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CITATION — DECE1VIBER, 1965 Page Five
Tracking as a Fine Art


BY arrangement with the Commonwealth International Training Centre, Canberra, I was taken to a settlement known as Hooker's Creek, in the Northern Territory. I was accompanied from Darwin to Hooker's Creek by Mr. Dennis Daniels, a Welfare Officer of the Northern Territory Administration. We worked together at Hooker's Creek, and he was most helpful in explaining to the Aboriginal Trackers the points which I wanted to be elucidated while gaining an understanding of their tracking techniques.

Prior to departing from Darwin, I was given a preliminary " run-through " on tracking with the aid of Sergeant McFarland, of the Northern Territory Police Force, Dennis Daniels and Tracker Thompson Tithanboy.

But Hooker's Creek, some 400 air miles South-west of Darwin, offered infinite possibilities for studying native tracking in an environment where it is still very much part of the life of the Aboriginals. Away from the settlement the country is semi-desert and game is scarce. Tracking skill is an essential part of the bush native's existence in these parts.

At Hooker's Creek there are approximately 28o men, women and children of the Wailbri tribe. The settlement is in charge of Mr. John Cooke, a former Member of the Northern Territory Police Force. I was there for twenty-four days and I found both Mr. and Mrs. Cooke extremely helpful and kind to me during my stay.

I was introduced to two Trackers of this settlement named Peter Jabananga and Henry Jagamara.

Peter had had several successful trackings recently, and in one of these exploits he tracked several cattle thieves over a long track and led the Police to the place where the thieves were camping with the stolen cattle. Henry had been a Police Tracker at Tennant Creek and Hatches Creek — some three hundred air miles to the South-east of Hooker's Creek — for about eight years, and he has a vast wealth of experience in tracking (although, now, he works as a cook in the settlement).

I found these two Trackers to be uncanny in their observation and subsequent deduction. Throughout my association with them. I was conscious of their perfect co-ordination of mind and eye when they were following tracks. What impressed me most was their ability in apparently searching out small marks of a part of a footprint (where there was nothing, according to our eyes) over hard, gravelled surfaces, or bare rocks, or grassy ground. I can very well express my opinion that Indian Trackers fail to track on hard, rocky surfaces, though they are equally efficient on sandy and dusty ground. But Australian Aboriginal Trackers have apparently found out the observable marks over hard, rocky surfaces and over hard or soft grassy ground.

This vastly superior type of tracking technique is probably due to the fact that they have had to survive by tracking insects, lizards, beetles, snakes, etc., which formed their diet during their nomadic existence.