The black swan (Cygnus atratus) is widely referenced in Australian culture, although the character of that importance historically diverges between the prosaic in the east and the symbolic in the west. The black swan is also of spiritual significance in the traditional histories of many Aboriginal Australian peoples across southern Australia. Metaphoric references to black swans have appeared in European culture since long before Europeans became aware of Cygnus atratus in Australia in the 18th century.
The black swan is the official state emblem of Western Australia and is depicted on the flag and coat of arms of Western Australia. The symbol is used in other emblems, coins, logos, mascots and in the naming of sports teams.
Aboriginal history and lore
Daisy Bates recorded a Nyoongar man called Woolberr "last of the black swan group" of the Nyungar people of south-western Australia in the 1920s.Bates, D.M. 'Woolberr: the last of the black swan group', in the Australasian, 3 May 1927. Totemic ceremony of the black swan of the Bibbulmun group; the life story of native who was born during an initiation ceremony (AIATSIS) The website of the Premier of Western Australia refers to Nyungar lore of how the ancestors of the Nyungar people were once black swans who became men.Western Australian Government
The Dreamtime story of the black swans tells how two brothers were turned into white swans so they could help an attack party during a raid for weapons. It is said that Wurrunna used a large gubbera, or crystal stone, to transform the men. After the raid, eaglehawks attacked the white swans and tore feathers from the birds. Crows who were enemies of the eaglehawks came to the aid of the brothers and gave the black swans their own black feathers. The black swan's red beak is said to be the blood of the attacked brothers, which stayed there forever.The Black Swans (extracted from Australian Legendary Tales, by K Langloh Parker). Retrieved 10 February 2007.
The moral code embedded in Aboriginal lore is evident in a story from an unspecified locality in eastern Australia (probably in New South Wales) published in 1943. An Aboriginal man, fishing in a lagoon, caught a baby bunyip. Instead of returning the baby to the water, he wanted to take the bunyip back to the camp to boast of his fishing prowess, against the urging of his friends. Before he could do anything, the angry mother bunyip rose from the water, flooding swirling water around them, and took back her baby. As the water receded, the men found that they had been changed into black swans. As punishment for the fisherman's vanity, they never regained their human form, but could be heard at night talking in human voices as a reminder to their human relatives of the perils of pride and arrogance.Hurley, P.J., In Search of Australia, Dymocks Book Arcade Ltd., Sydney 1943: 131
European myth and metaphor The Roman satirist Juvenal wrote in AD 82 of rara avis in terris nigroque simillima cygno ("a rare bird in the lands, and very like a black swan").Morris, E.E. (Ed), Austral English, Melbourne 1898; facsimile as Morris's Dictionary of Australian Words, John Currey O’Neil Publishers, Adelaide 1982: 451 He meant something whose rarity would compare with that of a black swan, or in other words, as a black swan was not thought to exist, neither did the supposed characteristics of the "rare bird" with which it was being compared. The phrase passed into several European languages as a popular proverb, including English, in which the first four Latin words ("a rare bird in the land") are often used ironically. For some 1,500 years, the black swan existed in the European imagination as a metaphor for that which could not exist.
The Dutch explorer Willem de Vlamingh made the first European record of sighting a black swan in 1697, when he sailed into, and named, the Swan River on the western coast of New Holland. The sighting was significant in Europe, where "all swans are white" had long been used as a standard example of a well-known truth. In 1726, two birds were captured near Dirk Hartog Island, north of the Swan River, and taken to Batavia (now Jakarta) as proof of their existence.
Governor Phillip, soon after establishing the convict settlement some sixty years later and away at Botany Bay on the east coast, wrote in 1789 that "A black swan, which species, though proverbially rare in other parts of the world, is here by no means uncommon ... a very noble bird, larger than the common swan, and equally beautiful in form ... its wings were edged with white: the bill was tinged with red." A contemporary, Surgeon-General John White, observed in 1790, "We found nine birds, that, whilst swimming, most perfectly resembled the rara avis of the ancients, a black swan."
The taking of black swans to Europe in the 18th and early 19th centuries brought the birds into contact with another aspect of European mythology: the attribution of sinister relationships between the devil and black-coloured animals, such as a black cat. Black swans were considered to be a witch's familiar and often chased away or killed by superstitious folk. This may explain why black swans have never established a sizeable presence as feral animals in Europe or North America.Scott, Sir Peter (Ed), The World Atlas of Birds, Colporteur Press, Balmain 1982: 200
While the European encounter with the black swan along Australia's west coast in the late 17th and early 18th centuries led to the shattering of an age-old metaphor, their contact on the east coast in the late 18th and early 19th centuries merely confirmed the new post-proverbial view, before turning to account for the black swan as just one more curiosity in the South to be utilised in developing the colonies.
In Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake, the sinister and seductive black swan, Odile, is contrasted with the innocent white swan, Odette.
Western Australia
Heraldry The coat of arms of Western Australia includes a black swan as the principal charge on the shield. A black swan on a gold plate or disk has been the official badge of the state since 1876, and is shown on the flag of Western Australia. The coat of arms of Australia (1912 version) shows, in its fifth quarter, the black swan on a gold field, representing the state as one of the original states in the federation.
Although the State Arms were granted in 1969, municipal heraldry had already been using the black swan symbolism since 1926, when the coat of arms of Perth were granted with a black swan as a charge in the first quarter and black swan supporters. This was followed by Northam (1953, black swan crest) and Bunbury (1959, black swan crest). Following the grant of the State Arms, municipal arms continued this tradition: Fremantle (1971, charge), Gosnells (1978, charge), Melville (1981, supporters) and Subiaco (1984, crest). All of the municipal arms granted by the Crown have included a representation of a black swan.
In the history of the Western Australian Government Railwaysthe black swan emblem occurred between the 1920s to the 1980s.Rob Clark The History of the 'Mucky Duck' pp.7 – 21, issue 263, 2009/10 -
Several state authorities have also been granted arms showing a black swan: St George's College at the University of Western Australia (1964, charges), Fremantle Port Authority (1965, crest), and the University of Western Australia (1972, charges). The university had used an assumed version of these arms since 1913, and the university's student guild reaffirmed its assumption and use of a differenced version of the University Arms in 1991.Annual Report 1991, Guild of Undergraduates, University of Western Australia, Crawley 1992: 6 Authorities with assumed arms showing a black swan include Royal Perth Hospital (1936, charge), and the University of Western Australia residential colleges of St Thomas More (charge), Currie Hall (charge) and St Catherine's (charge).
Religious authorities have also used representations of the black swan in their heraldic emblems. Of the two largest denominations in the state, there are the Anglican dioceses of Kalgoorlie (1956, charge) and North West Australia (1956, charge); and the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Perth (charge).
Philately
The Colony of Western Australia produced its first postage stamps in 1854, and in contrast to the usual practice within the British Empire, they featured, not a portrait of Queen Victoria, but an image of the black swan. The design of the stamp underwent several modifications over the next 48 years, until 1902, when the last design was produced, although the swan stamps continued in use until 1913, when Australian stamps superseded the colonial/state issues. The most famous of the series was the four-penny Blue Inverted Swan produced in 1855, in which the central image was printed upside down. The stamp is now an acknowledged philatelic rarity, with only fifteen known to have survived.Eastick, M., Comprehensive Colour Catalogue of Australian Stamps, Victoria Stamp Traders, Malvern 2003: WA1-WA4 Stamp issues in all of the other British colonies in Australasia, such as New South Wales, featured royal portraits rather than local symbols, apart from some one-off commemorative issues.
Decorative arts Black swans feature as emblems and decorations on many important public buildings in Western Australia. An example is the tower of the Fremantle Town Hall.
The Wembley Ware range of "fancy ware" was produced between 1945 and 1961 by HL Brisbane and Wunderlich Ltd/Bristile in Subiaco. The Wembley Ware range typified the spirit of post-war buoyancy in Western Australia during the 1950s, with art ceramics specifically for a local market using emblems of local Western Australian identity. The majority of the works were decorative rather than functional to escape high taxes on purely decorative ceramics at this time and exploited highly coloured glazes and overtly Australian content in their designs. The majority of Wembley Ware was created with an apparent intended purpose such as vases, ashtrays or lamps, but these were usually superfluous to the designs. Some of the most sought-after and eccentric designs included the open-mouthed dhufish vase and black swan ashtray. A variety of swan-shaped ashtrays and vases were produced in a range of sizes, colours and glazes.
Literature Explorers' journals, as a literary genre, often provide descriptions of black swans. For example, in December 1836, Lieutenant Bunbury of the 21st Fusiliers was the first European to travel overland from Pinjarra to Busselton, describing the mudflats of the Leschenault Estuary at sunset covered by "immense flocks of Brown Ducks and Teal, while the water was equally covered with Swans and Pelicans."
The early colonist George Fletcher Moore included in his 1831 ballad "So Western Australia for Me" the lines:
The final line recalls an old English saying: "All his swans are turned to geese", meaning all his expectations end in nothing; all his boasting ends in smoke, like a person who fancies he sees a swan on a river but finds it to be only a goose. The phrase is sometimes reversed (as Moore has done): "All his geese are swans", which was commonly applied to people who think too much of the beauty and talent of their children and derived from Aesop's fable "The Eagle and the Owl".
In Gaito Gazdanov's short story Black Swans (1930) the protagonist commits suicide because he has no opportunity of moving to Australia, which he imagines to be an idealised paradise of graceful black swans. D. H. Lawrence wrote in the 1925 short story "The Heritage":
Mollie Skinner, Lawrence's co-author of The Boy in the Bush also wrote the novel Black Swans, published in 1925 by Jonathan Cape in London. She uses Juvenal's phrase () as its subtitle. It alludes to her heroine, Letty Granville.