Introduction
This is the story of a song.
A song I heard as a child in the late 1960s and early 1970s. But it is a song that made me wonder where Botany Bay was.
As I was growing up before the Independence of Papua New Guinea, two places in the present day Australia called to my imagination. Melbourne, a place I could see on the map and Botany Bay a magical place in my imagination.
My elder sisters brought the song home and they would sing it at home. I had three elder sisters and I liked being with them as a child when they would start comparing the different songs that they were learning in school.
I used to be transported by that song and I couldn't wait to go to school myself and learn the song first hand. In many ways, I too wanted to be bound for Botany Bay.
"Botany Bay" was a song that neither "Waltzing Matilda" nor "This Old Man" could rival in my childhood taste for beautiful songs.
By the time I entered prep in 1970, I kept listening out in the various classes to see which teacher was teaching "Botany Bay". But it seems that I had come in to school too late. For suddenly, it seemed that one part of history would be denied to me. After my own school day, which at the time for preps ended at 12 mid day, I would wait around outside various classrooms, listening for the song. But I never heard it in school ever.
The elder children's class rooms especially around the grade four classrooms, in 1970 were singing "This old man" before they would break for lunch. But I kept listening out for Botany Bay.
The elder children's class rooms especially around the grade four classrooms, in 1970 were singing "This old man" before they would break for lunch. But I kept listening out for Botany Bay.
We must have had some Irish Australian teachers in Rabaul in those days. Because there was another Irish lullaby that I had heard: "Too-ra-loo-ra-loo-ra"
I never really cared much for the meaning of the words of "Botany Bay" nor did I stop to ponder what must have been the heart breaking conditions that inspired a poet or musician to compose the song.
Today, it can be amazing to wonder: Was this really a song written for entertainment? How could that be, when one human's suffering could be another's pleasure? Yet, when we look at theatrical entertainment over the years, it is such that "Les Miserables" do make for the best figurants or stooges of stage and screen.
But as a child, I was in awe of the song's somehow, liberating refrain. There was something in it that even a child could sense. Something melancholic but something also healing. Something that made even a child go looking. Reaching out. Breathing the air for the meaning of song.
Today, it can be amazing to wonder: Was this really a song written for entertainment? How could that be, when one human's suffering could be another's pleasure? Yet, when we look at theatrical entertainment over the years, it is such that "Les Miserables" do make for the best figurants or stooges of stage and screen.
But as a child, I was in awe of the song's somehow, liberating refrain. There was something in it that even a child could sense. Something melancholic but something also healing. Something that made even a child go looking. Reaching out. Breathing the air for the meaning of song.
Singing too-ral, li-ooral, li-addity,
Singing too-ral, li-ooral, li-ay,
Singing too-ral, li-ooral, li-addity,
And we're bound for Botany Bay.
I should also explain that "To Ura Lai" in my own language means, two mates or two friends. A familiar term we use to address a brother in law. As inlaws in my culture are addressed in the plural. "Tolai" (my friend) the name my people are known by in PNG, is in fact the singular form of "To Ura Lai" the polite form. It is quite normal for a man in joy or even distress to call out to his "Ura Lai" in various intonations.
Children of my generation, when we were in pain, or if we were punished, or hurt, we would cry out:
"Ooh yau kalalai, yau kalalai titi".
These words have no translatable meaning in the Kuanua language. It is just a long exclamation of a child's fear and anticipation.
Children would chant those lines when they were beaten as was the common practice of the time. As we were called to a beating punishment, we would start chanting that song and sing it as long as we could manage to pronouce it. Then when the pain of the beating became too much, then we would lose the power of speech. We would stop that chanting and switch to "Oui Iau Kamuka, Iau Kamuka", which we would utter at every stroke. Curiously, although this translates to the "Mea Culpa" in latin, we did not shout them to admit guilt. We wanted to speak and prolong the time between strokes. Survival instincts. Children just learnt it from one another and practiced it.
It was almost by a curious onomatopoeic echo, that the song had come to me. Of course I knew it had other meanings but first impressions are first impressions. And in my traditional musical culture there is a whole genre of songs that are called "Li-li". Li-li is synonymous with "song" for which other words in the language are: "kakailai", and "liu" etc.
But as I grew older, I started to realise the meaning of the song. I begain to realise the plight of people who had been sent away from home. And one part of me wanted to know why this was necessary. That's when the song again echoed with traditional myths and legends that I had heard as a child.
Children of my generation, when we were in pain, or if we were punished, or hurt, we would cry out:
"Ooh yau kalalai, yau kalalai titi".
These words have no translatable meaning in the Kuanua language. It is just a long exclamation of a child's fear and anticipation.
Children would chant those lines when they were beaten as was the common practice of the time. As we were called to a beating punishment, we would start chanting that song and sing it as long as we could manage to pronouce it. Then when the pain of the beating became too much, then we would lose the power of speech. We would stop that chanting and switch to "Oui Iau Kamuka, Iau Kamuka", which we would utter at every stroke. Curiously, although this translates to the "Mea Culpa" in latin, we did not shout them to admit guilt. We wanted to speak and prolong the time between strokes. Survival instincts. Children just learnt it from one another and practiced it.
It was almost by a curious onomatopoeic echo, that the song had come to me. Of course I knew it had other meanings but first impressions are first impressions. And in my traditional musical culture there is a whole genre of songs that are called "Li-li". Li-li is synonymous with "song" for which other words in the language are: "kakailai", and "liu" etc.
But as I grew older, I started to realise the meaning of the song. I begain to realise the plight of people who had been sent away from home. And one part of me wanted to know why this was necessary. That's when the song again echoed with traditional myths and legends that I had heard as a child.
So there were some convicts? Some criminals? What kind of criminals?
- Poachers - people who were just hunting animals like I am allowed to do in PNG
- People who destroyed crops - they must have been hungry and they probably took some food from farms
- Political Protestors - people protesting against low wages
These were criminals?
As I grew older I began to hear "Botany Bay" differently. How could a criminal be so homesick? Why this pain from someone "evil" and condemned?
International Events Leading to Transportation
Although the transportation of convicts to Australia was caused by the American Revolution and War of Independence, which denied Great Britain a previous location of transporting its prisoners, it seems that the main reason for the mass transportation of prisoners to Australia was the looming threat of invasion of Great Britain by the French especially Napoleon, during the time of wars in Europe around 1790.
Perhaps for a protestant monarchy in Great Britain, the threat of a French (Catholic) invasion was too great to face. Any civil unrest at home had to be eliminated efficiently and the best solution that the monarchy could do was to remove any elements of society that might weaken its resolve from within.
It is not surprising that many of the transported criminals from the gaols and the hulks were of Irish descent. It is said that 9 out of every 10 prisoners in the Irish gaols were catholic.
As the monarchies in the surrounding countries in Europe prepared for war, a war eventually known as the Napoleonic Wars, and primarily intended to restore the monarchy in France, following the French Revolution, the transportation of rebels, protestors and criminals to Botany Bay became underway before the total outbreak of that particular series of wars.
Botany Bay
Somewhere during that period of constant war in Europe, people found themselves being condemned and transported from their homes and loved ones. It was that traumatic period and condition that gave birth to this song.
Here is "Botany Bay" heard again, this time through the very beautiful voice of Mirusia Louwerse.
An erudite summation.
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