One of the most eye-catching elements of this year’s 100th anniversary Remembrance Day commemorations in Mount Isa were the brightly decorated spears carried by Indigenous soldiers of the 51st Far North Queensland Regiment.
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Private Jordan Tamate said the spears were a mark of respect to his Kukatj (Normanton) and Takalak (Croydon) elders.
“Some of our elders were fighters too so we want to carry the spear to represent what they were using when they were protecting their tribe,” Private Tamate said.
The spears come from wood from trees near Karumba and elder Geoffrey Pascoe showing the troops how to make them using traditional methods.
“We cut them and peel the bark off,” Private Tamate said.
“We place it over a fire and the moisture and the heat makes them wobbly, then you can straighten them out and we stiffen them in the sun.”
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The soldiers sharpened the edges and then under the guidance of Private Tamate’s aunt – a sergeant in the army herself – they painted the spears.
“The Delta (Company) flag is red so we painted the spears red, and then we decided to make it red, black and yellow,” he said.
51 FNQR Major Jeremy Barraclough said the spears reflected the history of the regiment.
“Our company was raised in 1989 and the 51st Battalion FNQ was raised in the 1980s but we trace our history back to the Second World War when the Special Reconnaissance Unit was tasked with the coast watching on the northern Australian border,” Major Barraclough said.
“Indigenous people were recruited and many had roles as stay behind guerrilla forces which lived off the land with three days supply and they made their own weapons like spears.”
Formed in 1941, the units patrolled the coast during 1942–43 searching for signs of Japanese landings and trained to fight as guerrillas using traditional weapons in the event of an invasion.
In 1943, as the war moved northward from the Australian coast, the units were disbanded.
READ ALSO: Cloncurry commemorates Remembrance Day
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