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HISTORY OF OUR SOUTHERN ARRERNTE
FAMILY / COMMUNITY GROUP
The Arrernte speaking people were those who occupied most of the choice regions in the Mac Donnell Ranges. Their territory stretched about 110 kilometres to both West and East and was about 330 kilometres in extent from North and South.
Click on map to enlarge (23KB)
Though forming one language group, the Arrernte were divided into six sub groups, each with its particular territory. These sub-groups were further divided into small family or kin groups, all bound by the very rigid system of authority governed by intermarriage and movements over another group Estate .
The boundaries of Estates of these sub groups were fixed by the ancestral being and varied greatly in size.
Click on photo to enlarge (50KB)
In the 1880's Dick "Penangke" Taylor was born at Mount Boal , and over the next 86 years, he had 9 children. From his First wife Mary, Harry , Alex , Alison , Willy , Sam , Peter , Myra ( Kanikiya) , and Mavis. From his second wife , he had a son Robert
Altogether there are now 36 grand children and 126 great grand children that makes up the Pwerte Marnte Marnte Aboriginal Corporation , (a community as it is known today).
ABORIGINAL HISTORY
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40,000 Years | Arrernte people have been here since time began. We have come out of the DREAMTIME. |
| 1860 - | It took 72 years from the white occupation of Eastern Australia in 1788 , for an explorer (John Stuart) to visit Central Australia. |
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1872 - | The Overland telegraph line connecting Adelaide to Darwin cuts Arrernte land down the middle.
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| 1880's - | Bloody conflict between Aboriginals in the centre and intending white settlers . Guerrilla warfare by Aboriginals results in many massacre reprisals. |
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1890's - | Southern Arrernte tribe "rounded-up" and forcibly moved to Hermannsburg Mission 120 km West of Alice Springs.
In order to "protect" Aboriginal people from the ravages of colonialism, and because social-Darwinist teachings of the 19th Century led to a belief that the Aboriginal race would die out, special areas were often set aside where our people were forced to live. These were either government-controlled reserves or Church-controlled missions. In both cases our people were forced to suffer extreme regimentation and to rely on rations for sustenance. In the 1890's, and again after the World War I, many of the reserves were closed down and the land taken away from our people and given to non-Aboriginal people for farming. This had the effect of forcing many people to live in camps on the fringes of towns where they suffered appalling poverty and deprivation.
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1920 's- | Those of our people , living in poverty and ill health ,constituted what was called "the Aboriginal problem". Since we had no died out, other ways of dealing with "the problem", were adopted.
Children were stolen from their parents and placed in homes where they were to be trained in the ways of white people and to become, for example, farm labourers if boys and domestic servants if girls. Stealing of the children was most pronounced where a child had an Aboriginal parent and a non-Aboriginal parent : The continuation of this policy of "dissociating the children from camp life must eventually solve the Aboriginal problem" (Aborigines Welfare Board 1921).
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1930's | By the 1930's it was further decided that the Aboriginal problem would be solved by all our people becoming white. This became official government policy, known as the policy of assimilation, whereby
" à in practical terms in the course of time, it is expected that all persons of Aboriginal blood or mixed blood in Australia will live like white Australian's do à"
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1960's | By the 1960's , it was clear that our race would neither "die off", nor would we abandon our lands, our culture, and our families to be like the white man". This decade saw the beginning of the modern land rights movement, the development of the first national organisation of Indigenous Australians - the Federal Council for the Advancement of Aborigenes and Torres Strait Islanders (FCAATSI) - and the first widespread awakening by non-Aboriginal Australians to our claims for justice.
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1963 | In 1963, the Yolngu people of the north east Arnhem Land community of Yirrkala, faced with their traditional lands being taken over by a huge bauxite mine, presented a bark petition to the Federal Parliament. This protest alerted Australians to the continuing dispossession of our people's traditional lands. It led to a court case in which Justice Blackburn ruled that the Yolngu could not prevent mining on their lands because he said Australia was legally "Terra Nullius" (empty land) as our people had no recognisable legal or land tenure system. This was to lead in 1973 to the establishment of the Woodward Commission into land rights in the Northern Territory.
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1967 | Changes in constitution recognises Aboriginal people an Australian citizen with equal rights to vote. The cattle industry reacts by phasing out Aboriginal labour and driving Aboriginal communities off properties. |
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1976 | Aboriginal Land Rights (NT) Act passed.
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1992 | Minister for Aboriginal Affairs Tickner invokes the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Heritage Act to protect women's sites near Alice Springs, threatened by a dam proposed by the Northern Territory Government à
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1993 | THE MABO CASE / NATIVE TITLE
The Mabo Case - Eddie Mabo and Others v. The State of Queensland - was a decision of the High Court which found that Aboriginal native title was not extinguished - or wiped out - by the British invasion and that Australia was not terra nullius, Latin for "empty land". Koiki, or Eddie, Mabo, was a member of the Meriam People, the traditional owners of Murray Island and surrounding islands and reefs in the Torres Strait. In 1982, Mabo , the Mabo case changes the way we think about land law in Australia. While the sovereignty of the Crown continues, terra nullius is found to have never existed and instead native title has been recognised. Aboriginal customary land law - or native title - continues alongside British Common and statute law.
Native Title was gradually extinguished parcel by parcel as colonial and later governments issued titles. Native Title is likely to exist over land that is categorised as unalienated Crown land, national parks declared over land that we unalienated Crown land at the time of the declaration, and over reserved lands.
There are two grounds for proving that Native Title continues to exist under the common law. The claimant group must prove that it owns the land under the relevant Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander customary land laws, and the descendants of the group who owned the land in 1788, must have had a continuous association with the land. In response to the Mabo case, the Federal Government passed the Native Title Act in December 1993 and has establishing a national land fund in 1994.
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The Pwerte Marnte Marnte Aboriginal Corporation is a community / family Southern Arrernte tribal group whose homeland is situated 100 km south of Alice Springs, near Rainbow Valley.
Click on photo to enlarge (40KB)
WE DON'T OWN THIS LAND, THE LAND OWNS US !
It is difficult for others to appreciate this identity, as the anthropologist Professor W.E.H. Stanner found when he tried to put it into words for non-Aboriginals to understand :
"No English words are good enough to give a sense of the links between an Aboriginal group and its homeland. Our word "home", warm and suggestive though it be, does not match the Aboriginal word that may mean "camp", "heart", "country", "everlasting home", "totem place", "life source", "spirit centre", and much else all in one. Our word "land" is too spare and meagre. We can now scarcely use it except with economic overtones unless we happen to be poets.
The Aboriginal would speak of "earth and use the word in a richly symbolic way to mean his "shoulder" or his "side". I have seen an Aboriginal embrace the earth he walked on. To put our words "home" and "land" together into "homeland" is a little better but not much. A different tradition leaves us tongueless and earless towards this other world of meaning and significance. When we took what we call "land" we took what to them meant home, the source and locus of life, and everlastingness of spirit.
Since the early 1970's small groups of Aboriginal people have been moving away from larger settlements like Alice Springs, to establish outstation communities in the bush. The outstation or homeland movement reflects a desire by Aboriginal people to reafirm links with their land and their culture. At outstations there are still people who hunt and gather, live in bush shelters little different from pre-contact ones, and participate fully in ritual.
However, the outstation movement does not represent a simple return to the pre-contact past or a rejection of introduced goods. People have adopted and adapted European technology and foods to suit their own needs.
In 1990, a group of elders descendants of Penangke in conjunction with the Central land Council negotiated with the owners of the Orange Creek Station leasehold
and small incisions of 1500 hectares to re-establish their community.
This Community living area was granted in 1993. Since that time 7 houses have been built and a power generator have been established.
Click on photo to enlarge (32KB)
In 1997, the community will start a work program with 8 trainees enrolled in small business and tourism courses in Alice Springs. It is estimated that by the year 2000 the community will be economically independent and supporting all residents.
- See Community Vision
- Training
FAMILY
There are approx. families making up the community of 700 members.
DIRECTORS
Judith Armstrong - Chairperson -
Daniel Forrester
Robert Taylor
STAFF
Paul Ah Chee Ngala - Manager
- Stephen Forrester
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Damien Armstrong
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Daryl Armstrong
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Gary Armstrong
GOING FOR GOLD
IN THE YEAR 2000
By the year 2000, Sydney Olympics Pwerte Marnte Marnte Aboriginal Corporation will have established an internationally recognised and respected Aboriginal art, culture and tourism enterprise in Alice Springs linked to our homelands.
By creating a high quality, educational, entertaining and informative art and tourism enterprise, not only our customers needs be satisfied, but our community members and their childrens children would benefit from job opportunities, cultural maintenance, financial security and self determination.
These are our goals à. GOING FOR GOLD !
OUR COMMUNITY NEEDS
- Aboriginal people trained and employed directly and indirectly long term in the tourism industry.
- An Aboriginal cultural centre in Alice Springs where tourists can learn, participate and experience Arrernte culture.
- Develop long term security growth and development of Aboriginal tourism in Central Australia.
- Aboriginal people having economic and cultural control of their cultural industry.
COMMUNITY VISION
AIMS
To work towards the achievement in the short and long term of a situation where our community members will be able to develop an economic base and raise their social status to appoint where they can enjoy the same fundamental, civil, social and economic rights as other Australians.
The aim / goal to be achieved through a series of general objectives :
1. ECONOMIC FUTURE
Acquisition of land and establishment of an economic base/ enterprises.
2. CULTURAL WELL BEING
Protection and maintenance of our Southern Arrernte cultural heritage.
3. SOCIAL WELL BEING
- improved standard of health and social well being
- increased level of education and training in the community
4. LAND / HOMELANDS
Protection of our land, environment and heritage.
5. INFRASTRUCTURE
Improved standard of housing and infrastructure.
6. POLITICAL AND CONTROL WELL BEING
Self management, self sufficiency and self determination.
PWERTE MARNTE MARNTE ABORIGINAL CORPORATION
FIVE YEAR DEVELOPMENT STRATEGY
| Year | Activity | Target |
| | | Direct
Aboriginal
Employment | Indirect
Aboriginal
Employment | Estimated
Turn Over
per annum |
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1995 |
1. Purchase business Todd Street
2. Landscape back yard
3. Paint / repair gallery | 4 | 4 | 260,000 |
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1996 |
1. Start half-day / didgeridoo tours
2. Develop Aboriginal tourism group
3. Landscape backyard
4. Establish Internet | 6 | 30 | 730,000 |
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1997 |
1. Arrernte museum / performance
2. Full day tour to homelands
3. Purchase land and building
4. Establish Stage I Tourism / Homelands
5. Functions / wholesale tours | 10 | 50 | 1,000,000 |
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1998 |
1 .Establish home land enterprise
2. Stage II Tourism /homelands | 15 | 60 | 1,250,000 |
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1999 |
1. Rebuild gallery / centre Todd Street
2. Stage III Tourism / homelands | 20 | 80 | 1,500,000 |
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2000 | Olympic Games | 25 | 100 | 2,000,000 |
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