Alex Owsianka [ 15/Oct/18 ]
Post date: Oct 10, 2018 10:31:21 AM
Jerry Guirguis interviews Alex Owsianka, Ben Winnell and Jakeb Fair, Researchers and Producers of Warrigal Creek Massacre Documentary, students from Swinburne University, Australia, tonight on 96.5FM – Egyptian radio show Melbourne Australia,
[ Monday 15 October 2018, Time 8:30pm ].
The first Melbourne screening of The Warrigal Creek Massacre, [ Swinburne University 25th Sep 2018 ]
Produced & Directed by ;
Dr. Andrew Dodd [ Director of the Centre for Advancing Journalism, University of Melbourne ]
Lisa Gye [ Faculty Member at Swinburne University of Technology, Faculty of Life and Social Sciences ]
The sad story,
In 1843, Warrigal – in the state of Victoria – Australia,
At a quiet bend on a beautiful creek, one of the worst acts of indiscriminate killing in the Australian colonies history.
About the Film
Watch the trailer
Alex Owsianka, Ben Winnell & Jakeb Fair, 3 from a group of six researchers and the production team
Welcome to 96.5FM - ..........
Q1] Angus McMillian and the Highland Brigade rode through Gippsland in 1843,
they murdered as many Gunai Kurnai children, women and men as they could.
Why ?
Q2] Official archives
Newspaper report on a Captive white woman ?
Fake news in 1843 ?
Q3] “Because to move forward we must acknowledge our past.”
Is it possible to move forward on the many Aboriginal inspiring stories, that haven’t been broadcasted on main media networks
Listen to podcast : [ https://drive.google.com/file/d/1PrbuEESEdd3DXyVaoZh77mFQOsPzhOqb/view?usp=sharing ]
Researched and produced by;
1] Danielle Bowen, 2] Jonathan Boadle, 3] Jakeb Fair, 4] Alex Owsianka, 5] Don Sheil and 6] Ben Winnell.
Victorian MP and Gunai-Gunditjmara woman, Lidia Thorpe, will launch the film.
The white woman of Gippsland, or the captive woman of Gippsland, was supposedly a European woman rumoured to have been held against her will by Aboriginal Kurnai people in the Gippsland region of Australia in the 1840s. Her supposed plight excited searches and much speculation at the time, though nothing to put her existence beyond the level of rumour was ever found.
Accounts of the woman vary. In a popular account she was one of two women travelling on the ship Britannia, which wrecked on Ninety Mile Beach in 1841. There were two women aboard, the wife of the Captain and a woman sailing to Sydney to join her fiancé, Mr Frazer.[1] Another account says the woman was a mother who sought protection with local Aboriginals with her baby girl after leaving her callous and brutal husband.[2]
One possible source of the rumour was that a group of white pioneers had come upon an Aboriginal camp near Port Albert which had been hurriedly vacated. They found some female attire and a towel (being used to block the end of a canoe) and a heart shape drawn in the ground. Another account has the heart shape near Sale and carved into both the ground and a tree (from which a farm called Heart Station was named).
In any case, representations to the government by settlers resulted in various searches by police and native police. One expedition left special handkerchiefs that she might come across, with a message in English and Gaelic (because it was thought she might be from the Scottish highlands) reading:
WHITE WOMAN! – There are fourteen armed men, partly White and partly Black, in search of you. Be cautious; and rush to them when you see them near you. Be particularly on the look out every dawn of morning, for it is then that the party are in hopes of rescuing you. The white settlement is towards the setting sun.[3]
For some two years the Aboriginal people of the area were hunted for what they were imagined to have done. A boy called Thackewarren from the Warrigul people was captured and taught English, and used as an interpreter to tell his people that the white woman must be found. The Commissioner of Crown Lands, Tyer, was delighted when they promised to return her, and on the arranged day preparations were made to receive her. To the utter astonishment of all present, the Aboriginal people arrived with a carved wooden bust of a woman, the figurehead from the ship Britannia.
This figurehead could even have been the source of the rumours all along, in the possession of the Aboriginal people, becoming a real woman in the retelling.[4]
Hi and Welcome……….
Thank You
Jerry Guirguis
Presenter
96.5FM - Egyptian radio show
Mobile 0400 718 817
Phone Studio : 03 9457 1718
Listen Live [ https://right-click.com.au/rcPlayer2/index.php?c=innerfm ]
Jerry.Guirguis@gmail.com