Swallow

• Bruce Pascoe is best known for his natural history, Dark Emu, which argues that systems of pre-colonial food production and land management in Australia have been dramatically understated.
• At last count, the book had sold at least 360,000 copies of the original edition – and many more in the form of adaptations, translations, children’s and overseas editions.
• Since the publication of Dark Emu in 2014, Pascoe has had to endure extraordinary public scrutiny, as well as vehement attacks on his personal and professional reputation.

• In light of the last ten years, Black Duck: A Year at Yumburra is a healing and necessary book.
• The farm is a deliberate project designed to test, extend and materialise some of the ideas put forward in Dark Emu.
• The meaning of Yumburra, Pascoe tells us, is Black Duck, the “supreme spiritual being of Yuin country”.

Six seasons on the farm

• Through more than 60 subtitled journal entries, accompanied by numerous photographs and sketches, Pascoe charts the activities of his days.
• These include labouring chores on the farm, visits paid and received (both there and interstate), thoughts, visions and experiments with food and agriculture, and memories and reflections on relationships reaching far back into childhood.
• Pascoe describes life on the farm as solitary at times, but also active.
• Daily farm work includes clearing watercourses or fixing tools and machinery, and at these times his friendships with the nonhuman are forged in both subtle and overt ways.

• Despite their vigilance, the Spur-winged Plover loses a lot of chicks to eagles and foxes […] Their calls are ever-present on the farm.
• If the horses gallop, an eagle passes, a dingo wakes or a car arrives, you hear about it instantly.
• You can’t make friend with Birran Durran Durran because everything is a threat in its opinion.
• Despite their vigilance, the Spur-winged Plover loses a lot of chicks to eagles and foxes […] Their calls are ever-present on the farm.

• There is a sense of time moving on through the seasons.
• Yumburra, too, was affected by that event, leading one of the farm workers to rename a whole section of the farm “Apocalypse Valley” in the aftermath.
• “The unbridled pleasure I used to take in the forest, waters and shores is now tinged with sadness and dread.”

A true storyteller

• The author is respectfully light on detail on these matters, but the reader is left in no doubt about their deep importance to him.
• Pascoe’s authorial style sometimes comes across as a touch too lackadaisical and larrikin-esque, drifting as if unmoored.
• And yet, he’s a true storyteller – and no sooner have you hesitated, than he reels you in again, and has you marvelling with him at the grandchildren’s handstands and cartwheels on the paddle board on the river, or at the cunning of the dingo pair who’ve taken out a young Buru (kangaroo) by gripping him by the ears and drowning him.
• I assume it was the same animal because she made a great point of making sure I was watching her expertise.
• It might be a romantic thought or a wish for longevity of a friend but, whatever the case, I enjoy the personality.“

• Sometimes Pascoe quotes from her journal entries, discrete and beautifully rendered observations of wildlife on her own nearby property.
• But as I was reading, I found myself wondering how else Lyn contributed to the book, and on what terms.

Connection to culture and Country

• For anyone with lingering doubts about Pascoe’s commitment and connection to Country, this book will set them straight.
• It is a quiet, funny, warm and insistent call to return to and care for Country.

Julienne van Loon has been a recipient of funding from Creative Australia, Creative Victoria and ArtsWA.

• Though pin-swallowing is still sometimes identified in individual medical cases as having suicidal intent, this is often not the automatic conclusion.
• But in early modern British society, where pins were ubiquitous, there were widespread fears about them being consumed.

• The ready availability of pins meant that they were also a potential danger to those who wished to do themselves harm.
• A young woman named Helen Fairfax was tempted to end her life using a pin at her family home in Yorkshire in 1621.
• Early modern people believed that the devil was constantly looking for ways to tempt them towards sin.
• The girl tried to swallow the items so often that they had “a box near full” of confiscated pins.

Hysterical women

• It was increasingly associated with “hysteria”, an historical illness involving anxiety and excess emotion which was commonly associated with women, and the asylum.
• By the 19th century, self-injurious behaviours such as swallowing or inserting pins into the body gained an increasingly moral dimension.
• In his 1857 work, A Collection of Remarkable Cases in Surgery, the American surgeon Paul F. Eve (1806-1877) detailed a vast number of medical accounts.

• This is despite the fact that the act of suicide was both a crime and a sin in this period.
• Though early modern people were expected to resist the devil’s temptation, they were not necessarily held responsible for experiencing it.

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Imogen Knox receives funding from the M4C/AHRC

• OTTAWA, June 20, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The Canadian Wildlife Federation (CWF) is pleased to announce the recipients of the Canadian Conservation Achievement Awards.
• has dedicated nearly 20 years of her life to developing and delivering wildlife safety and conservation programs.
• Applications for the Canadian Conservation Achievement Awards are accepted from November 1, 2023 to January 31, 2024.
• “These awards highlight some of the outstanding achievements of conservation leaders across Canada,” said Rick Bates, CEO of CWF.

• PDS Biotech and The Swallows are both focused on improving the experience for patients impacted by head and neck cancer.
• I am looking forward to an engaging discussion with researchers, current patients and survivors on how we can bring improved treatment options to these patients, said Dr. Lauren V. Wood, Chief Medical Officer of PDS Biotech.
• The Swallows Head and Neck Cancer Group is a UK-based charity supporting all people affected by head and neck cancers: patients, caregivers, friends, or relatives.
• Each November, we host an International Head & Neck Cancer Conference where we bring together those affected by head and neck cancer, health professionals and inspirational speakers.