From Gumnuts to Buttons

Captain James Cook

Theme Thursday and I had to press the panic button! Where to go with this one?

Indigenous Tasmanians after white contact, became famous for their necklaces strung with tiny, lustrous shells. There is no apparent reason for this and no pre white contact history of the aborigines there addorning their bodies with any type of jewellery.

There is a theory proposed by Antique authority John Hawkins, that Tasmanian Aborigines created these necklaces as a result of being given strings of glass beads and buttons at Adventure Bay by James Cook in 1777.

Between 13 January and 27 February 1802, Nicholas Baudin was sent to map the coast of Tasmania. The expedition successfully explored the southern part of the east coast of the apple isle and Baudin’s journal relates the following regarding necklaces, gifts and trinkets.

15 January 1802
'... One of our sailors exchanged his jacket for a kangaroo skin. The native tied it round his neck and went off a little way. His principal concern was to remove all the buttons, and then he abandoned the jacket. Of these, they all appear to be very fond. Citizen Bonnefoi gave a woman a small mirror in return for her necklace. The locket on it consisted of an English penny and a metal button, but nobody could discover when she had acquired them. With everyone sitting down again, they turned their attention to pockets and the metal buttons on some of the men’s waistcoats. Several did not ask before searching through them for things they might fancy, while others
indicated by unambiguous signs how pleased they would be to own the buttons.
Some were cut off and distributed amongst them to their great satisfaction...’

Indeed, military jackets with brass buttons were also presented to other indigenous populations in Canada and New Zealand, Hawaii and etc. as a sign of status, a faux attempt at 'peace'.

Interestingly, there's an educational kit for Tasmanian school children called "From Gumnuts to Buttons" This activity explores the relationships between the European Settlers (buttons) and the Native Aborigines (gumnuts) throughout history. Not a happy history I am sad to say and we are still trying to make amends and resolve the pain of the past.

Although there is something very innocent and sweet about the indigenous inhabitants of this great brown land, divesting the European invaders of their coats only to only to have them de-buttoned and dropped in the dust! If only white diplomacy could have been pursued through a button exchange instead of invasion and attempted eradication. What a different country this would be.