The Canberra Times

Endeavour Voyage: The untold stories of Cook and the First Australians

A dramatic waterspout installation introduces visitors to the exhibition. Photos supplied. National Museum of Australia (Jason McCarthy).
A dramatic waterspout installation introduces visitors to the exhibition. Photos supplied. National Museum of Australia (Jason McCarthy).

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On the same day they first saw the Australian coastline, James Cook and HMB Endeavour's crew observed three waterspouts rising up out of the sea to the sky, between the ship and the land.

For those on the ship this was a rare and curious event. For those on the shore it was an omen, a warning.

Indigenous people had been living on this land for some 65,000 years. These waterspouts represented the spirits of the ancestors and were a portent of what was to come.

This is just one of many stories revealed in the National Museum of Australia's new exhibition Endeavour Voyage: The untold stories of Cook and the First Australians.

A dramatic waterspout installation introduces visitors to the exhibition which has been developed in close collaboration with nine Indigenous communities along Australia's eastcoast, whose ancestors encountered the Endeavour.

The exhibition examines what happened in 1770, from the point of view of those on the ship and those on the shore.

Scale model of Endeavour made in 1986. Photos supplied. National Museum of Australia (Jason McCarthy)
Scale model of Endeavour made in 1986. Photos supplied. National Museum of Australia (Jason McCarthy)

It honours both Cook's great voyage of scientific and geographic exploration and the rich Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander culture that has thrived in Australia for some 65,000 years and whose voices ring loudly in the exhibition through artworks and storytelling.

Through this exhibition, the National Museum of Australia has sought to bring something new to Australia's engagement with this chapter of our history.

The story of Cook and 1770 marks the first moment of British contact with the east coast of the continent. It is one of our nation's origin stories, although it has been remembered very differently by non-indigenous Australians and First Nations peoples.

Significant historical objects include James Cook's journal (1768-1771) which provides his account of the Endeavour's voyage, an array of Sydney Parkinson's 1770 natural history drawings - including the first European depictions of the kangaroo and the spotted quoll, Nathaniel Dance's iconic portrait of Cook, and one of Endeavour's cannons thrown overboard on the Great Barrier Reef in 1770.

A cannon jettisoned from the Endeavour in 1770 against the backdrop of Gertie Deerals 2019 artwork Reef, Hopevale Arts and Culture Centre. Photos supplied. National Museum of Australia (Jason McCarthy)
A cannon jettisoned from the Endeavour in 1770 against the backdrop of Gertie Deerals 2019 artwork Reef, Hopevale Arts and Culture Centre. Photos supplied. National Museum of Australia (Jason McCarthy)

The exhibition also features a stunning array of Indigenous artworks created by artists from along the east coast of Australia.

Highlights include the Hopevale community artists' illuminated lightboxes telling the story of what happened at Endeavour River and a collection of children's artworks from up and down the coast, that give their perspectives on this epic story.

The exhibition takes the visitor along Cook's voyage up the coast from Munda Bubul (Point Hicks) in eastern Victoria all the way to Possession Island at the tip of Cape York.

It reveals the initial violence that occurred at Kamay (Botany Bay); the 48 days spent repairing the ship on the banks of Waalumbaal Birri (Endeavour River); and finishes with Cook's brief visit to Possession Island - the site where Cook claimed the land for the British Crown on the August 22, 1770, despite Indigenous Australians' connections to the land.

Alison Pages film The Message tells a powerful story from the shore. Photos supplied. National Museum of Australia (Jason McCarthy)
Alison Pages film The Message tells a powerful story from the shore. Photos supplied. National Museum of Australia (Jason McCarthy)

At the core of the exhibition is The Message: The Story from the Shore, a short film made by Alison Page, an award-winning filmmaker and descendant of the Walbanga and Wadi Wadi people of the Yuin nation, and director Nik Lachajczak, in collaboration with Indigenous communities along Australia's east coast.

The Message features descendants of those who witnessed Cook's passage, powerfully reimagining the message of the ship's arrival being passed up the coast line.

In 2020, the 250th anniversary of the Endeavour voyage, there is an opportunity to think about Cook again and to expand our national narrative encompassing the perspectives of Indigenous Australians long absent from the telling of these stories.

Endeavour Voyage: The Untold Stories of Cook and the First Australians is at the National Museum of Australia throughout 2020. FREE ENTRY. Plan your visit and book a timed ticket at nma.gov.au/endeavour-voyage

This is advertiser content for the National Museum of Australia.