11 March 1937

The Battle of Jasper Gorge

Women Play Their Part In Aboriginal Attack

We thought that most of our troubles were over with regard to the cartage of food supplies to a distant north-western Queensland cattle run. In the preliminary stages of settling some thousands of breeders on the newly acquired country, keeping up the tucker supply was a game of chance.

We had to travel 400 miles to the nearest port over country which made waggon travel a soul-corroding job. When there was a chance to look round, a passage through a great gorge down river made possible the idea of forming a new depot for stores which would involve only ninety miles of land travel.

It is true that we would have to depend on windjammer craft to negotiate nearly 400 miles of coast line, yet in general, the ten-ton luggers managed to beat along the coast most of the year.

But there were vivid possibilities of disaster in the newly discovered gorge route, for that narrow defile was the stronghold of an extremely warlike tribe of natives. Those warriors of the gorge country were, without exception, marksmen 0f the first order. Up to that date they had never been opposed by any show of force, and the odd venturesome whites who had got within cooee of the range were wiped out without knowing where death came from. Savages though they were, during our marking of the route to be later followed by the station teams, no hostility was shown. As a matter of fact we never saw a nigger, though we were well aware that hundreds of eyes followed our movements. We were too strong a party.

With blazed line completed and odd patches of the worst boulders shifted, the new road was declared open. Two sturdy five-ton horse waggons furnished the wheeled transport. Two equally sturdy teamsters in Jack and George handled the job. Five smart native boys with no tribal connection with the wild folk of the gorge acted as assistants. All hands were well armed. Both white teamsters were men who had had much experience of outback life and of the many precautions necessary to beat the natives at their own game.

The first trip was made. Each day's stage had been decided on, and the various night camps picked with due regard to defence should an attack occur. The most dangerous portion through the rugged range walls would be negotiated in daylight, either going down to the depot or returning. Everything seemed quite satisfactory and worked smoothly for the first year.

The second season arrived and our stock camp was down to starvation mark ere the waggons got started. " I'll shake the first two loads along," promised Jack, the head teamster. "Don't throw away any chances with them niggers,'' advised the head stockman, Dick. 'They are too damn quiet for my liking," he added. Dick was a topnotch all round bush-man, and seldom had much to say.

"Righto, Dick," replied Jack, "but I think the bucks have taken a tumble to themselves and know we will shoot on sight." "That's right enough," replied Dick, "but take it from me, those gorge niggers know a bit, and when they make a move, there'll be something doing."

The teams and their escort jolted off on what was to prove an eventful journey. "Put up smoke when you are through the gorge on the back trip, " said Dick. Jack promised. Our stock camp circled the country towards the depot for the following week and more. Dick's mind was ill at ease. For some unaccountable reason others of us sensed some coming disaster. We tried to console ourselves with the thought that even the daring gorge bucks would not face seven rifles.

The days passed. It was time that the smoke signal showed. We watched and waited, but no sign of a column of smoke could be seen. There were ragged wisps, however, extending westward through the range. Some thing had occurred. Those wisps told of natives travelling fairly fast. Either they had scored a reverse and were getting well back, or — no time was lost, native stockboys and all, some twenty of us rode hard for the big black gorge.

Long before we reached the northern entrance of the narrow passage we knew that some serious mishap had occurred. A mile back from the gorge mouth should have been the teamsters' camp, yet within a stone's throw of the entrance we saw the looted waggons. There was not a vestige of any stores left, bar oddments of hard-ware too heavy for and of no use to the marauders. Bags of salt formed into a rough barricade denoted the teamsters' breastwork of defence. Blood stains on the ground told of serious wounds. Not a cartridge shell of the heavy old Snider rifles with which the five native boys were armed could be found. Heaps of Winchester spent shells showed where the white men had done their shooting.

We scouted round north in the direction of the depot. Bit by bit we were able to form an opinion of what had occurred. Two heavy horse tracks were visible making back— horses that were ridden barebacked with team winkers instead of bridles.

"Looks like those blasted waggon boys joined up with the wild mob." said Dick. "Jack and George got away on a couple of the team horses some-how, and one or both of them is badly hurt." Further scouting revealed the fact that some of the gorge women had apparently decoyed the waggon boys away prior to the attack.

Jack and George must have got off before day-light, twenty-four hours before our arrival. We followed the tracks to the depot, but found only an isolated landing. A closer search revealed that both men had reached, the spot and had been taken away by some craft other than the usual lugger. Two fagged out draught horses were found— the leaders of George's team. Both were bloodstained with their respective riders' gore. We solved the transport mystery by conjecture. Rumor had told us that an oil-burning launch was likely to be tested in place of the wind-jammer craft, and we assumed that the wounded men had been taken off in it. Months might elapse before we heard more of the two teamsters.

Our immediate job was to follow the natives and find the missing waggon boys. Through the heart of the rugged range westward we followed the native tracks. Nor was it long before further explanation of the situation was revealed. At one night-camp the gorge warriors had slain three of the waggon boys. We had reckoned on that part working out just as it had. There were five broken rifles and three mutilated black bodies.

Snowball and Harry had still to be accounted for— the two oldest natives of the waggon outfit. Somewhere they had escaped, and would eventually turn up at the station homestead. Of that we felt reasonably sure.

We made contact with the wild mob. With some sense of justice the older men of the tribe were picked out. There was no desire to do more than make them understand the old law of an eye for an eye. In that situation at that time force had to be met with force. Today, nearly fifty years later, the same methods are still observed.

We returned to the station home-stead to find the waggon boy Harry in chains. He had made a voluntary surrender. "Where Snowball?" we questioned "Alligator got him when we swam river higher up," replied the boy. We got his version of the attack. It was the old, old tale of Eve at the wheel, as it were.

"We camped close to gorge," related Harry, "because Jack wanted to hurry up home. Us boys took horses back a good bit to grass, and some young lubras met us. That's what made us boys clear out after dark and go with the bush blacks. Jack and George must have known pretty soon after we sneaked off, because they built up salt and flour bags. About the middle of the night us boys start shooting at the waggons, but it too dark to shoot straight. We only had five cartridges each, and after we shot them all away, no shots come from waggons. Them wild mob reckon two fella man must be dead, and some of them sneak up with spears and waddies. Then Jack and George start shooting, and four bush niggers was killed and some more hit. They race back to rocks again. All the mob throw spears together and wait quiet. Then the mob rush out with spears, but two white men keep shooting. Wild mob come back and sit down quiet. They wait for daylight. When daylight come, two fella, Jack and George not there. Them two old leaders belongta George's team al-ways come up lookin' for a bit of damper."

Months later a party of horsemen hove in sight near sundown. They were travellers making for the western goldfields. How the lads howled a welcome when the tall, spare figure of teamster George was identified. Their mirth took on a more subdued tone at the absence of Jack. With a sigh of relief we learned that sturdy Jack still lived, but with a leg so badly crippled that his days of active service were over.

Bluntly George told the story of the few hours' desperate defence in the darkness, when the great gorge re-echoed to the sound of yelling, blood-thirsty savages, and showers of spears were rained at that little re-doubt built of salt and flour bags.

"We both knew it was a damn risky camp" he said, "but never reckoned on the boys deserting. But they could not have been gone long before we knew, and that really saved the situation. We bucked in, piling up the salt and flour bags, and before we finished the shooting started.

"Jack got speared in the back of the knee early. He was as game as they're made, however, and kept his Winchester talking. Not long afterwards, a glasshead spear ripped through my cheek, and I bled like a stuck pig. We both tried to bandage one another any time we could, and another spear got me in the side. I thought it was a cooee that time, but Jack whipped a twisted towel round the wound and twitched it tight. Those niggers came bang up to us for a rush or two, but we scored every time, and that steadied them. There should have been a few lying round, when you chaps landed."

"They were carried off by the mob," we told George. "Both Jack and myself can be called good horsemasters," continued George, "but I've got a habit of pet-ting up my team, and the leaders would often turn up well before day-light, certain of a bit of damper when the billy boiled. It was them that really saved us, and although they had never carried a rider before, they took no notice when we mounted them. Of course, it had to be a bare-back flutter, with winkers instead, of bridles. Anyhow, I doubt if either of us could have saddled a horse. The bucks had a good idea we were pretty sick, and kept well amongst the rocks, waiting for daylight to finish the job."

We told George of our hunt and the fate of the four waggon boys. "That'll just tell you," said the tall bushman. "Those boys knew, sooner or later, that the gorge warriors would kill them. Yet the temptation offered was too great. There's mighty little difference, most of the way, be-tween white and black, when the other sex has a say."

The incident related gave rise to many exaggerated tales of blacks being shot down without mercy, because from that date comparatively few of the long jawed, bony gorge tribe have existed. As they had lived by the spear, so most of them perished by the spear. In their haste to get away from the pursuing stock-riders they split up into small parties. An equally strong tribe of the upper river country got wind of their disorganised state. But a few of the gorge dwellers escaped, and their women and children were absorbed by the river natives.

So quite early in those years of new settlement the great black defile of Jasper Gorge, inhospitable as it must ever look, was free of its former fierce tenants. Great changes have been wrought in the manner of living in those former remote parts of which I write. The wonders of wireless and ships of the air have converted the wilds to suburban proportions by comparison. Only the rugged gorge of Jasper remains still grim and forbidding. — "CULKAH."

Subsequent to the Jasper George attack, a reprisal massacre was carried out in which 60 aboriginals died.

Mulligan and Ligar were attacked at TK (Tom Kilfoyle) Camp on Jasper Gorge on 14 May 1895. A police party that included stockmen, tried to arrest a man named Major but the stockman concerned had a gun that "accidentally fired, killing Major." It was at this time that Harry was arrested and gaoled. He was later acquitted.

It was probably in about February 1896 that police - notably Mounted Constable E O'Keefe - persuaded two Aboriginal women to entice a "big mob" [15-20+?] of Pilinara men to the police station to build a stock yard in return for the policeman providing tobacco and being a "good boss". When the men came to the station in the afternoon, they were chained together, which the women told them was to make them "little bit quiet. Like a dog." Police trackers, who had been hiding in the creek bed, were ordered into the station. One man was kicked in the ribs before all the men were lined up and shot. Their bodies were taken to the nearby creek bed where they were piled and burnt. Oral histories record: "They puttem big mob of wood, there, top of him. And chuckem kerosene, strike some matches, and burnem. Lot. No anything left, eh. All ashes. Burnem finish. Lot."

https://c21ch.newcastle.edu.au/colonialmassacres/detail.php?r=722

Solving A Mystery

Some years ago I happened to be the means of proving the innocence of two notorious 'bad men' in Queensland. A middle-aged man who had been working in Cloncurry for some years disappeared, and all attempts to locate him proved futile. He was known to have possessed a fair amount of ready cash, and just before his disappearance had been to Brisbane on a holiday.

On the same boat with him were a couple of well known sharpers. These visitors disappeared about the same time as the man referred to. Enquiries as to the records of the two men showed them to be dangerous characters, and they were arrested at another township, and held on suspicion. Two months passed and nothing was heard of the missing miner.

One Saturday afternoon I and two mates from the survey camp shot a huge crocodile, which cleared up the mystery. When in Brisbane the miner had bought some goods at a sale of Government railway articles— old uniforms, lost property, &c. Among the things he had purchased was an old guard's coat, with the buttons identifiable by the crown and lettering.

When we opened the crocodile these buttons were found still sewn on the coat, and very little the worse for the action of the gastric juices upon the metal. The detective in charge of the case liberated the men whom he had arrested, being quite satisfied that the missing man had lain down in a drunken sleep and been taken by the crocodile. — J.R.

An Unrehearsed Incident

What has become of the spielers who were once such a feature of country shows? It is true that some still exist, but their methods are more subtle today than they once were.

Some years ago a show was held at Salisbury, and those who attended were provided with an unrehearsed incident. A young farmer had that afternoon received his fortnight's wages, £5, but he lost them in less than ten seconds. An enterprising crook was operating a game known as 'thimble and pea.'

He had a folding table on which were three thimbles and a pea. It was the spectator's task to lift the thimble which covered the elusive pea. Two men in the audience won two pounds each in quick succession. It was revealed later, however, that they were confederates of the swindler. It was his custom to move the thimbles quickly and then turn his head (supposedly to see if the police were approaching). While his back was turned the two accomplices would lift up the two thimbles.

The young man naturally thought that the pea must be under the third thimble, so he asked the speiler if he would bet five pounds. The reply, of course, was in the affirmative. The gullible youth then handed over, his hard earned wages, and lifted the thimble that had not previously been raised, but there was no pea there. The confidence man merely smiled and said, 'Hard luck!'

The loser was staggered for a moment, but when he recovered his equilibrium he went home to inform his brother. Later developments proved that the latter was no stranger in the boxing ring.

The burly brother approached the swindler, who was shouting, 'Who's next?' 'I'm next,' said the ex-boxer, and with that he picked up the table and with it hit the speiler over the head. His two confederates then rushed to his aid, but with a straight left the pugilist knocked one into a creek and the other unconscious. Then he gripped the magsman and after dipping him in a horse trough ran him off to the lockup. Needless to mention that after he had regained his freedom that speiler never again put in an appearance at Salisbury.

Real Life Stories of South Australia (1937, March 11). Chronicle (Adelaide, SA : 1895 - 1954), p. 47. http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article92467067