Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander viewers are advised that this photo contains the image of Mick, an aboriginal man who has died.
The notes to this image read: The Toko Range Expedition just ready to start out, “Mick”, S O’Grady & A McKengee”
We’ve again searched the internet for context about the photo. Where is Mick from and where were they heading on this expedition?
Our primary resource materials are the works of Luise Hercus.
Luise Anna Hercus AM FAHA, née Schwarzschild, (16 January 1926 – 15 April 2018) was a German-born linguist who lived in Australia from 1954. After significant early work on Middle Indo-Aryan dialects (Prakrits) she had specialised in Australian Aboriginal languages since 1963, when she took it up as a hobby. Works authored or co-authored by her are influential, and often among the primary resource materials on many languages of Australia. Source https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luise_Hercus
Mick in this image could be Mick from Mungerannie, a Yandruwandha man, born at Murnpeowie in 1885, or perhaps Pandie Mick, born in 1880 near Alton Downs. (Reference Pg 160 https://openresearch-repository.anu.edu.au/bitstream/1885/219936/1/Austin-EtAl-1990-LanguageAndHistory-EssaysInHonourLuiseHercus.pdf
The Toko Range is mentioned in the same resource on page 182 within a chapter on the Mulunga ‘corroboree’ which is described as one of the best-recorded of all travelling ceremonies. (Pg 175)
‘ WS He come back to Boulia then again. And went [towards] that Barkly Tableland then, goin’ back up along the railway line then. To Dijarra. He come down the river there then [the Georgina River, west of Dajarra] to a place called __ . What that, that place? __ Irrandantji [Urandangi]. Yeah, he come back to Irrandantji and he turned off and he went that way [west] then. He got back here to __ Quartz Hill country. Mr Cavanagh [is the present station-owner; Ambalindum is the station]. Aranda country, he comes back there.
RK I think you said [on another occasion] it came from Urandangi through the Toko Range.
WS No the bugger [the ceremony] must have went back up north again. It went to __ not Velvet Top, not Lake Nash .. .it come back from __ damn place, when I was there, I carted wolfram through that road to a place called Dijarra, end of the line, end of the line was Dijarra then. (From later discussions the wolfram field was Hatches Creek (see Kimber 1986:37).)
RK Not [through] Tobermorey?
WS North from Tobermorey.
