.

While it was not clear at the time, the room visiting affair marked the start of a period of student rebellion that was to force change on all of Armidale’s schools and colleges. An era had ended.

Note to readers: This post appeared as a column in the Armidale Express Extra on 17 April 2013. I am repeating the columns here with a lag because the columns are not on line outside subscription. You can see all the Belshaw World and History Revisited columns by clicking here for 2009, here for 2010, here for 2011, here for 2012, here for 2013

History Revisited - taking stock of golden opportunity for bank

Have you heard of the Australian Joint Stock Bank? I must admit that I hadn’t until I found reference to it while browsing An Armidale Album, the source for several of my recent columns. .Why is it significant for Armidale? Well, it was our first bank.

Early in 1852, a group of prominent Sydney merchants and citizens met at the Royal Hotel in Sydney to consider the formation of a new bank. The meeting was successful, with the first branch of the Joint Stock bank opening for business in Sydney on 24 January 1853.

Way to the north beyond the old barriers to settlement, the citizens of Armidale were concerned about the lack of local banking facilities. The Armidale Express, worried then as now about the doings of the local citizenry, commented on the large sums of money being realised by the New England working class in general and especially by the diggers at Rocky River. “For the want of a safe place of personal deposit”, the paper observed, “a great portion of this money is being spent on drunkenness, instead of being devoted to purposes alike beneficial to the owners and the best interests of society.”

Whether it was the paper’s call or just the cash being generated on the gold fields, the Armidale branch of the Australian Joint Stock Bank opened on Monday 15 December 1853. The Express was quite pleased. “We regard the opening of the bank as one of the greatest benefits ever conferred on the district”, it declaimed.

Initially the Bank operated from rented premises, but then decided to build its own building on land it had purchased in Beardy Street. By January 1864, the new premises were ready for occupation.

There seem to have been some maintenance problems with the new building or perhaps it just wasn’t very well built. In any event, by late 1887 it was in such a state of disrepair that the Bank decided to tear it down and start again.

Armidale Album records that Sydney architects Blackmann and John Sulman were commissioned to design a new bank. That may not be quite right, unless Sulman was still using the old partnership name. You see, it appears that Blackmann fled Sydney with a barmaid in 1886, leaving Sulman to pay his debts!

In any event, John Sulman (another of the architects who has had such an impact on Armidale’s built landscape) set to work to design a new building. The new design was in the monumental style .so beloved by banks, a physical assertion of authority and respectability.

By April 1889, the new building was finished. Thereafter it remained a bank building for more than a hundred years, finishing its banking career as the State Bank. Have you guessed which building is it? You see it most times you go down town.

Note to readers: This post appeared as a column in the Armidale Express Extra on 3 April 2013. I am repeating the columns here with a lag because the columns are not on line outside subscription. You can see all the Belshaw World and History Revisited columns by clicking here for 2009, here for 2010, here for 2011, here for 2012, here for 2013

History Revisited - the night the city was given light

Public meetings have always been a feature of Armidale life. While not always well attended, little could be done without them. They helped organise public support and to raise money for civic activities.

In 1883, the Great Northern railway finally reached Armidale. At night, the town then lay largely in darkness. Those alighting from the railway found their way to Beardy Street along streets dimly lit by fifteen or sixteen kerosene street lights. Elsewhere, darkness held sway. Something had to be done!

In May 1883, a group of leading citizens petitioned the Mayor, John Moore, to convene a public meeting to consider the feasibility of forming an Armidale gas company.

The idea of gas lighting was hardly new. In 1837, the Australian Gas Light Company (AGL) had been given a Royal Charter charging it with responsibility for lighting Sydney’s streets. On 24 May 1841, the first lights were turned on to celebrate Queen Victoria’s birthday. That year, AGL became the second company to list on the Australian Stock Exchange.

While the idea of gas lighting wasn’t new, the cost of bringing coal to Armidale by road mad gas lighting impractical. Now with the railway, coal could be brought easily from the Hunter Valley.

In Friday 26 May 1883, the requested public meeting convened at the Armidale Town Hall with Mayor Moore in the chair. There they heard a proposal for the construction of a gasworks estimated to cost £7,000 to £8,000. A gas committee was formed to consider proposals and to seek expert advice.

In July, the Mayor presented a proposal to another public meeting that an Armidale Gas Company be established and a share list drawn up. There appears to have been some initial hesitation, but finally the necessary capital was obtained and construction begun on a Beardy Street site, along with around five miles of supporting gas mains and associated building connections.

This was quite a large undertaking in a still small city. Finally, in October 1885, all was ready. The mains were filled with gas, and then a team of plumbers and gasfitters lead by gas manager Samuel Rutter walked the mains to check that all the connected buildings were ready to light-up at dusk.

As night fell on Saturday night, 24 October, the streets were thronged with people, many who had never seen gaslight before. As the City Band played outside the gasworks where red, green and blue lights burned, the stores, hotels and public buildings suddenly blazed with bright light. The darkness that had marked the city was no more.

Note to readers: This post appeared as a column in the Armidale Express Extra on 27 March 2013. I am repeating the columns here with a lag because the columns are not on line outside subscription. You can see all the Belshaw World and History Revisited columns by clicking here for 2009, here for 2010, here for 2011, here for 2012, here for 2013

History Revisited - building creativity in region

It’s an odd thing, really. I have spent more of my life outside Armidale than living in the city. Further, in inclination and writing, I think of myself as a New Englander rather than Armidale person. By New England, I mean not just the Tablelands, but the broader New State New England that formed part of the core of my early life.

And yet, despite all this, I keep coming back to Armidale, sometimes to live, more often to visit. Even now living in Sydney with so many of my family and the people I knew dead, receded into an often forgotten past, the links remain.

One of the advantages of leaving and coming back in the way I do is that you get a picture of the ever changing city, of the pattern of its life, in a way often concealed to those who live there or who rarely return. To the first, what’s relevant is Armidale as it is now. To the second, what’s relevant is Armidale of their particular past that now survives frozen in their minds, perfectly preserved.

I first met Michael Sharkey and his fellow Armidale poets when I returned to Armidale in 1981 to do some post graduate studies in history. I already knew writers such as Gwen Kelly, but they were generally older than me, more friends of my parents or of children I knew.

Michael and I shared certain common views. Like me, he believed that existing systems discriminated against Armidale and the North. My views were based on my history, politics and my experiences as a public servant. His views and those of others in the Armidale poets were based on their experiences as poets.

To Michael’s mind, the metro based intellectual elites (my wording) were biased in favour of their own. They controlled the funding, the book distribution systems, the main poetry reviews, the main small magazines. They went with what they knew. Those outside the system found it harder to be published, to get funding or recognition. Standards were only partially relevant, access was all.

The remarkable thing about Armidale and the broader New England is that so many of us fought back. In the case of the Armidale poets, they established their own small presses to bring each other’s work to a wider audience.

The critical year was 1979.

In 1975, a group of far flung University of New England external literature students led by Tony Bennett established the Kadoorair Poetry Society. In 1979, Tony and others joined to establish the Kardoorair Press as an outlet for the Society and for writers based on the Northern Tablelands or with an affiliation with the region. In that same year, Michael joined with Winifred Belmont to establish Fat Possum Press.

Tony, Michael and others including Julian Croft joined in the promotion of poetry. Apart from adding to the texture of Armidale life, the result was a poetic flowering that is part of the story of our city.

Note to readers: This post appeared as a column in the Armidale Express Extra on 20 March 2013. I am repeating the columns here with a lag because the columns are not on line outside subscription. You can see all the Belshaw World and History Revisited columns by clicking here for 2009, here for 2010, here for 2011, here for 2012, here for 2013

Introducing the story of the New England Independents

In a post on my personal blog, Thank you Richard Torbay, I looked at the unfolding story of Richard Torbay's resignation and expressed my personal thanks to Richard on certain things.  There I referred to a Sydney Morning Herald Story that said in part:

Mr Torbay is known for assisting independents to run against Liberal and Nationals candidates.

The Lake Macquarie MP, Greg Piper, is close to Mr Torbay, but he is also understood to have assisted the former Dubbo MP, Dawn Fardell and Peter Draper, the former member for Tamworth.

Before the 2011 election Mr Torbay is believed to have aided the former Liberal mayor of Hornsby, Nick Berman, in his unsuccessful bid against Liberal Matt Kean.

Mr Tripodi was spotted having coffee with Mr Berman during the campaign.

My response was as follows:

Well, bloody hell, what a surprise and what does it mean? As I have written, the New England independents formed a different political movement. And yes, in this role they did support other independents in an organised way. That's not a secret. But it has absolutely nothing to do with the main theme of the story beyond adding to doubts about the wisdom of Richard's endorsement.

The story of the rise and fall of the New England independents would make a good book. Its not one that I can write. I don't have the time when I am struggling with other writing projects. The protagonists would not necessarily accept my description of them. But then I see their role in terms of the broad sweep of New England history that I am writing about.

Over the next week or so, I thought that I might bring up a few posts so that someone else might tell the story. I haven't spoken to the main protagonists about this, although I do know some of their campaign workers and certainly know the milieu from which they sprang.

So I am going to record a few jottings that might, imperfectly, give a base for someone else. It's a complicated story, for the rise of the independents was a NSW phenomenon. But only in New England did it become a political movement.      

History Revisited - College's uncertain days

Early in February 1938, a young looking thirty year old lecturer in history and economics arrived to take up his appointment at the newly created New England University College. It would be some weeks before the next academic staff member arrived. There were just two students enrolled; Jean Dyce, the Warden’s secretary, promptly tried to enrol him as the third and was disappointed to find that he was only a staff member.

The story had begun some six months before. On the journey back to New Zealand from England after completing his PhD at Manchester, the ship had called at Sydney. The young man left the ship to inquire about job prospects at the University and the banks. It was in the Economics Department at the Bank of New South Wales that he heard vague rumours about a proposed university college to be established in a remote part of the state. Those he talked to were not impressed.

Around December, the first five academic positions at the New England University College were advertised. Without much enthusiasm and with decided reservations, he decided to apply, beating thirty five other applicants for the position.

His reservations did not disappear with his arrival in Armidale, nor was his enthusiasm aroused. The town seemed small; it was dry, brown and dusty, a huge contrast to New Zealand’s green. It seemed to be asleep a great part of the time, or at least very drowsy.

Booloominbah, the home of the new College, was three miles from town along a narrow dirt track. Since none of the new lecturers had cars, it appeared very isolated even from Armidale. Further, work on building alterations was still underway. Everything was being done in a rush.

You can get a feel for this if you look at the chronology. Legislation to allow the formation of the new College passed Parliament in December 1937. Then all the machinery issues had to be addressed before building work could commence and academic staff be recruited. There was less than three months between the advertisement for academic staff and the start of lectures.

There were very particular reasons for this rush.

The University College’s main proponents had all been involved in the creation of the Armidale Teachers College ten years before. That, too, had been done in a rush and wisely so. Depression hit Australia twelve months after its creation. There were moves to close the Armidale Teachers College, but the project was too far advanced.

With that lesson in front of them, the University project was pushed hard and again wisely so. Had the opening been delayed even twelve months, the onset of war could well have closed the University College. As it was, it was to be a close fought battle with the Army who wanted the site for a convalescent battle.

And that young staff member? He stayed and became an active member of that close knit University College community forged through those early experiences.

Photo Dr James P Belshaw October 1940

Note to readers: This post appeared as a column in the Armidale Express Extra on 6 March 2013. I am repeating the columns here with a lag because the columns are not on line outside subscription. You can see all the Belshaw World and History Revisited columns by clicking here for 2009, here for 2010, here for 2011, here for 2012, here for 2013