Man missing presumed dead
Macquarie’s expedition left Bathurst to return to Sydney with one man missing. According to Macquarie’s ‘firm friend’, Major of Brigade Henry Colden Antill, ‘he had come with us with the idea of becoming a settler in the new country, and as we suppose, he had remained behind at Bathurst’. But only on mustering did they find the man was missing. Apparently, the ‘last time the poor fellow was seen was with some of the natives’ and he, ‘being a little in liquor, had insisted on going with them to their camp, where it was supposed from his own imprudence he had fallen a sacrifice, as no trace could be found of him by the parties which had been sent out’.
So too the Wiradyjuri people to whose camp he had gone ‘had not since been seen’. This ‘poor fellow’ may have transgressed Wiradyjuri law and suffered dalgi giban (payback or retribution). This transgression may well have involved a woman – the colonists’ attitude towards Wiradyjuri women was a constant source of conflict.
So too the Wiradyjuri people to whose camp he had gone ‘had not since been seen’. This ‘poor fellow’ may have transgressed Wiradyjuri law and suffered dalgi giban (payback or retribution). This transgression may well have involved a woman – the colonists’ attitude towards Wiradyjuri women was a constant source of conflict.
People involved
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Sources
- Henry Antill, 12 May 1815, ‘Journal’, in Mackaness (ed.), Fourteen Journeys, p. 96; Fry, Beyond the Barrier, 29–30
Event mentions
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Man missing presumed dead11 May 1815 — BathurstMacquarie’s expedition left Bathurst to return to Sydney with one man missing. According to Macquarie’s ‘firm friend’, Major of Brigade Henry Colden Antill, ‘he had come with us with the idea of becoming a settler in the new country, and as we suppose, he had remained behind at Bathurst’. But only on mustering did they find the man was missing. Apparently, the ‘last time the poor fellow was seen was with some of the natives’ and he, ‘being a little in liquor, had insisted on going with them to their camp, where it was supposed from his own imprudence he had fallen a sacrifice, as no trace could be found of him by the parties which had been sent out’.
So too the Wiradyjuri people to whose camp he had gone ‘had not since been seen’. This ‘poor fellow’ may have transgressed Wiradyjuri law and suffered dalgi giban (payback or retribution). This transgression may well have involved a woman – the colonists’ attitude towards Wiradyjuri women was a constant source of conflict.Source: Henry Antill, 12 May 1815, ‘Journal’, in Mackaness (ed.), Fourteen Journeys, p. 96; Fry, Beyond the Barrier, 29–30