Ngarrindjeri Wurruwarrin: A World That Is, Was, and Will Be

AWARD-WINNING NGARRINDJERI WURRUWARRIN

1999 Winner: NSW Premier’s Gleebook Award for cultural and literary criticism

Judges’ citation: ‘An erudite capacious book on the politically contentious and culturally sensitive subject of the Hindmarsh Island Bridge affair, in which the author allows diverse voices to be heard and refuses to simplify an inherently complicated and pressing set of issues. This is an outstanding book of cultural criticism, which brings together feminist anthropology, oral and archival history, political and legal narrative.’

1999 Finalist: Age Book of the Year

‘In Ngarrindjeri Wurruwarrin: A World that Is, Was and Will Be Diane Bell effects a subtle generic shift in non-fiction writing. Not only has a huge array of sensitive and complex material been handled with skill and respect, this book also represents a step forward because of its self-reflexivity, with the author stepping to one side to relinquish the traditional role as the omniscient authority governing the subject matter of the book with total control.

As often as is possible Bell allows the Ngarrindjeri women at the centre of the book to speak for themselves and set out their own tribal knowledge, quietly dismantling the received wisdom surrounding the Hindmarsh Island Bridge case secret women’s business. It is difficult to imagine a more pressing issue than the politics of knowledge in the late 20th century, as the Hindmarsh Island Bridge case itself attests, and this book puts such issues at its centre, as is evidenced not only at the level of writing, but also at the level of design and typography.’

– Gideon Haigh and Mark Davis, The Age 14 August 1999

1999 Finalist: Queensland Premier’s History Award

2000 Finalist: Gold Medal of the Australian Literary Society

Judges’ citation: ‘[A] scholarly and wide-ranging record of Ngarrindjeri life and society which importantly also implies limitations of its shared cross-cultural knowledge. Incorporating archival and oral histories, it celebrates a rich Indigenous heritage and continuities between past, present and future. Its collaborative nature, the way in which its author draws on and acknowledges sources, and its ground-breaking articulation of the process of cultural maintenance being charted here, make this publication a significant one in combating historical silences and contributing to the reconciliation process. The demanding business of cultural maintenance is of crucial concern to the Ngarrindjeri who have suffered so greatly through dispossession and dispersal since invasion. This text is testimony to the community’s complexity, dignity and survival.’

2000 Finalist: Kiriyama Award

READERS ENGAGE WITH NGARRINDJERI WURRUWARRIN

If you take a seedling of a gum tree, place it in good soil and good waters of understanding and believe that it will grow, it will grow. It will grow into a tall, healthy, strong gum tree, with roots that grow deep and it will withstand the winds of disbelief and disrespect. Professor Diane Bell’s Ngarrindjeri Wurruwarrin: A world that is, was, and will be is a strong healthy gum tree with deep roots.

– Tom Trevorrow, Response to NSW Premier’s Literary Award

Ngarrindjeri Wurruwarrin is the result of two years work in which the anthropologist worked in the field, researched the written sources and wrote up her text… Bell then returned to the community and checked her text with the people about whom she was writing. The anthropologist’s words are augmented by those of her ‘informants’, and theirs can be seen (in a different font) commenting upon the anthropologist’s text and upon her conclusions. The result is a collaborative anthropology, not one which appropriates.

– James Knight, Australian Archaeological Association

… Bell creates new ways of privileging the knowledge and theoretical understandings of people whose authority has been undervalued by Western institutions.

– Kristin Waters, NWSA Journal

Bell is brave as well as respectful.

– Carol Anne Douglas, Off Our Backs

… a rich, satisfying and patient read.

– Marg McHugh, Canberra Girls’ Own Monthly

This is a meticulously researched, clearly and creatively written, contribution to our understanding of the lives on indigenous people in this part of the country. It tells us a great deal about the Ngarrindjeri both as a people and as a people since white occupation. It also tells us a great deal about anthropology and anthropologists … For those involved professionally in anthropology or indigenous affairs there can be little doubt that this book will become one of the classics of the genre.

– Rod Hagen

The injections of herself into her study could have been irritating, but emerges as a gentle way of leading the reader into the really big issues behind Hindmarsh – what is the nature of knowledge, who owns it, who has the right to transmit it and to receive it, and what is the true agenda of those who seek to control it?

– Debra Jobson, Sydney Morning Herald

If there is something which is clearly established it is the integrity and sincerity of Ngarrindjeri beliefs. A significant group of the diverse Ngarrindjeri community have continued to care for their lands and hold to traditional Ngarrindjeri beliefs.

– Philip Morrissey, Australian Book Review

In my view, Diane Bell is at her best when she addresses issues of social justice. I suggest beginning with the Epilogue, which sets the stage for this remarkable study with an impassioned espousal of the values of civil society.

– Deborah Bird Rose, Indigenous Law Bulletin

I found Bell’s arguments compelling … Bell makes many points in defence of the ethnographic method, of the complex nature of the organization of knowledge (seemly addressed to non-anthropologists) without compromising the scholarly merit of the book … While each chapter is focused on one or more categories of knowledge and on a particular issue, Bell weaves it together tightly in the end.

– Jane Goodale, American Ethnologist

Within its limits Ngarrindjeri Wurruwarrin is a most impressive ethnography of contemporary ‘southern Australia’ … Bell has retrieved much from the written record – including many welcome dives into the Tindale notebooks – and she voluminously quotes the men and women with whom she was allowed to work. Without knowing the written sources myself, I cannot make an assessment of her use of them. However, my uninformed response is to be moved by the evidence of a persisting regional culture, of shared caring about people and place.

– Tim Rowse, Oceania

Bell is not stupid.

– Ron Brunton, Quadrant

Diane Bell is a prolific and energetic writer … I became exhausted at times by the sheer volume of material, the detail of which threatened to overwhelm with its insistence, but there is also a sense of adrenalin as one is swept from the United States – where Bell, an Australian, was (and still is) teaching at the time – to Australia and back again as she negotiates the demands of her different roles.

– Gaynor McDonald, Australian Journal of Anthropology

Professor Bell the latest defender of ‘women’s business’ and its fabricators, is almost as brazen as her informants.

– Christopher Pearson, Australian Financial Review

When I spoke to Christopher Pearson about Bell’s book he rolled his eyes, ‘That endless fatuous metaphor of weaving,’ and his whole body gave a little shudder, ‘urrrrgh’.

– Margaret Simons, The Meeting of the Waters

Photo: Kate Elms

Over the past four decades, Diane Bell has undertaken extensive field work in communities across the north and in the southeast of Australia as well as comparative research in North America. She has written with passion and courage of matters concerning Aboriginal society with particular emphasis on land rights, native title, law reform, women’s rights, violence against women, religion and the environment.

Diane Bell began her working life as a primary school teacher in the 1960s, returned to full time study in the 70s and, as a single mum, completed her BA Hons (Monash University 1975) and PhD (ANU 1981). She has held senior positions in higher education in Australia and the USA, acted as consultant to various NGOs, Indigenous organisations and governmental entities, and has been honoured as a writer, academic and social justice advocate.

After 17 years in the USA, Diane retired as Professor Emerita of Anthropology, The George Washington University, DC, USA and, on returning to Australia, settled on the banks of the Finniss River, South Australia, in Ngarrindjeri country. She prepared the Ngarrindjeri Consent Determination Native Title Report, ran for the House of Representatives seat of Mayo (South Australia) in the 2008 by-election, furthered her creative writing as Writer and Editor in Residence at Flinders University, taught at the University of Adelaide and, through membership of various environmental NGOs, argued for a return of water to the Murray-Darling River system.

Diane Bell now lives in Canberra where she continues to write, speak, strategise and advocate for a more just society: a concept that underwrites and unifies the various and varied facets of her feminist anthropological stance on life.

OTHER BOOKS BY DIANE BELL

Law: The Old and the New (co-author, 1980/1984)

Daughters of the Dreaming (1983/1993/2002)

Religion in Aboriginal Australia (co-editor, 1984)

Generations: Grandmothers, Mothers and Daughters (1987)

Gendered Fields: Women, Men and Ethnography (co-editor, 1993)

Radically Speaking: Feminism Reclaimed (co-editor, 1996)

Evil: A novel (2005)

Kungun Ngarrindjeri Miminar Yunnan: Listen to Ngarrindjeri Women Speaking (2008)

ENCYCLOPEDIA PROJECTS

Longman’s Encyclopedia (contributing editor, 1989)

Macmillan Encyclopedia of Religion (contributing consultant editor, 2005)

Encyclopedia of Religion in Australia (contributing steering committee member, 2007)

NGARRINDJERI

WURRUWARRIN

a world that is, was, and will be

New Edition

Diane Bell

Wurruwarrin: Knowing and believing in it is the answer to understanding it.

Tom Trevorrow

Spinifex Press Pty Ltd

504 Queensberry Street

North Melbourne, Vic. 3051

Australia

women@spinifexpress.com.au

http://www.spinifexpress.com.au/~women

Copyright © Diane Bell, 1998, 2014

The individual Ngarrindjeri stories contained in the work remain the property of the tellers of the stories, and the copyright and moral right are owned by the aforesaid individuals. Permission to reproduce these stories must be sought from the Publisher.

Copyright on layout, Spinifex Press, 1998, 2014

Copyright on all photographs, maps and illustrations remains with the creators

First published by Spinifex Press, 1998, new edition, 2014

All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of the book.

Copying for educational purposes

Where copies of part or the whole of the book are made under part VB of the Copyright Act, the law requires that prescribed procedures be followed. For information, contact the Copyright Agency Limited.

Edited by Janet Mackenzie

Typeset by Claire Warren

Printed by Griffin Press

National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication data:

Bell, Diane, 1943– author

Ngarrindjeri wurruwarrin: a world that is, was, and will be / Diane Bell.

2nd edition

9781742199184 (paperback)

9781742199153 (ebook: epub)

9781742199139 (ebook: PDF)

9781742199146 (ebook: Kindle)

1. South Australia. Hindmarsh Island Bridge Royal Commission. 2. Ngarrindjeri (Australian people) – Social life and customs. 3. Ngarrindjeri (Australian people) – Folklore. 4. Women, Ngarrindjeri – Social conditions. 5. Oral tradition – South Australia – Goolwa. 6. Sacred space – South Australia – Goolwa. 7. Hindmarsh Island (S. Aust.)

306.0899915094231

Contents

Some Ngarrindjeri Terms

Maps

Preface to New Edition

Prologue

PART ONE: NGARRINDJERI: A DISTINCTIVE WEAVE

1.  Weaving the World of Ngarrindjeri

Weaving Women

Sustaining Stories

The Respect System

Making Baskets: Making Family

Feather Flowers: The Land of Pelicans

Weaving the Past

Weaving New Worlds

2.  Shared Designs: Different Strands

Ngurunderi: Landscape and Culture; United and Divided

Life on the Mission: From Taplin’s Time On

Religion: On and Off the Mission

Life on Farms and in Fringe Camps: Learning by Word of Mouth

Life in the Home: Being Taken Away

Ngarrindjeri of High Literary Degree

Wururi: Many Dialects, One Body

The Circle of Language

3.  Singing: "Pakari Nganawi Ruwi"

Pinkie Mack: Singing of Welcome and War

Many Meanings: Few Recordings

Songs of the Southeast

Songs and Ceremonies of Yore

Gospel, Glee Clubs and Guitars

Pakari Songs: Twentieth-Century Dreaming

4.  Family, Friends and Other Relations

Ngatji: Friend, countryman, protector

Ngatji: Accommodating Change

Ngatji Stories: Krowali, Krayi and Others

Miwi: Feeling and Knowing

Ngia-ngiampe: Birth Relations

The Power of Naming

Genealogies: Families First

Whose Genealogy?

Family Connections: Something Old, Something New

5.  A Land Alive: Embodying and Knowing the Country

A Living, Changing Land

Ruwi and Ruwar: Land and Body

A Gendered, Embodied Land

A Restricted Body: Narambi—Dangerous and Forbidden

Burials: Ensuring a Safe Place, Coming Home

Changing Practice: Persistent Values

6.  Signs and Sorcery: Finding Meaning in a Changing World

Reading the Signs

The Mingka Bird

The Return of the Whales

Signs from the Past and Present

Powerful Presences

Putari Practice

The Mulyewongk: A Story for All Ages

Fear of Foreigners, Small People and the Dark

PART TWO: THE POLITICS OF KNOWLEDGE

7.  Respecting the Rules: Oral and Written Cultures

Whose Knowledge? Whose Rules?

A Two-Way Dialogue

Side-bar Dialogues

Respecting the Rules

With Respect to Gender

Taking Time and Talking in Riddles

The Trouble with Books

Staying Silent: Speaking Out

A Community of Belief and a Culture of Dissent

8.  Sorting the Sources: Writing about the Lower Murray

Who has Fabricated the Ngarrindjeri?

First Sightings: Writing the Ngarrindjeri into Existence

A Dying Race: Recording Nineteenth-Century Ngarrindjeri

Museums and Memory Culture: Tindale, Berndt et al.

Recording the Word: From Passive to Active Voice

On Silences, Assumptions and Censorship

On Women, Feminists and Ethnography

Of Courts, Consultants and Armchairs

Finding Meaning in a Changing World: A Constant

9.  Women’s Beliefs, Bodies and Practices

Gendered Work: Gendered Analyses

Sacred Moments: Sacred Relationships

Born of Woman

Rites of Passage: Coming of Age for Ngarrindjeri Girls

Women’s Bodies: The Subject of Inquiry

Women’s Business: What is It?

What Do we Know About Women and their Business?

Closing the Circle

10.  Sacred Orders: A Weave of the Clans, Stories and Sanctions

Kumarangk: Not Just Any Island

Hindmarsh Island: A Complex of Clans

Goolwa: A Complex of Activities

Mulyewongk: Cautionary Tales and Deeper Meanings

The Meeting of the Waters: Home for Ngatji

Ngurunderi and Jekejeri at Goolwa

The Pleiades: Stories of Sisters, the Seasons and Survival

Mantjingga: A Ngarrindjeri Dreaming

Sacred Orders: Everything in its Place

Weaving it Together: One Whole World

Epilogue: Whither?

Endnotes

Chronology

Bibliography

Permissions

Index

Acknowledgements

List of Maps

Area of Study

Field Work Area

Tribal Boundaries (after Tindale 1974)

Pioneers of the Lower Murray

Kumarangk (after Tindale 1974)

Kumarangk (after Berndt et al. 1993)

Red Ochre Trade in South Australia (Tindale and Long n.d.)

Ngarrindjeri Terms

Jekejere, Jekejeri: an ancestral being

Kaldowinyeri: Creative era

Kondoli: whale

koyi, koiya, koy: basket

korni, korne: man

krayi: snake

Krowali, Krauli: Blue Crane, White Faced Heron, Ardea novaehollandiae

kringkari, gringari, gringgari: whitefella, corpse, underlayer of skin

lauwari: Cape Barren Goose Manchingga, Mantjingga, mungingee: Seven Sisters Dreaming, Pleiades

manthari, mantheri, manthuri: native apple, Kunzea pomifera

mi:mini, memini, mimini: woman

millin, milin: a deadly sorcery practice

mingka: bird, harbinger of death

miwi, mewe: feelings located in stomach, soul substance,

muldarpi, mularpi, mulapi: travelling spirit of sorcerers and strangers

muldawali: Creative hero

mulyewongk, muldjuwangk, moolgewangke, mulgewanki: bunyip, monstrous water creature

mutha, mootha: grandmother, father’s mother

narambi, narumbi, narumbee: sacred, dangerous, forbidden, taboo

Nepelli: brother-in-law of Ngurunderi

ngatji, ngaitye, ngartjis: totem, friend, countryman, protector

ngia-ngiampe, ngengampi, nhung e umpe, ngyangangyampe: navel cord relationship, traders

ngori: pelican

ngrilkulun: ceremonial dancing

Ngurunderi, Oroodooil: Creative hero

nukan: look

pakanu: grandfather; grandmother, grandparent

pakari, pekere, pekeri: prayer song, Dreaming song

Pondi, ponde: Murray cod, Maccullochella peelii

prupi, prupe: evil, bad spirit

pulanggi, pulangki: navel

putari, pooteri, puttheras: doctor, midwife

ringbalin, ringballin: singing, chanting, corroboree

ritjaruki: Willie wagtail, Rhipidura leucophrys

Rupelli, Rupulle: Leader of tendi, landowner

ruwa, ruwar: body

ruwi, ruwe, ruwee: land, country, birthplace

tendi: governing body of the Ngarrindjeri nation

Thukapi, tukabi: turtle, Emydura macquarii

thumpamarldi, thumparmardle: sorcerer

Waiyungare, Waiyungari, Waiungare, Wyunggaree: Creative hero, great hunter, Mars

wurruwarrin: knowing and believing

yunnan, yanun: speak, talk

The Ngarrindjeri (Narrinyeri) Nation

(see Map 3, p. 30)

Portaulan, Potawolin (west of the Murray River)

Ramindjeri (Encounter Bay)

Tangani, Tangane, Tanganarin, Tanganekald (Coorong)

Warkend, Warki (north and west of Lake Alexandrina)

Yaraldi, Jaralde, Jaraldi, Jaraldikald (east side of Lake Alexandrina and Murray River)

Neighbours

Boandik, Bunganditj (southeast of Ngarrindjeri)

Kaurna (Aboriginal people of the Adelaide region)

Narrunga (Yorke Peninsula and Point Pearce)

Potaruwutj (Tatiara) (East of Tangani)

For my Ngarrindjeri friends and family,

For your good humour, good sense, and trust.

(1998)

With deep sorrow for those who have passed:

too many, too young, too soon, and with high

hopes for their descendants who continue

their work and honour their legacy.

(2014)

Area of Study (Map: Stephen Shaheen)

Hindmarsh Island Bridge with old ferry approach in foreground, 2009. (Diane Bell)

Preface to the New Edition

Ellen Trevorrow and I are having breakfast in my sun-filled kitchen and watching the magpies. They’re waiting for a feed. Ellen, I say, "Spinifex has invited me to do a new edition of Ngarrindjeri Wurruwarrin. What do you think? She is visiting Canberra with her son Hank for the launch of Ringbalin: The breaking of the drought",¹ a film that documents the ceremonies of Indigenous nations along the River Murray from southern Queensland to the Murray Mouth in South Australia. Good, she says. A lot has happened since then.² We start making lists of the good and the bad.³

Persistent paradoxes

Writing in the eye of a storm. That is how it felt in 1998 when I signed off on Ngarrindjeri Wurruwarrin: A world that is, was and will be. Hateful winds of racism, sexism and ridicule lashed the lands of the Ngarrindjeri who had stood firm in their determination to protect their sacred sites. The human toll was immense. In the wake of the 1995 South Australian Royal Commission that found Ngarrindjeri women had engaged in a deliberate fabrication to thwart the building of a bridge from Goolwa to Hindmarsh Island, passions ran high (Stevens 1995). In brief, the developers had argued the bridge was needed to facilitate access to the island and their marina. The Ngarrindjeri applicants had argued the bridge would desecrate their sacred sites. A group of Ngarrindjeri women, who became known as the dissident women, disputed the claims of gender-restricted knowledge (see below pp. 409–10).⁴ The passage of the Hindmarsh Island Bridge Act 1997 removed the possibility of future Heritage applications that might have succeeded in protecting the site (see below pp. 31; pp. 600–3). All legal avenues were exhausted.⁵ The bridge was built. In March 2001, Dean Brown, who as Premier of South Australia had called the Royal Commission in 1995, opened the bridge to Hindmarsh Island. The marina was open for business.

At the time I wondered what was the world that will be that I had anticipated in the subtitle of Ngarrindjeri Wurruwarrin. Was there a world that could be in such bleak times? Writing now in 2014, I can report that much has changed since those fraught post Royal Commission days. For their part, the Ngarrindjeri have forged ahead, building the infrastructure for future generations of their nation in innovative ways; negotiating agreements with a range of parties; pursuing their Native Title and the hand-back of the Coorong National Park by the State of South Australia. They have charted the road to practical reconciliation with imagination, generosity of spirit, and determination. Their dignity in the face of abuse had been acknowledged; their truth telling recognised. Highpoints include:

• Vindication : In 2001, Federal Court Judge John von Doussa ruled that the developers of the marina on Hindmarsh Island were not entitled to compensation for delays in construction of the bridge. Von Doussa (2001: para 12) wrote instead, Upon the evidence before this Court I am not satisfied that the restricted women’s knowledge was fabricated or that it was not part of genuine Aboriginal tradition;

• Recognition : In 2007, Bruce Trevorrow became the first member of the Stolen Generations to be awarded compensation (Gray 2007);

• Reconciled : In 2008, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, deploying we as inclusive of all Australians, apologised to the Stolen Generations (Rudd 2008);

• Registration: In 2009, in recognition of the cultural importance to Ngarrindjeri of the site known as the Meeting of the Waters, in Murray Mouth, Goolwa, Hindmarsh Island region, the site was entered onto the Register of Aboriginal Sites by the South Australian government (Caica 2010; see below pp. xxii);

• Acknowledgement : In 2010, the South Australian government formally acknowledged the decision of Justice von Doussa and noted that great pain and hurt had been caused to the community and to good honest people from within that community, including Dr. Kartinyeri (Caica 2010; see below pp. xxii).

But much has been lost. The key storytellers of Ngarrindjeri Wurruwarrin have passed away. Doreen Kartinyeri lived to hear the von Doussa decision of 2001 but not the apology to the Stolen Generations nor the apology from the South Australian government. George Trevorrow’s dying plea to Premier Rann in 2011 to negotiate a treaty remains unanswered (see below p. xxxiii). The world that will be is rife with contradictions and disappointments. The shift in power required for this world to be one that opens the new chapter envisaged by the Rudd apology is being resisted, appropriated and subverted. One step forward: how many steps back?

Justice for the Ngarrindjeri remains elusive. The Australian nation celebrates an Apology to the Stolen Generations and reflects on the grief, suffering and loss occasioned by past policies. Prime Minister Rudd (2008) asserts that this parliament resolves that the injustices of the past must never, never happen again. Yet, as I outline below with reference to the Bruce Trevorrow case (see pp. xix–xxi), the injustices persist. It is happening again. Techno-legalistic manoeuvres by the state serve to nullify that resolve of the federal parliament. These are persistent paradoxes for Aboriginal people across Australia. In this Preface I trace the terrain on which the new Ngarrindjeri chapter is being written.⁶

Ngarrindjeri Vindicated:

Judge von Doussa’s Reasons for Decision 2001

I had flown in from the USA to hear Justice von Doussa deliver his judgment. I sat with the Ngarrindjeri women applicants – the women who had been found to be liars by the 1995 Royal Commission (Stevens 1995) – at the back of the crowded court and wrote in my little notebook. Von Doussa was rejecting the proposition the women had been part of a deliberate fabrication. I was waiting for the but. It didn’t come. Go von Doussa,⁷ said Sandy Saunders and we walked outside. Doreen Kartinyeri collapsed into the arms of her son, Klynton Wanganeen. I knowed I was no liar, Margaret Jacobs announced to Veronica Brodie as she left the court.

Elders Veronica Brodie and Aunty Maggie Margaret Jacobs 21 August 2001, Adelaide (Diane Bell)

The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Heritage Protection Act 1984 is federal legislation. It was intended as legislation of last resort. It comes into play when other avenues to protect sites have been exhausted. It brings parties to the table. It holds out the promise of negotiation. For the Ngarrindjeri who sought to protect their sacred sites in the Goolwa, Murray Mouth, Hindmarsh Island region, it became a minefield of technical glitches and missteps. Through no fault of their own, the Ngarrindjeri applicants found that their applications for site protection of 1994 and 1996 were set aside and then, in 1997, the legislation was amended so as to exclude their sites on Hindmarsh Island from the ambit of the act.⁸ The legislation had failed them. Their sites could not be protected.

In 1997, developers Thomas and Wendy Chapman sought $69.62 million in compensation for their losses incurred by delays in building the Hindmarsh Island bridge. They sued a number of parties including the federal Minister who in 1995 issued the 25-year embargo on the development, the lawyer who authored the 1994 Report, the anthropologist whose assessment was appended to the Report, Luminis (a consulting subsidiary of the University of Adelaide), and the Commonwealth of Australia⁹ (see pp. 1–8). In the Federal Court in Adelaide, Judge John von Doussa heard from all parties to the dispute: those who knew the story and believed that Kumarangk (Hindmarsh Island) was sacred to women; those who contested the existence and content of the knowledge; anthropologists, historians and museum men; a federal Minister and a law professor. The hearings ran from December 1999 to March 2001, and produced thousands of pages of transcript and hundreds of exhibits.

I was called as an expert witness. The cross-examination was fast and furious. I was asked for comment on document after document, some of which I was seeing for the first time. Under the Federal Court Rules for expert witnesses, my over-riding duty was to the Court and I made it plain when I could and could not assist. Ngarrindjeri Wurruwarrin was subjected to close scrutiny. My ethno graphic approach to establishing the existence of sincerely held beliefs, as distinct from a forensic analysis of the content of a belief was of interest to the Court. I explained that as an anthropologist I looked to the match between words and actions: did people behave in accordance with their stated beliefs? Within this schema, the rationality or otherwise of the content of a belief was not helpful in determining its cultural provenance (see below pp. 405–417).

The case was not about the veracity of the Ngarrindjeri applicants per se, but Judge von Doussa dealt with the reliability, credibility and reach of the Ngarrindjeri witnesses. In particular, he found Doreen Kartinyeri to be a credible witness: I am not prepared to find that her evidence about the circumstances in which she received the restricted women’s knowledge from Aunty Rosie, and about the knowledge itself, is a lie (von Doussa 2001: para 318). I am reminded of what Doreen Kartinyeri used to say: What was my intent? Why would I have lied about my culture? No one ever asked me that. It seems that it has been easier to construct the women as liars than to come to terms with their passionate commitment to care for their country.¹⁰

The von Doussa conclusion in 2001 that the women were not liars, raises the question of how are we to understand the finding of fabrication by the Royal Commission in 1995? In his Reasons for Decision von Doussa (von Doussa 2001: para 343) addressed the several planks¹¹ on which the finding of the Royal Commission rested and concluded:

The evidence received by the Court on this topic is significantly different to that which was before the Royal Commission. Upon the evidence before this Court I am not satisfied that the restricted women’s knowledge was fabricated or that it was not part of genuine Aboriginal tradition.

Von Doussa’s vindication of the Ngarrindjeri offered some comfort to those who had been labelled liars but came too late to stop the bridge. The term secret women’s business became the focus of deeply offensive sexist and racist jokes that persist. The Ngarrindjeri fight for their ruwi, their country, became an inquiry into women’s ruwar, their bodies and their knowledges. The fight to protect their places remains a rallying call. The Ngarrindjeri at the forefront of the struggle are recalled with respect. I really miss her, Ellen Trevorrow said at Veronica Brodie’s funeral on 11 May 2007. She was such a support for us all. Aunty Veronica was a respected Elder, a trailblazer in the formation of many community initiatives and organisations. In her book, My Side of the Bridge, she wrote: It’s been a long drawn-out process and a lot of hurts have been brought out with it, and a healing process needs to start now (Brodie 2007: 143). For her, the Old People are still on the island and the spirits still walk the island. You cannot take away the fact that the Ngarrindjeri women’s business did take place on Hindmarsh Island (ibid. 144).

The Apology: 13 February 2008

In tabling the motion apologising to Indigenous Australians for the laws and policies of successive Parliaments and governments that have inflicted profound grief, suffering and loss, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd (2008) sought to remove a great stain from the nation’s soul and in the true spirit of reconciliation to open a new chapter in the history of this great land Australia.

Like many of the thousands present that day and the millions more who listened to the apology, the response was visceral: it was about family, it was about hope. We could craft a nation built on honour and dignity and respect. The we was inclusive: Indigenous and non-indigenous. We looked to a

future where we embrace the possibility of new solutions to enduring problems where old approaches have failed. A future based on mutual respect, mutual resolve and mutual responsibility. (Rudd 2008).

Ngarrindjeri Elder Tom Trevorrow had flown to Canberra and was in the gallery at Parliament House to hear these words. His wife, Ellen Trevorrow and family including Alice Abdulla, Edith Carter, Julie Carter, Dorothy Kartinyeri, Rita Lindsay Sr, Hank Trevorrow and Ellie Wilson drove through the night and camped at the Tent Embassy so they too could hear the words. For them it was personal. Bruce Trevorrow, younger brother of Tom Trevorrow, Alice Abdulla and Rita Lindsay Sr, was a member of the Stolen Generations. His life had been irretrievably damaged by his decade-long separation from his siblings. His mother Thora Trevorrow (née Lampard) mourned his loss. His father Joseph Trevorrow died before being reunited with his son. Bruce Trevorrow had also flown to Canberra to hear of the promise of a new chapter.

Bruce Trevorrow (1956–2008)

Rita Lindsay Sr (Bell 2008: 51), older sister of Bruce Trevorrow recalled: Dad brought Bruce to his neighbour’s house to ask for a lift and he had Bruce wrapped up in a government blanket, all warm. He’s got a bit of a stomach ache, Dad said. We’ll take him, they said. The next time we saw him was in Kintore St at Aboriginal Affairs. I was so happy but he was shy. He didn’t know anything about me. I can still see his little face and curly hair.

In August 2007, in a landmark decision, Justice Thomas Gray of the South Australian Supreme Court found that Bruce Trevorrow

… as an infant and as a child, was dealt with by the State without lawful authority in a manner that affected his personal well-being and freedom. He was the subject of misfeasance in public office. He was falsely imprisoned. He was the subject of breaches of the common law duty of care owed by the State …The parents of the plaintiff were unaware of what was occurring. They did not consent. The plaintiff’s mother was provided misinformation about her son. It was a serious matter that contact between the natural family and the plaintiff, and in particular, between the plaintiff and his mother, was obstructed and did not occur for almost a decade. These circumstances left the plaintiff, as a child, suffering from an anxiety state, depression and illnesses associated with depression. (Gray 2007: paras 1228–1230).

When the judge awarded the sum of $525,000 as compensation and then in February 2008 a further lump sum of $250,000 in lieu of interest payments owed on the original award, South Australia became the first jurisdiction to recognise and award compensation to a member of the Stolen Generations. And this a full decade after the report Bringing them Home (Wilson 1997) which had framed much of my field work in 1996–8 with the Ngarrindjeri. Was this the beginning of the new chapter? Were we coming to terms with the past?

Premier Mike Rann (2007) had initially stated his government would not be seeking return of the award made to Bruce Trevorrow but rather would be seeking clarification of points of law. However, the notice of appeal lodged in the South Australia Supreme Court registry on 28 February 2008 – just two weeks after Prime Minister Rudd’s Apology – was against the whole of the judgment, including the $775,000 award.¹² The catalogue of disputed facts enumerated in the appeal included the judge’s finding that Bruce’s parents did not consent to their son’s removal.¹³

When Bruce Trevorrow died on 20 June 2008, the appeal was yet to be heard and his widow then faced the possibility of legal costs that could have consumed the award. Her bid to have the appeal permanently stayed was dismissed by Justice White on 24 December 2008:

Whatever sympathy one may have for the circumstances of the present respondent, and the difficult position in which she is placed in relation to the defence of the appeal, the matters to which I have referred indicate that it is appropriate for this appeal to be heard by the Full Court. Despite the submissions of the respondent, it cannot be said that the appeal involves an abuse of this Court’s processes. (White 2008: para 37).

As the matter wended its way through the courts, the spotlight shone on the Trevorrow family was unrelenting: their lives became public property. Judge Gray (2007: para 299) had found Thora to be a mother who loved and cared for her children and step-children. She did her best to provide for the children. This included their emotional, material and educational needs. Stolen Generations deniers wrote of a dysfunctional family and the unfortunate life of Bruce Trevorrow (Windschuttle 2009).¹⁴ Many of those passing judgment on the character of Bruce’s parents and upbringing had little experience of life in fringe camps, those kin-based communities located beyond services such as garbage collection, mains water, sewage and public transport; where the hard earth floors of homes fashioned from hessian and discarded drums were swept clean; where water was carted in drums on a yoke from the nearest river or soakage; where language was spoken; where families feared welfare intervention as a daily condition of life.

In March 2010, the Full Court of the South Australian Supreme Court ruled that the government had been negligent in its treatment of Bruce Trevorrow (Doyle et al 2010). A month later, in April 2010, the South Australian government decided not to seek leave to appeal to the High Court. Case closed: but has the spirit, intent, promise of the Apology been honoured? The various appeals may not be an abuse of legal process but what of justice for the aggrieved? What of the outpourings of Stolen Generations deniers that the clarification occasioned? Is this healing for the nation?

And as for Sorry? An apology requires owning the past practices not merely parsing them in scholastic argument. Following the Bruce Trevorrow decision, his lawyer Claire O’Connor suggested a compensation scheme be established. It’s time to spend the money on indigenous people, not on white lawyers, she said (Dornin 2010). The Ngarrindjeri have been active participants in moves to create a Reparations Tribunal for an estimated 300–400 aggrieved individuals who could seek to be heard in South Australia. In their submission to the Aboriginal Lands Parliamentary Standing Committee, the Ngarrindjeri Regional Authority (2012) proposed a Tribunal with three functions. Firstly to accept applications from any Aboriginal person removed from their family by the State; secondly to provide as a matter of right any applicant to make a statement of experience to be kept in an archive administered by the State for and on behalf of victims of the Stolen Generations of Children for all time; and thirdly to administer applications for (a) payment of a fixed amount from a Common Experience Fund for any Aboriginal person removed from their family by the State and (b) payment of damages by an Independent Assessment of damages for any Aboriginal person removed from their family by the State.¹⁵

Meeting of the Waters: Recognition of Kumarangk

Our brothers, our sisters, our father the sky, our mother the earth, we are all connected and we are but a microcosm of the connection and we as a people must stand up and fight for what is really and truly right. Our Old People said, If you tell a lie, you have to think. If you tell the truth you don’t.

With these words Matthew Rigney (2010), then Chair of the Ngarrindjeri Native Title Management Committee (NNTMC), began his spirited speech to a large gathering of Ngarrindjeri, and interested parties at Jekejere Park, near the foot of the Hindmarsh Island Bridge, Goolwa. The occasion was the Apology to the Ngarrindjeri Nation delivered by Paul Caica, Minister for Sustainability, Environment and Conservation, Minister for Water and the River Murray and Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, and Reconciliation on 6 July 2010.

Speaking on behalf of the South Australian government, Paul Caica (2010) said:

The decision of Justice John von Doussa in Chapman v. Luminus (no. 5) is unequivocal in its conclusion that Ngarrindjeri knowledge was a genuine part of Aboriginal tradition that predated plans for a bridge …The State Government of South Australia acknowledges the decision of Justice von Doussa and the conclusion he makes that Ngarrindjeri knowledge was a genuine part of Aboriginal tradition and was not fabricated… On 4 May 2009 the State Government of South Australia in recognition of the cultural importance to Ngarrindjeri of the area entered onto the Register of Aboriginal Sites by Register Site No 6626-4127 Meeting of the Waters… We stand today on this place together speaking to each other with respect and greater understanding than before but with the knowledge that our recent past and interactions were disrespectful to Ngarrindjeri culture and tradition and caused great pain and hurt to your community and to good honest people from within that community, including Dr. Kartinyeri.

With the registration of the Meeting of the Waters site (Government of South Australia 2009), Ngarrindjeri cultural beliefs regarding the complex intertwining of localised stories with the macro-narratives from the Kaldowinyeri (Creative Era) have been acknowledged by the State (see below chapter 10). The Kaldowinyeri presences denied or ignored by the Royal Commission have been acknowledged. Ngurunderi was there. Jekejere was there. Mantjingga (Seven Sisters: Pleiades) were there. Goolwa was the meeting of the waters, a place for ceremonial meetings and trade; the place where ngatji (totems) proliferate (Kämph and Bell 2013). As George Trevorrow (see below p. 563) said: This is where the major connections happen.

The State has apologised. The Ngarrindjeri have been acknowledged as the Traditional Owners of their lands and waters, but the bridge remains. At Jekejere Park Tom Trevorrow (2010) said: We must find ways to maintain our culture, heritage and beliefs and we must stay connected with our lands and waters to keep the spirit of all things alive. We may use the bridge to access our lands and waters but culturally and morally we cannot come to terms with this bridge.

Kungun Ngarrindjeri Yunnan Agreements:

Listen to Ngarrindjeri People Speaking (KNYA)

Throughout the struggle to protect their sacred places in the Goolwa, Kumarangk, Murray Mouth area, the Ngarrindjeri had reiterated that their Old People were buried on the island. Mulparini, the so-called Black Heathen, from whom a number of Ngarrindjeri families trace descent is buried there. The midden on the Goolwa foreshore where Ngarrindjeri traditionally gathered for ceremonies and trade was a resting place for their Old People, as those who have passed away are known. Thus, when in September 2002, an excavation that was part of the Goolwa Wharf redevelopment project unearthed a Ngarrindjeri mother and child (Hemming and Trevorrow 2005), there was no excuse for developers not knowing. The site was listed by the South Australian Department of Aboriginal Affairs and Reconciliation. As Tom Trevorrow (2007) explained: We warned them. We told them they were digging in burial grounds, but they didn’t listen because of the Royal Commission. Their view was that Goolwa was a port and they were developing its history.

But, a burial site had been desecrated. The Ngarrindjeri could have taken legal action against the Alexandrina Council. However, rather than be mired in what would most certainly be more costly and counter-productive litigation, the Ngarrindjeri chose to lead by example; to move forward; to bring members of the Alexandrina Council into their world of caring for country, stories, and Old People. In the spirit of practical reconciliation, they negotiated an agreement. The outcome was the first Kungun Ngarrindjeri Yunnan Agreement (KNYA) and an Apology from the Council. The Alexandrina Council (2002) wrote:

To the Ngarrindjeri people, the traditional owners of the land and waters within the region, the Alexandrina Council expresses sorrow and sincere regret for the suffering and injustice that you have experienced since colonisation and we share with you our feelings of shame and sorrow at the mistreatment your people have suffered … The Alexandrina Council acknowledges the Ngarrindjeri People’s ongoing connection to the land and waters within its area and further acknowledges the Ngarrindjeri People’s continuing culture and interest therein.¹⁶

Ngarrindjeri were well aware that this strategy of sorry begun with fine words required action. The Old People whose burial place had been desecrated had to be laid to rest according to Ngarrindjeri law. On 17 October 2002, with proper ceremony and support of the local council and state government, the Ngarrindjeri reburied the woman and child. In so doing, Ngarrindjeri Old People became part of the renegotiated landscape of a major rural town (Hemming and Trevorrow 2005: 255) and the Alexandrina Council had an agreement within which future actions could and would be negotiated.

The post-Kumarangk Ngarrindjeri pursuit of practical reconciliation builds on their ethic of sharing that is manifest in their stories such as that of Thukeri and Ngurunderi (Ngarrindjeri Tendi et al 2006): negotiating with outsiders is part of the Ngarrindjeri Cultural Way.¹⁷ KNYA have become a way of managing competing interests while retaining control over their lands and waters. The change is that Ngarrindjeri concerns are now articulated by their incorporated organisations with which the State has entered into binding agreements and that there are now legal remedies available to the Traditional Owners who are being recognised as such.¹⁸

Acting on behalf of the Ngarrindjeri people, the Ngarrindjeri Tendi Inc. (NT), Ngarrindjeri Heritage Committee Inc. (NHC) and Ngarrindjeri Native Title Management Committee (NNTMC) negotiated KNYA with the Alexandrina Council (October 2002), the Victoria Museum (August 2004), the Coorong District Council (October 2005), the River, Lakes and Coorong Action Group Inc. (February 2007), the Rural City of Murray Bridge (March 2008), the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs and Reconciliation (December 2008), the Crown in the right of the State of South Australia represented by the minister for the River Murray (June 2009) and, the Crown in right of the State of South Australia represented by the minister for environment and conservation, the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs and Reconciliation, the Minister for the River Murray, and the Minister for Agriculture, Food and Fisheries (June 2009) and more KNYA are work-in-progress.

The Report of the Kungun Ngarrindjeri Yunnan Agreement (KNYA) Task Force, 2010–2011 (Ngarrindjeri Regional Authority et al 2011) endorsed the Ngarrindjeri Regional Authority (NRA) as representing the communities and organisations that currently make up the Ngarrindjeri Nation and the current individual Native Title Claimants of the Ngarrindjeri and Others Native Title Claim (ibid.: 2011: 10). The state acknowledged Ngarrindjeri as the Traditional Owners of the land and that according to their traditions, customs and spiritual beliefs its lands and waters remain their traditional country, lands and waters (ibid.: 2). The state further acknowledged their rights to speak for their traditional country in accordance with their laws, customs and tradition (ibid.).

KNYA have not only been entered into, they have also been acted upon with respect to a number of government management plans and delegation of powers. The participation by Ngarrindjeri in KNYA, the work of the Ngarrindjeri Regional Authority (NRA), the Ngarrindjeri Lands and Progress Association Inc. (NLPA) and the Ngarrindjeri Heritage Committee Inc. (NHC) are underwritten by their commitment to ensuring that the Ngarrindjeri Nation will have a secure future in the yarluwar-ruwi (sea-country) of their ancestors. These agreements place an administrative burden on the Ngarrindjeri leadership and at times the bureaucratic burden of meetings, reports, applications and consultations weighs heavily.

Ngarrindjeri Regional Authority (NRA):

The Infrastructure of the Nation

The idea behind the NRA was to work towards the vision of the Ngarrindjeri Nation set out in the Yarluwar-ruwe [Sea-Country] Plan (Ngarrindjeri Tendi et al 2006). The Ngarrindjeri Governance Working Party, Chaired by George Trevorrow, head of the Ngarrindjeri Tendi and comprising representatives of the Ngarrindjeri Lands and Progress Association Inc. (NLPA), the Ngarrindjeri Tendi Inc. (NT), the Ngarrindjeri Native Title Management Committee (NNTMC), the Ngarrindjeri Heritage Committee (NHC), the Kalparrin Community Council Inc., the Lower Murray Nungas Club, Tangglun Piltengi Yunti Aboriginal Corporation (TPY) and the Mannum Aboriginal Community Association Inc. met over a period of eighteen months mostly at Murray Bridge in 2005–6 and was incorporated 3 May 2007.

Through the NRA, the Ngarrindjeri leadership sought a coordinated approach in dealing with government agencies, such as Natural Resources Management. With the demise of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC), the demand on the Ngarrindjeri leadership by a range of government bureaucracies has been overwhelming. Consultants, each seeking information regarding specific projects, come and go but contribute little to the community priorities that the Ngarrindjeri have been articulating. The dangers of fragmentation are real.

The vision of the NRA as part of the infrastructure of the Ngarrindjeri Nation has been realised. It is here that collaborative research projects and publications come for discussion and approval; it is here that government departments make presentations regarding planned activities on Ngarrindjeri lands and waters.

The Ngarrindjeri Yarluwar-ruwe [Sea-Country] Plan

The Ngarrindjeri Sea-Country Plan (Ngarrindjeri Tendi et al 2006) sets out the vision for the Ngarrindjeri Nation in the following terms:

Ngarrindjeri respect the gifts of Creation that Ngurunderi passed down to our Spiritual Ancestors, our Elders and to us. Ngarrindjeri must follow the Traditional Laws; we must respect and honour the lands, waters and all living things.

Our goals are:

• For our people, children and descendants to be healthy and to enjoy our healthy lands and water.

• To see our lands and waters healthy and spiritually alive.

• For all our people to benefit from our equity in our lands and waters.

• To see our closest friends – our Ngartjis – healthy and spiritually alive.

• For our people to continue to occupy and benefit from our lands and waters.

• To see all people respecting our laws and living in harmony with our lands and waters.

This is an ambitious charter but the Ngarrindjeri leadership has played a prominent role in developing and implementing the various management plans for the Ramsar wetlands of the Lower Murray and Coorong and has taken a lead role in the revegetation programs; has been a critical component of the monitoring programs regarding migratory birds and International Conventions like CAMBA and JAMBA.¹⁹ Through their workshops and presentations at conferences, the Ngarrindjeri have been instrumental in supporting other groups, Indigenous and non-Indigenous; and their role in MLDRIN (Murray Lower Darling River Indigenous Network), especially during the various consultations associated with the Murray-Darling Basin Plan through 2011–2012, has likewise been one of vision and leadership. All these actions have been taken in name of the Ngarrindjeri Nation.

Their Strategies and Priority Actions for Collaboration with other Indigenous Peoples section (Ngarrindjeri Tendi et al 2006: 31) relies on the concept of partnerships in developing management strategies for the lands and waters at local, state, federal and international levels. For instance, the Plan speaks of developing exchange programs with other Indigenous groups elsewhere in Australia and overseas and strengthening relationships with MLDRIN and their formal relationship with the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation (Oregon, USA). Topics include salt and fresh water management; water quality, environmental and cultural flows and negotiating water rights.

The Plan outlines a Ngarrindjeri research agenda, which shifts the focus from Ngarrindjeri as the subject of research to Ngarrindjeri as equal partners, as authors, as researchers (Hemming et al 2007; Hughes and Trevorrow 2014; Rigney et al 2008). Collaborative projects with institutions such as Flinders University, Charles Sturt University, University of South Australia, Swinburne University, Cambridge (UK), Harvard University and the CSIRO have made it possible to develop and deploy research protocols. Ngarrindjeri researchers are pioneering new ways of paying proper respect to their Elders while pursuing university-based research.

Now there is a generation of young women who have come to maturity during and since the struggle to protect Ngarrindjeri places on Kumarangk. Any discussion that takes up the issue of the safety and integrity of women’s bodies is likely to evoke bitter memories of the struggle to protect their sacred places. The stories are being kept alive. The NRA is the body with whom all future developers will have to deal. The tragedy of Kumarangk must never be repeated.

Repatriation and reburial:

We want them home, where they can rest

On Saturday 23 September, 2006, twenty-four Old People who, in the name of science, had been taken from their burial grounds by South Australian Coroner William Ramsay Smith in the decade 1898–1908 and held for nearly a century in the Museum at Edinburgh University, Scotland, were returned to their ruwi (country) at Hack’s Point and Parnka Point on the Coorong (Hemming and Wilson 2006; Wallis et al 2006; Wilson 2005). There are some 400 or more Old People awaiting proper burial at Camp Coorong and thousands more yet to be repatriated to Ngarrindjeri country.

The Old People who were brought home were housed at Camp Coorong. It was there I sat with the women as we fashioned little coffins for the reburials and decorated them with the traditional yellow wattle and ti-tree. When we had finished, we walked in single file through the cleansing smoke of the fire that had been kindled outside the repatriation room where a traditional burial platform had been erected. The mood was solemn. Once inside the room it was hard not to be overcome by the immensity and complexity of bringing the Old People home. Around the outside of the room were the crates in which the remains had been transported from the UK to Australia. We placed the coffins on the long benches, draped with black cloth. From existing documentation the Ngarrindjeri had been able to identify which remains had been taken from which site and to deduce the families whose ancestors were in the impersonal crates and were now being placed into individually crafted coffins in preparation for return to the sites from which they had been taken.

Elder Tom Trevorrow in the Repatriation Room with the hand-made coffins, Camp Coorong, 20 September 2006 (Diane Bell)

The Repatriation of the Old People entailed a series of ceremonies, some of which had to be created because there is no traditional ceremony for bringing home one’s ancestral skeletal remains that have been lodged in a museum in Scotland. This was not something the Creative Hero Ngurunderi envisioned when he laid the basis for Ngarrindjeri law (see pp. 91–8) but he did set out the form of ceremonies for the dead and provided the rationale for mortuary rituals. Thus, consistent with the philosophy and practice of Ngurunderi, contemporary Ngarrindjeri considered what was required to heal the breach that occurred when the remains were disinterred or not buried properly in the first place; they performed a series of purification and healing ceremonies that would allow the Old People to be bought home on a plane; to be held in a room in boxes; to be sorted and placed with proper respect in individual coffins. They lit the smoky fire so the Old People could smell it and know they were home. The actual day of the reburials, which was attended by many Ngarrindjeri and others, was simply one part of a much longer ceremonial suite.

Being able to have one’s Old People at rest is an act of respect and an assertion that the land is embodied. Ruwi, the word for land, is the singular for ruwar, the word for body. The ceremonies to ensure respectful reburial require planning, resources and access to the proper ruwi for reburial.²⁰ The National Museum in Canberra has provided some assistance but a large number of Old People are yet to be repatriated and a number that have been repatriated are yet to be reburied. Ngarrindjeri have sought assistance from the state. Tom Trevorrow (2008): That’s been tearing us to pieces since they’ve been returned. How do we take them back and rebury them when we have no money and why doesn’t the state government come to terms with us on this? It was their state coroner who did this. Why aren’t they helping us? That’s what we’ve been faced with so far. Where and how do we get help? So we can give these Old People a proper respectful funeral, return to country. Like soldiers who have fought in 1st and 2nd world war. Proper respectful, full honours funeral. The same thing has to happen to our Old People because they were disturbed.

Honouring the dead. Honouring the living. The Ngarrindjeri leadership has a vision of the world that will be. It is consistent with the promise of the Apology.

Ringbalin: Dancing the spirit back into Murray-Darling River

Prompted by the near death of the River Murray during the Millennium drought of 2006–2010 and deeply distressed by the state of the Coorong and Murray Mouth, Ngarrindjeri Elder, Major Moogie Sumner, joined with Indigenous nations along the River on a 2300-kilometre pilgrimage to sing the spirit back into the River and into themselves. In 2010, the first Murrundi Ruwe Pangari Ringbalin (River Country Spirit Ceremony) brought life to communities and the river. By the time they had completed their ceremonial journey, the rains had come and floods waters had flushed the land. In 2011 they retraced their ritual pilgrimage and once again shared stories across groups, forged alliances and articulated shared responsibilities. The Traditional Owners along the River consider themselves bound together by the rivers, the stories and their work to sing the spirit back into the land, their people, and the lives of their grandchildren.²¹

Under the guidance of Major Sumner, young Ngarrindjeri as members of the Talkinjeri Dance Group are participating in ringbalin, dancing barefoot on their ruwi, calling on their ancestors and, celebrating their ngatji (totems) in ceremonies. In opening the ceremonies, Major Sumner calls to the ancestors of all present at a ceremony, Ngarrindjeri and non-Ngarrindjeri, Indigenous and non-Indigenous, to emphasise sharing the country and repeats his call to each of the four directions. His evocation is for the us of the Apology.

Elder Major Moogie Sumner calls to the ancestors. Tom Trevorrow stands in respect. Clayton Bay on the occasion of the opening of the Fresh Water Embassy, June 2009²² (Diane Bell)

Asserting Sovereignty: Letters Patent

On 19 February 1836, King William IV issued the Letters Patent establishing the Province of South Australia and enunciating an important provision that

nothing in those Letters Patent contained shall affect or be construed to affect the rights of any Aboriginal natives of the said Province to the actual occupation or enjoyment in their own Persons or in Persons of their Descendants of any Lands therein now actually occupied or enjoyed by such Natives. (Berg 2010: 312–3).

The Ngarrindjeri have long considered the Letters Patent to be central to their assertion of ownership of their lands and water (Rigney et al 2008). In the words of the Ngarrindjeri leadership, The legal implications of the Letters Patent and other founding documents of the state has been a burning issue for us (Trevorrow et al 2010: vii). In 1999, George and Tom Trevorrow had asked lawyer Shaun Berg (2010: xvii): If the King says something then doesn’t everybody have to follow it? Isn’t it the law?

Shaun Berg (2010: xiv) has taken up the challenge: The dispossession of Aboriginal land in early South Australia can be expressed simply: at the beginning of the year 1836 Aboriginal people owned all the land; by the end of that same year they owned none of it. In Coming to Terms: Aboriginal Title in South Australia (Berg 2010), eight lawyers with wide ranging experience on Indigenous rights in Australia and internationally, offer opinions on the meaning of the founding documents, the consequences of the failure to abide by the intent of the Letters Patent, and options for future action.

In 2010, Ngarrindjeri sought talks with the State of South Australia regarding the consequences of the Letters Patent for the relationship of Indigenous People with the State. On 18 June 2010, the Ngarrindjeri leadership meet with Premier Mike Rann, Attorney-General John Rau and the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs and Reconciliation, Multicultural Affairs, Youth and Volunteer, Grace Portelesi. Ngarrindjeri protocols and ceremony set the tone for the meeting: George Trevorrow, Ngarrindjeri Rupelli,²³ presented a red ochred boomerang and plongge (club), wrapped in red satin, to Premier Rann as a reminder and indication of their good faith and invited the Premier to hold the objects for the duration of the negotiations.

In opening the meeting, Rupelli George Trevorrow (2010) stated that this was a diplomatic delegation where we hope to come to the point and agree to talk … We begin with the Letters Patent. He explained they were entrusting this part of Ngarrindjeri culture – the boomerang and club – to the Premier and would see that it was returned at end of negotiations. George Trevorrow explained: It’s fairly representative of Aboriginal people across the State and this delegation is supported by and authorised by the whole of South Australia’s Native Title Groups from the resolution of the Native Title Congress.²⁴ The boomerang is very old and has been in many ceremonies over the years. It has not been used in warfare and is a marker of a peaceful meeting.

Flanked by Ministers John Rau and Grace Portelesi, Premier Mike Rann receives the plongge from Rupelli George Trevorrow. Elder Tom Trevorrow has the briefing paper prepared for the meeting. 18 June 2010, Adelaide. (Diane Bell)

Continuing in his role as Rupelli for the Ngarrindjeri Nation and acting on behalf of Native Title holders across the state, George Trevorrow attempted to bring the talks to the point before he died. In February 2011, he wrote to the Premier Mike Rann imploring him to begin negotiations on a treaty as a way to heal the deep wounds caused by the continuing injustices endured by Aboriginal people and to create something of which all South Australians could be proud. George Trevorrow died on 27 February 2011. There had been no response. The Ngarrindjeri boomerang and club have not been returned.

The Letters Patent remains a burning issue for the Ngarrindjeri. The Founding Documents of the State of South Australia are attracting the interest of a number of commentators and there are indications that Jay Weatherill,²⁵ during his time as the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs and Reconciliation, was engaged by the possibilities of a new legal-historical narrative. On 28 December 2006, at the Old Gum Tree, Glenelg, as part of the celebration of Proclamation Day, Minister Weatherill (2006) stated:

Today it is important to remember that we failed to keep our promise to Aboriginal People … The Letters Patent establishing South Australia expressly provide for the rights of Aboriginal People