BOOK REVIEW: Albert, Alan and the Guṯkuṯ

A moving exploration of history, grief and reconciliation, ‘Albert, Alan and the Guṯkuṯ’ traces two families across generations to reveal how truth-telling can help heal even the deepest wounds of Australia’s past. Jim Kable writes.

IN JULY 2015, Independent Australia published an article titled ‘Wukidi! The Reconciliation of McColl and Wirrpanda’, written by Joan McColl, one of the co-authors of this book.

The article was about a ceremony held in the Supreme Court in Darwin back in 2003, a makarrata ceremony of reconciliation and apology by the Yolngu people, especially of a homeland village — Dhuruputjpi, in eastern Arnhem Land. This was the ancestral home of Dhakiyarr (Tuckier) Wirrpanda, who, it was said, had speared and killed Albert McColl in August 1933 on Woodah Island just off the coast of eastern Arnhem Land.

Dhakiyarr had then been taken to Darwin to face a sentence which found him guilty, but which, for a whole variety of reasons, was overturned. He was then ordered released and escaped (or perhaps shown the open door?) the compound where he was being held — disappeared, presumed murdered by police. The reason the police party was on Woodah was to investigate the killing of a group of Japanese trepangers who had infringed certain protocols in their “theft” of trepang (sea cucumber).

There is always a backstory: protocols not observed or, in many cases, interference with local women and girls (the Hornet Bank 1857 and Springsure/Wills 1861 incidents).

So, what was the story? Who was Dhakiyarr Wirrpanda? Who was Albert McColl and who is the McColl family?

Wukidi! The reconcilation of McColl and Wirrpanda

In 1933, a police constable was speared by an Indigenous man in the Northern Territory. In 2003, the families of both men came together, writes Joan McColl

This is the story outlined in Joan's book, Albert, Alan and the Guṯkuṯ. Aspects of this story I was already familiar with (Ted Egan having some years ago sent me his MA thesis, Justice All Their Own, in connection with other family history and connections I was tracing out of the NT) and I had also read Mark McKenna’s powerful book, Return to Uluru, the story of a murder in 1934 of Yokunnuna, an Arrernte man from Mutitjulu (Uluru) by a police constable and former colleague of Albert McColl, Bill McKinnon.

Sydney University History academic Mark McKenna’s gripping book is a kind of cold case investigation, which eventually uncovers the truth and leads to a reconciliation between McKinnon's descendants and those of Yokunnuna. Not dissimilar in broad outlines from that of the McColl and Wirrpanda families.

This book is a thorough telling of the story, especially of the Scottish-Australian McColls, back into their Scottish roots — their arrival in the mid-19th Century into Victoria, land purchases and farming, boat-building and so on in East Gippsland, Victoria, around Sale and the Lakes.

The book details the lives and families of the McColls via photos and documentary records, and maps of land purchases. All leading through to the story of Albert, with various surprising and endearing twists to his story: a policeman in Victoria aged 21 in 1923, a holiday in Tasmania, time in WA following up a land settlement scheme near Eucla in WA, resigning from the Victorian Police Force on 29 May 1927 to do so, then joining the Central Australian Police Force based in Mparntwe (Alice Springs) on 25 May 1929.

This was less than a year after the so-called final massacre of First Australians at Coniston during the period 14 August to 18 October of 1928, not far north of Mparntwe. Here is where he was based for the next three years, chasing local people charged with theft of stock. And one such man was killed by one of the Trackers – Tracker Paddy was his name – when attacked, a similar charge Albert McColl’s brother, Arch, back in Victoria, had laid against him — stealing sheep.

I doubt a police arrest there could have resulted in his murder. Deaths in, or almost in, custody, for those in Central Australia, however, were a distinct possibility in those killing times. There seems to have been no follow-up inquest on the killing, beyond the report.

After three years of camel patrols, some lasting several months at a time, to the various borders – South Australia, Western Australia and North Australia – he was entitled to three months leave, which he took back with family in Gippsland. During this period, the two regions of Central and North Australia were merged into what we now know as the Northern Territory.

Colonial killings hidden in code spark truth-telling debate

A settler’s coded diary of killings is challenging Australia's comfort with its colonial past and raising new questions about who gets to control the historical record.

Resuming work on 11 November 1933, he was posted to Darwin (though spending much of his time based at Roper River, which flows east into the Gulf, somewhat south-east of Groote Island and south of Woodah Island, so in his general area of jurisdiction). He had now less than nine months left to him.

During this period, there were three letters discovered by his researcher family describing this new life — one to his mother, two to his favourite brother, Walter. There are no photos, though in the aftermath, it seems as though his camera and photos ended up with others who did not forward them to the family.

And so the stage was set for his killing on Woodah Island off the east coast of Arnhem Land.

Albert was part of a party of police and trackers sent to investigate the killing of a party of Japanese trepangers (sea cucumber) who had not observed proper or appropriate protocols in their taking of what clearly belonged to the local people.

The 21st-century interactions from the time of the Wukidi Ceremony/ the Broken Spear in Darwin in 2003, when a special ceremonial gift of significant meaning in traditional law, the Guṯkuṯ, was given to Alan McColl, representing his family/clan and forever linking their families, are inspiring. The visits back and forth between Victoria and Dhuruputjpi are especially moving.

Australia needs these stories to be widely known. I highly commend this book, not only for what it teaches us all about making connections so that we may “continue our stories together" – First Australians and newcomers (from 1788) – but actually as a template, as an example, for others wishing to track their own stories, to make their own makarrata reconciliations with First Australians.

(And, by the way, Ted Egan was always insistent that the pronunciation of this word was to rhyme more-or-less with Douglas MacArthur — as “makarta”.)

Albert, Alan and the Guṯkuṯis available from Collins Booksellers.

This book was reviewed by an IA Book Club member. If you would like to receive free high-quality books and have your review published on IA, subscribe to receive your complimentary IA Book Club membership.

Jim Kable’s paternal ancestry arrived from East Anglia as part of the complement of the First Fleet into New South Wales in January 1788. He has kinship connections to Ngambri/Ngunnawal peoples of the Canberra/Yass region; with Worimi of the Newcastle to Port Stephens and Gloucester/Forster region of NSW; to Gurindji (of infamous Lord Vestey’s era of Wave Hill and then Wattie Creek of Vincent Lingiari — its most famous 20th-century son); and to the Woolwonga/Wulwulam people of the area around Burundie, a couple of hundred kilometres south of Darwin, almost all of whom were killed in the so-called Copper Mine massacres of 1884.

Jim Kable was a secondary school teacher of English (including EAL), History, and Japanese, before spending most of his final two decades of teaching English in Japan, 1990s, 2000s. For a brief two years, he was a member of the now-defunct New Liberals from 2020 to 2022. He takes a keen and informed view of politics.