On a Barbarous Coast What If There Was an Alternative Ending to Captain Cook's Story?

An alternative retelling of Captain James Cook's story in the tradition of imagined histories. 

We were becoming the wild things we most feared, but could not see it at the time.

On a night of raging winds and rain, Captain Cook's Endeavour lies splintered on a coral reef off the coast of far north Australia. A small disparate band of survivors, fracturing already, huddle on the shore of this strange land - their pitiful salvage scant protection from the dangers of the unknown creatures and natives that live here.

Watching these mysterious white beings, the Guugu Yimidhirr people cannot decide if they are ancestor spirits to be welcomed - or hostile spirits to be speared. One headstrong young boy, Garrgiil, determines to do more than watch and to be the one to find out what exactly they are.

Fierce, intriguing and thoughtful, On a Barbarous Coast is the story of a past and future that might have been.
 

Harold Ludwick comes from the Cooktown/Guugu Yimidhirr area and works as a guide and cultural historian, and is the recipient of a prestigious Encounters Fellowship with the National Museum of Australia.

Craig Cormick is an award-winning author and science communicator. Cormick was a former Chair of the ACT Writers Center and has taught creative writing at both university and community level.

Contents
Part 1
1 The wreck 3 
2 First day in this new world 15 
3 An inventory of the dead 24 
4 Garrgiil tells of Wuji the ghost spirit 34 
5 Crossing the river 37 
6 Garrgiil tells of the return of ancestors from the east 49 
7 The last supper 51 
8 Garrgiil tells of Yirambal and the time of creation 58 
9 Tose who came and those who left 61
10 Another death 67
11 Garrgiil tells of Gandhaarr 71
12 What type of people we were 74
13 Garrgiil tells of the gaining of knowledge of the land 81
14 Fear of the unknown 83
15 Gandhaarr 94
16 Those who arose from the dead 96
17 Garrgiil tells of new spirits crossing the land 102
18 A clear message 106
19 Attacked 112
20 Garrgiil tells how the Bama go to war 116
21 Prisoner or guest? 118
22 Observations 123
23 Dominion 133

Part 2

24 First contact 143
25 Garrgiil sees the spirits 145
26 A hullaballoo 147
27 Gandhaarr 156
28 Reunited with the lost 158
29 Garrgiil tells of the attack on the quartz gatherers 165
30 The serpent 167
31 A close encounter 178
32 Garrgiil tells what the spirits look like up close 182
33 An arrangement 184
34 Feeling my destiny 193
35 Garrgiil tells the correct way to catch turtles 202
36 Stolen hopes 
37 Spilling blood 212
38 Garrgiil tells of the lore for punishing people who have desecrated the land 218
 39 Scant comfort 220
40 Garrgiil tells of meeting Tarheto 224
41 Forlorn hope 227
42 Garrgiil tells of the people who live to the north 235
43 Someone to carry the blame 236
44 Te night terror 243
45 Garrgiil tells of the slaying of the evil spirit 248

Part 3

46 The Bama 253
47 Our new lives 260
48 Garrgiil tells of teaching the white men 267
49 Living in an abundant land 269
50 How they died 276
51 How to tell the story 282
52 Garrgiil tells what he learned from the Europeans 287
53 Gandhaarr’s last torment 289
54 The arrival 294
55 The last decision 302
56 Garrgiil views the future 304 

Authors’ note 307