I’d Rather
Dig
Potatoes
Clamor Schurmann
and the Aborigines
of South Australia
1838 – 1853
Edwin A. Schurmann
Lutheran Publishing House,
Adelaide.
Lutheran Publishing House.
Except for brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews, this book may not be reproduced in whole or in part by any means whatever without the prior written permission of the publishers.
Cover illustration:
National Library of Australia
Cataloguing-in-Publication entry
Schurmann, Ted 1917 –
I’d rather dig potatoes.
Bibliography.
Includes index.
ISBN 0 85910 391 9.
1. Schurmann, C.W. (Clamor Wilhelm). 2. Schurmann, C.W. (Clamor Wilhelm) – Diaries. 3. Missionaries – South Australia – Biography. 4. Lutherans – South Australia – Biography. [5] Aborigines, Australian – South Australia – History. 6. South Australia – History – 1836-1900.
266’. 419423’0924
Printed and published by
Lutheran Publishing House,
205 Halifax Street, Adelaide, South Australia.LPH 170-87
For Richard and Susan
Foreword
The first large group of German Lutheran settlers in Australia arrived at Port Adelaide in November 1838, barely two years after the foundation of the colony of South Australia. Clamor Wilhelm Schurmann had arrived just a month earlier. He had made the long journey from his home near Osnabruck, in the company of his fellow missionary, C.G. Teichelmann, with the aim of bringing the Christian gospel to the Australian Aborigines. For the following fifteen years he lived in South Australia, devoting himself to this task.
It was, as other missionaries in Australia had already discovered, a stony field of endeavour. Schurmann was sustained more by his faith, his family, and the friendships which his easy disposition attracted than by his evangelical success. Yet his commitment to bettering the lot of Aboriginal people encountering the main impact of European setlement around Adelaide ant Port Lincoln was unwavering. In a raw colonial environment, where attitudes to Aborigines were formed more often by the politics of the frontier than by compromise, Schurmann’s efforts on behalf of Aborigines did not always assist his own social adjustment. His persistence at the task of evangelism set him apart from his missionary colleagues of the 1830s and 1840s. Economic circumstances forced several to take up other occupations, but Schurmann remained characteristically single-minded: I would rather dig potatoes than dig for gold.’
Schurmann’s close attention to Aboriginal customs and beliefs was partly a result of his Dresden Missionary School training which stressed the importance of communicating with Aboriginal people in their own languages. This approach was strongly reinforced by the encouragement offered Schurmann by George Fife Angas and by Sir George Grey, South Australia’s third Governor. Grey had already studied and published Aboriginal languages, and in consultation with him Schurmann and Teichelmann developed a regular linguistic orthography. Schurmann applied this method in his pioneer studies of the Kaurna language of the Adelaide Plains and the Parnkalla language of the Port Lincoln area.
This systematic approach to understanding and interpreting a radically different language and culture also found expression in Schurmann’s daily record of his activities and thoughts. The diaries begin with a fascinating account of the young missionary’s long sea voyage to Australia from London, and end with his final years as a respected patriarch in Hamilton, Victoria. The bulk of the entries contain Schurmann’s observations of the Aborigines of Adelaide, Encounter Bay, and Port Lincoln, both in their tribal state and in their relations with Europeans. A wealth of previously unrecorded detail is also contained within Schurmann’s descriptions of his own efforts at improving the social, economic, and educational lot of Aborigines in the face of European settlement. By contemporary standards these efforts were outstanding – the more so when it is remembered that Schurmann had to justify his stance and methods to government officials in the English language rather than in his native German.
The Schurmann diaries remained unknown and untranslated for decades after his death in 1893. Through the efforts of Hans Spoeri and Edwin Schurmann, the missionary’s great grandson, this task has now been completed. With the publication of this book historians and anthropologists, as well as general readers, now have the opportunity to appreciate far more than a new insight into aspects of Australia’s colonial past. Schurmann’s eloquent private record is a remarkably vivid commentary on the critical years of contact between Aboriginal and European cultures in southern Australia.
Philip Jones, Curator, Aboriginal History
South Australian Museum, February 1987
Contents
Page
Foreword …………………………………… 7
Acknowledgements ……………………… 11
List of Illustrations ………………………. 13
Prelude ……………………………………… 15
Chapter One Voyage to Australia …………………….… 19
Chapter Two The Adelaide Years ………………………. 29
Chapter Three The Port Lincoln Years ………………….109
Chapter Four Pastor on Horseback …………………….199
Chapter Five Writings of C.W. Schurmann …………213
(i) Extracts from the Preface to
The Aboriginal Language of South
Australia …………………………………213
(ii) Extracts from the Preface to
The Parnkalla Language ……………. 215
(iii) Essay: The Aboriginal Tribes of
Port Lincoln ……………………………. 217
Appendix I Autobiographical Sketch by
C.W. Shurmann, written prior to his
leaving for Australia ……………………… 255
Appendix II Reports to Governor-Elect Gawler on
conditions aboard the vessel, Pestonjee
Bomanjee ……………………………………….257
Bibliography ………………………………… 261
Index ………………………………………….. 263
Acknowledgements
Great difficulty was experienced in finding a translator for the C.W. Shurmann diaries, written in an archaic German Script. The original exercise and note book pages had been photographed and were on microfilm in the Adelaide Library Archives, but were frustratingly indecipherable. Then fortunately I met Hans Spoeri, who had learnt the scrip in his early school days in Switzerland, and who was able, after much time and effort, to translate the 500 or more pages. My deepest thanks are due, and extended, to Hans.
I acjnowledge help in various ways from the following: The staff of the South Australian Government Archives and of the Mortlock Library, Mr Philip Jones of the South Australian Museum, the staff of the Lutheran Church Archives, and the staff of the Port Lincoln Library. Also, Gil Robertson, Percy Baillie, J.R. Digance, Chris Haldane, W. Hentschke, Graham Jenkin, M. Johnson, Mr and Mrs Kidman (Port Lincoln), D.N. Kraehenbuehl, the late Dr. M. Lohe, the Revd. E. Mckenzie, Mr and Mrs Mason (Rudall), the Revd. H.F.W. Proeve, B.J. Smith, Paul and Hilda Walsh, and Dr. I.D. Wittwer, all of South Australia. From Victoria: Max and Ruby Bunge, Leck Paszkowski, Richard Schurmann, Robert Schurmann, Stan Schurmann, Sue and Roger Taylor, the late Bernard Cronin, and the staff of the Latrobe Library, Melbourne.
I have received tremendous help from my wife, Vicki, with research, correspeondence, checking the manuscript, and in many other ways. Other people have assisted by providing pieces of information and in personal conversation. I thank them all.
The quotations from John Hetherington’s Pillars of the Faith are included by kind permission of Mrs John Hetherington.
Reading and research have covered a wide field, and books which have been of help are listed in the Bibliography at the end of the volume.
It was found that during the years many mistakes have been made and repeated in historical writings, so wherever possible I have gone back to original sources.
E.A.S.
List of Illustrations
Page
Clamor Wilhem Schurmann …………………………………… 14
South Australia …………………………………………………… 16
Schurmann Hoff, near Osnabruck, Germany ………….. 17
Governor George Gawler ……………………………………… 18
The Revd. T.Q. Stow ………………………………………….. 33
William Wyatt …………………………………………………… 34
C.G. Teichelmann ………………………………………………. 37
George Fife Angas ………………………………………………. 43
Native Dance – Kuri’, by George French Angas ……… 47
Encounter Bay, by George French Angas ………………. 55
Natives fishing with nets, by George French Angas .. 71
Adelaide Women (top left and bottom right) and Port
Lincoln Women (top right and bottom left), by
Georege French Angas ………………………………………… 96
H.A.E. Meyer, portrait of 1836 ……………………………105
Port Lincoln, by George French Angas ………………….112
Captain J. Bishop ………………………………………………127
Adelaide, 1844 – Torrens near reed beds,
by George French Angas …………………………………….163
Natives prepared for ceremonial dances, and Coffin Bay
and Port Lincoln natives in three stages of initiation
(Lower right) by George French Angas …………………175
George French Angas …………………………………………176
Land Title Certificate ………………………………………..181
Matthew Moorhouse ………………………………………….192
Copy of entry in Register of Deaths, for death of
Minna Schurmann ……………………………………………..209
The Revd John Adam Schurmann ………………………..254
Clamor Wilhelm Schurmann
Prelude
This is a story of Clamor Wilhelm Schurmann, who came to Australia as a missionary to the Aborigines – a story, in the main, previously untold. (The name was originally written Schürmann, but the umlaut [modification of the u] was dropped by most descendants in Australia – although some of the fifth generation have reverted to the original form.)
Some aspects of this man’s life were covered by chroniclers of his own time and, more recently, by anthropologists and writers of history. But generally his work and associations with the Australian Aborigines have been hardly touched on.
One reason for this is that Schurmann’s own diaries and journals until now have never been translated in full from the original German into English. Having this done was an important factor in the compilation of this book.
Clamor Schurmann spent his boyhood on the family farm, near Osnabruck. He was orphaned at the age of ten. Later he relinquished his inheritance of the family farm property to serve as a missionary.
In a letter written in January 1952, Heinfried Schurmann, then an occupier of the same property in Germany, stated:
The Schurmanns are a very old family who can be traced back to exactly the year 1512. Historians presume that our farm was founded as a Königshof (king’s farm) as early as between the years 782 and 786 by the Emperor Charlemagne.
Being the youngest son, he (Clamor Wilhelm) inherited our farm according to the Royal Hanover Farm Heritage Law. He, however, renounced his entitlement to the farm in favour of his brother, Johann Friedrich.
Schurmann and his fellow student Teichelmann were studying at the Seminary of the Dresden Mission Society when the opportunity came for them to go to Australia.
Two men who influenced the decision to send missionaries to this country from Germany George Fife Angas and Pastor A.L.C. Kavel. Kavel is remembered as the man who saw Australia as a resort for the persecuted Christians of Germany, and who accompanied the first of these parties of settlers to their new country.
Angas, who came to be known as ‘The Father of South Australia’, was a philanthropist in London with an ambition to populate the new colony with people of industry and good character. He also had a strong sympathy for the Australian Aborigines.
SOUTH AUSTRALIA
Kavel travelled from Germany to London to talk with Mr Angas. In the course of the discussion, Kavel chanced to mention that the Dresden Mission Society would have men who could serve as missionaries to the Aborigines. This interested Angas. Wheels were immediately set turning, leading to the Society appointing Schurmann and Teichelmann to go to Australia. As it happened, they were to set foot in their new country before Kavel and his parties.
Angas not only prepared the way for the two young missionaries, but gave them some financial support during their first years in the colony.
Schurmann was to be involved with many well-known figures of his era: Governors Gawler and Grey; the explorer Edward John Eyre; prominent men in early South Australian history, like Tolmer, Pullen, Moorhouse, and O’Halloran.
But at least as important for him were his Aboriginal friends, people who live, and often die, in the pages of his diaries:
Yutalta, who while other natives were often shy, secretive, and hard to approach, was always in the picture, ready and willing to grab the limelight and provide information;
Nummalta, cruelly and unnecessarily shot by a soldier, who came to Schurmann in his death throes, searing the missionary’s soul;
Schurmann Hof, near Osnabruck, Germany
Ngarbi (Little Jemmy), active participant in a murderous attack on a white man’s station, in his cell awaiting execution, visited by the understanding Schurmann who talked to him in his own language and was to press for a pardon for the friendless native;
Punalta, who saved Schurmann’s own life when he was desperately weakened by thirst on a trek, simply by taking his hand, urging him to walk on.
Schurmann’s vocabularies of Aboriginal languages were republished in facsimile editions by the Public Library of South Australia.
Among written tributes to him are these words from biographer John Hetherington:
Anybody who had once met Schurmann could never forget him. His blunt-featured face and strong body might have been moulded from rock, but it was not the outer man alone that men remembered. Something which came from inside Schurmann – a blend of purpose, patience, patriacrchal calm and other elements harder to define – was equally, or more, important.
Hetherington was writing of his subject’s later service in a country pastorate, but he did state that Schurmann earlier had spent some 15 years working among the natives, adding:
‘The aborigines had come to trust him almost as one of themselves.’
How he won that trust is the central story to be told here.
Governor George Gawler (Mortlock Library)
O N E
Voyage
to
Australia
Clamor Schurmann, with former fellow student Teichelmann, sailed for Australia on the vessel Pestonjee Bomanjee, leaving London on May 21, 1838.
The ship, of about 600 tons, one of several former Indiamen used for emigration, was named after an Indian naval architect.
A prominent passenger was Lieutenant Colonel G. Gawler, Governor-Elect of South Australia, on his way to the new colony to take up his position, and whose contingent included his wife and children, personal secretary Mr Hall, and servants.
Schurmann hadn’t seen the ship for two days, and was much astonished by the sight of such a large crowd on board. He wrote:
To imagine the turmoil and swarming, one has to picture a medium-sized ship with 260 souls, plus crew, on board. The total would be at least 300 people. The passengers are divided into three sections, according to rank and fortune.
He shared a cabin with his co-missionary, whose full name was Christian Gottlob Teichelmann, seven and a half years his senior.
On the day of sailing, the weather was unfriendly, the wind adverse. But these circumstances didn’t prevent our departure as our ship was towed down the Thames by a steamboat, which is the usual thing these days.
The ship did not reach Plymouth until June 4.
For several days we had not seen any land, so it was the more surprising this morning to be greeted by the steep green shores of Plymouth. Because of un favourable winds, we had difficulty entering the port, but eventually did so after one or two unsuccessful attempts.
The vessel was delayed in Plymouth until June 11. The delay was annoying, first because all this time a favourable north-easterly was blowing, and also because the young missionary did not want to indulge in the pleasure of going ashore. For this meant the ‘considerable expense’ of two shillings for transport and he possessed only two pounds, which he was determined to take to Adelaide intact.
However, the tediousness for me was lessened by a trip to the nearby breakwater in one of our own boats. This is a gigantic constructional work such as I have never seen before. It is built of giant stones, and reaches from the bottom of the sea to three or four feet above the water level, its purpose being to break the fury of the waves and to protect the port. This great work has very much astonished me. I would very much like to know how they could lay the foundation in such deep water. The whole structure is at least a quarter of a mile long and on the top 12 to 20 feet wide.
Eventually the ship sailed, and he was impressed with the farewells of the English folk to their homeland.
As we sailed away from the shore and the pilot left us, all the passengers and the sailors stood on high places on the ship to say goodbye to their fatherland. All the people took off their hats and waved them in the air and farewelled old England with three cheers. In my heart I appreciated such love for their fatherland, a love which moved all classes of these different people, but I grieved as I had to think on my own dear Germany, where such love for the fatherland is foreign, or at least is not expressed.
So he settled into the dull daily routine, facing up to the trials and the tediousness of the long, long voyage. At times, the strain of living too close to people took its toll.
I had to do all my reading on the foredeck, because there was no light in the cabin and certainly no room, as it was entirely filled with our beds and cases. Teichelmann and I couldn’t undress at the same time, and doing any studying was out of the question.
His diary refers to seemingly trivial matters, which loomed larger under the stress of their close confinement. Teichelmann wrote a letter to London and