Qualla: Massacre of Running Waters https://qualla.com/massacre-of-running-waters en-us © 2026 Bendyline Mon, 20 Jul 2026 10:21:26 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/q/g/w/t/massacre-of-running-waters-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Massacre of Running Waters https://qualla.com/massacre-of-running-waters Massacre of Running Waters: Introduction https://qualla.com/massacre-of-running-waters/ Photo credit Martin Kleinig, CC BY-SA 4.0. Two years before German missionaries established their Lutheran station at Hermannsburg, and fifteen years after the first European explorers reached this stretch of the Finke River, the worst recorded inter-group massacre in Aboriginal Australian oral history unfolded at a place called Irbmangkara -- Running Waters. In 1875, a raiding party of 50 to 60 Matuntara warriors descended on a Southern Arrernte camp beside a permanent waterhole about 200 kilometers southwest of Alice Springs. By the time it was over, between 80 and 100 men, women, and children lay dead. The massacre was not random violence. It was a calculated act of punishment for what the attackers considered an unforgivable act of sacrilege.

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Image: Martin Kleinig | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Sat, 28 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/q/g/w/t/massacre-of-running-waters-wp/qgwt-massacre-of-running-waters-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Massacre of Running Waters: The Accusation https://qualla.com/massacre-of-running-waters/ Photo credit D. Maddison 2017, CC BY-SA 4.0. The chain of events began with a man called Kalejika, who belonged to a Central Aranda local group. Kalejika visited the camp at Irbmangkara and then reported to Upper Southern Aranda men that the camp's aged and highly respected ceremonial chief, Ltjabakuka, along with some of h...

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Image: D. Maddison 2017 | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Sat, 28 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/q/g/w/t/massacre-of-running-waters-wp/qgwt-massacre-of-running-waters-the-accusation.mp3 0:06 2 full Massacre of Running Waters: The Attack at Dusk https://qualla.com/massacre-of-running-waters/ Photo credit D. Maddison 2017, CC BY-SA 4.0. According to historian Geoffrey Blainey, the Matuntara chose Running Waters because the Southern Arrernte could be readily surprised there, and they timed their raid for the evening, when their enemies were cooking their meals before settling down for the night. Three parties of ...

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Image: D. Maddison 2017 | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Sat, 28 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/q/g/w/t/massacre-of-running-waters-wp/qgwt-massacre-of-running-waters-the-attack-at-dusk.mp3 0:06 3 full Massacre of Running Waters: A Boy Who Remembered https://qualla.com/massacre-of-running-waters/ Photo credit D. Maddison 2017, CC BY-SA 4.0. Moses Tjalkabota was a small child -- between six and nine years old -- when the massacre occurred. Two of his friends and their mother died in the raid. The next day, he witnessed the great clouds of smoke rising from funeral pyres as the bodies were burned. Decades later, Tjalk...

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Image: D. Maddison 2017 | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Sat, 28 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/q/g/w/t/massacre-of-running-waters-wp/qgwt-massacre-of-running-waters-a-boy-who-remembered.mp3 0:06 4 full Massacre of Running Waters: Law, Justice, and the Weight of Custom https://qualla.com/massacre-of-running-waters/ Photo credit D. Maddison 2017, CC BY-SA 4.0. Ted Strehlow wrote about the massacre as a case study in the incompatibility between Indigenous Australian customary law and the modern Australian legal system. The punishment fell on an entire community, including people who were "unwitting in the crime" -- a concept that, as St...

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Image: D. Maddison 2017 | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Sat, 28 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/q/g/w/t/massacre-of-running-waters-wp/qgwt-massacre-of-running-waters-law-justice-and-the-weight-of-custom.mp3 0:06 5 full Massacre of Running Waters: A Wound That Still Shapes the Land https://qualla.com/massacre-of-running-waters/ Photo credit D. Maddison 2017, CC BY-SA 4.0. Professor Sam Gill of the University of Colorado Boulder analyzed the Strehlow accounts in his 1998 book Storytracking. He concluded that something significant occurred at Irbmangkara, on a scale that remained important to the peoples of the region more than a century later. The ...

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Image: D. Maddison 2017 | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Sat, 28 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/q/g/w/t/massacre-of-running-waters-wp/qgwt-massacre-of-running-waters-a-wound-that-still-shapes-the-land.mp3 0:06 6 full