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The Coniston massacre, which took place from 14 August to 18 October 1928 near the Coniston cattle station in Northern Territory, Australia, was the last known officially sanctioned massacre of Indigenous Australians and one of the last events of the Australian Frontier Wars. People of the Warlpiri, Anmatyerre and Kaytetye groups were killed. The massacre occurred in revenge for the death of dingo hunter Frederick Brooks, killed by Aboriginal people in August 1928 at a place now known as Yukurru, (also known as Brooks Soak). Official records at the time stated that 31 people were killed. The owner of Coniston station, Randall Stafford, was a member of the punitive party for the first few days and estimated that at least twice that number were killed between 14 August and 1 September. Historians estimate that at least 60 and as many as 110 Aboriginal men, women and children were killed.〔Strehlow, TGH 1959. ''Land of Altjira,'' p.319 (unpublished manuscript)〕 The Warlpiri, Anmatyerre and Kaytetye believe that up to 170 died between 14 August and 18 October.〔Cribbin, John (1984). The Killing Times. Fontana. ISBN 0-00-636583-3〕 ==Background== For administrative reasons, from 1927 to 1931, the Federal Government divided the Northern Territory into North (population 4,000) and Central Australia (population <500). By July 1928 (mid-winter), Central Australia was in its fourth year of a particularly severe drought with fewer than of rain falling in the previous seven months. Overgrazing by stock had denuded the country of its vegetation, leaving little feed for wildlife. Waterholes were drying up and even the most experienced Aboriginal people were finding game and water almost unobtainable. Almost all the permanent waterholes and soaks were on station properties and as Aboriginal people began to die from thirst and hunger they moved to the stations for the water where they became an "aggravation" by begging for food and spearing cattle. The pastoralists chased the Aboriginal people away from their water to ensure the survival of their cattle. Sixty-seven-year-old Fred Brooks had worked as a station hand on Randall Stafford's Coniston station, north-west of Alice Springs, since the end of World War I, but due to the drought had not been paid for some time. In July 1928 he bought two camels and on 2 August, left with two 12-year-old Aboriginal children, Skipper and Dodger, to trap dingoes for the 10s (2011:A$35.65) bounty on their scalps. Approaching a soak from the homestead, he found around 30 Ngalia-Warlpiri people camped. Brooks knew some and decided to camp with them. The first two days were uneventful and Brooks caught several dingoes. On 4 August, Charlton Young and a companion who were exploring the area for a mining company, stopped by and warned Brooks that the Aboriginal people had been getting "cheeky" lately by visiting the mining camps heavily armed, demanding food and tobacco. Brooks had been approached several times to trade but had so far refused. On 6 August, Bullfrog with his wife Marungali asked him to trade and Brooks offered some food in exchange for Marungali washing his clothes. Bullfrog camped nearby but Brooks neither paid him the promised food nor did he return his wife. In the morning Bullfrog became enraged when he found his wife in bed with Brooks and attacked him, severing an artery in his throat with his boomerang. Bullfrog, his uncle Padirrka and Marungali then beat Brooks to death. Aboriginal elders fearfully banished Bullfrog and Padirrka and ordered Brooks' two boys to return to the homestead and say that he had died of natural causes.〔Under traditional law, Bullfrog had a right to physically punish Brooks for non-payment but no right to kill him. Bullfrog and Padirrka were banished while Marungali, who had only held Brooks while he was beaten to death was allowed to remain as she was not guilty of anything in the eyes of traditional law. In their eyes, the banishment absolved the tribe of responsibility and they moved from the soak to Ngundaru, a sacred site closer to Coniston, believing they were safe from retribution.〕 The following day an Aboriginal person named Alex Wilson camped at the now deserted soak and finding the body rode back to the station, where he described hysterically how Brooks had been "chopped up" by 40 Aboriginal people and the parts stuffed in a rabbit burrow.〔 Randall Stafford had been in Alice Springs requesting police to attend to prevent the spearing of his cattle. He returned to be told of the murder and "dismemberment" of Brooks but chose to wait for the police. No one returned to the soak and no one attempted to retrieve the body. On 11 August, the Government Resident J. C. Cawood sent Constable William Murray, the officer in charge at Barrow Creek who also held the post of Chief Protector of Aborigines,〔Constable Murray joined the police force in 1919 and, due to shortages of outback policemen, was posted the very next day to the Rankin River police station without any training. In 1928 he was given charge of Barrow Creek which included a government vehicle. Prisoners arrested on his rounds would wear horse hobbles and walk in single file chained to the vehicle. With no need for a horse the cattle stations supplied them when the terrain was too rough for a car.〕 to Coniston to investigate the complaints of cattle spearing. Told of the murder, Murray drove back to Alice Springs and telephoned Cawood who refused to send reinforcements, telling Murray to deal with the Aboriginal people as he saw fit. Returning to Coniston, Murray questioned Dodger and Skipper who described the circumstances of the murder and named Bullfrog, Padirrka and Marungali as the killers. According to his own report, Murray also obtained the names of 20 accomplices (he never recorded the names, or explained how his informants, who were not eye-witnesses, knew them; nor were these inconsistencies ever questioned at later proceedings). Murray organised a posse consisting of tracker Paddy, Alex Wilson, Dodger, tracker Major (elder brother of Brooks' boy Skipper), Randall Stafford and two white itinerants Jack Saxby and Billie Brisco.〔None of the whites spoke Warlpiri. Paddy was the official tracker but he spoke only Aranda and English. Murray requested the use of Major to assist Paddy as a tracker because he spoke Warlpiri and Aranda however, Major spoke very little English. Communication problems caused confusion, for example, Major told Paddy that Woolingar was Padirrka's nephew and Paddy passed this on to Murray that he was Padirrka which was why his wounds were ignored and his companion Padygar arrested for Brooks' murder. —Cribbin, John (1984). ''The Killing Times''.〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Coniston massacre」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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