The Burnum Burnum Declaration England, 26th January, 1988

I, Burnum Burnum, being a nobleman of ancient Australia do hereby take posession of England on behalf of the Aboriginal people. In claiming this colonial outpost, we wish no harm to you natives, but assure you that we are here to bring you good manners, refinement and an opportunity to make a Koompartoo - ‘a fresh start’. Henceforth, an Aboriginal face shall appear on your coins and stamps to signify our sovreignty over this domain. For the more advanced, bring the complex language of the Pitjantjajara; we will teach you how to have a spiritual relationship with the Earth and show you how to get bush tucker.

We do not intend to souvenir, pickle and preserve the heads of your 2000 of your people, nor to publicly display the skeletal remains of your Royal Highness, as was done to our Queen Truganninni for 80 years. Neither do we intend to poison your water holes, lace your flour with strychnine or introduce you to highly toxic drugs. Based on our 50,000 year heritage, we acknowledge the need to preserve the Caucasian race as of interest to antiquity, although we may be inclined to conduct experiments by measuring the size of your skulls for levels of intelligence. We pledge not to sterilise your women, nor to separate your children from their families. We give an absolute undertaking that you shall not be placed onto the mentality of government handouts for the next five generations but you will enjoy the full benefits of Aboriginal equality. At the end of two hundred years, we will make a treaty to validate occupation by peaceful means and not by conquest.

Finally, we solemnly promise not to make a quarry of England and export your valuable minerals back to the old country Australia, and we vow never to destroy three-quarters of your trees, but to encourage Earth Repair Action to unite people, communities, religions and nations in a common, productive, peaceful purpose.

Burnum Burnum.

• Oh, my hand
• The parchment is very hairy
• Thank God it will soon be dark
• St. Patrick of Armagh, deliver me from writing
• Now I’ve written the whole thing; for Christ’s sake give me a drink
• Oh d fuckin abbot
• Massive hangover
• Whoever translated these Gospels did a very poor job
• Cursed be the pesty cat that urinated over this book during the night
• If someone else would like such a handsome book, come and look me up in Paris, across from the Notre Dame cathedral
• I shall remember, O Christ, that I am writing of Thee, because I am wrecked today
• Do not reproach me concerning the letters, the ink is bad and the parchment scanty and the day is dark
• 11 golden letters, 8 shilling each; 700 letters with double shafts, 7 shilling for each hundred; and 35 quires of text, each 16 leaves, at 3 shilling each. For such an amount I won’t write again
• Here ends the second part of the title work of Brother Thomas Aquinas of the Dominican Order; very long, very verbose; and very tedious for the scribe; thank God, thank God, and again thank God
• If anyone take away this book, let him die the death, let him be fried in a pan; let the falling sickness and fever seize him; let him be broken on the wheel, and hanged. Amen