First European Contacts

FEW RECORDS

At various times we make reference to the natives who inhabited this land prior to its settlement by Europeans, (written in 1980s) and state that little of the true facts are known or can be ascertained, for long before there was anyone sufficiently interested in recording their ways, they had changed, adopting those European customs that appeared best to serve them, or be to their advantage, and of course as the free range over which they would want to hunt was alienated by settlers, they had to change to survive.

FIRST EUROPEAN CONTACTS

Their initial contacts would have been with the cedar cutters, rough men, bent only in reaping the maximum return from the bush, and who might have looked upon the natives with two views.

Carrying a canoe (Sketch by Mick Constable)

Firstly as a nuisance who begged for tobacco, drink and food, and at odd times might be persuaded to perform some service in return, but there were rare - and very rare - cases, where a native was employed to perform a stated service and received thereby an equitable return for his service.

Secondly as the timber getters came not as a community but as groups of men alone who erected rude shelters of an extremely temporary nature and who brought no families with them, in lieu of female companionship they lured the native gins to visit or share their huts.

The natives were not a morally loose people, but interwoven into their morals as part of their hospitality was the provision of female companionship to visitors, and no doubt the timber getters made ample opportunity of this, whilst at the same time being armed they had the power to exert force if necessary to get their way.

THE NEXT WAVE

After the cedar getters came the Australian Agricultural Company with shepherds, then came gold seekers, and fishermen, and many of these were of Chinese extraction who had no families with them. Then in the next stage came during the 1910-15 period the railway gangs and a great number of the men in the construction gangs were natives of New Zealand also unaccompanied by families.

Stories exist of Saturday nights on the "reserves" where a bottle or two of "plonk" (wine) put the "master of the house" in no fit state to argue and the ladies apparently never seemed to mind anyway. From this arose the situation where local marriage registers show marriage of well known names where the parents of the bride or groom included the phrase "an Aboriginal woman" in lieu of a name.

Thus came the dilution of the Aboriginal people and once this came about traditional beliefs and customs were lost; so also was the semblance of a trivial community.

WHY DID THE BIRIPI PEOPLE DISAPPEAR?

One may ask why the Biripi people from the Tuncurry area disappeared whilst the remnants of the Worimi people on the Forster side persisted and I believe that much can be attributed to an incident which occurred in the 1848-50 era and of which F.A. Fitzpatrick wrote a little and other sources some further detail, known as the Belbora Massacre.

Massacres of Aborigines seemed to have occurred in numerous centres and for numerous reasons throughout the early history of this land, generally we believe not because of anti-racial reasons but more in line with the thinking that the natives were not people in the true sense and thus interhuman relations did not apply - a rather arrogant attitude adopted by Europeans, but nonetheless a common one.

CONFLICT

The area between Gloucester and Krambach was used by the owners, the Australian Agricultural Company, for grazing sheep and they were husbanded under the old European system of no fences but accompanied by shepherds who travelled with them and saw to their grazing during the day and returned them to the fold at night.

One such group of shepherds at Canget had been raided several times by the Aborigines who found that the "Jumbuck" (sheep) didn't ever run away when approached, and a right place spear provided a feast for he who was prepared to carry it away.

"Easier than kangaroo" (Sketch by Mick Constable)

The shepherds had even found it necessary to fire a shot or two.

ARSENIC AS A WEAPON

One day, upon finding themselves surrounded by a large well armed group of Aborigines who appeared ready for revenge, the shepherds assumed a state of siege and were quite perturbed by the situation, until the cook who knew of the native penchant for damper (a type of bread) cooked up a batch, but liberally laced the mixture with arsenic powder. Arsenic was commonly found in sheep herders' camps in Australia. Sheep with blow-fly infestations were swabbed with arsenic liquid to poison any maggots of the fly on the sheep.

The dampers were put in an out-shed and soon disappeared, as also did the natives who upon eating the damper and being affected by the metallic burning of the arsenic sought water and the creek at Belbora, being the nearest made off there, and died.

MEETING THE EVIL SPIRITS

Their bodies were found and buried there, and this gave name to the site "bora" - meeting place; "baal" - evil spirit - thus "Baalbora" meeting the evil spirits, and which eventually became Anglicised to Belbora, the current name.

THE BIRIPI PEOPLE VANISH

Thus when the men of the area were seriously reduced the women drifted off and were absorbed into other Biripi camps, or when left unprotected were captured by other tribal groups as there always seems a shortage of females in Aboriginal tribes.

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A group of Aboriginal people from the area's past. Map of territories of Aboriginal tribes.