The white man's looking glass: Aboriginal-colonial gender relations at Port Jackson

Abstract

In January 1788, Governor Ar1hur Phillip presented a looking glass to an unidentified Aboriginal man at Botany .Bay. To the Aborigine. the gift-giver. covered in plumes a~ elaborate and bright as a bird's, offered a much slTanger image than his own renection. Half cocka100, perhaps, but was it woman or man? The Aborigine's trembling confusion created a cross-cuhural mirror for Llcutenam King, who realised that their dor..hcd bodies must have appeared 'ridiculous'.1 British men suf£eredsimilarconfusion when r..hey first saw Aboriginal women. So unaccusiomed were they to seeing naked female flesh in the open landscape that they likened them to the decorative statues in English ga.rdens. Show more