History on Canvas
Artist
Edna Watson
(born 1940)
Date1940
Object number00031718
NamePainting
MediumOil on canvas, wood frame
DimensionsOverall: 700 × 1010 × 40 mm
Image: 595 × 905 mm
Image: 595 × 905 mm
ClassificationsArt
Credit LineANMM Collection
DescriptionA painting by Edna Watson titled 'History on Canvas'.
The painting is divided into three sections and Edna Watson explains that:
"The knotted part in the middle is the Aboriginal race. Above represents the lifestyle, peace and harmony before the white man came. Below left white feet represent the white man coming onto our land. The cross is the church and coming into it the white and black feet represent the children being taken away and into homes as servants. The symbols on the bottom represent the men, women and children being segregated by barbwire and put into chains".
The third section shows the Sydney cityscape of high rises and the Harbour Bridge, and is a statement of how Aboriginal people have been alienated in their own country.
HistoryEdna Watson is a descendent of the Boorooberongal clan of the Darug people. In 1791, a group of Europeans led by Arthur Phillip met with the Boorooberongal people. Phillip's guide Colby sought out Yarramundie, a medicine man, to treat a wound. Edna traces her family back to Yellomundi.
Within 10 years of the meeting between Arthur Phillip and the Boorooberongal people there was virtual war between the them on Boorooberongal land - what we now call Windsor and Richmond, the western side of the Nepean River. Most of the Boorooberongal were wiped out and their culture as well as their unique knowledge of bush medicine was lost.
As a child, Edna did not know she was Aboriginal and did not understand why the other children called her 'black fella' at school. Her mother sought to hide her children from the Aboriginal Protection Board by telling Edna and her siblings that she was dark because she was French. It was not until Edna's brother Ken Upton started researching the family history that he confirmed what she had started to think. By the time they confronted her mother, she had only a year to live. Their mother spoke Darug and had been taught the Darug culture by her grandfather Walter Lock.
With the encouragement of friend Oodgeroo and family members, Edna started to paint about eight years ago. She now holds art workshops in schools, hospitals and other organisations and together with her sisters she is a member of The Darug Custodians, a group who visit schools to talk about Darug and customs.
Until recently, the war between the Darug people and the settlers, had been written from a European perspective. In Edna's paintings she talks about history from her own people's background. Her reason for painting is to tell people the truth about what happened to the Darug people.
The painting is divided into three sections. The first shows the country before the invasion. Animals, plants, waterholes, people and their tracks crowd the landscape. The second section is dominated by a cross, representing the Church. To Edna this was the most powerful force in the destruction of Aboriginal culture. Small human tracks represent the children being taken away from their families and barbed wire symbolises the separation of men and women by the church.
The third section is a landscape of city high rise and is a statement on how Aboriginal people have been alienated from their own country.
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The revered gentleman Yellomundie (Chief Yarramundi) (born ca. 1760 – died after 1818) is recorded in the early history of the colonist in the Mitchell Library at the (Place of crows and people) Woggan ma gul, Farm Cove Sydney. It is also recorded that Yarramundie on April 14, 1791, collected honey for Governor Phillip on one of his first expeditions into the interior of Wyaun toongabbie.
Yarramundi had the distinction of being the father of Maria Locke.SignificanceThe Boorooberongal along with the Eora clan make up the Darug people. The Australian National Maritime Museum is built on the lands of the Eora people. This is the first object collected for the Museum that was made by an Indigenous person whose lands the Museum is built on.
