Biography
Also known as Jaal.
Big George", an Aboriginal also known as Caringoora or Cannibal George, the recognised king of the Aboriginals in the Nanriine-Meekatharra District, was killed by lightning at Barrambie in late February 1915 and another native, who was sitting at the same camp fire at the time, had a narrow escape.
He was found dead on the Rabbit Proof Fence at Barrambie in the Sandstone district. It was supposed that he had been struck by lightning. At least, that's what almost everyone said. Others thought the lightning may have come out of a rifle barrel. Perhaps it did. In fact, stories persist to this day that he may have taken one or more bullets to the head.
He was a large, powerfully built man of about 16 stone and 6 feet 1 inches in height, who used to help early prospectors - but in his latter days, he caused trouble. He was as strong as a lion, terrorised his own people and scared many Europeans. In the early days of the goldfields, his presence near prospectors' camps was never welcomed. Piccannies, it used to be alleged, were often knocked on the head by George, but he always kept out of the hands of the police and made the bush his home. The notorious Coyle (then serving " life" at Rottnest) was then his frequent companion. Coyle was a tall, thin specimen but nevertheless, a king of no mean order. In the early days, he, too, was highly thought of but in his latter days he was an out-and-out scoundrel.
Carringoora, alias Big George, had a half caste woman for a wife. All the Aborigines were afraid of him, also station owners and managers. He would
order natives to go into stations and obtain food for him and inform them if he was refused he would spear them. He obtained the food, as they knew he would carry out his threat. On one occasion at a well at Millewa station, he bailed up Mr. Harry Walsh, of Milleura Station and threatened him with a spear and was in the act of throwing it at close quarters. Mr. Walsh was on horseback and, with his stockwhip, knocked the spear from George's hand and, laying the whip about him, prevented him from using a second spear. Mr. Walsh then rode off.
Later, Constable Phelan was on patrol duty. Big George intercepted him and caught him off his horse and started battering him with a heavy stick. Phelan drew his revolver but failed to discharge it, as Big George wrenched the revolver from him and pointed it at him. It again failed to discharge. The native tracker galloped into Milly Milly station and Andy Daily, manager for Len Darlot, organised a party and proceeded to the spot, only to find Big George had gone, thinking the constable was dead. The station manager, Mr. Andrew Daly, with the aid of a party, brought the injured constable to the station, where he was nursed back to health.
After two days, the constables ascertained he was camped at a certain place and they galloped into the camp fully prepared in case of emergency, to disable him. He was taken unawares, as his scouts betrayed him. Caught asleep and hit on the head with the butt of a rifle, he was chained up and brought to the police station. Constable Strapp was appointed district clerk to Inspector O. Drewry at Cue and escorted Big George to there. On the night of his arrival, he was locked in the yard of the lock-up. The next morning, he was missing. How he got over a 15ft. wall, was a mystery no one could fathom. Constable Strapp, with the tracker, picked up his tracks and followed them all day, and just at nightfall saw him ahead on the hills. Galloping up near him, he ascertained that Big George was lame from the fall and disarmed of spears. He requested him to sit down and the tracker placed a chain on him and brought him back to the lock-up.
While Jaal as ‘Big George’ remains a relatively unknown figure today, there are several indications that he exercised a kind of fascination over colonial society in Western Australia. Jaal was born near Lake Way around 1870 and first enters the historical record as a prisoner who was sent to Rottnest Island in 1891 for sheep stealing. Soon after his second arrest at Belele near Meekatharra in 1895 for alleged murder and cannibalism, he made a daring escape from police chains with the assistance of his wife. Following a month of evading the police, Jaal was recaptured and marched in chains to Geraldton, where he spent a month awaiting a trial with five of his kinsmen. Jaal and his co-accused were found not guilty and released to make their own way back to the Murchison. It was this well-publicised case that established Jaal’s reputation as ‘Big George a reputed Cannibal’. By the late 1890s, Jaal’s increasing conflict with colonial laws ensured that his reputation as ‘Big George’ the ‘outlaw’ and ‘cannibal’ was well known throughout the Murchison district at the time of Morton’s visit. The titles of ‘Big’ and ‘King’ indicate the high status attributed to Jaal by a colonial society that recognised his influence over Yamaji from the Meekatharra and Lake Way districts. The titles ‘King of the Meekatharra natives’ and ‘mobbarn man – possessed of much magic’ was bestowed upon him through the writings of Daisy Bates, and in a mock ‘obituary’ that described him as ‘King of His Tribe’ following his death in 1915. Jaal operated between two systems of law and the ‘chaining’ of Yamaji prisoners was still part of police procedure, a practice that would continue well into the twentieth century. [Aboriginal History, Volume 39, 2015 - by Robin Barrington]
