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An elder describes how his father stumbled into the Coniston massacre. The man retells his father’s story of the events that triggered the massacre. A map of the area shows us the locations the elder is speaking about. Paintings of Aboriginal men and women with babies, with the elder’s voice-over, tell us how the whitefella took the Aboriginal women from their husbands to be Brooks’s servants. In retaliation for this an Indigenous man killed a white man with a tommyhawk.
Curator’s notes
The elder tells the story of how dingo trapper Frederick Brooks had been taking Aboriginal women from their husbands for his own purposes. After not having seen his wife for a long time, a man named Japanangka killed Brooks with a tommyhawk. Japanangka’s act of retaliation for the theft of his wife sparked one of the last-known massacres of Aboriginal people in Australian history. Constable William Murray, the officer in charge at Barrow Creek, led the killing of Warlpiri, Anmatyerre and Kaytetye peoples during the murderous retribution.
