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

Abstract

In January 1788, Governor Arthur Phillip presented a looking glass to an unidentified Aboriginal man at Botany .Bay. To the Aborigine. the gift-giver. covered in plumes as elaborate and bright as a bird's, offered a much stranger image than his own reflection. Half cockatoo, perhaps, but was it woman or man? The Aborigine's trembling confusion created a cross-cultural mirror for Lieutenant King, who realised that their clothed bodies must have appeared 'ridiculous'. British men suf£ered similar confusion when they first saw Aboriginal women. So unaccustomed were they to seeing naked female flesh in the open landscape that they likened them to the decorative statues in English gardens.