- George Musgrave
Dr George Musgrave (
1921 -9 February 2006 ) was an elder of theKuku Thaypan clan and a famousAustralia n bush tracker. He was aAgu Alaya speaker.He was born in his own country, near
Lakefield National Park . As children, he andTommy George Senior were hidden in mailbags by the station owner, Fredrick Sheppard, to avoid removal by police and welfare officers.As a result, they were able to grow up with their own people, and learn traditional law and language, management practices of their country and how to live off the land. Recently, they were able to successfully claim continuous ownership of traditional lands, and retain custody of some land at
Gno-Coom (Saxby Waterhole).George's senses were so sharp he could follow a week-old trail through dense scrub at night. He could identify tracks that were up to two months old. In August 2005 he was asked to track an off duty policeman who had become lost while pig hunting. Despite being 84 years old, he found the man in less than a day.
He also worked as a community policeman and musterer.
Together with Tommy George Senior, he founded the
Ang-Gnarra Aboriginal Corporation atLaura, Queensland , the biennialLaura Festival of Traditional Dance and Culture , theTraditional Knowledge Recording Project and theCape York Land Council .They campaigned to protect the world-renowned
Quinkan rock art near Laura, where they carried out custodial duties for special places, including the rock art galleries.They shared their knowledge of the bush, their language and their customs with researchers and visitors. It would be difficult to find a piece of scholarly work on traditional language, culture or country in
Cape York Peninsula that does not credit their expertise.In 2005 he was awarded an honorary Doctorate of Letters by
James Cook University for his knowledge of traditional law.Publications
* George, T., & G. Musgrave (1995). "Our country, our art, our Quinkans". Laura, Queensland: Ang-Gnarra Aboriginal Corporation. ISBN 0-646-25392-1
External links
* [http://www.ang-gnarra.org/ Ang-Gnarra Aboriginal Corporation] at Laura
* [http://www.tkrp.com.au/tkrp/index.php Traditional Knowledge Recording Project]
* [http://www.cylc.org.au/ Cape York Land Council]References
* [http://media.jcu.edu.au/story.cfm?id=396 JCU honours Cape York elders]
* [http://donsmaps.com/aboriginals.html Australian Aboriginals: Tracking master leaves a trail for others]
* [http://www.archimuse.com/mw2005/papers/kateli/kateli.html Interpretation and Personalisation: Enriching Individual Experience by Annotating On-line Materials]
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