Thanks Henk - I loved circuses as a kid, less so later in life. As it turned out B&B had quite an unsavoury side to their business. eg - "In the 1880s and 1890s P.T. Barnum sent agents to Australia to ‘encourage’ Aboriginal people to leave their homes, travel to the US and Europe, and join his circus. Two groups were persuaded, one from Palm and Hinchinbrook Islands and the other from Mungalla Station.
Barnum presented them as the ‘Australian Cannibal Boomerang Throwers’, overlooking the fact that neither group actually used the instruments as their ‘chief weapon of warfare’, as it was advertised.
Most members of the two groups died of pneumonia, unable to acclimatise to the Northern Hemisphere’s cold conditions. ‘Tambo’ was the first to die, his embalmed body sold to a dime museum and only repatriated to Palm Island in 1993, where customary ceremonies were finally performed 110 years after he died.
Heh :) You know, it rang a bell, that name, couldn't remember, thought it might have something to do with exploitation with the traveling "freak shows" back then, and I've actually read what you're writing here before :) Only been to a circus once when I was a kid....
Thanks Henk - I loved circuses as a kid, less so later in life. As it turned out B&B had quite an unsavoury side to their business. eg -
ReplyDelete"In the 1880s and 1890s P.T. Barnum sent agents to Australia to ‘encourage’ Aboriginal people to leave their homes, travel to the US and Europe, and join his circus. Two groups were persuaded, one from Palm and Hinchinbrook Islands and the other from Mungalla Station.
Barnum presented them as the ‘Australian Cannibal Boomerang Throwers’, overlooking the fact that neither group actually used the instruments as their ‘chief weapon of warfare’, as it was advertised.
Most members of the two groups died of pneumonia, unable to acclimatise to the Northern Hemisphere’s cold conditions. ‘Tambo’ was the first to die, his embalmed body sold to a dime museum and only repatriated to Palm Island in 1993, where customary ceremonies were finally performed 110 years after he died.
Heh :) You know, it rang a bell, that name, couldn't remember, thought it might have something to do with exploitation with the traveling "freak shows" back then, and I've actually read what you're writing here before :) Only been to a circus once when I was a kid....
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