Jackey Jackey
{{Short description|Aboriginal Australian guide and surveyor companion}}
{{for|the early Australian bushranger also known as Jackey Jackey|William Westwood (bushranger) }}
{{Use dmy dates|date=July 2020}}
{{Use Australian English|date=September 2011}}
{{Infobox person
| name = Jackey Jackey
| image = JackeyJackeyMedallionDrawing.jpg
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| caption = Wood engraving (Walter G. Mason, 1857) of the solid silver breastplate made for Jackey Jackey in recognition of his heroic deeds (shaped to include swans and a fox){{cite web|url= http://nla.gov.au/nla.pic-an8008625 |title= Medal given by Sir C. Fitzroy to Jackey Jackey, native servant to the explorer Mr Kennedy |access-date=2010-06-01}}
| birth_name =
| birth_date = approx 1833
| birth_place = Muswellbrook
| death_date = 1854 (Aged 21)
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| nationality = Wonnarua
| citizenship = British
| other_names = Galmahra
| known_for = Heroic deeds as guide and companion for surveyor Edmund Kennedy
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| employer = Surveyor-General's Department
State of New South Wales
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| occupation = Guide
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| website = [http://www.adb.online.anu.edu.au/biogs/A020007b.htm http://www.adb.online.anu.edu.au/biogs/A020007b.htm]
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Jackey Jackey (also spelled Jacky Jacky) (c. 1833–1854),{{cite news|url= http://www.themonthly.com.au/encounters-shane-maloney-jackey-jackey-yadhaykenu--863 |author= Maloney, Shane |date=April 2008 |title= Jackey Jackey & the Yadhaykenu |publisher= The Monthly |access-date=2010-06-01}} Aboriginal name Galmahra{{cite QPN|17002|Jacky Jacky Creek|accessdate=28 August 2015}} (or Galmarra),{{cite book|author= Blyton, Greg|year=2004 |title= Wannin thanbarran : a history of Aboriginal and European contact in Muswellbrook and the Upper Hunter Valley |publisher= Muswellbrook Shire Council Aboriginal Reconciliation Committee|display-authors=etal}} was the Aboriginal Australian guide and companion to surveyor Edmund Kennedy. He survived Kennedy's fatal 1848 expedition into Cape York Peninsula (in present-day Queensland) and was subsequently formally recognized for heroic deeds by the Colony of New South Wales in words engraved on a solid silver breastplate or gorget,{{cite web|url= http://www.nma.gov.au/exhibitions/aboriginal_breastplates/commemoration_heroic_acts/ |publisher= National Museum of Australia |title= Heroic Acts |access-date=2010-06-01}} which read as follows:
Presented by His Excellency Sir Charles Augustus FitzRoy K.D. Governor of New South Wales, to Jackey Jackey, an Aboriginal native of that colony. In testimony of the fidelity with which he followed the late Assistant Surveyor E.B.C. Kennedy, throughout the exploration of York Peninsula in the year 1848; the noble daring with which he supported that lamented gentleman, when mortally wounded by the Natives of Escape River, the courage with which after having affectionately tended the last moments of his Master, he made his way through hostile Tribes and an unknown Country, to Cape York; and finally the unexampled sagacity with which he conducted the succour that there awaited the Expedition to the rescue of the other survivors of it, who had been left at Shelbourne Bay.
In the 1970s Australian school textbooks, such as Margaret Paice's Jackey Jackey, were published recording Jackey Jackey's life and achievements:
To the people of his tribe he was Galmarra, the Songman; to the men of the ill-fated Kennedy expedition he was Jackey Jackey, the young Aborigine. This slightly built teenager was to be their strength as they faced the mangrove swamps and tropical jungles.Margaret Paice, [https://search.worldcat.org/title/3629513 Jackey Jackey], Sydney: Collins, 1976 (Australians in History). Retrieved 6 July 2024.
The name "Jackey Jackey" since entered general Australian and Aboriginal Australian slang:See for instance Mansell, Michael (27 August 2003) [http://www.greenleft.org.au/node/29182 The decline of the Aboriginal protest movement]: "we have to rely on Cathy Freeman, proudly holding her people's flag aloft against all protocols, to symbolise our rejection of having to be Jacky-Jacky Australians" in Green Left Weekly
For whites it was a generic dismissive, denying blacks their individuality and hence their dignity. To blacks it meant a collaborator, the subservient native complicit in his own people's dispossession.
Biographical details
As a young man, Galmahra seems to have grown up and lived at Jerrys Plains near Muswellbrook, New South Wales, most likely as a member of the local Australian Aboriginal nation:[http://www.adb.online.anu.edu.au/biogs/A020007b.htm Beale, Edgar (1967) ' Jackey Jackey ( - 1854)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, Volume 2, Melbourne University Press] Online Edition accessed 9 May 2010 the Wonnarua.[http://www.samuseum.sa.gov.au/page/default.asp?site=2&page=TIN_Tribal&level=3&code=4&item=E5 Tindale, Norman (1974) Online Portion of Map of Australian Aboriginal 'Tribal' Boundaries including "Wonnarua' (NSW)] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080725120515/http://www.samuseum.sa.gov.au/page/default.asp?site=2&page=TIN_Tribal&level=3&code=4&item=E5 |date=25 July 2008 }} Accessed 15 May 2010
In April 1848, still a young man, Galmahra was asked to accompany and help guide Assistant Surveyor Edmund Kennedy and team (including botanist William Carron{{cite book | chapter-url=http://adbonline.anu.edu.au/biogs/A030336b.htm | title=Australian Dictionary of Biography | chapter=William Carron (1821–1876) | publisher=National Centre of Biography, Australian National University }}[https://web.archive.org/web/20100604040122/http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/c/carron/william/kennedy/complete.html Carron, William (1849) "Narrative of an expedition undertaken under the direction of the late Mr. Assistant Surveyor E. B. Kennedy, for the exploration of the country lying between Rockingham Bay and Cape York;, one of the survivors of the expedition"] Accessed 8 May 2010) on an expedition through unknown country heading up into Cape York Peninsula. On that expedition Galmahra proved his value (including bush skills) and turned out to be a loyal and resilient member of the expedition upon whom Edmund Kennedy increasingly relied until he died, speared by Yadhaykenu (a.k.a. Jathaikana) people in the northern Peninsula area (December 1848), somewhere near the Escape River.
Following an inquiry into Edmund Kennedy and other expedition members deaths, Galmahra became more generally known to the colony of New South Wales as Jackey Jackey: an Aboriginal Australian to be honoured for his loyalty, heroic deeds, and general assistance to the expedition.[http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article12906070?searchTerm=%22Jackey%20Jackey%22#pstart1512478 Sydney Morning Herald (7 March 1849) "Correspondence: Jackey Jackey"] Accessed 10 May 2010 By March 1849 a lithographic portrait of 'Jackey Jackey' had been produced for sale,[http://www.printsandprintmaking.gov.au/catalogues/bibliography/184502/author-not-identified-jacky-jacky-lithographic-por.aspx Prints and printmaking Australia Asia Pacific, Jacky Jacky (lithographic portrait by Charles Rodius) online database entry] Accessed 16 May 2010 and by the beginning of 1851 the Governor of New South Wales had presented him with a specially made, pure silver breastplate (see above) plus a £50 bank account gratuity.[http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article12923750?searchTerm=%22Jackey%20Jackey%22#pstart1510395 Sydney Morning Herald (31 December 1850) "Jackey Jackey" (regarding Silver breastplate)"] Accessed 10 May 2010
Galmahra never wore the breastplate, never accessed the £50 bank account, and did not seem to have otherwise been fully engaged or employed by the colony. Instead he gained a reputation for enjoying his alcohol and, in 1854, after drinking too much during an overland journey to Albury, New South Wales, fell into a campfire and died.
Online newspaper articles
File:St James' Church, Sydney 23.JPG
- {{cite web | url = http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article12902370?searchTerm=%22Jackey%20Jackey%22 | work = The Sydney Morning Herald| date = 6 March 1849 | title = The Fate of Kennedy's Expedition | access-date = 10 May 2010}}
- {{cite web | url =http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article12906070?searchTerm=%22Jackey%20Jackey%22#pstart1512478 | work =The Sydney Morning Herald| date = 7 March 1849| title =Correspondence: Jackey Jackey| access-date = 10 May 2010}}
- {{cite web | url =http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article12923750?searchTerm=%22Jackey%20Jackey%22#pstart1510395 | work =Sydney Morning Herald | date = 31 December 1850| title =Jackey Jackey" (regarding Silver breastplate)| access-date = 10 May 2010}}
- {{cite web | url =http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article12934880?searchTerm=%22Jackey%20Jackey%22 | work = The Sydney Morning Herald| date = 6 March 1852| title =Assistant Surveyor Kennedy" (regarding blue marble plaque commemorating Kennedy - including both picture and recognition of Jackey Jackey)| access-date = 10 May 2010}}
Places named after Jackey Jackey
- Jackey Jackey Creek (also known as Jacky Jacky Creek), near Bamaga, Cape York Peninsula, Queensland{{cite QPN|16955|Jacky Jacky Creek|accessdate=28 August 2015}}
- Jacky Jacky Range, Shire of Cook, Queensland{{cite QPN|17004|Jacky Jacky Range|accessdate=28 August 2015}}[https://www.vk5pas.com/uploads/1/3/9/8/13982788/arm-vk4.pdf Summits on the Air – ARM for Australia - Queensland (VK4)], vk5pas.com. Retrieved 6 July 2024.
- Jackey Jackey Airfield, near Bamaga, Cape York Peninsula, Queensland,{{cite QPN|16954|Jacky Jacky Airfield|accessdate=28 August 2015}} where there is a monument commemorating him[https://monumentaustralia.org.au/search/display/90468-jackey-jackey- Jackey Jackey], monumentaustralia.org.au. Retrieved 6 July 2024.
- Galmarra Street, Ngunnawal, Australian Capital Territory
See also
References
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External links
- {{cite book | chapter-url =http://www.adb.online.anu.edu.au/biogs/A020007b.htm | title =Beale, Edgar (1967) ' Jackey Jackey ( - 1854)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, Volume 2, Melbourne University Press | chapter =Jackey Jackey (?–1854) | publisher =National Centre of Biography, Australian National University | access-date = 29 May 2010}}
- {{cite web | url =http://acms.sl.nsw.gov.au/item/itemDetailPaged.aspx?itemID=446737 | title =State Library of New South Wales record "Silver breastplate presented by His Excellency Sir Charles Augustus Fitz Roy K.B., Governor of New South Wales, to Jackey Jackey" | access-date = 9 May 2010}}
- {{cite web | url =http://www.themonthly.com.au/encounters-shane-maloney-jackey-jackey-yadhaykenu--863| title = Maloney, Shane (2008) "Jackey Jackey & the Yadhaykenu", The Monthly April 2008, No. 33 | date = 2 April 2008 | access-date = 9 May 2010}}
- {{cite web | url =http://users.qldnet.com.au/~eachist/documents/edmund%20Kennedy.doc | title =Henry Tranter (2005)"A Brief over view of the Kennedy Expedition" & Duncan Ray (2005) "My Involvement in the Search for Where Kennedy went in 1848" Presented at Opening of A Plaque at Edmund Kennedy Camp XXXIII, 4 June 2005; Eacham Historical Society | access-date =29 May 2010 | archive-url =https://web.archive.org/web/20050620034103/http://users.qldnet.com.au/~eachist/documents/edmund%20Kennedy.doc | archive-date =20 June 2005 | url-status =dead }}
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Category:Explorers of Australia