Thanks for that. Gave you a TU yesterday and thought to have a quick browse, but honestly couldn’t ‘put it down’. Finished the book in one sitting more or less.
Fascinating stuff. Written in 1852 with first hand accounts from Buckley.
Paints a picture of a brutal, unforgiving existence. Marauders and opportunists, preoccupied by superstitions and petty family and tribal rivalries. Constant and unpredictable violence often with fatal consequences.
Here’s a choice extract (pg. 102). Not for the faint of heart. A little episode of genocide, but unsurprisingly one in which no one will mourn the deceased…
“I had almost forgotten to say, that in my wanderings about, I met with the Pallidurgbarrans, a tribe notorious for their cannibal practices; not only eating human flesh greedily after a fight, but on all occasions when it was possible. They appeared to be the nearest approach to the brute creation of any I had ever seen or heard of; and, in consequence, they were very much dreaded. Their colour was light copper, their bodies having tremendously large and protrubing bellies. Huts, or artificial places for shelter, were unknown to them, it being their custom to lay about in the scrub, anyhow and anywhere. The women appeared to be most unnaturally ferocious—children being their most valued sacrifice. Their brutality at length became so harrassing, and their assaults so frequent, that it was resolved to set fire to the bush where they had sheltered themselves, and so annihilate them, one and all, by suffocation. This, in part, succeeded, for I saw no more of them in my time. The belief is, that the last of the race was turned into a stone, or rock, at a place where a figure was found resembling a man, and exceedingly well executed; probably the figure-head of some unfortunate ship.”
