Cooman

Gweagal man who possibly opposed James Cook in 1770

Cooman

The two Aboriginal warriors that Cook fought with, as depicted by Sydney Parkinson

Born| around 1720

Gweagal Country

Nationality| Gweagal (Dharawal)

Cooman was a Gweagal man identified by some of his descendants as the warrior who was shot and wounded by James Cook's landing party at Kamay (Botany Bay) in 1770. He was previously unnamed in historical documents, and his identity has been disputed within the local Aboriginal community. Little is known of Cooman's life apart from his possible involvement in this incident.[1]

## Life

[edit]

Dramatisation of the Aboriginal warriors opposing Cook's landing at Kamay (Botany Bay)

Little is documented of Cooman's life. He is mainly known through the oral histories of some of his descendants who state that Cooman was the older of the two Gweagal men who opposed the landing of James Cook and his crew at Kamay (later named Botany Bay) in 1770.[2][1]

During Cook's first voyage to the Pacific, he charted the east coast of the Australian continent and claimed it for Britain.

On 29 April 1770, Cook and crew attempted their first landfall on the continent at a beach now known as Silver Beach at Botany Bay (Kamay). The older warrior, who some identify as Cooman, and another Gweagal man came down to the beach to fend off what they thought to be spirits of the dead. They shouted "warra warra wai" meaning 'you are all dead' and gestured with their spears.[3][4] Cook's party attempted to communicate their desire for water and threw gifts of beads and nails ashore. The two Aboriginal men continued to oppose the landing and Cook fired a warning shot. The older warrior responded by throwing a rock, and Cook shot him in the leg with small shot.[5][6] The crew then landed, and the Gweagal men threw two spears before Cook shot at them again and they retreated.[7] The crew took their spears and shield and Cook found several children in nearby huts, and left some beads with them.[5][8][9][10][11][12][13] The shield taken is now known as the Gweagal shield.[14]

> "Shaking their lances and menacing, (they) in all appearances resolved to dispute our landing to the utmost though they were two and we were 30 or 40 at least. They remained resolute so a musket was fired over them. A musket loaded with small shot was now fired at the eldest of the two ... It struck him on the legs but he minded it very little so another was immediately fired."

— Joseph Banks

> ... I fired a musket between the two which had no other effect than to make them retire back where bundles of their darts lay and one of them took up a stone and threw at us which caused my fireing a second Musquet load with small shott and altho' some of the shott struck the man yet it had no other effect than to make him lay hold of a ^Shield or target ^to defend himself ...

— James Cook, Cook's Journal: Diary Entries - 29 April 1770

## Disputed identity

[edit]

Dramatisation of the two Gweagal men.

The name of Cooman as the warrior shot by Cook has been disputed.[15] In 2020, Noeleen Timbery of the Gujaga Foundation stated there were a "number of more feasible candidates present within the oral histories kept by Aboriginal families belonging to the area".[16] Academic Maria Nugent, writing with Gaye Sculthorpe of the British Museum, states that there is "no consensus" that Cooman was one of the warriors.[17] However, many sources, primarily drawing from Biddy Giles, Keith Vincent Smith, and Rodney Kelly, refer to Cooman as the man shot and wounded in the leg by Cook.[18][2][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28]

The identification of Cooman as the name of the wounded warrior stems from an 1840s oral history told by Biddy Giles which was subsequently recorded. Biddy stated that Cooman was the grandfather of her husband, also called Cooman, who was often described as ‘the last of the Georges River Tribe’.[29] Smith cites a 1905 document recounting the 1840s oral history told by Biddy Giles.[29] However, there were several documented Coomans in Sydney, and it is not clear who Biddy's husband was.[30] Maria Nugent calls Smith's identification of Cooman as the Gweagal spearman on this basis "a mere assertion" based on "inconclusive evidence" and "a questionable interpretative leap."[31]

## Legacy

[edit]

Cooman fathered a lineage spanning at least six generations.[32] His descendants Theresa Ardler and Rodney Kelly have campaigned for the return of a shield from the British Museum[33][34] which later analysis has shown is likely not the shield collected by Cook's party from Botany Bay.[13] In 2021, spears collected by Banks during the encounter were returned by Cambridge University to the La Perouse Aboriginal Land Council.[35]

In August 2016, as part of Kelly's campaign, a motion passed the New South Wales Legislative Council acknowledging the Gweagal people as the “rightful owners” of the shield and spears and identifying Cooman as the man who was shot by Cook's party.[36] In October 2016, a similar motion was adopted by the Australian Senate, identifying Cooman as the man shot by Cook.[37]

Theresa Ardler, a descendant of Cooman, is one of the Dharawal community working with libraries, museums and linguists to tell the story of Cook's landing from an Aboriginal perspective in an attempt to correct misrepresentations of the encounter.[10]

There have been several other people named Cooman in the Sydney region who should not be confused with this Cooman.[38] It is unclear if this Cooman is the grandfather of a later Cooman ('King Kooma'), an Aboriginal man who lived in the Liverpool region and who the local Aboriginal Cooman surname comes from.[39]

## See also

[edit]

* Gweagal shield
* Gweagal

## References

[edit]

1. ^ a b Donaldson, Mike; Jacobs, Mary; Bursill, Les (2017). "A History of Aboriginal Illawarra, Volume 2 : Colonisation". University of Wollongong - Research Online.
2. ^ a b McDonald, Alasdair (2016-05-22). "Gweagal warrior's descendants to travel to British Museum to demand return of Aboriginal artefacts". The Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 2023-11-01.
3. ^ "Voices heard but not understood". Gujaga Foundation. Retrieved 2022-05-28.
4. ^ Jonathon Jones, Murruwaygu: following in the footsteps of our ancestors, Masters Thesis, University of Technology Sydney
5. ^ a b "Cook's Journal: Daily Entries, 29 April 1770". southseas.nla.gov.au. South Seas. Retrieved 25 October 2019.
6. ^ McGregor, Carol. Art of the Skins: Un-silencing and remembering. Diss. PhD thesis, Griffith University, Brisbane, 2019.
7. ^ "Eight days in Kamay". State Library of NSW. 2020-04-22. Retrieved 2023-11-01.
8. ^ Blainey, Geoffrey (2020). Captain Cook's Epic Voyage pp. 141-43
9. ^ Smith, Keith Vincent (2009). "Confronting Cook". Electronic British Library Journal (2009).
10. ^ a b "Captain Cook's landing contested by Aboriginal leaders". ABC News. 2020-04-28. Retrieved 2023-10-30.
11. ^ "Virtual Cook to face an actually changed Australia". Australian Financial Review. 2020-01-24. Retrieved 2023-10-30.
12. ^ Pearson, Elizabeth (2016). "Old Wounds and New Endeavors: The Case for Repatriating the Gweagal Sheild from the British Museum". Art Antiquity and Law. 21: 201.
13. ^ a b Thomas, Nicholas (2018). "A Case of Identity: The Artifacts of the 1770 Kamay (Botany Bay) Encounter". Australian Historical Studies. 49 (1): 4–27\. doi:10.1080/1031461X.2017.1414862. S2CID 149069484 - via Taylor and Francis Online.
14. ^ Lawn, Kathryn (2019). "The Gweagal Shield". NEW: Emerging Scholars in Australian Indigenous Studies. 5 (1). doi:10.5130/nesais.v5i1.1585. ISSN 2208-1232.
15. ^ Dakin, F. H. (2019). Objects As Polyagents: Tracing The Histories Of The Gweagal Spears. doi:10.17863/CAM.45153
16. ^ Timbery, Noeleen (2020-04-27). "Aboriginal history told by Aboriginal people". Gujaga Foundation. Retrieved 2023-11-01.
17. ^ Sculthorpe, Gaye; Nugent, Maria (2020-04-26). "Tall ship tales: oral accounts illuminate past encounters and objects, but we need to get our story straight". The Mandarin. Retrieved 2023-11-01.
18. ^ Neill, Rosemary (17 June 2017). "Cambridge refuses to return Aboriginal spears 'stolen' by Cook". The Australian. Retrieved 1 November 2023.
19. ^ Sydney, Bernard Lagan (2023-11-01). "Cook's Aboriginal booty found in Berlin museum". The Times. ISSN 0140-0460. Retrieved 2023-11-01.
20. ^ Taylor, James (2022-07-14). "No improper measure". Overland literary journal. Retrieved 2023-11-01.
21. ^ Wahlquist, Calla (2016-10-11). "Australian Senate joins push to repatriate Indigenous artefacts from British Museum". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2023-11-01.
22. ^ Bourke, Anthony R (2008) Family footprints: tracing the past in the present through curatorial autobiographical practice Masters Thesis, University of Wollongong
23. ^ Constantinou, Menios. "A womans bid to heal country". Impact - Australian Catholic University. Retrieved 2023-11-01.
24. ^ Vanderbyl, Nikita. "Aboriginal artworks and cultural objects as primary sources." agora 57, no. 3 (2022): 53-56.
25. ^ Jones, Michael (March 2019). "Collections in the Expanded Field: Relationality and the Provenance of Artefacts and Archives". Heritage. 2 (1): 884–897\. doi:10.3390/heritage2010059. ISSN 2571-9408.
26. ^ Pearson, Elizabeth (2018). "Colonial Statutes and Statues: Rethinking the Law on Aboriginal Cultural Heritage in New South Wales". Art Antiquity and Law. 23: 197.
27. ^ Langlais, Pandora (2021). "Return of the Past: The Challenges of Oceanian Art's Restitution in Today's Art World". Journal of Art Crime. 25: 83.
28. ^ DeMuynck, Ellyn (2020-01-01). "When Repatriation Doesn't Happen: Relationships Created Through Cultural Property Negotiations". Electronic Theses and Dissertations.
29. ^ a b Smith, Keith Vincent. "Confronting Cook." Electronic British Library Journal (2009).
30. ^ Mason, Kody (2023). "Giles, Biddy/Biyarung (c. 1810–1888)". Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University. Retrieved 6 November 2020.
31. ^ Sculthorpe, Maria Nugent Dr Gaye (2020-04-26). "Tall ship tales: oral accounts illuminate past encounters and objects, but we need to get our story straight". The Mandarin. Retrieved 2023-11-01.
32. ^ Donnelly, Marea (August 17, 2018). "Captain Cook shot my grandpa". The Daily Telegraph.
33. ^ "Aboriginal man demanding British Museum return shield stolen from his ancestor granted private viewing". The Independent. 2019-05-07. Retrieved 2023-10-31.
34. ^ Ardler, Theresa. "Place, tradition, whales, and story of the Eora, Dharawal and Yuin nations: Linking Aboriginal life and spirituality from past to present." Historic Environment 33.1/2 (2021): 94-107.
35. ^ "Historic Gweagal spears stolen at First Contact are repatriated back to Eora-Sydney". NITV. Retrieved 2023-10-31.
36. ^ "New South Wales Legislative Council Hansard, 23 August 2016". Parliament of New South Wales. Retrieved 2 November 2023.
37. ^ "Senate supports return of Gweagal Shield". NITV. Retrieved 2023-11-01.
38. ^ Mason, Kodie, "Biddy/Biyarung Giles (c. 1810–1888)", Australian Dictionary of Biography, Canberra: National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, retrieved 2023-11-01
39. ^ "1820s | A History of Aboriginal Sydney". www.historyofaboriginalsydney.edu.au. Retrieved 2023-10-30.