‘Dark Emu’, the Fix Is In

One of Bruce Pascoe’s favourite stories, which he tells on almost every occasion, concerns Charles Sturt’s  encounter with a large tribe of Aborigines, who allegedly saved him and his party from almost certain death.  Pascoe uses this incident to highlight the essential decency and humanity of the Australian Aborigines.  And, indeed it does.  But he also uses it to claim that they were living high on the hog in the middle of a desert that almost killed Sturt.  That part is a fabrication.  What follows is an extract from my book Bitter Harvest that examines this story.

It’s worth examining Pascoe’s description of this incident, which he titles ‘Sturt’s saviours’, in a little more detail:

Sturt’s party reached Coopers Creek, in what was to become known as Sturt’s Stony Desert, where they were confronted with sand ridges thirty metres high.

They ploughed on enduring incredible hardships. Sturt climbed one final dune and peered down into the plain.

His journal…