That sounds very interesting. Haven’t heard of it before!" wrote an old friend from my days on Thursday Island who now lives in Cooktown and has been into searching for and diving on old shipwrecks for half his life, mostly in the Torres Strait.
Sorry, mate, but by the time that I have packed ansd posted to you my own copy of "And Their Ghosts May Be Heard ...", it will have cost me about as much as the same book now selling on ebay, so go for it.
However, I can share a review by Edward Duyker in the August 1994 edition of the Sutherland Shire Historical Society's quarterly bulletin:
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"In 1616 the Dutch East India Company adopted a faster southern sailing route to the
Indies in order to take advantage of the westerlies. Without accurate chronometers to
determine longitude, it is surprising that there were not more ships such as the Batavia,
Vergulde Draeck, Zuytdorp and Zeewijk which simply crashed into the coast of Western
Australia between 1629 and 1727.
In recent years these wrecks have been discovered and a rich trove of artefacts brought to the surface. The story does not end here. There is evidence that some seventy-five shipwrecked Dutch sailors and passengers made it to shore. Unfortunately they left few remnants of their presence beyond the immediate vicinity of the wrecks. There has long been speculation that these Dutch castaways did not perish of thirst and starvation, but melted into the local Aboriginal population. Respected observers such as the explorer A. C. Gregory and the anthropologist Daisy Bates fuelled this speculation with reports that the skin colour of the western Aborigines was suggestive of mixed racial origins. Rupert Gerritsen has taken up the challenge of this mystery and sought to prove that the Dutch castaways not only survived but engendered a unique local culture. In support of his case he has meticulously reviewed the available archaeological, anthropological, historical and linguistic evidence. The result is an impressive scholarly work, but one which remains unconvincing. The Nanda people may be different from their neighbours, but there are many sharp cultural and linguistic contrasts among neighbours in this world. The continent of Australia is no exception. Gerritsen makes much of the presence and use of the yam Dioscorea hastifolia, suggesting it may have been introduced and cultivated by the Dutch. The portrait of semi-sedentary Nanda hunter gatherers feasting on vast fields of yam reminded me of the riverine seed-collecting economy of the Bagundji along the Darling river (NSW). Early explorers commented on the harvesting, threshing and milling of native millet by the Bagundji almost as if these people were primitive cultivators. None suggested that these proto-agricultural techniques, in sharp contrast with the arid-land economy of the Bagundji's near neighbours the Wangaaybuwan, were a result of instruction by European castaways! Similarly the low stone-walled Aboriginal huts by Lake Condah in Victoria are a far cry from the popular image of the sparse material culture of the Australian nomads. Skin colour also varied greatly in Australia. In 1772 Marion Dufresne's officers were somewhat surprised to discover that the Tasmanian Aborigines were really reddish-brown and that it was only smoke and dirt that made them look so dark. Gerritsen is clearly a sensitive and sincere researcher who seeks to avoid ethnocentrism, but I couldn't help thinking (perhaps uncharitably) of the arguments of Erich von Daniken, who, in 'Chariots of the Gods', sought to explain the cultural achievements of Ancient Egypt and pre-Columbian America as a result of extraterrestrial intervention! In primary school most of us were taught how the words 'beef' and 'mutton' entered the English language from the Norman French words boeuf and mouton. The argument is compellingly obvious. Gerritsen also focuses on individual words, but it is stretching a point, even a coincidence, to suggest that the Nanda word for wooden bowl battje is the same as the Dutch word for a small bath badje or that a digging stick wippa is the same as a Dutch word for a small plank wipje . Far more appropriate Dutch words for these two objects are respectively kom or beker and stok or staf. They barely need translation for an English reader to realise the tenuous nature of Gerritsen's case. Despite the author's lack of firm archaeological and documentary evidence, And Their Ghosts May Be Heard is a stimulating and thought-provoking work. I was reminded of my first reading of Kenneth McIntyre's equally passionate book 'The Secret Discovery of Australia' which sought to prove that the Portuguese were the first Europeans to reach this continent. I was not convinced, but I learned a great deal from the attempted proof. And archaeology may yet give both Gerritsen and McIntyre the last laugh." |
The book begins in 1629 with the story of the BATAVIA. Many books have been written about her. The above video gives a short summary; many more are available on YouTube. Just type 'Batavia ship wreck' and click.
