Arrarbi
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Arrarbi (c. 1870 – c. 1945), also known as Arrabi, Arabi Bey, Cowle Bob and Police Bob, was an Aboriginal tracker, police of the Matuntarre people of the region around Tempe Downs Station in the Northern Territory of Australia. He was a guide on the Horn Scientific Expedition to Central Australia, and police tracker and outlaw. He is notable for his many arrests.
Arrarbi was identified as a quick learner and useful worker soon after the establishment of Tempe Downs cattle station in 1884. He was nominated as the preferred guide to that region for the Horn Scientific Expedition to Central Australia in 1894, due to his knowledge of the George Gill Range, an area which includes King’s Canyon, and due to his command of at least four local languages.
He was later part of a raid by Charles Winnecke that plundered a huge repository of sacred cultural objects, known as tjurunga stones and boards. While he helped to interpret the designs of these artefacts for his European employer, he was not judged by local elders to be guilty of the theft itself, and escaped the death penalty meted out to another Aboriginal man who had led the party to the objects.[1]