Gunnedah is one of the few Australian towns to have a documented account of Aboriginal history and possibly the first to erect a memorial to an Aboriginal warrior.
Australian author Ion Idriess woven the story of Aboriginal warrior, Cumbo Gunerah (Red Kangaroo), into a best seller, known as The Red Chief, using the notes written by Stan Ewing, son of Police Sergeant JP Ewing, who was in charge of the Gunnedah Police District during the 1880s.
The story of Red Kangaroo was noted somewhere around the end of the 19th century, gleaned from conversations between Sgt Ewing and Joe Bungaree, a Kamilaroi elder and family friend of the Ewings and the last leader of the Gunn-e-darr community. Stan Ewing wrote down Bungaree’s account in a document which became known as the Ewing transcripts.
The most famous Aboriginal of the period before European settlement, the legendary chief, Gambu Gunera, also known as Cumbo Gunerah or Red Kangaroo, was the war leader of his community, who led attacks on neighbouring tribes and defended the community against at least one major attack by the Cassilis tribe from the Hunter Valley.
It is difficult to estimate when the warrior chieftain lived but information handed down by generations of Kamilaroi people indicate that it may have been from the late 17th century through to the mid-18th century.
As early as the 1860s, local residents had been aware of the existence of what was known as the ‘Blackfellow’s Tree’ located beside Poe (later Abbott) Street.
The tree then was a box-tree stump some 12 feet high (3.66 metres), carved from base to top with intricate totemic designs.
Locals knew that it was the burial site of a great Aboriginal warrior. Beyond that, they knew no more.
In a time of complete ignorance about the traditions and customs of the Aboriginal people, curiosity about the burial site was too much for Dr Edward Haynes when he came to Gunnedah as the Government Medical Officer in the 1880s.
He showed a keen interest in the ‘Blackfellow’s Tree’ announcing his intention to exhume the warrior’s remains.
Haynes had Sergeant Ewing arrange a meeting with Bungaree at the burial site, where he asked Bungaree tell him all he knew about the man buried beneath the stump of the tree.
Bungaree told Haynes that it was the burial place of a great warrior chief who had been buried sitting, in line with tribal custom.
When asked to name the chief, Bungaree refused to do so, saying that he was unable to speak the name while in the burial ground of his people.
A report in the Sydney Mail of August 1891, described a correspondent’s visit to Gunnedah and his mission to find out more about the legendary warrior.
He had an interest in the archaeology and ethnology of the aboriginal tribes of Australia and he took the pains to search out all authentic information he could relating to a great chief whose deeds he had so often heard related elsewhere.
Dr Haynes told him that since his arrival in Gunnedah, he had “spent much time in drawing from the old blacks some account of the tribes before the white man came among them”.
“I could buy little information and found that kindness drew the most from them,” Dr Haynes related in the article. “They are cautious about divulging their race traditions, being considered tribal secrets and sacred to the tribe.”
The correspondent wrote that the reign of the powerful and daring Cumbo Gunerah, who lived before the great flood and to whose prowess may be attributed the superiority of the Kamilaroi tribe, which for more than 100 years, according to Aboriginal tradition, had possession of the country from Singleton to above Narrabri, and whose power was dreaded by all the adjacent tribes.
“His deeds, exploits, name, and fame have been handed down in the camp legends, songs and traditions of the Kamilaroi and surrounding tribes to this day.
That fact alone would make the great warrior the Napoleon of his times, as there is a custom among the blacks of Australia that when a man dies his name is never again spoken by the tribe and no one is permitted to take such a name.
To thus preserve a name is tantamount to saying that the man was practically worshipped or feared as a god to this day.”
The search had been conducted with an Aboriginal of another tribe. On reaching the stump he stopped, pointed to the crude headstone and said: “Great man him: big chief that feller”.
The report went on to describe the location of the grave in front of the Wesleyan Church, and near the courthouse where stood a peculiarly marked old stump.
There was a boomerang cut on each side with a yeliman at the bottom.
Dr Hayes, instructed a Mr Ashby to exhume the remains in front of Constable Lambert, Bungaree and four schoolboys, among them Stanley Ewing.
As Ashby was began driving a pick into the ground, Bungaree let out a pitiful, wailing cry and ran, waving his hands above his head.
The Kamilaroi people were reportedly so distraught by the lack of respect that they moved from their campsite just outside the town and did not return for many weeks.
The exhumation revealed remains that included a missing tooth, which was not surprising as the Kamilaroi tribe initiation practice for young men was to remove an incisor tooth to signify their transition to manhood.
Dr Hayne told the correspondent that there were records of certain great epochs handed down in the legendary stories or songs.
One of these is the great flood that must have happened about 1750.
The legends relate that ‘Cumbo won every battle, was in the front rank of attack and by personal valour and prowess urged his men on to victory’.
The old traditions stated that this soldier king had both arms broken, his thigh speared, many body bones (ribs) smashed and wounds in the head from the tomahawk or battle-axe.
Many of the stories were related by an old Aboriginal elder called Maggie, who was believed to be about 91 years old at the time.
Dr Haynes had been treating her for illness and having been very kind to her, the story she and the other Aboriginals had refused to divulge, flowed freely.
“She would never more give the burial place, and no one else would. It was sacred to the tribe, and the power of Cumbo still lived in the spirit of the black,” Dr Haynes told the correspondent.
A few days before the old woman’s death, when the doctor’s kindness had won her confidence, she divulged the site so many generations a secret in the tribe.
Maggie said that when she was a girl they used to go to the grave and put out possum rugs over it every evening at full moon (a custom she could not exactly account for only it had been the traditional custom).
Dr Haynes was able to glean from old Maggie that Cumbo Gunerah had led his warriors against the marauding Coonbri tribe and in this battle his arm was broken badly, and a spear-wound in the thigh crippled him.
She said he died at Gunnedah “20 moons before the great flood”.
This would be about 1745.
“His grave,” the old Aboriginal said “is near the courthouse, for when I was there about 10 years ago, getting blankets, we were afraid that the white people would build a house over Cumbo’s grave.”
The search was conducted with a member of another tribe.
On reaching the stump he stopped, pointed at the crude headstone and said: “Great man him; big chief that feller.”
Eventually the remains and the carved tree stump were supposedly sent to the Australian Museum in Sydney but when Dr Haynes inquired about them at a later time, they were nowhere to be found, leading to the possibility that they were kept in private storage.
In 1984, a sculpture, designed by Dennis Adams in consultation with local Aboriginal people and the NSW National Parks & Wildlife Service was erected to mark the burial site and was officially dedicated and unveiled by Kamilaroi elder, John Lalor, on National Aborigines’ Day, September 14.
The memorial was originally erected at the entrance to the State Office block in Abbott Street, only 50 metres from the warrior’s burial site, which had previously been marked with a sign by the Gunnedah Historical Society.
It has since been relocated to the adjacent park.
The NSW Government supported the project but the bulk of the money was raised by the community.
In October 2012 a sculpture of Red Kangaroo, among others were on Pensioner’s Hill by Andrew Garratt, the manager of External Affairs with BHP Billiton, which had provided $28,000 in funding.
The sculptures were created by renowned sculptors Carl Merten and Joan Relke, with input from local Aboriginal elders Mick Horne and Ron Long.
The Red Kangaroo sculpture, features prominently, with the reverse side depicting the Rainbow Serpent which, according to Aboriginal culture ‘the animals were created out of the serpent’s skin’.
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