Lizard Island: The journey of Mary Watson

Mary Watson was twenty-one years old and had been married less than eighteen months when she died of thirst on No. 5 Island in the Howick Group off Cape Flattery in Far North Queensland in 1881. She, along with her four-month-old baby Ferrier, and a wounded Chinese workman, Ah Sam, had voyaged for eight days and some forty miles in a cut-down ship's water tank, used for boiling sea slugs, after mainland Aborigines had attacked two Chinese workmen at her absent husband's b che-de-mer station on Lizard Island.It was assumed that she had been kidnapped and killed, and when the bodies were found some months later they were returned for a funeral which became Cooktown's biggest public event, uniting the town in appreciation of her undaunted spirit. Mary Watson, whose short diary describing their last days was found with the remains, became an emblem of pioneer heroism for many Queenslanders.Previous versions of the story, often fanciful, have given little attention to Aboriginal and Chinese aspects of events. Alan Oldfield's series of paintings are his own interpretation of the meaning of Mary Watson's life, using the story as a spiritual metaphor, and also in a gesture of reconciliation of past misunderstandings. Suzanne Falkiner's accompanying essays are intended to provide both a historically accurate account and an interpretation of the factors which made the story emblematic of some of the deeper currents in our shared history.Oldfield has taken potent emblems and built them into a visual narrative that traverses the territory of the paradox we have to contend with still. His b che-de-mer pot has the weird resonance of Sidney Nolan's mask for Ned Kelly. Metal in landscape. Chinese hats in lizard country. Salt water and death by thirst.Australia.Morag Fraser, 'Art History Lessons', Eureka Street, vol. 8, no. 7, September 1998This book, with its beautifully presented paintings, is also a celebration of the natural environment of Lizard Island.Alan Oldfield is a prominFalkiner, Suzanne is the author of 'Lizard Island: The journey of Mary Watson' with ISBN 9781865084732 and ISBN 1865084735.