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MISTAKE CREEK MASSACRE – BETTY CARRINGTON

This one is a true one again. This is Mistake Creek.
 
They had Mistake Creek station. They went there on holiday, like a long weekend, gone walk-a-bout.
 
And that blackfella, they reckon his name was Olan Joe or something. He spoke a different language. He wasn’t from around here. He was working at the post office, as a Lines Man.
 
The Radigan family, they bin’ grow up my mother, and my mother was a good sized girl when she saw this happen.
 
They had a milking cow. That gardiya (whitefella) Radigan told that other blackfella to go look for that cow. But his no good blackfella, he wanted a lady who was a married Gija woman. That no good black fella was chasing after her. Well, that’s what my mother and sister reckon.
 
He went off and found that cow for Radigan, but he lead that cow over to la gorge, Ash Burton Gorge. He pulled the bell off that cow, and he walked back.
 
He saw that Gija mob on their holiday. They had jiyirriny (kangaroo), jarrambanyiny (goanna), and gonanjil (porcupine). They bin’ goon-goon there, cooking in the coals under ground.
 
He came back this way, towards Turkey Creek, and he bin’ tell liar. He fooled that old man. He told him that Gija lot had killed that cow of his. He showed him the bell.
 
He bin’ tell him liar. “Right,” that Gardiya bin’ tell him, “saddle ‘em up horses. Get a gun.” That blackfella thought I’ll show you. He just galloped right in and started shooting them. He was trying to get rid of the husband of the woman he wanted. Well the gardiya followed behind and started shooting. That black fella was the leader and he bin’ telling liar.
 
One fella bin’ get away. He crawled around the back of the hills. He was hurt a little bit. But he ran to tell the police.
 
The police man bin’ tell h – well get the horses, saddle him up. That was Sandy, Eileen Bray’s grandfather. That is the story my Mum Lola and my sister Winnie bin’ telling me.
 
When the police man got there, those two had already burnt all the people – kids and all. That blackfella had bin’ a trouble maker. He spoke a different language. The policeman said open that hole and they found in the goon-goon all the kangaroo and the goanna and porcupine.
 
That blackfella tried to gallop away. The policeman got his workers to chase him on the back road. They shot him. I think they cruelled him again and chopped his head off and put it in the fire.
 
That gardiya Radigan who shot them all, he grew up my mother. They punished him and made him walk to Halls Creek. My mother bin’ crying for him – but he won the court and after they found the cow coming back.
 
Around that place at Mistake Creek that ground was still greasy. I do this story again for the future, for the young ones.

Categories: WARMUN ART

Name: Betty Carrington


Language: Gija, Kriol


Community: Warmun


Biography:

Betty Carrington was born on Texas Downs, but grew up with her family at the old Turkey Creek Post Office and Police Station (now the Warmun Art Centre). Betty’s father was a police tracker and her family lived there until the police station closed, when they moved back to Texas Downs. Betty worked on Texas as a housekeeper, and remembers the long hours of hard work. She working at Texas she would do everything from chopping wood, clearing rocks from roads, cooking and scrubbing floors, to going out bush looking for the cattle. Betty has travelled extensively throughout Australia representing Kimberley and Gija people in dance and cultural festivals in cities including Canberra, Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide. She started painting in 1998 when Warmun Art Centre was established by the leading members of the Warmun Community. Betty uses a large range of subtle ochre colours, her delicate palette and style often describing strong and painful stories of historical events in the East Kimberley. One recurring visual reference in Betty's paintings is the rolling hills of her father's country, Darrajayin (Springvale Station). Betty also paints landscapes from her mother's country, Texas Downs Station, as well as Ngarranggarni (Dreaming) places. Betty uses painting as a medium to relate accounts of historical events post-white settlement, such as the Mistake Creek massacre and the Warmun gymkhana where Aboriginal people working on Texas Downs station were first introduced to alcohol. Betty and her partner Patrick Mung Mung are constant figures at the Warmun Art Centre. They take on the role of teaching - by example - the younger members of their extended family. The couple actively passes on Ngarrangarni (Dreaming) stories and techniques to master the medium of natural ochres.


© the artist / art centre