Jandamarra

Jandamarra or Tjandamurra (c. 1873—1 April 1897), known to European settlers as Pigeon,[1][2] was an Aboriginal Australian man of the Bunuba people who led one of many organised armed insurrections against the European colonisation of Australia. Initially utilised as a tracker for the police, he became a fugitive when he was forced to capture his own people. He led a three-year campaign against police and European settlers, achieving legendary status for his hit and run tactics and his abilities to hide and disappear. Jandamarra was eventually killed by another tracker at Tunnel Creek on 1 April 1897. His body was buried by his family at the Napier Range, where it was placed inside a boab tree. Jandamarra's life has been the subject of two novels, Ion Idriess's Outlaws of the Leopold (1952) and Mudrooroo's Long Live Sandawarra (1972), a non-fiction account based on oral tradition, Jandamurra and the Bunuba Resistance, and a stage play.

This article is about the Aboriginal warrior of the 1800s. For the victim of a 1996 attack, see Tjandamurra O'Shane.

Jandamarra
Bornc. 1873
DiedApril 1, 1897
Tunnel Creek, Western Australia
Place of burial
Napier Range
AllegianceBunuba
Years of service1894-1897
Battles/warsAustralian frontier wars

The beginning

The Bunuba land was positioned in the southern part of the Kimberley region in the far north of the state of Western Australia, and stretched from the town of Fitzroy Crossing to the Wunaamin Miliwundi Ranges; it included the Napier and Oscar Ranges.

Windjana Gorge

From a young age, Jandamarra learned to ride horses, speak English fluently, shear sheep and use guns on William Lukin's station at Lennard River, and was regarded as the area's best Aboriginal stockman. Lukin dubbed him "Pigeon" because he was small and ran fast.[1] In his teens, he was initiated into the law of the Bunuba.[2] At the age of 15 he returned to his traditional land for initiation and learnt to hunt. In 1889 he and a man called Ellemarra were captured by police, chained together and made to walk to Derby, where they were charged with killing sheep. Jandamarra won his freedom by agreeing look after the police horses, and became popular. About a year later he returned to Lennard River to work as a stockman, and then to his traditional land, where he was said to have violated Bunuba law, after which he moved to Lillimooloora station to escape punishment according to tribal law.[1]

When Jandamarra's close friend, an English stockman named Bill Richardson, joined the police force in the 1894, Jandamarra was employed as his native tracker at the police outpost in the abandoned Lillimooloora homestead.[1] Unusually for the time, Jandamarra was treated as an equal and the pair gained a reputation as the "most outstanding" team in the police force at that time.[3]

Aboriginal people were spearing the settlers' stock, an effective form of resistance. Eventually, Jandamarra was ordered to track down and take captive a group of Bunuba men at Lillimooloora Station. There, his uncle, chief Ellemarra, and the other men said that he had obligations to his people, having escaped traditional punishment, and they also told him about a new policeman who had been killing Aboriginal people, and encroaching European settlers.[1] Jandamarra chose the path of loyalty to his people, shooting Richardson in his first act of resistance.[2][3]

See also
  • Musquito a warrior of the Gai-Mariagal clan
  • Pemulwuy a warrior and resistance leader of the Bidjigal clan of the Eora people, in the area around Sydney
  • Tunnerminnerwait was an Australian Aboriginal resistance fighter and Parperloihener clansman from Tasmania
  • Windradyne warrior and resistance leader of the Wiradjuri nation
  • Yagan, a warrior and resistance leader of the Noongar tribe, in what is now the area around Perth, Western Australia
  • Australian frontier wars

Notes
  1. Pedersen, Howard. Jandamarra (1870–1897). National Centre of Biography, Australian National University. National Centre of Biography, Australian National University. Retrieved 16 June 2020. This article was first published in hardcopy in Australian Dictionary of Biography, Volume 12, (MUP), 1990.
  2. Rebe Taylor, in: Taylor (2004)
  3. Dillon Andrews, in: Taylor (2004)

References
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