Konstantina
Raining on Eora (Wallumattagal) - KONKK0067
| Size: H-148 X W-99 cm. |
| Medium: Acrylic and Ochre on Canvas |
| SOLD |
| Product No: KONKK0067 |
She is Wallamattagal.
She was fertile Country. She grew many things in her soil and this mob cared for this Country. So much so, that when the colonists came and realised nothing would grow in the rocky ground at Waran they ventured out and renamed the area "the food bowl of the colony"!
It was here that Governor Macquarie coined the name Rose Hill for the Parramatta region. He later decided he liked the Aboriginal name for the place and the People from that place (part of the broader Dharug People); Wallamatta, Burramatta, Parramatta. And hence the confusing name change game of the region began.
It was here that Governor Macquarie set up his second (and preferred) residence.
It was here that the first Aboriginal children were forced from their clans into the first Colonial orphanage for their "betterment".
It was here that blankets became the irreprehensible commodity exchange; a wool blanket every winter for the taking of land, a wool blanket each winter as payment raping of women, a wool blanket drawn round your shoulders on a cold winters night as payment for the indentured servitude (slavery) of your children.
It was here that all Blak eyewitness accounts talk of being terrified of the "men in the red coats with gold buttons" - the English Military, also known at the time as the Rum Corps.
Indeed, they were so scary because they were military, but they were even more intensely feared as time went on as they owned and controlled the Colony's almost valuable commodity, not money, nor food.... but rum. Controlling both corporal punishment and the economy (rum) made these men untouchable. It gave them a sense of entitlement that helped to swiftly induce Genocide here on this Country.
It is curious then that Country, our mother offered me up the deepest red ochres and the goldest gold ochres I've ever collected to paint this artwork.
I reckon, she wanted me to tell you this yarn.