Site NameOoratippra Station
Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander Place NameIrretety Community Living Area
Language Group, Nation or PeopleAlyawarr
Present State/TerritoryNT
Colony/State/Territory at the timeSA
Police DistrictAlice Springs
Latitude-21.876
Longitude136.083
DateBetween 1 Aug 1902 and 30 Aug 1902
Attack Time
VictimsAboriginal or Torres Strait Islander People
Victim DescriptionsAboriginal
Victims Killed20
Victims Killed NotesMen, women and children
AttackersColonists
Attacker Descriptions
Attackers Killed0
Attackers Killed Notes
TransportHorse
MotiveReprisal
Weapons UsedFirearm(s)
NarrativeWilliam Coulthard's diary of 1903 (Coulthard, 1903) makes frequent references to a band of Aboriginal people killing horses and cattle around Ruby Gap (pp 23, 27, 37, 44, 45, 47, 93, 117, 118-121, 125, 126). On March 13 Coulthard first heard of the horse killing from Harding, who reported 2 Aboriginal people had stolen a rifle and cartridges and that the troopers had failed to apprehend them (Coulthard, 1903, p 33).
In a letter on March 29th, Coulthard wrote that 'Albert has gone out with the trooper & their niggers to catch those other two that are killing horses & cattle as soon as any of the horses make back there these niggers kill them, they are getting quite plucky now as they think the whites are frightened of them, they told some of the other niggers to tell the whites to come & catch them & they will shoot the first one they see, they are saving cartridges to do it, they went down to Prossers place joins Uncle on the East & took all his flour & rations, he came into Arltunga in a great way, but Albert only laughed at the idea of getting shot, he went away prepared for three weeks trip, he says his nigger Sam will track them until he gets them as he has got a set on one of them, one of them is the ringleader that used to kill Uncles horses before, the blacks killed two others themselves, as they reckoned they were the cause of loosing so many friends through the horse filling business.' (Coulthard, 1903, pp 119-120)
On April 1, Coulthard complained of the ineffectiveness of the troopers, and stated he and Albert would have a 'nigger hunt' without them, 'I heard in there that Albert & the trooper came back Monday from hunting those niggers, they found where they had killed two, but they were Hardings & not Uncles so they could do nothing had to come back for Harding to take out a Warrent for them what rot, they tracked them a good day & they were making towards Uncles country so we have a nigger hunt all to ourselves when we go out there mustering' (Coulthard, 1903, pp 44-45)
On April 29 Coulthard wrote about the high cost the horse killing had, 'After we have gone through the horse muster they will know if they have enough for Adelaide & they will start in August with them to get down in September, so if you can get on without me till then I will stop & help them down, poor beggars they need a bit of help for instead of having a 1000 horses as they ought to, they have only about 400, what with the niggers & the drought. After we have finished the horses, Uncle is going out to Irratippara the station they had before where the niggers killed all the horses,' (Coulthard, 1903, p125) and the fear that they causes, 'Walkington & the other fellow are going out to Uncles old station I have always called it Irratipperaa it is Orratippera prospecting & to look for some of his horses that are out there he used to be with Uncle on the Frew so he came to see if Uncle would go with them as a lot of his have gone back, & they are frightened the niggers will get them. so he is going with them' (Coulthard, 1903, p126)
On July 16, Coulthard encountered a group 20 Aboriginal warriors around Ruby Gap, 'After we had gone 5 or 6 miles we met about 20 wild niggers, they told the boys thev were going into Paddys hole to have a fight with the niggers in there, they were quite naked & had spears & Boomerangs & all sorts of Arms they looked a bit savage, they onlv stopped a few minutes talking to the boys then went on, we could see their track all the way to Ruby Gap, & we came across their fire near a waterhole, we got to the yards a little before Sundown, but too late to look round for horses, so we made our camp, & I wrote up this before I made the tea, had tea, got some bushes for a breakwind, made my bed & lay down on it. This is the time to make you think when you are all by yourself, & away out in the wild parts, I got mv rifle Uncles at least & put 6 cartridges in it, & lay it along side of me, then turned in about 7.' (Coulthard, 1903, pp 98)
Sid Stanes, an old Central Australian stockman, said in an oral history, 'Then they went to Orratrippera [sic] and took up that, Coulthard and Wallis. Eventually the blacks killed 60 or 70 horses in one gap in the ranges there and the water was all in the ranges you see, springs. The stock used to go into water and the niggers used to get each side of the range. And as they came along bowl them out. The nigs cleaned up 60-80 horses. After Coulthard and Wallis cleaned up all the niggers that they could find, one of the boys they had with them, they shot all this mob and there was a kid left in the camp, a little one, one of these niggers got hold of him and banged his head in the ground…Then they got cleared out of there and that is when they took up Loves Creek. That is when I was a butcher boy at Arltunga, they came there with about 300 horses to Loves Creek. Undoolya had thrown that up, Paddys Hole and Arltunga, they had previously owned it and they had thrown that part up and only kept the west side of it, Alice Springs and Undoolya, Mt Undoolya, Bitter Springs, Mt Benstead and that is their boundary' (Trish Lonsdale Collection, NTRS 3414/Part 1).
SourcesTrish Lonsdale Collection, NTRS 3414/Part 1 – Sid Stanes; Diary of William Coulthard, 1903, NT Library: https://territorystories.nt.gov.au/10070/449299/0/0 (Sources PDF)
Corroboration Rating**