| Site Name | Warrigal Creek Mouth This massacre is part of a group of massacres |
| Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander Place Name | |
| Language Group, Nation or People | Brataualung |
| Present State/Territory | VIC |
| Colony/State/Territory at the time | PPD |
| Police District | Gippsland |
| Latitude | -38.482 |
| Longitude | 147.033 |
| Date | Between 1 Jul 1843 and 31 Jul 1843 |
| Attack Time | Day |
| Victims | Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander People |
| Victim Descriptions | |
| Victims Killed | 25 |
| Victims Killed Notes | |
| Attackers | Colonists |
| Attacker Descriptions | Settler(s), Stockmen/Drover(s) |
| Attackers Killed | 0 |
| Attackers Killed Notes | |
| Transport | Horse |
| Motive | Reprisal |
| Weapons Used | Firearm(s), Double-barrelled Purdey(s) |
| Narrative | In his review of the various accounts of the Warrigal Creek massacres Gippsland historian Peter Gardner quotes a report that human remains were found at the mouth of Warrigal Creek (Gardner, 2001, pp 53-57). He cites an article in the Gippsland Standard and Alberton Shire Representative in 1912 by the Rev, George Cox, where Cox says that a local teacher, W. H. Thomas, and a friend M had dug up a large quantity of human bones including remains of men, women and children. According to Gardner, Cox says the bones were 'evidently Aboriginal' and adds 'As a result of a careful examination of these it was disclosed that all the skulls were fractured, a piece being broken away at the base of the skull, as though caused by a blow from a tomahawk. Messrs. Thomas and Lamb concluded at first that the remains were those of aboriginals killed in a tribal fight; but that was discounted by the remarkable resemblance of the skull fractures. From Mr. Chas Kuch, senior, they afterwards heard of a massacre of blacks in that neighbourhood. Mr. Thomas suggests that this information may throw light on the scene of the massacre which took place in revenge for the murder of Ronald Macalister' (Cox cited in Gardner, 1983, pp 53-54).
From this description, the regularity of the fractures and their location at the base of the skull are analogous to fractured skulls found in the Cambodian killing fields, described in a 2006 study 'Blunt Force Cranial Trauma in the Cambodian Killing Fields' (Ta'ala et al, 2006). This similarity suggests the possibility that at the mouth of Warrigal Creek victims were restrained and executed with a blow to the head, possibly to save bullets. |
| Sources | Dunderdale, 1973, p.225; Pepper and de Aurugo, 1985, p.24; Cannon, 1990, p.171; Shaw,1996, p.133; Clark, 1998d, p.70, p. 99, p.110; Gardner, 2001, pp 53-61; Bartrop, 2004, pp 199-205 ; The Age, 8 Aug 1874, p 7 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/201532298; Gardner, 1994, p 45; The Courier, 23 Jun, 1843, p 4 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/2952539; Dunderdale, 2020 https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/16349/pg16349-images.html; Caldow, 2020; Gardner, 2022, https://petergardner.info/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/Warrigal-Creek-Massacre-a-reply-to-Wayne-Caldow.pdf; Ta'ala et al, 2006 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1556-4029.2006.00219.x. (Sources PDF) |
| Corroboration Rating | *** |
Colonial Frontier Massacres
in Australia, 1788-1930
