Prayers
For an explanation of the five bar analysis used in the translations see here.
The Prayers are first mentioned in Threlkeld’s Reminiscences: "An excellent selection of prayers, and passages from holy writ, by the Archdeacon, is also awaiting a similar correction." The date at the end of the Prayers manuscript is 4 August 1834.
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There are three source documents for the prayers.
1. Threlkeld’s original MS, in Awabakal:
https://collection.sl.nsw.gov.au/record/9AL40gBY/NQkVWb8yxBoxW#viewer
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2. Threlkeld’s original corresponding MS, in English:
https://collection.sl.nsw.gov.au/record/9AL40gBY/qBywjRq7o0M55
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3. The prayers were published about 60 years after Threlkeld completed them, in 1892, in the following work:
Threlkeld, L. E. (1892). An Australian language as spoken by the Awabakal, the people of Awaba or Lake Macquarie (near Newcastle, New South Wales) being an account of their language, traditions and customs / by L.E. Threlkeld; re-arranged, condensed and edited with an appendix by John Fraser. Sydney, Charles Potter, Government Printer [Awabakal (Fraser) 1892].
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There are 52 items, whether fragments or extended passages, in Awabakal (Fraser) 1892 that may for simplicity all be called ‘prayers’. This is a greater number than in Threlkeld’s original manuscript. The prayers are grouped under the Awabakal headings for ‘Morning Prayer’ and ‘Evening Prayer’, and there is one additional useful heading: ‘The Lord’s Prayer’. Otherwise the prayers are all unidentified.
In the English version, ‘Morning’ and ‘Evening’ are again given as headings, together with ‘Ten Commandments’; the remainder are unidentified. The prayers were examined in the order they occurred in Awabakal (Fraser) 1892. For the first 35 prayers, it was possible to match these to equivalents in Threlkeld’s original English manuscript, and/or with the help of the internet to match most of the prayers to source prayers, found largely in the Anglican Book of Common Prayer.
As for prayers 36-52, a number were found to be near repetitions of texts in 1–35, while others upon being translated could be perceived to be also from the Book of Common Prayer or, thanks to the internet as a searching device, Biblical quotations. However, it was not possible to find original sources for prayers 36–39 and 49–52.
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The process followed was to attempt an analytical translation, yielding for example for Prayer 50:
​§ father us-all-of sky-at high-at hear-URG-make-IMP! thou me
§ anger-do-now-not thou me thee-of-because son-because JESUS-because
§ see-be-IMP!-not thou me all bad make-ing AFFirm big me-of
An attempt would then be made to render it into a Biblical idiom, as:
Our father in heaven above, hear me
do not be angry with me, through thy son Jesus
look not upon all my great wickedness
and then to see if an internet search might chance to yield a result. After each such success it was possible to replace the tentative translation with the correct one, in the idiom of the King James version of the Bible. Perhaps someone else, possibly with a knowledge of non-conformist prayers, might succeed in identifying the original sources of these remaining eight mystery prayers.
Jeremy Steele, 2 December 2020
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Aboriginal Languages of Australia
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