Confronting Murderous Men, page 20
Those two white men who came by boat were killed first. At Ningari (Woodah Island)…
Q. Where were they killed?
A. On a boat. At Ningari.
Q. Whose boat was it?
A. It belonged to them. White boat…
Q. Why were the two white men killed?
A. They took Aboriginal ladies.
Q. Who did they take?
A. Number one was Wamirapu, my ngandi (mother). They took me. I was a young girl. And some other women.
Q. Who killed the two white men?
A. My husband. Merara. One more. Djimbaryun.
Q. Dhakiyara [Dhaakiyarr] was your husband?
A. Yes.
Egan explained that through gestures – and a lot of laughter – he learned that nhukanmirri was the verb for sexual intercourse and established that the crude English translation was ‘fuck’.
Q. Marrma blanda, walala nhukanmirri nhuna? (The two white men, did they fuck you?)
A. Yo. Bukmak. (Yes. Everybody.)
Q. What about the white policeman? Did he fuck you?
A No. The policeman who was handcuffed to us did not do anything to the Yolŋgu ladies.
Q. How many ladies were there?
A. One white policeman was sitting with four ladies.
Q. How many policemen altogether?
A. Five balanda. Five Yolŋgu. One tracker was named Djupainma.
Q. When the policeman was speared, were you handcuffed?
A. No. The handcuff was open then. Only chain [holds her wrists]. Like puppy dog.
We were sitting quietly. Only one white man. I got a signal from my husband.
Q. What kind of signal?
A. He talked to me on his fingers. He said, ‘I will kill him’. I passed my fingers in front of my face [gestures].
Q. What does that mean?
A. It means ‘Don’t kill him.’ He said, ‘I’ll kill him. Give me room.’
Q. What was the country like?
A. The policeman was in the open area. My husband was on the edge of the bush.
Q. Did the policeman fire his revolver?
A. He fired the revolver after he had the spear inside him…
Q. How long did the policeman hold you?
A. One day. That afternoon the policeman was killed.
The name Djupainma did not mean anything to Egan at the time, but subsequent inquiries revealed he was Big Pat, the tracker with the party on Woodah Island. It was the first time it had become known he was Djaparri’s brother, and it had taken 43 years to discover.
Rather than having sinister overtones, silence on the matter was probably due to mirriri, a societal force that calls for avoidance of one’s sister. A man must not refer to her by name or associate with her or even look at her.
Djaparri stated that she and the other women had been held for one day and not the two that had been suggested. This accords with the women being detained on 1 August.
It had become clear that Wonggu’s sons, Mäw, Natjiyalma and Ngarkaya, had killed the five Japanese fishermen at Caledon Bay on 17 September 1932 for insulting Wonggu and interference with their women.
About 100 kilometres south, on Woodah Island, sometime in March 1933, Dhaakiyarr, Merara and Djimbaryun killed Traynor and Fagan for interfering with their women.
Nearly five months later, on 1 August 1933, the investigating party under Constable Morey held four Aboriginal women for questioning, three of whom appeared to be Dhaakiyarr’s wives; as a result, Dhaakiyarr speared the sole officer guarding them while the others searched for their menfolk. Constable McColl fired off shots after he was mortally wounded. McColl was killed because he was detaining one of Dhaakiyarr’s wives, the other women having run off, but also because the killer knew something the police did not; he and others had killed Traynor and Fagan. He needed distance between himself, his people and the police party. He may have assumed the police knew of the killings and were in the area to investigate it. This chronology was unknown until late 1933 and still the authorities believed the offences, when all were discovered, had been committed by the one clan.
* * *
On 19 January 1934, the peace party went ashore and met Dhaakiyarr. They found the people scared and nervous, as they feared an imminent attack by Wonggu. For this reason, Dhaakiyarr would not accompany Dyer and the others to the scene of Traynor and Fagan’s slaying. The party went to Woodah Island, where Dyer found human bones on a beach, which he collected and later gave to Morey. Gray was of the opinion the remains were those of William Fagan.
The missionaries sailed on to Caledon Bay on 23 January, where they were met by a friendly Wonggu, who gave them permission to set up a mission. After moving back to Woodah Island on 1 March 1934, they again interviewed Dhaakiyarr. Warren reported that he admitted killing McColl because he had taken his wife. She had called out to Dhaakiyarr. This time they were told that McColl had fired one shot but missed, and then he was speared. All of this questioning appears to have taken place by sitting down with the group as a whole and this may have contaminated their accounts, apart from the obvious language difficulties. More clarity may have been achieved had they followed police procedure and interviewed each alone.
On 16 March, Warren conducted a funeral service for William Fagan on Groote Eylandt and the following day took the four resident police and three trackers to Roper Bar. From there the police rode on horseback carrying McColl’s remains in a box to Mataranka, where they caught a train to Darwin. The missionary pseudo-investigators should have also taken Fagan’s remains.
Dyer had declined to take Gray and his three charges, Mäw, Natjiyalma and Ngarkaya, with Dhaakiyarr and Merara, to Darwin as the mission society didn’t want to be associated with police work – a strange assessment given the task they had undertaken for the government. Gray hired the cutter Oituli after the missionaries gained government money for him to do so and he readied to travel to Darwin with Dyer, the five men and others, including a witness named Parriner, when they were collected. In the meantime, Dhaakiyarr and Merara and others made their way by canoe in rough conditions to Groote Eylandt to take the journey for discussions with the ‘big boss’. On 25 March 1934, after some false starts when Dhaakiyarr and Merara had been absent without leave, they departed for Darwin, and Warren and Fowler took the Holly to Thursday Island en route to Melbourne.
Defying Dyer’s wishes, Gray went ashore at Trial Bay to meet with Wonggu and collect Mäw, Natjiyalma and Ngarkaya. Dyer was concerned he would lose Dhaakiyarr and Merara again.
The next morning, Dhaakiyarr and Merara did go missing, angering Dyer, who went ashore to look for them. He was met by the spectacle of a file of men emerging from the bush led by Wonggu wearing Andy Wright’s shirt. Following were Dhaakiyarr, Merara, Natjiyalma, Ngarkaya, the Holtze brothers and Andy Wright, ready for the voyage.
Seemingly no longer concerned with his charges escaping, Dyer insisted on calling into Milingimbi, Goulburn Island and Cape Don lighthouse for ministrations before they continued to Darwin, reaching there at 3 am on 8 April 1934. By now there were 19 men on the Oituli and as dawn broke, they had a swim and Dyer and Gray prepared to bargain with authorities.
Morey’s party arrived in Darwin the day after Oituli and Constable McColl’s remains were taken to the Darwin Hospital mortuary.
Caledon and Blue Mud Bay inquiry moves to Darwin
Dyer met with Superintendent Stretton and the talks did not go well. That afternoon a police truck arrived, arrested the five men for murder and took them to the police cells. Gray and Dyer’s protests were dismissed as their well-intentioned manoeuvres dissolved into black-letter law. Dyer’s naïvety and ignorance was highlighted when he was called to the cells to pacify the Yolŋgu men, who thought they were going to be killed imminently and screamed when seeing other prisoners in handcuffs. They struggled with police when touched. The situation was not helped by the police not speaking their language and the Yolŋgu not speaking English, something that seems to have eluded Dyer’s sanctimonious deliberations.
The arrests caused uproar in the southern press, but the north was not about to yield to such propitiousness. The attitude of southerners was displayed when Warren, on his return to Melbourne, called into Sydney and was given a hero’s welcome. He was not buoyed by the news of the Yolŋgu having been imprisoned and the weasel words of Perkins glossing over their detention as them being nominally in gaol, whatever that meant, and that they were being treated well. He claimed to get daily reports showing they were quite happy and hoped Mr Warren would never regret having brought them back. Undoubtedly, he already did.
As he spoke, the government was so anxious about the impending trials and their outcome that they announced a proposal to amend the relevant act so the mandatory death penalty would be amended to provide:
…where an Aboriginal native is convicted the Court may impose such penalty as appears to the Court to be just and proper…the purposes of determining the nature and extent of the penalty to be imposed where an Aboriginal native is convicted of murder the Court shall receive and consider any evidence which may be tendered as to any relevant native law or custom and its application to the facts of the case and any evidence which may be tendered in mitigation of penalty.
The mandatory death penalty for murder had been removed for Aboriginal people and further legislation was being considered to introduce a special system of conducting their trials. It is more than possible the new provisions were to guard against excesses of the new judge of the Northern Territory Supreme Court, Thomas ‘Tommy’ Wells, who was appointed in August 1933. Born near Wagga Wagga, he had served in France as a gunner in World War I and had become a court reporter on his return and therefore a competent shorthand writer. He studied law under a returned soldier’s scholarship and was admitted to the New South Wales Bar in 1927. He soon made his mark with criticism of southerners and his judgement sometimes included scathing remarks against southern do-gooders and ratbags. He ran foul of the Association for the Protection of Native Races, who found him intractable and inflexible.
By March 1934, Joseph Carrodus became acting administrator while Weddell was on leave. Wells had attracted the reputation of a hanging judge and the government were aware of complaints against him in the short time he had been on the bench. He had sentenced eight Aboriginal people to death for the murder of two white prospectors, Hoch and Arinski, in the Fitzmaurice River region in November 1932, refusing to use his discretion on sentence under the new ordinance. All eight men were reprieved. It is probable Carrodus was sent to watch Wells. And the police were not finished with the missionaries.
On 11 April 1934, Superintendent Stretton convened a meeting with Morey, Hall, Carrodus and Weddell. The police lodged official complaints against the peace party under Warren. They complained specifically against Warren that ‘in order to induce the Aboriginals to hand themselves over, had enlarged upon the atrocities that would be committed by the police if they were sent to capture the murderers, and in effect, did considerable damage to the prestige of the police by circulating untrue and exaggerated reports’. 19
Carrodus undertook to interview Dyer and Gray. Dr Kirkland, relieving Chief Protector of Aboriginals, was tasked with interviewing the Yolŋgu. Carrodus found the complaint unsubstantiated, although both Gray and Dyer admitted telling the Aboriginal men it would be better if they gave themselves up, Dyer adding if they did not do so the police would be sent after them, and it would be a foregone conclusion there would be casualties on both sides.
Dr Kirkland found the complaints largely substantiated having interviewed the five accused and others through four different interpreters and on two occasions using another to check the interpreter’s translation. He found that the Aboriginal men had been told they should go to Darwin with the missionaries, who would intercede on their behalf with the authorities, and they would eventually be released. The Yolŋgu men thought they would be in Darwin for about one month. He found they were told if they did not go to Darwin the police would eventually capture them and they would be hung or shot. Dr Kirkland also found that the Aboriginal men complained that at Groote Eylandt Warren and Dyer had frequently beaten natives who were doing casual work for them and food supplied to them was mainly flour and water. He noted Dyer’s comments: ‘When these savages do wrong the best way of dealing with them is to give them a good beating. They almost grow to love afterwards and respect a man who goes among them like a Mussolini.’
Kirkland found that the missionaries must have realised that the promise of safe conduct and quick return from Darwin was one of doubtful fulfilment. This was the impression the Aboriginal people now had of police methods, which would add grave difficulties to future administration of the area concerned and which was absolutely unjustified. Mounted Constable Morey’s leadership of the party and general conduct throughout appears to have been excellent and his attitude towards the Aboriginal people most tolerant.
He noted the Japanese at Caledon Bay had assaulted and ill-treated the natives on several occasions, attacking various individuals with sticks, fists and boots, and on one occasion shooting Mäw through the thigh.
The scar of this wound had recently broken down and was seen by me during the last few days. Apart from ill-treatment the usual trouble with lubras arose during the stay of the Japanese at Caledon Bay.
The murders of Traynor and Fagan appear to have occurred as a result of an argument about the white men taking lubras. The murder of Mounted Constable McColl apparently resulted from fear. It appears that McColl had charge of four lubras including one belonging to Dhaakiyarr. Dhaakiyarr gained the impression that the police were taking the lubra away and he followed McColl into the jungle and called out to his lubra who came back towards him, McColl following.
McColl first saw Dhaakiyarr at a distance of some twenty or thirty paces. No doubt the sight of an Aboriginal man with spears and woomera under such conditions gave McColl the idea that Dhaakiyarr was about to attack him, whatever the latter’s intentions may have been. McColl fired two shots at Dhaakiyarr and the latter then speared McColl through the chest. I cannot give credence to the suggestion that McColl had anything to do with the lubra. It is impossible to conceive that a man could ever consider such conduct in atmosphere of excitement and tension which must have prevailed at the time.
Dr William Kirkland was a medical doctor and a World War I veteran who had served in France as a field artillery gunner. He had been a 19-year-old clerk at the time of enlisting. Consequently, he was no pushover and appears to have conducted a thorough inquiry with the best options available for interpreting what his witnesses were saying. Carrodus, on the other hand, reported that he accepted the accounts of Dyer and Gray over those of the Aboriginal people spoken to by Dr Kirkland, but in the long run their view didn’t really matter. The damage had been done and the bigger issue was the impending trials of the accused.
The interactions between Joseph Carrodus and Herbert Brown were telling. In his report Carrodus wrote:
Either of two lines of action may be adopted: to permit the law to have its course and rely upon the amendment of the Criminal Law Consolidation Act to secure lenient treatment at the hands of the Judge; or to withdraw the proceedings, keep the Aboriginals for a short period in Darwin, treat them well and send them back as emissaries of peace to their tribes.
It is certain that the Government will be criticised whatever course is adopted, and probably it will be considered that the adoption of course number (1) is the most appropriate method of dealing with the matter.20
Brown had his say, focusing on Carrodus’ summary of Dr Kirkland’s investigations:
What right have the police to capture and hold four lubras who are not being accused of any wrong? Apparently McColl was the aggressor in firing first. Quite a natural conclusion from the Aboriginal (to think that McColl intended to, or had interfered with his lubra.)
Brown agreed with Kirkland and Carrodus ‘that it would be highly unlikely that McColl had any intention of interfering with the lubra … the husband’s views might quite reasonably be quite different. In any case what right had the police to detain his lubra?’
Although the views of these two men were next to irrelevant they do give an insight to the working of government advisors. To question the right of police to hold the women and in the same breath suggest detaining the men in Darwin for a short time, treat them well and send them back as emissaries was the height of hypocrisy. And how a hidebound bureaucrat in Canberra could adjudge McColl as the aggressor, though puzzling, is easily answered. The dead cannot defend themselves.
As the accused men languished in gaol the deliberations seeking to allay political inconvenience trundled on slowly. On 16 April, a coronial inquest was held into the death of Constable McColl and Dhaakiyarr was committed to stand trial for his murder.
Six days later the remains of Albert McColl were buried in the Darwin Garden Cemetery; his brother Walter Stewart McColl permitted a Rationalist funeral service after gaining assistance from federal member Harold ‘HG’ Nelson to have his remains re-interred. Nelson gave a splendid eulogy, though he strayed a little from the Rationalist line with mentions of an afterlife to be hoped for and the Bible. The missionaries were upset by the Rationalist service.
It was the largest funeral seen in Darwin at the time and was to honour police generally, surely, as McColl had only served there for two weeks before going to Roper Bar. He had joined the Northern Territory police on 25 May 1929, serving on the South West Patrol from Alice Springs, and later Darwin, from November 1932.
