The funny thing about obsession is that it isn’t funny at all. Many of these posts are the result of one obsessive pursuit or another, and many’s the mention of being drawn into rabbit-holes as one link on the interwebs leads to another two, or four, or so on.
One bee in the old bonnet that will not buzz off is the endless fascination of the names around here: the creeks, roads, hills and so on, which you have suffered through with virtually no complaint.
Now the thing is, I do have a local road name which has been irking me and quietly calling for some research into its origins. Every time we drive to or from Canberra, we pass the sign; every time I make a mental note to look into it; and every time, by the time we get home, it’s forgotten.
That’s partly because the sharp edge of this obsession has dulled a bit since the initial posts about creeks and settlers’ names and aboriginal dreamtimes and so on. But this one just seemed so . . . interesting.
And that’s because it seems that in this day in age, to name a road Black Sallee Lane just seemed to me to be just a trifle politically incorrect. You see what I mean? Even before BLM, sticking up a road sign like that must surely have been a bit insensitive, or provocative. Although Australia has made strides toward reconciling with its past treatment of the First Nations people, there are many who say it still has a way to go — and this isn’t the way to go.
But part of the intrigue about this name was the ‘Sallee’ part. This has to be a reference to the Sallee Pirates of 17th-century Morocco, a band of ruthless buccaneers of the Muslim faith who founded the Republic of Salé after fleeing the Spanish Inquisition. One of many bands of Barbary Pirates, they raided commercial shipping in the north Atlantic and Mediterranean, and weren’t above a spot of slave trading either.
You could spend a lot of time reading up about the Barbary Pirates. The ones from Salé, having been booted out of Spain, tended to raid Spanish ships; the Republic has subsequently been seen as an example of an anarchist society, with little to no government and a lot of freedom. The Salé Republic ended in 1668, but the Barbary Pirates continued buccaneering until 1830 – not long after settlers arrived in the Braidwood area.
How did this name find its way out here, to New South Wales? Did early settlers use the term for Aboriginal people? Or were black Muslim miners attracted here by the gold rush? After all, Chinese miners and traders became influential in Braidwood at that time and their descendants remain to this day. And there are camels in the Outback — why not pirates?
Finally, after months of idle speculation, today I maintained focus long enough to look up the name. And get this: it doesn’t appear on the map! Surely a sign that the name is controversial, maybe frowned upon in those places where maps are made?
Apart from that, precious little comes up on the net apart from real estate listings. And then there were the minutes of a local council meeting, dusty from their sojourn in the archives, which gave an account of how the name came to be. Read with me and experience the emotions I did.
And the basis for this decision?
Nothing about pirates.
Turns out Black Sallee is a kind of tree – the eucalyptus stellulata, also sometimes rendered Black Sally. The Sallee or Sally part of the name, I’m reliably informed, comes from an archaic English word, ‘sallow’, which means a low-growing or shrubby kind of willow.
And the Black part of the name? I can’t tell you – apparently the bark of this sallow ranges from grey to olive green, and the flowers are white. Whatever – this name clearly has nothing to do with pirates, Muslims, or indeed, race.
And when was this disappointingly prosaic naming decision made? Well, that would be September last year. No wonder the signs catch the eye as you drive by — they’re brand new.
Looks like some rabbit-holes are less extensive than others; less interesting, dramatic, or scandalous. You can go looking for a juicy story, but every now and then it’s just not there. This obsession is clearly a case of – wait for it . . . barking up the wrong tree.