Man of Two Tribes is a 1953 Australia radio serial based on the stories of Arthur Upfield about Detective Inspector Napoleon "Bony" Bonaparte. Morris West adapted several of Upfield's stories.^[5][6]

The Adelaide Mail said "the plot developed along exciting lines. The actors were good. Unfortunately any listener who hadn't solved the mystery by the time 'Boney' announced his intention of going to Adelaide to further his investigations must have been on some other station."^[7]

The Brisbane Sunday Mail wondered why Bony was "played so pompously? Never met an Australian aborigine yet who didn't have a lively sense of humour, but the scriptwriter and actor between them make the inspector sound like the biggest stuffed shirt of all time. A pity. Apart from that, the series is quite a fair example of 'whodunits' and better written than most."^[8]

Premise

"In answer to a report of a murder which comes via the Flying Doctor radio service, Bonaparte flies to the Kimberley Ranges in the heart of Australia's cattle country an I finds an unusual set of circumstances involving some of the worst characters in the area."^[9]

ABC Weekly called it "The central character is Detective-Inspector Napoleon Bonaparte, a most vivid personality. Bonaparte, or “Bony,” as he is commonly called, is the son of an Aboriginal mother and a white father. He is a University graduate, with all the veneer of the white man, plus an intimate knowledge of bush lore, the science of black-tracking, and the possession of a strange sixth sense inherited from his primitive ancestors."^[10]

Cast

• Frank Thring as Bony
• Mary Disney
• Douglas Kelly
• Elizabeth Wing
• Harry Starling
• David and Margaret Reid
• Robert Peach
• Patricia Kennedy
• Lyndall Barbour
• Keith Eden
• Beverly DUnn
• Marcia Hart
• Stewart Ginn
• Sydney Conabere
• Jim Onus^[11]

Select episodes

• "The Devil's Footsteps"^[12]
• "The Widows of Broome" - "In the sun - drenched town of Broome, Detective- Inspector Bonaparte hunts a maniac who murders attractive and wealthy widows with no apparent motive. “Bony’s” only clue is the print of an old pair of number nine shoes outside the home of the third victim. From this he develops a theory as to the killer’s identity based on slight evidence and clever deduction. The climax comes as he waits for the murderer in the home of another widow. The atmosphere of the pearling town is caught by the introduction of some of its most colourful characters—old Dickinson, a derelict with a philosophic turn of mind; Johnno, a cheerful Malay taxi driver; and Bill Lung, one of the identities of Broome’s Chinatown."^[13]
• "Death in the Dandenongs" - "a woman is found speared and a native disappears. These are the events which Detective-Inspector Napoleon Bonaparte is called in to investigate. He arrives in time to prevent Radford, the dead woman’s husband, from being strangled. Later Radford is found injured by a stab from a sharpened broomstick. He refuses to say who attacked him. “Bony” sets a trap, the killer falls into it, and the play rises to an exciting climax."^[14]
• "The tribe of the Murrumgatta had a strange legend: they believed that a pale lubra with eyes that flashed like small suns would one day join the tribe and change the destiny of men. Thus it was that when the newly-wed Mrs. Vemey with her husband, Major Verney, and friend and co-pilot, Wesson, arrived in the Northern Territory a strange mystery was set in motion. Major Verney was speared, and Detective-Inspector Napoleon Bonaparte was summoned. Mrs. Verney, whose glasses qualified her as the pale lubra with eyes like suns, disappeared, and when “Bony” found her it revealed the identity of the murder."^[15]
• '“Tony travels to the Kimberleys to solve the murder of Constable Stenhouse, found shot in his jeep. Suspicion falls on his black-tracker, Jackie, who has disappeared, but Bony realises that the solution is not as simple as that. Then Jackie’s body is found in the body of a dead horse, convincing Bony that the murderer is as cunning as he is cruel, and when he sees a polished black opal, the case becomes clear to him."^[16]
• "THE serenity of a Saturday afternoon match of the West Australian Cricket Association in Perth is rudely shattered when a police inspector is stabbed to death in the press-box. Those present include Phillip Cusack, Willie Coulter, Alan Ross, June Summers, and Coulter’s-fiancee, Margaret Heath. Bony is called in to take over the case, and he uncovers some odd facts. He learns that Ross, heir to a large fortune, is secretly married to June Summers, and that June has planned to kill her husband."^[17]
• "In a stately mansion in Wahroonga an old gardener, peter Read, confesses to his employer that he had been involved in a gang warfare. This confession comes as a result of two murders committed in the house by a criminal known as The Kookaburra. Read tells his employer that because he killed a girl known as Honey-heart in a gang war, The Kookaburra had vowed to frame hijn on a murder charge. Detective-Inspector Napoleon Bonaparte is called in to investigate the two murders and establishes that The Kookaburra actually lives in the house. Disguised as one of the criminal’s henchmen, “Bony” succeeds in exposing the murderer."^[18]
• "Frank Colley, an actor, is murdered on stage during the performance of a play. Bony, called in to investigate, is faced with a collection of suspects, all of whom had a motive for killing Colley. Among'them i§ an Aborigine whom Colley often baited because of his black blood and a playwright who was engaged to the woman Colley loved. Bony finally locates the murderer, who is strangely happy that he will at last make the headlines."^[19]
• "The Prophecy of Oolonga"^[20]
• "'Bony' finds that a girl, Val Norton, becomes first of all a help, and then a difficult accomplice to a murderer, before Bonaparte finally discovers a cleverly

constructed attempt to enable a wanted man to disappear."^[21]

• "Murder Makes Headlines" (last episode)^[22]

References