In the Wild Goodwill of Unintelligible Poetries

[ Exchanging for the Stranger ]

- Moorabool Area, north of Geelong, Victoria 1839

-Mrs Katherine Kirkland reports on her 1839 accommodation and settlement in becoming an Australian Lady, with her old acquaintance Mr Yuille and in sharing culture with the Wadthawurrung people.


All horizons swung into Port Phillip as our vessel,
of England, sheered time and distance into our arrival.
‘Point Henry’ was our solid rock of disembarkation
But even then, familiarity went out of recognition.

My husband, come back on board from ‘Jillong’ in wild trust,
said he’d met Mr Yuille, a human anchor among steps of danger;
But, our friend -who’d left England just months before us -
now amazed me, appearing before me as a complete stranger.

Red whiskers that he’d let go, made a great long beard;
his countenance was now entirely outlandish! And I feared
for any safety when I saw the broad black belt he now wore
fastened his waist, stuck with a brace of shiny pistols. Ashore,

in dread of strangeness I asked about his rough-looking dress.
Mr Yuille tapped a gun: ‘Not natives, No! - Rogues, thieves!’
Then, looking about, I saw all men of the settlement, as in a fable,
[to toughen], took pride to deliberately look as rough as possible.

I myself began, two days later, and thirty miles upcountry,
to be of such a difference. The unaccountably-distanced spaces
meant rest for our bullocks, I had to tramp afoot to Russell’s station
where we found the natives who made fuss of us & put on a corrobery.

About a hundred of these disarmed sable folk assembled
as the sun went down, with twenty large fires lighted,
around which were seated the women and children, -
it was they embraced me, asking to sit with them, their fashion.

Men painted themselves up, as their customed fancy,
in red and white earth, with bones & bits of stones tied
with emu’s feathers in their hair. Branches of trees applied
on their ankles, made a great rush-of-wind noise as they danced.

Rough dress: theirs was next to nothing! In countenance wild,
they danced with awful gestures and savage attitudes
of a melodrama done in the high mettle of theatric feuds.
Yet done, each man after sat calm, cross-legged as a child.

The natives now were very anxious that we white people
would show them how we usually coroberie or sing;
but of all among us, it was only good-bearded Mr Yuille
who got up to dance for them - and did the Highland fling.

Then () he unbelted his pistol-belt, to recite epic poetry,
with full bodied expression ~ He made great many gestures.
The natives, spellbound, watched him most attentively. He
saved the day for us with a song of words, and they: highly pleased

as if they got a gist. After that linguistic exchange of native pleasure,
I saw a passionate reciprocity come full of disarming welcome,
I glimpsed this poetry, in a stranger-trust into which I am come:
and asked to belong, across far-frontiers by any other measure.

Outlandish, Mr Yuille bridged things, taught us, saved our side
turned in the welcome to lands of good-will with a gift of poetry;
For all his tough-looking in its passion, it was his rendition did;
A hoary magnificence that exchanged, crossed to change the story.


29 November 2001 © Wayne David Knoll