Jackey Jackey

For the early Australian bushranger also known as Jackey Jackey, see William Westwood (bushranger).

Jackey Jackey
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)[1]
Bornapprox 1833
Muswellbrook
Died1854 (Aged 21)
NationalityWonnarua
Other namesGalmahra
CitizenshipBritish
OccupationGuide
Employer(s)Surveyor-General's Department
State of New South Wales
Known forHeroic deeds as guide and companion for surveyor Edmund Kennedy
Websitehttp://www.adb.online.anu.edu.au/biogs/A020007b.htm

Jackey Jackey (also spelled Jacky Jacky) (c. 1833–1854),[2] Aboriginal name Galmahra[3] (or Galmarra),[4] 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,[5] which read as follows:[5]

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.[6]

The name "Jackey Jackey" since entered general Australian and Aboriginal Australian slang:[7]

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.[2]

  1. ^ "Medal given by Sir C. Fitzroy to Jackey Jackey, native servant to the explorer Mr Kennedy". Retrieved 1 June 2010.
  2. ^ a b Maloney, Shane (April 2008). "Jackey Jackey & the Yadhaykenu". The Monthly. Retrieved 1 June 2010.
  3. ^ "Jacky Jacky Creek (entry 17002)". Queensland Place Names. Queensland Government. Retrieved 28 August 2015.
  4. ^ Blyton, Greg; et al. (2004). Wannin thanbarran : a history of Aboriginal and European contact in Muswellbrook and the Upper Hunter Valley. Muswellbrook Shire Council Aboriginal Reconciliation Committee.
  5. ^ a b "Heroic Acts". National Museum of Australia. Retrieved 1 June 2010.
  6. ^ Margaret Paice, Jackey Jackey, Sydney: Collins, 1976 (Australians in History). Retrieved 6 July 2024.
  7. ^ See for instance Mansell, Michael (27 August 2003) 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