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Jackey Jackey

Jackey Jackey
JackeyJackeyMedallionDrawing.jpg
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)
Born approx 1833
Muswellbrook
Died 1854 (Aged 21)
Nationality Wonnarua
Other names Galmahra
Citizenship British
Occupation Guide
Employer Surveyor-General's Department
State of New South Wales
Known for Heroic Deeds as guide and companion for surveyor Edmund Kennedy
Website http://www.adb.online.anu.edu.au/biogs/A020007b.htm

Jackey Jackey (a.k.a. Jacky Jacky) (1833–1854) is the name by which Galmahra(a.k.a. Galmarra), the Aboriginal Australian guide and companion to surveyor Edmund Kennedy was known. He survived Edmund Kennedy's fatal 1848 expedition into Cape York Peninsula and was subsequently formally recognized for heroic deeds by the then colony of New South Wales in words engraved on a solid silver breastplate or gorget 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.

The name "Jackey Jackey" since entered general Australian plus Aboriginal Australian slang

"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.

As a young man, Galmahra seems to have grown up and lived near Muswellbrook, New South Wales, most likely as a member of the local Australian Aboriginal nation: the Wonnarua.


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