The Anon Notebook gives ‘Cow-wan’ as the name or place of Ross Farm, the farm of Major Robert Ross of the Marines, the Lieutenant Governor on the First Fleet.
Australian | respelt | English | EngJSM | source |
“Cow-wan” | gawan | “Ross Farm” | : | Anon (c) [c:38:16] [BB] |
The location of Ross's Farm, Gawan, was indicated on an anonymous chart of Port Jackson, drawn in February 1788, held by the Natural History Museum, London, and published in Art of the First Fleet (Smith and Wheeler, 1988: p. 73).
It is shown in the above sketch map — along with some other indigenous names for the familiar Sydney landmarks of Sydney Cove, Blues Point, Goat Island, Millers Point, and Darling Harbour, and a couple of others — as being in what is now East Balmain.
Does gawan have a meaning?
One meaning attributed to the word gawan is ‘uncle’. This term for mother’s or father’s brother was not one used by Australian indigenous people in the early days, being too imprecise to be useful. Indigenous people living in small groups needed to know exactly where they stood for parenting reasons; and so meticulous arrangements — and taboos — covered this aspect of life everywhere.
However, the word gawan was recorded as meaning ‘uncle’, somewhat to the north of Sydney, as early as c.1827-35 by the Rev. Lancelot Threlkeld:
“Cowun” | gawan = | “[Unc]le” | uncle : | Tkld GDG Aust Voc [:125.1:4] [Gdg?] |
“Cow-un” | gawan = | “Uncle” | uncle : | Tkld KRE c.1835 [:137:17] [Kre] |
The details of uncles and aunts, as well as the many other words describing kinship positions, were for the most part not discovered for the Sydney language. It may, however, be assumed that at the time of the First Fleet gawan did not mean ‘uncle’ for the reason just stated. So what might it have meant?
While nothing leaps out from the Sydney language records, on the other hand, and again to the northwards of Sydney, some words were noticed by the surveyor R.H. Mathews to do with ‘this side’ or ‘other side’ or ‘there’ or ‘yonder’:
“gâwin” | gawin = | “this side (this is best)” | side near: | Mathews 8006/3/7- No 7 [7:80:15.3] [Dark] |
“gauinda” | gawi-nda = | “Yonder” | yonder : | Mathews DARK 1903 [:274:23.4] [Dark] |
“Gauinda” | gawi-nda = | “There” | yonder : | Mathews 8006/3/7- No 7 [7:80:10] [Dark] |
“Gauinda nyê” | gawi-nda-nyi = | “on the other side” | yonder xxx : | Mathews 8006/3/7- No 7 [7:80:14] [Dark] |
With this collection as a start, it was then possible to find some confirmation from the Sydney lists, provided by John Rowley. They are given below, but are in fact the one and the same record in two different publications of 1875 and 1878 respectively:
“kaundi” | gawu-ndi = | “away” | yonder : | KAOL Rowley GeoR [:107:34] [DG] |
“kaundi” | gawu-ndi = | “away” | yonder : | AL&T Rowley GeoR [:261:40] [DG] |
It was then realised that the ‘yonder’ or ‘distant’ concept might have been present in three further records from the Sydney region that related to something truly distant — the stars. Here are those tantalising additional examples, for ‘star’:
“Káo” | gawu = | “Stars” | star : | Lang: NSW Vocab [:3:72] [DG] |
“Cow [?]” | gawu = | “Star” | star : | Bowman: Camden [:15:3] [DG] |
“Cow Curry” | gawu gari = | “The stars” | star : | Leigh [:3:4] [DG] |
However, with so few examples to consider, it is not really possible to affirm with confidence that there is a genuine relationship between the meanings of 'side' / 'yonder' / 'away' in the one group of words and ‘stars’ in the other.
Conclusion
Despite uncertainty about any link between remote stars and objects simply ‘over there’, it does seem likely that Ross’s Farm, Gawan, on the other side of what is now Darling Harbour, was at a place simply described as ‘yonder’.
Jeremy Steele
6 December 2013