Writers @ Stanton EVENING EDITION: Darren Rix and Craig Cormick

For the first time, the First Nations story of Cook’s arrival. Discover what First Nations people saw and felt when James Cook navigated their shores in 1770.

‘Warra Warra Wai’ was the expression called to Cook and his crew when they tried to make landfall in Botany Bay. It has long been interpreted as ‘Go away’, but is perhaps more accurately translated as ‘You are all dead spirits’.

We know the European story from diaries, journals and letters. For the first time, this is the other side - learn what blackfellas wanted everyone to know about the coming of Europeans.

Who were the people watching the Endeavour sail by? How did they understand their world and what sense did they make of this strange vision? And what was the impact of these first encounters with Europeans? The answers lie in tales passed down from 1770 and in truth-telling of the often more brutal engagements that followed.

Darren Rix and his co-author Craig Cormick travelled to all the places on the east coast that were renamed by Cook, and listened to people’s stories. With their permission, these stories have been woven together with the European accounts and placed in their deeper context: the places Cook named already had names; the places he ‘discovered’ already had peoples and stories stretching back before time.

About the speakers

Darren Rix, a Gunditjmara-GunaiKurnai man with Ngarigo bloodlines, grew up in the tin huts and tents of ‘Silver City’, South Nowra, with his eleven siblings. He has worked as a radio reporter for the Brisbane Indigenous Media Association, and with the Ngunnawal people as a cultural sites officer in Canberra. Darren is an accomplished musician, as was his uncle, Archie Roach. He has appeared in the TV program Rake.

Dr Craig Cormick OAM is an award-winning author and science communicator. He was born on Dharawal Country (Wollongong) and has lived in the Blue Mountains and Queensland; he currently lives on Ngunnawal land in Canberra. He has been Chair of the ACT Writers Centre and co-host of the literary podcast Secrets from the Green Room. He is drawn to stories of people whose voices have been hidden from history.

Dr Ian Hoskins is an award-winning author and Stanton Library's resident historian. He has worked as an academic, professional historian and curator for over 30 years. His acclaimed books are recognised nationally for their chronicling of Australian history.

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