The Mitchell Library Sydney collection: ‘Journal of excursion across the Blue Mountains 1822, Barron Field. Published in the London Magazine Vol 8 November 1823 pg 461.
Singers: Clarence Slockee and Matthew Doyle.
Chant & Coo-ees, Harry’s Chant |
Sound table 6.20 |
Harry’s Song Chant is illustrated here in Wiradguri language. Bennelong’s brother in–law Harry, sang this chant to Barron Field.411 Sydney Aboriginal song man and language scholar, Richard Nambrimbrii Green interprets this chant as a question asks by a visitor, asking the chief of Richmond, Gumberey, if he can sit under the tree on his country.
Isaac Nathan’s Coo-ees
In 1840, Australia’s first official composer Englishman Isaac Nathan (1790-1864) transcribed ‘Coo-ees’ of the Maneroo people, south of Sydney in the Goulburn region. Nathan’s transcriptions are found in his The Southern Euphrosyne and Australian Miscellany412 , containing oriental moral tales, original anecdote, poetry and music … / by the editor and sole proprietor I. Nathan. The Sydney Conservatorium library has a copy of this rare book.
Isaac Nathan manuscript:
The reproductions of these transcriptions are printed with permission from the British Library, London U.K and the Mitchell Library of Sydney, Australia.
411 2Field, 461 .
412 Isaac Nathan, The southern euphrosyne and Australian miscellany : containing oriental moral tales, original anecdote, poetry and music . (London: Whittaker & Co., 1849).