| Narrative | Ronnie Wavehill (cited in Charola & Meakins 2016, pp 43-44): 'They were spearing the cattle. The kartiya [whitefellas] came and surrounded the ngumpin [Gurindji]. There was no hope; they were only going to shoot. The ngumpin started hearing shots…The ngumpin at the creek went running across the plain, running the way they used to be able to run. The others on horseback tried catching up to them but they couldn’t. They followed them, shooting from behind. Some of the old people couldn’t run so fast and got shot. The kartiya kept chasing the others all the way up onto Ngangi. There the ngumpin hooked up their spears and waited for them. The kartiya were saying “It’s no good. We can’t go, otherwise those blackfellas will get us with their spears. They’re dangerous and they’re right here to the east”.'
Hope reported in the Northern Territory News (19 Aug 2016, p. 12): ‘Locals say Wirrilu, or Blackfella's Creek, about 25km away from Tartarr, was an earlier (perhaps late 1800s) and more brutal event. Here white men on horses picked up frightened toddlers and flung them into rocks, they say. The bodies are reportedly still next to the creek, underneath still-visible mounds of stone’. |
