In search of the lost peoples
Fly to Sydney or Brisbane, then onward to Mudjimba airport in the bustling suburbs of Maroochydore. This sub-tropical region of Queensland once contained vast numbers of globally rare species, but now consists of endless high-rise holiday apartments, stretching along the coast for hundreds of miles. Somewhere along here is where the eco-tourist must stay to fully savor the changes. Behind the coastal fringe of development lie large areas of paperbark trees, scrubby regrowth on land systematically cleared of native plants, animals and peoples.
Travel by four-wheel drive up the David Low Highway and turn off after Coolum towards Eumundi on the Sunshine highway. On your left you will see the road sign for Murdering Creek. Follow this single carriageway to where it ends in the middle of a quiet patch of eucalyptus forest. You must now leave your 4×4 and walk along an unmarked path.
Note: You do not need a four-wheel drive for any of this, but people in Australia, as elsewhere, like to think they do.
What the guides say:
Picture an area of sweeping shiny beaches bordered by beautiful blue water. Picture majestic mountain ranges and refreshing radiant rainforest. Picture scenic drives along ridges and through valleys, overlooking coastal panoramas and vast fruit plantations. Picture tranquil hillside villages famous for local arts and crafts. Picture fun filled family activities and attractions. Picture perfect weather with winter temperatures a warm 25 degrees Celsius (77 degrees Fahrenheit). Aim for action with abseiling, skydiving or sea kayaking. Surf, swim, scuba dive or sail to your heart's content. Tee off on some of Australia's top golf courses. Indulge in the finest freshwater and saltwater fishing and bushwalk through national parks. Steep yourself in the region's rich history...
And this last is what we must do. However, the early history of Australian settlement is surprisingly sparse, given that it is well within the era of publishing and newspapers. In fact, often the first clue to a local area's true history, as opposed to its recently imagined one, is the legacy of place names. So it is that the official history of the Sunshine Coast, with its tales of heroic early settlement, can still offer clues of another and darker story of now vanished peoples.
The Sunshine Coast is now a chain of luxurious holiday resorts, in the prosperous Maroochy region of what is now southeast Queensland, but not so long ago it was still the northern frontier of the colonies in New South Wales, and home to some of the most friendly and accepting Aboriginal tribes. The two modern settlements of Eumundi and Obi Obi are named after those friendly Aboriginals. And indeed many Aboriginal names are still retained for the towns, the hills and the creeks.
There are still some native people in Australia, despite an official policy of assimilation that the Yorta Yorta tribe challenged in court as tantamount to genocide (and included, for instance, the forcible adoption of indigenous children by white parents). But you won't find too many of them in southeast Queensland, for 40,000 years perhaps the heartland of all the ancient Aboriginal peoples. There isn't even an Aboriginals shop in central Brisbane, although some artists, such as the multi-facetted Terry Saleh, can be tracked down on the outskirts. But Terry is not a member of the Gubbi Gubbi people. For them, we must return to the clues of the place names.
Maroochy itself is an Aboriginal word meaning “red bill” after the red bill of the black swan that lives along its river. And Murdering Creek lies between Mount Coolum and Peregian, both areas accepting and recording the original inhabitants' terminology. Coolum, is from Gulum or Kulum meaning “blunt” and reflects the shape of the mountain, while Peregian comes from the Mangrove seedpods found along the waterways there. But “Murdering Creek” is a new name, and one not only reflecting recent history, but also condemning it. In many other areas of Australia, in contrast, similar deeds have been either deliberately forgotten—or worse, repackaged and celebrated.
Fortunately, our particular area is part of the Lake Weyba reserve and as we leave the coastal strip, soon the sounds of the forest return and you could almost imagine you are in pre-European Australia. The creek itself is dark with the characteristic blood red color of the soils, and the paperbark trees peel their white skins slowly giving a haunted and desolate effect.
Every November, in Australia, there is a “National Sorry Day,” and there is indeed much to be sorry about. Half of all indigenous males do not live to see the age of 46. Native peoples suffer 12 times the rate of infectious diseases than the settlers. Babies born to indigenous parents are four times more likely to die than those born to whites. 93 percent, [i.e. almost the entire native population] suffer from hearing defects due to lack of primary health care. Yet, health funding for Aboriginals is almost non-existent. Communities have little or no access to doctors, medical advice or medicine. Resource deals struck between indigenous peoples and their governments in Australia contrast sharply with those in New Zealand, Canada and the United States. The greatest and most disgraceful contrast is: there aren't any deals. Australia's indigenous people remain without recognition of their existence, let alone their rights.
For every Australian who's “sorry” there seem to be at least two (including a member of Australia's parliament) who aren't. The latest best-seller down-under is a political tract euphemistically styled as a history, claiming that the genocide of the indigenous peoples never occurred, and that there were never any settlement victims to feel sorry for.
But there are other sources. Mr. Murdoch's antipodean newspaper and television networks do not promote them, but they are at least based on facts. A Mr. Bull wrote one such account relating to Murdering Creek less than a century after the event, (that is in 1950) but it was published as a pamphlet only in 1982. Bull lived locally and had contact with people who would have been around at the time of the massacre. The immediate background to the event was several massacres, the killings of Murries at Teewah beach, and the “clearing” of the Dawson Valley where other Murries had been fighting a sort of guerilla war against the white invasion of the grasslands. It seems that the Gubbi Gubbi people were effectively penned up in the marshy and less productive land of Lake Weyba by Mount Emu, after being forcibly evicted from their traditional and more productive lands.
Now let Mr. Bull retell the murderous story:
...A party of eight men was organized by a policeman and the manager of the station... one of the party was to go well around the eastern part of the lake with a swag on his back and billy in his hand. When well around he was to enter the water and walk in the direction of the creek fairly close to the edge, but far enough out to attract the attention of the blacks. On a nice high-level piece of ground at the junction of Lake Weyba and Weyba Creek there was always a large number of blacks camped.
...As soon as he entered the lake they saw him. Many of them got into their canoes and came towards him, but in front of him. He pretended not to see them at first until they got fairly near to him... When the correct distance between them was reached he pretended to see them for the first time and he jerked his body every step to make the blacks believe he was hurrying. When he got opposite the creek he left the water and went up the creek past the other seven men [lying] in ambush with guns fully loaded. The blacks followed “swaggy.” When the last black got opposite the waiting men, all seven opened fire. Most were killed outright, some badly wounded. As those not shot turned and ran for the lake another [round] was fired at them and the murder, which was a little carnage, was completed. I never heard how many were murdered, but I was well acquainted with some of them who lived and reared their families in Tewantin. I never heard the year the murder took place, but that is the story of how Murdering Creek got its name.
There was never any police investigation of the massacre. Indeed, the first prosecution of a white for killing a native Australian was not until 1883, long after the “indigenocide” proper had finished. The killers instead returned to their homes in nearby Tewantin, and prospered. You can see their triumph now in the plantations, the villas and the golf courses.
Low, but you might be bitten by one of Australia's deadly spiders or snakes. For travelers with darker skin, additional risk of being denied hotel accommodation or taxi travel.