Black Swan Lake

Rod Giblett

Description

Tracing the life of the plants and animals of Forrestdale Lake through the six seasons of the local indigenous people, the first part of Black Swan Lake presents a wetlands calendar over a yearly cycle of the rising, falling and drying waters of this internationally important wetland in south-western Australia. The second part of this book considers issues and explores themes from the first part, including a cultural history of the seasons and the black swan. Black Swan Lake is a book of nature writing and environmental history and philosophy arising from living in a particular place with other beings. The book is a guide to living simply and sustainably with the earth in troubled times and places by making and maintaining a strong attachment and vital connection to a local place and its flora and fauna. Local places and their living processes sustain human and other life on this living earth.
PART I: Wetlands calendar  Chapter 1: For a few years Chapter 2: Rising waters (August/Djilba/late winter)  Chapter 3: Other place (September/Djilba/early spring)  Chapter 4: Other life (October/Kambarang/mid-spring)  Chapter 5: Wetland world (November/Kambarang/late spring)  Chapter 6: Drying up (December/Birak/early summer)  Chapter 7: Dry as a rule (January–February/Birak–Bunuru/mid-, late summer)  Chapter 8: Still water (March/Bunuru/early autumn) Chapter 9: Big puddle (April/Djeran/mid-autumn) Chapter 10: Water’s back (June/Makuru/early winter)  Chapter 11: Birds are back (July/Makuru/mid-winter) PART II: The downflow  Chapter 12: The ballad of black swan lake: Homage to Henry David James  Chapter 13: The black swan: Homage to hoax writers  Chapter 14: The blackness of the black swan: Homage to Herman Melville Chapter 15: Black swamp city: Homage to Hugh Webb  Chapter 16: The body of the earth and the body of Australia: Homage to the human body  Chapter 17: The way of water: Homage to Master Moy Lin-Shin  Chapter 18: The seasons: Homage to Henry David Thoreau  Chapter 19: The black arts of sublime technologies: Homage to Henry Adams  Chapter 20: People and place of the whistling kite: Homage to Haliastur sphenurus  Chapter 21: Living black waters: Homage to horrifying marsh monsters  Chapter 22: Living with the earth: Homage to home-habitat

Sujets

• PHILOSOPHY
• EDUCATION
• Sciences et techniques
• General officer
• General
• Cultural Studies
• Nature

Informations

• Publié par: Intellect Books Ltd
• Date de parution: 15 février 2013
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781783200450
• Langue: English

Extrait

First published in the UK in 2013 by Intellect, The Mill, Parnall Road, Fishponds, Bristol, BS16 3JG, UK
First published in the USA in 2013 by Intellect, The University of Chicago Press, 1427 E. 60th Street, Chicago, IL 60637, USA
Copyright © 2013 Intellect Ltd
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Cover designer: Ellen Tomas
Cover Illustration: Gould, Birds of Australia 1848, VII , Plate 6
National Library of Australia nla.aus–14773–7–s17–v
Reproduced with permission
Copy-editor: MPS Technologies
Production manager: Jelena Stanovnik
Typesetting: Planman Technologies
ISBN 978-1-84150-704-0
eISBN 978-1-78320-045-0
Printed and bound by Hobbs, UK
 
 
 
 
Dedicated to black swans – birds, people and the highly improbable
Contents
List of Illustrations
PART I: Wetlands calendar
Chapter 1: For a few years
Chapter 2: Rising waters (August/Djilba/late winter)
Chapter 3: Other place (September/Djilba/early spring)
Chapter 4: Other life (October/Kambarang/mid-spring)
Chapter 5: Wetland world (November/Kambarang/late spring)
Chapter 6: Drying up (December/Birak/early summer)
Chapter 7: Dry as a rule (January–February/Birak–Bunuru/mid-, late summer)
Chapter 8: Still water (March/Bunuru/early autumn)
Chapter 9: Big puddle (April/Djeran/mid-autumn)
Chapter 10: Water’s back (June/Makuru/early winter)
Chapter 11: Birds are back (July/Makuru/mid-winter)
Part II: The downflow
Chapter 12: The ballad of black swan lake: Homage to Henry David James
Chapter 13: The black swan: Homage to hoax writers
Chapter 14: The blackness of the black swan: Homage to Herman Melville
Chapter 15: Black swamp city: Homage to Hugh Webb
Chapter 16: The body of the earth and the body of Australia: Homage to the human body
Chapter 17: The way of water: Homage to Master Moy Lin-Shin
Chapter 18: The seasons: Homage to Henry David Thoreau1
Chapter 19: The black arts of sublime technologies: Homage to Henry Adams
Chapter 20: People and place of the whistling kite: Homage to Haliastur sphenurus
Chapter 21: Living black waters: Homage to horrifying marsh monsters
Chapter 22: Living with the earth: Homage to home-habitat
List of Illustrations:
Cover: Gould, Birds of Australia 1848, VII, plate 6
National Library of Australia nla.aus-14773-7-s17-v
  Figure 1: Victorszoon 1696/7, Black swans at the entrance to the Swan River with the ’t Weseltje and Geelvinck at anchor (From François Valentijn, Oud-en Nieuw Oost-Indièn [ The Old and New East Indies ]), 1726 Figure 2: Jacobus van der Schley 1715 – 1779 print after Canal aux Cygnes Noirs dans l’Isle Rottenest Swarte Swaane drift op’t Eiland Rottenest [Black Swan River, Rottnest Island] 1750 Collection Title: Prevost d’Exiles, Antoine F. ‘Histoire Generale des Voyages, ou Nouvelle Collection de toutes les relations de voyages par mer et par terre, qui ont ete publiees jusqu’a present dans les differentes langues de toutes les nations connues...’ Chez Didot, Paris 1746 – 1752, p.89. http://artsearch.nga.gov.au/Detail-LRG.cfm?IRN=204603&View=LRG Figure 3: Statues of a black swan and Willem de Vlamingh encountering each other in 1696 on the banks of the Black Swan River, Burswood Park, Perth, Western Australia (Photo: Ian McConchie) Figure 4: Plaque commemorating the 300 th anniversary of the encounter (Photo: Ian McConchie) Figure 5: ‘Port Jackson Painter’ Black swan Natural History Museum, London Figure 6: Nicolas Piron Cigne noir du Cap de Diemen National Library of Australia nla.pic-an11164943-v Figure 7: William John Huggins, Captain Stirling’s exploring party 50 miles up the Swan River, WA, March 1827 National Library of Australia nla.pic-an2260474 Figure 8: Black Swan Fountain in Burswood Park, Perth, Western Australia (Photo: Ian McConchie) Figure 9: Cover design for British hardback edition of Nassim Nicholas Taleb The black swan, London: Allen Lane, 2007. Figure 10: Horace Samson, Perth 1847, 1847 watercolour, gouache and pen and ink 27.5 × 40.3 cm State Art Collection, Art Gallery of Western Australia Gift of Mr D. Rannard, 19323 Acc 1923/00W1 Figure 11: Charles D. Wittenoom, Sketch of the Town of Perth from Perth Water, Western Australia, 1839 line lithograph 18.4 × 26cm (sheet) 15.8 × 24.2 cm (image) State Art Collection, Art Gallery of Western Australia Transferred from Public Library, 1916 Acc 1916/00Q2 Figure 12: J. Arrowsmith Discoveries in Western Australia …, 1833 State Library of Western Australia, Battye Library Acc 27C = 009459D Figure 13: J. Arrowsmith The Colony of Western Australia …, 1838 State Library of Western Australia, Battye Library Acc 90C = 009460D Figure 14: A. Hillman and John Septimus Roe, Plan of Townsite of Perth, Western Australia … 1838 State Library of Western Australia, Battye Library Acc 44C Figure 15: François-Antoine Boniface Heirisson Rivière des Cygnes (Swan River) 1801 State Library of WA Figure 16: Captain James Stirling RN, ‘Chart of Swan and Canning Rivers …’, 1827. Courtesy State Library of Western Australia, Battye Library Acc1189C = 009453D Figure 17: Sketch of the New Settlement on Swan River, 1829 State Library of Western Australia, Battye Library Figure 18: The digestive tract Figure 19: Swan River as Digestive Tract Figure 20: David Mowaljarlai, Bandaiyan: The body of Australia, Corpus Australis in his Yorro Yorro: Everything standing up alive: Spirit of the Kimberley, Broome: Magabala, 1993, p.205. Figure 21: The Picture of Internals based on an etching in the White Cloud Monastery in Beijing Figure 22: Frank Netter, Twenty-somite stage (3.2mm) approximately 25 days in his The Ciba collection of medical illustrations , Vol. 5, Heart (p.118), West Caldwell: Ciba, 1969.
Part I
Wetlands Calendar
Chapter 1
For a Few Years
For three or four years, through the seasons, I jotted down in a notebook some occasional observations and impressions of Forrestdale Lake, what it looked like, how it smelt, what sounds I heard, what birds I saw there, what plants were present, and if and when they flowered. Those jottings form the basis for this book. They are the raw material that has been developed and extended into these writings. At the time, keeping a nature journal was an enjoyable, though seemingly pointless, pastime – except for itself. As the basis for this book it has had some point, though, and has served some purpose further down the track. The resulting book does not have much value as science (except in the sense of knowing), though it may have some value as 'poetry,' as 'nature writing,' as a record of a place, and of my sense of that place and its place in the processes of both human history and non-human nature. I wanted to connect to this place and reflect on it, and its and my life, in the broader context of 'nature' and 'society' in today's world.
Making a connection to local place, its plants, animals and their seasonal changes, seemed to me then, and still does now, a necessary response, and antidote, to the globalized world in which many people now live and work and which impacts on our lives in numerous ways. It is important to think and act locally as well as globally. Connecting to local place can be a reclusive retreat into a smaller, narrower and safer world, away from the incursions of the bigger, badder global world. But it is also a way of acknowledging and respecting the interconnectedness of all life from the local to the global and back again. Our lives are lived locally (if not also globally) and are dependent on local air, water and food, mainly supplied from within and by our bioregional home-habitat. We have aerials and cables, but we also have roots – however shallow or transient they may be. We feed off nutrients in the soil and although we may up root and change soil occasionally or frequently, we are still putting them down into a soil, drinking local water, breathing the air around us and largely eating local food. That air and soil have a history, a human and a natural history. Knowing their composition enriches our lives and helps to connect us to the other beings living in the same soil, or wetland in the case of Forrestdale Lake and its surrounding areas. That sense of mutuality between people and place is vital to conserving a place and the planet.
My observations, impressions and reflections were quite literally 'philosophy in the swamp' as I sensed, thought and often wrote there. I loved to sit in the boughs of a swamp paperbark, or on the ground leaning against the trunk of another on the other side of the lake, and look out over it and its waterbirds, listen to their calls and those of the bushbirds, to look at the wildflowers and to jot down what I saw and heard. The observations and the reflections I made, there and later on, are by no means systematic. I did not keep a journal in the strict sense of writing something every day like an explorer would do. I visited the lake when I felt like it and usually wrote while I was sitting by it. I was not attempting to record everything that was there. I recorded what came to my attention or took my fancy. No doubt I have missed out or overlooked a lot.
The recorded observations are spasmodic impressions of the life of the lake, its rising and falling waters, its residents and visitors. I wanted to tell the stories of Forrestdale Lake, to write the novel of its life, in which the major character is the lake itself, the hero of its own history. As for the minor characters, the supporting roles and the bit players, they are the native plants and animals, the banksias and melaleucas, the waterbirds and mammals, the human residents and visitors. They all play a role in the life of Forrestdale, and in its natural and human history presented in th