Bedford Downs massacre
The Bedford Downs massacre took place in 1924 south of Wyndham in Western Australia in the Kimberleys , near the Bedford Downs ranching station , which is west of Turkey Creek .
event
Some Aborigines from the Kija tribe killed a cattle to satisfy their hunger. They were captured and sent to prison. After they were released, they had to walk the 200 kilometers back to Bedford Downs cattle breeding station . On the way they had to cut wood for their corpses to be cremated later. After this work, they were served food poisoned with strychnine on the orders of the owner of the stockbreeding station . The bodies were then cremated. Rod Moran doubted that the massacre took place as he could not find any evidence of it. Missing evidence is by no means surprising due to many historical factors, since the Aborigines did not write down their experiences, the events go back far into the past and some of them are only passed on orally or in pictures.
Bedford Downs massacre in the arts
The Bedford Downs Massacre was depicted by Aboriginal painters Paddy Bedford and Rover Thomas and his wife Queenie McKenzie , also a successful painter. The paintings about the Aboriginal massacre are part of the Rover series “Killing Times” with the pictures “Bedford Downs” (1985) and “Mistake Creek” (1990). His wife Queenie painted a picture she named Massacre and Rover Thomas Story - Texas Downs Country .
Paddy Bedford stated on this massacre: My mother, my father, my uncles, they are all gone. [...] That's why I come to painting for their stories. (German: My mother, my father, my uncles, everyone has gone. [...] That is why I came to painting, to their story.)
At the International Arts Festival in Perth in 2002 the world premiere of the theatrical performance of Fire, Fire Burning Bright , which takes up the Bedford Dows massacre as a theme.
Individual evidence
- ↑ http://goliath.ecnext.com/coms2/gi_0199-839887/Was-there-a-massacre-at.html (link not available)
- ↑ a b ABC 7:30 report ( Memento from April 27, 2006 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ What There a Massacre at Bedford Downs? ( Memento of July 30, 2007 in the web archive archive.today ) Rod Moran, Quadrant Magazine
- ^ Rover Thomas: I want to paint , National Gallery of Victoria ( Memento June 5, 2009 in the Internet Archive )
- ^ Rover Thomas: I want to paint ( Memento from July 16, 2010 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ Massacre and Rover Thomas Story - Texas Downs Country (1996)
- ↑ http://www.smh.com.au/news/arts/late-bloom-from-a-black-and-white-world/2006/12/04/1165080877633.html