What is the legacy of Hans Erikson?

Jacaranda’s blurb on the cover of The Rhythm of the Shoe promises readers “the feeling that it has been your privilege to have met [Hans Erikson] and share in his experiences.” There is more to the Hans Erikson story, however, than appears in the pages of The Rhythm of the Shoe. He was no saintly hero. Were you to offer him Superman’s lycra bodysuit and cape, his ego would certainly have him try them on for size. But sadly his body would bulge in all the wrong places. He was a disobedient child, a liar, a coward, a pot-stirrer, a profiteer, a cheater, a fornicator, a convicted criminal, a Swede. He wouldn’t admit it but he was an Australian too. He saw more of the Great South Land than most of its own citizens ever did and he fell in love with a wild landscape and seascape he wanted preserved for posterity. Despite his many faults, he had a strong sense of right and wrong, of conscience. Like querulous Uncle Willy before him, there was nothing he hated more than the hypocrisy of the powerful and he did not shrink from a fight even though anonymity was one of his principal weapons. Strife for the Grebst clan was indeed “the spice of life.” Erikson was no snob either. He liked ordinary people and they liked him. Underdogs. The downtrodden. New money. He was a man who lived his life like those Vikings for whom glory in Valhalla was too abstract a reward; he would have “word fame” instead. He would become a “good yarn” for future generations. That was why he wrote The Rhythm of the Shoe. It was never meant as a strict recording of the facts of his life. It was the story of his life, not the facts. Good stories attract embellishment. That is how they capture the emotion of experience. In this blog, I have gone beyond the story and looked for the facts. I have found discrepancy and myth and laid them bare as best I could. But I hope my work will keep the memory of this man alive in Australia and Sweden and perhaps lead to further revelations about him and his contribution to the unfolding story of Homo sapiens running amok on a tiny planet in the cosmos. Much I know has already been lost to history forever.

Where does Hans Erikson fit into our history? He was a skilled mariner and his sailing school made a real contribution to the boating culture of Sydney. He taught seamanship in Queensland too. At the very least, he deserves a moment of recognition in our maritime history. As one of the early “doggers” in central Australia, he was a witness to the hardships, hypocrisies and injustices of frontier life. When Australia’s political leaders wanted to disguise the reality of what was happening on the black-white frontier, his ire was raised and he flung himself into the fray like a true berserker. Yes, his logic was based on blurry notions of “race” and “economics,” the prevailing themes of the time - some would say even to this day. Like Uncle Willy, he lambasted the missionaries and held them to account for the actual results of their activities rather than just assuming that their godly intentions would bring forth godly ends. He – and the journalists who gave him publicity – helped finally bury the “punitive expedition” as the accepted response of governments to black-white conflict in the deserts. He also drew attention to the condition of “half-castes” – indeed, the existence of “half-castes” – at a time when such people did not officially exist in significant numbers. This was three years before the publication of Capricornia by Xavier Herbert, a novel that captured the nation’s attention and focused it on the reality of “black velvet.” I trust that the main contribution of my own work in this biography has been to unmask Erikson from the pseudonyms he hid behind during this turbulent period, to bring him out fully into the sunlight of Australian history and to show the family, cultural and social influences that spawned him.

I also wish to salute Erikson, the writer. For one whose native tongue was not English, he managed to master the language of Shakespeare and create entertaining, poignant and insightful stories such as those in The Rhythm of the Shoe. I only wish I had found more of the newspaper articles he claimed to have written for the world’s press. A trip to Germany may be needed for that daunting task.

His genetic legacy remains a nagging mystery. Are the Grebsts extinct, frozen solid in their graves in Gothenburg and Paris? Or do they live on somewhere in the vast open plains of Australia? If this blog finally connects me with his descendants, I would be delighted. Regardless of his silent, lonely death, Hans Erikson can surely be content with having lived a full and fascinating life through turbulent times. I think of him every year when news arrives that the whales are back in Hervey Bay filling the warm shallow waters with their seafaring songs. And of the seafarer who came down from the frozen North and never returned, he may well have said: Veni, Vidi, Vinci.