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Massacre of Running Waters

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The Massacre of Running Waters occurred in 1875 at Irbmangkara, a permanent water stretch of the Finke River about 200km SW of Alice Springs in the Northern Territory of Australia. The Aboriginal "Matuntara people planned the attack in the belief that a neighbouring Aboriginal group, the Southern Arrernte people, or Aranda, had committed an act of sacrilege. Revenge was called for. The offenders and even the relatives of the offenders must be killed".[1] Some 80 to 100 Aboriginal men, women and children were killed[2] by the raiding party of 50 to 60 Aboriginal Matuntara warriors.[3]

Events

The Australian anthropologist Ted Strehlow, who lived amongst and studied the Arrernte, has written,

'Irbmangkara looked a place of peace and undisturbed serene beauty but like many other seeming Eden's on earth, it had known its full share of man's cruelty and viciousness.’[4]

Ted Strehlow describes the details of why the massacre was carried out.

Ceremonial venesection (blood letting) by the Arunndta (Arrernte) - 1903 Mitchell Library of NSW

'A middle-aged man, called Kalejika, who belonged to a Central Aranda local group, paid a visit to Irbmangkara, and then told some Upper Southern Aranda men that Ltjabakuka, the aged and highly respected ceremonial chief of Irbmangkara, together with some of his assistant elders, had committed sacrilege by giving uninitiated boys men's blood to drink from a shield into which it had been poured for ritual purposes. Sacrilege was an offence always punished by death.'[5]

According to historian Geoffrey Blainey, the party of Aboriginal warriors sent to avenge the sacrilege,

'...selected Running Waters as the place where their enemies could be readily surprised in a secret raid while they were cooking their meals before making their beds on the ground.' [6]

Ted Strehlow then describes in detail the course of events.

Typical Aranda avenging party, or Atninga, on return with decorations showing success. Baldwin Spencer, Alice Springs 1901, Nat.Museum of Victoria

'...three parties of warriors, hidden among the bushes of the nearby mountain slopes and in the undergrowth in the river bed at their foot, were watching the men and women of Irbmangkara returning to their camp...the armed men [then]...rushed in, like swift dingoes upon flock of unsuspecting emus. Spears and boomerangs flew with deadly aim. Within a matter of minutes Ltjabakuka and his men were lying lifeless in their blood at their brush shelters.

Then the warriors turned their murderous attention to the women and older children, and either speared or clubbed them to death. Finally, according to the grim custom of warriors and avengers, they broke the limbs

of the infants, leaving them to die "natural deaths". The final number of the dead could well have reached the high figure of from eighty to a hundred men, women, and children.'[7]

But one of the woman had merely shammed death and escaped northward to raise the alarm. As a small boy, Moses Tjalkabota was greatly affected by the massacre, given that two of his friends and their mother were killed in the raid,[8] and he had himself witnessed the great clouds of smoke arising from the funeral pyres when the bodies were burnt the next day.[9] Much later, his reminiscences of the killings were recorded and translated into English and although they differ slightly to other accounts in some details, they are the same when describing the ruthlessness of the raid.' [10]

Sources

The first European explorers had arrived in this area in 1860 and, by 1872 to the east, the Overland Telegraph Line had been surveyed and constructed.

Missionary Carl Strehlow from Hermannsburg on the Finke River (top) and his anthropologist son TGH (Ted) Strehlow with two Aranda elders (below)

The massacre occurred in 1875 and the Germans set up their Lutheran mission at Hermannsburg in 1877. There were ample informants alive who were involved in the massacre, or knew of its detail, when the Strehlow's began their recording of the event.

Moses Tjalkabota,[11] who was an Aboriginal informant to both Carl Strehlow and his son Ted Strehlow, was a young boy at the time of the massacre (6 to 9 years of age) and, according to researcher Peter Latz, 'he recalls it [the massacre] in some detail.'[12]

Carl Strehlow's recordings of the massacre appear in his grandson John Strehlow's historical biography of this grandparents.[13]

Ted Strehlow wrote a detailed account of the massacre in his 1969 book, Journey to Horseshoe Bend.[14]

Location

Irbmangkara (Running Waters) is a permanent waterhole located on the Finke River approximately 200km SW of Alice Springs Northern Territory, Australia.

Irbangkara a permanent waterhole on the Finke River 200km SW of Alice Springs and site of the Running Waters Massacre

Aftermath

The Hon. Mr. Justice Michael Kirby used the reasons for this massacre at Irbmangkara as an example of the incompatibility of Indigenous Australian customary law, or Aboriginal Tribal Law, with modern Australian Law and an insurmountable object to ever allowing its revival in Australia.[15]

See also

References

  1. ^ Geoffrey Blainey (2015). The Story of Australia's People - The Rise and fall of Ancient Australia. Viking-Penguin. p. 116.
  2. ^ Geoffrey Blainey (2015). The Story of Australia's People - The Rise and fall of Ancient Australia. Viking-Penguin. p. 117.
  3. ^ T.G.H. Strehlow (1969). Journey to Horseshoe Bend. Angus and Robertson. p. 37.
  4. ^ T.G.H. Strehlow (1969). Journey to Horseshoe Bend. Angus and Robertson. p. 35.
  5. ^ T.G.H. Strehlow (1969). Journey to Horseshoe Bend. Angus and Robertson. p. 36-37.
  6. ^ Geoffrey Blainey (2015). The Story of Australia's People - The Rise and fall of Ancient Australia. Viking-Penguin. p. 116.
  7. ^ T.G.H. Strehlow (1969). Journey to Horseshoe Bend. Angus and Robertson. p. 38-30.
  8. ^ Geoffrey Blainey (2015). The Story of Australia's People - The Rise and fall of Ancient Australia. Viking-Penguin. p. 117.
  9. ^ John Strehlow (2011). The Tale of Frieda Keyser - Frieda Keyser & Carl Strehlow : an historical biography. Wild Cat Press. p. 409.
  10. ^ Geoffrey Blainey (2015). The Story of Australia's People - The Rise and fall of Ancient Australia. Viking-Penguin. p. 117.
  11. ^ Albrecht, Paul (2005). "Moses Tjalkabota". Australian Dictionary Of Biography. MUP. Retrieved October 2, 2020.
  12. ^ Latz, Peter (2014). Blind Moses Aranda man of high degree and Christian evangelist. Peter Latz IAD Press. p. 13.
  13. ^ John Strehlow (2011). The Tale of Frieda Keyser - Frieda keyser & Carl Strehlow : an historical biography. Wild Cat Press. p. 408ff.
  14. ^ T.G.H. Strehlow (1969). Journey to Horseshoe Bend. Angus and Robertson. p. 35ff.
  15. ^ {{cite web |url=https://www.michaelkirby.com.au/images/stories/speeches/1970s/vol3/1978/87-Strehlow_Festschrift_-_TGH_Strehlow_and_Aboriginal_Customary_Laws.pdf |title=TGH Strehlow and Aboriginal Customary Law|last=Kirby |first=Michael |publisher=Open Publishing |date=October 1978|page=27-29|website=www.michaelkirby.com.au |access-date=October 2, 2020

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