Aboriginal tracker

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As an Aboriginal tracker, Tommy Windich participated in numerous expeditions to Western Australia in the 1860s and 1870s

Aboriginal trackers were Australian indigenous trackers and trackers who served with British settlers, explorers and the police. When the British came to Australia in 1788, they were unable to read the landscape, the climate, the tracks left by animals or to determine whether plants were edible. The British did not know how to find water points in the barren landscape and how to keep them clean. These skills were vital to the traditional Aboriginal people and were taught to them from childhood.

First tracker

The first two Aboriginal trackers, Mogo and Mollydobbin , were used in Western Australia near Fremantle in 1834 to find a five-year-old boy who had been lost in the arid landscape there. They found him after a ten hour search. In 1864, three children were missing for nine days after heavy rain near Wimmera , Victoria . When the black tracker , called King Richard or Dick-a-Dick , was then used, they were found alive and well after a day's search.

colonization

When European settlers colonized inland Australia after finding a way across the Blue Montains in 1813 , they needed the Aboriginal trackers. The British explorers took advantage of the indigenous guides, who not only could read the landscape, but also communicate with other Aboriginal peoples . The trackers knew ways through the country, places for water and food, could lead back lost expedition members. They also acted as ambassadors and interpreters between indigenous peoples and Europeans, knew the customs and habits of both sides and respected the cultural customs of the Aborigines. They also enabled the peaceful crossing of tribal areas and they paid attention to the tribal borders.

For example, John Piper , an Aboriginal tracker, led Thomas Mitchell on his expedition across the Great Dividing Range .

The German Australian researcher Ludwig Leichhardt also took Aboriginal trackers with him on his three major research trips.

Edward John Eyre had a tracker named Wylie who became his friend. They were the first men to cross Australia from east to west across the Nullarbor Plain from Adelaide to Albany . Wylie saved the life of Eyre, who would have been lost without him. Wylie found water and hunted kangaroos to keep them from starving. As a thank you, Eyre paid him a lifelong pension.

In contrast, Robert Burke and William Wills did not use Aboriginal trackers on their expedition from Melbourne to the Gulf of Carpentaria . This expedition led to a fiasco and ultimately to her death. Despite Aboriginal advice, they were unable to prepare food like the Aboriginal people. This way they ingested plant poison. They noticed that they were getting weaker and weaker, but didn't know why and died.

Native Police Corps

As early as the early 1800s, Aborigines were tasked with searching for escaped convicts and criminals. They were also called bushrangers and were used to search for other Aborigines.

The first experience with a police force formed from Aborigines was already gained in 1837; In 1842, the Port Phillip Native Police Corps were first established in New South Wales, a police force that consisted exclusively of Aborigines. They were supposed to protect gold and other transports, recapture escaped prisoners and intervene in conflicts with the indigenous people. Numerous Aborigines were killed by the Native Police Corps . In 1848, Governor Charles Fitzroy also built such a police force, which existed in New South Wales until 1859 . When the Queensland colony was spun off, this force was taken over there. The Native Police Corps were involved in numerous massacres of Aborigines, such as the Goulbolba Hill massacre that killed 300 people. There were also Native Police Corps in the Northern Territory , Western Australia and South Australia until they were dissolved in 1853.

Best known is Billibellary , who was with the Native Police Corps until he realized that they were being used to exterminate the Aboriginal people. Jandamarra , for example, was before he freed insurgents of his people, until 1894 as a tracker in a police station.

Modern times

In 1902 Lord Kitchener used four Aboriginal trackers, presumably from northern Queensland, in the Second Boer War in South Africa . In 1980, Aboriginal trackers found the jacket of the missing baby Azaria Chamberlain , who had been lost at the campsite on Uluru . Teddy Egan from Yuendumu is considered the most famous tracker in Australia because he helped catch two criminals who had seriously wounded two police officers. In 2000, escaped prisoners were caught with his help. He was also involved in the search for murdered English tourist Peter Falconio .

Culture

Aboriginal trackers appear in some films. The film Walkabout is about lost children in the Australian desert who are found again by an Aboriginal tracker. Rabbit-Proof Fence and The Tracker show real conditions. One Night the Moon tells the story of the search for a child whose father was with the New South Wales Police Force from 1911 to 1950 and does not want an Aboriginal to help with the search. The documentary film Black Tracker , which shows his real life , was made by his grandson Michael via the Aboriginal tracker Alexander Riley , who received a medal for his achievement in unmasking a serial killer .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Image by Dick-a-Dick on nishi.slv.vic.gov.au , accessed on February 5, 2010
  2. ^ Information on brisbanetimes.com , accessed February 6, 2010
  3. ^ Film review of The Tracker ( memento of October 30, 2009 in the Internet Archive ), accessed on February 6, 2010
  4. ^ Description of the film One Night the Moon , accessed February 6, 2010
  5. ↑ Film information on abc.net.au ( memento of February 28, 2010 in the Internet Archive ), accessed on February 6, 2010