Terre de Diemen. Arra-maida (The Tasmanian Woman Who Sang and Danced)

A portrait of the Tasmanian woman Ara-maida of Bruny Island, with her child slung across her back in a kangaroo-skin pouch, engraved for the official voyage account of the Baudin expedition in 1802.

After their failure to make any significant contact with the aborigines in the west, the French were delighted with the friendly relations they initially established with the Tasmanians. Although there were several serious altercations, the early interactions in particular were marked by good humour. Certainly both sides tried their hands at singing – the French sang the national anthem on at least one occasion – as well as the trading of gifts and food, and friendly contests of strength.

Arra-maida is one of the best known of any of the Tasmanian aborigines met by the French. When the French were on Bruny Island they met a group of women with whom they began a lively exchange. The women ‘listened attentively when surgeon Bellefin sang them a song which was applauded by them all, and then mimicked by one of them, whom Peron called Arra-maida. She added a song and a dance of her own and then applied charcoal-powder to the faces of Peron and Heirisson’. Although her actions certainly troubled the French – Peron was quite critical of her “indecent” dancing in particular – this vignette is one of the most vivid of any of the first transactions.