bandcamp recorded with Fannie Cochrane's descendant Ronnie Summers
Fanny Cochrane Smith was born on Flinders Island in Bass Strait in 1834. She was the last speaker of Tasmanian Language, and the last keeper of their songs and stories following the Tasmanian genocide of the 19th Century. Whether she really was the last full blood Tasmanian or not is academic. There is a vibrant Aboriginal community in Tasmania today, among whom are many descendants of Fanny’s own 11 children. The recording of this song is sung with Tasmanian Aboriginal Elder Ronnie Summers.
There’s a photo on a wall in a museum in Hobart, it was taken in October of 1903 Of a woman and a man with an Edison phonograph, recording her songs of the land and the sea There’s a button on the wall there next to the photo, if you press it you can hear the ghosts of her songs As they echo through the halls of that museum in Hobart, a scratchy reminder of all we’ve done wrong
Chorus: The man and the woman and the Edison phonograph, salvaging pieces of song, White man’s black cylinder, the story of progress, the song lives on, but the singers are gone.
Not yet 50 years since white man first settled she was born on an island in Bass Strait’s cruel seas, Where the few who remained of her people were herded, and left there to die of despair and disease. And at 7 she was taken from her mother and family to work as a servant and be taught about God, But she still learnt the old ways, the songs and the stories, and with old Truganini she’d go bush for food,
Bridge: And after Truganini, the scientists descended. Was Fanny Smith now the last of her race? The futile debates it seemed never ended, as they took her dimensions and examined the shape of her face.
Chorus
And the man in the photo was born to an immigrant, he married a woman of inherited wealth, And he lived in a mansion overlooking the harbour, worked hard for their business, did well for himself. And in time he became a gentleman of leisure and developed an interest in the native folks’ ways, He collected and catalogued those cultural treasures, archived and referenced for future display.
Bridge He was a member of the Royal Society, propertied wealth, a man of propriety. She and her people were torn from their land, betrayed, dislocated, dissected - according to plan, But they came together through song.
There’s a photo on a wall in a museum in Hobart, it was taken in October of 1903, Of a woman and a man with an Edison phonograph, recording her songs of the land and the sea.
And the man had a son, who in turn had a son, Who in turn had a son, who was me.
And the woman had a son, who in turn had a daughter Who in turn had a son, who in turn had a son, and the next one was me)