Australian Dictionary of Biography

Yuranigh (c. 1820–1850), guide, was born around 1820, probably in the Molong district, New South Wales. In December 1845 he was one of three Wiradjuri men who joined Sir Thomas Mitchell and his party soon after they set out from Boree, near Molong, on a journey of exploration that took them to central Queensland.

Three weeks into the journey, Yuranigh tracked and brought back to the camp three cattle that had strayed, earning Mitchell’s praise. Thereafter he was frequently mentioned in Mitchell’s diary for finding water, scanning the country from lofty trees, negotiating with Aboriginal people, and generally imparting bush lore. Mitchell wrote of Yuranigh, his ‘guide, companion, counsellor and friend’, that ‘his intelligence and his judgment rendered him so necessary to me that he was ever at my elbow … Confidence in him was never misplaced. He well knew the character of all the white men in the party. Nothing escaped his penetrating eye and quick ear’.

When the expedition was over, Yuranigh and Dicky, another Wiradjuri man, went with Mitchell to Sydney. The governor granted Yuranigh a small gratuity and, for a time, both Wiradjuri men were resolved ‘to work and live like white men’. However, Yuranigh soon tired of the town and travelled north to become a stockman. Later he returned to his own people and Country. He died near Molong, probably in April 1850, and was buried by his people in a grave surrounded by four carved trees, marking him as person of high honour.

After Mitchell learned of Yuranigh’s death, he saw to it that his grave was fenced at government expense and personally paid for an inscribed headstone: ‘To Native Courage Honesty and Fidelity. Yuranigh who accompanied the expedition of discovery into tropical Australia in 1846 lies buried here according to the rites of his countrymen and this spot was dedicated and enclosed by the Governor General’s authority in 1852.’ In 2006, Yuranigh’s grave was listed on the New South Wales Heritage Register. A lagoon, a county in Queensland, and a creek near Molong are named for him.

♦♦  This article was revised on 11 July 2025