21 May 1936

THE REGENERATION OF ADNAMULAQEE

Black 'Bad Man' Who Made Good

The mine lay upon the slopes of the Northern MacDonnell Ranges, Central Australia, and was a typical prospector's show. The gold lay in small quartz leaders outcropping on the hillsides, and when I was there in 1887 there was no treatment plant nearer than the Ballarat School of Mines in Victoria. As a result we could only make our little show pay by picking over the broken stone and selecting the pieces of quartz showing free gold. We used to sew up this picked stone in rawhide sacks, which camels carried to the railhead at Anna Creek, four hundred miles to the southward, and from there the ore went to Ballarat by train.

Our camp was on a hillside near the claim. On a nearby grassy flat was the camp of a clan of the great Arunta tribe of aborigines. To east and west stretched the broken crags of the foot-hills and along the south ran the rugged, rock-strewn rampart of the main range, with the Arolmarolma gorge showing as a mighty notch on the sky line. After leaving this gorge the Hale River, its course lined with huge old redgum trees, went winding out across the plains. I was alone in the camp, both my mates having gone off with a consignment of ore. I was thinking of knocking off for dinner when a terrific commotion broke out in the camp below. All the men had gone away hunting, and I now saw all the women and children running towards me for protection, as fowls run to a dog when a fox appears. Some of the bolder women were pausing to throw stones at the bushes behind them, and above the screaming I heard the name 'Ad-namulaqee! Ad-namula qee!' being cried.

I at once grasped the reason for their alarm and rushed to get my rifle. As I ran to meet them, I saw that two lubras were half-dragging, half-carrying a third woman, whose head streamed blood, and beyond the women I saw a wild figure peering from behind a bush, dodging stones as they were flung. It was Adnamulaqee.

Every tribe of wild natives has its 'bad men' who, driven out of the tribe for some offence against tribal law, become as the Ishmaelite of old, with every man's hand against them and their hand against every man. Such a one was the wild figure whom I now saw; a man who, driven nearly mad by loneliness, had sneaked upon the camp and had tried to capture a woman by stunning her and dragging her away. But the other women had rescued his victim.

The moment the wild man saw my rifle he bolted into shelter and I did not see him again until he was scrambling to the distant cliff, far out of range. I watched the direction in which he was heading, saw that it would take him close to the camp of Old Mac, a prospector working in the valley beyond, and scribbled a note on a leaf torn from my pocket book. 'Adnamulaqee coming your way. Stop him for me. I'm coming,' I wrote, then stuck the paper in a split stick and handed it to one of the biggest lads, telling him to go through the gorge as hard as he could run, in order to reach Mac's camp before the wild native had climbed the range, and give to the other white fellow.

The lad darted off and I followed, as soon as I had ascertained that the injured lubra was not likely to die, and when I arrived at Mac's camp I found him sitting on a rock with his rifle across his knees. The little lad who had carried the note sat beside him. 'Got your note and got your nigger,' was his greeting. 'He's up there under a bush. Had to take a running shot at him.'

'Good heavens!' I gasped. 'Did you shoot him?' I forgot that I, myself, had been going to take a shot at him a few minutes previously. Mac removed his pipe, stared at me for half a minute, then exploded. 'You blanky young fool!' he roared. 'What did you expect me to do? You sent me a note sayin, 'Stop him!' and when I did stop him for you, you say, 'Did you shoot him?' How do you expect me to stop a wild nigger running like a greyhound? Chase him on foot?'

I felt very humiliated, for I now saw that I was to blame. Old Mac glared at me, then snapped, 'What did he do, anyway?' 'Sneaked into the camp and hit a lubra on the head.' 'That all?' he' growled. 'You are a young fool to trouble. When you're as old as I am you'll let the blacks settle their own affairs. Now come and have look at him.'

To my great relief I found that Adnamulaqee was not dead: he was not even badly wounded. Mac had made a wonderful shot. He had put the bullet clean through the fleshy part of both thighs, preventing the native from running; in fact, it made him as helpless as if he had been ham-strung. He lay on the ground, lean as a starved greyhound, and glared up a us like some savage beast brought down.

'Now I've got to nurse him for you,' growled Mac. 'Come on, carry him to the camp.' He turned to the native lad and said, 'You tellem Adnamulaqee whipeller no hurtem.'' The boy did so, and the wounded man let us carry him to the camp. Here we made a bed of grass, laid him on it, and Mac gave the little boy a lump of damper and told him to run home. Then he turned to me and said, 'You may as well have dinner with me.' He removed a pot of wallaby stew from the fire, ladled out three plates full, added generous hunks of damper, and filled three mugs with tea. He laid one lot beside the wounded native.

As we ate, I watched the wild native. Trembling with fear, yet obviously ravenously hungry, he smelt the food, examined it, and tried a small piece. His eyes brightened and he began to wolf the stew and damper. When the plate was empty, he tried the tea, drank it thirstily, and then lay back to watch us, with most of his fear gone and a strong curiosity taking its place.

I left after dinner, and several days elapsed before I was able to come back to see how the wounded man was faring. When I did pay a visit, I was amazed at the change. No longer did Adnamulaqee resemble a starved greyhound; he was filling out fast. Gone was all his fear of white men; happy as the proverbial sandboy, he was hobbling about the camp with his wounds nearly healed, delighting to perform any little task for Mac. I asked the prospector if he had any fear of living alone with a native with such a bad reputation, and he gave a derisive snort. 'What should I be afraid of?' he retorted. 'There's nothing wrong with that chap, except that he was never given a chance. What do you think you'd be like if you were doomed to live as an outcast all your life, with men flinging spears at you if they saw you, and women and kids shrieking and running when you appeared? Wouldn't you be half mad with loneliness? Why, that poor beggar had lived so long on his own that he'd almost forgotten how to talk! He reckons that he's 'Brother belongem me' now, and he'll do any mortal thing for me.'

Long after I ran across old Mac again, and Adnamulaqee was still with him. But what a different native he was from the half-crazy, wild man who had tried to abduct a lubra! Now he was fat and sane, walking about with a short stemmed pipe between his teeth, and wearing a happy grin; behind him walked the lubra, whom old Mac. had bought for him. 'Best nigger I ever had working for me,' growled the old prospector. 'As I told you, he only wanted a chance, like a lot of other poor beggars who are classed as criminals. He's as attached to me as a dog would be, and, for my part, I wouldn't lose him for a hundred quid!'

I have since regarded that bullet as the kindest thing that ever came into Adnamulaqee's life. It certainly led to him knowing happiness and companionship—two things to which he had been a stranger ever since the day, years previously, when the old men had driven him out of the tribe. — 'Larrapinta.'

Stockman's Terrible Death

It is doubtful whether there was ever a more tragic death in the outback than that which befell a young stock man on Terrick Terrick station, near Blackall, Western Queensland, about 25 years ago. Biding home in the late afternoon, the stockman heard some young galahs calling out as he passed beneath the hollow limb of a tree. Evidently determined to secure one or two of the young birds, he reined in his horse and by standing on the saddle, managed to get his hand and arm into the hollow wherein was the nest.

But, unfortunately for him, the horse moved away, leaving him suspended in mid air. Vain were his attempts to withdraw his arm from the hollow, and after what must have been long minutes of torture, he pulled out his knife with his free hand and began to hack away at his imprisoned arm. How long that procedure took, no one will ever know, and one can only imagine the agony and suspense suffered whilst the operation was being performed.

Eventually, however, the arm was severed, and the stockman fell to the ground. His horse gone, and weak from loss of blood, the stockman managed to stagger homewards for a few yards; but though the spirit was there, flesh and blood refused to respond. He fell and lapsed into unconsciousness in a place that could not very well have been worse— right on top of a meat ants' nest.

On the horse returning without its rider, a search party set out next morning, and when eventually the body of the unfortunate man was found, it presented a ghastly sight. During the night, and hours before death had come, myriads of meat ants had been busy on the helpless stock man, whilst in the hollow limb not far away above, little black ants fed off the arm that had been hacked off with a pocket knife.— 'Ringer.'

A Joke That Rebounded

One of the earliest buildings in Streaky Bay was the Flinders Hotel, owned by Mr. John Mudge. A frequent patron of that hotel in the eighties was a portly gentleman, whom we will call Smith. One day as Smith came out of the Flinders he noticed a wool dray standing close to the foreshore, loaded with several bales of wool and with the horses waiting patiently for the owner.

As he caught sight of these & broad grin spread over his features. 'It vould be a goot joke!' he chuckled to himself. Just then a couple of youths approached, and beckoning them he re quested their aid to help him back the dray to the edge of the shore, in order that they might tip dray and wool over on to the beach below. The youths assisted with great glee. After the dray had gone rattling over the edge of the bank, Smith contemplated it with great satisfaction. 'It vos a goot joke,' he said. 'Ven the owner comes for his vool, he vill be vild!'

Some time later, Smith entered the bar, looking very crestfallen. Mr. Mudge glanced at him enquiringly. 'What's the matter, Mr. Smith?' he asked. 'Ach!' exclaimed Smith, 'Some fool tipped my dray and vool over into the sea. Dat is not a joke. I vould give five pounds to know who did dat.' 'I wouldn't if I were you,' said Mr. Mudge quietly. 'Vy not?' flashed Smith angrily. 'Because you helped him do it,' replied Mr. Mudge. Smith looked at Mr. Mudge blankly. A vague memory troubled him. He scratched his head. 'Den I must have been very drunk,' he said, and went out to rescue his wool.— C.Y.A.

The World Is Small

The world is a small place after all! Away back in 1904 two of us, complete strangers to each other, were the only passengers on a mail coach bound from Muttaburra to Longreach, Western Queensland. At the latter town we parted, each going to destinations far apart.

Eleven years later, whilst watching some new reinforcements arrive for the unit to which I belonged in Egypt, I recognised amongst them my coach mate of 1906. That night I looked him up and old memories were revived.

The stage moves on another twenty one years, to be correct to Anzac Day, this year. A stranger in Sydney and not expecting to meet any of my unit, I had intended to take my place in the march with some friends belonging to a New South Wales battalion. Delaying a time near the falling-in point, I was surprised and pleased to see a couple of familiar faces. I was more pleased still when I learnt that quite a number of my old unit, a Queensland one, were about and that we had had a place allotted us in the march. Away the three of us went to find the others, and there lining up with some forty of the old mob was my old coach companion of 1906.

Both of us are inclining towards the sere and yellow, but I am wondering now when and where we are likely to meet again. Somewhere in the outback I suppose, unless the call comes again. —'Old Timer.'

Getting His Brother A Job

Some years ago a farmer advertised for two strong, able-bodied men. Two brothers applied for the positions and were engaged. Although the men were good workers, the farmer was not greatly impressed with their efforts. One morning one of the men approached him and applied for more help.

'There's too much work here for two men,' he said. 'I've got another brother, Dennis, who is out of work.' 'Is he a good man?' asked the employer. 'Good. Why, he's a better worker than my brother and I put together.' 'Well, send him along in the morning,' said the farmer, 'and in the meantime, if you and your brother can get another job, don't be afraid to take it.'— A.D.

Real Life Stories of South Australia (1936, May 21). Chronicle (Adelaide, SA : 1895 - 1954), p. 16. http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article92339995