Men of the Jungle

Despite the referendum to allow Aboriginal people to vote not due for another fifty four years, Norman and Charles Baird were both on the electoral roll for the 1913 federal election, the first in which voting was compulsory. Norman was listed as a blacksmith and Charles as a miner, both living at Bloomfield, in the Division of Herbert. Some of the political issues of the day included the White Australia Policy and conscription for overseas service in the First World War.

An avid reader and writer, Norman kept abreast of the politics and issues affecting his community, both black and white. Describing himself as a ‘staunch elector’ it is clear Norman was passionate about voicing his opinion. Many people have spoken of the ease with which he moved between worlds, the politics of the towns and the politics of the bush. It was a skill that would have captivated the adventurer and later prolific author, Ion Idriess, who came to the Bloomfield in 1912.

Beverley Eley, who wrote Ion Idriess’s biography states that Idriess met Norman and Charlie at Mt Hartley south of Cooktown in 1927. The Encyclopaedia of Aboriginal Australia also incorrectly places Norman and Charlie with Idriess in the late 1920s and early 1930s but there is little doubt that Charles never returned to the Bloomfield after the war.

It is most likely that Norman and Ion, who everyone called Jack, first met when Jack was hired by the Annan River Tin Mining Company in 1912 and the events as retold in the Men of the Jungle happened at about this time.

Jack had probably never met an Aboriginal man like Norman who was articulate and opinionated and who had a vast knowledge of not only the Eastern Kuku Yalanji people and their lands, but also several other surrounding groups of Bama. The three young men - Norman 25, Jack 24 and Charlie 23 - developed a close friendship over the coming months and enjoyed many adventures together.
Jack retold the story of his time with Norman and Charles in Men of the Jungle nineteen years later. He described Norman as ‘a handsome chap, tall, straight, and slim, with clean-cut features, a nice smile, and the brownest of brown eyes’. Norman’s temperament was ‘quiet and dreaming’. On many occasions Norman would gaze into the firelight and Jack could only imagine what Norman’s thoughts were.

Charles he described as ‘shorter and nuggetty, with thick, jet-black eyebrows, a determined chin, exceptional shoulder muscles, and simply tireless legs. He was a fearless chap, very quick to help a mate when in trouble, but inclined to be moody at times. Charlie was a bundle of energy when anything was doing, and a grimly determined devil when aroused; I’ve seen his black eyes blazing with fury.’

Charles is said to have killed Big-nose a notorious man eating crocodile who taunted the locals for years. Big-nose lived in the Bloomfield River and during Jack’s visit had taken a child at the water’s edge. Big-nose would follow the children as they rowed downstream to school, ‘when the dingy stopped, he stopped; when it rowed on again, he followed’. Under the moonlight, Charles had a ‘thrilling target…the whole bulk of the alligator though nearly submerged in line with us, the tip of his snout as a guiding line to the rifle-sights.’

Jack was impressed with Norman’s knowledge of the bush who he said knew the secrets of the Bama way of life of which very few white men understood. Their adventures involved many trips into the bush carrying little more than a ‘blanket, rifle, a bit of flour, tea, and sugar’ taking every thing else they needed from the bush. On one such trip they tried to locate the ‘silver show’ an apparently rich tin field that had been found when they were all boys. It had not been mined for a number of reasons including hostilities between Bama and Waybal and the distance between the site and transportation. Along the way they camped on the sandy bank of a creek which Jack described as easy and comfortable as there were ‘no sticks or stones or stubby grass-tufts to get into one’s ribs’. If it was cold they would ‘scoop out a shallow trench, line it with sweet warm grass, and sleep comfortably, protected from the wind’. At their more permanent camps Norman and Charles constructed ‘palm-thatched beehive-shaped gunyas’ which Jack noted ‘not a drop of rain came through’. Despite the rain they were not troubled for dry wood as timber from the ‘kerosene tree’ would burn as if soaked in kerosene.

Jack praised Norman’s jungle sense and detailed an instance when Norman was ‘walking out to the galley one black night (and) suddenly stood still, his bare foot poised above a snake’. On another occasion Norman apparently spread his blanket over a snake’s hole and in the night when the ‘unpleasant brown snake’ ventured out Norman got such a fright he nearly landed in the fire.
Jack also provided an insight into the local politics, especially the relationship between the China Camp miners and the Kuku Yalanji people. Negotiations with the miners were handled by Big Jack, ‘the undisputed boss in all dealings between aborigines and whites’ and the grandson of a senior traditional owner. Big Jack had the support of a group of young men called the ‘Big Six’ who no doubt provided the muscle power necessary to assert traditional rights over depleting resources.