Thanks Robin, I have visited Bathurst and looked up at the Evans Monument and did not know how to interpret the relationship between the two men. Thank you for your advice, a lot of food for thought there.

Today, there is a little track that rambles around the spring and river banks with 11 plaques set into plinths just above ground level. The plaques tell several stories, one being of the Bootenal massacre in 1854. Each plaque contains a quote, some from historical documents, some from oral histories. They were prepared by a local historian and members of the local Naaguja people. They don’t try to tell a coherent or total story, but instead give the walker different perspectives across time. Their demand is that you contemplate.

This was at the same time as the reactions to Stan Grant’s commentary on the Captain Cook statue in Sydney was in the news. The plaques had been installed on National Sorry Day in 2011, with local people wanting the conflict to be recognised in local history, and for the place to be respected. The use of quotes was a deliberate method to encourage viewers to interpret the stories and provoke their own discussions, rather than present them with a single ‘truth’.

In this part of WA the east coast is something of a foreign country, a feeling made ever more stark sitting by the Spring that day and comparing in my mind its monuments with those in Hyde Park. Perhaps the real monument at Bootenal Spring is the landscape itself, a palimpsest inscribed and re-inscribed so many times but always powerfully evocative. Perhaps that’s what my grandmother was trying to show me all those years ago, through the eloquence of quietly experiencing a place, without speaking or words?

I am struggling to write a post for my HistoryMatrix blog, made all the more complicated by a growing awareness that at least one of my ancestors was involved in the killings in 1854. Conflict over colonial monuments is not new, even if some of the media have only just stumbled across it (via an Americanist lens). Perhaps more contemplation, less shouting; more historiography, less ideology is what we need at this time.

Just to correct myself. It’s known locally as the Evans Monument, not Evans Memorial. PHA people are always welcome to visit Bathurst and its region and see what we are doing history-wise. It’s an ongoing process.

A comment in passing concerning the Evans Memorial in Bathurst, which is where I live. For those who care to look and reflect, the relative positioning and poses of Mr Evans and the Wiradjuri man may suggest that the sculptor, Gilbert Doble, has offered what was for j1915 (when designed) a progressive interpretation, worthy of consideration today. Hatless Evans, stands erect in conventional European pose gazing towards the “new country”, Wiradjuri man, in the way of a hunter crouches low, eyes shaded, viewing the same landscape. He is not in a position of subjugation, as his back is towards Evans. Nor is he following Mr E, but he is thrust slightly in front of him – being here first. They are together sharing the view, but in different ways. As Evans did not use Aboriginal guides, or receive any local guidance (or have much local contact), we can be confident that the Aboriginal depicted is a local Wiradjuri. People will read what they want into the “Evans Memorial”. I personally read a story of sharing and optimism about the future. As for cutting off the Wiradjuri man and putting him in his own monument, not only does this deny what we might take from this monument today, but it is probably not practical. The metal work is absolute crap. Gilbert Doble, a Sydney sculptor, didn’t cast his statues in bronze but used a system of either electroplating or hammering copper onto zinc forms. Remove it and it will fall apart. By way of a postscript query, is anyone aware of earlier (pre 1915) public statues depicting Aboriginal people? We have the Mitchell Library doors with their scenes of native folk.

Thanks for the picking that up Stephen. I’ll amend it.