New Stories
These Europeans who came to the continent in the form of convicts, soldiers and settlers brought their own stories which were passed around Britain’s new penal colony orally. For the 150 000 convicts who were transported to Australia in the late 18th and early 19th centuries stories were essential. They had been harshly, and often unjustly, treated and exiled with no hope of returning to the land of their birth. It is through stories that we create culture. The convicts, most of whom were from the labouring classes of England, Wales and Ireland, needed to recreate their culture in an alien environment. While the stories they brought with them offered comfort during the desperate loneliness of isolation they also needed to forget the country that had forsaken them. So by the 1820s the songs and stories the convicts brought from the British Isles had begun to merge with the stories of their new land as they went about recreating their lives and their culture.
An anti-authoritarian attitude emerged in their new culture which was often reflected in their stories. Some of the pain of abandonment was eased through the sharing of stories about bushrangers who dared to rob the rich and flout authority. One such bushranger was Ned Kelly who became a hero of the people and a legend in life and death. His is still one of the best known Australian stories.
Later, the prospectors who flooded Australian goldfields during the 1800s brought with them the stories they heard on the American goldfields. These stories soon took on an Australian flavour and became part of the country’s folklore. Other stories, uniquely Australian, also sprang from the goldfields. One such story is the story of the Eureka Stockade—a miners’ uprising on the Ballarat goldfields in 1854—said to be the start of democracy in Australia. New developments brought new stories; stories of pioneers who survived harsh conditions, stories of explorers such as Burke and Wills and stories of tragic shipwrecks. Events reported in newspapers were shared orally, and no doubt embellished.
Read more about this topic: Australian Storytelling
Famous quotes containing the word stories:
“Young man, there is America, which at this day serves for little more than to amuse you with stories of savage men and uncouth manners.”
—Edmund Burke (1729–1797)
“I’m the only woman reporter they have, so I get all the meat boycott stories and all the meatless food stories.... Actually, I’ve only cooked three meals in my life. The most uncomfortable place for me in the whole world is in a kitchen.”
—Theresa Brown (b. 1957)