There are few Aboriginal icons in White Australia history. From the
explorer to the pioneer, the swagman to the drover's wife, with a few
bushrangers for good measure, Europeans play all the leading roles. A
rare exception is the redoubtable tracker. With skills passed down over
millennia, trackers could trace the movements of people across vast
swathes of country. Celebrated as saviours of lost children and
disoriented adults, and finders of missing livestock, they were also
cursed by robbers on the run. Trackers live in the collective memory as
one of the few examples of Aboriginal people's skills being sought after
in colonial society. In New South Wales alone, more than a thousand
Aboriginal men and a smaller number of women toiled for authorities
across the state after 1862. This book tells the often unlikely stories
of trackers including Billy Bogan, Jimmy Governor, Tommy Gordon, Frank
Williams and Alec Riley. Through his work on native title claims,
historian Michael Bennett realised that the role of trackers - and how
they moved between two worlds - has been largely unacknowledged. His
important book reveals that their work grew out of traditional society
and was sustained by the vast family networks that endure to this day.
Pathfinders brings the skilled and diverse work of trackers not only to
the forefront of law enforcement history but to the general shared
histories of black and white Australia.
