No. 50, November/December 2001
The Deserts in Literature, II
by Richard G. Kimber
"Lherre Mpwarntwe, that old Todd River. He is a back-bone, lying there. His head is up in that head-water country. This is his body, right here in Alice Springs. The river is his back-bone, and that good soil on both sides, that is his back muscles, that is his flanks. " |
[Return to Part 1 of this article] When such floods ran sufficiently for the waterholes to be filled and for all life to burgeon, as they did in 1889 and 1920, they became places of plenty. Thus, in the terrible drought year, 1929, when hundreds of starving people left their home countries to migratesometimes hundreds of kilometers and, as Dinny Tjapaljarri put it, "like perishing bullocks to a water-trough"into the sanctuary of Hermannsburg Mission, it was not the drought but the good times that were recalled. As Geza Roheim, who was a visitor there for most of the year, recorded, two women's memories were of the river which runs beside Hermannsburgthe Larapinta, as the Finke (the Centre's largest river) is called by the Western Arrernte people.
As earlier mentioned, such good times allowed gatherings for the great ceremonies, and the men sang "ilpindja" (love magic) songs. Tnyerika, who in 1929 was, as Roheim recorded, "the chief authority among the southern Aranda on tradition and beliefs" (Roheim 1974, 169), gave an Emu "ilpindja" which illustrates the layered structure of Arrernte -- and other desert peoples' -- poetry, which is also applicable to their songs and much of their story-telling. A small section of the "ilpindja," in which the emu is the cock bird with an anthropomorphic nature, has been translated by Roheim as follows:
If all of the preceding touches on the encyclopedic knowledge that desert Aborigines have of their lands, that they also have a deep-seated association with the eternal creative totemic ancestors who fashioned the land was first clearly recognized by outsiders only a century ago. Mounted Constable Ernest Cowle of the Central Australian police, writing to Professor Baldwin Spencer on 28th May, 1900, commented:
One year later, traveling east of Tennant Creek (500 kilometers north of Alice Springs), this statement was well-illustrated to the Professor and his companion Frank Gillen, the latter a legendary post-master of Alice Springs who was the first outsider to become deeply interested in central Australian desert Aborigines' cultures. Spencer recorded the following brief account.
The majority of the waterholes in the range were visitable by men, women and children but, as once was the case with the great Caterpillar ancestors' waterholes at Heavitree Gap (the southern entrance to Alice Springs) and Emily Gap (12 kilometers east of the Alice), and still is the situation with numbers of the other great spiritual waters throughout the deserts, the most significant are considered so powerful in their totemic spirituality that only initiated men can visit them. Even then, the correct route and correct protocol has strictly to be followed during the approach. Although each site has special features which result in variant approaches in the year 2001 just as was the case a century ago, an excellent illustration of the reverence for a site was recorded by Frank Gillen on August 28th, 1901.
As might be expected, the ceremonies for such a site are of a very secret and sacred nature. T.G.H. Strehlow quotes his old Northern Arrernte informant Gura, "the ceremonial chief of the gura bandicoot totemic centre of Ilbalindja," as follows:
Although such detailed knowledge as Gura had has largely been lost Australia-wide, many of the desert peoples retain the finest detail of a wide range of aspects. However, there are also descriptions of country that can only derive from a strongly traditional perspective. Thus a century after Spencer and Gillen recorded their accounts, and almost seventy years after Strehlow recorded old Gura, Wenten Rubuntja, a senior Arrernte man of great knowledge and wisdom, talked about the Todd River of Alice Springs in the following terms.
Such a brief overview allows but a scratching at the surface of understandings. It is appropriate, though, to conclude with words that were written for the Yeperenye Federation Festival, "Coming Together As One", which was held in Alice Springs on 8-9th September, 2001. Australia became a Federation of States and Territories in 1901 and, shamefully for Australia's history, Aborigines were initially written out of the Constitution because they were believed doomed to rapid extinction. They had no formal citizenship rights until the mid-1960's, no land-rights until 1976, and no Native Title rights until the 1990's. While throughout the year 2001 there have been numerous celebratory events for all Australians, this magnificent festival was the major contribution by the Aboriginal peoples of Australia and the near-north Torres Strait Islanders. It certainly proved that they had survived, despite all of the problems of the last two centuries. Representatives of all of the Aboriginal nations came together in thousands, in the largest gathering of Aboriginal peoples ever recorded, and other Australians were welcome to share in the spectacle of the wonderful dancing, moving "coming together" ceremony, and concert. The Arrernte people of Alice Springs demonstrated their sense of history, wisdom and generosity in their "Welcome From The Arrernte People."
AcknowledgmentsThe author wishes to acknowledge the following central Australian and Western Desert Aborigines, without whose help, friendship and comments over the years he could not have written this article: Ada Wade Bibliography(Back to top) Berndt, R.M., ed. 1970. Australian Aboriginal anthropology. Nedlands: University of Western Australia Press. Gillen, R.S. 1968. Gillen's diary--The camp jottings of F.J. Gillen on the Spencer and Gillen Expedition across Australia 1901-1902. Adelaide: Libraries Board of South Australia. Gosse, W.C. [1874] 1973. W.C. Gosse's Explorations, 1873. Adelaide: Libraries Board of South Australia. Kimber, R.G. Notebooks and journals, 1970-2001. (Unpublished). Mulvaney, J., A Petch and H. Morphy. 2000. From the frontier: Outback letters to Baldwin Spencer. St. Leonards: Allen & Unwin. Reuther, J.G. 1981. The Diari. Tr. P.A. Scherer. Canberra: Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies. Roheim, Geza. 1974. Children of the desert. The western tribes of Central Australia. Ed. W. Muensterberger. New York: Basic Books, Inc. Spencer, B. and F.J. Gillen. 1912. Across Australia. Vol. 11. London: MacMillan and Co., Ltd. Stevens, C. 1994. White man's dreaming: Killalpaninna Mission 1866-1915. Melbourne: Oxford University Press. Strehlow, T.G.H. 1950. An Australian viewpoint. Melbourne: The Hawthorn Press; 1950. _____. 1970. Geography and the totemic landscape in Central Australia: A functional study. In Australian Aboriginal Anthropology, ed. R.M. Berndt, 92-140. Nedlands: University of Western Australia Press. Sturt, C. [1849] 1969. Narrative of an expedition into Central Australia. Vol. 1. New York: Greenwood Press.
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R. G. (Dick) Kimber has lived in Alice Springs since January, 1970. He has been
privileged to travel widely in the deserts of Australia with many of the traditional
Aboriginal owners. During his time in central Australia he has worked as a secondary
and tertiary teacher, but for most of the last 20 years has been a writer-historian.
He was the first Sacred Sites officer appointed in the Northern Territory (1974);
was senior Papunya Tula Artists Coordinator from May 1976-May 1978; and has
worked on behalf of various Aboriginal groups to assist in presentation of their
land claims and Native Title claims.
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Yeperenye Federation Festival official web site
http://www.yepfest.com/
This site contains much interesting information about the social and cultural
background of the Arrernte people, who hosted the Yeperenye Federation Festival
alluded to in this article.
The Mparntwe Project, Larapinta Primary School
http://openlearningcommunity.org/schools/larapinta/mparntwe/page_1.htm
The Aboriginal students of Larapinta Primary School have written these pages
that tell stories concerning the creation of Alice Springs, or Mparntwe.
Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies
http://www.aiatsis.gov.au/index.htm
AIATSIS is an independent Commonwealth Government statutory authority devoted
to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander studies. It is Australia's premier
institution for information about the cultures and lifestyles of Aboriginal
and Torres Strait Islander peoples.
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