Benevolence

by Julie Janson

Genres: Historical Fiction

Synopsis

NOMINATED FOR THE MARK amp; EVETTE MORAN NIB LITERARY AWARD
For perhaps the first time in novel form, Benevolence presents an important era in Australia's history from an Aboriginal perspective. Told through the fictional characterisation of Darug woman Muraging (Mary James), Benevolence is a compelling story of first contact. Born around 1813, Muraging is among the earliest Darug generations to experience the impact of British colonisation – a time of cataclysmic change and violence, but also remarkable survival and resistance.
At an early age Muraging is given over to the Parramatta Native School by her Darug father. Fleeing the school in pursuit of love, she embarks on a journey of discovery and a search for a safe place to make her home. Spanning the years 1816–35, Benevolence is set around the Hawkesbury River area, the home of the Darug people, in Parramatta and Sydney.
Julie Janson's intensely visual prose interweaves historical events with detailed characterisation – she shatters stereotypes and gives voice to an Aboriginal experience of early-settlement.
"Janson's writing is evocative...The shame of colonisation is amplified by the proud complexities of the narrative...Muraging's – and Janson's – refusal to perform the victim to voyeurs of trauma is an act of defiance." SUNDAY AGE
"The gut-truths presented in Benevolence are tied to a larger reckoning needed in Australian society – one that involves a centring of First Nation voices, a willingness to address not just a violent history, but a hostile and violent present." HAYLEY SCRIVENOR, Mascara Literary Review
"Benevolence is a searing, unforgettable work...this novel is of immense importance" JOY LAWN, Paperbark Words]
"The text's undulation evokes the ever-changing interactions between settlers and Aboriginal populations following settlement, giving voice to an oft-overlooked Aboriginal perspective." AUSTRALIAN BOOK REVIEW
“Janson's descriptions are beautifully lyrical...compelling." SUE TERRY Whispering Gums
“How good it is to hear a Darug voice speaking of Darug history.” KATE GRENVILLE

Release date: August 16, 2022

Publisher: HarperCollins

Print pages: 368

Sample

CHAPTER ONE

1816: MURAGING IS GIVEN AWAY IN PARRAMATTA

The grey-green eucalypts clatter with the sound of cicadas. Magpies and currawongs warble across the early morning sky as the sun’s heat streams down. It is eaglehawk time, the season of burumurring when the land is dry, and these birds fly after small game. Muraging’s clan, the Burruberongal of the Darug people, gather their dillybags and coolamons and prepare for the long walk to Burramatta, the land of eels, and Parramatta town. The old women stamp out a fire, and one gathers the baby boy in her arms and ties him onto her possum-skin cloak.

Muraging hears rattling carts full of waibala, whitefella, and the sound of pots against iron wheels. She looks back and sees the deep wheel marks, like huge snake tracks, and hurries after her father, Berringingy. He gives her a waibala coat of red wool. So he loves her. He turns away and she watches the boy take her place. She can see the love between man and boy.

She doesn’t understand what is about to happen, but she knows she must try to have courage. There is loud talk around her. She is limp with the heat and imagines herself floating in a deep, cool creek. But her father is speaking to her and what he is saying brings her back. He tells her he met some men in Parramatta town who offered to teach Aboriginal children to read and write. She is to be an important part of helping their people and she must learn their language and their ways. She must be brave and remember that he loves her and one day he will come back for her. He reminds her that the sky god Baiame and his son, Daramulum, will watch over and protect her. She panics and grips his hand. Alarm rises and her aunt mothers look away.

Her father lifts her up and holds his head with her body pressed against his black curls. She longs for food chews wattle gum to ease her thirst. The red coat is dropped along the track.

…

They walk for many days before they arrive at Parramatta where carriages and bullock wagons churn mud – and the horses are terrifyingly big. She quivers at the sharp hooves and the whinnying, like the sound of monsters. A wooden stage has been erected near the church, where soldiers stand in formation, rifles by their sides. Musicians play on the stage and a juggler tosses balls in the air while a boy raps on his drum. Men in black coats and women in long dresses hold parasols as they gather. Roses bloom behind picket fences.

Today is the Annual Native Feast – a day when blankets and food are distributed to the Deerubbin Aborigines of the Hawkesbury River area. Families sit in groups on the lawn, passing roast meats and swigging at jugs of bool, rum. Different clans sit next to each other, some dressed in rags and others resplendent in possum-skin cloaks. They gather in front of the verandah where the Governor’s wife, Mrs Macquarie, hands out blankets.

Berringingy pushes through the melee searching for the man in a black coat. Muraging’s head turns back and forth staring at men in red with sabres. She is startled by the noise and loud music. She sees a tall wooden box with striped material, surrounded by small children who shout and laugh. Tiny people in bright coloured clothes are trapped in the box hitting each other. One has a hooked nose and a red pointed hat with jingling bells. Muraging pulls urgently on her father’s arm to get him to look at this spectacle.

Her father places her down and hands her over to the government men of the Native Institution to be a school pupil. She is shown where the big fella boss stands – Governor Lachlan Macquarie. He gives a speech about his feelings of benevolence towards native people and how he accepts their gift. This word nguyangun – gift – can’t be correct.

Muraging wants to scream but she can’t move or speak. Berringingy is standing in the sunlight and the boy now clings to his shoulders. The longed-for boy. She wishes they had left him in the bush for the ants.

Her father stands, places his knuckles together on the top of his woomera and leans forward, listening. A captain in red wool is talking slowly as if her father is stupid. The English words sound like the rattle of sticks.

Berringingy looks over at her and wipes away a tear.

Muraging stares at him. She has seen this look of confusion on his face before, when he was first given a bag of flour. He made a joke – had they given him white dust or ochre paint? He mimed spitting it out as he tasted it. He threw it away and the bag burst and produced a white cloud. They had all laughed. The tribe had kept their eyes on him to see what to do about these ghost men with fire sticks that killed. Her father was their star and moon. But then the soldiers had laughed at him. She had been dismayed to see him, their leader, ridiculed. They produced damper from a saddle bag, and the terrible horse had whinnied, frightening them all except her father. Berringingy stood tall, turned his back and, with a flick of a hand, the whole mob walked away. Proud. They didn’t need white dust from dead people.

Only later would Muraging know what it is to beg for just one scoop of waibala flour.

Now she is naked in front of these ghost men, their ghost-blue eyes glowing as she pulls a cotton shift over her head.

Governor Lachlan Macquarie stands next to Berringingy. Macquarie is dressed in a red coat with gold buttons and braid, and a hat of bright green feathers. The men beside him also wear red coats and gold braid; swords hang from their belts. Indian ceremonial daggers in silver scabbards glint in the sun. Muraging squints at the Governor as he delivers his speech:

‘We are aware of many Darug clans inhabiting the area around our new-found settlement. The Bidigal of Botany Bay are responsible for many incursions. In Prospect, new farmers are undergoing terrible afflictions as a consequence of these incursions. Other woods tribes are the Bidigal at Castle Hill, the Burruberongal on the Deerubbin, the Hawkesbury River, the Cannemegal near Parramatta and the Cabrogal at Liverpool. They are often reported to gather together for catching eels and what-have-you. We must endeavour to bring a civilising influence on these natives, who possibly number up to five thousand in this area alone. Today, I bring good tidings: we shall, with the enthusiastic aid of my good wife, add some pupils to our Native School, including this rather untidy child.’

He points to Muraging and she is shocked to see people stare and laugh at her. The crowd cheers and the Governor smiles at Muraging. The waibala ghosts in their long black shiny boots laugh a lot with snorting pink noses.

Macquarie puts out his hand to his wife Elizabeth, who stands in front of a line of scrubbed Aboriginal Native Institution children in white shifts, like trees. She leans down to Muraging and shows her a gold frame with a dead child locked inside. The child stares back at her, trapped in a gold stone.

Muraging feels the edge of the lady’s dress as it brushes her face. Perhaps if she keeps still, she will not be eaten. It is a relief when she is not eaten. Still her guts turn to liquid and she thinks she might wet herself as she is pulled along with the other children. Scissors snip at her hair and she grits her teeth as her curls drift down into the dirt. She wants to show she is strong.

Her chest pounds and she thinks it will burst. For the first time she looks at the newly arrived school children. One little girl cries and wets herself but nobody seems to notice. Muraging is terrified but stands very quietly. She wills herself to withstand this moment. She must be brave and stay ready to escape. Her granny’s spirit is standing by her side, as always. She imagines she is biting the white people, screaming and punching, and running as she leaves the waibala empty-handed. But for now the sun is hot as she crouches to watch ants moving a crumb of bread. She puts a twig in their way and they climb over it.

She looks around the square, surrounded with big stone buildings, to see a whole bullock cooking and turning on a stick. The drips of juice are sizzling and her mouth is drooling. The smell attracts stray dogs and a white one runs off with some meat. She wants to chase it and grab the food. She watches her father feeding the boy some delicious chewed meat. Her meat.

She looks towards the edge of town and the great grey gum trees are full of spirits watching them. A white cockatoo drops from the sky and sits beside her. It speaks to her about its need for some seeds or bread and she agrees; life is hard.

The children have been taught to curtsy and told to do so to the fat men and ladies; this makes them giggle nervously. But Muraging refuses and kicks the nearest waibala. She stands tall while a big sweaty man with a red nose introduces himself as Reverend Masters. He is wearing dark clothes with a white collar that seems to be choking him. He’s a minister and a magistrate. He has a gold ring with a black cross around his neck. He smells of perfume and pipe smoke. She cringes before this man’s cruel eyes.

Two tall people, dressed like crows in long black gowns, push through the crowd. They stand in front of the line of Aboriginal children and bow to Reverend Masters.

‘Dear Reverend, I hope our other charges from the Parramatta Native Institution show you how we are successful in taming the natives in becoming useful members of society,’ says Mr Shelley, ‘Thank you for Muraging. I will be like a father to her.’

She is startled to hear her name.

‘Mrs Shelley, Mr Shelley, I am pleased to see you take on these native charges on behalf of the Colonial Missionary Society,’ says Reverend Masters. ‘Teach these children of God to see into their souls. God’s will endures. We hope that you can provide for the young natives so that they can learn English and become interpreters for their savage cousins. We can hope that they may marry and breed a better type of native. The full bloods will naturally die out. These innocents will be more respectful of our ways and desires. There will be no corruption of souls here. We can save them from damnation.’

‘Yes, our sole motive is the conversion of souls and, for this, we have come so far from our missionary activities in Tahiti,’ says Mr Shelley while Mrs Shelley nods. ‘My wife and I desire to do much wonderful work and trust our little school will be a beacon of hope for these poor innocent children.’

Reverend Masters puts his glasses on and peers closely at Muraging. ‘She seems to be about twelve years old. She has features that are close to the African. I feel little hesitancy to classify these Aborigines with the progeny of Canaan who was cursed by Noah. They are cursed to be servants of servants.’

‘Surely not. Jesus will love them, as shall we, and we will bring them improvement and civilisation,’ says Mrs Shelley.

‘Madam, we are the civilisers of heathens,’ says Governor Macquarie.

‘Perhaps you are not equal to the exertions required. We do not wish the natives to languish in ignorance of the Lord,’ says Reverend Masters.

‘Governor, if you wish to enumerate any difficulties, we shall attend to them with no hesitance. The Negroes in other new worlds are said to be ready for emancipation. Who knows what may eventuate with our humble endeavours,’ says Mr Shelley, but no-one seems to be looking at him. Masters picks his teeth and examines the contents. He rubs Muraging’s head and tickles her ears in an awful way as she squirms. He is greasy and hideous with a huge shadow in the sun, like a Hairy Man.

Mr and Mrs Shelley smile and beckon to her. She thinks at that moment that she might be eaten.

‘Now take care that the females remain ignorant of all but sewing, cleaning and prayers – all the better to serve husbands,’ says Masters, as he grabs Muraging’s ear and peers into it.

‘We will call her Mary James, after my old housekeeper,’ says Masters, as his hand creeps across Mary’s skull; he then wipes his palm with a silk scarf.

‘Say your new name, Mary,’ says Masters.

‘Muraging,’ she says.

She shivers and tries to rub his smell off her head.

‘Mary! She will grow used to it,’ says Masters.

Berringingy appears and walks up to the Governor. Has he changed his mind? Muraging smiles at him hopefully while the Governor bows before him.

‘Greetings, Chief Berringingy. This is an unheralded visit but a most welcome one. I remember that Governor Philip met your esteemed leaders, Nurrugingy and Yarramundi, or is it Yellowmunday?’ says the Governor.

He continues: ‘On the Richmond Creek. They exchanged gifts. Two stone hatchets in return for two metal ones. Very good to see you all here with us in peace. We offer you breakfast. We will present you with a breast plate and take your child for the school,’ Governor Macquarie continues. He is holding out a brass gorget for the chief to wear.

‘You teach my daughter, no whu karndi,’ says Berringingy.

‘I hereby name you Chief of the South Creek Tribe. I have already promised your countrymen Nurrugingy and Colebee a grant of thirty acres on South Creek as an additional reward for fidelity to our government with their roles as guides. You may be next,’ says the Governor. Her father bows his head and the shiny metal crescent is hanging from his neck like a noose. He nods. He will not look at his daughter as he swings the boy onto his shoulders and walks away.

…

Mrs Macquarie leans forward and kindness pours out of her face as she nods to Mr and Mrs Shelley.

‘Please allow me the indulgence of speaking,’ says Mrs Macquarie, ‘I can see the other children assembled and you say they have made progress in their studies that is equal with English children of the same age – and they can read the Testament or Bible. Marvellous, seeing as they were only rescued from the Appin punitive expedition last year. A terrible event, with many natives perishing, but it was necessary to bring peace. We have two boys and two girls for the school and they will join your charges. How is that naughty girl Mercy?’

The tall girl next to Muraging smiles and pokes her tongue out at her.

‘You Mary?’ asks Mercy.

‘Muraging,’ she says.

‘No more,’ laughs Mercy.

Muraging shoves Mercy away and stares with fury.

‘She achieves adequate reading skills,’ Mr Shelley replies to Mrs Macquarie.

The feasting begins in the marketplace. Muraging and the children are given meat and bread and they gulp it down. Mrs Shelley hands her a striped lolly. She crunches and sucks the red and white peppermint stick and it dribbles down her chin. The world is still.

Muraging watches her father and her aunts as the feast is finished. She rushes towards her family but is captured by a soldier, flung over his back and returned to the schoolmaster. The children are marshalled back into line and Muraging trails behind.

Mrs Shelley tries to take Muraging’s hand, but she struggles out of her grip and runs away to stand by the grand sandstone church, feeling lost. St John’s spire is the tallest building in the town. Muraging hears an eerie wailing in the distance, like someone has died. Mulbari. She wonders if the wailing is for her. She picks her nose and examines the contents but a white hand smacks it and drags her back. Muraging tries out a smile, hoping it will make her more appealing. She hopes they won’t put her on a big white bird ship to disappear over the edge of the sea.

‘Biana, biana!’ cries Muraging when she sees Berringingy moving away. But the bargain has been made. Eyes are gleaming with the sight of bags of food and her hungry family is shambling away into dust. Her people laugh and drink and are having a grand old time on bool. She watches her father trying on a blue coat from the Governor. He strokes the braid and pulls off a button for his son to play with.

Then he looks back at her and calls, ‘Nogra whu karndi, waibala.’ Be brave and do not run away. He smiles at her and turns his back.

There are ashes in her mouth. She tries to uncurl the pink fingers around her own. She could bite Mrs Shelley and run. She can almost taste the salty blood. She wants to rip and tear the hand like a dingo feasting on a bone.

‘Governor, she will settle, they all struggle at first, but under my tutelage she will learn to be like the English. Why, under the dirt she is quite pretty,’ says Mrs Shelley.

Mrs Shelley has a high, white choking collar and her hands flap like frightened birds. She grins at Mary with scary intensity; her yellow devil-devil teeth are sharp.

‘Are you still hungry, Mary?’

‘Karndo. Jumna gorai.’

‘We will give you all the meat you want at our home,’ says Mrs Shelley.

Mrs Shelley squeezes her hand and from a bag she produces a white hand-spun pinafore which she puts over Muraging’s head. She smooths the large garment and it hangs nearly to the ground. It smells of yams. She drags her arms through the armholes as big tears roll from Muraging’s eyes. She blows her nose with her fingers, but Mrs Shelley wipes it with a perfumed handkerchief.

As Muraging leaves the square she crosses her legs and wiggles. She needs to pee. Mrs Shelley takes her to a tree and squats down. They pee, yilabil, and Muraging sees that Mrs Shelley is a girl like her. Her soft black dress is hitched up and she giggles at her new pupil.

CHAPTER TWO

1817-18: LIFE AT SCHOOL

The Native Institution, which doubles as a home for the Shelleys, is on the edge of Parramatta town, on a street made of earth and stones. It is next to a convict workers’ camp on one side and a church on the other. The church has a tall steeple and a sign that says, ‘Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.’

The school is white wattle and daub with thick pale clay walls and glass in some windows. English gardens surround the building and a lean-to kitchen with hanging pots and pans and a huge iron wood fuel stove stands at the back. A picket fence surrounds it and its English gardens include a vegetable patch and chicken enclosures.

Muraging sleeps her first night on a pallet bed. She will learn to read and write, and to eat with cutlery. She will learn to sit up straight with a stiff back and arms pressed to her sides. She will become like the English. She stares at the white-washed walls but only wants the sky. Breathing this air is unbearable. Muraging dreams of milk spray from her mother’s breast, but her mother is dead, long ago from waibala influenza. She curls up and holds her arms around herself in a hug.

On the first morning Mrs Shelley calls the thirteen polished Aboriginal children to stand in line and introduce themselves to the new pupils. Mrs Shelley leaves Mercy in charge of the class and walks to the kitchen to give orders for lunch.

The other pupils exude confidence, but Mary is afraid of shadows and tries to see out of the small windows by jumping up and peeking over the window ledge. Mercy takes hold of her arm.

‘You called Mary now. Say your name,’ says Mercy.

‘Naiya Darug! Whu karndi!’ says Mary.

‘You not run away! You Mary now! Paialla Mary,’ says Mercy.

Muraging charges out of the classroom and climbs the picket fence onto the road, but she does not know where to run. Mercy chases her and drags her, kicking, back into the school room.

‘Mudjevu werowi,’ says Mercy and pats her to show her where to sit down on a chair.

‘Naiya Muraging, no Mary.’

‘Paialla English, you learn English and you budjery werowi, good girl,’ says Mercy.

The girls laugh at Mary’s matted hair full of casuarina pods and she hides behind Mercy. There are two older boys at the school who help in the garden and they do not tease her. Most of the children can speak English and are smacked if they speak anything else. But now that Mrs Shelley is not in the room the little girls in pinafores keep together and chatter quietly in their language – their precious secret. Each child has a wooden doll on their lap that has been made by Mercy. Each doll has a costume fashioned from rags. One little girl holds up her doll and smiles at Mercy.

Mercy has been at the school for two years and is the same age as Mary but is tall with a maturing figure and wavy pigtails. Her face has big, grand features with wide nostrils and huge black eyes. Her mouth is pink under full brown lips that never stop moving. Mary watches her running her fingers through her golden curls and thinks her parents must be from some gold clan. But she is from mountain people, Gundungurra. Mercy has total power over the other children – even the boys look to her as the leader. Laughing loudly is what she likes best, her head thrown back as she gives cheek or plays tricks that are not meant to hurt but sometimes do. A rubber band is her talisman and she flicks the girls’ ears with paper pellets when they are writing in the school room.

Mrs Shelley comes into the room. It is bath time and she takes Mary by the hand and plunges her into a metal claw-footed outdoor bath filled with kettles of water from the fire. She screams but the other children laugh. She is scrubbed and left to huddle with others. Overhead a carrion-eating bird, wargan flies by. Mary flaps her arms at him.

‘That crow is bad fella,’ says Mercy. ‘He want to steal all Eaglehawk wives. He chase them all along rivers.’

…

Days go by and Mary hears other children’s stories whispered in the night. Many have seen, and still see, the bodies of their parents shot and hung on trees with corn cobs in their mouths. They still watch in horror as crows peck out living eyes and black beaks pick brains. As men rush at each other with swords and nulla nulla. One of the boys saw his pretty aunty crying as ten soldier men took turns to jump on her and heard her last sad wail as a sword killed her. Some tasted blood in rivers and witnessed the burning of farms by warriors and their heroes, Branch Jack and Musquito.

Mary blocks her ears. These stories steal her sleep. Mary tosses next to other hot little girls also tossing to and fro in the night. Mercy holds Mary’s hand and tells her how she had been caught setting fire to a farmer’s house on the outskirts of Ebenezer. Her family had come with her tribe, the Gundungurra mountain warriors, and she had helped to attack a house with fire brands made with mootin spears and fizgig, but the family had escaped. Mercy is no longer the laughing and silly girl to Mary. This story is whispered because such a tale would terrify the Shelleys and perhaps Mercy would be imprisoned.

‘You not tell. You never tell my secret here in your heart,’ says Mercy.

It is a secret between these girls, now closest friends.

Mary is pushed, each day, into a scratchy shapeless shift like the shroud of a dead white person. Her head is bent over a stinking kerosene bath to kill nits, lice and all manner of ‘crawly vermin’, so Mr Shelley says. She is getting used to being smacked for no reason and she is getting used to pining for her father.

Every day the boys close and latch the gate to keep out marauding pigs that snuffle and grunt at the fence. These hogs escaped from the ship Perseverance and have bred. They have short black bristles, horrible yellow teeth and razor-sharp tusks.

One day there is a terrible noise outside the school and Mercy huddles the children together to watch from the window a parade of starving Aboriginal people running by. Dyins grab at their rags to hold their bouncing breasts. They are in tatters, like spiders that have scattered before a fire, with big hungry eyes. Men on horses chase them down like dogs. Why are they being chased? No-one can say. Mercy shakes her head. She doesn’t know why this is happening and the smaller children hold onto her dress in fear. Mary sees that the running women might fall and be eaten by the hogs. Her panic is complete. She falls to the floor and cannot speak for days.

When Mary is better, Mercy explains that at night the wooden door is closed with a heavy beam used as a latch. Mary asks with her eyes why the latch will be closed.

‘Tuabilli were waibala. To keep out bad men,’ Mercy replies.

‘Karama kurung?’ says Mary.

They hear from the teachers that bad men are waiting on the street to grab them – to push them to the ground and hurt them. She hears the tapping of wooden shoes on the flagstones; she looks out the window and sees men in chains digging in the school garden, rattling metal against shovels.

The door opens and the room is alive with sparkling sun. She looks out at the garden and gasps as a convict man watches her from the other side of the gate. Panic runs through her.

The convict’s hairy neck is shining with sweat. He is thin and white. He touches his palm to his mouth, asking for bread. His eyes beg and she feels sorry for him. She sneaks into the kitchen and takes a piece from a crusty white loaf and hides it under her pinafore. She knows the punishment for stealing is a beating with a wooden cane, but she is valiant and walks calmly out of the gate.

‘You man eat! Patama, bread,’ says Mary as he looks up. He wolfs it down with a guzzling sound. Then he bows and creeps back to work on the road.

Next day, she throws a bread morsel from the window and the man wolfs it down again, nodding his thank you. Mary throws the whole loaf and doesn’t care if she is punished.

‘Thank you, little girl. You will go to heaven. And I will run away to Arcadia over the mountains,’ the convict yells.

The next day she sees the man huddled by the fire. He seems invisible to all except Mary. He smiles. She watches in horror as he is flogged by the overseers and dragged away to a pillory.

…

Mary begins to learn in the school room and sits with her legs dangling from a wobbly chair with hard edges. The children are crowded into one room, sitting along rough benches. A cane hangs from a hook and Mary can see the boys cower as their eyes dart up to watch flies circle the implement. One boy punches another and then clenched fists are up and ready to strike. Mr Shelley looks at them and they crumple into a docile heap. The fight will keep.

Mr Shelley walks up and down and studies the green writing slates with their wooden edges and sponge rubbers. All the pupils have been given these writing implements. Mary’s has lots of spit where she has smeared the chalk in an effort to copy the marks from the board – the alphabet.

‘This slate is an abomination,’ says Mr Shelley as he wipes it down. He takes Mary’s hand and forces her to hold the grey chalk. ...