Untitled (So he mixed arsenic with half the flour and a raging thirst was created)

'Untitled (So he mixed arsenic with half the flour and a raging thirst was created)' comes from artist Hayley Millar-Baker's 'A Series of Unwarranted Events', created in 2018.

'A Series of Unwarranted Events' relates to the frontier violence faced by Millar-Baker's ancestors, the Gunditjmara people, in the 19th century. These events include the destruction of the ancestral lands, and murders of her ancestors, and the forced indoctrination to Christianity.

'Untitled (So he mixed arsenic with half the flour and a raging thirst was created)' relates to the Murdering Flat Massacre in 1840. On this occasion, a stockman noticed that he flour ration kept being stolen by local Aboriginal people. As a means of revenge and a deterrent for future robberies, the stockman mixed arsenic into the flour which results in the deaths of many local Aboriginal people.

The artist states:

“The Murdering Flat massacre occurred in 1840 on Wannon River killing dozens of Gunditjmara people. A hut keeper employed by the Henty brothers noticed that his monthly delivery of flour would often be the victim of theft at the hands of the local Aboriginal people. The Gunditjmara people would wait until the hut keeper left his station and rob his hut of flour. The hut keeper became frustrated by the raids so he mixed arsenic into the bags of flour. Untitled (So he mixed arsenic with half the flour and a raging thirst was created) tells the story of the dozens of lost lives of the Gunditjmara people that had been poisoned making flour cakes down by Wannon River. The arsenic created an extreme thirst forcing them to rush down to the river where they drowned from the effects of the arsenic poisoning.” Artist statement 2018