George Grey's journal

[Tuckeroo]

George Gray's journal

Thought I might share this bit of history with those that may be interested.

It was promted by some recent posts regarding Candole state forest which is near this location.

Also.... there was a post way back on the 24.09.12 p.15/54 tilted ' Wallabadah manuscript 1903 ',
The recollections of William Telfer jnr. In this report Telfer refers to an Aboriginal elder- Bungaree of Gunedah
who describes another race of people....'at one time there was tribes of them and they were the original
inhabitants of the country'.
This quote got me thinking about another story I came across a few years ago.

It happened many years ago on Micalo Island in the mouth of the Clarence river.
I'm guessing the spot is along Oyster Channel somewhere which feeds into Lake Woolloweyah.

I'm writing this with respect to Aboriginal culture and an awareness of the attitudes of the early settlers in those days.

The story/quote is by George Grey and comes from research by the Clarence River Historical Society.
The title is 'lime burning and the aboriginals ' from George Grey's journal. He was born in 1846 and lived
for most of his life in the Clarence valley.
He says that in his early married life; which is the only piece of information to provide a clue to when
this incident happened, he worked as a Lime burner on Micalo Island in the mouth of the Clarence river.
He lived there for a while with his family and had some men working for him. Going by his birthdate/married life, this
incident may have taken place around the 1860's-70's. He died in 1941.

I'm quoting exactly what the text says. The only thing I did was break it into paragraphs to make it easier to read.

' then I took a job lime burning. We found a heap of oyster shells away from the usual place where they were worked.
The heap was 60 yards long and 10 yards wide and 8 feet deep. It was evident that at a distant period an oyster bed
was in the channel, which is now only filled with the tides, and at that distant period the aboriginals used to feed on
the oysters and they built up the heap as I have stated.

On top of the heap oak trees were growing- one was three feet in diameter, that proved that it was hundreds of
years since the blacks used to feed there. We felled the trees to burn the shells and after we got well into the heap
we found numbers of skeletons of aboriginals buried there. We would find in places seven or eight in a row and it
appeared they were all buried at the same time. Then a little further we would come upon another lot all buried the
same way.

It was evident that a disease must have raged among them and many died at the same time and were buried in rows
as stated, which was contrary to their custom as they always buried the dead in a sitting position.

The bones were the largest I have seen of a human nature. The skulls were much thicker than that of any beast I have
seen, their shin bones like horses and their teeth like horses also. This as I have stated must have occurred hundreds of
years ago. All the bones were well preserved, as the shells contain salt it kept them clean and they could be seen to
great advantage'.

phew....that last paragraph is a doozy ! This story creates a lot of questions. Who were these people that are perceived
as human but with some difference. Not one or two but multiples of them. I couldn't help but think of Bungaree's
' original inhabitants ' from the Wallabadah manuscript. That's if you want to put a bit of flesh and blood into the
aboriginal dreaming.

Just say they dug half way down into the midden, this depth alone would make the skeletons at least a few hundred
years old or maybe well over a thousand years, at the time. This puts them outside the time period of catching European
diseases, so what disease could have killed them as George speculates.


He doesn't describe them as being different sizes such as male, female, child, so one would assume they are all male and
if this is the case you would think tribal warfare as stated by Bungaree. But what larger stronger group gets killed off by a
smaller one unless it's less intelligent, capable or less in numbers.

George quickly changes from seeing them as humans to beasts when he describes their skulls as being much thicker than
any beast he has seen. Does he mean thicker than a horse, bull, rhino or lion.
Could human bones become distorted or swell up over a long period of time buried in a midden and then after George has
a few rums at lunch time and fumes from the fire end up as some kind of hallucination on a hot afternoon in the
mangrove swamp. George seems to know exactly what he is looking at and how he is interpreting it.

I've read other parts of the journal about his life in Grafton and he doesn't seem to be one to embellish his stories or
dramatize things. If you drive over Oyster Channel bridge towards Yamba and look up stream you'll see some nice
waterfront homes that could be sitting on some interesting history.
What did those men see that day all those years ago. I wonder if the lime burners showed any respect for the dead by
covering them back over or did they just shovel their bones into the fire, just to end up as mortar for new buildings in
Grafton ?

T.

[Yowie bait]

Ive read that Bungaree story of the original tribe somewhere. Thats terrible if they destroyed those graves. Hed be in the s#@t if he did that these days. Sceince would love to get their hands on those skeletons.

[M-glass]

Thanks, Tuckeroo. I read your post the other night, found it very interesting. Glad the incident was recorded for posterity. Makes you wonder how much similar history has been lost

[Tuckeroo]

Thanks, Tuckeroo. I read your post the other night, found it very interesting. Glad the incident was recorded for posterity. Makes you wonder how much similar history has been lost

Hi 'M-glass, Thanks for reading it, I made a mistake with the spelling in the title Gray not Grey, bit of a lit-nazi; not to be confused
with George Grey who had a Yowie encounter west of Kempsey. When researching George and the midden; got my wires
crossed a few times with the two characters.
Yes there's probably a lot history not recorded....when I came across this story called a 'journal ' of.... I thought it would be written
by him, but it seems like it is from an interview. So someone had the good sense to write it down over 70 years ago before George
crossed the great divide.
I can't help wondering if it changed any of the Lime burners sense of reality after seeing those bones. It probably did for G as he
remembered it vividly years later.
But the question remains, who were those people.

T.

[Hominidhunter]

Well this is the most interesting post I've read in a long time ! Makes you wonder what has been lost to ignorance over the last 200 or so years.

[Tuckeroo]

Well this is the most interesting post I've read in a long time ! Makes you wonder what has been lost to ignorance over the last 200 or so years.

Thanks Hominidhunter,

Sure, those middens were a dialogue with time, shame that many were destroyed.
The colonials were scratching out a living themselves, and didn't know any better.

T.