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The Dog on the Tuckerbox is an Australian historical monument and tourist attraction, located at Snake Gully, five miles (8 km) from Gundagai, New South Wales. It was sculpted by local stonemason Frank Rusconi and was unveiled by the then Prime Minister of Australia Joseph Lyons on 28 November, 1932 as a tribute to pioneers. The statue was inspired by a bullock driver's poem, Bullocky Bill, which celebrates the life of a mythical driver's dog that loyally guarded the man's tuckerbox (lunch box) until death.
I was interested in the reasons given for the naming of the 'Convincing Ground Massacre'. There was also a massacre near today's Dog on the Tuckerbox that has been called the Coolac Massacre but which would perhaps be more correctly called, 'the DonT Massacre'.
This massacre happened around the same time as the Portland one. It was drought time. A dray bought a load of flour from Goulburn. It bogged near the Nine Mile near current day Coolac. The bullock driver went to the pub and when he came back the flour had been rifled by Indigenous people. The colonials laced the flour with arsenic. The Indigenous people came back to get more flour, and there were many many deaths.
In the 1850s the first poem about the DonT Massacre appeared referring to 'the Dog' (first man in Indigenous culture because of Ancestral landscape features). More poems followed all referring to the Dog in lieu of Indigenous man. A dog was even put up on a stick at the Nine Mile. Eventually, in 1932, almost 100 years after the massacre, to try and deflect attention and to lose the gist of the story a bit, the Dog on the Tuckerbox monument was erected at the Five Mile.
Major Nunn and his NSW Corp travelled to the area when the massacre happened but were not able to hold anyone to account and to warn him off, this military unit was then turned on by the dominants.
The location of the massacre remains (ashes)are known but this is still the subject of an ongoing archaeological survey as part of the Coolac Bypass works.
Gundagai still actively works to hide the DonT Massacre and to trade tourist wise on what has degenerated into a Greyfriars Bobby version of the mocking dog monument story.
The inscription on the DonT Monument which is online, is interesting. At the least its telling us about a war that many deny happened, and the DonT Monument is a monument to this war.
Personally, I can't fathom why people want to hide this historical event as though the truth can sometimes be challenging it is also more interesting and isn't Greyfriars in the UK anyway.
Maybe they are scaredy cats? Scared of the unknown. Scared of the truth. Yella bellies.
This is Australia with our bad as well as our good history so why hide any of it as by doing that, we are all robbed.
A dog monument had been first erected at a site nine miles from Gundagai in 1926.
Bullocky Bill was written by an otherwise unknown poet who used the pen name 'Bowyang Yorke' and first printed in 1857. A later poem by Jack Moses drew on the Bowyang Yorke poem for inspiration and was published in the 1920s. The latter poem was very popular and was the inspiration for the statue. Moses's poem, Nine Miles from Gundagai was first published in 1938, several years after the statue's unveiling. Jack O'Hagan's song, Where the Dog Sits on the Tuckerbox (5 miles from Gundagai) was published in 1937.
Frank Rusconi had suggested a memorial using the legend of the Dog on the Tuckerbox in 1928. However, in 1932 the proposal was taken up by the community. The Gundagai Independent of 11 August 1932 wrote:
"A Monument should be erected at the Nine Mile peg dedicated to the pioneers and bullockies, who made the highway of today possible. And there should be an unveiling ceremony during 'Back to Gundagai Week'."
The Dog on the Tuckerbox monument was erected as part of 'Back to Gundagai' Week in 1932 and a large crowd "gathered to her again" to witness the unveiling by the Prime Minister. It was planned to donate money placed in the wishing well at the base of the monument to the Gundagai District Hospital. A souvenir shop was also opened nearby.
The Back to Gundagai Committee had chosen the Five Mile camping site rather than the Nine Mile Peg as a location for the monument on the basis that it was more convenient to the Hume Highway and closer to the town, thereby more beneficial to tourism.
A nationwide competition was held to obtain the most suitable inscription for the monument. The chosen inscription on the base of the monument was written by Brian Fitzpatrick of Sydney. The inscription says:
- Earth's self upholds this monument
- To conquerors who won her,
- When wooing was dangerous
- And are now gathered unto her again."
An annual Dog on the Tuckerbox festival has been held each year since 1992, the 60th anniversary of the monument. In November 2005, the Annual Festival included a 2 day Snake Gully Cup Racing Carnival and festivities at the Dog on the Tuckerbox centre.
A food court style development opened nearby in 2006 with a KFC, Subway, McCafe, BP service station and Tuckerbox restaurant.
External link
- Dog on the Tuckerbox tribute page including the two poems that inspired the monument
References
- Scarff, L (1994). The Dog on the Tuckerbox: it's story. Kangaroo Press, Kenthurst, NSW. 0864176279
- Daniel, Frank. "History of the Dog on the Tuckerbox". Jack Moses poetry; Master poets. Bushpoetry.com.au. Retrieved 2006-11-17.
{{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter:|coauthors=(help) - ^ Butcher, C., (2002) Gundagai: A Track Winding Back, C. Butcher, publisher, pp 212-213.
- Butcher, page 228
- http://gundagai.local-e.nsw.gov.au/events/pages/1034.html