El Problema de M´ınimos Cuadrados

our party went out a mile from camp to prospect &C, one got speared through the heart, he died, one through the head he is all right and one got a spear through his hat. All hands out (Wolfe, R.T.S. 1886:12).

Travelling back to Wyndham in 1886 after chasing the Spear Creek ambush party^Wolfe was greeted with the news of John D u r a c k ’s killing and promptly

joined the chase, unsuccessful, after the

perpetrators (Wolfe, R.T.S. 1886:24-5). According to the D u r a c k ’s eulogist, Mary Durack, ’Big J o h n n y ’ and his young cousin were surprised while mustering horses on the Rosewood boundary when: "...the spear had flashed out of the long cane grass on the river bank but the doomed man had galloped on three

hundred yards before he slumped and fell to the ground." He nevertheless had time to gasp " I ’m done

for, son. Ride for your life " to young John who brought the news to Lissadell (Durack. M. 1983:299- 3 00 ) . 12

These surprise attacks on the colonists>as they attempted to establish themselves,were by no means

12 The Measure of Mary Durack’s florid eabellishMent of her sources can be gained by contrasting P.M. Durack’s recollection: "...a spear struck hin in the heart, but he galloped for about 150 yards. He said: " I ’m done!" and died" (Durack, P.M. 1933:43).

confined to the East Kimberley, nor were they only directed against the pastoralists. In August 1913, five years after the settlement of Kalumburu

mission at Pago-Pago in the far north; it was surrounded by a force of seventy-four men and twenty-nine women who demanded food from the

gardens. Having obtained it.^they attacked. One monk was wounded and the attackers driven off,

presumably by rifle fire (Deakin, H. 1978:21). Port George IV Mission (Kunmunya), also on the north coast, was built on stilts against attack and also experienced a massed ambush which was defused

wTithout incident (McKenzie, M. 1969:74). The first attempt to establish Forrest River Mission in 1897 ended after several attacks on the missionaries

(Biskup, P. 1973:48-9). In the west,the loss of Anthony Cornish and a Swan River Aboriginal

shepherd, Neah, within a few months of arriving^ was only one of several attacks (Cornish, H.

1880:11,21-3,28-9). Cornish wrote in his diary: The natives are very troublesome, the mosquitoes are terrible; there are all sorts of dangers to contend with. Night after night we are on watch with our revolvers in our belts and rifles by our sides, not knowing what minute they will make an attack

(Cornish, H. 1880:15).

On one occasion the homestead was surrounded by Aborigines, three of them walking forward

apparently unarmed. Cornish and his companions rushed out and opened fire, killing one and dispersing the rest. Only after this did they realise the approaching Aborigines had clubs hanging behind their backs from a string around their necks, and were trailing Long spears through the grass gripped between their toes (Cornish, H. 1880:26). Burungulla station was abandoned when Hay was speared in 1925 (Nixon M. n d :27 ) . Similar

incidents occurred into the ’thirties (Idriess, I.L. 1947:78). Hostilities did not cease, however, as Aboriginal groups congregated around European homesteads and became incorporated in the new form of existence, they took place within the context of more complex inter-relationships.

Attacks by Aborigines who had become used to the presence of whites and involved with them were also quite frequent. In the West Kimberley these kind of hostilities were exemplified by Pigeon or

Jundumurra. Taken to Lennard River station as a young boy., he learned shearing and riding but

returned to the traditional country of his language group, Bunaba, when old enough for initiation. He was captured in 1889 and incarcerated in Derby prison for sheep-spearing. After a short time he was employed by the police to care for their horses, then returned to work stock at Lennard River, later absconding. He was again captured, charged with escaping from bonded service, and served his sentence as a police tracker. He was very successful in facilitating the arrest of large numbers of his own people until, on 31st October

1894, he shot the police constable with whom he -the loftier

worked while^sleeping and escaped with many

erstwhile prisoners to begin a three year campaign against the white men (Pedersen, H. 1984:8-11). One

interpretation of these events has it that Pigeon/Jundumurra was the first Aborigine to

overcome the fragmentation of Aboriginal leadership and lack of regional social cohesion by forging a guerilla army. Pigeon/Jundumurra was not the only such renegade he was simply the earliest and most successful.

In 1901;another Durack, Jerry, was killed, not by spear attack, but shot by a fifteen year-old

station boy while sitting on his verandah

(Buchanan, G. 1933:171. Durack. M. 1983:397). Again in the East Kimberley, about 1919 on Biililuna

station, an Aboriginal stockman named Banjo shot

Joe Condron, the o w n e r ;and his partner., Tim Sullivan. He turned the cattle loose from the yard, then

opened up the store and handed out its contents to the other Aboriginal stockmen before heading off with his wife towards Christmas Creek. He was

tracked by the Halls Creek police and, according to Savage, died in the following shoot-out (Willey, K. 1 9 71 : 5 3-4 )13. About the same time (1915); a similar incident occurred further east. An Aboriginal

stockman named Major ran off from Texas Downs after being abused by a white man and joined up with

another man, Nipper, once employed at Lissadell, and Dibby from Flora Valley (Buchanan, G. 1933:168- 9. Broughton, G.W. 1965:61). After a year or so in the bush they surprised an old squatter on a small lease near Ord River station and shot him. A week later they killed two white men at Blackfellow Creek, an outstation of Lissadell. While a police party was searching for them they crept into

Lissadell at night and enticed the women of the camp to spend the night with them in the creek bed while the other Aboriginal men were away searching

for them and Broughton and M.J. Durack were sieeping^heavily armed^in the homestead.

(Broughton, G.W. 1965:63-4). It was five weeks

be fore they were tracked down and shot at Nine-Mile (Broughton, G.W. 1965:64. Buchanan, G. 1933:170).

13 However, a photograph of him in custody held by the Battye Library