The Kaurareg

Aboard the cutter “America”
From Sydney to Brisbane
Which hit the Madjn Reef near Horn
And was never seen again
The crew it seems all drowned
Including the captain he
Captain Thompson died in front of his
Wife apparently

She was Barbara Crawford Thompson
The year was 1844
And she washed up on the beach
Of Horn an Island And whatsmore
The Kaurareg were headhunters
And rescued her it seems
Imagining she was a returned spirit
Of “Markai” it seems their dreams

Of the headman of the indigenous band
Had lost his daughter to
The ocean and when Barbara’s lifeless body
Washed up the view
Was they must try and save her
And they did so and then she
Lived with them for five long years
As a Kaurareg she was free

She wore no clothes and lived five years
Or so as one of them
Learned their culture lived a life
Their language and what did stem
Was the Knowledge of the people of their customs
Of their lives
Until the HMS rattlesnake
Proved that she survives

They picked her up and took her home
And in 1912 she died
She had learned the ways of the Kaurereg
It had been a fateful ride
In the wrong place at the right time
Saved from death was she
But she had lived five years as a native girl
in some harmony