For Aussies here, don't miss this on 7.30 pm, ABC1, this Sunday. There's Ramingining actors, plus an account of a man so unbelievable but entirely true. Will try to record this.
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The Extraordinary Tale Of William Buckley
7:30pm - Sunday, April 11 on ABC1
Presented by historian Michael Cathcart, The Extraordinary Tale Of William Buckley is a dramatised documentary that tells one of Australia's great untold stories. On a stifling hot Christmas night in 1803, 23-year-old William Buckley, a young English convict, escapes from the doomed first settlement of Port Phillip Bay in South Eastern Australia, choosing instead to risk the unknown of the hostile Australian wilderness rather than surrender his freedom.
Thirty two years later, in 1835, a wild looking white man emerges from the Australian bush with long hair, a beard, dressed in skins and carrying spears. It's William Buckley, long presumed dead. His account, of living for thirty-two years with an Aboriginal tribe before white colonisation, is a tale of love, violence, mortality and loyalty. It's one of the greatest survival stories ever told.
A former soldier, William Buckley was transported to Australia for receiving a bolt of stolen cloth. But rather than face a life in shackles, he escaped from the first settlement of Port Phillip Bay. Months later and on the point of starvation, Buckley fatefully takes a spear from a recently dug grave to use as a crutch. When a group of Wathaurong Aborigines discover him they believe he is the warrior Murrangurk, the owner of the spear, returned from the dead. He is taken in by the family of Murrangurk. Marrangurk's brother Torrenauk becomes his 'brother'.
Over the years, Buckley becomes a Wathaurong tribesman, learning to hunt and fish and speak their language. He witnesses many battles, cannibalism and various tribal customs. He endures hardship - tragically losing his family in a clan killing, and finds great happiness - falling in love with a young woman who stays with him for many years. He grows into middle age, part of a world utterly different to the one into which he was born. But in 1835, Buckley's world is turned upside down when John Batman's advance party for settling Melbourne arrives. Unbeknownst to them, the local Wathaurong tribe is planning to attack and kill the intruders and steal their provisions. Imagine the new arrivals' surprise when a six and a half foot giant of a wild white man emerges from the bush and it turns out, he can speak English! Buckley now stands between two worlds that are about to collide. Can he prevent bloodshed? Whose side is he on, white or black.
Near the end of his days, Buckley sat down to tell his story to John Morgan, a journalist with an eye for a good yarn. Buckley's rich and detailed account offers a fascinating and often surprising portrait of life in an ancient culture before white colonisation. It is one of the most extraordinary survival stories ever told.
Source:
ThrongGuan
