Tuesday, 18 June 2024
Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney
Her Excellency the Honourable Margaret Beazley AC KC, Governor of New South Wales

Thank you, Yvonne^[1], for your warm welcome to country, and to the inspiring performers tonight. 

Bujari Gamarruwa

Diyn Babana, Gamarada Gadigal Ngura

In greeting you in the language of the Gadigal, Traditional Owners of these lands and waterways, I pay my respects to their Elders past, present, and emerging, as well as the Elders of all parts of our State from which you have travelled.

I extend that respect to the Māori, whose traditions are celebrated tonight, as Matariki Ma-tah-REE-kee makes its reappearance in the night sky.

I want to commence tonight by paying tribute to the great Rugby Union Team, aka the Wallabies, for continuing to coach that team from ‘across the Ditch’ in the art of coming from behind, as they were forced to do in the last game of the Bledisloe Cup on 5 August last year, making a clean sweep of the annual series (again)^[2].

That of course is recent history – but falls in a continuum of Australia always looking out to support this little neighbour of ours – which, in terms of European written history, extends back over 230 years. 

Perhaps paradoxically – or is it par for the course? – the story involves a kidnapping and the seemingly endemic  misunderstandings by those Europeans who wandered this part of the globe in the late 18^th century.  

In 1774, Captain Cook discovered, in the European sense,^[3] Norfolk Island^[4], 1600 kms northeast of here^[5], best described as a remote island surrounded by a “thousand-mile moat”^[6], on which he observed vegetation he described as ‘flax’. ^[7]

Back in Europe, Empress Catherine II had limited the sale of hemp – an alarming development as Russian hemp was the source material for the Royal Navy’s sailing ropes.  

Remembering Cook’s observations on Norfolk Island, the British Government came up with a ‘two birds – one stone’ solution: by expanding the proposed convict colony for New South Wales to Norfolk Island, and using convict labour to cultivate flax, as an alternative source for rope and, even possibly, sail.^[8] 

A mere few weeks after the First Fleet arrived in Botany Bay, the Sirius, carrying Lieutenant Philip Gidley King, a handful of convicts, and a flax-dresser, were sent to settle the island.^[9]  

To their consternation, not one leaf of flax could be found – a true case of mistaken identity of the horticultural kind.^[10] As it turned out, a prolific plant on the island that looked like iris was the ‘flax’ Cook had been referring to; but, being New Zealand rather than European flax, the flax-dresser had not a clue as to its preparation.^[11]   

Understanding the skills of the Māori, King suggested one or two Māori master fibre-makers might be encouraged to come to Norfolk to teach their trade.^[12]  It took a some years for permission to be given by the Admiralty to pursue this endeavour.^[13]

In 1793, with approval finally given, two Māori men, Tuki-tahua TOO-kee ta-HOO-a and Huru-kokoti HOO-roo kor-KOR-tee, were lured from their canoes in the Bay of Islands onto a British ship  and unceremoniously taken to Norfolk Island.^[14]

Consternation reigns supreme in this story, as what Tuki and Huru knew about flax could be taught in a single day: Tuki was a priest, and Huru a warrior, and, in any event, expertise in the arts of flax-dressing and weaving the sole provenance of Māori women.^[15] Proof, if needed, of the truism ‘never send a man to do a woman’s job’.

Without means to plot their departure, Tuki and Huru made themselves both amiable and companionable and, as the story goes, lived to tell the tale of a 6-month stay on Norfolk Island as honoured guests at Government House with Governor King.

Honouring his promise to return them home, King eventually commandeered a passing ship and, travelling with them to ensure their safe transit, sailed to the north coast of New Zealand. Their final parting was full of emotion and sentiment.^[16] 

In the words of William Chapman, King’s secretary, “they cryed terribly and everybody on board was very much affected at the parting particularly the Governor who said he never parted with his mother with more regret than he did with those two men”.^[17]

King also sent Tuki and Huru home laden with gifts, including tools, pigs, and potatoes.^[18]

The end of the story is the beginning of another, with the establishment of what was the Colony’s first diplomatic relationship when, a decade later, in 1805, a Chieftain of the Bay of Islands area, Te Pahi te-PAR-hee, along with 4 of his sons, came to Sydney, where King was now Governor of NSW, to pay his respects.

As Te Pahi explained on being presented to the Governor, his father had instructed him to seek out ‘Kaawani Kingi’ – as he was known around the Bay of Islands^[19] – and thank him for the introduction of the potato to his homeland, which by then was growing in “greatest abundance.”^[20]

Chieftain Te Pahi’s departure 3 months later was an occasion of considerable ceremony and gift-giving. Governor King received a club and several cloaks. In addition to iron tools and a prefabricated house, King gave Te Pahi a silver medallion, commissioned, in King’s words, “To give [Te Pahi] some proof of the estimation he was held in by me and the inhabitants of this place”.^[21]

Made of two silver watch cases hammered together, and now in the collection of the Auckland Museum, the silver medallion is of particular significance: “the first state award presented to a Māori chief, and commemoration of the earliest visit of such an eminent person to Australia”^[22].

The moral of this tale is easy to discern. If it hadn’t been for Governor King’s colonial largesse in giving New Zealand the potato – now a staple of the best of Māori cuisine – the All-Blacks would still be lagging behind their Wallaby counterparts

It is in the spirit of this symbol of mutual respect and recognition, of shared friendship and knowledge across cultures and seas, that I say, not only to our friends from Aotearoa AH-or-te-ah-ror-ah New Zealand, but to all here,

Ngā mihi o Matariki, te tau hou Māori^[23].

NGA mee-hee-or-mah-tah-REE-kee

te tah-oo hor-oo MAAR-or-ee

[1] Cr Yvonne Wheldon, City of Sydney.

[2] The All-Blacks won 23-20, after the Wallabies led 17-3 at half-time. The 2-0 series win was the third consecutive clean sweep by the All-Blacks: smh.com.au/sport/rugby-union/bledisloe-cup-2023

[3] Kingston Cultural Area Norfolk Island website, available here. There is a story that Cook had dined alongside Lady Norfolk on the eve of his departure and had promised her that, if he found a small island, he would name it after her: ‘Cook’s “Forgotten” Isle’, National Library of Australia ‘Stories’ website, 23 January 2019, available here

[4] Kingston Cultural Area Norfolk Island website, available here. There is a story that Cook had dined alongside Lady Norfolk on the eve of his departure and had promised her that, if he found a small island, he would name it after her: ‘Cook’s “Forgotten” Isle’, National Library of Australia ‘Stories’ website, 23 January 2019, available here

[5] “Norfolk Island is situated 1676 kilometres northeast of Sydney, at 167°57'E, 29°02'S… with an overall area of just over 37 square kilometres. Most of the island is a plateau formed from horizontal sheets of basalt, … a mountain top remnant of an elongated shield volcano”: ‘Norfolk Island’, Australian Government Geoscience Australia website, available here

[6] Anne Salmon, Between Worlds: Early Exchanges between Maori and Europeans, 1773-1815, University of Hawaii Press, 1997, p.211

[7] James Gill, ‘Norfolk Island – the First Phase’, Journal of the Royal Historical Society of Queensland, v.10 n.1, 1976, p.135.

[8] Karen Stapley, ‘A Settlement in the Pacific Ocean for Growing Flax’, British Library ‘Untold Lives’ website, 11 April 2024, available here. “We are desirous that some further Information should be obtained of the several Ports or Harbours upon the Coast and the Islands contiguous thereto within the Limits of Your Government; you are, whenever the Sirius or the Supply Tender, can conveniently be spared, to send one, or both of them, upon that service to Norfolk Island … as a spot which may hereafter become useful; you are, as soon as circumstances will admit of it, to send a small Establishment thither to secure the same to us”: Instructions to Governor Phillip, 25 April 1787, p.14. Transcript available here

[9] The Sirius departed Sydney Cove on 14 February 1788: Gill, ‘Norfolk Island – the First Phase’, op. cit., p.139. The speed with which King was ordered by Phillip to the island may have been prompted by the arrival of La Perouse at Botany Bay a few days after the British. La Perouse told Philip that, on the way to Botany Bay, he had anchored off Norfolk Island but had been unable to land due to the surf: Historical Records of New South Wales: Vol. I, Part 2, Phillip 1783-1792, 1892, p.123. According to Governor Phillip, King was sent with “a petty officer, surgeon’s mate, two marines, two men who understood the cultivation of flax, with nine men and six women convicts:” Historical Records of New South Wales: Vol. I, Part 2, Phillip 1783-1792, 1892, p.124. However, in addition to the convicts, marines, and seamen, it seems only a single “weaver” was sent: Gill, ‘Norfolk Island – the First Phase’, op. cit., pp.139-140.

[10] The European form (‘linen flax’) is Linum usitatissimum. New Zealand flax (harakeke or ‘swamp flax’ and wharariki or ‘mountain flax’) are either Phormium tenax or Phormium colensoi, the former the variety native to Norfolk Island: ‘Story: Flax and Flax-Working’, Te Ara Encyclopedia of New Zealand online, available here.

[11] “Unfortunately, the person I sent, who calls himself a flax-dresser, cannot prepare it, as this plant requires a different treatment in the dressing to what the European flax-plant does”: Letter to Lord Sydney from Governor Phillip, 28 September 1788, reprinted in: Historical Records of New South Wales: Vol. I, Part 2, Phillip 1783-1792, 1892, p.182. Also, in King’s words: “The method of soaking and preparing European flax and hemp, had been tried, but with no other effect than separating the vegetable part from the fibres; and a ligneous substance still remaining, it could not be reduced to an useful state”: from King’s Journal, included in An Historical Journal of the Transactions at Port Jackson and Norfolk Island, available here 

[12] “Should the manufacturing of the flax-plant on Norfolk Island be thought an object, which it must be, were it only to clothe those who are now there, two or three New Zealanders would be necessary, to show how the operation of separating the flaxy from the vegetable part of the flax is performed . . . Without that assistance I do not think we shall succeed, as every method we could devise has been tried already, but without success”: Letter to Joseph Banks, quoted in Anne Salmon, Between Worlds: Early Exchanges between Maori and Europeans, 1773-1815, University of Hawaii Press, 1997, p.206. King’s initial suggestion that convicts be spent to learn from the Māori in New Zealand was rejected by the Admiralty as impracticable and dangerous: Salmon, op. cit., p.205. He had also offered rewards to whalers to ask Maori around the Bay of Islands to come to Norfolk, but this too had been unsuccessful: ibid, pp.211-212.

[13] The commander of the Daedalus, Lieutenant Hanson, had been given orders to, en route to NSW with a load of pigs, stop by New Zealand and “use his best endeavours to take … one or two flax-dressers”: Admiralty orders quoted in Vincent O’Malley, The Meeting Place: Māori and Pākehā Encounters, 1642-1840 Auckland University Press, 1967, p.39.

[14] “[T]hey were some time about the Ship, before the Canoe in which Tooke and Woodoo were, ventured alongside; when a number of Iron Tools and other Articles were given into the Canoe, the Agent Lieutenant Hanson (of whose kindness to them they speak in the highest terms) Invited and pressed them, to go on board, which Tooke and Woodoo were anxious to do immediately, but were prevented by the persuasion of the Countrymen; at length [they] went on Board, & according to their Expression, they were blinded by the Curious things they saw; Lieutenant Hanson prevailed on them to go below, where they Eat some meat; At this time the Ship made sail, One of them saw the Canoes astern, and perceiving the Ship was leaving them, they both became frantic with Grief, & broke the Cabin Windows, with an intention of leaping Over Board, but were prevented”: account of the kidnapping, according to Tuki and Huru, as recorded by King and quoted in Vincent O’Malley, The Meeting Place: Māori and Pākehā Encounters, 1642-1840 Auckland University Press, 1967, p.41. They arrived on Norfolk Island 30 April 1793; en route they had first been taken to Port Jackson, arriving on 20 April, where they were transferred onto the Calcutta merchantman Shaw Hormuzear, which left for Norfolk Island on 20 April: Salmon, op. cit., p.210. 

[15] “Every information that could be got from them, respecting their mode of manufacturing the Flax plant, was obtained in One day … and which turned out to be very little, as this operation is the peculiar Occupation of the Women, & as Wooddoo [Huru] is a Warrior, & Tookee (Tuki) a Priest, they gave us to understand, that Dressing Flax, never made any part of their studies:” King, quoted in Salmon, op. cit., p.214.

[16] Salmon op. cit., pp.227-231; O’Malley, op. cit., pp.42-44.

[17] From a letter Chapman wrote on 19 November 1793, quoted in Salmon, op. cit., p.218.

[18] The full tally: “six sets of linen, two green suits faced with orange, three swords, plus needles, thread, knives and looking glasses. [Also] axes, a selection of carpenters’ tools, six spades, hoes, knives, scissors, razors, two bushels of seed maize, one of wheat, two of peas, a number of garden seeds, ten young sows, and two boars”: Salmon, op. cit., p.230.

[19] Salmon, op. cit., p.350.

[20] Salomon, op. cit., p.232.

[21] Mark Stocker, ‘A Silver Slice of Māori History: the Te Pahi Medal’, 2015, pp.33, 37, available here

[22] Stocker, op. cit., p.37.

[23] ‘Best wishes for Matariki, Māori New Year’