William Buckley (convict) - Life With The Wathaurung People

Life With The Wathaurung People

During the weeks following his escape, Buckley avoided contact with Aboriginal people, travelling around Port Phillip Bay as far as the Bellarine Peninsula. In an account collected by George Langhorne in 1835, Buckley told of his first meeting with a small Aboriginal family group, who treated him with great kindness and with whom he "laboured", shared food and from whom he began to learn language, before parting company. In the well known account collected by John Morgan in 1852, Buckley describes travelling much further; as far as Painkalac Creek, Aireys Inlet (Mangowak) and Mount Defiance (Nooraki) living alone, off the land. Common to both accounts however, is his significant first meeting with a group of Wathaurung women, several months after his escape. Buckley had taken a spear used to mark a grave for use as a walking stick. The women befriended him after recognising the spear as belonging to a relative who had recently died and invited him back to their camp. Believed to be the returned spirit of the former tribesman, he was joyfully welcomed and adopted by the group. "They called me Murrangurk, which I afterwards learnt was the name of a man formerly belonging to their tribe, who had been buried at the spot where I had found the piece of spear I still carried with me."

For the next thirty-two years, he continued to live among the Wathaurung people on the Bellarine Peninsula being treated with great affection and respect. "By virtue of his age and peaceful ways, Buckley… became a Ngurungaeta, a person of considerable respect among his people and his voice was influential in deciding matters of war and peace" Buckley also became expert with Aboriginal weapons, though despite this, as a revered spirit, he was banned from partaking in tribal wars. He had at least two Aboriginal wives, and almost certainly a daughter by one of them. One of these is said to have been killed by the tribe for preferring an Aboriginal man; but it is also reported that Buckley said he gave her up in order to prevent unrest among the men; preferring to stay alive and to "return to the simple life". Buckley also recounted information about warfare among the Aborigines. According to Buckley warfare was a central part of life among the Australian hunter-gatherers. He had often witnessed wars, raids, and blood-feuds. This information was uniquely important as little is known about warfare among pre-agricultural peoples.