| Site Name | Bull's Head Pocket |
| Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander Place Name | |
| Language Group, Nation or People | Ngarinman, Bilinara |
| Present State/Territory | NT |
| Colony/State/Territory at the time | SA |
| Police District | Timber Creek |
| Latitude | -16.262 |
| Longitude | 130.91 |
| Date | Between 1 Jan 1911 and 30 Jun 1914 |
| Attack Time | Dawn |
| Victims | Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander People |
| Victim Descriptions | Aboriginal |
| Victims Killed | 30 |
| Victims Killed Notes | People engaged in corroborree dance. Men and older women shot. Young women abducted. |
| Attackers | Colonists |
| Attacker Descriptions | Pastoralist(s) |
| Attackers Killed | 0 |
| Attackers Killed Notes | |
| Transport | Horse |
| Motive | Opportunity |
| Weapons Used | Firearm(s) |
| Narrative | In his report on the Kidman Springs/Jasper Gorge Land Claim, Justice Howard Olney (1989, pp 18-19) found that: "Aboriginal oral traditions tell of a massacre near the claim area, in Bull's Head Pocket near Bull's Head Springs. According to the claimant Big Mick Kankinang, the massacre took place during the time when Townsend was manager of VRD (1904-19). A great crowd of Aboriginals had gathered in the area for purposes of ceremony and in the early hours of the morning, while they were still singing and dancing, they were surrounded by Europeans and their 'imported' Aboriginals, and shot. ... While evidence of these and other massacres in only rarely obtainable in European documents, the oral traditions are fully borne out by current demography."
The stockmen concerned spared the lives of young women who they abducted (Rose & Lewis, 1982, p 2). |
| Sources | Olney H, 1989, pp 18-19; Rose, D & Lewis, D, 1982, pp 1-3; Lewis, 2021, pp 487, 495-496 and 558. (Sources PDF) |
| Corroboration Rating | *** |
