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Abstract:
Leaning on memoir, and extensive photographic and written records, this chapter presents an eyewitness account of just one of many Aboriginal outstations that broke away from population centres in remote Australia in the 1970s and later. The context is western Cape York Peninsula, Queensland. The event was the re-establishment in 1976 of Peret Outstation, named after the well Pooerreth near a cattle yard, as a homeland centre rather than the mission pastoral operation for which it had been created. It was, in part, a staged return to the countries of origin of Cape Keerweer people, who had in recent decades become settled in the Presbyterian Mission township of Aurukun to its north (Map 12.1). It was also a time of hope, adrenalin, politicking and pre-eminence, desperate shortages, bogged vehicles—Land Rovers, tractors, small planes—the luck, feasting and starving of hunting, happy children dancing by firelight, old people singing now forgotten song verses, the strains of camp life, and yet also a curiously sedate existence, as yet largely without media, alcohol, drugs or crispy fried chicken wings. Each character seemed larger than life. Perhaps they were.
