Black Swan emblems and popular culture

Black Swan

The Black Swan is a large waterbird, a species of swan, which breeds mainly in the southeast and southwest regions of Australia. The species was hunted to extinction in New Zealand, but later reintroduced. Within Australia they are nomadic, with erratic migration patterns dependent upon climatic...

(Cygnus atratus) is widely referenced in Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

n culture, although the character of that importance historically diverges between the prosaic in the east and the symbolic in west. The Black Swan is also of spiritual significance in the traditional histories of many Australian Aboriginal peoples

Indigenous Australians

Indigenous Australians are the original inhabitants of the Australian continent and nearby islands. The Aboriginal Indigenous Australians migrated from the Indian continent around 75,000 to 100,000 years ago....

across southern Australia. Metaphoric references to black swan

Swan

Swans, genus Cygnus, are birds of the family Anatidae, which also includes geese and ducks. Swans are grouped with the closely related geese in the subfamily Anserinae where they form the tribe Cygnini. Sometimes, they are considered a distinct subfamily, Cygninae...

s have appeared in Europe

Europe

Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

an culture since long before the real-life discovery of Cygnus atratus in Australia in the 18th century.

The Black Swan is the official state emblem

Emblem

An emblem is a pictorial image, abstract or representational, that epitomizes a concept — e.g., a moral truth, or an allegory — or that represents a person, such as a king or saint.-Distinction: emblem and symbol:...

of Western Australia

Western Australia

Western Australia is a state of Australia, occupying the entire western third of the Australian continent. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Great Australian Bight and Indian Ocean to the south, the Northern Territory to the north-east and South Australia to the south-east...

, and is depicted on the Flag of Western Australia

Flag of Western Australia

The current state flag of Western Australia was officially adopted by the government of Western Australia in 1953.The flag is based on the defaced British Blue Ensign with the state badge located in the fly. The badge is a gold disc with a native Black Swan, the swan is facing towards the hoist...

, as well as being depicted on the Western Australian Coat-of-Arms. The symbol is used in other emblems, coin

Coin

A coin is a piece of hard material that is standardized in weight, is produced in large quantities in order to facilitate trade, and primarily can be used as a legal tender token for commerce in the designated country, region, or territory....

s, logo

Logo

A logo is a graphic mark or emblem commonly used by commercial enterprises, organizations and even individuals to aid and promote instant public recognition...

s, mascot

Mascot

The term mascot – defined as a term for any person, animal, or object thought to bring luck – colloquially includes anything used to represent a group with a common public identity, such as a school, professional sports team, society, military unit, or brand name...

s and in the naming of sport

Sport

A Sport is all forms of physical activity which, through casual or organised participation, aim to use, maintain or improve physical fitness and provide entertainment to participants. Sport may be competitive, where a winner or winners can be identified by objective means, and may require a degree...

s teams.

Aboriginal history and lore

Daisy Bates

Daisy Bates (Australia)

Daisy May Bates, CBE was an Irish Australian journalist, welfare worker and lifelong student of Australian Aboriginal culture and society. She was known among the native people as 'Kabbarli' .-Early life:...

recorded a totemic ceremony called ‘Woolberr’ that was practised by the ‘last of the black swan group’ of the Nyungar

Noongar

The Noongar are an indigenous Australian people who live in the south-west corner of Western Australia from Geraldton on the west coast to Esperance on the south coast...

people of south-western Australia in the 1920s. 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.

The Dreamtime

Dreamtime

In the animist framework of Australian Aboriginal mythology, The Dreaming is a sacred era in which ancestral Totemic Spirit Beings formed The Creation.-The Dreaming of the Aboriginal times:...

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

Wurrunna

In Australian Aboriginal mythology, Wurrunna is a culture hero.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...

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 red beak is said to be the blood of the attacked brothers, which stayed there forever.

The moral code embedded in Aboriginal lore is evident in a story from an unspecified locality in eastern Australia (probably in NSW) 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 mother bunyip

Bunyip

The bunyip, or kianpraty, is a large mythical creature from Aboriginal mythology, said to lurk in swamps, billabongs, creeks, riverbeds, and waterholes....

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.

European myth and metaphor

The Roman satirist Juvenal

Juvenal

The Satires are a collection of satirical poems by the Latin author Juvenal written in the late 1st and early 2nd centuries AD.Juvenal is credited with sixteen known poems divided among five books; all are in the Roman genre of satire, which, at its most basic in the time of the author, comprised a...

wrote in 82 AD of rara avis in terris nigroque simillima cygno ('a rare bird in the lands, and very like a black swan'). He meant something whose rarity would compare with that of a black swan, or in other words, as a black swan did not 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

Proverb

A proverb is a simple and concrete saying popularly known and repeated, which expresses a truth, based on common sense or the practical experience of humanity. They are often metaphorical. A proverb that describes a basic rule of conduct may also be known as a maxim...

, including English, in which the first four words (a rare bird in the land) are often used ironically. For some 1500 years the black swan existed in the European imagination as a metaphor

Metaphor

A metaphor is a literary figure of speech that uses an image, story or tangible thing to represent a less tangible thing or some intangible quality or idea; e.g., "Her eyes were glistening jewels." Metaphor may also be used for any rhetorical figures of speech that achieve their effects via...

for that which could not exist.

The Dutch explorer Willem de Vlamingh

Willem de Vlamingh

Willem Hesselsz de Vlamingh was a Dutch sea-captain who explored the central west coast of Australia in the late 17th century.- Vlamingh and the VOC :...

made the first European record of sighting a black swan in 1697 when he sailed into, and named, the Swan River

Swan River (Western Australia)

The Swan River estuary flows through the city of Perth, in the south west of Western Australia. Its lower reaches are relatively wide and deep, with few constrictions, while the upper reaches are usually quite narrow and shallow....

on the western coast of New Holland

New Holland (Australia)

New Holland is a historic name for the island continent of Australia. The name was first applied to Australia in 1644 by the Dutch seafarer Abel Tasman as Nova Hollandia, naming it after the Dutch province of Holland, and remained in use for 180 years....

. 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

Dirk Hartog Island

Dirk Hartog Island is an island off the Gascoyne coast of Western Australia, within the Shark Bay World Heritage Area. It is about 80 kilometres long and between 3 and 15 kilometres wide and is Western Australia's largest and most western island. It covers an area of 620 square kilometres and is...

, 850 kilometres (528.2 mi) north of the Swan River, and taken to Batavia

Jakarta

Jakarta is the capital and largest city of Indonesia. Officially known as the Special Capital Territory of Jakarta, it is located on the northwest coast of Java, has an area of , and a population of 9,580,000. Jakarta is the country's economic, cultural and political centre...

(now Jakarta

Jakarta

) as proof of their existence.

Governor Phillip

Arthur Phillip

Admiral Arthur Phillip RN was a British admiral and colonial administrator. Phillip was appointed Governor of New South Wales, the first European colony on the Australian continent, and was the founder of the settlement which is now the city of Sydney.-Early life and naval career:Arthur Phillip...

, soon after establishing the convict settlement

Convictism in Australia

During the late 18th and 19th centuries, large numbers of convicts were transported to the various Australian penal colonies by the British government. One of the primary reasons for the British settlement of Australia was the establishment of a penal colony to alleviate pressure on their...

some sixty years later and 3000 kilometres (1,864.1 mi) away at Botany Bay

Botany Bay

Botany Bay is a bay in Sydney, New South Wales, a few kilometres south of the Sydney central business district. The Cooks River and the Georges River are the two major tributaries that flow into the 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

John White (surgeon)

John White was an English surgeon and botanical collector.White was born in Sussex and entered the Royal Navy on 26 June 1778 as third surgeon's mate. He was promoted surgeon in 1780, and was the principal surgeon during the voyage of the First Fleet to Australia...

, 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 cat

A black cat is a feline with black fur. It is not a particular breed of cat and may be mixed or of a specific breed. The Bombay, known for its sleek black fur, is an example of a black cat. The all-black pigmentation is equally prevalent in both male and female cats...

. Black swans were considered to be a witch's familiar

Familiar spirit

In European folklore and folk-belief of the Medieval and Early Modern periods, familiar spirits were supernatural entities believed to assist witches and cunning folk in their practice of magic...

, 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.

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
Swan Lake
Swan Lake ballet, op. 20, by Pyotr Tchaikovsky, composed 1875–1876. The scenario, initially in four acts, was fashioned from Russian folk tales and tells the story of Odette, a princess turned into a swan by an evil sorcerer's curse. The choreographer of the original production was Julius Reisinger...

, the sinister and seductive black swan, Odile, is contrasted with the innocent white swan, Odette.

Heraldry

The Coat of arms of Western Australia

Coat of arms of Western Australia

The Coat of arms of Western Australia is the official coat of arms of the Australian State of Western Australia. It was granted by a Royal Warrant of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II dated 17 March 1969.-Description:...

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

Flag of Western Australia

. The Coat of arms of Australia

Coat of arms of Australia

The coat of arms of Australia is the official symbol of Australia. The initial coat of arms was granted by King Edward VII on 7 May 1908, and the current version was granted by King George V on 19 September 1912, although the 1908 version continued to be used in some contexts, notably appearing on...

(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

Coat of arms of Western Australia

were granted in 1969, municipal heraldry had already been using the Black Swan symbolism since 1926 when the Arms of the City of Perth

Coat of arms of Perth, Western Australia

The Coat of arms of Perth of Western Australia were originally granted to the city on 2 December 1926 with the slight addition of part of the arms of Perth, Scotland in 1949....

were granted with a Black Swan as a charge in the first quarter, and Black Swan supporters. This was followed by Northam

Northam, Western Australia

Northam is a town in Western Australia, situated at the confluence of the Avon and Mortlock Rivers, about north-east of Perth in the Avon Valley. At the 2006 census, Northam had a population of 6,009. Northam is the largest town in the Avon region...

(1953, black swan crest) and Bunbury

City of Bunbury

The City of Bunbury is a Local Government Area in the South West region of Western Australia, covering an area of along the coast about south of Perth, the capital of Western Australia. The council is responsible for just over half of the Greater Bunbury metropolitan area, and the Port of Bunbury...

(1959, Black Swan crest). Following the grant of the State Arms, municipal arms continued this tradition: Fremantle

Fremantle, Western Australia

Fremantle is a city in Western Australia, located at the mouth of the Swan River. Fremantle Harbour serves as the port of Perth, the state capital. Fremantle was the first area settled by the Swan River colonists in 1829...

(1971, charge), Gosnells (1978, charge), Melville (1981, supporters) and Subiaco

City of Subiaco

The City of Subiaco is a Local Government Area of Western Australia. It covers an area of approximately 7 km² in inner western metropolitan Perth, the capital of Western Australia and lies about 3 km west of the Perth CBD.-History:...

(1984, crest). All of the municipal arms granted by the Crown

Monarchy in Australia

The Monarchy of Australia is a form of government in which a hereditary monarch is the sovereign of Australia. The monarchy is a constitutional one modelled on the Westminster style of parliamentary government, incorporating features unique to the Constitution of Australia.The present monarch is...

have included a representation of a Black Swan, presumably acknowledging the allegiance of each municipality to the State.

Several State authorities have also been granted Arms showing a Black Swan. St George’s College at the University of Western Australia

University of Western Australia

The University of Western Australia was established by an Act of the Western Australian Parliament in February 1911, and began teaching students for the first time in 1913. It is the oldest university in the state of Western Australia and the only university in the state to be a member of the...

(1964, charges), Fremantle Port Authority (1965, crest), and the University of Western Australia

University of Western Australia

(1972, charges). The University had used an assumed version of these Arms since 1913, and the University’s student guild

University of Western Australia Student Guild

The UWA Student Guild is the official student representative body at the University of Western Australia, representing the interests of students to the University, government and the wider community, as well as providing services to students...

reaffirmed its assumption and use of a differenced version of the University Arms in 1991. Authorities with assumed Arms showing a Black Swan include Royal Perth Hospital

Royal Perth Hospital

Royal Perth Hospital is an 855-bed teaching hospital located on the northeastern edge of the CBD of Perth, Western Australia . Royal Perth Hospital also has specialised rehabilitation facilities at Shenton Park.-History:...

(1936, charge), and the University of Western Australia residential colleges of St Thomas More (charge), Currie Hall (charge) and St Catherines (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

Anglican Diocese of North West Australia

The Anglican Diocese of North West Australia is a diocese of the Anglican Church of Australia, it covers an area of Western Australia north of Perth and is geographically, the largest Anglican diocese in Australia and one of the largest geographically, in the world. The cathedral church of the...

(1956, charge); and the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Perth

Catholic Bishops and Archbishops of Perth, Western Australia

The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Perth is a Metropolitan Archdiocese in Western Australia. It is responsible for the suffragan dioceses of Broome, Bunbury and Geraldton....

(charge).

Philately

The Colony of Western Australia

History of Western Australia

The human history of Western Australia commenced between 40,000 and 60,000 years ago with the arrival of Indigenous Australians on the north-west coast. The first inhabitants expanded the range of their settlement to the east and south of the continent. The first recorded European contact was in...

produced its first postage stamps in 1854, and in contrast to the usual practice within the British Empire

British Empire

The British Empire comprised the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom. It originated with the overseas colonies and trading posts established by England in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. At its height, it was the...

, they featured, not a portrait of Queen Victoria

Victoria of the United Kingdom

Victoria was the monarch of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 20 June 1837 until her death. From 1 May 1876, she used the additional title of Empress of India....

, 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 4 penny Blue ‘Inverted Swan

Inverted Swan

The Inverted Swan, a 4-pence blue postage stamp issued in 1855 by Western Australia, was one of the world's first invert errors. Technically, it is a "frame invert"....

’ produced in 1855, in which the central image was printed upside down. The stamp is now an acknowledged philatelic rarity, with only 15 known to have survived. Stamp issues in all of the other British colonies in Australasia, such as New South Wales

Postage stamps and postal history of New South Wales

This is a survey of the postage stamps and postal history of New South Wales, a former British colony now part of Australia.-Pre-stamp era:New South Wales was the first part of Australia to be settled by Europeans, and the first to operate a postal service, which in 1803 was carrying letters...

, featured royal portraits rather than local symbols, apart from some one-off commemorative issues.

Decorative arts

Black Swans feature as emblems and decorations on most important public buildings in Western Australia. An example is the tower of the Fremantle Town Hall

Fremantle Town Hall

Fremantle Town Hall is a town hall located in the portside city of Fremantle, Western Australia and situated on the corner of High, William and Adelaide Streets. The opening coincided with the celebration of Victoria's Jubilee and occurred on 22 June 1887....

.

The Wembley Ware range of “fancy ware” was produced between 1945 and 1961 by HL Brisbane and Wunderlich Ltd/Bristile in Subiaco

Subiaco, Western Australia

Subiaco is an inner western suburb of Perth, Western Australia, situated to the north west of Kings Park. Its Local Government Area is the City of Subiaco.-History:Prior to European settlement the area was home to the Noongar Indigenous people....

. 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 Westralian 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

Explorer’s journals, as a literary genre

Genre

Genre , Greek: genos, γένος) is the term for any category of literature or other forms of art or culture, e.g. music, and in general, any type of discourse, whether written or spoken, audial or visual, based on some set of stylistic criteria. Genres are formed by conventions that change over time...

, often provide descriptions of Black Swans. For example, in December 1836 Lieutenant Bunbury of the 21st Fusiliers

Royal Scots Fusiliers

-The Earl of Mar's Regiment of Foot :The regiment was raised in Scotland in 1678 by Stuart loyalist Charles Erskine, de jure 5th Earl of Mar for service against the rebel covenanting forces during the Second Whig Revolt . They were used to keep the peace and put down brigands, mercenaries, and...

was the first European to travel overland from Pinjarra to the Vasse

Vasse, Western Australia

Vasse is a town in the South West region of Western Australia, west of the town of Busselton and southwest of Perth. Its Local Government Area is the Shire of Busselton...

, describing the mudflats of the Leschenault Estuary

Leschenault Estuary

Leschenault Estuary is an estuarine lagoon that lies to the north of Bunbury, Western Australia.It had in the past met the Indian Ocean at the Leschenault Inlet - but that has been altered by harbour works for Bunbury, and the creation of The Cut north of the historical inlet location.The 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

George Fletcher Moore

George Fletcher Moore was a prominent early settler in colonial Western Australia, and "one [of] the key figures in early Western Australia's ruling elite"...

included in his 1831 ballad “So Western Australia for Me" the lines:

No lions or tigers are we dread to meet,

Our innocent quadrupeds hop on two feet;

No tithes and no taxes, we here have to pay,

And our geese are all swans, as some witty folk say.

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

Aesop

Aesop was a Greek writer credited with a number of popular fables. Older spellings of his name have included Esop and Isope. Although his existence remains uncertain and no writings by him survive, numerous tales credited to him were gathered across the centuries and in many languages in a...

’s fable 'The Eagle and the Owl'.

D. H. Lawrence

D. H. Lawrence

David Herbert Richards Lawrence was an English novelist, poet, playwright, essayist, literary critic and painter who published as D. H. Lawrence. His collected works represent an extended reflection upon the dehumanising effects of modernity and industrialisation...

wrote nearly a century later in his 1925 story “The Heritage”:

Jack looked out at the road, but was much more enchanted by the full, soft river of heavenly blue water, on whose surface he looked eagerly for the black swans. He didn't see any.

"Oh yes! Oh, yes! You'll find em wild in their native state a little way up," said Mr Swallow.

Molly 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 'rara avis in terris, nigroque simillima cygno' as its subtitle. It alludes to her heroine, Letty Granville.

The potency of the image of the black swan as a signifier of Westralian nationalism can be seen in this passage from Randolph Stow

Randolph Stow

Julian Randolph Stow was an Australian writer.-Life:Born in Geraldton, Western Australia, Randolph Stow attended Guildford Grammar School and the University of Western Australia. He lectured in English Literature at the University of Adelaide, the University of Western Australia and the...

's “Merry-go-Round in the Sea”, published in 1965:

Perth was ancient ... And it was a very special city, cut off from other cities by sea and desert, so that there was not another city for two thousand miles. Among all Australian cities it had proved itself the most special, by a romantic act called the Secession
Secessionism in Western Australia
Secessionism has been a recurring feature of Western Australia's political landscape since shortly after European settlement in 1829. The idea of self governance or secession has often been discussed through local newspaper articles and editorials and on a number of occasions has surfaced as very...

, which the other cities had stuffily ignored.

Cinderella State, he thought, feeling indignant. That was the reason for the Secession. Because they had ignored his poor Cinderella State, all one million square miles of it.

Maybe after this war there'd be another war. Western Australia against the world, Black Swan flying.

'We shouldn't have gone to Parliament House,' his mother had remarked, 'it seems to have made you political.' ...

'When will Western Australia be free?' he wondered.

'I don't know,' said his mother. 'Perhaps when Bonnie Prince Charlie comes over.'

'Aww.' He grew disgusted at her flipancy.

Aboriginal languages

The Black Swan is likely to be well-represented in the toponymy

Toponymy

Toponymy is the scientific study of place names , their origins, meanings, use and typology. The word "toponymy" is derived from the Greek words tópos and ónoma . Toponymy is itself a branch of onomastics, the study of names of all kinds...

of the south-west. (Toponymy is the scientific study of place names.) One example is Kurrabup (Nyungar language), or ‘black swan place’, being the local Aboriginal name for the Wilson Inlet upon which the town of Denmark

Denmark, Western Australia

Denmark is a town in the Great Southern region of Western Australia, south-south-east of the state capital of Perth. At the 2006 census, Denmark had a population of 2,732.-History:...

is situated in the South West.

English language

The English-language place name ‘Black Swan’ only occurs as a descriptive toponym once: the Black Swan Mine in the arid interior of the State near Laverton.

The more generic toponym ‘Swan’, invariably referring to Black Swans, has at least 34 examples in Western Australia, almost entirely in the State’s south west. These range from rural locations such as Jebarjup Swan Lake in the Great Southern region, to the iconic Swan River

Swan River (Western Australia)

. The Swan River is the source of at least eight shift names, forming the largest ‘swan’ place-name cluster in Australia: Upper Swan, Middle Swan, Swan Valley, Swan View, West Swan, Swan Estuary, Swan District, and the City (formerly Shire) of Swan. The Swan Land District

Swan Land District

Swan Land District is one of the land districts of Western Australia, which is located within the South West Division. It covers all of the northern and eastern suburbs of Perth, as well as some inner southern areas such as Belmont and Applecross and the area to the north up to the Moore River,...

is the major cadastral

Cadastre

A cadastre , using a cadastral survey or cadastral map, is a comprehensive register of the metes-and-bounds real property of a country...

unit of the State underlying much of the name cluster. There are at least 20 ‘Swan’ street names in the Perth metropolitan area.

There are no ‘White Swan’ toponyms in the State; and the toponymist Reed lists only the Swan River as a ‘Swan’ toponym in the State.

The rarer form of ‘Cygnet’ (young swan) only occurs in three places, all along the Kimberley coast where they commemorate the passage of William Dampier

William Dampier

William Dampier was an English buccaneer, sea captain, author and scientific observer...

and the mutineers on the Cygnet in 1688.

Shipwrecks

With one-third of Australia’s continental coastline within Western Australia, the cultural associations reflected in the scattering of shipwrecks named ‘Black Swan’ is surprisingly small. A lone cutter was wrecked in May 1851 in the Peel-Harvey Estuary

Peel-Harvey Estuary

The Peel Harvey Estuary is a natural estuary which lies roughly parallel to the coast of Western Australia and south of the town of Mandurah. The strip of land between the Indian Ocean and the estuary carries the Old Coast Road and to the east is the Forrest Highway which is the main thoroughfare...

near Mandurah

Mandurah, Western Australia

Mandurah is the second-largest city in Western Australia and is located approximately south of the state capital, Perth.The city attracts a large number of tourists, including many international visitors...

. The large estuaries of the south west of the State are strongly associated with Black Swans. There are six records for the more generic shipwreck name ‘Swan’ between 1869 and 1972 on the north west and west coasts, three times more than any other State, as well as the destroyer escort HMAS Swan, which was scuttled in Geographe Bay

Geographe Bay

Geographe Bay is located in the South West of Western Australia around 220 km southwest of Perth.The bay was named in May 1801 by French explorer Nicolas Baudin; Baudin named the bay after his ship, Géographe. The bay is a wide curve of coastline extending from Cape Naturaliste past the towns...

in 1997 as an artificial reef

Artificial reef

An artificial reef is a human-made underwater structure, typically built to promote marine life in areas with a generally featureless bottom, control erosion, block ship passage, or improve surfing....

Eastern Australia

Heraldry

The Coat of arms of the Australian Capital Territory

Coat of arms of Canberra

The coat of arms of Canberra was created by the Commonwealth Department of Home Affairs and Territories in 1927, in response to a request by the Commonwealth Department of Defence, who wanted to use it on the newly commissioned HMAS Canberra....

, granted in 1928, includes swans as supporters. One swan is black and the other white, said to be symbolising the Aboriginal and European people of Australia. No other state or territory Arms in eastern Australia include a Black Swan.

Some 77 municipalities across eastern Australia have received grants of Arms from the Crown

Monarchy in Australia

since 1908, but only four include a black swan: Lake Macquarie (1970, supporter) and Queanbeyan

Queanbeyan, New South Wales

Queanbeyan is a regional centre in the Southern Tablelands in south-eastern New South Wales adjacent to the Australian Capital Territory. The city's mixed economy is based on light construction, high technology, manufacturing, service, retail and agriculture. It is the council seat of the...

(1980, supporter) in New South Wales

New South Wales

New South Wales is a state of :Australia, located in the east of the country. It is bordered by Queensland, Victoria and South Australia to the north, south and west respectively. To the east, the state is bordered by the Tasman Sea, which forms part of the Pacific Ocean. New South Wales...

, and Springvale

Springvale, Victoria

Springvale is a suburb in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, approximately 20 km south-east from Melbourne's central business district. Its Local Government Area is the City of Greater Dandenong...

(1976, supporter) and Sale

Sale, Victoria

Sale is a city in the Gippsland region of the Australian state of Victoria. It is the seat of the Shire of Wellington as well as the Roman Catholic Diocese of Sale and the Anglican Diocese of Gippsland. It has a population of around 13,336, and is expected to reach a population of 14,000 soon...

(1985, supporters) in Victoria

Victoria (Australia)

Victoria is the second most populous state in Australia. Geographically the smallest mainland state, Victoria is bordered by New South Wales, South Australia, and Tasmania on Boundary Islet to the north, west and south respectively....

. These all indicate the presence of Black Swans in the municipal area. Campbelltown, New South Wales

Campbelltown, New South Wales

Campbelltown is a suburb in south-western Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. Campbelltown is located 51 kilometres south-west of the Sydney central business district and is the administrative centre for the local government area of the City of Campbelltown.- History :Campbelltown...

has a white swan in the crest of its Arms (1969), alluding to the arms of its namesake Campbell family.

There are three grants of Arms to corporations that include a Black Swan. In 1931 the Bank of New South Wales (now Westpac

Westpac

Westpac , is a multinational financial services, one of the Australian "big four" banks and the second-largest bank in New Zealand....

) was granted Arms with a Black Swan supporter alluding to the Bank’s acquisition of the Western Australian Bank

Timeline of banking in Western Australia

The first commercial bank in Western Australia was created eight years after the establishment of the Swan River Colony in 1829.Note: bold entries indicate a locally domiciled operation...

in 1927. In the same year the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons

Royal Australasian College of Surgeons

The Royal Australasian College of Surgeons is the body responsible for training and examining surgeons in Australia and New Zealand. The head office of the College is in Melbourne, Australia....

was granted Arms with a Black Swan in the first and fourth quarters, apparently derived from the Australian Arms. In 1965 the Australian Academy of Science

Australian Academy of Science

The Australian Academy of Science was founded in 1954 by a group of distinguished Australians, including Australian Fellows of the Royal Society of London. The first president was Sir Mark Oliphant. The Academy is modelled after the Royal Society and operates under a Royal Charter; as such it is...

was granted Arms with a black swan as a crest, alluding to the Academy’s ‘Australianness’ and its location in Canberra. The black swan has not been used in the Arms of any university or residential college in eastern Australia.

Two religious authorities in eastern Victoria, the Anglican Diocese of Gippsland

Anglican Diocese of Gippsland

The Anglican Diocese of Gippsland is located in the Gippsland region of Victoria, Australia, extending from Phillip Island to Mallacoota. It has existed as a diocese since 1902, when the Right Reverend Arthur Wellesley Pain was installed at the first Bishop of Gippsland.The cathedral church of the...

, and the Roman Catholic Diocese of Sale

Roman Catholic Diocese of Sale

The Roman Catholic Diocese of Sale is a suffragan Latin Rite diocese of Archdiocese of Melbourne, established in 1887, covering the south east of Victoria, Australia.-History:The Diocese of Sale was erected by Pope Leo XIII on 26 April 1887...

, have a Black Swan as a charge on their diocesan Arms.

Philately

The transfer of postage stamp production from the states to the Commonwealth in 1913 has resulted in four issues being produced featuring a Black Swan design, three commemorating a Western Australian anniversary. In 1929 a stamp designed by Perth architect George Pitt Morrison, featuring a Black Swan taken from one of the colonial stamp designs, marked the State’s centenary. In 1954 the centenary of the first Western Australian stamp was marked by a commemorative issue in a similar style to the original 1 penny Black Swan. In 1979 the State’s 150th anniversary

WAY 1979

WAY '79, also referred to as WAY 79 and WAY 1979, was the official 1979 sesquicentennial celebration of the colonisation of Western Australia by Europeans.-Planning:...

was marked with an issue featuring the anniversary logo, a stylised black swan. A 1991 series of waterbirds included a 43 cent stamp showing a pair of Black Swans nesting with cygnets. This is the only philatelic recognition of the Black Swan’s cultural values in eastern Australia as an emblem of estuarine and riverine environments characteristic of south eastern Australia.

Incidental philatelic illustrations of the Black Swan include the 1962 British Empire and Commonwealth Games

1962 British Empire and Commonwealth Games

The 1962 British Empire and Commonwealth Games were held in Perth, Western Australia, Australia from 22 November-1 December 1962. Athletic events were held at Perry Lakes Stadium in the suburb of Floreat and swimming events at Beatty Park in North Perth....

(held in Perth) stamp issue bearing the Arms of the City of Perth with black swan supporters and charge, a 1963 commemorative of Canberra’s founding featured the city’s Arms, with black swan supporter, and the 1990 series of rare colonial stamps that included a reproduction of the colonial 4d Blue ‘Inverted Swan’. The Black Swan appears in stamp issues illustrating the Australian Arms (as one of the charges on the shield) in 1948, 1951, 1975 and 1999; and in a 1981 Queen’s Birthday

Queen's Official Birthday

The Queen's Official Birthday is the selected day on which the birthday of the monarch of Commonwealth realms is officially celebrated in Commonwealth countries and in Fiji, which is now a republic. It is an invention of the early 20th century...

commemorative illustrating Her Majesty’s personal flag

Queen's Personal Australian Flag

The Queen's Personal Australian Flag, sometimes known as the Royal Standard of Australia is the personal flag of Queen Elizabeth II in her role as Queen of Australia. The flag was approved for use in 1962. It is only used by the Queen when she is in Australia, or attending an event abroad in her...

(which is banner of the shield in the Australian Arms).

Decorative arts

Images of the Black Swan played only a minor role in the development of Australian decorative arts between the 1890s and World War One. This was a period when Australian flora and fauna decorative motifs were widely used for the first time. Images of lyrebird

Lyrebird

A Lyrebird is either of two species of ground-dwelling Australian birds, that form the genus, Menura, and the family Menuridae. They are most notable for their superb ability to mimic natural and artificial sounds from their environment. Lyrebirds have unique plumes of neutral coloured...

s, sea horses, waratah

Waratah

Waratah is a genus of five species of large shrubs or small trees in the Proteaceae, native to the southeastern parts of Australia...

s, flannel flowers

Actinotus helianthi

Actinotus helianthi known as the Flannel Flower, is a common sight in bushland around Sydney, Australia.Despite its appearance, it is not a member of the daisy family but rather a species of flowering plant of the Apiaceae family, the same family as the carrot...

, firewheels, cockatoo

Cockatoo

A cockatoo is any of the 21 species belonging to the bird family Cacatuidae. Along with the Psittacidae and the Strigopidae , they make up the parrot order Psittaciformes . Placement of the cockatoos as a separate family is fairly undisputed, although many aspects of the other living lineages of...

s and palm leaves feature prominently in the work of Lucien Henry, but the only known example of his work with a black swan is in a design for a fountain. A fountain in the central courtyard of Sydney Hospital

Sydney Hospital

Sydney Hospital is a major hospital in Sydney, Australia, located on Macquarie Street in the Sydney central business district. It is the oldest hospital in Australia, dating back to 1788, and has been at its current location since 1811. It first received the name Sydney Hospital in 1881.Currently...

reminiscent of Henry’s design includes several Black Swans. Australian motifs were popular in the Queen Anne Revival

Queen Anne Style architecture

The Queen Anne Style in Britain means either the English Baroque architectural style roughly of the reign of Queen Anne , or a revived form that was popular in the last quarter of the 19th century and the early decades of the 20th century...

or Federation architectural style

Australian architectural styles

Australian architectural styles, like the revivalist trends which dominated Europe for centuries, have been primarily derivative.-Background:...

of the period, but the black swan is rarely seen among the kookaburra

Kookaburra

Kookaburras are terrestrial kingfishers native to Australia and New Guinea. They are large to very large, with a total length of . The name is a loanword from Wiradjuri guuguubarra, and is onomatopoeic of its call...

s, eucalyptus leaves

Eucalyptus

Eucalyptus is a diverse genus of flowering trees in the myrtle family, Myrtaceae. Members of the genus dominate the tree flora of Australia...

and rising suns

Rising Sun (badge)

The Rising Sun badge, also known as the General Service Badge or the Australian Army Badge, is the official insignia of the Australian Army. The badge is worn on the brim of a slouch hat or the front of a peaked cap and is readily identified with the spirit of ANZAC, the legend of the Australian...

.

In 1913 the sculptor William Macintosh carved a ‘coat of arms’ for each state on the pilaster capitals of the façade of the new Commonwealth Bank headquarters in Pitt Street, Sydney. He included a Black Swann on a shield for Western Australia, 56 years before the State was granted a Coat of arms of a similar design. The Sydney Hospital fountain and the Commonwealth Bank façade are two uncommon examples of the use of the Black Swan in decorative arts in eastern Australia in the late 19th and early 20th century.

Literature

‘Black Swan’ occurs rarely in literary titles. The State Library of New South Wales

State Library of New South Wales

The State Library of New South Wales is a large public library owned by the state of New South Wales, Australia. It is located in Macquarie Street, Sydney near Shakespeare Place...

catalogue lists only ten fiction titles, one of which is an English-language translation of Thomas Mann

Thomas Mann

Thomas Mann was a German novelist, short story writer, social critic, philanthropist, essayist, and 1929 Nobel Prize laureate, known for his series of highly symbolic and ironic epic novels and novellas, noted for their insight into the psychology of the artist and the intellectual...

’s 1954 The Black Swan (Die Betrogene in German). Humphrey McQueen

Humphrey McQueen

Humphrey McQueen is an Australian author, historian, and cultural commentator. He has written many books on a wide range of subjects covering history, the media, politics and the visual arts...

’s book, The Black Swans of Trespass: The Emergence of Modernist Painting in Australia 1918-1944, takes its title from the final line of the poem ‘Durer: Innsbruck, 1495’:

In its ignorance the vision of others. I am still

The black swan of trespass on alien waters.

This poem, the first by 'Ern Malley

Ern Malley

Ernest Lalor "Ern" Malley was a fictitious poet and the central figure in Australia's most celebrated literary hoax. The poet, and his entire body of work, were created in one day in 1944 by writers James McAuley and Harold Stewart as a hoax on Max Harris, Angry Penguins, the modernist magazine he...

' to be published in Angry Penguins
Angry Penguins
Angry Penguins was an Australian literary and artistic avant-garde movement of the 1940s. The movement was stimulated by a modernist magazine of the same name published by the surrealist poet Max Harris, who founded the magazine in 1940, at the age of 18....

(1943), became a celebrated literary event.

Aboriginal languages

The Black Swan is represented in the toponymy of eastern Australia. Several anglicised

Anglicisation

Anglicisation, or anglicization , is the process of converting verbal or written elements of any other language into a form that is more comprehensible to an English speaker, or, more generally, of altering something such that it becomes English in form or character.The term most often refers to...

versions of local Aboriginal-language place names referring to Black Swans are known. Examples include Dunedoo

Dunedoo, New South Wales

Dunedoo ) is a village of 836 inhabitants situated within the Warrumbungle Shire of central western New South Wales, Australia. Dunedoo is well known to Australian travellers due to its distinctive name...

(Wiradjuri

Wiradjuri

The Wiradjuri are an Indigenous Australian group of central New South Wales.In the 21st century, major Wiradjuri groups live in Condobolin, Peak Hill, Narrandera and Griffith...

language) on the Talbragar River

Talbragar River

The Talbragar River is a river in New South Wales, Australia. It starts on the western side of the Liverpool Range near Cassilis and flows west to join the Macquarie River near Dubbo. The Talbragar does not start in a high rainfall area and is not much of a river at all really. It was first...

, Berrima

Berrima, New South Wales

Berrima is an historic village in the Southern Highlands of New South Wales, Australia, in Wingecarribee Shire. The village, once a major town, is located on the Old Hume Highway between Canberra and Sydney. It was previously known officially as the Town of Berrima...

(Tharawal

Tharawal language

Tharawal is an Australian Aboriginal language.-Classification:Southern New South Wales groupClans and Families of The Northern Dharawal*Noron-Geragal*Targarigal*Goonamattagal*Wodi Wodi...

or Gundungurra language) in the Southern Highlands, and Mulgoa

Mulgoa, New South Wales

Mulgoa is a suburb of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. Mulgoa is located 66 kilometres west of the Sydney central business district, in the local government area of the City of Penrith and is part of the Greater Western Sydney region....

(Gundungurra language) on the Nepean River

Nepean River

The Nepean River is a river in the coastal region of New South Wales, Australia.The headwaters of the Nepean River rise near Robertson, about 100 kilometres south of Sydney and about 15 kilometres from the coast. The river flows north in an unpopulated water catchment area into Nepean Dam, which...

, all in New South Wales; Maroochydore

Maroochydore, Queensland

Maroochydore is an urban centre on the Sunshine Coast, Queensland, Australia.Maroochydore is a major commercial area of the Sunshine Coast with most shopping precincts located in the central business district. It is home to the Sunshine Plaza shopping centre and the Sunshine Coast's major bus...

on Queensland’s Sunshine Coast (Yuggera language: Muru-kutchi — meaning red-bill, the name of the black swan). Maroochydore is from Murukutchi-dha, the place of the black swan. This name was given by Andrew Petrie

Andrew Petrie

Andrew Petrie was a builder, architect and Australian pioneer.Petrie was born in Fife, Scotland and trained as a builder in Edinburgh, where he married Mary Cuthbertson in 1821. John Dunmore Lang brought him, his wife and four sons to Sydney in 1831 with other Scottish mechanics to form the...

in 1842, who had two Brisbane River

Brisbane River

The Brisbane River is the longest river in south east Queensland, Australia, and flows through the city of Brisbane, before emptying into Moreton Bay. John Oxley was the first European to explore the river who named it after the Governor of New South Wales, Thomas Brisbane in 1823...

(Yuggera) Aboriginal men with him from whom he presumably heard the words. The local name for the swan is Kuluin. Barwon Heads

Barwon Heads, Victoria

Barwon Heads is a coastal township on the Bellarine Peninsula, near Geelong, Victoria, Australia. It is situated on the west bank of the mouth of the Barwon River below Lake Connewarre, while it is bounded to the west by farmland, golf courses and the ephemeral saline wetland Murtnaghurt...

, Victoria, is near Lake Connewarre

Lake Connewarre

Lake Connewarre is a shallow estuarine lake located on the Barwon River, on the Bellarine Peninsula near Geelong, Victoria. It is adjacent to, and downstream from, the freshwater Reedy Lake...

, through which the Barwon River

Barwon River (Victoria)

The Barwon River rises in the Otway Ranges of Victoria, Australia, runs through Winchelsea and the city of Geelong, where it is joined by the Moorabool River, and enters the sea at Barwon Heads after passing through Lake Connewarre on the Bellarine Peninsula...

flows on its way to the sea. The name "Connewarre" is the local aboriginal name for the Black Swan which was found in large numbers on the lake.

There are also instances of such names being newly applied today, for example Hydro Tasmania

Hydro Tasmania

Hydro Tasmania, known for most of its history as The HEC, is the government owned enterprise which is the predominant electricity generator in the state of Tasmania, Australia...

has adopted Aboriginal names for some parts of its hydro-electric developments, such as Catagunya, meaning Black Swan.

English language

The English-language place name ‘Black Swan’ occurs as a descriptive toponym in four states, usually as a ‘name cluster’. Queensland has a Black Swan Creek near Gladstone

Gladstone, Queensland

- Education :Gladstone has several primary schools, three high schools, and one university campus, Central Queensland University. It is also home to CQIT Gladstone Campus.- Recreation :...

, together with nearby Black Swan Island and a Black Swan Rock further south near Shoalwater Bay

Shoalwater Bay

Shoalwater Bay is a large bay on the central coast of Queensland, Australia, located 100 km north of the coastal town of Yeppoon and 628 km north-north-west of the state capital, Brisbane. Since 1966, the land surrounding Shoalwater Bay has been under the ownership of the Australian Defence Force,...

; another Black Swan Creek near Maryborough

Maryborough, Queensland

Maryborough is a city located on the Mary River in South East Queensland, Australia, approximately north of the state capital, Brisbane. The city is serviced by the Bruce Highway, and has a population of approximately 22,000 . It is closely tied to its neighbour city Hervey Bay which is...

; and a Black Swan Lagoon inland on the Darling Downs near Warwick

Warwick, Queensland

Warwick is a town in Queensland, Australia, lying south-west of Brisbane. It is the administrative centre of the Southern Downs Local Government Area. In 2006 the town of Warwick had a population of 12,562....

. New South Wales has a Black Swan Anabranch adjoining a Black Swan Lagoon on the north side of the Murray River

Murray River

The Murray River is Australia's longest river. At in length, the Murray rises in the Australian Alps, draining the western side of Australia's highest mountains and, for most of its length, meanders across Australia's inland plains, forming the border between New South Wales and Victoria as it...

in the Corowa Shire

Corowa Shire Council

Corowa Shire is a local government area in New South Wales, Australia in the Riverina region. It is on the Murray River and the Riverina Highway.Its includes the towns of Corowa, Howlong, Balldale, Coreen and Daysdale, Rennie and Mulwala.- Council :...

. In South Australia’s arid north there is a Black Swan Swamp just north of Roxby Downs and a Black Swan Waterhole further north of the old Overland Telegraph line

Australian Overland Telegraph Line

The Australian Overland Telegraph Line was a 3200 km telegraph line that connected Darwin with Port Augusta in South Australia. Completed in 1872 the Overland Telegraph Line allowed fast communication between Australia and the rest of the world. An additional section was added in 1877 with the...

. Tasmania has a Black Swan Island near the wild South West Cape. Given the broad sweep of the Black Swan’s natural habitat, the presence of only nine distinctive place names or name clusters within that range indicates the rarity of ‘Black Swan’ as a toponym. New Zealand also has a Black Swan Stream in the South Auckland

South Auckland

South Auckland is an imprecisely defined area of Auckland, New Zealand, often stereotyped as a socio-economically disadvantaged, and sometimes rough, urban area with a relatively large Polynesian and Māori population. The name South Auckland is not an official place name but is in common use by New...

district.

The more generic toponym ‘Swan’ invariably refers to black swans. The Gazetteer of Australia lists 57 examples in New South Wales, 32 in Tasmania, 20 in Queensland, 19 in Victoria, 10 in South Australia, 5 in the Northern Territory, and none in the other territories. Some idiosyncratic examples are Swan Hole (NSW), Swan Spit (Vic) and Swan Nook (Tas). The Gazetter also lists two ‘White Swan’ toponyms: a mine and reservoir near St Arnaud

Saint Arnaud, Victoria

St Arnaud is a town in the Wimmera region of Victoria, Australia 244 kilometres north west of the capital Melbourne. It is in the Shire of Northern Grampians local government area...

, on the Victorian goldfields. A clear concentration is evident in New South Wales and Tasmania. By contrast, the toponymist Reed lists only three examples: Swan Hill

Swan Hill, Victoria

Swan Hill is a city in the northwest of Victoria, Australia. It is located on the Murray Valley Highway, on the south bank of the Murray River, downstream from the junction of the Loddon River. At the 2006 census, Swan Hill had a population of 9,684.-History:...

and Swan Pond in Victoria, and Swan Point in Tasmania (all named by explorers after sighting black swans in large numbers).

There are 13 'Swan' street names in Sydney and 1 'Black Swan' street name, in contrast to a lone 'Swan' street name in Darwin.

The rarer form of ‘Cygnet’ (young swan) occasionally occurs. The Gazetteer of Australia records 11 in Tasmania (the densest concentration), five in South Australia and one in Victoria, but Reed’s only example is Cygnet

Cygnet, Tasmania

Cygnet is a small town 55 kilometres south west of Hobart, in the Huon Valley in Tasmania. At the 2006 census, Cygnet had a population of 839.-History:...

, Tasmania, anglicised from 'Port des Cygnes', so-named by the French explorer Bruni d'Entrecasteaux

Bruni d'Entrecasteaux

Antoine Raymond Joseph de Bruni d'Entrecasteaux was a French navigator who explored the Australian coast in 1792 while seeking traces of the lost expedition of La Pérouse....

in 1793 because of the large number of swans he observed there.

Shipwrecks

Another cultural association is reflected in the scattering of shipwrecks named ‘Black Swan’. Tasmania has a wrecked schooner

Schooner

A schooner is a type of sailing vessel characterized by the use of fore-and-aft sails on two or more masts with the forward mast being no taller than the rear masts....

(1830) off Prime Seal Island

Prime Seal Island

Prime Seal Island is a long island, with a high central ridge and an area of 1220 ha, in south-eastern Australia. It is part of Tasmania’s Prime Seal Island Group, lying in eastern Bass Strait west of Flinders in the Furneaux Group. Geologically, it is limestone overlying granite and has notable...

in the Bass Strait

Bass Strait

Bass Strait is a sea strait separating Tasmania from the south of the Australian mainland, specifically the state of Victoria.-Extent:The International Hydrographic Organization defines the limits of the Bass Strait as follows:...

, and a wrecked fishing boat (1950) off Swansea

Swansea, Tasmania

-Demographics:According to the 1996 census, the town's population was 495. Of the population, 25.1% were above the age of 65 - making it the Tasmanian town with the largest percentage of over-65-year-olds.-References:...

on the east coast. New South Wales has two wrecks off its northern coast: a cutter near Newcastle

Newcastle, New South Wales

The Newcastle metropolitan area is the second most populated area in the Australian state of New South Wales and includes most of the Newcastle and Lake Macquarie Local Government Areas...

(1852) and a paddle steamer

Paddle steamer

A paddle steamer is a steamship or riverboat, powered by a steam engine, using paddle wheels to propel it through the water. In antiquity, Paddle wheelers followed the development of poles, oars and sails, where the first uses were wheelers driven by animals or humans...

(1868) near the Manning River

Manning River

The Manning River is a river in the Mid North Coast of New South Wales, Australia that flows through the Manning Valley. It is one of Australia's few large river systems not to be dammed for water supply purposes anywhere along its catchment...

. The name ‘Black Swan’ probably refers to the aquatic characteristics of black swans such as buoyancy and a graceful style, even though the shipwreck record suggests the hope in the name-association was not always well founded. There are five records for the more generic ‘Swan’ between 1836 and 1934: one in Tasmania, and two each in Victoria and New South Wales, including torpedo-boat destroyer HMAS Swan scuttled in 1934.

Australian Rules Football

In Australian rules football

Australian rules football

Australian rules football, officially known as Australian football, also called football, Aussie rules or footy is a sport played between two teams of 22 players on either...

, the symbol of the black swan has been used prominently by the West Australian interstate teams since the state debuted in 1904. The black swan symbol has featured in the State of Origin series between 1977-1998 on the various guernsey designs (with some variations contrasting the swan depicted in the colours of the state emblem in reverse - as yellow on a black background and others with a yellow outline). The 1978 variation of the WA jumper was used one-off by the West Coast Eagles

West Coast Eagles

The West Coast Eagles are an Australian rules football club which plays in the Australian Football League. The club is based in Perth, Western Australia. The club was founded in 1986 and played its first games in the 1987 season. Its current home ground is Subiaco Oval...

in the Australian Football League

Australian Football League

The Australian Football League is both the governing body and the major professional competition in the sport of Australian rules football...

Heritage Round in July 2007.

The names of two Australian rules football

Australian rules football

Australian rules football, officially known as Australian football, also called football, Aussie rules or footy is a sport played between two teams of 22 players on either...

clubs illustrate a contemporary variation of the ways in which cultural references to the black swan have changed and been transformed over time.

The Swan Districts Football Club

Swan Districts Football Club

The Swan Districts Football Club, nicknamed the Swans, is an Australian rules football club playing in the West Australian Football League . The club is based at Bassendean Oval, in Bassendean, an eastern suburb of Perth, Western Australia...

was established in 1932 at Bassendean

Bassendean, Western Australia

Bassendean is a northeastern suburb of Perth, Western Australia. Its Local Government Area is the Town of Bassendean.Bassendean is home to the Western Australian Rail Transport Museum. The display has a collection of Steam and Diesel Locomotives, most of these have been restored to operating...

, near the industrial and railway hub of the Swan District and a large community of expatriate

Expatriate

An expatriate is a person temporarily or permanently residing in a country and culture other than that of the person's upbringing...

Victorians. The name associated the club with the place, as did its emblem of a black swan. The club has since played continuously in the West Australian Football League

West Australian Football League

The West Australian Football League is an Australian rules football league based in Perth, Western Australia. The WAFL is the second-most popular in the state, behind the nation-wide Australian Football League...

.

The South Melbourne Football Club

Sydney Swans

The Sydney Swans Football Club is an Australian rules football club which plays in the Australian Football League . The club is based in Sydney, New South Wales. The club, founded in 1874, was known as the South Melbourne Football Club until it relocated to Sydney in 1982 to become the Sydney...

was established in 1874, and was one of the founding clubs in the VFL/AFL. During the 1920s and 30s, an influx of players from Western Australia lead to the team becoming known as the ‘swans’ within the VFL. In 1982 South Melbourne transferred to Sydney, dropping its old place name but retaining its nickname as the Sydney Swans. The swan, however, is no longer a black swan but a white swan, derived from existing red and white colours of South Melbourne and the lake-bound white swans of Albert Park

Albert Park, Victoria

Albert Park is an inner city suburb of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, 3 km south from Melbourne's central business district. Its Local Government Area is the City of Port Phillip. At the 2006 Census, Albert Park had a population of 5827....

near its original home ground. The white swan is often combined with, or replaced by, a white Sydney Opera House-style logo.

This is an apparently rare example of Western Australian swan symbolism being transferred eastward, then transformed to symbolise something else, retaining only an echo of its formerly symbolic values. None of the current AFL teams have taken a Black Swan emblem in allusion to any natural qualities of the bird, and its sole representation in the symbology of the League refers to the largely unresearched phenomenon of late 19th-mid 20th century migration between Western Australia and Victoria - now borne by a club that has emigrated to New South Wales. It is an ironic transformation in the symbolism of a bird that that was for so long thought to be non-migratory.

America's Cup

The tender

Ship's tender

A ship's tender, usually referred to as a tender, is a boat, or a larger ship used to service a ship, generally by transporting people and/or supplies to and from shore or another ship...

to Australia II

Australia II

Australia II is the Australian 12-metre-class challenge racing yacht that was launched in 1982 and won the 1983 America's Cup for the Royal Perth Yacht Club...

, the yacht which won the 1983 America's Cup

1983 America's Cup

The 1983 America's Cup was the occasion of the first winning challenge to the New York Yacht Club who had successfully defended the cup over a period of 132 years...

at Newport, Rhode Island

Newport, Rhode Island

Newport is a city on Aquidneck Island in Newport County, Rhode Island, United States, about south of Providence. Known as a New England summer resort and for the famous Newport Mansions, it is the home of Salve Regina University and Naval Station Newport which houses the United States Naval War...

was called Black Swan.

Music

Gian Carlo Menotti

Gian Carlo Menotti was an Italian-American composer and librettist. Although he often referred to himself as an American composer, he kept his Italian citizenship. He wrote the classic Christmas opera, Amahl and the Night Visitors, among about two dozen other operas intended to appeal to popular...

in his opera

Opera

Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...

The Medium
The Medium
The Medium is a short two-act dramatic opera with words and music by Gian Carlo Menotti. Commissioned by Columbia University, its first performance was there on 8 May 1946. The opera's first professional production was presented on a double bill with Menotti's The Telephone at the Heckscher...

named one of his most famous aria

Aria

An aria in music was originally any expressive melody, usually, but not always, performed by a singer. The term is now used almost exclusively to describe a self-contained piece for one voice usually with orchestral accompaniment...

s "The Black Swan", which is a "dark lullaby

Lullaby

A lullaby is a soothing song, usually sung to young children before they go to sleep, with the intention of speeding that process. As a result they are often simple and repetitive. Lullabies can be found in every culture and since the ancient period....

" sung by the character Monica.

Perth

Perth, Western Australia

Perth is the capital and largest city of the Australian state of Western Australia and the fourth most populous city in Australia. The Perth metropolitan area has an estimated population of almost 1,700,000....

rock group The Triffids

The Triffids

The Triffids were a seminal Australian alternative rock and pop band formed in Perth, Western Australia, in May 1978 with charismatic, David McComb as singer-songwriter, guitarist, bass guitarist and keyboardist. They achieved negligible success in Australia, but greater success in the U.K...

released an album called The Black Swan in 1989.

The American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

thrash metal

Thrash metal

Thrash metal is a subgenre of heavy metal that is characterized usually by its fast tempo and aggression. Songs of the genre typically use fast percussive and low-register guitar riffs, overlaid with shredding-style lead work...

band Megadeth

Megadeth

Megadeth is an American heavy metal band from Los Angeles, California which was formed in 1983 by guitarist/vocalist Dave Mustaine, bassist Dave Ellefson and guitarist Greg Handevidt, following Mustaine's expulsion from Metallica. The band has since released 13 studio albums, three live albums, two...

released a song entitled "Black Swan" as a bonus track on their 2007 album United Abominations

United Abominations

United Abominations is the eleventh studio album by the American heavy metal band Megadeth. Released on May 8, 2007, United Abominations is the first Megadeth release distributed through Roadrunner Records, and was recorded with an all new lineup excluding the band's singer, guitarist, songwriter,...

. This song was later re-recorded and re-released on their 2011 album Thirteen

Thirteen (Megadeth album)

Thirteen is the thirteenth studio album by the American heavy metal band Megadeth. The album was released on November 1, 2011 in North America, making it the second Megadeth album that was released on that date. The album was released on October 26, 2011 in Japan...

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Singer/songwriter Tori Amos

Tori Amos

Tori Amos is an American pianist, singer-songwriter and composer. She was at the forefront of a number of female singer-songwriters in the early 1990s and was noteworthy early in her career as one of the few alternative rock performers to use a piano as her primary instrument...

released a song entitled "Black Swan" as a bonus track

Bonus track

In terms of recorded music, a bonus track is a piece of music which has been included on specific releases or reissues of an album. This is most often done as a promotional device, either as an incentive to customers to purchase albums they might otherwise not, or to repurchase albums they already...

on her 1994 UK CD single

CD single

A CD single is a music single in the form of a standard size Compact Disc, not to be confused with the 3-inch CD single, which uses a smaller form factor. The format was introduced in the mid-1980s, but did not gain its place in the market until the early 1990s...

Pretty Good Year.

Singer Thom Yorke

Thom Yorke

Thomas "Thom" Edward Yorke is an English musician who is the lead vocalist and principal songwriter for Radiohead. He mainly plays guitar and piano, but he has also played drums and bass guitar...

of the band Radiohead

Radiohead

Radiohead are an English rock band from Abingdon, Oxfordshire, formed in 1985. The band consists of Thom Yorke , Jonny Greenwood , Ed O'Brien , Colin Greenwood and Phil Selway .Radiohead released their debut single "Creep" in 1992...

released a song entitled "Black Swan" on the soundtrack of the 2006 film A Scanner Darkly

A Scanner Darkly (film)

A Scanner Darkly is a 2006 science fiction thriller directed by Richard Linklater based on the novel of the same name by Philip K. Dick. The film tells the story of identity and deception in a near-future dystopia constantly under intrusive high-technology police surveillance in the midst of a drug...

, and three days later on his debut solo album The Eraser

The Eraser

The Eraser is the debut solo album by Radiohead lead singer Thom Yorke, released on 10 July 2006. The album debuted at #3 on the UK Albums Chart and at #2 on the Billboard 200 in the United States, selling over 90,000 copies in its first week. Critical reception to the album was generally positive...

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The American alternative rock band Chiodos

Chiodos

Chiodos is an American post hardcore band from Davison, Michigan. Formed in 2001, the group was originally known as "The Chiodos Bros," the band's name was a tribute to filmmakers Stephen, Charles, and Edward Chiodo, responsible for the film Killer Klowns from Outer Space. Chiodos released their...

released a song entitled "Lexington" which references black swans in the lyric, " All the water in the ocean couldn't turn this swan's legs from black to white".

The American avant-garde

Avant-garde

Avant-garde means "advance guard" or "vanguard". The adjective form is used in English to refer to people or works that are experimental or innovative, particularly with respect to art, culture, and politics....

band The Blood Brothers released a song entitled "Giant swan" in which a giant swan is used as a metaphor for society and war, until it is renamed in the lyric, "It's gonna sting like a raw sunrise when the Black Swan's gone."

Finnish power metal

Power metal

Power metal is a style of heavy metal combining characteristics of traditional metal with speed metal, often within symphonic context. The term refers to two different but related styles: the first pioneered and largely practiced in North America with a harder sound similar to speed metal, and a...

band Sonata Arctica

Sonata Arctica

Sonata Arctica are a Finnish power metal band from the town of Kemi, originally assembled in 1995. Their later works contain several elements typical of progressive metal.....

included a song titled "Fly With the Black Swan" on their 2007 album Unia

Unia

Unia , released on May 25, 2007, is the fifth full-length studio album by the power metal band Sonata Arctica, following the album Reckoning Night. The first single from the album was "Paid in Full", released on April 27, 2007. The album has more progressive metal styles than their previous work...

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American band Story of the Year

Story of the Year

Story of the Year is an American rock band formed in St. Louis, Missouri in 2000. The band was initially named 67 North but was then changed to Big Blue Monkey...

released an album entitled The Black Swan

The Black Swan (Story of the Year album)

The Black Swan is the third studio album by American rock band Story of the Year.The album was named after Nassim Nicholas Taleb's book, The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable, on unpredictable events and randomness and was their first album recorded with indie label Epitaph Records,...

in 2008.

The American ambient band Amber Asylum

Amber Asylum

Amber Asylum is a highly-variable San Francisco-based music group that serves as a platform for composer, singer, and multi-instrumentalist Kris Force...

released a song entitled "Black Swan" on their 2000 album The Supernatural Parlour Collection.

The German

Germans

The Germans are a Germanic ethnic group native to Central Europe. The English term Germans has referred to the German-speaking population of the Holy Roman Empire since the Late Middle Ages....

death metal

Death metal

Death metal is an extreme subgenre of heavy metal. It typically employs heavily distorted guitars, tremolo picking, deep growling vocals, blast beat drumming, minor keys or atonality, and complex song structures with multiple tempo changes....

/gothic rock band Lacrimas Profundere

Lacrimas Profundere

Lacrimas Profundere is a gothic metal band from Germany. Their name means "to shed tears" in Latin. Their stylistic aesthetic has evolved over time, originally a death doom rooted gothic metal band, they have progressively changed their style to a more mainstream gothic style with the late...

released a song entitled "Black Swans" on their 1999 album Memorandum.

The Japanese

Japanese people

The are an ethnic group originating in the Japanese archipelago and are the predominant ethnic group of Japan. Worldwide, approximately 130 million people are of Japanese descent; of these, approximately 127 million are residents of Japan. People of Japanese ancestry who live in other countries...

noise artist Merzbow

Merzbow

is the main recording name of the Japanese noise musician , born in 1956. Since 1979 he has released in excess of 350 recordings.The name "Merzbow" comes from German artist Kurt Schwitters' artwork, "Merzbau”. This was chosen to reflect Akita's dada influence and junk art aesthetic...

titled the eighth volume of his 2009-2010 box set 13 Japanese Birds

13 Japanese Birds

13 Japanese Birds is a 15 album series by the Japanese noise musician Merzbow. It was inspired by Olivier Messiaen's Catalogue d'oiseaux , but has no direct musical relationship....

Black Swan.

Modern philosophy

The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable is the title of an influential 2007 book by Lebanese

Lebanon

Lebanon , officially the Republic of LebanonRepublic of Lebanon is the most common term used by Lebanese government agencies. The term Lebanese Republic, a literal translation of the official Arabic and French names that is not used in today's world. Arabic is the most common language spoken among...

thinker Nassim Nicholas Taleb. The book expounds Taleb's theory that rare, unexpected, highly anomalous

Anomaly

Anomaly may refer to:-Astronomy and celestial mechanics :* In astronomy, an anomaly is a quantity measured with respect to an apsis, usually the periapsis...

events are both more common and more momentous than previously imagined. This theory has since become known as the black swan theory

Black swan theory

The black swan theory or theory of black swan events is a metaphor that encapsulates the concept that The event is a surprise and has a major impact...

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