T G H Strehlow Read online

  Journey to Horseshoe Bend

  T.G.H. STREHLOW

  Journey to Horseshoe Bend

  With an Afterword by Philip Jones

  First published in 1969

  by Angus and Robertson Ltd

  This edition published in 2015

  from the Writing & Society Research Centre

  at the University of Western Sydney

  by the Giramondo Publishing Company

  PO Box 752 Artarmon NSW 1570 Australia

  www.giramondopublishing.com

  © T.G.H. Strehlow 1969, The Strehlow Centre 2015

  Afterword © Philip Jones 2015

  Designed by Harry Williamson

  Typeset by Andrew Davies

  in 10/14.5 pt Minion Pro

  Printed and bound by Ligare Book Printers

  Distributed in Australia by NewSouth Books

  National Library of Australia

  Cataloguing-in-Publication data:

  Strehlow, T.G.H. (Theodor George Henry),

  1908-1978, author

  Journey to Horseshoe Bend / Theodor George

  Henry Strehlow

  ISBN: 9781922146779 (paperback)

  266.0092

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced,

  stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any

  form or by any means electronic, mechanical,

  photocopying or otherwise without the prior

  permission of the publisher.

  9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  This book has been written to commemorate my father, the Reverend C. Strehlow, who dedicated his life to the welfare of the Aranda people, and to express my deep gratitude to the dark and white folk of Central Australia who helped him on his last journey.

  ‘Horseshoe Bend saw the last hours of Pastor Strehlow, the grand old man of the Hermannsburg Mission Station. He made the 160-mile journey down the Finke from the Mission in the old Mission cart, a dying man; but beyond Horseshoe Bend he could not go. They buried that devoted follower of his Master on the Finke, in the country to which he gave his life, in a coffin made of the only timber available, that of old whisky cases. He said in his will that certain of his bushmen friends should each receive a bottle of whisky, as a last mark of his affection and friendship – an understanding gesture which will never be forgotten in that country.’

  C.T. MADIGAN, from Central Australia (1936)

  This new edition of Journey to Horseshoe Bend is faithful to the text of the original 1969 printing. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised that this book contains names and descriptions of people who have passed away.

  Contents

  Map

  Journey to Horseshoe Bend

  Afterword

  Acknowledgements

  Biographical Notes

  IT WAS TUESDAY, the tenth day of October, 1922.

  The last morning at Hermannsburg had arrived, and the bright horizon fringe of the eastern sky was beginning to turn into a rich, deep red. Already the great broad-fronted dome of Lalkintinerama, the highest point of the Pota Uruna or ‘Range of Doom’ south of Hermannsburg, was being lit up by the subdued glow of the sun that was on the point of emerging; and twenty-five miles to the north-west the magnificent bluffs of rugged Rutjubma were towering up in almost unearthly beauty, their deep-scarred purple faces softened by a rich tracery of pink veins which had spread through their sharply serrated edges. To the east of Rutjubma, and almost due north of the station, the long line of bold bluffs which culminated in the lofty peak of Ltarkalibaka shone in a blaze of bluish-purple, tipped by delicate pink embroidery. It was from the sudden slopes of Rutjubma and Ltarkalibaka that the two source streams of the Finke River, on whose banks Hermannsburg was standing, rushed down in foaming fury during flood times; and once they had passed the station buildings, these swirling floodwaters penetrated into the broad southern range and dashed themselves against the immovable base of Lalkintinerama before they were forced into the thirty-five-mile gorge that ended only at the gap between the Ilaltilalta and Lalkitnama ridges, a short distance below the ever-running springs of Irbmangkara.

  The hushed morning air was filled with the calls of birds – miners, willy wagtails, and crows – all of which provided a shrill and somewhat discordant tonal background to the flute-like notes of a pair of butcher birds that were expressing their joy at the break of a new day in carefree songs of jubilation.

  When the sun’s rays began to emerge like slim spears of fire over the eastern sandhills, other sounds burst upon the scene – the sounds of men and women who were hurrying to complete the final morning tasks necessary to enable their sick ingkata to set out on his difficult journey south to seek medical help. Dark milkmaids were milking the bailed cows in the small yard east of the station buildings, while the hungry calves were bleating at them impatiently from their separate enclosure of split gum palings. Dark men were vigorously chopping up with ringing blows on a stout wooden meat bench in front of the station store the carcass of the bullock slaughtered the night before to provide meat for the travellers on the first part of their long journey. Some of this meat was bagged up fresh; the rest was dry-salted, and placed into large flour bags, which soon began to run freely with the copious red meat juices forced out by the rock salt. Over the plain north-east of the station a pair of dark stockmen galloped bareback on their mounts, driving before them the buggy horses that had been newly mustered for the road. They took them down to the Finke bend at Ntjirakapa for their morning drink, and then put them up in a separate section of the yard, next to the part reserved for the milking cows. Restless and full of grass-fed arrogance after being ‘spelled out bush’ for many months, these horses whinnied and pranced up and down in their enclosure, often throwing playful bites and kicks at one another. From time to time they sniffed and thrust with their noses at the sturdy yard gate to ascertain whether it could not be pushed open; for none of these half-wild horses relished the prospect of being forced into harness and put to work on the station or taken on a long road journey.

  Excitement was riding in the air; and few of the dark folk waiting in the camp north-west of the solid whitewashed station buildings had slept much during the previous night. Ever since that Sunday in September when their ingkata, for the first time in his twenty-eight years of managing Hermannsburg, had failed to emerge for conducting the church service because his treacherous illness had finally overcome his rugged physical strength and iron determination, a vague but deep-seated fear had been oppressing their thoughts. This fear had deepened with each week during which the familiar figure of their ingkata had not emerged from the front entrance of his stone residence. So intolerable had the suspense become that at least two of Strehlow’s dark friends had written letters to him in Aranda, asking after his health, assuring him of their constant prayers on his behalf, and informing him that the whole dark population was sick with grief for their one and only teacher and leader, and that the women were crying many tears for him as well. And then, about a fortnight ago, the dreaded blow had fallen: a public announcement had at last been made by Mr H.A. Heinrich, the Hermannsburg native-school teacher, that their ingkata was now so weak and ill that he would have to seek medical aid in Adelaide, and that both the buggy and the van would have to be got ready for the three-hundred-and-eighty-mile journey south to the railhead at Oodnadatta.

  The first plan had been for the party to go from Hermannsburg to Alice Springs, to contact a doctor for road medical advice either at Marree or at Port Augusta by the telephone facilities available on the Overland Telegraph Line, and then to follow the normal line-party track down to Owen Springs, and from there south along the Hugh vall
ey to Horseshoe Bend. This would have occasioned only a slight change from the customary route which had been used by all wheeled Hermannsburg vehicles ever since the establishment of the station: this route had gone from Hermannsburg past the Long Water Hole on the Ellery Creek over a ridge of high ground to the Rarangintjita point of the Waterhouse Range, and thence along the northern edge of this range to Owen Springs, where it linked up with the normal North-South Route which skirted the Overland Telegraph Line. Sergeant and Mrs Robert Stott had already sent their invitation to Hermannsburg for the Strehlow family to stay at their home during their short stay at Alice Springs. But Strehlow’s condition had deteriorated so rapidly after the middle of September that this first plan had to be dropped, and a completely new and untried, but rather shorter, route selected. The time-saving proposal finally adopted by the Hermannsburg party was that they were to drive to Pmokoputa on the Ellery Creek, follow the Ellery from here to its junction with the Finke at Rubula, and then proceed down the Finke valley for the next hundred and thirty miles to Horseshoe Bend Station.

  ‘It is necessary to get Mr Strehlow down to the doctor as quickly as possible,’ Heinrich had explained to the dark men; and a number of the latter had quickly volunteered to go to Pmokoputa and clear a track for the vehicles through some of the dense ti-tree thickets and young gum stands which had sprouted up between Pmokoputa and Rubula after the heavy floods of the previous years. When some of the stockmen pointed out that some of the boulders on the banks of the Finke near Alitera would also need to be moved from the track, a second working party had gone out on horses, loaded up with crowbars and shovels, to clear a track over this dangerous portion of the road. No vehicle had attempted to negotiate this camel and horse trail during the past thirty years or even longer; and Strehlow himself had never gone further south into this long Finke gorge than Alitera. He had consequently never visited Henbury or Idracowra Stations, and he was looking forward to seeing these places after what he knew would be his final departure from Hermannsburg.

  During the past week the conversations of the dark folk had been full of reminiscences relating to the sick man; for Strehlow – who was universally known among them as the ‘ajua’ (old man of importance) or ‘ingkata’ (ceremonial chief) had long since become for them one of those men of supreme authority who are invested with legendary traits in their own lifetime.

  Twenty-eight years had elapsed since that October day when he had first burst in upon the uncaring and derelict community which was all that had remained at Hermannsburg after its first group of missionaries had been withdrawn. A big, heavily bearded man, with a shock of stubborn hair, he had quickly moved with forceful strides over the tumbledown settlement, and his keen amber eyes with their slightly greenish tinge had missed nothing. Within a few weeks most of the unreliable white station hands engaged during the caretaking period had been sacked, and a stern regime of strict discipline restored. All dark men and women able and willing to work had been given some employment in return for food and clothing, and Strehlow had personally supervised the labours of the majority of the station workers.

  During its pre-Strehlow era Hermannsburg had been fairly liberally staffed with white mission workers sent out from the Hermannsburg Mission Institute in Germany; but after the take-over by the small Immanuel Synod of South Australia in 1894, the meagre funds available from the South Australian congregations had never been sufficient to allow more than a skeleton staff to man the station. Strehlow himself had to deal out personally all meals three times a day to the dark folk living on the station. Whenever the white head stockman was mustering or yard-building out on the run, or was driving cattle or horses down to the railhead at Oodnadatta, Strehlow had also been compelled to supervise the slaughtering of the cattle for station consumption. Yet he had found time as well for a careful study of the Aranda language, and for writing a monumental tome on the myths, songs, and social organisation of the Western Aranda group and the Kukatja people. Initially hostile to all paganism, Strehlow had, when he first arrived, done his best to carry on the stern missionary traditions of his predecessors by suppressing all ‘heathen’ ceremonies and folk-dances in the mission area, and had thereby aroused a great deal of antagonism towards his rule; but after six years he had become intensely and sympathetically interested in aboriginal mythology and folklore. For Strehlow this was a natural development, since he had been a great lover of Classic and Germanic mythology before coming to Australia. He had fortunately studied theology under Dr Johannes Deinzer, a liberal, university-educated seminary head, who had been in the habit of telling his students, ‘Hold on to Classical literature, or barbarism will come, and to the Bible, or paganism will come’.

  A new and exciting world of the mind had opened up for Strehlow after he had begun his work of collecting the sacred Western Aranda myths and songs. Whatever time during the day he could take off from his missionary and station duties during the ensuing ten years, he had spent on his detailed and very thorough ethnological and social studies. Each evening he had retired to his study, where he had then sat up till midnight, writing up, in neat and beautifully shaped characters, his researches from the rough notes he had made during the day. He had also amassed a large amount of information on these matters in the neighbouring Kukatja area from a grateful Kukatja ceremonial chief called Wapiti, who had been brought to him at Hermannsburg after police bullets had smashed one of his thigh bones and severely gashed a part of his abdomen. Strehlow had dressed his seemingly fatal wounds and patiently nursed him back to health. During the months of his convalescence Wapiti – whose daughter Ilkalita was later on to marry Albert Namatjira – had repaid his white benefactor with a wealth of important and secret information. Nor had Wapiti been Strehlow’s only dark patient: the tireless missionary had acted as doctor for the whole aboriginal community of Hermannsburg during his twenty-eight-year term at the station.

  While working on his Aranda and Kukatja researches Strehlow had gained a deep respect both for aboriginal culture and for the creative aboriginal mind. His clerical conscience would not permit him to reverse openly the uncompromising stand that he, following his predecessors, had initially taken against ‘paganism’; but he no longer preached against the old religion from the pulpit, and the sacred cave of Manangananga, two miles from Hermannsburg, was never permitted by him to be violated by any white intruders. When he visited it himself, he came as an honoured guest, at the invitation of its famed ceremonial chief, Loatjira, the headman of the local group of Ntarea.

  It was only natural that Strehlow should have come to be not only respected but also loved by the dark community that had been entrusted to his care. He was, in fact, at that time the only white man at Hermannsburg who could walk unarmed into any of the bloody camp quarrels fought with spears, boomerangs, and butcher knives, that sometimes disrupted the peace of the community, and bring the fighting to an end by a few sternly shouted commands. For he was regarded, not only as a white missionary, but also as a Western Aranda ingkata, to whom the old ceremonial chiefs had entrusted rich portions of their treasures of sacred lore.

  However, the greatest asset that had enabled Strehlow to rule the dark community of Hermannsburg with such a firm hand was the reputation of fairness and justice that he had built up during his long term of office – in particular, the reputation of fearlessly upholding justice for the aboriginal population against unprincipled white men, irrespective of whether these were white mission workers or white police officers. The stories of his courage in standing up for the rights of the dark man were numerous and varied, and some of them could well have become embroidered with legendary trappings during the passage of the years. But they were firmly believed, and helped to confirm the Aranda folk in their unshakeable conviction that all would be well at Hermannsburg as long as Strehlow was their ingkata. One of these stories concerned his alleged encounter with Mounted Constable Erwin Wurmbrand, during Strehlow’s first months at Hermannsburg. Wurmbrand had been the chief mate
and principal offsider of Mounted Constable Willshire, who had been despatched by the South Australian Government to Central Australia in 1881 in order to pacify the Aranda territory and make it safe for cattle-raising. To achieve these ends both constables used to go out on horseback, attended by large numbers of black trackers brought in from the areas of more southerly tribes, and shoot dark nomads who were roaming about on station properties from which reports had come in of cattle-killing. There were no legal trials of the alleged offenders, not even any ‘kangaroo courts’. Willshire and Wurmbrand regarded themselves as living incarnations of British Justice, and exercised their power over life and death without any reference to magistrates or courts. Of these two men it was Wurmbrand who had been the chief executioner in the Western Aranda and Kukatja areas; and in Strehlow’s time there were still many families living at Hermannsburg who mourned the loss of relatives shot by Wurmbrand and his ruthless trackers. The chief monument to his memory in Central Australia was a place known as Wurmbrand’s Rockhole – a large, deep rockhole on the side of a hill situated close to the north-eastern shore of the Iloara saltlake. Here Wurmbrand had come upon a peaceful camp of men, women, and children; and he and his party had shot all those who had not been fast enough to escape from their bullets. At Hermannsburg it was claimed that soon after Strehlow’s arrival Wurmbrand had paid his last visit to the station. He had rounded up a group of men, women, and children in the station camp, and then got ready to take them away and shoot them some miles out in the bush. Their terrified relatives had run screaming for help to Strehlow, and the latter had rushed in blazing fury to Wurmbrand’s camp, where the police party were still saddling their horses. Strehlow had allegedly shouted angrily at Wurmbrand, and told him to release his prisoners and get out of the place himself. ‘And don’t ever let me catch you hunting people again at Hermannsburg,’ he had added, in menacing tones. To everyone’s amazement, Wurmbrand had been so taken aback by Strehlow’s fury that he had released his prisoners, kicked his own tins, billies, and buckets in all directions, yelled at his trackers to hurry on with the saddling and the packing of the horses, and finally ridden off like a madman, cracking his whip and digging his spurs into his mount till it reared and plunged madly with pain. Nor had he and his trackers ever returned to Hermannsburg. It was more than likely that the police officer thus checked had not been Wurmbrand at all, but one of Willshire’s successors, and that the image of the latter had become confused in later aboriginal memory with that of his hated and dreaded predecessor. However, whether authentic or not, this story fitted in excellently with Strehlow’s character. He had been a powerfully built, large-boned man, who knew no fear once he was aroused. In a frontier land where station owners, police officers, and most other white men were accustomed to act with the arrogance of feudal barons who did whatever seemed right in their own eyes, and where the normal processes of the law tended to be invoked mainly in order to protect white lawbreakers from the consequences of their own misdeeds, even missionaries had to be tough; and Strehlow could be as tough as any other man, as long as he felt that he was acting in the interests of law, order, and justice, and in accord with the ordinances of the Almighty. Few men cared to stand up to him once his anger had been fully aroused.