Jandamarra and the Bunuba Resistance

by Howard Pedersen, Banjo Woorunmurra

This is the thrilling true story of the great Aboriginal resistance fighter, Jandamurra - a legend, forever etched into the history of the Australian landscape.The scene is the magnificent Kimberley outback during the late nineteenth century and the last stage of Australia's invasion is about to be played out in the lands of the Bunuba people. Amid the ensuing chaos and turmoil, extraordinary, and sometimes contradictory, relationships are forged, which will reach long into the future.

Genres: Nonfiction, History, Australia, Indigenous

228 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1995

Reviews

[Angela Saurine · Rating 5 out of 5]

Every Australian should read this book. In fact, it should be part of the school curriculum. I finished it with a tear in my eye after travelling through the Kimberley, where it is set. The injustices against indigenous Australians shown by colonialists can, at times, be compared to Pol Pot's genocide in Cambodia. A shocking part of Australia's history more people should know about. I hope they make a movie out of this book.

[Callum's Column · Rating 4 out of 5]

In collaboration with Banjo Woorunmurra, Howard Pederson depicts the Bunuba people's resistance against British colonisation in the West Kimberley during the late 19th century. Jandamarra, a Bunuba man who had served in the colonial police force, initiated a rebellion against his employers by liberating fellow Indigenous prisoners and employing guerrilla tactics against the police and pastoralist settlers. Jandamarra instilled fear within the colonising forces. In response, the Western Australian government retaliated with genocidal measures. Despite Jandamarra's strategic actions, the Bunuba people were gradually annihilated over the course of several years.

Jandamarra and the Bunuba resistance culminated in his murder by another Indigenous man serving in the colonial police force. This narrative exemplifies the complex history of Australian colonisation. Pederson, a white author, morally denounces the actions of the colonisers. Such rhetoric is commonplace in similar anthologies of Australia's past. The British triumph in the Frontier Wars forms the foundation for the present-day freedom of non-Indigenous individuals to traverse and partake in commercial activities across the entirety of Australia, albeit with certain exceptions outlined in Native Title legislation. Can non-Indigenous individuals genuinely condemn the actions of our settler-ancestors while simultaneously leading fulfilling lives on land acquired through warfare that will never be relinquished to traditional custodians?

[VeganMedusa · Rating 2 out of 5]

Such a shame that a story like this was so badly written and edited.

[Earl · Rating 4 out of 5]

Jandamarra and the Bunuda resistance is an important Australian history book that should be widely read.

Pedersen has consulted many primary sources and interrogated them with some insight through the use of corroborating testimony that has allowed him to expose inconsistencies. The most valuable of the sources he uses being Banjo Woorunmurra. Too often Australian history is only told from the perspective of the written records produced at the time of the event and thereby validating the white version. Here we have an author who is prepared to balance these accounts with the account of the Aboriginal people.

Jandamarra is difficult reading at times and images of the Holocaust come to mind, particularly with the massacre of women and children. Nevertheless, the book reveals a great strength in the Aboriginal people of the Kimberley to survive and overcome the most brutal treatment metered out by the colonists. Jandamarra shows Aborigines that they did successfully resist the British Empire and later the West Australian government. That tradition continued with the Noonkanbah community’s resistance of the Court government’s attempt to force oil prospecting by Amex on their land.

As a non-Aboriginal Australian you are left searching for any humanity at all. Small relief comes in the form of a piece written for the Catholic Record which states, “Had the West Kimberley Aborigines been of ‘a different colour, had they been of a different country, we of Western Australia would probably be inclined to regard them as heroes”. (p156)

No one can really claim to understand the history of Western Australia until they have read this book.

[Alex Podesser · Rating 5 out of 5]

As I have a personal connection to the Bunuba and Goonyandi people, some of the people alive today, are direct descendants of Jandamarra. It is true, this man should be celebrated as a national hero. It should be compulsory reading in every Australian High School. It exposes the lies we call history.

[Penny Wilson · Rating 3 out of 5]

A harrowing true story of our nations history. Not an easy book to read, but very important for all Australians to understand.

[Peter Stuart · Rating 4 out of 5]

Penned without fear, favor or stance, this work reads as the written history of the traditional verbal history passed from generation to generation in the aboriginal tradition, supplemented by excerpts and research into the written history and records of the time.

It is a primeval survivalist reaction to defend the space in which you live from others who seek to encroach, be you any form of organism on this planet. Likewise it is a basic survival trait to seek to expand your space, to seek new resource and to spread you and your like. Within the animal kingdom we have come to term this “range” or “territory” belonging to a group, flock, pride or tribe (or whichever collective noun we have for the being in question).

Within my, and likely the wider realm, of growing up and being mainstream educated in Australia in the 1970’s & 80’s, nothing was taught and very little was spoken however of the conflict between the first peoples of Australia and those who came to these shores post the late 1700’s with the arrival of the first Europeans who sought to settle here.

Undoubtedly there was conflict, which was in the vast majority a very, very one sided affair due to the absolute gap in technology as spear and wood sought entered conflict and fight against gunpowder and steel.

However a critical factor, often overlooked or even unconsidered entirely, was the ability to even survive on the terrain and then take the fight to your foes. In this aspect, the siding of some of the indigenous population with those who possessed the guns and steel became in so, so many instances the deciding factor against those with rock and wood. The evidence of this is global, profound and decisive.

So here then, is a recounting of the history of Jandamarra.

A man who spanned the entire world of his time.

A hero still to many, a legend in his own lifetime and a man who’s transition across his world is fascinating on many levels and various aspects. This work presents his journey and those of the people and the land of north Western Australia in his time with skill, honesty, frankness and purpose and, in this reader’s experience, in a nonaligned fashion or agenda rarely found in print or celluloid.

Recounting history in such an manner is a fine skill, as it is easy to take sides, to present history through your eyes, your perception, your opinion. The full credit here goes to the author who deftly allows this to be done solely by the reader by the style, prose and structure of the work presented.

So, taking that aspect of my opinion of this work, 4.5 stars.

What to get to 5 ? Perhaps the map I personally supplemented the work with to give me a basic understanding of locations, distances and topography across nd through which the history took place that enabled it in my mind at least, to come more alive and added perspective to the tale told.

[Tessa Wooldridge · Rating 3 out of 5]

Jandamarra and the Bunuba Resistance is the true story of Aboriginal resistance fighter Jandamarra told via a collaboration between the non-Indigenous historian Howard Pedersen and the senior Bunuba custodian of the Jandamarra story Banjo Woorunmurra. (Parts of Jandamarra’s story are secret and cannot be written for a public audience.)

As well as recounting a remarkable story, Jandamarra and the Bunuba Resistance provides an opportunity to reflect on the use and interpretation of primary sources in the study of history.

Pedersen compares the Bunuba account of Jandamarra’s life with the fictional version in Ion Idriess’s novel Outlaws of the Leopolds (1952). Pedersen offers this salutary reflection:

I read the same police files on which Idriess based his book but interpreted these primary sources somewhat differently. Idriess did not mention the massacres by police and settlers that Banjo and other Aboriginal people had described to me in detail. Nor did Idriess place the story in the context of an invasion, with Jandamarra and other Aboriginal people defending their lands and religion against brutal assault.

Jandamarra and the Bunuba Resistance won the Book of the Year Award and the Historical & Critical Studies Award in the 1996 WA Premier’s Awards.

[Lea Hadley · Rating 5 out of 5]

An amazing account of the Bunuba Resistence led by Jandamarra. The book is well researched and tracks the history of the invasion of the Kimberley area by pastoralists, first for sheep and then for cattle. It covers the history from the colonists, British Govt, pastoralists, police, and of course from the Aboriginal point of view and knitted together to describe events from around the 1860s when settlement in the Kimberley pastoral areas started as a result of Grey’s exploration. The brutal genocide of the Aboriginals resulted as a result of the first inhabits fighting back to keep their land. Negotiation by the colonists was unheard of. A must read for every Australian.

[Chris Klitzing · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is typical of Australian History I got as a school kid always from the view of the victor which was usually White Masculine!!
This book is a fantastic example of a very different version and far more believable as is expressed at times that the very reports of perpetrators actually support this version of events
Jandamarra or Pigeon was a very gifted human being who’s only goal was to retain his people Lore and Customs
Such another sad indictment of British Colonisation
Essential Read

[Adam · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read this book whilst in Broome, and whilst set in the greater Kimberly area it was great to read there. I don’t know enough about aboriginal colonial history, and this was a bit of an eye opener. I especially found it interesting to learn about the aboriginal men who served in the police forces.

I did find that the narrative wasn’t laid out as best it could, with some dates and events getting jumbled, the book could have been slightly shorter and clearer.

[Tom Graham · Rating 4 out of 5]

Australian history is so biased towards white settlers that it’s refreshing to find such a powerful cultural icon amongst the Kimberley region of Australia.

First Australian stories like these need to be in the education system and should have been for generations already.

[Gregory Sale · Rating 5 out of 5]

There is a huge hole in the history of this country this book goes part way to addressing that. There is a story like this in every aboriginal language group, we as Australians need to hear them.

[Reuben Healy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Such an incredible story. It makes me want to be on that powerful Kimberley Country.

[Tommy · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5

[Smasher · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bit of a slog to get through, but a vitally important book.

[Lynda · Rating 5 out of 5]

Meticulously researched and written, this is a confronting and disturbing book to dispel the misinformation, disinformation and malinformation that is enmeshed in our early settlement history.
The 1894 verbatim quote from the North West Times Derby WA correspondent, is a terrible eye-opener (p. 79) – amongst so many terrible eye-openers. The oral recount at the end - given in 1985 by the late Banjo Woorunmurra to Stephen Mueke - is sparse but powerful. Banjo, Bunuba Elder, had kept the Jandamarra/Bunuba story alive through a life-time custodianship of the story.
I was compelled to read this story from having read, many years ago, John Nicholson’s ‘Kimberley Warrior The Story of Jandamarra’ which I found electrifying. It was shortlisted for several awards, and was apparently authorised by the Bunuba people. Nicholson’s story will reach younger readers, but anyone should be encouraged to read the WA Premier’s Award-winning ‘Jandamarra and the Bunuba Resistance’

[Linda Joy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Jandamarra is more an academic history though not academically written. It’s an easy read and details a very recent bloody history of the Bunuba people’s resistance against the pastoralists invasion of north west Australia. It’s incredibly real, sad, informative and utterly frustrating when the plight of these people is still going on today. I recently watched a documentary called The Soft Country (if you have access to the black TV stations, it airs regularly) and I would like to view that again as I believe it is the same mob quietly trying to reestablish their shredded cultural heritage.... as is the case across Australia where so many languages are lost and traditions tangled.
Also visit the Jandamurra website for updates.
I could go on and on.... but back to this important “must” read. ..........read it!
The 5 stars is for the knowledge. ThankYOU

[Barbara · Rating 4 out of 5]

Having, for several years, outsmarted and frustrated the attempts of the police troops to capture him, Jandamarra died in the country he was trying to defend against the white settlers.
The desire for expansion and power led the settlers to forcefully claim ownership of the lands which were not theirs to own, with complete disregard for those whose life and culture had been shaped by the land for generations.
I feel deep grief and shame for the attitudes and behaviours of “my people” who chose not to understand, respect or care about the first peoples. Perhaps “the voice” will help in the healing process.

[Leonie Starnawski]

A collaborative work between historian Howard Pedersen and Kimberley man, Banjo Woorunmurra, this is a story of the “fight for survival against the destructive terror of white colonisation” (Foreword by Peter Yu, Former Executive Director of the Kimberley Land Council).

Pedersen presents the contrasting oral accounts of Indigenous Australians alongside official records which he says cannot be taken at face value, and quite clearly portrays the awful whitewash of Australian “history”. Essential reading for all Australians.

[Theresa · Rating 3 out of 5]

An important history of one Aboriginal nation's fight to protect their country, published at a time when these histories were just being uncovered by white Australia. Jandamarra tells the story of an armed resistance to pastoral expansion by the Bunuba of the western Kimberly. Like many academic histories it gets a bit bogged down in details at the expense of the story, but it is well researched and thorough, blending Bunuba stories and archival sources.

[Eric · Rating 3 out of 5]

Cuts through the silent history of the Kimberley through the story of one man's fight to save his country. I can tell why colonial history of the outback isn't talked about much in Oz.

[Kim Tee Em · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was a fascinating read and should be required reading for all West Kimberley visitors. So good to understand the history of the region. Well written and so captivating.

[G Batts · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thanks to Paul Kelly for recommending this is his book ‘How to Make Gravy’. I’d love to read an updated epilogue any progress that’s been made on land rights in the 25 years since.

[Louis · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the most illuminating books on Australia I've ever read. It transcends the telling of history and penetrates the soul of the nation. I can't recommend it highly enough.