Strangers on the Shore: Musical Encounters in Terra Australis, 1802

Author: JEAN FORNASIERO
Explorations No 50 (Jun 2011): 5-15
https://doi.org/10.62586/GYVJ1143

This article documents the cultural encounter between members of the 1802 Baudin expedition and indigenous Australians through the medium of music. In their attentive observation of the importance of art in the Aborigines’ daily lives, the French explorers projected an image quite distant from British colonists’ views of a ‘terra nullius’.

Keywords: Nicolas Baudin, Society of Observers of Man, cross-cultural encounters, Joseph-Marie Degérando, Péron, anthropology