Koonchera Point massacre | |
---|---|
Part of Australian frontier wars | |
Location | Mindiri Hole, near Lake Howitt in far north South Australia |
Date | 1880s |
Target | Aboriginal Australians |
Deaths | 200–500 |
Perpetrators | Colonial police, Aboriginal Police |
Motive | Punitive |
The Koonchera Point massacre was an attack by colonial police on Aboriginal Australians that took place at Mindiri Hole near Lake Howitt in far north South Australia in the 1880s. Part of the Australian frontier wars, sources indicate that it resulted in the deaths of between 200 and 500 Ngameni, Yawarrawarrka, Yandruwandha and Bugadji people. The event that led to the attack was the killing and eating of a bullock by Aboriginal people. The massacre was unreported by the police, but one of the five survivors related what occurred to an Arabana elder, and in 1971 he reported it to the linguist Luise Hercus. The elder described the massacre as "the end of the Mindiri people". [1]
Australian Aboriginal religion and mythology is the sacred spirituality represented in the stories performed by Aboriginal Australians within each of the language groups across Australia in their ceremonies. Aboriginal spirituality includes the Dreamtime, songlines, and Aboriginal oral literature.
Weipa is a coastal mining town in the local government area of Weipa Town in Queensland. It is one of the largest towns on the Cape York Peninsula. It exists because of the enormous bauxite deposits along the coast. The Port of Weipa is mainly involved in exports of bauxite. There are also shipments of live cattle from the port.
Gai-i is a small mountain situated between Rockhampton and Yeppoon in the state of Queensland, Australia. It is one of several igneous volcanic plug formations that feature on the landscape near the Capricorn Coast. The mountain is situated on a site known as Gawula, which is administered by the Gawula Aboriginal Land Trust. Traditionally home to a group of Aboriginal Australians known as the Darumbal people, it was returned to them in 2007 under the Aboriginal Land Act.
The Pilbara strike was a landmark strike by Indigenous Australian pastoral workers in the Pilbara region of Western Australia. The strike lasted between 1946 and 1949, and was the longest industrial action in Australian history.
Australian native police were specialised mounted military units consisting of detachments of Aboriginal troopers under the command of White officers appointed by colonial governments. These units existed in various forms in colonial Australia during the nineteenth and, in some cases, into the twentieth centuries. From temporary base camps and barracks, Native Police were primarily used to patrol the often vast geographical areas along the colonial frontier in order to conduct indiscriminate raids and punitive expeditions against Aboriginal people. The Native Police proved to be a brutally destructive instrument in the disintegration and dispossession of Indigenous Australians. Armed with rifles, carbines and swords, they were also deployed to escort surveying groups, gold convoys and groups of pastoralists and prospectors.
The Wemba-Wemba are an Aboriginal Australian people in north-Western Victoria and south-western New South Wales, Australia, including in the Mallee and the Riverina regions. They are also known as the Wamba-Wamba.
The Djargurd Wurrong are Aboriginal Australian people of the Western district of the State of Victoria, and traditionally occupied the territory between Mount Emu Creek and Lake Corangamite.
Gordon Briscoe AO was an Aboriginal Australian academic and activist. In 1997, he was awarded a PhD from the Australian National University. He was also a soccer player.
The Gulidjan people, also known as the Kolakngat, or Colac tribe, are an Aboriginal Australian tribe whose traditional lands cover the Lake Colac region of the state of Victoria, Australia. They occupied the grasslands, woodlands, volcanic plains and lakes region east of Lake Corangamite, west of the Barwon River and north of the Otway Ranges. Their territory bordered the Wathaurong to the north, Djargurd Wurrung to the west, Girai Wurrung to the south-west, and Gadubanud to the south-east.
The Australian frontier wars were the violent conflicts between Indigenous Australians and primarily British settlers during the colonial period of Australia.
Wanggamala, also spelt Wanggamanha, Wangkamahdla, Wangkamadla, Wangkamanha, Wangkamana, Wonkamala, Wongkamala, Wonkamudla, and other variants, is an extinct Australian Aboriginal language of the Pama–Nyungan family, previously spoken in the Northern Territory around Hay River and to the south of the Andegerebinha-speaking area.
The Paakantyi, or Barkindji or Barkandji, are an Australian Aboriginal tribal group of the Darling River basin in Far West New South Wales, Australia.
The Ngarigo people are Aboriginal Australian people of southeast New South Wales, whose traditional lands also extend around the present border with Victoria. They are named for their language, Ngarigo, which in the 19th century was said to be spoken by the Nyamudy people.
Luise Anna Hercus, née Schwarzschild, was a German-born linguist who lived in Australia from 1954. After significant early work on Middle Indo-Aryan dialects (Prakrits) she had specialised in Australian Aboriginal languages since 1963, when she took it up as a hobby. Works authored or co-authored by her are influential, and often among the primary resource materials on many languages of Australia.
The Maraura or Marrawarra people are an Aboriginal group whose traditional lands are located in Far West New South Wales and South Australia, Australia.
The Arabana, also known as the Ngarabana, are an Aboriginal Australian people of South Australia.
Margaret Clare Sharpe is a linguist of Australian Aboriginal languages, specializing in Yugambeh-Bundjalung languages, with particular regard to Yugambir, She has also done important salvage fieldwork on the Northern Territory Alawa language.
Several recorded instances of mass poisonings of Aboriginal Australians occurred during the British colonisation of Australia. Aboriginal resistance to colonisation led settlers to look for ways to kill or drive them off their land. While the settlers would typically attempt to eliminate Aboriginal resistance through massacres, occasionally they would attempt to secretly poison them as well. Typically, poisoned food and drink would be given to Aboriginal people or left out in the open where they could find it.
Janet Elizabeth Mathews, née Russell, was an Australian pianist, music teacher, and documenter of Aboriginal music, language and culture in New South Wales, who added greatly to the Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies archives. She collaborated with linguist Luise Hercus. In addition to several books on Aboriginal culture, she also authored three children's books.