The northern territory police magazine $4 c tat

Tracking Over Bare Rock Surfaces

While moving over such surfaces I asked Henry whether he could track, step by step, any footprints on them. He at once obliged me by offering demonstration. I then segregated Henry under close watch and asked two Aborigines to walk over the surface bare-footed, and subsequently with riding boots on. To me (after my long experience in tracking with Indian Trackers) there appeared to be no " observable mark " (no footprint outlines or outlines of a part of a footprint) on those rough, hard boulders.




The stick's cud points to the dislodgment of a pebble from its seat by the foot of a». individual while walking over it.

On being called, Henry methodically tracked the ^-barefoot prints almost step by step, and the shoe prints similarly, and later on correctly named the two Aborigines. (He was not previously aware that these Aborigines had walked over the boulders nor was lie aware that they had been in or departed from the 'arca).

This almost uncanny power left me thunderstruck, and I cross-examined Henry for over a week to find out what be saw on the boulders. Now, as I see, I feel that his contentions are reasonable, and can be well explained into cogent hypotheses in tracking — but to understand these hypotheses one would require constant practice, clear observation and quick deduction.

It is reasonable to say that when a man (say, 15o lbs. in weight) walks on a rocky surface which has not been polished like marble, the movement and the weight in motion act like two forces, scratching and dragging and thumping at regular intervals by the two feet, with the toes as claws, and the heels as hammers. These movements in their turn make certain marks on these rocky surfaces. The toes in motion, with their nails, make scratch marks, drag marks and kicking marks in their forward march, showing the direction of travel. And when these obvious marks are found (of course, by a master Tracker), a dole scrutiny shows the smoothing of the surfaces; and, its some cases, faint ridge marks of the heels over moss or thin dust could be seen.

Where rocky surfaces are covered with small pebbles embedded either slightly or deeply on the thin covering of moss or dust, in addition to the more obvious marks of the scratching and smoothing as described above, one finds the dislodgment of pebbles from their seats. And these, while being dislodged from their original scats (by the toes or by the planter surfaces of the foot) bare a slight trail up to the place where they lie. These slight trails arc the deciding factors in tracking over such surfaces.