PLAYWRIGHT’S NOTE
NATHAN MAYNARD
Playwright
Since the 1830s, Nathan’s
family have been known as the
Maynards and have developed
a strong connection with the
Furnuex Islands. Nathan has 17
years’ experience as a dancer
in schools and communities.
In 2012 Nathan performed in
Shadow Dreams, a collaboration
of Terrapin Puppet Theatre
and the Tasmanian Symphony
Orchestra, and in 2013 and
2014 was a participant in the
Tasmania Performs Artists
Residency program at Tarraleah.
With the support of Tasmania
Performs, Nathan secured an
Arts Tasmania Aboriginal Arts
Fellowship for a year-long career
development program focused on
the development of this play.
My name is Nathan Maynard,
my father is Darrell Maynard and
my grandparents were Benjamin
Tasman Maynard and Stella
Mansell, who were born on Cape
Barron and Flinders islands in
Bass Strait. Twenty years on, Big Dog Island
may be my physical home during
the Season, but it’s forever my
spiritual home.
My family belongs to a community
known as the muttonbird people.
We harvest the muttonbird’s
nest on the Bass Strait islands.
It’s a cultural practice we call
the birding, and every year we go
birding for The Season. When I’m birding, I know that’s
exactly where I’m meant to be,
amongst my people and the birds.
I come from a proud birding
family. We’ve harvested
muttonbirds every year since
the beginning of time.
Before I laid my eyes on Big Dog
Island, I had already seen it a
thousand times in my head. I
knew what it looked like and felt
like from all the yarns I had been
told from my father, grandparents,
uncles, aunts and cousins.
There is no other place that I feel
so strongly connected to my land,
culture, history, people… my old
people… I feel them with me.
Birds that we are eternally
grateful for and hold in our hearts
so dearly.
The muttonbird takes the longest
migration of any animal in the
world… past New Zealand, Japan
up to Alaska and back home to
our islands to breed in the same
burrow every year… a migration of
30,000 kilometres.
They are simply amazing and
resilient as hell. Just like the
people they are forever connected
too…
I knew to expect past birders’
names carved and written on the
walls of the cookhouse shed. The parallels between the birds
and us mob don’t stop there.
Many of us migrate back to the
same shed year after year. Many
find our life-long partners on the
island… many are conceived or
conceive on the island… or at least
get some practice in.
I knew what to expect when I
first thrust my arm down a dark
muttonbird’s nesting hole, on a
snake and spider-infested Island. We grow up on the island and lose
our baby feathers… and like the
birds, our yearly journey starts
and finishes on the island.
All those yarns were the first
part of my journey. My Initiation
finished when I first pulled a bird
out of that hole and my training
had begun. —NATHAN MAYNARD
I knew to expect the strong smell
of the birds, smashing my nostrils
when I first jumped off the tinny
and onto the Island.