‘Shifting’: The Western Arrernte’s outstation movement

‘Shifting’: The Western Arrernte’s outstation movement

Experiments in Self-Determination

  • Author(s): Austin-Broos, Diane
  • Secondary Author(s): Peterson, Nicolas, Myers, Fred
  • Published: 2016
  • Publisher: ANU Press
  • ISBN: 9781925022902

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Abstract: "Gustav Malbangka (Malbunka) and his family lived at the Hermannsburg Mission in central Australia. Like many other people, they wish to leave the social problems of the congested settlement behind them and return to their traditional land at Gilbert Springs ... to carve out a more satisfactory life for themselves, drawing strength from being in the homeland again. ... Encouraged by the ‘out-station movement’, many people like Gustav left the mission to return to their traditional country, leaving Hermannsburg looking ‘like a ghost town’. Life at Gilbert Springs is not easy: until bore water is provided, everyone has to live close to the Springs in bush shelters. Gustav, however, has plans to build houses with running water, and to establish a viable station with a church and a school, growing produce and raising cattle. [For the moment they depend] on a weekly visit from a travelling ‘store truck’ and have their financial affairs managed by the truck’s operator, Murray Pearce." (Levy 1975). This passage is part of the cover note to a film made in 1975 by the Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies (AIAS), directed and produced by filmmaker Curtis Levy with anthropologist John von Sturmer acting in the role of associate producer. The film was narrated by the late Gus Williams, a Western Arrernte man. Members of the Malbunka group first moved out of Hermannsburg Lutheran Mission in the Northern Territory in 1974 as part of a larger group that camped along Ellery Creek. Soon they began to move again, this time west to their ancestral land, which soon harboured numerous camps. These initiatives east and west of the mission were, to the east, close to an ephemeral creek that allowed soakages and wells used in the past both by Aboriginal people and by pastoralists. To the west, the camps were close to ancient underground springs that fed permanent waterholes. In a desert region, both the creek and the underground springs held ritual as well as practical significance. Other sites that became outstations posed greater problems concerning potable water. Nonetheless, these initial shifts presaged a major move by Arrernte and some Luritja and Luritja-Pintupi people also resident at the mission, which was established in 1877. By mid-1976 there were 17 outstations, with an Aboriginal population of about 450. Eight more camps would be added by the end of the year. Outstations were located at distances up to 60 km from Hermannsburg, which, at the time, retained little more than 100 people.

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