Extraordinary Tale of William Buckley, The (ATOM Study Guide)

In 1835, a wild white man emerged from the Australian bush with long hair and beard, dressed in skins and carrying spears. He was escaped convict William Buckley, long presumed dead, who had spent thirty-two years living with an Aboriginal tribe in southern Victoria.

Near the end of his days, Buckley sat down to tell his story to John Morgan, a journalist with an eye for a good yarn. Buckley's account tells of his life in an ancient culture before white colonisation. It is one of the most extraordinary survival stories ever told.

His journey into a different world began on a stifling hot Christmas night in 1803 – when the 23-year-old Buckley, an English court-martialled soldier, escaped the doomed first settlement of Port Phillip Bay in south-eastern Australia. He chose to risk the unknown of the terrifying and hostile Australian wilderness rather than continue life as a convict ...

After a year of harsh survival, Buckley – spent and starving – fatefully takes a spear from a recently dug grave to use as a crutch. When a group of Aborigines find him they believe he is the warrior Murrangurk, the owner of the spear, returned from the dead. They take him in and he joins the family of Murrangurk – whose brother Torrenauk becomes his 'brother'.

We see Buckley become a Wathaurong tribesman – he learns to hunt and fish and speak their language. He witnesses many battles (usually over women), cannibalism and various tribal customs. At one stage he tragically loses his family in a clan killing. He falls in love with a young woman who stays with him for many years. He grows into middle age as part of a world utterly different from the one he was born into.

But in 1835, Buckley's life faces new upheavals when John Batman's advance party for settling Melbourne arrives. Unbeknown to them the local Wathaurong tribe is planning to attack, kill them and steal their provisions.

Imagine the new arrivals' surprise when a six and a half foot giant of a wild white man emerges from the bush – and, it turns out, he can speak English! Buckley now stands between two worlds that are about to collide. Can he prevent bloodshed? Whose side is he on – white or black?

As the new colony is built, Buckley acts as mediator between white and black, knowing that one day, one side or the other may kill him. He can also foresee the dreadful fate of the Aborigines. He sets sail for Hobart, never to return.

As dawn enters the room and the fire in the hearth grows cold, he tells Morgan – 'I wished the whites had never come'.