6a.5 Burrabul-la Notes
Woolawaree Benelong & Yemmerwarrane sing in London
Governor Phillip wrote in a letter to Sir Joseph Banks in London in 1791
‘I think my old acquaintance Bennillon will accompany me when ever I return to England, and from him when he understands English, much information may be attained, for he is a very intelligent’547
After their long voyage to England, on ship Atlantic, Bennelong and Yemmerawanne peformed Barabul-la in London in 1793. In September 2009, historian Keith Vincent Smith rediscovered the transcription of Bennelong and Yemmerawanne’s song ‘Barabul-la’ in published works of Edward Jones’s rare Musical Curiosities (1811) in the British Library. Smith was researching his Mari Nawi: Aboriginal Odysseys exhibition and book for the Mitchell Galleries of the State Library of New South Wales in Sydney 2010.
‘In a town house in Georgian London’s Mayfair two Aboriginal men sing a song in their own language ‘in praise of their Lovers’. The year is 1793. Their voices rise above the beat of the two hardwood sticks they clap together to maintain the rhythm. The singers were Bennelong and his young kinsman Yemmerrawanne, far from their Wangal homeland on the south bank of the Parramatta River in Sydney. They lodged in Mount Street, near Berkeley Square and wore fashionable breeches, buckled shoes, ruffled shirts and waistcoats.
This was certainly the first time an Australian Aboriginal song was performed in Europe. The words and music were written down by Edward Jones (1752-1824) ‘from the Singing of BENELONG, and YAM-ROWENY, the two Chiefs who were brought to England some years ago, from Botany Bay, by Governor Phillips [sic]’548
Aboriginal people in Sydney have long known about the song and early colony writers William Dawes and David Collins had recorded texts of the song, but no one had seen the manuscript. Marine Lieutenant William Dawes wrote the song down in his Aboriginal Language notebook in 1791:
Although Bennelong and Yemmerrawanne said theirs was a love song, British ‘First Fleet’ officers and journal keepers also recorded the words, but not the music, of the same and similar songs from the Sydney area, which they were told were about hunting, courtship and ancestors. The stargazing marine lieutenant and engineer William Dawes (1762-1836) included ‘A Song of New South Wales’ in his notebooks, filled with ‘Sydney Language’ words and candid dialogues with his chief Aboriginal informant, a girl named Patyegarang (Grey Kangaroo). Dawes’s notebooks, once owned by the British linguist William Marsden, are now in the collection of the School ofOriental and African Studies at the University of London. In his transcription, Dawes substituted the letter ‘P’ for ‘B’ :549
547 6 Smith, Mari Nawi, 27. Letter from Gvr.Phillip to Joseph Banks 3rdDecember 1791, Banks papers A81:34-44 ML.
548 2Jones ,15.
549 Smith, Keith.V. “1793: A Song of the Natives of New South Wales,”British Library Journal eBLJ,Article 14,(2011). http://www.bl.uk/eblj/2011articles/article14.html, http://www.bl.uk/eblj/2011articles/pdf/ebljarticle142011.pdf, (accessed Sept 2015).
