Central Land Council

The Land is Always Alive

After 100 Years, Dick Cubadgee Comes Back To His Country

Last month, the remains of an Aboriginal man whose body was held in the South Australian museum for over one hundred years were retuned to his descendants and buried in his traditional country near Tennant Creek. The remains of Dick Cubadgee, a Warumungu man who acted as a guide, interpreter and go-between for explorer David Lindsay in the 1880s, were returned by the South Australian Museum after consultation with the Central Land Council and the Warmungu people. It is believed to be the first time a whole skeleton has been returned for burial. "You're back home now. This is you home. You've been gone from here – now you've come back and you're resting in your own land. the whole family came up to you, so you an rest in peace in your own land."

These words from Brian Tennyson welcomed Cubadgee back to his own country. Standing beside the grave, Cubadgee's descendants spoke in Warumungu, Warlpiri and English about the importance of his homecoming. As Jimmy Frank explained: "This is his dreaming country, his father's country, before the whitefella got into this land, and we still believe in our dreaming country today. "It's an important thing, because he went away from here, this is his traditional place, this is his dreaming country, which is his father's country. And as another Warumungu man said: "See that rock there, that's his body, see that tree there, that's his body."

At the same time as Cubadgee returned to become part of his country, his descendants were re-affirming the continuing links of their living culture with the land. The funeral ceremony was timed to coincide with initiation ceremonies involving two young men though to be descended from Cubadgee. Dick Cubadgee was a giant of a man, in anyone's terms. He stood more than six foot six high. His father and brother were even bigger. His father was described as "the king of the Warramungas" by the explorer David Lindsay – a term now recognised as inaccurate to apply to Aboriginal society, but one which indicates the importance of Cubadgee's family.

David Lindsay made several expeditions through the Tennant Creek region during the 1880s and dick Cubadgee became his guide and interpreter, contributing greatly to the success of Lindsay's expeditions, particularly in travelling without conflict with local Aboriginal people. In 1887, 1888 and 1889 Lindsay took Cubadgee to the Adelaide and Melbourne International Exhibitions. He also presented him at Adelaide's Government House and to the Royal Geographical Societies in both cities. The trips were a great success for Lindsay.

Little was known about Aboriginal culture and the outback then and there was a great interest in it. Cubadgee was a charismatic personality, and his boomerang throwing and fire-lighting displays made him an extremely exotic attraction. The two returned to Central Australia for one further expedition after the 1889 trip but during the expedition Cubadgee became sick with a cancerous tumour on his neck. Lindsay sent him to the Royal Adelaide Hospital to have the tumour removed, but while the operation appears to have been successful, Cubadgee became seriously ill during his convalescence.

He contracted tuberculosis, one of the many European diseases which ravaged the Aboriginal population during the early years of colonisation and one which still kills many Aboriginal people today despite being virtually eradicated in the non-Aboriginal population in Australia. Cubadgee made many friends during his stay in hospital. Nurses and members of the hospital's Women's Auxiliary read him stories from the Bible and in return he told them stories of Warumungu culture and life in the bush. As he became increasingly ill he talked with greater and greater emphasis of the importance of the land to Aboriginal people. He spoke of the damage Europeans were doing.

According to records of the South Australian Museum, he said "The whites were intruders in my country and should leave my people alone." He asked to be allowed to return to his country but was kept in hospital where he died on 15 September, 1889. he was nineteen years old. To this point Cubadgee's life had been quite unusual, but after his death he found a fate which was shared by thousands of Aboriginal people over the years. Somehow, although a funeral service was held for him, Dick Cubadgee's remains ended up in the South Australian Museum. The museum's present head of anthropology, Dr Christopher Anderson, says precisely what happened remains a mystery.

"I doubt very much whether there was any grave-robbing, "Dr Anderson said. "But it seems the surgeon was a good friend of the head of the museum." So the remains of dick Cubadgee stayed in Adelaide, a thousand miles from the clear blue skies and red sands of the Warumungu country. The remains were on display until 1912 but in more recent times were held in the museum's "secret-sacred room" which houses much of the museum's large collection of sacred objects and Aboriginal remains. The SA museum has a policy of returning remains and sacred objects to their rightful places and owners wherever possible. It is a lengthy process, often involving years of work to identify their origins and finding (and consulting with) the right people. In Cubadgee's case there was a great deal of information available in the diaries of David Lindsay. Last year Dr Anderson mentioned the Cubadgee remains to Central Land council staff, and a series of meetings were organised to talk to Warumungu people.

Eventually his place in Warumungu society was worked out and plans were made to have his remains returned. In May, eight senior men drove to Adelaide to carry out the first ceremonies preparation for the return. Jimmy Frank, who's mother shared the same dreaming site at Cubadgee, went into the secret-sacred room with Dr Anderson to receive the remains. "We couldn't touch the box with our hands," Mr Frank said. "We got down on our knees and rolled our chest on it. We all did the same thing and we told them it would be good to see these remains come tack to his home ground and buried there."

A few week later the SA Museum's Director, Mr Lester Russell, Flew to Tennant Creek, 500 km north of Alice Springs, with the small casket. It was taken to the land know as Jurnkurakurr, Cubadgee's dreaming site, and reburied in a quiet and moving ceremony on 4 June. The ceremony was a mixture of traditional and modern funeral practices. The small casket was buried in a grave but only after men, women and children from the area had paid their last respects to "the old man" in the traditional way. Each knelt before the casket, and performed the same ritual as done earlier at the museum – rubbing the chest against the casket. It's a gesture which symbolises the touching of spirits.

"That's how it's been, years ago, before the whites ever got here," Jimmy Franks said. "People use to die in their own camps, and they'd gather the mob up and people use to roll on each other chest to chest, and then take the body away. "We still remember who's his grand grandchildren today," said Jimmy Frank. "We know which dreaming site he came from. His father was called a king, the king of Jurnkurakurr – that's Tennant Creek, the one rock hole there is Jurnkurakurr. "Cubadgee's father was the king of Jurnkurakurr, and Cubadgee's grandchildren are still the kings of Jurnkurakurr today."