The Intruders (one of two)
Artist
Karumapuli Jacob Stengle
(1954)
Date1998
Object number00031585
NamePainting
MediumOil on canvas, wood
DimensionsOverall: 765 × 1015 × 25 mm
Image: 760 × 1010 mm
Image: 760 × 1010 mm
ClassificationsArt
Credit LineANMM Collection
DescriptionAn oil painting by Jacob Stengle titled 'The Intruders' (one of two).
HistoryJacob Stengle's mother was a Ngarrindjeri woman from Raukkan, her father was Clarence Long, the last initiated man from the Coorong. Jacob's father is from Czechoslovakia. When he was three he was placed at Colebrooke Home for Aboriginal Children in Blackwood and lived there until he was 15. While in Colebrook he met the artist Ainslie Roberts who encouraged him to paint and became his mentor. Jacob now lives just outside of Adelaide and spends as much time as he can on Bathurst Island, one of the Tiwi Islands.
The paintings are about a historical incident that is still very painful to the Ngarrindjeri people today. It is about the conflict between the sealers living on Kangaroo Island and the Ngarrindjeri people of the Coorong during the 1800s. The sealer stole Ngarrindjeri women and young girls and imprisoned them on Kangaroo Island.
On 26 June 1840 the brigantine MARIA, bound from Adelaide to Hobart, was wrecked near Lacepede Bay. The survivors were killed by the Ngarrindjeri people of the Coorong in revenge for their family members who had been taken by the sealers. Governor Gawler ordered a police party who went to the Coorong. The police found the remains of the life boat and footprints leading away. A two day journey further on, the police found the bodies of the killed survivors, including the children and women. The police became suspicious of the local Aborigines and tried two Ngarrindjeri men, executing them by hanging. But they hung the wrong men.
Jacob was told this story a few years ago by his cousin, Ngarrindjeri elder Henry Rankine. Jacob decided to do these paintings because he felt there are many sides to any historical story, in particular anything to do with women's business. It differs from published accounts which attributes the murder of the MARIA's survivors Indigenous people after the possessions of the passengers. Rankine told Jacob that one Ngarrindjeri woman and child had escaped from the sealers, the child dying on the way home. When the surviving sailors of the MARIA had attacked an Indigenous woman, they, and the other survivors were killed.SignificanceThe subject of these paintings is of special significance to the Ngarrindjeri people. To them it was the first hostile contact that would become a pattern. Over the years many Ngarrindjeri people have spoken about this incident and these recordings are in the archives of the South Australian Museum. Jacob Stengle, as one of the Stolen Children, feels particularly that it is important that alternative views of history are heard.
