Red Kangaroo War-Chief of Gunnedah: The Ewing Texts
Red Kangaroo War-Chief of Gunnedah: The Ewing Texts
Red Kangaroo War-Chief of Gunnedah: The Ewing Texts
GENERATIONS”
1
“SUNG FOR GENERATIONS”
Michael O’Rourke
M.Phil. Cantab., MBA UNSW, BA Syd.
2
The Ewing Papers are published by permission of the
Gunnedah & District Historical Society.
Published by
The Author
Michael O'Rourke
706 Phoenix Apartments,
86-88 Northbourne Ave
BRADDON ACT 2612
Australia
Do not, repeat not, send land mail to this address. Please use the
e-mail below for all inquiries.
mjor@velocitynet.com.au
ISBN 0-646-44637-1
3
I will go alone to raise a burial mound
over my best-loved brother.
4
5
CONTENTS
PREFACE 1
Acknowledgments 8
A Pedantic Note on Spelling and Pronunciation 11
MAPS 14
INTRODUCTION 25
i
DOCUMENT 1: SYDNEY MAIL ARTICLE: “THE
GRAVE AND BONES OF CUMBO GUNERAH”
163
PHOTOGRAPHS 213
ii
ON COONABARABRAN BY THE CASSILIS MEN
402
INDEX 506
iii
List Of Maps And Illustrations
A. Maps
B. Line Illustrations
iv
to the pampas of South America and the prairies of North
America.
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‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
PREFACE
1
First edition 1953. For an outline of the novella, see
Appendix One. Tom Thompson of ETT Imprint Pty Ltd, who
kindly granted permission for Idriess's preface to be reprinted
here, notes that The Red Chief is also available under the Bolinda
imprint in both large print and full audio editions.
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‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
MICHAEL O’ROURKE
Canberra 2005
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‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
Acknowledgments
I thank:
The president and members of the GUNNEDAH &
DISTRICT HISTORICAL SOCIETY, the custodians
of the Ewing Papers, for agreeing to my
publishing the texts.
REX BATES, Canberra, for drawing the maps showing
Black Hill (maps 10 and 11).
SHIRLEY COOTE of Gunnedah, who assisted me with
information on people and geography.
TIM CURRAN, of Gunnedah and the Botany
Department, School of Environmental Sciences
and Natural Resource Management, University
of New England, for advice on the flora of
Porcupine Ridge and geographical features. Tim
also kindly read and commented on a pre-
publication draft.
DENISE DONLON and ROSE STACK of Sydney
University, at the Shellshear and Macleay
Museums respectively, who assisted me in
searching (in vain) for the apparently lost
skeletal remains of Gambu Ganuurru.
BOB FAULKNER, Djarla of the Anaiwan (Nganaywana),
Moonbi NSW, for wise guidance. Ngurunga
ngaya winangaldanha [Gamil.] = ‘I still am
hearing (listening to) him’. More precisely: ‘It is
he I still listen to’.
DEREK FRAMPTON, Canberra, for some very incisive
comments on a late draft.
PAUL GORECKI, Research Associate, Australian
Museum, Sydney, for referring me to sources of
information on the decay of skeletal remains.
KEVIN MARTIN, Queanbeyan, also for some very
incisive comments on a late draft, especially
concerning grammar. - Kevin is a Legalist (“if I
were a reader of Sir Ernest Gowers, … ”),
whereas I am a Confucianist (“if I was a reader
of Sir Ernst Gowers, …”). Obedient, however, to
the older ancestors, I have adopted the style of
the Qin dynasty in place of the later Han!
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2
John Giacon and his colleagues (Ash et al. 2003) prefer
Gambuu (long u). The older texts, however, suggest that both
vowels were short. I have mostly followed Ash et al.’s reading of
phonemes throughout this book, but in this case I will stay with
the short u in Gambu.
11
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Maps
Map 1: The Region, showing highways etc
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Map 11: Black Hill, The Secret Camp and the ‘Wallaby
Catch’
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Introduction
G
unnedah is located at the centre of the
Liverpool Plains. The latter is the name that
the explorer John Oxley chose for the
generally flat, wide river-valley: the Peel-Namoi
River and its major tributaries, the Manilla River,
Mooki River and Coxs Creek [Map 2].
The Liverpool Plains can be visualised as a five-
sided basin. They, or it, are bounded by four
mountain ranges and an open fifth side. But one
has to be flying very high, or look at a map, to
actually see this. The ordinary car-traveller does
not see this pattern because of the many minor
lines of hills.
Listed clockwise, the four major ranges are the
Nandewars, the Moonbi Ranges (the edge of New
England), the Liverpool Range and the
Warrumbungles [Maps 1 and 2]. There is a fifth,
open side where the Namoi River runs out onto the
level plains country beyond Narrabri.
The Namoi catchment west of Tamworth is
generally flat, a fact disguised for car-travellers
along the New England Highway by the prominence
in the near west of the small Melville Range with its
landmark peak, Mt Duri (pronounced dyoo-rye or
jew-rye).
The flattest segment is the central river valley
running from Breeza through Gunnedah and on to
Boggabri. Indeed fully 85% of Gunnedah Shire has
land slopes of less than three degrees. But,
because of this, the 15% that is hilly country
appears prominent: the “sweeping plains” of
Dorothea Mackellar's famous phrase.
In addition to rivers and creeks, there are many
depressions which, in seasons of heavy rainfall,
remain as shallow lakes for long periods. The
25
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
The Rivers:
The Slopes:
5
DWLC 2000. Less than three degrees in slope:
www.infogunnedah.com.au (accessed September 2001).
26
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The Mountains:
27
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Climate:
7
The nearest continental “antipode” of Gunnedah is a
spot in the Morocco-Algeria border region south-east of
Marrakesh. But that region is, as a result of the world’s west-east
weather flow, rather more arid. Morocco and western Algeria
form part of what we might call the “exposed western inlands”
(like the Geraldton-Kalgoorlie section of WA). If we turn to the
world’s “sheltered eastern inlands”, and use the same latitude and
elevation, then we find that central Texas is the nearest cognate of
the Liverpool Plains.
In the Köppen system, Gunnedah's climate is classified as
“Cfa” or ‘humid sub-tropical’ (map in Encyclopaedia Britannica,
15th edition, vol 16, p.499).
28
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8
NSW Premiers Department 1952 and DWLC 2000. Data
also from various encyclopaedias and web-sites accessed in late
2001, for instance www.infogunnedah.com.au;
www.worldclimate.com.au; www.zuidafrika.nl; and
www.usd.edu/anth.
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Birds:
Riverine animals:
9
Animals as totems and foods are discussed in O'Rourke
1997.
Interestingly, Tim Curran informs me that several quolls were
found near Gunnedah in 1997; but nowadays the animal is so rare
that one of the specimens was sent the Australian Museum.
The Namoi and Manilla Rivers provided the site for the ground-
breaking studies of Harry Burrell. Or should one say 'stream-
breaking'? - See Burrell's The Platypus: Sydney, Angus &
Robertson 1927. On the importance of his work, see Ann Moyal,
Platypus, Sydney [Crows Nest], Allen & Unwin, 2002.
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Other fauna:
Flora:
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i. Porcupine Ridge:
Spinifex grass and hop-vine scrub, with a large
patch of the latter at foot of Porcupine Ridge.
k. At Coonabarabran:
Reeds along watercourses.
33
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10
Wiradjuri: Originally the name was pronounced like
‘wirr-RAHD-thoo-RYE’, with stress on the long syllables
(Donaldson 1984). Hale 1845 offers the spelling Wiradurei. The
spelling ‘Wiradjuri’ is common today, with its English-influenced
pronunciation ‘w’RADJ-a-ree’.
Ten thousand people: see the population data in Milliss 1992
Chapter One and O’Rourke 1997. The figure of 10,000 should be
taken as indicative. Much depends on the severity of the several
smallpox epidemics (discussed later in the main text). It would not
be wrong, however, to imagine a regional population of even
20,000 in 1790.
11
Tindale 1974: 129, 201; Lourandos Continent 1997: 26
ff. California: in Encyc. Brit. 1989 under ‘American Indians’.
34
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12
On smallpox, see Judy Campbell, Invisible Invaders
2002. It appears there were two pandemics: one in 1785-95 and
another in 1825-35.
George Clarke told Mair that "one in six" people (only 17%)
died on the middle Namoi in 1830-31 (quoted by Mair, in
Campbell 2002: 140). As Campbell argues, this was probably an
under-estimate. She proposes that overall about half the entire
Aboriginal population had died, directly or indirectly, from
smallpox by 1840, and in some regions up to 60%. This was the
compound effect of several epidemics and would include indirect
effects, i.e. people starving who were too weak to hunt and gather
(2002: 150, 222-24).
13
Lourandos, Aboriginal spatial organisation 1977.
35
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36
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37
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17
See O’Rourke 1997. The primary sources include: G B
White Journal 1832; The Australian and The Colonist both
17.8.1839; The Sydney Herald and The Monitor both 19.8.1839
(trial of Aboriginal cattle-killers); and various papers by Ridley
and Mathews.
18
Yuwaalaraay (Major Mitchell’s Jerwoolleroy) was the
language of the communities living along the Narran River where
it crosses the present-day Queensland-NSW border. A very closely
related form of speech, Yuwaaliyaay (Katie Parker’s Eu-ah-la-yi
or ‘Euahlayi’), belonged to the country on and around the lower
Narran River west of Lightning Ridge.
O’Byrne, Mathews and Vernon, writing late in the 19th century,
placed Yuwaalaraay and/or the closely related Yuwaaliyaay
tongue on (part of) the Moonie River including Nindigully;
O’Byrne even put Yuwaalaraay as far east as the lower Weir
River. Most writers, however, have located these two tongues on
and around the Narran. Tindale’s map shows the St George-
Nindigully region as the intersection point of four languages:
Kamilaroi, Koamu ( = Kogai), Mandandanji and Bigambul.
38
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39
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Cassilis
21
Most place-names in the Coolah-Cassilis region have the
Gamilaraay +bri/+aroy suffix, for instance Paiambra near
Binnaway; Bullaroy trig point, west of Coolah; Vinegaroi Road,
north-east of Uarbry; and Uarbry itself. But there are also several
names with the -ong [-aang] and -therie [-dhurraay] endings of
Wiradjuri, namely Bong Bong Creek, south-west of Coolah; and
Merotherie crossing, south-west of Uarbry.
Frank Bucknell greatly simplified in telling Howitt that
“between the Bogan and the Kamilaroi boundary, which runs
north-westward from Wonabarabra (sic: misprint for
Coonabarabran!) to the junction of the Peel River (sic: actually
Namoi) and the Darling (sic: Barwon), the language is a mixture
of Kamilaroi and Wiradjuri” (in Howitt 1904: 58).
See further the discussion and maps in O’Rourke 1997, citing
Günther 1892; Ridley 1875: 119; also Quinn 1958 (and see the
map of early stations in Pickette & Campbell 1984).
40
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22
‘Colo’ 1826; also in The Australian 14.10.1826.
The early colonial history of the area is examined in Waller’s
thesis: K G Waller, Letters relating to Collaroy Station near
Cassilis 1837-39, BA thesis, University of Queensland, 1956.
23
‘And’ vs ‘the’: Rusden’s words are quoted slightly
differently in 1880 and 1904.
41
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24
Rusden in Fison and Howitt Kamilaroi and Kurnai 1880:
279; and Naseby and Rusden in Howitt 1904: 57, 84, emphasis
added.
25
Brayshaw 1986: 58; Distribution of Blankets, SRNSW
[State Records of NSW] 4/1133.3. By 1896, the Aboriginal
population of Cassilis consisted of just one lone individual (APB
report, in Votes & Proceedings of the NSW Parliament, VPLA
1897 vol 8 p.883).
42
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43
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aa = Australian-English ‘father’,
‘can’t’. As in gaalan ‘meat
44
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28
Australians and most British English speakers pronounce
“can’t” with a long vowel [kaant]. In General American English,
“can’t” is pronounced with a quite different vowel [kaent]. Also,
in Australian English the R in “marlin” is silent. Thus: maal’n. In
most or many varieties of American English, the r is pronounced:
maarrl’n.
29
Ash et al. 2003: 93 prefer guli.
45
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30
Ridley, MSS 1871-73. ‘White stone(s)’ is proposed by
Gardner 1854; Ridley MSS 1871-73 (Gunnedah and
Gunyerawarildi); Ridley 1875: 28; Günther 1892 (Wiradjuri);
Ewing MSS; MacPherson 1930: 130 (Gunyerwarildi); and
Mahaffey 1982: 105 (Conadilly). ‘Motherless’ is proposed by
Ridley 1871-73, and 1875; The Sydney Mail JFH 1891 (quoting
Old Maggie); and Cain 1922.
46
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31
Document 3B, 'The Death and Career', MS Page 12,
quoted in Idriess 1953. Elgin Street: Document 4. "Walkabout
Gunnedah” (Fairfax 2001) also refers to “a sizeable outcrop” of
white stone (a vein of milky quartz?) where the public school now
stands in Broomfield Street. [Published at
www.walkabout.fairfax.com.au/ the
Age/locations/NSW/Gunnedah.]
32
The final ‘r’ in many English words is silent (in
Australian and British pronunciation) e.g. ‘car’ (=kaa), ‘under’
(=anda) and ‘father’ (=faatha). So Ewing’s rr spelling (‘darr’)
could indicate just a long vowel (aa) or a long vowel with a rhotic
(aarr) or even a short vowel with a rhotic (arr).
47
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48
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49
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50
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51
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41
See in O’Rourke 1997: - primary sources: John Oxley
1820; and Howe diary (pub. 1989). Secondary sources: J F
Campbell 1928; Perry 1963; Wood 1972; Rolls 1981; Miller 1985;
Brayshaw 1986; Milliss 1992; Johnson 2002.
42
Primary sources: Gardner 1854, I:3; Nowland 1861.
Secondary: Campbell 1922; Carter 1974; Rolls 1981; and Milliss
1992.
52
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53
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54
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55
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47
See references below in the section on Chronology:
under 1834.
48
Overseas readers should note that the ‘squatters’ were
the principals or land-holders, holding leases from the Crown.
They were generally absentee ‘capitalists’ living in Sydney or the
Hunter Valley. Their frontier holdings and the stock were put in
charge of a superintendent. Thus ‘squatter’ is equivalent in some
respects to the American term “rancher”. Ranches in Australia
were, and are, called “stations”.
56
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57
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Police were, however, active further out, i.e. beyond the Barwon
River and along the Macintyre River. I am aware that Windshuttle
2000 has proposed that the Temple and Nunn clashes were
botched arrests rather than premeditated pogroms, and that the
numbers of casualties have been greatly exaggerated. He may well
be right, but the case has not yet been made.
50
Pastoral licences for Peel, Namoi and Gwydir basins and
New England: NSW Government Gazette 19.2.1840; also in
Campbell 1968: 19 ff. Ware n.d. [UNE MS no.A695] offers a
count of “164” proprietors in 1841.
58
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
both sides, the blacks and the whites, may have felt
fearful of being killed.
On the other hand, those who wish to see the
process of white colonisation as ‘peaceful
settlement’ will correctly observe that the
Aborigines typically welcomed the first whites to
arrive in their country, and that the vast majority of
white workers, although heavily outnumbered,
never once needed to lift a musket or rifle51 in
anger against an Aborigine. They will also
emphasise that any killing of Aborigines was largely
irrelevant to the success of the British takeover.
Which view is correct? Both and neither. The
fact is that some regions saw little fighting, while
other regions saw a great deal. In general, I believe,
exotic diseases were very important, and actual
violence was much less important.52
N G Butlin has argued, rightly in my view, that
overall no amount of sporadic shooting or poisoning
could have equalled the systemic impact of exotic
foreign diseases and the ecological changes
wrought by the sheep and cattle. Indeed, such were
the indirect effects of pastoralism, said Major
Mitchell, that the herds of the whitefellows were by
themselves practically “sufficient to produce the
extirpation of the native race”.53 If so, then the
51
Musket = muzzle-loader. Rifle = gun with a rifled barrel.
The period 1825-1850 saw spark-ignited (“flint-lock”) muzzle-
loaders replaced by muzzle-loaders ignited with explosive pellets (
“percussion caps”). In the same period, lead “balls” (round
projectiles) were replaced by lead “bullets” (pointed projectiles).
Some muskets had rifled barrels; most did not. Modern-style
firearms, i.e. breech-loading rifles firing bullets in the form of
metal-cased cartridges, did not appear until the second half of the
19th century.
52
I write here of south-east Australia before 1850: it seems
that violence may have been more significant later in what is now
Queensland.
53
Mitchell 1848: 83; also Butlin 1993: 130. In his 1982
paper, Butlin assumed, for modelling purposes, that just one in
100 Aborigines each year was killed by whites (1982: 67 ff). For
the contrary view, see Reynolds (1981, 1990b).
59
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54
Campbell 1983, 1985 and 2002.
Clarke said "one in six" (only 17%) died in the Namoi Valley
(quoted by Mair, in Campbell 2002: 140). As Campbell argues,
this was probably a conservative figure. She proposes that overall
about half the entire Aboriginal population died directly or
indirectly from smallpox in the half-century to 1840, and in some
regions up to 60%. This was the compound effect of several
epidemics and included the indirect effects, i.e. people starving
when they were rendered too weak to hunt and gather (Campbell
2002: 150, 222-24).
Early NSW was in no way unique. As Butlin 1982: 22 notes,
smallpox caused ‘kill rates’ of 50 to 60 percent of the population
across large areas in North America. On smallpox in southern
Africa and more generally throughout the Americas, see Johnson
1991: 277; also S Aronson & L Newman, Smallpox in the
Americas, 1492-1815: Contagion and Controversy (Providence,
Rhode Island, 2002).
60
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55
Ecological change: Mitchell, Tropical Australia 1848:
83; and Ridley in Lang Queensland 1864. As noted in the text,
Major Mitchell (1848) believed that the herds of the British were
by themselves “sufficient to produce the extirpation of the native
race”, such were the indirect effects of pastoralism. N G Butlin
has concurred with this judgment (1993: 130).
56
Fewer women: See the blanket distribution records in
Brayshaw 1986, and analysis in O’Rourke 1997. Few children:
Butlin remarks that gonorrhoea tends progressively to reduce
reproductive capacity as persistent and increasing inflammation
affects the uterus and occludes the fallopian tube. Syphilis
likewise limits the ability to produce viable children.
57
Many people with a certain ideological conviction reject
anything other than the simple-minded proposition that "the
Aboriginal population was reduced by the gun". Anyone interested
in the truth must ask: What evidence do we have for massacres?
What evidence do we have for epidemics? And, what else besides
the gun and imported microbes killed Aborigines? Reynolds 1981
and Milliss 1992 were fixated on the musket - because of their
anti-imperialist predilections. Having read all the same sources, I
disagree. Yes, there were a few massacres (defined, say, as
occasions on which 10 or more Aborigines were killed). But
shootings were much less important than exotic diseases and the
disruption to traditional food sources.
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1804:
Possibly the first-ever contact between the Gamilaraay and
white men. - According to Huntington, an “affray” (battle) took
place between a large force of Aborigines and British cedar
getters who had penetrated “70 miles” up the Hunter River. This
seems a very long way to go in boats, but if correct it means the
whites rowed perhaps as far as present-day Muswellbrook. If so
the Aborigines in question were probably Gamilaraay-speakers.
- H. W. H. Huntington, "History of Newcastle and the Northern
District no.45", Newcastle Morning Herald, 11 January 1898.58
1818:
John Oxley discovers and names the Liverpool
Plains.
His party came eastwards from the Castlereagh
River through the valley of Garrawilla Creek. They
crossed Coxs59 Creek south of Mullaley [27 August]
and then the Mooki River east of present-day
Curlewis [31 August]. (There are memorials to
Oxley located three kilometres south of Mullaley
and on the Wandoba Road.)
58
See online at
http://www.newcastle.edu.au/services/library/collections/archives/
int/abori.html; accessed January 2005.
59
The modern convention is not to use the possessive
apostrophe in place-names. Hence Chinamans Gully, not
Chinaman’s Gully.
62
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1819:
First overland journey to the Hunter Valley by
colonists: John Howe’s party, guided by friendly
Aborigines from the Hawkesbury, reaches the
middle Hunter River between Denman and
Singleton. Howe’s note of “Coomery Roy” as the
language of the Upper Hunter would appear to be
the first-ever record of the name Gamilaraay.
The Howe family afterwards (in the 1830s)
established ‘Carroll’ holding, east of Gunnedah, and
pioneered white settlement on what is now the
NSW-Queensland border.
1822:
Travelling from Bathurst, William Lawson explores
and names the upper Goulburn River including the
Cassilis district (Jervis 1954: 78). Cf 1825.
1823:
North-east of Mudgee, near present-day Coolah. the
botanist-explorer Allan Cunningham found, but did
60
Oxley p.234; Johnson 2002: 128.
61
See generally Johnson 2002. The coordinates of
Curlewis itself are 31o07’30” East, 150o15’00” South. Oxley’s
bearing of 31o07’E and 150o10’S, taken on 30 August, if accurate,
places his party about 15 kilometres directly west of the present-
day village of Curlewis. Thus on 31 August they passed either
through or very near the future site of Curlewis.
63
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1825:
1. The first whites to visit the Warrumbungle
Ranges were several convict workmen from William
Lawson’s holding on the Talbragar River near
Mudgee (Jervis 1954: 83).
1826-27:
The first cattlemen enter and occupy the edges of
the Liverpool Plains, west of present-day Willow
Tree.
1826-31:
62
After Oxley [1818: published 1820], Cunningham in
1823 was one of the first to record how the Aborigines’ of the
interior buried their dead: see his unpublished journal entry, 9
May 1823, noting a “burial mound of Aborigines” (SRNSW: Reel
6035; SZ15 pp 34, 122).
63
Cunningham, Journal, May 1825: SRNSW Reel 6035,
SZI7.
64
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
1827:
1. Travelling north, Allan Cunningham passes to the
east of Breeza and crosses the Namoi River near
present-day Carroll. Far to the north, in what is now
Queensland, he will discover and name the Darling
Downs. On his return journey, the botanist crossed
the Namoi River between Gunnedah and Emerald
Hill.64
• Cunningham’s party may well have been the
first white men ever to be noticed (although he
did not see them) by the Aborigines of the
immediate Gunnedah district.
64
McMinn 1970. Excerpts from Cunningham's journal
have been published by Lee 1925: see at pp 548 ff for the
botanist's crossing of the Liverpool Plains. The full text of Lee’s
book is available on line: see details in Bibliography.
65
Gardner 1846 and 1854; Cash 1870; Reece 1974: 29 and
Milliss 1992: 78 ff. Gardner refers to the Aborigines in question
as the "Namoi tribes" or "Manilla and Namoi tribes" [in Calvert
1846: 40 and 1854 ii: 76], but we may believe that the local
Mooki River bands also participated. Waterloo Plains is not to be
confused with a later battle or massacre at Waterloo Creek in the
lower Gwydir-Mehi valley.
65
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
1828:
It was reported that cattle from 'Mooki' station were
never allowed to go past “the rocky crossing place”
(at modern Caroona) “on account of the blacks”
(Carter 1974: 27).
From 1828:
Proceeding north down the Mooki River, the
squatters' men gradually occupy the Breeza Plains
(as related in Allan Wood’s, Eric Rolls’ and Roger
Milliss’s books).
There are conflicting claims about who the first
arrivals were. John Rotton of Patricks Plains in 1828-
30 briefly occupied part of what became Walhalla
run [modern ‘Walhallow’]. He may have been the
first. Burns’ superintendent Bloomfield took Burns’
cattle further down the Mooki at about the same
time. ‘Breeza’ station, or the area that would
become 'Breeza', was first occupied for T P
Macqueen in 1831 by Donald McLauchlan, or at
least McLauchlan temporarily grazed some of
Macqueen’s bullocks there; later McLauchlan held a
licence of his own for nearby ‘Long Point’.
Casual grazing gave way to full occupation in
1832 when J M Blaxland’s men formed a permanent
run at ‘Breeza’.67
1829:
66
Clarke had worked in London as an apprentice barber
before being transported.
67
See Mitchell 1839, I: 32; Nowland 1861; Campbell
1922: 229, Wood Dawn in the Valley 1972: 224; Rolls 1981: 79
and 100; and Milliss 1992: 75 and 570. Milliss prefers to date
‘Walhallow’ to about 1831.
66
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
Late 1830:
Having lived free for nearly three years with the
Gamilaraay people of Boggabri, Clarke came in to
surrender.
‘The Barber’ told florid tales of a massive river
called the Kindur. It lay, he said, beyond a lesser
river called the “Gnammoy” (our earliest record of
the name Namoi). The story about an inland sea
can be explained by his having seen, from high
ground, a very large flood.68 (On average, the
Namoi floods two years in five. Or rather, it used to,
before the Chaffey, Split Rock and Keepit dams
were built.)
1830-31:
Smallpox ravages the Aboriginal population of the
Namoi Valley. George Clarke said that the disease
came up-river, from the interior, to Narrabri. It
spread thence to Boggabri and Gunnedah in
October-November 1830. Among the many who
died was the "king" (patriarch) of the Boggabri
band. 69
1831:
1. Clarke absconded again. He guided the squatters
Richard Yeomans and Ben Singleton to the Peel,
which they followed down in the direction of
68
Boyce 1970. The Aborigines were full of stories about
great floods. Naseby mentions a great flood “long, long ago” that,
they said, covered the land "from mountain to mountain" north of
the Warrumbungles, a distance of at least "80 to 90 miles". And
Telfer mentions Aboriginal traditions of a "cobbong flood"
[cobbong = gabawaang, meaning ‘big’] some "300 miles long
[with] a large lot of islands in the middle of it". "The ridges about
Gunnedah were swept away by the great rush of water in its
course down the Namoi country" (Naseby and Telfer, quoted in
Milliss 1992: 29).
69
Judy Campbell 1983, 1985, 2002.
67
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
1832:
70
Boyce 1970: 30-32; Milliss 1992: 82.
68
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
69
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
1832-38:
The frontier of British settlement was extended
along the Namoi River from ‘Baan Baa’ to ‘Narrabri’
in 1832-34. Then ‘Wee Waa’ was occupied in about
1836 or 1837.
The first runs on the ‘Big River’ or Gwydir can be
dated to 1835-36, while the Moree district was
reached from two directions in 1837-38.
1833:
1. This year saw a number of squatters reach and
form stations in the Manilla-Gunnedah-Boggabri
sector of the Namoi River. The following list is in
alphabetical order of the stock-holder’s name.
Whose men and stock arrived first - as between
Baldwin's, Bowman's, Onus's, Parnell's,
Robertson's, Thorley's, Wentworth's and Williams' -
is not clear.73
70
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
71
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
75
Irritatingly, Rolls does not cite his sources. It is never
possible therefore to check his conclusions.
76
Hunt 1980: 22. A mounted police expedition led by
Commandant Williams scoured the area in August-September
1833 and failed to find any trace of the ‘Gourada’ hide-out
(SRNSW 4/2199.1; also Wood 1972: 228). As against this, we
must note the "shed" and cattle-pads that Cunningham had found
north-east of the Nandewars in 1827. And in 1831 (see there)
Clarke had been joined by apparently seven other runaways.
72
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
1833-43:
Blanket distribution records show that the
Aboriginal population of the Upper Goulburn Valley,
around present-day Cassilis, was relatively stable in
this period: falling from 111 people [80 adults and
31 children] in 1833 to 94 [77 adults and 17
children] in 1843.77 (Cf 1836 below.) This post-dated
the smallpox pandemic, so the "pre-contact"
population in the 1820s was probably at least 220.
The Upper Goulburn people appear as the
enemies of the Gunnedah tribelet in Document 3C,
"The Cassilis Raid", set at about the turn of the 18th
century. Document 3E, "Jinnie's Tale", deals with a
much later clash - in about 1825 - between the
Cassilis and Coonabarabran groups.
1834:
1. Patrick Quinn, superintendent for the Doyle
family, establishes a holding at ‘Narrabri’ on 17
March, St Patricks Day:
“Just prior to the occupancy of Narrabri, and
quite close to the site of the township, now
known by that name, a serious battle …
raged between the blacks and the whites,
many of the former falling before their
better-armed foes who got entire possession
of their camping ground” (obituary of Quinn
in Australian Town and Country Journal,
1876: it may be implied that Quinn himself
did not precipitate this clash).
77
SRNSW 1133.3, Brayshaw 1986: 58, and O'Rourke
1997: 221 ff.
73
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
1834-35:
1. Charles Coxen leads an expedition down the
Namoi as far as about Pilliga in search of animal,
bird and plant specimens. He was working in
collaboration with his England-based brother-in-law,
the ornithologist John Gould (see 1839-40).
78
Cash ed. Burke 1870; Wood 1972: 165-67; Rolls 1981:
107; Milliss 1992: 77 ff.
79
Names did not become fixed until the 1840s. The
Gunnedah Committee, 1935: 5, state that Johnston’s station was
known as ‘Bulomin’ before it came to be called ‘Gunnedah’. This
looks to me like a misreading of ‘Pullaming’, which was a quite
distinct run, east of Curlewis. [In Gamilaraay bulamin means
apple tree (angophora spp.) – Ash et al. 2003: 44.]
74
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
80
Gazette 1848; also Gunnedah Committee 1935: 5.
81
Johnston: application no. 10-423, letter of application
dated 22.11.1836. Johnston was asked to fill out the required
form, which he did: it was subsequently received at the Colonial
Secretary’s Office on 12.12.1836 (SRNSW 4/1117.1: Applications
for Depasturing Licences beyond the Limits of Location, 1836-37).
For a near contemporary document, see R Muir’s Diary [Breeza
station 1841], Mitchell Library MS no. B-1496.
82
Milliss 1992: 91.
75
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
1835:
1. According to Rolls, this was the year that W C
Wentworth's employee, James Watson, formed
'Burburgate' and other stations for Wentworth (the
true date would seem to be earlier). Cf 1837.
1836:
Some interesting details occur in the records of the court case R
v Walker and Gore [online at
http://www.law.mq.edu.au/scnsw/Cases1836-
37/html/r_v_walker_and_gore__1836.htm; accessed January
2005].
Walker was convicted of murdering certain Thomas Woods at
or near Cassilis and Gore of aiding and abetting this. A local
Aboriginal “boy” (youth) was used to track the suspects: “We
could not see any tracks, but the black boy ran them easily, and
said in his native tongue that there were four [men]. Blacks are
so quick in tracking, that he showed us where they had stumbled
over bushes in the night, and the cause of their fall.” Key place-
names mentioned in testimony have the familiar Gamilaraay
suffix –araay, namely Binnagaray or Binn[e]goroy station;
and Bennegillaroy. Cf 1840.
1836-38:
The “war” or feuding between Aborigines and
whites shifts to the lower Namoi and the new
Gwydir River frontier.
1837:
'Burburgate' had developed into a substantial
station, almost the size of a small village, with 10
convict shepherds, five hutkeepers, four bullock-
83
Milliss 1992: 99, citing The Colonist 22.9.1838.
76
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
1837-38:
Alexander Paterson, the first Commissioner of
Crown Lands for the Liverpool Plains, made several
trips through the region, including to the Gunnedah
area. The commissioners were charged with
collecting leasehold fees, settling boundary
disputes and protecting the Aborigines.
Paterson reported that Aborigines were still
killing some cattle on the (upper) Namoi and
Manilla Rivers (cf below: 1838-39). But the major
locus of conflict was further out, in the Wee Waa-
Merah region. Fear of the Aborigines prompted the
workers at 'Merah' holding, west of Wee Waa,
briefly to abandon the run in 1838.84
1838:
The Myall Creek massacre: Seven white workers
were hanged in Sydney for killing, in cold blood, 28
“tame” Aborigines camped at ‘Myall Creek’ station,
west of present-day Inverell.
1838-39:
Namoi River Aborigines were said to be assisting
the Waalaraay people of the Horton River in cattle-
spearing raids (Milliss 1992: 574, 665). The Namoi
men were probably from the Upper Namoi (above
Manilla) rather than the Gunnedah region. Cf 1841,
1843.
1839:
1. "Between the Rivers Namoi, Peel and Gwyder
[sic] . . . there is a black native population of
between 2,000 and 3,000", reported Commissioner
Mayne. If we include the Upper Barwon region (with
which Mayne was not yet familiar), then the entire
84
Paterson in HRA xx: 253; also Reece 1974; and Milliss
1992: 154-55.
77
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
1839-46:
In this period, inland NSW was governed by
Commissioners of Crown Lands, each now
supported by a detachment of Border Police.
The second Commissioner for the Liverpool
Plains inspectorate was Edward Mayne, based on
the lower Peel River at ‘Goora’ station (modern
Somerton), between present-day Tamworth and
Gunnedah. See 1841.
The inspectorate of Bligh comprised the
Castlereagh basin and the eastern half of the
Macquarie basin. It was supervised by a
Commissioner located at ‘Coolah’ holding (until
1847, when ‘Dubbo’ station became his base).
1839-40:
John Gould, the future author of Birds of Australia,
travelled to the “Mokai” River (his spelling of our
Mooki) collecting specimens. He proceeded thence
to ‘Gunnedah’ and along the Namoi for about 150
miles - some 240 kilometres, or almost as far as
Walgett - before returning to the Hunter Valley.
Near “Brezi” station (our Breeza), where he was
assisted by the local Gamil'raay people, Gould
discovered and drew the budgerigar, among many
other species. He also mentions red kangaroos.87
85
Mayne in VPLC 1839: 23; and the data collated in O’Rourke
1997: 228 ff.
86
Milliss 1992: 158 and 804 n8, citing Paterson 1837; and
list of Liverpool Plains and New England licences: Government
Gazette, 19.2.1840. Also Campbell 1968: 19 ff.
87
Datta, 1997: 131 ff and Tree 1991: 121-122. Red
kangaroos: see Gould, Macropodidae 1841. In Birds of Australia
78
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
1840:
1. The first recorded major flood on the Namoi,
described in the Sydney Gazette, 18 February (also
by John Gould, above). Until dams were built in the
20th century, the Namoi used to flood two years in
five.
1841:
Commissioner Mayne described the surviving
Gamilaraay of the Liverpool Plains as “perfectly
harmless”. The ‘war’ between Aborigines and
settlers had shifted to the Barwon-Macintyre River
frontier. But see 1843.
Mayne said that already the Aboriginal
population had "dwindled away" in the longer-
settled half of his inspectorate, i.e. south-east of a
line drawn from about Narrabri to about Bingara.
Only about "1,000" survived in that sector. We have
79
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
1843:
A number of “tame” blacks from the Namoi River,
along with "myalls” [i.e., Aborigines still living free]
from the Gwydir basin, were reported to be killing
cattle at ‘Rocky Creek’ (SMH, 1 February 1843).
1844:
Mary Jane Cain (nee Griffin), daughter of "Jinnie"
and Eugene Griffin, born at ‘Toorawandi’ station,
east of Coonabrabran. See Document 3E.
1845:
The records of the Crown Lands Commissioner list
James Hall as the stockholder at "Gunedah" [sic:
one N]; and his partner John Johnson as the resident
superintendent [sic: corrected to Johnston in later
records]. According to the Gunnedah Committee
1935, Hall was a relative of Johnston's. 89
Including Johnston, there were 13 people residing
on the run. There were seven free males; two free
88
Aborigines: Mayne, SRNSW 4/2565.1, HRA xxii: 170
and Millis 1992: 766.
For the white population, compare the count of "626" whites for
the inner sector [broadly Tamworth-Bingara-Narrabri-
Coonabarabran], or an average of over seven people per station on
"80" stations, in 1837: Commissioner Paterson's estimate,
published as an appendix to the Report on the Crown Lands Bill,
VPLC March 1839; also Milliss 1992: 158, 804 note 80.
In the 1846 Census, the count was 2,110 whites in the whole
"Liverpool Plains" inspectorate [the Mungindi-Goondiwindi-
Tamworth-Coonabarabran-Walgett sector]. Perhaps two-thirds
(say 1,400) of this total lived in the longer-settled half. Thus, by
back extrapolation, a fair guess would be about 900 for the inner
sector in 1841. Compare Ware's [UNE MS no.A695] count of
“164” proprietors in 1841: if we use a figure of five employees per
squatter as an absolute minimum, Ware's figure yields a
population of at least 820.
89
SRNSW 4/5498; reel 1483: Returns of Population and
Livestock, and Gunnedah Committee 1935: 5.
80
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
1846:
"The Namoi and Maniella [sic: Manilla River] tribe
are a powerful tribe and considered by both the
settlers and the blacks to be a superior tribe to
those who border them". Thus writes the early
chronicler William Gardner. This should be read as
a general statement about the lowland Aborigines
living to the west of New England, where Gardner
was based [Map 1]. The word “superior” perhaps
translates as ‘more extroverted’ or ‘arrogant’.
Gardner also mentions Johnstone’s [sic] “sheep
and cattle [station at the] junction of the Muckie
[Mooki] River”.
1847-48:
The colonial government reorganised the
framework of government in inland NSW. Fixity of
tenure was ceded to the squatters in the form of
long-term leases of land, and Courts of Petty
Sessions were established. In the central-north, the
courts sat at Wee Waa and Warialda.
90
SRNSW 4/5498; reel 1483: Returns of Population and
Livestock.
91
Returns of Population and Livestock, Reels 1441, 1483,
2847 and 3123.
81
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
1848:
Surveyor Gorman surveys the Mooki junction
stretch of the Namoi River. For the Mooki, he gives
the spelling "Mucki or Connaadilly". The area south-
west of the Mooki-Namoi junction - the north-east
quadrant of today’s township - is marked on his
map “thickly timbered”.
The first three stations below the Mooki-Namoi
junction appear as 1. Robinson's [sic: Robertson's
'Arrarownie'], 2. Thorley's [‘Bondabolla']; and 3.
Wentworth's ['Burburgate’]. Gorman's map records
only an "old woolshed" at the site of Gunnedah.
This is curious, as the records of the Crown Lands
Commissioner show that in late 1847 John Johnston
was running over 3,000 of his and his partner James
Hall’s sheep at "Gunedah" [sic: spelt ‘Gunnadah’ in
the Return for 1850].92
1849:
Beginnings of a future village: Daniel Macfarlane
purchased the homestead or main hut of the
‘Gunnedah’ run and converted it into the Golden
Fleece Inn (Longmuir 1956:17) [Map 9].
A map of 1849 shows “The Woolshed Reserve”
as a group of five huts or houses. The huts were
located immediately west of Johnston’s stockyards,
broadly along what would later become Maitland
Street. They included the Golden Fleece Inn, a store
and a police hut. One dwelling was marked
‘Johnston’s hut’, although it was Hall, not Johnston,
who held the station licence until at least 1852. See
1856.
From 1851:
Period of the Gold Rushes in south-east Australia.
The 1851 census, taken on the eve of the discovery
of gold in various parts of the colony, showed a
92
Sheep: SRNSW, 5/5498: Reel 1441; Gorman: SRNSW,
L.1.1307, Map 3392.
82
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
83
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
1852:
A further map by surveyor Gorman lists the stations
upstream from the Mooki-Namoi junction as: 1. J
Parnell's 'Weetalibah' (north bank); 2. "J Hall's
sheep station" i.e. 'Gunnedah'; south bank; 3.
"J. Howe's sheep station", the western-most run in a
series of runs held by the Howe-Dight families; 4.
"H Dight's sheep station", i.e. Hannah Dight's
'Carroll'; 5. H Dight's ‘Kaybah’: his spelling,
nowadays spelt Kibah; and 6. J Howe's ‘Carroll’.95
1854:
1. Petition to the colonial government from
residents in the district proposing that The
Woolshed Reserve was “a fit and proper place for a
township” (Gunnedah Committee 1935: 9;
Longmuir 1956: 17). This was in due course agreed
to: see 1856.
84
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
c. 1855:
Last Aboriginal initiation in the Gunnedah region?
This date is approximate, deduced from the fact
that the Bora [Buurra] ceremonies were no longer
being held in the Wandobah-Gunnedah-Burburgate
district by 1871.97 Cf 1860/61 – Bora at Wee Waa.
It is possible, of course, that some Gunnedah
boys were still being initiated elsewhere after 1855,
perhaps for example at Wee Waa and Terry Hie Hie
(on the northern side of the Nandewars). Bora
ceremonies were held at Terry Hie Hie until about
1883.98
1856:
1. The records of the Crown Lands Commissioner
show John Johnston as now the stockholder at
'Gunnedah' station (his name replacing that of his
partner Hall). Compared with the fewer than 3,000
sheep that he and Hall ran in the 1840s, Johnston
was now running over 9,000.99
85
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
1857:
First sale of town lands. - Longmuir correctly
imagines the village as basically a group of slab
huts. As he says, it was “a line of straggling
cypress-pine slab huts along a bullock track beside
the Namoi River, with just an odd slightly more
pretentious but similar building serving as taverns,
[and] bullock wagons drawn up on the
common land nearby, [and] the glow of the camp
fires of bearded teamsters ... . [B]eyond the rutted
tracks of Maitland Street, with only a clearing here
and there for a rude hut or two, dense scrub
stretched towards the hills south of Gunnedah”
(1956: 23, emphasis added) [Map 8].
c.1857:
100
SRNSW, Map 2877. His name was Flide, not ‘Hide’ as
the Gunnedah Committee has it (1935: 9). This error is repeated in
Longmuir (1956: 17).
86
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
1858:
William Telfer junior wrote thus of the wild
grassland of the Liverpool Plains in the era before
paddocks were fenced off:
"In 1858 I saw grass on those plains [Breeza
Plains] 10 feet [over three metres] high,
which you don't see [these] days - now the
country has been fenced in and overstocked
- of the wild oaten variety - and a few inches
from the ground. In the middle of this forest
of long grass were wild carrots, crowsfoot
and a splendid lot of herbage of all
descriptions of the most fattening kind"
(Telfer 1980: 128, emphasis added).
1859:
The post office ceases to be called ‘The Woolshed’.
The name Gunnedah is adopted, from the name of
the pastoral station.
By 1860:
Gunnedah became a two-hotel village with the
establishment of the Ben Bolt Inn, afterwards
renamed the Bridge Hotel. Counting taverns, it
seems there were at least four establishments
serving alcohol.101
1860 or 1861:
Bora held at or near Wee Waa (Glass, quoted in
Mathews 1994: 103).
101
Gunnedah Committee 1935: 17. But the booklet also
quotes Surveyor Flide’s report of 1856, which spoke of four
“hotels”, namely the Golden Fleece (Grover’s); the Ben Bolt
(Smith’s); the Caledonian (Boland’s); and the Paragon (Mrs
Nowland’s). Perhaps all four served alcohol while only two
provided accommodation?
87
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
1861:
The Census shows 247 whites living at Gunnedah.
Tamworth had 654 white people, and the Liverpool
Plains, meaning broadly the whole Peel-Namoi
basin, 4,852 whites (Milliss 1980: 306).
1861-1876:
First (failed) attempt to promote “closer
settlement” under the Crown Lands Alienation Act
of 1861, commonly known as the ‘Free Selection
Act’.
Individuals could purchase from 40 to 320 acres
(16 to 130 hectares) of land for £1 [one pound] per
acre, including land already held under pastoral
leases. The Act had limited effect, however,
because the squatters had sufficient capital to
purchase the choicest areas from their leases and
so could deny most ‘selectors’ the chance to buy
any large pieces of good land. Cf 1884.
1862:
1. Private primary school opened at Gunnedah. Cf
1875.
1864:
1. The town's white population was about 300.
88
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
1864-70:
Frederick Ward, the bushranger known as
“Thunderbolt”, was active in the Hunter Valley-
Tamworth-New England region. In one incident
(1865) he robbed the patrons of the hotel at Carroll
east of Gunnedah. A nearby hill with a prominent
outcrop on top is called Thunderbolt Lookout.
A partial list of the crimes ascribed to Ward (NB: Gunnedah
district only) is as follows.103 Manilla appears to have been a
favourite striking point for ‘Thunderbolt’:
From February 1865: With John Hogan, William
McIntosh and 16-year-old John Thomson, Ward commits a
series of armed robberies around the Bourke and Narrabri
districts. He adopts the name 'Captain Thunderbolt'. Then:
1865: Manilla - robbery of two horses from Messrs. Lloyd;
Manilla - robbery of the Warialda mail; Currabubula -
robbery of Tamworth mail; Currabubula - robbery of Davis
hotel; Quirindi - robbery of Cook's hotel; Carroll - robbery of
Griffin's hotel.
= 8 December 1865: Ward and gang hold up the town of
Quirindi. Police Constable Agate was wounded in the ensuing
gun-battle.
Heights above the Cohen Bridge: from www.infogunnedah.com.au
(accessed September 2001).
103
From http://groups.msn.com/
ManillaHeritageMuseum/yourwebpage5.msnw.
89
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
c.1865:
104
http://scs.une.edu.au/Bushrangers/bugg.htm; accessed July 2004.
90
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
1866:
First bank branch opened at Gunnedah (Longmuir
p.27).
1867:
Date of the watercolours by Anon. published in this
book - see illustrations no’s 3, 4, 5.
1869:
Telegraph office opened at Gunnedah. - The
telegraph has been described as "the Internet of
the mid 19th century".
1870:
Manilla: Final robberies by Thunderbolt (see
above).
Further flood. The Australian Town and Country
Journal (Nov. 1873) reported that in 1870 the
floodwaters lay along Maitland Street for six weeks
after the flood.
Gunnedah’s white population was growing fairly
rapidly, reaching about 500 in 1873. By 1891 the
town would have 1,362 white people. The
Aboriginal population was perhaps 50-60 in 1873
(cf 45 people in 1882).105
1871:
105
Australian Town and Country Journal Nov 1873; Census
of Aborigines, in VPLA 1883; Longmuir 1956; Rolls 1981: 110;
and Buchanan 1985: 19. Among residents of Gunnedah in 1866
was the present author’s great-grandfather, the saddler/sawyer
John O’Rourke.
91
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
1874:
1. Further flood.
1875:
First public (state) school opened. Cf 1878/79.
1876:
First newspaper published, The Namoi Independent.
A second paper, The Gunnedah Advertiser, was
established in 1881. (They amalgamated in 1919.)
1878-79:
Catholic nuns (the Sisters of Mercy) establish a
convent and school at Gunnedah.
1879:
1. Railway line built from Breeza to Gunnedah.
Gunnedah railway station was opened on 11
September. (Until the Hawkesbury River rail bridge
was built in 1889, trains ran only to Newcastle.)
92
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
Full-
ancestry
Aborigines --- 13 3 2 18
:
1. Men:
2. Women: --- 3 3 2 8
3. Children
and others 5 --- --- --- 5
under 20:
Subtotal: 5 16 6 4 31
Part
Aborigines
, called
"half
castes": --- 4 --- --- 4
1. Men:
2. Women: --- 4 --- --- 4
3. Children 6 --- --- --- 6
and others
under 20:
Subtotal: 6 8 0 0 14
TOTALS 11 24 6 4 45
93
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
Points to notice:
• Anyone aged 52 or under was born in 1830 or
later. Thus as many as 10, certainly at least
four, people had been born before the coming
of the white man.
• None of the 'half castes' was older than 40, i.e.
all had been born since about 1842.
• Among people of full ancestry, men greatly
outnumbered women. This is a demographic
pattern consistently observed in 'post-invasion'
populations in Australia.106
• There were 10 women over 20, but just 11
people aged under 20 (teenagers and children).
In other words, it would seem that the mothers
who survived had only about one surviving child
each.
106
See data and discussion in O'Rourke 1997: 223-225.
94
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
1884:
A new steel bridge replaced the old wooden bridge
across the Namoi. It was called the Cohen Bridge in
honour of George Cohen, the town’s leading
shopkeeper since 1861.
1884-1900:
“Free selection” or closer settlement began in
earnest. Under a new Land Act, large parts of the
95
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
1885:
Gunnedah was proclaimed a municipality. The
white population of the town exceeded 1,000.
• The Member for Gunnedah, J P Abbott, was at
this time the Secretary (minister) for Lands.
1887:
Red Kangaroo’s grave dug up. This is related in
Document 3A, “The 1945 Letter” and Document 3B,
“The Death and Career”.
1888:
1. First Gunnedah Show.
107
For example, the present author’s grandfather, James N
O’Rourke, purchased a 'selection' east of Tambar Springs. It was a
tiny part of a large excision from the great ‘Bando’ station (and
adjoined another old squatterage: 'Merrigula').
96
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
108
Annual census of Aborigines, taken by the police for the
Aborigines Protection Board (APB), published in VPLA 1889, vol
5, p.656. There are counts of the Aboriginal population for most
years from 1885 to 1915 and beyond (published as appendices to
the annual reports of the APB in VPLA).
In 1888 the picture was somewhat complicated by the
movement of people into and out of NSW on the Queensland,
Victoria and South Australian borders, as the Board itself noted.
The total fell from 7,902 people in 1887 to 7,485 in 1888, but such
movements masked a small underlying increase.
97
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
1888-1890:
Approximate date that Police Sergeant J P Ewing
wrote down, or began to write down, Joe Bungaree’s
tale about Red Kangaroo’s ‘greatest exploit’, the
defeat of the Cassilis raiders (see Document 3B, MS
Page 34; also 3D: Fragment 1). As it appears, other
tales were written down by the Sergeant's son
Stanley in the period 1901-11.
1890s:
Early highpoint of the “land rush” by ‘free
selectors’:
Wheat growing expanded dramatically during the
1890s: wheat acreage in NSW stood at 420,000 in
1890, more than trebling to 1.4 million acres or
570,000 hectares by 1901. But it was not until 1923
that NSW would overtake South Australia and
Victoria as the leading wheat-growing state.
The extension of the railways was a necessary
but not sufficient condition. The development of
rust-resistant varieties by William Farrer and others,
and the use of superphosphates, were also vital
(see Bromby 1986: 95-97).
Land clearing would lead to the near extinction of
the koala in the period 1898-1925. Evidently small
remnant populations survived in the Milroy-
Wandoba Forest and probably also in Black Jack
State Forest [Map 10]. Koala numbers have grown
in recent decades and Gunnedah is sometimes
styled “the koala capital of the world”.109
1891:
1. First street lamps at Gunnedah: kerosene lamps
were installed at four intersections.
109
Smith 1992. Today the koala population around
Gunnedah is considered one of the most significant populations in
NSW. Koalas may be seen at Gunnedah itself on the Bindea
Walking Track and in the last decade or so have been regularly
sighted in the township itself, including (conveniently for tourists)
opposite the Visitor Information Centre (Curran pers. comm.
2002).
98
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
99
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
100
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
c. 1885-95:
101
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
1896:
The Aboriginal population of Gunnedah fell from 45
people in 1882 to 30-38 in 1891 and just 17 in
1896. We may guess that, in the following table,
the lone "full blood" man aged over 60 was Joe
Bungaree.
2. "Half-
castes".
Men: 0 0 0 0
Women: 0 2 1 3
Children
and
teenagers 2 0 0 0 2
:
subtotal 2 0 2 1 5
TOTAL: 6 2 7 2 17
102
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
113
The census was taken by each police station. Thus the
figure does not necessarily mean the town. At a guess, the
"Baradine" figure included Cuttabri reserve and "Werris Creek"
included Quirindi-Walhallow.
114
1896 figures, published in VPLA 1897. Taking the
whole of NSW, there were 1,217 full-blood males aged
20-60 in 1896. With only 79 full-ancestry births, this
means that fully 1,138 potentially fertile men - more
than nine in every 10 - failed to father a child during
1896. No doubt there were psycho-social factors at
103
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
1896-1912:
The NSW Aborigines Protection Board set up
supervised estates or ‘Aboriginal Stations’.
The people on these so-called ‘missions’ came
under the control of NSW government officials.
There was also a large number of old and new
‘reserves’, where small groups of Aborigines
camped free of supervision, except for the irregular
control exercised by the police and any employers
of casual labour.116 The reserves were just small
portions set aside for Aborigines: parcels of land
not available to white farmer-selectors.
104
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
1899-1900:
Extensive coal mining begun by the Gunnedah
Colliery Company (coal had first been discovered
during the sinking of a well in 1877).
1899-1929:
This was a difficult period for Aborigines and people
of mixed Aboriginal-white descent.
It was believed that 'full-blood' Aborigines would,
over a generation or two, die out. For their part, the
people of mixed blood were expected to adopt a
lifestyle identical to that of white citizens. So the
NSW Government pursued a policy (see under
1909) of restricting "full-bloods" to living on the
reserves and forcing away people of mixed
descent, expecting or hoping that the latter would
"merge" into white society. As part of this program,
many of the smaller reserves were abolished during
and after World War One.
On the other hand, however, white society itself
was frequently, indeed almost universally, hostile
to anyone with Aboriginal ancestry. In many
country towns white parents began to exert
pressure on state schools not to enrol Aboriginal
117
Goodall 1996. I have not been able to trace when the
Guunedah reserve was established (presumably some time in the
early 1890s).
105
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
1906:
First telephone exchange at Gunnedah.
1908:
1. Flood.
2. Electricity generating station built at Gunnedah:
electric streetlights replaced kerosene street lamps.
Also a reticulated water supply was installed
(Gunnedah Committee 1935: 35).
1909-10:
The NSW Parliament passed the Aborigines
Protection Act (1909) and associated Regulations
(1910). For the first time, the Aborigines Protection
Board (APB) had statutory power to enforce its
policies.
Under the Act, people of mixed ancestry were
not defined as 'Aborigines' unless they were
residing on a reserve or had applied for or were in
receipt of rations or aid from the Board. In other
words, those part-Aborigines who were able to
support themselves were free from the control of
the APB. At the same time, however, the Act
empowered the Board to "move on" anyone at all
having any degree of Aboriginal ancestry.
The government's aim was to sever any
connection between ‘full-bloods’ and people of
mixed ancestry. The policy was forcefully
implemented under the regime of Robert
Donaldson, the "feared and hated" CEO of the
118
See discussion in Horner 1974 and Goodall 1996.
Readers interested in the human, or rather: inhumane, impact of
these policies are referred to the autobiography of James Barker,
Two Worlds, 1977.
106
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
1910:
Major flood on the Namoi, the second highest in the
20th century, exceeded only by that of 1955. The
floodwaters were about 25 kilometres [15 miles]
wide at or near Gunnedah. 119
1911:
Gunnedah’s white population reached 3,005
(Federal Census, cited in Milliss 1980: 306).
1914:
Breeza State Forest was the first to be dedicated in
the Gunnedah region. Wondoba [sic] State Forest
followed in 1918.
1914-1927:
As noted earlier, the Aborigines Protection Board
revoked or leased out many of the small Aboriginal
reserves.
Most of the larger supervised estates or
'Aboriginal Stations' continued, including Caroona
[Quirindi], Burra Bee Dee [Coonabarabran], Pilliga,
Moree and Gingie [Walgett]. They were maintained
into the era of ‘welfare’, in the 1940s, when the
Aborigines Protection Board became a partly
Aboriginal-elected Welfare Board (the AWB) (see
Goodall 1996).
119
Data from www.infogunnedah.com.au, accessed
September 2001. Also NSW Premiers Dept 1952.
107
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
120
Http://aussie57.digitalrice.com: Altona-Porter family
tree; accessed January 2003.
121
Place names: Cain 1922. Marilyn Wood (2001: 208)
rather too confidently supposes that Jinnie was an orphan of the
"war" of the mid 1820s between the colonists and the Wiradjuri
(which ranged over the triangle Bathurst-Mudgee-Wellington).
This is possible but by no means certain. The fact is: we do not
know.
108
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
122
Http://aussie57.digitalrice.com: Altona-Porter family
tree; accessed January 2003.
123
Wood 2001. Also ADB under “Davis” and Popinjay 1989.
109
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
* * *
110
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
126
Emphasis added. Pickette and Campbell (1984: 45)
mention a Jane and a Mary as the daughters of Ebenezer Orr “and
his favourite dusky shepherdess of the time”. This claim follows
Rolls 1981: 172, who unfortunately does not cite his sources. He
speaks of Mary, Ebenezer Orr’s daughter, marrying a man called
Cain.
127
Sommerville 1994: 67.
111
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
112
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
3. ASPECTS OF CULTURE
Used by men:
130
For more on possum-skin rugs, see the commentary
on para. 20 of Document One, “The Grave and Bones”.
113
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
Used by women:
131
The following is a select list of references in earlier
texts. Barbed spears: Sturt 1833: 129 (Castlereagh River).
Woomeras: Mitchell 1839: 109. Nulla-nullas: Mitchell 1839: 71,
109 (Gwydir basin). For the Gamilaraay names of various items,
see in Curr 1887: 304 ff.
132
No doubt there were many types of bags used for many
purposes. Curr’s informants list names for just two types (1887:
III, 305).
114
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
115
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
133
The largest of living marsupials, the plains kangaroo,
Macropus rufus (formerly Megaleia rufa). In Gamilaraay RED
KANGAROO was Kanuurr or Ganuurr; also “bawurra”. Variously
rendered as ‘cannoor’ (Breton 1834); ‘ganoor’ (Greenway SM
1910: 76) and ‘ganu:r’ (Ridley). The suffix +ah in “Gunnerah”
(Document 1) may have indicated the locative-dative case (+a):
hence Ganuurra, “at/from/in the red kangaroo” or perhaps the
ergative-instrumental case +u, Ganuurru.
134
Three names including a sobriquet or nickname: Ridley
1875: 163, 267. Ridley 1875 gives the following examples of
names (section name first, totem name second, personal name
third – NB: his spellings): Murri Bundar Ngumera-Gunaga (“Old
Billy” of ‘Burburgate’); Murri Bundar Gungguele (“Gungguele”
meaning “charcoal”); Murri Ganurr Yawirawira; and Murri Duli
Wagura. A futher example is given in Ash et al. 2003: Mrs Ginny
Rose, a Yuwwaaliyaay woman, born in 1880, was given the name
Dhaay-galiyawaay, literally ‘this way-climbing’, an allusion to
the rising floodwaters at the time of her birth.
135
Totems and totem names are explained in O’Rourke,
Kamilaroi Lands 1997. See earlier Coxen 1866, Ridley 1875 and
Mathews 1895c on Kamilaroi names; and Howitt 1904: 737 ff for
south-east Australia generally.
116
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
136
Howitt South-East Australia 1904: 104, citing Cyrus E
Doyle of Moree.
137
“Formal and systematic”: Maddock 1974. Also von
Brandenstein 1982.
117
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
138
Preferred spellings as in Ash et al. 2003; except for
gambu (long uu is preferred by Ash et al. (Austin 1993 analysed
certain vowels differently.) Fison remarked that “The Kamilaroi
class [Section] names were first published, I believe, by the Rev
W Ridley, MA, whose attention had been called to them by Mr T
E Lance [i.e., before 1871]” (Lorimer Fison in Fison & Howitt
1880: 37n).
Ridley, letters to Col. Sec. 1871-73, explained that the name of
the section, marrii - second vowel long, was quite distinct from
the word for ‘person, human being, people’, mari (“murri”) -
second vowel short. The r’s were also different: rr = trill alveolar
r; r = plain or retroflex r.
118
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
139
Fison and Howitt 1885; also Mathews, Kamilaroi class
system 1895c: 20. Non-anthropologists often apply the term ‘clan’
to residential groupings. Anthropologists use ‘clan’ for the kinship
grouping, and prefer other terms such as ‘band’ for residential
groupings. ‘Clan’, then, is the modern anthropological term for a
real or notional descent line, either matrilineal or patrilineal. Fison
and Howitt themselves had used it to label patrilineal local groups
(cf Hiatt 1996: 21).
140
Clan as “meat”: Taylor and Jardine 1924: 279; Dunbar
1943; and Elkin 1945a. Ash et al. distinguish the noun dhii ‘meat,
totem, animal’ from –dhi, the kinship or possessor suffix, but
probably they were the same (i.e. dhii)
The sky-god Baayama (“Baiame”) was the source of all totems:
every part of his body, even the fingers and toes, had a totem
name, and he gave a totem to sets of people as he departed
(proceeding on his mythic travels). His wife Birrang-ulu likewise
retained all the totems on or in parts of her body. So all the matri-
clans claimed her as kin (Parker 1905: 7).
119
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
120
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
* * *
121
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
122
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
146
Ash et al. 2003 prefer the spelling Baayami.
147
The creation myths of the Kamilaroi are recorded in
scattered and fragmentary form in the writings of Greenway,
Ridley, Mathews and Parker (see the Bibliography). I give the
myths only a brief treatment in my own Kamilaroi Lands (1997).
The most accessible source for people interested in this topic is
Parker’s Euahlayi Tribe (1905).
148
Breton 1834: 205 remarks that the “Corborn Comleroy”
[the ‘Greater’ Gamilaraay’, from the Liverpool Plains] attended
ceremonies at Port Macquarie on the Pacific Coast. Likewise
George 'the Barber' Clarke mentions a shaman ("kradjee") from
Boggabri who travelled to the sea, also perhaps the Port
Macquarie area. He lived there for some time before returning to
Boggabri (cited in Campbell 2002: 140). Moreover it seems that
the Gamilaraay group interviewed by Major Mitchell near
Mungindi in 1832 knew about the penal settlement at Moreton
Bay [modern Brisbane]. “When Callidé, ‘the sea’ was pronounced
to them, they pointed in the direction of Moreton Bay, repeating
very frequently the word ‘Wallingall’” [Mitchell, 6 February
1832: discussion in O’Rourke 1995: 38]. Callidé was galidhaay,
“water(s) running thence”. Wallingall was walaayngal, ‘many
camps’ (i.e., of white men).
123
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
* * *
149
Berndt & Berndt 1996: 389.
We moderns tend to under-estimate the power of memory in
non-literate societies. The American Homeric scholar Millman
Parry took down from an illiterate bard in southern Serbia an epic
poem of 12,000 lines – equal to the length of the Odyssey (itself
an a "written" epic) (Encyc. Brit 15th ed, entry on "Heroic
Poetry").
124
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
Box One
LEGENDS "VERSUS" MYTHS
150
If contemporary western culture awards the highest
creative value to the imagination, our ancient and medieval
forebears considered those with the greatest creative powers to be
those with the best memories. Ancient and medieval scholars
would not even understand a definition of intelligence that did not
include a superior memory. As Carruthers notes, "in their
understanding of the matter, it was memory that made knowledge
into useful experience, and memory that combined these pieces of
information-become-experience into what we call "ideas", what
they were more likely to call judgments" (Mary Carruthers, The
Book of Memory, Cambridge University Press, 1990, p.3).
125
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
1. Legends:
2. Myths:
151
This is a "native" classification: supplied by the
Trobriand Islanders to Malinowski (in his Myth in Primitive
Psychology, 1926). The original Trobriand terms are liliu,
rendered as 'myth' by Malinowski; libwogwo 'legend' and
kukwanebu 'fairy tale'.
126
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
3. Folktales:
152
See the discussion in O’Rourke 1997: 171 ff. Baayama
was wholly “otiose”, never revealing himself except in thunder,
which was his voice. Dharramalan, Baayama’s half-brother and
legate or messenger, did sometimes appear on earth, but not to
intervene by way of interfering with human actions. A third major
supernatural being, Garriya the rainbow-snake, seems to have
been part-god, part-monster and moved between living in the
lower world and living in the sky.
127
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
153
R M & C H Berndt 1996: 241, 388.
128
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
129
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
* * *
i. A great man?
130
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
131
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
v. Understands himself?
157
In the Christian Roman Empire of Constantinople
("Byzantium"), the epic is a late phenomenon: the tale of
Diogenes Akritas was not possible during Byzantium's first 700
years. It has often been asserted that the epic is lacking too in
Chinese literature. But to inquire whether this is actually so, and
why it should be so, would take us too far from our present topic.
Cherchez- y qui peut ("those who can may search this out").
132
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
No Golden Age
158
Toohey 1992: 19.
159
Encyc. Brit. 15th ed (1989), entry on "The Art of Literature".
133
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
134
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
135
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
* * *
163
Document 1, para. 16.
136
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
164
I thank Derek Frampton for pointing out the need to deal
with this issue.
137
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
150: "We know there are tribes 100 and even some
with 150 spears [i.e., 150 men], four to seven suns’
march from us" (Life and Career, MS Page 30).
138
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
139
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
Distances Cited
140
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
141
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
142
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
143
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
Point in time:
144
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
Duration:
167
Ian Sim, quoted in Ash et al. 2003: 120.
145
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
Distance by time:
146
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
147
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
169
Part of the reason may have been a different ‘culture of
emotion’ in ‘pre-modern’ societies (Byzantine, Icelandic and
Aboriginal). In the Icelandic sagas, the characters seem to us to
have crude thoughts and rudimentary feelings. They almost never
talk in any depth about what they are feeling, and words for
emotional states (as distinct from behaviours) are rare. William I
Miller has argued (in various essays and books including The
Anatomy of Disgust and Humiliation) that this difference is more
than a difference between our norms and the codes of honour in
the Middle Ages. He proposes that in pre-modern societies,
emotion was overwhelming a social matter, nota private one.
People did not usually experience emotion as an essentially
personal experience (as perhaps we moderns do). They did not
“feel” angry; they just “were” angry. A any rate, the saga writers
present their characters as having distinctive and usually
permanent dispositions: cunning, fierce, affectionate and so on. As
a result, when a character’s behaviour is at odds with his known
disposition, there is (or was) a pronounced emotional charge for
the saga’s audience, especially when a situation hinges on rules of
honour and revenge.
148
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
His Life
170
On the "anti-originality" of Byzantine writing and art,
see Cyril Mango, Byzantium: The Empire of the New Rome,
London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1988, pp 248-50.
171
Taylor, Folklore and the Student of Literature, in
Dundes, ed, Folklore 1965: 39-40.
149
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
150
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
151
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
War Wounds
173
Campbell & Prokopec 1984; and Pardoe 1987.
152
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
153
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
Career
154
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
174
According to Idriess 1953, chapter 34, the Gunnedah
men under Red Kangaroo’s leadership also raided Coonamble,
Gulargambone, Moree, Murrurundi, Tamworth [presumably
distinct from Goonoo Goonoo], Walcha, Warialda and Wingen.
The surviving MSS as published here do not list these names.
Idriess may have drawn on other papers now lost, or perhaps he
created an imaginary list.
155
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
156
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
Line Illustrations
157
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
158
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
159
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
160
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
161
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
162
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
T
he town of Gunnedah is a beautiful quiet
village in the Liverpool Plains. Its people have
formed themselves into a collection of happy
cliques, each trying to tell the other what to do, but
eventually helping them to do it. Its large main
street seems to have been laid out and planted to
inspire poetry and court the mind to leisure and lull
it to rest. Some excellent buildings break the
unpleasant monotony of the small rookeries that
housed the pioneer fathers of the happy homes
that make this the substantial easy-going place it
is.”
Commentary:
Village: With a white population of 1,362
according to the NSW census of 1891, and
probably about 30-35 Aborigines. A
photograph taken in 1887, reproduced in
Buchanan’s booklet, shows Gunnedah
163
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
164
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
165
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
166
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
167
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
180
Gould 1841: 16, 19; Greenway 1910: 76; Rolls 1981: 366-67.
168
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
169
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
170
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
171
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
181
Manilla and Goonoo Goonoo: see in the text, Document
3B, MS Page 31. Harry Allen, cited by Keen 2004: 112, proposes
that in central NSW more than half of the population lived away
from the main river during winter.
COMMUNITIES : The 19th century sources tended to call all groups
‘tribes’, whether they numbered 10, 30, 150 or 1,200 people.
Modern writers prefer to distinguish between hearth-groups,
bands and communities.
The smallest residential grouping, a household or ‘HEARTH
GROUP’, comprised a man, his wife or wives and their dependent
children: about 10 people. In winter, hearthgroups retirede
separately into the hinterland.
Several hearth-groups would regularly but temporarily camp
together in a residential grouping of up to 60 people, but
frequently fewer than that. This temporary aggregation is called a
‘BAND’ by many of today’s writers.
The whole COMMUNITY or tribelet, 200 or more people,
came together in one camp or group of camps normally once a
year and usually in summer, as summer was the season of greatest
stream-flow (Allen 1974; O’Rourke 1997: 131-133; Keen 2004:
112 ff).
172
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
173
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
11. “To the south west is Black Jack, the bold, lone
mountain of coal, joining, by its spurs, a bit to the
west, the Sugarloaf Mountain and Binalong Range.
Here in this fortress valley were gathered the
helpless, the old and the infirm, the women and
children, where they could be easily defended, and
left with tolerable safety while the chief led his
warriors to battle or away in the more peaceful hunt
for wallaby, turkey or emu. “
174
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
175
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
176
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
177
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
184
The sources, and the difficulties of reconstructing the
meanings of place-names, are discussed in O’Rourke 1997.
178
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
179
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
180
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
181
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
182
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
183
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
189
In exact terminology, a hatchet is a chopping instrument
used with one hand, whereas an axe requires two hands. A
tomahawk originally meant a one-handed weapon tipped with
either a blunt or a sharp stone or metal head, or what we might
call a ‘Native American mace’. As we use it in Australia,
however, tomahawk means a hatchet: Aboriginal stone hatchet
and/or British steel hatchet.
184
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
190
Clubs as main weapons and stone hatchets as primarily
implements: Warner Black Civilisation 1958: 156. Hatchets as
primarily implements and only default weapons: Warner 1930:
458. Hatchets unsuitable for fighting: Dickson 1981: 2 ff, 5 ff and
McCarthy 1976, versus Abbie 1969: 112. Trade: Binns &
McBryde; and other publications by McBryde.
Binns and McBryde (1972: 1) usefully list the main uses to
which hatchets were put: (a) cutting notches in trees for climbing;
(b) cutting open trees (to get possums etc); (c) cutting down trees;
(d) cutting off sheets of bark; (e) shaping wooden implements; and
(f) cutting/dressing meat and skins.
Surviving hatchets from Manilla, Moree, Walgett and Lake
Narran etc are held by the Australian Museum (see in White 1993;
and Pulverstaft & Gordon 1994).
185
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
186
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
187
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
188
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
189
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
190
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
191
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
192
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
195
Poe Street: Renamed Abbott Street in honour of a long-
serving Member of the NSW Parliament, Sir Joseph (J P) Abbott
(1842-1901), the Member for Gunnedah during the 1880s and
afterwards Speaker of the NSW Legislative Assembly (see in
ADB vol 3).
The site for Wesleyan Church site, on the western side of Poe
Street, was gazetted in 1871. The first resident minister arrived in
1879 (Longmuir, p.44).
196
Document 3B, MS Pages 6 and 11; Gunnedah
Committee 1935: 53; and 1972 Department of Lands map.
193
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
197
Illustrations in Emma McPherson, My Experiences
1860: 225, reproduced in McBryde 1974: 149.
198
Etheridge 1897; Dunbar 1943: 173; Blake 1981: 94;
Austin’s Dictionary 1992.
194
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
195
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
196
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
201
The greater and lesser tubercles of the humerus or upper
arm bone: "The tubercles are separated from each other by a deep
groove, the inter-tubercular groove (bicipital groove), which
lodges the long tendon of the muscle (Biceps brachii) and
transmits a branch of the anterior humeral circumflex artery to the
shoulder-joint" (Gray's Anatomy).
The ratio of the radius to the humerus between racial groups
was studied by the founder of French anthropology, Pierre Paul
Broca, 1824 -1880, the first head of the French Society of
Anthropology (1859) and the first School of Anthropology (1876).
But it is unlikely Haynes knew of Broca's work.
202
I owe this point to Paul Gorecki. For particulars, see
Mays 1998 and Ubelaker 1999.
197
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
198
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
199
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
203
See M. John Thearle, 1993, The rise and fall of
phrenology in Australia, Australian and New Zealand Journal of
Psychiatry 27, 518-525.
204
J Mathew, 1889: 385. Average stature: Fraser 1892 and
Abbie 1969: 36. For comparison, 23 Kamilaroi descendants in the
1920s measured by Taylor and Jardine (1924: 280) averaged 66.2
inches [168 cm]. The average statures of whites and Aborigines
were, and are, approximately the same; but stature has increased
in both races since about 1930, due to better nutrition.
200
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
205
That is, the "maxillary first bicuspid": counting back
from the middle, it is the fifth tooth in the upper mouth (or the
fourth if one counts forward from the back). It is the tooth with
two points immediately behind the "canine". There are four
bicuspids: - two in the upper mouth ("maxillary") and two in the
lower ("mandibular"). They do not appear until a child is about 10
years old.
206
O'Rourke 1997. The proceedings at Kamilaroi initiation
ceremonies have been described in detail by R H Mathews (see in
Bibliography). For a more recent discussion, describing the
broadly similar proceedings at Wiradjuri ceremonies, see
Maddock 1974.
201
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
207
1840s: Roderick Mitchell 1846 in HRA xxv: 565, and
Ridley 1871 MS p.21. See generally O’Rourke 1997.
202
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
203
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
104-106.
211
Australian Department of Environment and Heritage:
Marsilea drummondii, at http://www.anbg.gov.au/gnp/interns-
2004/marsilea-drummondii, accessed June 2004.
212
McBryde 1974: 158; NSW Forestry Commission 1985.
204
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
213
R H Mathews, 1841-1918, surveyor, coroner and
anthropologist.
Born in Narellan NSW, Mathews worked for the NSW
Railways as a surveyor. He helped to survey the northern rail
route to Tamworth in 1867-69. Then, having received a
professional surveyor’s licence in 1870, he worked as a licensed
land surveyor throughout the central-north. Much of his
knowledge of the Kamilaroi and other Aborigines dates from this
period. He settled at Singleton, where in 1883 he was appointed
coroner. Mathews published many papers on the Aborigines while
serving at Parramatta as deputy coroner in the 1890s.
He made several visits back to Kamilaroi country, e.g. to
Kunopia near Boomi in 1892, to Talwood (Qld) in 1895 to witness
one of the last Boras, and to Terry Hie Hie in 1901 to inspect a
disused old Bora ground.
205
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
I
t may not be generally known that the town of
Gunnedah takes its name from a famous aboriginal,
Cumbo Guuerah [sic: misprint for Gunnerah], who
was the hero of the Kamilaroi tribe long before the
coming of the whites to the district.”
206
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
214
Thomas 1899: 64 (Dubbo); McCarthy 1940: 164
(heartwood); Bell &Wakelin-King 1985.
207
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
A Mighty Warrior
208
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
209
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
Name of Gunnedah
210
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
215
Cf Donaldson’s important paper ‘What’s in a name?’
(1984).
The Aborigines of the Hunter called the Liverpool Plains
‘Corborn Comleroy’ [gabawaan gamilaraay] or "Greater
Kamilaroi", from gabawaan, the frontier pidgin for ‘great’ +
gamilaraay (Breton 1834: 90, 179, 205). The Liverpool Plains, or
at least that section north of Pandoras Pass, were known as
Uraboon or Eurambone to Mudgee people, and perhaps also to the
local people ['Uraboon' in Lawson’s journal 8.12.1822, quoted in
Jervis 1954: 78; 'Eurambone' in Cunningham’s journal 8.5.1823
and 6.6.1823: Reel SZ15, SZ16, State Records of NSW].
At a lower level, the Baradine district north of Coonabarabran
was known as Burigaly or Burriigalu ie burii+galu: ‘having many
myall trees’, literally ‘myall-tree + human plural’. [Myall, Acacia
pendula, is usually maayaal but sometimes is ?mis?recorded as
burrii; burrii is usually Acacia harpophylla, brigalow wattle].
Following Ash et al. 2003: 83, the form of suffix may have been –
gaaluu; they render it as ‘dweller in’, ‘inhabitant of’. Although a
territorial name, the primary reference of Burriigaaluu was to
people: in this case, ‘those who inhabit the brigalow/myall
country’ or the ‘brigalow/myall mob’.
211
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
212
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
Photographs
213
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
214
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
215
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
216
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
217
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
218
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
219
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
220
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
221
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
222
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
223
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
224
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
225
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
226
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
227
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
228
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
216
Idriess 1953; also NSW State Records of Births, Deaths
and Marriages (BDM: Internet): Stanley Ewing, born 1878: record
no 11390 of 1878, died 1938: no 13231; son of John Peter and
Eleanor Ewing.
John and Eleanor had nine children: Grace (1859-1944);
William (1861-1882); Alexander (born 1864); Christina (1866),
Janet (1868), Robert (1871-1936); John Peter junior (born 1874),
Jessie (1876) and Stanley (1878-1938).
217
In 1980 I made two photocopies. By kind permission of
the Historical Society, one set was lodged with AIATSIS. The
other I kept for myself.
Pickette & Campbell 1984: 122-123 mention that J P Ewing
wrote a “Diary of reminiscences .. With the Gold Escort and
Mounted Police of NSW 1857-1890”. This I have not been able to
229
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
230
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
219
Roworth’s date of “1865” for the digging up of the grave
is an error (Roworth Kamilaroi Dreaming 2000: 9).
231
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
232
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
233
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
220
Naseby in Howitt 1904: 466; Bucknell 1933: 36.
234
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
235
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
223
See my discussion of place-names, in O’Rourke 1997:
94-95. Dangar surveyed the “range that divides the Peel and
Conidilli Rivers” (i.e., the Melville Range) in December 1832:
Map no.3363, State Records of NSW [formerly Archives Office].
The name Conadilly is also mentioned by Mitchell, Telfer,
Greenway and Mahaffey. Allen’s ‘Gunandilly’: Grazing Licence
no.167 in the supplementary list for 1849. Also Campbell 1968:
42 and Wood 1972: 226.
236
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
237
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
238
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
239
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
i. People
* = 18th century characters in the tales about Red
Kangaroo (RK).
240
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
241
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
ii. Locales
242
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
Bundarra and
Kingstown: Located north-east of Manilla in
the Gwydir basin. Their raids on
the Manilla and Goonoo Goonoo
communities prompted the latter
to seek an alliance with the
Gunnedah men.
243
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
Pages:
1-2: Criticism of Prescott’s article. Turner’s memories
of the 1860s.
3-4: Dr Haynes as a collector. Sergeant Ewing
arranges for Haynes to meet Joe Bungaree.
Bungaree described.
5-6: Bungaree explains Gunnedah’s history. Playing
with the bullroarer. Haynes is introduced. The
meaning of the carved stump. People gather to
watch the grave being dug up.
7-8: Bungaree refuses to divulge the buried man’s
name. The excavation begins. The Aboriginal
people flee. Bones uncovered. One arm-bone
has a healed break.
9-10: Stan Ewing tells Bundaar, the tracker, what has
happened. Bundaar complains to Sergeant
Ewing. The bones later sent to Sydney. Ewing
again objects to Prescott’s errors.
11-13: Further criticism of Prescott’s article. Was there
a tomahawk in the grave? Meaning of the name
“Gunnedah”. Jacob Painter, Joe Bungaree and
“Old Barney”. Bungaree consults Stan Ewing
about Old “Donal”.
14-16: Bungaree tells the dead man’s name, Red
Kangaroo (RK), and starts to relate the tales
about him. Abduction of wives. How RK noted
the shortages of wives. Need to build up the
244
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
245
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
246
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
224
Curran pers. comm. 2002. White Box or Eucalyptus
albens, Yellow Box or E. melliodora and Bimble Box or E.
populanea are the dominant tree species in the central section of
the Namoi catchment, with some Grey Box or E. microcarpa
scattered throughout.
247
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
248
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
249
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
250
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
251
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
252
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
229
Greenway 1910: 16; and Bucknell 1933: 35
253
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
230
McCarthy 1952: 328; Cleary Poignant Regalia 1993:
131; Troy Gorgets 1993; and Pulvertaft & Gordon 1994.
254
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
255
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
256
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
257
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
258
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
232
Piccinnies: spelled thus throughout.
259
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
260
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
261
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
262
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
237
Some burial grounds contained hundreds of graves
(Ridley 1875: 159, 100; and Honery 1878: 254).
238
I owe this reference to Shirley Coote.
263
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
264
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
265
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
[The Excavation:]
266
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
267
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
268
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
242
Howitt 1904: 441 and and 464 ff; Dunbar 1943: 15;
McBryde 1974: 148.
269
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
270
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
271
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
272
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
273
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
274
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
275
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
276
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
244
First consonant Ng- (velar nasal consonant) as in the
English word ringing: cf Clarke’s rendering ‘Gnammoy’ (in
Boyce 1970).
The stress patterns in English words can reflect the number of
syllables or the pattern may be unique to each word. Cf: HAPpy;
reMINDer; BYZantine; unUSual; periODical; invinciBILity. In
Gamilaraay, stress was governed by the type of vowel: the
primary stress normally fell on the long vowel [aa, ii, or uu].
When there was no long vowel in the word, the first syllable took
the primary stress (see in Austin 1992 etc). For example, in the
following sentence, the accents indicate the stressed syllables:
Ngàya yànawàanha walàaygu gùndidha bàabilìgu.
245
Parry, White, Mitchell etc, cited in O’Rourke Raw
Possum 1995: 18-19, esp. footnote 25.
277
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
278
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
279
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
280
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
247
Not enough was recorded about the Gamil’raay language
for us to know the conceptual distinctions that were drawn in
north-central NSW. One source gives yiilinhi (from yiili ‘angry’)
as the word for ‘war’ in Gamil’raay. And in Yuwaalaraay we have
girray ‘a battle’ and girraybaa ‘battle ground’; these two words
presumably allude to individual duels rather than true battles (Ash
et al. 2003: 89). But no Yuwaalaraay word for ‘war’ has survived,
nor any Gamilaraay word for ‘battle’ or ‘duel’.
281
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
248
On this data we can calculate a rough fatality rate. Let us
assume that 800 of the 3,000 people were males of fighting age. If
an average of five men were killed in each battle, then we have an
average of about 20 dying each year, or one in every 40 males of
fighting age, or one in 150 people (children, women and men).
Geoffrey Blainey, citing Buckley, suggests that in south-central
Victoria (around Geelong) the annual death rate in warfare
probably equalled one in every 270 people, but perhaps as high as
one in 150, the same as Germany's causalities in World War Two.
He notes that that the death of two men in a battle involving 40
men represented casualties on the scale of the Battle of the
Somme in World War One (1975: 109-10).
249
Warner 1930: 458, 481; Warner 1958, Chapter Six, esp.
pp.148-49; Hiatt 1965: 123; and Rose 1991: 101 ff.
282
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
283
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
284
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
‘My father an’ old men in tribe tell me, an’ tell //MS
Page 16// all young boy of tribe, about great warriors
of the Nammoy River tribe: all about wars against most
of the tribes as far away as Quirindi, Cassilis,
Coonabarabran, Narrabri [and] Manilla. And raids for
wives for young warriors that Red Kangaroo led.’
285
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
286
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
255
The treatment here of territorial size is obviously
abstract, speculative and notional. Watercourses formed the
summer home-bases, so one could also look at major creek basins
to draw up hypothetical territories. ("As between say Narrabri and
Gunnedah, which major tributaries might have fallen on either
side of a common boundary?" Etc.)
On Guyinbaraay: see the discussion of Ridley's work in the
Introduction, and the commentary to Document 1, para 6. And, for
an equivalent discussion of population densities (people per
square kilometre), see O'Rourke 1997: 133 ff.
287
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
288
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
all the other tribes near or far away had come from
time to time and made war on them, to try and take
their territory. And so many wars caused our tribe to
have continual losses in warriors killed or injured.
289
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
290
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
And the old men had been told by the old men of the
tribe when they were like us - had been only boys -
how those other old men had told them all about their
tribe’s great men and about the greatest one of all,
Red Kangaroo: how he, when just made a warrior from
the Bora ceremonies, found there weren’t enough
young lubras in the tribe to supply each new young
warrior with a wife. The chief and the tribal elders
didn’t bother about the young warriors. But //MS Page
17// the young warrior Red Kangaroo had strong ideas
about the tribal rights of the newly made warriors and
the duty the chief and elders of [the] tribe owed to the
young warriors. But he could not rouse the other young
warriors to claim their tribal rights. They wouldn’t back
him up in anything.
being contested but the use of its resources: the retreating group
was being denied the use of the resources from its own land (Rose
1991: 104).
It must not be thought, however, that territory was never
acquired in 40,000+ years. Rather, in Aboriginal ideology it was
not permitted to take land by force and living people had never
known it to happen. Sometimes small groups must have died out,
or were effectively destroyed by warfare. Their land must have
been used subsequently by neighbouring groups. Doubtless, over
time, mythological title would have been gradually extended to
bring the new stretches of land within their ownership. But, to
repeat, in ideology it was not possible to acquire title to land by
force, and living people had never known land to change hands.
291
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
292
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
293
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
But nothing hid that big rock by day from the eyes of
the watchers of the Nammoy River Tribe. Nor even
from those in the various camps about Gunnedarr [sic].
All could see the smoke signals sent off the top of that
great rock by day – and the flash of a fire’s blaze being
screened and unscreened at night – to send warning
messages to the watchers in Gunnedarr. But RK was on
no lookout posts. But [sic] no sign of or tiding of Red
Kangaroo.
The tribe[s]people talked in secret or where no one
could creep up and hear what they said. Some said
openly and loud in all listeners' ears: “Some party of
enemy tribesmen prowling about spying on the camps,
or on watch to steal some of our young women,
ambushed and captured and took Red Kangaroo away
as a prisoner, or killed him and threw his body in the
Nammoy”, which has been in small floods //MS Page
19// for weeks.
But those who talked in secret and where no one
could hear them said, “This is the chief and elders’
work. They have murdered him in a sudden and
treacherous attack. And perhaps his body is in the
Nammoy River.”
The chief and elders could see Red Kangaroo was
soon going to be chosen as the warrior chief to lead the
tribe in wars or raids by the tribesmen. Distrust and
suspicion had the whole tribe worked up. Any day
294
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
264
Geoffrey Blainey hazards three kilometres as possibly
the useful maximum reach of a cooee on a still night (in his Black
Kettle and Full Moon: Daily Life in a Vanished Australia,
Viking/Penguin, Camberwell Vic, 2003, page 125).
295
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
265
Here the punctuation and sentence structure are left as in
the original.
296
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
266
Dunbar 1943: 179 and Ash et al. 2003: 124.
297
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
298
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
299
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
300
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
301
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
entitled to one wife only. The law says “to one wife
only out of the tribal young marriageable women”. And
that is the law for all men in our tribe unless there are
times when there are more marriageable women than
men in the tribe. And also when a warrior’s wife dies:
then he may get a 2nd wife from the tribal women if all
other claimants have been supplied. But just listen to
me with both ears. I have no tribal wife! But I have
every right by our tribal laws to a wife from out of my
tribal unmarried young women. Our laws don’t make a
limit of the wives we should have, whom we get from
other tribes. And my two wives are women from
another tribe to ours.”
302
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
303
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
[Left Behind:]
304
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
305
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
306
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
307
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
308
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
271
Austin gives garrang-ay (Bucknell’s “curring-a”) for
Black Duck, i.e. Anas superciliosa, the Pacific black duck. More
likely, as Ash et al. 2003: 81. 173 propose, garrang-ay meant
duck in general (name for any duck); they note that in
Yuwaalaraay black duck was budhanbaa. They record no
Gamil’raay word for black duck. Thus Ridley’s (1875) “gnaroo”
may well have been the correct Gamilaraay word. Cf Gamil’raay
ngaru+ stem word for the verb ‘to drink (something)’; and ngaarr,
‘hard, strong’.
309
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
310
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
311
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
312
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
ground. I’d cut his throat right across and to his neck-
bone.
Quickly I ran across creek, pulled my spear out of the
young warrior, took his boomerang and tomahawk and
his possum rug. Also the older man’s rug he had
thrown down with his tomahawk wrapped in it. Found
my own boomerang. Ran back and picked up the nulla
and spear of the elder man. Went to the two young
lubras. They pointed to my nulla and where the other
spear was. My own tomahawk I’d lost. It had //MS Page
27// come loose in its hide carrier fastened to my
girdle and had slipped out where I’d filled my water
gourd.
Had that middle aged warrior Kulki, whom the young
lubras xxx [illegible] me [sic: incomplete sentence].
[He] was reckoned the bravest and most fearless
warrior in the Coonabarabran tribe. His brother was the
chief but he led all war parties. The warriors of the tribe
wanted him to be their chief. But he said his brother
was the best chief for them, whilst he only could fight
to kill men.
Taking the lubras away down the creek into thick
scrub, [I] made up two bundles of possum rugs with
war weapon[s] and gave each lubra one to carry.
Bearing away from the creek, [we] struck for the hill-
ranges that would lead out onto Mullaley Plains. Once
across the Plains [I] would be in my own territory.
272
Document 3B, MS Page 26; also Mathews 1904a: 267;
Parker 1905: 120; and Dunbar 1943: 141.
313
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
314
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
Her hand flashed to his girdle and tore his nulla from
it. Then Naroo struck him in the face, knocking him
down with blood spurting from his nostrils. Naroo stood
with nulla upraised and said, “Handle your own wives
as you wish! But I’m Red Kangaroo’s wife, and I’ll kill
any man but him who dares lay hand on me.”
The chief got to his feet and grabbed a boomerang
from his girdle to throw //MS Page 28// at Naroo. But
RK had rushed up and tore it from his hand. “If you are
a man, Chief Jerrabri, you’ll fight Red Kangaroo and not
his woman! Here’s your boomerang!” [he said],
dropping it at [the] chief’s feet. “But it needs a man to
throw it in a fight against a man.”
315
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
316
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
273
Ewing's note. Round brackets mark wording in the
original manuscript. Square brackets are used when I as editor
have added a few words. MO’R.
317
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
318
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
319
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
320
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
321
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
322
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
323
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
324
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
325
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
326
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
276
While the number killed in Harvie’s account is credible,
the dating (c. 1883) is odd. It is extremely difficult to believe that
as late as the 1880s 500 men - with women and children bringing
the total to at least 750 - would have assembled near Coffs
Harbour. More likely, the clash was observed by Harvie's father at
about the time Harvie was born (i.e., around 1844).
277
Warner 1958: 147, 156; Kimber 1990.
278
This sentence is mis-constructed. It was of course the
Gunnedah men who kept together in a half-moon shape and the
Bundarra men who were driven back.
327
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
328
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
“But”, said old chief Bungaree, “of all the wars and
raids RK took part in, his tribe claim his greatest deed
and victory was won when he and nine seasoned
warriors ran 15 miles [24 kilometres] to save their
women and children and help the 25 warriors left to
guard the children in the Gunnedarr camps. Because
80 Cassilis warriors had come on a raid to take the
young women and fight a battle if they had to.
And in that time RK was a chief of two years and a
very powerful young man. And there were 65 warriors
in the tribe counting every spear. And 15 of the
warriors were 60 years old.”
This tale [was] told by King Bungaree to Mr J P Ewing
(who made notes of it as Bungaree talked). Said
Bungaree: “This fight of Red Kangaroo and his small
force of 35 warriors against 80 fierce and warlike
Cassilis warriors proved that RK could think quickly and
plan out a way to trap [the] Cassilis warriors even
though they outnumbered the Nammoy warriors by
more than two to one”.
From the facts told by King Bungaree, Mr J P Ewing
wrote an account of that clever trap-ambushing of the
Cassilis warriors by RK and his warriors. This account
was printed by Mr T B Roberts in the Gunnedah
Advertiser somewhere about 48 years ago. Appended, I
have attached a fuller account of that ambushing of
the Cassilis warriors.
329
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
330
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
279
Mitchell 1839: 100; Greenway 1910: 15; and Bucknell
1933: 34.
331
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
332
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
333
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
334
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
i. The Players:
335
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
2. Locales:
“Blackhill”
or Black Hill: Location uncertain, but probably
one of the knolls or hillocks south
of the present railway line, north
of the foot of Porcupine Ridge.
The best candidate would seem to
be a knoll immediately south of
the intersection of Boundary Road
336
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
337
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
338
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
339
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
H. Day nine:
The u-shaped clearing.
340
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
341
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
282
Harris 1982 and 1987; also *Hale 1975: 269. For a
comprehensive list of basic numbers in a range of Australian
languages, see www.zompist.com/aust.
Harris notes that numbers up to at least 40 were used in Central
Australia (by the Aranda people); numbers to 100 or more in
western Victoria (Tjapwurong people); and to at least 150 in the
Gulf of Carpentaria (Groote Eylandt).
Among those wrongly asserting that Aborigines were unable to
count beyond four is Blake 1981: 3-4.
283
Harris 1982: 169.
284
See listed online at
www.science.uts.edu/msc/AborCount.pdf; accessed January 2005.
342
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
343
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
Table One:
EXAMPLES OF NUMBERS
MENTIONED IN THE TALE THAT FOLLOWS :
130:
Children in the Gunnedah “tribe” (below: at
page 4 of the MS).
90:
Wives in “our tribe”, including 20 no longer
able to bear children (MS Page 4). (At MS
p.6, however, it is said that there were 20
women aged 60 to 80. This is odd given that
there must have been further women aged
40-60 who were no longer able to conceive.)
290
Harris 1987: 30, citing Tindale 1925. Also Harris’ other
publications at:
http://www.aiatsis.gov.au/lbry/dig_prgm/ethnomathmatics/
ethno_contents.htm (accessed July 2004). Compare the
Yuwaaliyaay words ganduwi ‘one emu’, wugalwugal ‘four emus’,
gayaangay ‘five or six emus’ and ganurran ‘14 or 15 emus’ (Ash
et al. 2003: 79). Presumably these were ‘rough estimate’ terms
rather than numbers as such, perhaps meaning respectively “fewer
than a handful of emus”, “nearly a hands-worth of emus”, “about a
hands-worth of emus” and “about three hands-worth of emus”?
344
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
65:
Number of fighting warriors in the
Gunnedah “tribe” two years after RK
became their war-leader (MS Page 1). This
included 24 younger, inexperienced men
(MS Page 2). (Note: 130 children + 90 wives
+ 65 warriors = total 285 in the “tribe”, if
we assume that the three categories are
exhaustive.)
60:
Cassilis men who entered RK’s trap (MS
Page 15).
39:
Number of men who went hunting on the
Breeza Plains with RK (MS Page 4).
35:
Strength of the combined Gunnedah party
under RK and Burradella after the first
ambush (MS Page 15).
34/37:
Cassilis men killed in the first ambush: 34
died at the mouth of the clearing plus three
more at the other end (=37; MS Page 15).
Apart from “six” wounded, there were
“17” survivors whom Red Kangaroo
pursued: …“Burradella counted 34 killed
and six badly wounded inside the first 60
yards of the U (and) with the three killed at
other end by Red Kangaroo and some of his
warriors.”
27:
“… two raids had brought into tribe (sic:
“the” omitted) 27 young women and had
had only five warriors killed …” (MS Page
1).
345
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
26:
“ … 15 were old warriors of 60 years of age;
20 were men from 35 to 40 years old and
30 young warriors from 17 to 26 years old
(MS Page 1).
24:
“ … along with 24 young warriors in age but
(who were) warriors of three or four years
experience in war” (MS Page 2).
15 and 9:
“Why weren’t those 15 old warriors left to
guard the camp – and let the rest of the
warriors pull lot [sic] to see what nine of
them had to stop and guard camp also …”
(MS Page 2).
11:
“ … So Red Kangaroo picked the 20
unmarried lubras and 40 of the youngest of
the 70 lubras in camp, and Tukki and all
boys and girls from eight to 11 years old”
(MS Page 12).
8:
“On the 8th sun Red Kangaroo order[ed] the
final emu hunt ...” (MS Page 4).
7:
346
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
6:
“They had lost six killed and only two with
crippling wounds for life” (MS Page 1).
I
t was now the season of the year for the warriors,
especially the last Bora-made ones, to go emu
hunting and feasting on its meat to make them
strong in strength and strong-hearted against enemies
in fighting. And the emu fat mixed with ashes they
would rub all over their body.”
347
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
Rub all over: Emu fat and goanna fat were used
medicinally. Possum fat, echidna fat and fish fat
too were used for various purposes.
Modern studies show that some animal fats at
least contain anti-inflammatory agents that
work through the skin.293
291
Gamilaraay Buurra = English Bora, the initiation or
man-making ceremonies. Literally ‘at the /place of/ the Belt of
Manhood’, from buurr ‘belt of manhood’ +a, locative case:.
As many as six or eight communities would assemble,
primarily to initiate boys as men, but also to trade and negotiate
marriages. For example, about 800 men, women and children
came together north of the middle Gwydir River in the winter of
1841. They were drawn from the Macintyre River as well as the
Namoi and the Gwydir (SMH, 27.10.1842; and Mayne 1842,
SRNSW 4/2565.1).
292
Ridley 1875: 151 and 155; Mathews 1904a: 263 ff and
268; and Doyle, Naseby and Crowthers, cited in Howitt 1904: 593
ff and 769.
293
Mathews 1904a; Parker 1905: 38; Whitehouse 1999:
University of Queensland natural medicines group.
348
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
349
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
295
‘Piccinnies’: Spelled thus throughout.
350
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
351
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
296
Forestry Commission 1985; and Smith 1992, citing
Wheeler.
297
Ash et al. 2003: 40.
352
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
SMOKE-SIGNALLING:
298
Barbara Rice (pers. comm. 1998) considers that the
species was probably more common in the area before the country
was cleared, and no doubt it would have been considered an
annoyance by anyone walking or riding through it. Dr Rice herself
collected specimens from Porcupine Hill (or Ridge) in Gunnedah
in 1990, and from an “extraordinarily dense” population on a hill
near Nea (between Curlewis and Breeza). Tim Curran (pers.
comm, 2002) adds that the porcupine grass at Nea is very spiky,
capable of hurting as well as annoying.
353
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
354
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
355
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
356
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
357
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
358
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
359
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
360
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
“This [?] 8th sun the party who had been to lagoon
on other side of river had crossed back and were
hurried by their guards to catch up the main party
waiting for them before starting back to camp.
When the party got as far as where the Osric St
drain empties out on Mullibah Flat, a young married
lubra named Weetah found she had lost her dilly bag
[she] had left it on a log at crossing place to go across
to lagoon on other side. And a dilly bag contains many
useful things for an Aboriginal woman: needles of
bone; wood; sewing thread of hair; bark; sinews of
animals; tying cords of animal hide; flint knives; tinder
to dust on her two fire-stick[s] as she rubs them
together; balls of clay wetted and used to put over a
wound; and many other things.”
302
For an excellent illustration of the open woodland
country around Gunnible Mountain in 1867, see the watercolour
painting at: http://nla.gov.au/nla.pic-an5263713 [accessed January
2005].
361
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
362
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
[Enemies Appear:]
303
The English term is awkward and non-standardised.
Being indigenous, the Gamilaraay language naturally had an
ordinary, standard word: warrambul (typically spelt Warrambool
in present-day place-names), ‘overflow channel, watercourse that
contains water only during flood times’ (Ash et al. 2003: 139).
363
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
“Say: Weetah will stop to spy and find out how many
warriors and what tribe and [I] will come as quick as I
can to camp by creek way. Go now: be careful not to
show much of yourself in the open places.”
Tukki did the last 400 yards in quick time into camp.
Some of his people ran to meet him and said, ‘Where is
Weetah, what’s happened? Is she hurt?’ ‘Where’s
Burradella?’ Tukki asked: ‘Take me to Burradella’. Tukki
told him all Weetah had told him to say.
364
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
365
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
366
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
367
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
368
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
369
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
370
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
371
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
372
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
373
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
374
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
375
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
376
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
377
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
378
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
306
I thank Tim Curran for comments on the geographical
clues concerning the battle sites.
379
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
“At the far end of the U and along its sides for 20
yards each way there will be bushes leant against the
hop scrub to make a mia-mia for the night. And early
and up to 10 o'clock there will be fires at each mia-mia,
and young lubras not yet married will walk from fire to
fire and talk with young married women, and the
picinnies, boys and girls of nine or [10] years old, who
will run about the camp in early part of night until sent
to bed by the older lubras after nine o’clock setting of
Djurrabl (evening star). Some old women will have a
row and some guards will stop the row. Then every
lubra & piccinnie will go to bed and sleep.”
“But a young (baby) picinin [sic] will start to cry and
cry. Its mother will get up and make up her fire and sit
at fire to warm piccinin. At different time[s] during the
night picinnies will cry and cry, and their mothers will
get up and make up her fire and sit it with piccinin –
until three in the morning, when they will slip away in
307
Mountford 1963: 534-35; Harris ed, Clarke 1953: 75
(first published 1847); and Mulvaney 1969: 81. See also the cover
picture of my Kamilaroi Lands 1997 – a drawing from the 1860s
of a man wrapped in a large cloak with incised designs on the
outer, skin side.
380
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
the scrub and go back to the secret camp where all the
others will be, except 10 old women left in camp. At
three o’clock every guard will crawl to the scrub edge
either side of U leaving a spear at the head of a
possum-rugged figure asleep by the died-out guard
fire.
“You Burradella will have 17 warriors and yourself on
one side of the U 40 yards from U mouth. You will
stand back two feet in hop-vine. On the other side I will
have 16 warriors and myself, and we will stand two feet
back in hop scrub from three in the morning until grey
dawn is coming. Then, if the trap is good, the Cassilis
warriors will creep through mouth of U and along the
hop vine scrub edge. Then they will throw the spears at
the possum-rugged figures on guard and rush with
tribal war-shouts to nulla-nulla any of our warriors they
didn’t spear. We will in that time //MS Page 12// [?
steal] out of scrub and send a shower of spears into
them and no one is to rush to nulla nulla any warrior he
can get near. They must run to the end of the U and let
us give them a second spear. Then our warriors can get
up close for using nulla nulla.”
381
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
risk all to keep our women and picinnies. But how are
you going to get the women to come here and camp as
if they didn’t know an enemy was near them?”
Red Kangaroo said, “I can depend on my two wives”.
“And my three will come”, said Burradella. “Then
there’s Weetah: she would come, and that little Tukki.
Then there’s the 14 warriors in [camp?]. Their wifes
[sic] and piccinnies old enough to come will join us
here.”
“We will take the risk Burradella!” “You get 10 of the
old women here. Put the boys with you gathering
firewood for the mia-mia fires – and some warriors
getting small leafy trees to lean against the hop-vine to
make a makeshift camp for a night for the women and
children. And keep a strong double guard out in front of
the U in case any Cassilis spies find it before I get the
women here and picinnies. My wives both have a
(baby) picinin [sic].”
Red Kangaroo ran all the way, as only a strong man
like him could do. Boobuk’s party had arrived. Red
Kangaroo told the guards of the enemy forces [?
ranged] against theirs and his plan to try to trap them
in the U wallaby-catch308 by baiting it with his young
wives and Burradella’s.
Were the other warriors prepared to risk their wives
[he asked]? Or would they stay in secret camp until
tracked down and killed by the Cassilis warriors who
had killed off [??would kill off] Red Kangaroo and their
19 warriors and 13 boys?
“We follow where you lead us, Red Kangaroo, and so
must our lubras and piccinies!”
So Red Kangaroo picked the 20 unmarried lubras
and 40 of the youngest of the 70 lubras in camp, and
Tukki and all boys and girls from eight to 11 years old.
Taking six guards and 40 young women, Red Kangaroo
started back. The other eight guards came at a slower
pace to give the younger picinnies every chance of not
getting exhausted before [illegible: ?three-fourths?] of
the journey had been done.
308
Photo: http://www.redchieflalc.org.au/photo3.html (2004).
382
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
309
Ewing's note. It may be implied that "picinin" was how
Joe Bungaree said 'piccaninny'.
383
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
384
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
310
Dunbar 1943: 172; Warner 1958: 165.
311
Tim Curran, pers. comm. 2002.
385
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
386
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
387
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
388
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
389
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
313
Warner 1958: 147, 156; Kimber 1990: 163 citing
Strehlow's Journey to Horseshoe Bend 1969; and Campbell 2002.
390
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
Red Kangaroo and his warriors fell back into the hop
scrub where only tomahawk or nullas could be used.
And Burradella and his men got in touch with RK,
making them 35 strong. Then Red Kangaroo led his
warriors to attack again, roaring his battle cry. And the
warriors of Burradella worked through [the] scrub, and
on an agreed battle cry, they rushed from two
directions at the centre of the Cassilis warriors. It was
nulla and shield or tomahawk and shield – no spears or
boomerangs could be thrown in that scrub and
heather.
Cutting the Cassilis party in two, both Nammoy River
tribe parties turned on the same Cassilis-separated
party and killing [sic] two Cassilis warriors. The rest fled
for the open country, and every warrior ran for his life.
RK and Burradella let them go, to attack the other
party and put them to flight [too], with no casualties
among them.”
391
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
392
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
314
Gould [1839] in Datta 1997; and Katie Parker 1905: 106,
107. Gould recorded the use of nets "about 25 yards [metres] long
by three and a half feet [over one metre] wide", strung between
trees in woodland. Gardner (1854) reported similar methods used
in New England. The use of nets was common in the Murray-
Darling basin (Keen 2004: 41).
393
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
[The Counter-Raid:]
394
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
395
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
396
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
397
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
Fragment 1.
[Isolated page numbered “2”. Discusses the big box
stump; Prescott; Haynes; Ashby and Bandaar. Written
in Stanley Ewing’s handwriting. As it appears, it was
another letter, or another draft of the same letter, to
the Namoi Advertiser.]
398
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
399
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
* * *
Fragment 2.
[Isolated page numbered “5”]. The reference to
Coonabarabran police station ("my 19 years") shows
that this document was written, or at least composed,
by Sergeant Ewing himself. But it is in Stan Ewing’s
handwriting.
The tone and style is markedly smoother than the
other texts written by Stanley Ewing, although the
word “the” is several times omitted. On the other hand,
the sometimes disconnected sentences are
reminiscent of Stanley’s own style. Quite possibly it is
part of a transcription by Stanley of his father’s (now
lost?) Diary of reminiscences .. with the Gold Escort
and Mounted Police of NSW 1857-1890, which Pickette
& Campbell mention (1984 p.123.)
400
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
401
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
315
Even at age eight, John junior would seem too young to
have remembered many details of Jinnie's tales. But he would
have remembered finding her tomahawk (see end of this text).
And perhaps his father, Sergeant Ewing, over the years had
refreshed their memory of what they had heard from Jinnie.
402
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
I
n the early Eighties XXX/seventies at Coonabarabran
XXX there was an elderly middle-aged Aboriginal gin
living at the blacks' camp - Parkers Paddock site on
the Castlereagh River.
2. She was known locally as Jinnie Griffin and was the
consort of King Cuttabush of the Coonabarabran
blacks, a small scattered wandering band that is still
represented at Burrabadee [sic] Mission Station
(Forked Mountain) (Gunnedah-Coonabarabran Road).
(Burrabeedee is the Aboriginal name for the small
flying mice) = By the Cain family who are direct
descendants of Jinnie Griffin = through their mother
Mary Cain (nee Griffin), who, until she [?Jinnie or Mary]
died some years ago, was regarded as their born and
hereditary leader. =
403
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
316
Published in Votes and Proceedings of the NSW
Legislative Assembly, 1883, vol. iii.
317
Wilkin 1987 and Sommerville 1994.
318
The –sh sound is not found in Aboriginal languages. We
may guess, therefore, that his name was actually an English
nickname, perhaps from “bush cutter/cutter of bushes”.
404
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
319
The grave of ‘King’ Togee is to be found 29 km west of
Coolah on the left-hand side of the Neilrex Road, just past the
'Langdon' homestead. Presumably this site is where Cutterbush
killed him. The grave consists simply of a weather-worn
sandstone headstone surrounded by four white posts with a sign
overhead reading: 'Togee King Of The Butheroe Tribe'.
405
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
[Jinnie’s Tale:]
6. Probably the cold wet day and the cheerful log fire
in the kitchen woke up some long forgotten incident in
her early life. Without any further preamble, she
started off = “Long time ago, when I was very small
piccaninni [sic], = the men = hunting party = started
off early one bright day to hunt for kangaroos, wallaby
406
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
407
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
320
Born 1822: http://aussie57.digitalrice.com: Altona-
Porter family tree; accessed January 2003.
408
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
409
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
Introduction
410
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
411
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
322
In ADB 1983.
412
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
T
his story [writes Idriess] needs an explanatory
note, otherwise many readers could be forgiven
for doubting that it is a factual story. …. The
notes were lent me – or rather forced upon me in such
a nice way that I had to grudgingly promise “Oh well,
I’ll have a look at them!” – by Mr Russell McDonagh, of
McDonagh Pty Ltd, Gunnedah, NSW.
Mr Russell McDonagh is very keen on recording the
old pioneering records of his district. He has an
interesting collection, painstakingly gathered through
the years. Among these were notes, actually the
aboriginal [sic: lower case a] /?missing word/ in
straight-out form, of far and away the best
remembered chief of the now extinct Gunnedah tribe.
This story was written down word by word years ago by
another well-known Gunnedah identity, the late Mr
Stan Ewing. The story was from the lips of old
Bungaree, last full-blood aboriginal of the tribe.
The late Stan Ewing was the son of Senior Sergeant
John P Ewing who was in charge of the Gunnedah
Police District of those days. Sergeant Ewing, like J J
Smyth, T B Roberts, Doctor Hayne [sic]323 the
Government Medical Officer at Gunnedah, and others,
was a keen collector of aboriginal stories and relics.
Stanley and his brother Ernest, with their school boy
mates in those happy old bush days, grew up to play
with and know the last of the local aboriginal
youngsters as well as they did their own mates.
[Stanley was aged seven when his father was
transferred from Coonabarabran to Gunnedah in
1884/85. MO’R]. And young Ewing reached manhood
imbued with a great sympathy towards the last of the
local tribesmen. [Born in 1878, Stanley reached the
age of 21 in 1899.] The brothers were respected, but
323
Correctly ‘Haynes’, with an –s.
NB: All footnotes to this document have been added by me: MO'R.
413
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
324
Compare the population figures in the Chronology under
1891 and 1896. - MO'R.
414
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
415
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
416
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
417
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
418
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
419
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
420
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
421
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
“The doctor took the skull and broken arm away with
him. The small gathering about the grave dispersed,
leaving when Mr Ashby began to fill in the old grave. I
went home by the stable-yard front gate and, seeing
Bundaar the tracker outside the stable clean-sanding
the stirrup irons, I went down to tell him about the
digging up of the old grave. But Bundaar, who was
generally very keen to hear any news, said, “Now,
don’t tell me nothing – I won’t listen to you and won’t
look at anything you got from that place”.
"Well”, I replied, “Mr Ashby is carrying most of the
bones from that grave rolled up in the sacking, and he
is going to put them in the forage store-room where
you sleep. There he is now coming in the front gate!”
422
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
423
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
424
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
425
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
426
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
427
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
325
Ridley 1855 in Lang 1864. See the discussion of
population decline in my Kamilaroi Lands (O’Rourke 1997). Also
the Chronology in the introduction to this book.
326
A copy of the booklet by Squire is held by the National
Library of Australia (MO'R). For Ridley's many works, see the
Bibliography.
428
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
327
See for example Buckley/Morgan 1852; Warner
1937/1958; also Berndt & Berndt 1996: 358.
429
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
328
Warner 1958: 60 emph. add.; Kimber 1990: 163; and
Rose 1991: 108, 111.
430
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
431
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
329
See Hiatt’s 1996 chapter on High Gods, and O’Rourke
Kamilaroi Lands 1997: 171-177.
432
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
433
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
434
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
435
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
436
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
437
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
438
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
439
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
440
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
441
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
1. Introduction
330
Yellow box can grow quite tall (30m) while white box
and grey box may reach 25m (Boland et al. 1984). Bimble box (E.
populnea) and grey box (E. woollsiana) were often found in
association with Dodonaea viscosa, the “Giant Hop Bush” which
grew profusely at Gunnedah.
442
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
443
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
444
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
200-400 years: Informal guesstimates for the Curran and Benson (see
maximum longevity of footnotes).
eucalypts in general.
445
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
5. Conclusion
446
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
447
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
448
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
339
Tim Curran pers. comm.: emails December
2001/January 2002 and September 2002; also Curran 1997.
449
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
1. No signals ?
450
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
2. Just confirmation ?
451
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
341
Mitchell 1839: 129; discussed in O'Rourke Raw Possum
1995: 44. Mitchell also reported his movements being monitored
and apparently reported by smoke signals on the Darling River in
1835.
452
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
4. Complex Messages ?
453
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
Conclusion
454
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
455
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
Abbreviations
456
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
MSS: Manuscripts.
344
Pedants are asked not to write to the author pointing out
that Van Diemens Land, South Australia and Port Phillip were
established earlier. I am just summarising the position for non-
Australian readers!
457
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
Abbie, Andrew,
1969: The Original Australians. Sydney:
Reed.
Appleton, R & B,
1992: The Cambridge Dictionary of
Australian Places. Melbourne:
Cambridge University Press.
458
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
Aurousseau, M,
1968, ed: The Letters of Ludwig Leichhardt.
Cambridge UK: Cambridge
University Press.
459
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
Austin, Peter,
Williams, Cori,
and Würm, S A,
1980: The linguistic situation in north-
central NSW, pp 167-180. In B
Rigsby and P Sutton, eds, Papers
in Australian Linguistics, No 13:
Contributions to Australian
Linguistics. Canberra: Pacific
Linguistics, Series A, No. 59.
Australian
Encyclopaedia: Published by the Grolier Society,
Sydney. Ed. Richard Appleton.
Fourth edition, 1983.
Australian Town
and Country
Journal, 1873: A Tour to the North, Liverpool
Plains, Gunnedah: November,
p.657.
460
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
Berndt, R M & C H,
1996: The World of the First Australians:
Aboriginal Traditional Life Past
and Present. 5th edition. Canberra:
Aboriginal Studies Press.
Binns, R, and
461
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Boland, D J
et al., 1984: Forest Trees of Australia.
Melbourne: Nelson Wadsworth.
Brayshaw,
Helen, 1986: Aborigines of the Hunter Valley: a
Study of Colonial Records. Scone:
Scone & District Historical Society.
(With a good selection of
462
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
Buchanan, John,
1985: A Century of Progress: History of
Local Government in Gunnedah
and District. Gunnedah Shire
Council. Copy in State Library of
NSW [cat. Q994.4/36].
463
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
Bucknell, F N,
and others, 1886: The Kamilaroi language. In Curr’s
Australian Race, vol iii, 304-323.
464
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
Campbell, A.H,
and Prokopec,
M, 1984: Antiquity of tooth avulsion in
Australia, Artefact, 8, 3-9.
465
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Campbell, Judy,
1983: Smallpox in Aboriginal Australia,
1829-31, Historical Studies, 20
(81), 536-556.
Carey, Hilary
and Roberts David,
2002 (1995), eds:
The Wellington Valley Project.
Letters and Journals relating to
the Church Missionary Society
Mission to Wellington Valley,
NSW, 1830-45. A Critical
Electronic Edition, 2002.
<http://www.newcastle.edu.au/gro
up/amrhd/wvp/> (accessed July
2004). (A fascinating day to day
record of interaction between
466
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
Central Mapping
Authority of NSW,
1981: Map of Gunnedah, scale 1:25,000.
Copy in National Library of
Australia, Canberra, Map G8970-
s25.
467
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
468
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
Department of Lands,
NSW, 1972: Map of the Town of Gunnedah.
“8th edition”. Scale is 5 cm/2
inches to 16 chains. Sold by the
Map Shop, 23 Bridge Street,
Sydney.
469
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
Dixon, R M W,
Ramson, W, and
Thomas, M, 1990: Australian Aboriginal Words in
English: Their Origin and Meaning.
Melbourne: Oxford University
Press.
Donaldson,
Tamsin, 1979: Translating oral literature:
Aboriginal (Wangaaybuwan) song
texts, Aboriginal History 1 (2), 62-
67.
*Doyle, C E, 1877
and 1878: Letters to A W Howitt. In Howitt
Papers, Box 5, folder 2, National
Museum, Victoria, and copies in
470
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
Edwards, W H,
1998: Leadership in Aboriginal society,
pp 161-181. In his (ed.)
Traditional Aboriginal Society.
Second edition. Sydney:
Macmillan.
471
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
Fison, L, and
Howitt, A W, 1880: Kamilaroi and Kurnai.
Melbourne: George Robertson.
Facsimile reprint 1977.
472
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
Forestry Commission,
NSW, 1985: Management Plan for the
Gunnedah Management Area.
Sydney.
Gardner, William,
1846: Description of a Map of the Five
Northern Districts (of) NSW. In
Calvert, J, Mineral and
Topographical Survey, MS no.
ZA3951, Mitchell Library, Sydney.
473
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
Goodall, Heather,
1982: A History of Aboriginal
Communities in NSW 1909-1938.
PhD thesis, University of Sydney.
Greenway, Charles
1878: Kamilaroi languages and
traditions (ed. W Ridley), Journal
of the Royal Anthropological
Institute 7 (3), 232-246
474
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
Gunnedah
Committee, 1935: Back to Gunnedah Week:
Gunnedah Municipal Jubilee.
Printed in Tamworth by the
Northern Daily Leader. Copy in
the National Library, Canberra, at
NP 994.44/B126.
475
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
*Gunnedah Shire,
1982: Gunnedah Environmental Study
[town buildings etc]. Copy in NSW
State Library.
Gunnedah Tourist
Bureau, c. 1967: Welcome to Gunnedah NSW.
Pamphlet held by State Library of
NSW.
Harris, Alexander,
1847: Settlers and Convicts. Manning
Clarke, ed., Melbourne University
Press 1953. Originally published
in London, 1847.
476
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
477
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
478
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
*Illustrated Sydney
News, 1880: Burial place of a native king at
Wallerawang, Illustrated Sydney
News, 30 October 1880.
Johnson, Richard,
2002: The Search for the Inland Sea:
John Oxley, Explorer, 1783-1828.
Melbourne University Press.
479
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
Lourandos,
480
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
Maddock, Kenneth,
1972 (1974): The Australian Aborigines, a
Portrait of their Society. UK
Penguin edition 1972, Australian
Penguin 1974. (Includes a good
account of the Bora cults of inland
New South Wales.)
Magarey,
A T, 1893: Smoke signals of Australian
Aborigines, Reports of the
Australasian Association for the
Advancement of Science, 5, 498-
513. (Mainly Northern Territory
examples; smoke types are said
to have carried fixed meanings.)
Mahaffey,
Kath, 1980/82: Pioneers of the North West Plains.
Volume One, 1980: Volume Two,
1982. Moree: Moree & District
Historical Society.
481
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
Mathews, R H
(Robert Hamilton)
1868: Notebooks and Papers (c.1868-
1912). AIATSIS, MS no.299.
(Notebooks 1, 2 nd 3: Kamilaroi.
Notebook 3: Darkinyoong, etc.).
Copies also in the National Library
of Australia, MS no. 8006.
482
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
483
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
Mathews, R H,
1897a: The Australian class [Section]
systems, Part II, American
Anthropologist 10, 345-347. (GN
6416.)
484
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
Mathews, R H,
485
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
486
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
Mathews,
R H, 1906a: Sociology of Aboriginal tribes in
Australia (Kamilaroi, Warramanga
etc), American Antiquarian 28 (1),
81-88.
487
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
488
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
McBryde,
Isabel, 1966: An Archaeological Survey of the
New England Region in New South
Wales, PhD thesis, 2 vols.,
University of New England.
(Largely reproduced in her 1974a
book.)
489
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
490
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
McDonald, Albert,
1878: see Ridley 1878.
*McGuiggan, Anne,
1983: Aboriginal Reserves in NSW …
Sydney: NSW Ministry for
Aboriginal Affairs. Copy in
National Library of Australia:
N362.8499
McLachlan, Robin,
1981: 'Far from the joyless glare'
(Captain Forbes' expedition of
1832), Hemisphere, 25 (6), 349-
357.
McPherson,
Emma, 1860: My Experiences in Australia.
London: J F Hope. (Contains notes
on the Aborigines of the Bingara
district, NSW.)
MacPherson, John,
1930: Some Aboriginal place names,
Journal of the Royal Australian
491
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
492
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
Mountford,
C P, 1963: Aboriginal skin rugs, Records of
the South Australian Museum, vol
14 (3), 525-43.
Naseby, Charles,
1882: The Aborigines of Australia:
Stories about the Kamilaroi Tribe.
As told to J Fraser. Maitland:
Maitland Mercury.
493
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
Newman, W,
and Green, L,
1998: Tamworth, A Pictorial History.
Avalon, NSW: Hallbooks.
Nowland, William,
1861: Letter [on the early history of the
Liverpool Plains], in Sydney
Morning Herald, 23.1.1861.
NSW Premiers
Department, 1952: The Namoi Region: A Preliminary
Survey of Resources. Sydney:
NSW Government.
O’Rourke,
Michael, 1979: Who were the Kamilaroi?
Aboriginal Quarterly (NSW), vol 1,
25-27.
494
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
Pastoral and
parish maps: Historical maps from the period
1880-1930 are available on-line
at the website of the Land and
Property Information office:
www.lpi.nsw.gov.au. There are
maps of pastoral holdings as well
as land parish maps.
Popinjay Publications,
1989: Edward Davis and the Jewboy
Gang. Woden ACT: Popinjay.
Pulvertaft, B, and
495
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
Radcliffe-Brown,
A R, 1930: The rainbow-serpent myth in
south-east Australia, Oceania 1
(3), 342-346.
Reynolds, Henry,
1981 (=1990a): The Other Side of the Frontier:
Aboriginal Resistance to the
European Invasion of Australia.
Ringwood Vic: Penguin 1990.
(First published 1981.)
Ridley,
William A, nd: Report on Australian languages
and traditions, MS no. 71/8203
(special bundle), State Records of
New South Wales [formerly
Archives Office].
496
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
497
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
Roworth, Heather,
2000: A Kamilaroi Dreaming: A History
of the Aboriginal People of
Quirindi before 1850. Sydney:
NSW Department of Education.
(Material for schools, with
extensive references. Deals
broadly with north-central NSW,
not just Quirindi.)
498
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
Sommerville,
Margaret, 1994: The Sun Dancin’: People and
Place in Coonabarabran.
Canberra: Aboriginal Studies
Press. Written with assistance
from Marie Dundas, May Mead,
Janet Robinson and Maureen
Sulter.
Stanner, W E H,
1960: Durmugam, a Nangiomeri, pp 64-
100. In J Casagrande, ed, In the
Company of Man. New York:
Harper. (Reprinted in Stanner
1979.)
Surveyor-General’s
Office, NSW, 1857: Plan of the [future] town of
Gunnedah. Scale 1:6,000. Copy in
the National Library of Australia,
Canberra, Map no. F440.
Taylor, Griffith,
& Jardine, F, 1924: Kamilaroi and white: a study of
racial mixture in NSW, Journal of
499
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
500
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
Von Brandenstein,
501
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
Water Resources
Commission, NSW,
1978: Flood inundation map, town of
Gunnedah. Scale 1:10,000. Copy
in National Library of Australia,
Canberra: Map no. G8971.C32.
Watson, William,
1830s: Journal and other papers: see
Carey and Roberts 1995.
502
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
Wiedemann,
Elizabeth, 1981: A World of Its Own: Inverell’s Early
Years 1827 – 1920. Inverell Historical
Society. (Local history at its best, crafted
on the basis of a close understanding of
the sources.)
503
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
Windschuttle,
Keith, 2000: The myths of frontier massacres,
Quadrant vol. 44: Oct, Nov and
Dec 2000 (in three parts).
(Criticism - correct in my view - of
Reynolds and Milliss for credulity
in relation to the numbers of
Aborigines killed.)
Wood, W A
(Allan), 1972: Dawn in the Valley. The Story of
the Settlement in the Hunter
River Valley to 1833. Sydney:
Wentworth Books.
Wyndham, W T,
1889: The Aborigines of Australia
[Ucumble tribe: north of Inverell],
504
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505
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
INDEX
506
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
507
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
508
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
509
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
510
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
511
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
512
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
513
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
514
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
515
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
516
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
517
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
518
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
519
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
520
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
521
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
522
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
523
‘Red Kangaroo’ of Gunnedah
524