Gumbuli of Ngukurr: Aboriginal elder in Arnhem Land

Published by Acorn Press Ltd, ABN 50 008 549 540

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© M.W. Seiffert 2011

Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of private study, research, criticism or review, no part of this work may be reproduced by electronic or other means without the permission of the publisher.

National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry

Dewey Number: 262.14394295

All royalties from this publication are returned to the community at Ngukurr.

Indigenous people are respectfully informed that this book includes the images and names of deceased persons.

All quotes in English from the Bible are from the Contemporary English Version, published in 1995 by the Bible Society in Australia Inc., unless otherwise stated.

Cover design: A. J. Moody, Blackburn South, Vic.

Text design and layout: Graeme Cogdell, Fullarton, SA.

Cover photograph: Gumbuli of Ngukurr, 2006. © M.W. Seiffert.

Maps: Heyward Drafting, Amaroo, ACT.

Printing: Openbook Howden Design & Print, Adelaide, SA.

Dedication

This book is written in honour of

the Reverend Canon Michael Gumbuli Wurramara AM,

and his late wife, Dixie Daniels (1939–2001).

It is also dedicated to two men

whose contribution to preserving written and visual records

of the Ngukurr district is without parallel,

Mr Keith Hart and the Reverend Canon Barry Butler.

Contents

Abbreviations

The Use of Words

Name Changes

Chapter 1 Introducing Gumbuli

Chapter 2 One Island – Three Cultures

Chapter 3 The Development of the CMS Mission on Grooyte Eylandt

Chapter 4 Stories and Spirits

Chapter 5 World War II Comes to Groote Eylandt

Chapter 6 Life on Groote Eylandt

Chapter 7 The Early Days of Roper River Mission

Chapter 8 Migrating to Arnhem Land

Chapter 9 A New Life at Roper River Mission

Chapter 10 Connecting Arnhem Land with Africa

Chapter 11 Life on the Mission – 1960s

Chapter 12 Local Leadership Grows

Chapter 13 From Roper to Ngukurr – A Period of Turmoil

Chapter 14 The Government Takes Control

Chapter 15 The Quest for a Distinctive Identity

Chapter 16 The 1970s: So-called ‘Self-Determination’

Chapter 17 Now the Church Belongs to Ngukurr

Chapter 18 Creating a New Harmony and Community Wellbeing

Chapter 19 Ngukurr in the 1980s

Chapter 20 More Aboriginal Church Leaders

Chapter 21 Developments beyond Ngukkur

Chapter 22 Ngukurr Turns 90, Gumbuli Turns 60

Chapter 23 The Late 1990s

Chapter 24 Autonomy Denied, Autonomy Practised

Chapter 25 Aboriginal Pastor in Arnhem Land

Chapter 26 Ceremonies Remain an Issue

Chapter 27 An Elder Becomes an Old Man

APPENDICES

A A Timeline of the Life of Gumbuli

B Gumbuli and Dixie’s Children

C Gumbuli’s Family Tree

D The Child-bride Issue on Groote Eylandt in the 1930s

Acknowledgements

Photographic and Map Acknowledgements

Notes

Index

Abbreviations

The Use of Words

Over the years, the meanings that we give to words can change dramatically. This creates difficulties with using old documents. Words also come and go, like fashionable clothes. One of the particular difficulties in writing about Aborigines in the Northern Territory is that they sometimes use some words which have become uncomfortable for Europeans to use – sometimes for fear of offending Aborigines.

Particularly troublesome are words concerning people of mixed descent. One difficulty with all terms such as ‘half-caste’, ‘mixed-race’ and ‘mixed descent’ is that they draw attention to the discredited concept of race.

As this book was being researched, the people of south-eastern Arnhem Land usually used the word ‘half-caste’ to denote a person of mixed descent. For them, this is not a negative term, simply a statement that the person has some ancestors who are Aboriginal and some who are European. ‘Mixed descent’ is accepted more widely and I have used it when not dealing with quotations.

If some readers find the term ‘half-caste’ offensive, I am sorry. However, a key task of this work is to communicate the ways of a contemporary community in Arnhem Land at the beginning of the twenty-first century, and these words are theirs. Importantly, records over the whole twentieth century demonstrate their acceptance of people of mixed descent, to the extent of adopting them into families. Rarely is any distinction made between the two groups within south-eastern Arnhem Land.

Another difficult word is ‘boy’. Old documents use that word to describe almost any Aboriginal male; indeed it was used all over the world to describe a male of any age who was not European. At the age of about 16 years, Gumbuli’s first job was working on the Mission boats, and he was called a ‘boat boy’.

There are many quotes from oral sources. Rarely have these quotes been modified, except for punctuation and occasional insertions, marked by square brackets. While few people speak with the same attention to correct language as they do when writing, it should be remembered that many quotes are of people for whom English is their second, third or fourth language. It was not uncommon for interviewees to unconsciously include some Kriol words in their English sentences; these have usually been included without comment.

When addressing people, I have often used the term which Gumbuli used for them. Thus, the Reverend Canon Barry Butler is referred to as ‘Barry Butler’. In contrast, he always used the term ‘Sister Brooker’ in reference to the former head of the Ngukurr Hospital, Sister Edna Brooker. An exception is for the names of deceased persons. Gumbuli rarely used the name of a recently-deceased person. In our many discussions, he would refer to so-and-so’s husband, or ‘That old lady who died’. During the interviews I adhered to this convention. However, following this pattern may be confusing for readers, as it sometimes was for me.

Name Changes

Many places in the Northern Territory have had their names changed or modified. Some of them are listed below:

Spelling

Drawings and paintings have been in Arnhem Land for tens of thousands of years. However, writing, as we know it, did not exist until the arrival of Europeans. People writing Aboriginal words have tried to be faithful to local pronunciation, resulting in changes in spelling over time. The spelling of some names, such as Gunbalanya, is still in a state of flux. Another is the name for the group of people whose homeland is south of the Roper River; they are Mara, or Marra. I have generally settled on the one spelling, modifying quotes to avoid confusion.

Church Missionary Society

This Society was established by a group of Evangelical Anglicans in London in 1799; William Wilberforce was one of its more famous founders, but for Australia, another significant early member was Sir James Stephen, Colonial Secretary for many years.¹ The organisation’s first name was The Society for Missions to Africa and the East. In 1812, it formally adopted the title The Church Missionary Society for Missions to Africa and the East. The word ‘Church’ implied that it was linked to the Established Church of England, although independent. Rather surprisingly, its focus on Africa is highly significant for the story of Ngukurr and of Gumbuli.

The same group of people had links with Australia from the time of the First Fleet. In 1892, two independent Australian arms of CMS were established. One of these was the Church Missionary Association (CMA) of Victoria which established Roper River Mission; the other was the CMA of New South Wales. These two groups joined in 1916 and took on the name of The Church Missionary Society of Australia and Tasmania.

The archives of CMS (Australia) are mostly located in the Mitchell Library, but some remain in the Society’s office in Sydney. The archives of CMS (Victoria) were transferred to the State Library of Victoria as this book was in preparation.

Introducing Gumbuli

Two stories overlap and interweave in this tale. The first is about a man who is usually known as ‘Gumbuli’. Like most stories about people, it tells of his life and times, but, unlike most stories about people, the times and places of his life are unknown to most Australians, both Indigenous and European. So the second, the story of Gumbuli’s changing world, demands significant space and sometimes it must take priority. When we understand something of Gumbuli’s world, we can start to appreciate some of the pressures that he encountered; also how he responded, and mostly thrived, within that environment.

As a child the Reverend Canon Michael Gumbuli Wurramara AM was usually known as Gumbuli. However, his father, and a few other people, used another name for him which described his place in society. The ‘Reverend’ bit distinguishes him as a priest within the Anglican Church of Australia, equal to any other Anglican cleric across the nation. ‘Canon’ means that the church has honoured him to be a church elder with special responsibility for the work of the Cathedral in Darwin; few Indigenous Australian clergy have been honoured in this way. ‘AM’ means that Gumbuli has been honoured with the award of ‘Member of the Order of Australia’.

The name ‘Michael’ was casually given to him by a teacher when he started school. Europeans often found it hard to pronounce Aboriginal names, even though Gumbuli is easy to pronounce. His name does NOT rhyme with ‘gum’ tree, but with ‘good’ and ‘Woomera’. Thus, Gumbuli is pronounced more like ‘goombooli’, with the emphasis on the first syllable.

In the 1950s, the government decided that all Aborigines must adopt the European approach to surnames. To authorities, ‘Michael’ was his Christian name and ‘Gumbuli’ his surname. Thus some of Michael’s children have the surname ‘Gumbuli’. The government also demanded that a person’s date of birth be used in official documents. This was a problem for him as it was for most Aborigines of his day, because nobody remembered exactly when he was born, although it was probably in 1935. The absence of surnames in the records is also a problem for researchers.

Using ‘Gumbuli’ as a surname created some difficulties as it gave no indication of who were Michael’s relatives. This was not a problem in his early days, as everyone knew who was related to whom. Because Gumbuli belongs to a large family which became known by the name of Wurramara, he rectified this problem in the early 1980s by starting to sign as Michael Gumbuli Wurramara. This decision occurred after his children were born, so that many of his grandchildren have the surname of Gumbuli and some have the surname Wurramara. Again, the ‘u’ of Wurramara is pronounced softly; the emphasis being on the third syllable.

When Michael used to ring me in Darwin, the voice on the phone would say ‘Hello, Michael here’, or more simply ‘Michael here.’ Non-Indigenous people who have known him from his younger days usually address him as Michael, while most other people will use ‘Gumbuli’, and some Michael Gumbuli.

When Aborigines in the Top End are talking about another person, they will often use words that describe their relationship with that person, rather than one of their names. Thus, Gumbuli is often referred to as ‘that old man’. This means that he is older than average, that he is wise and to be respected. When speaking with an elder from Numbulwar, my conversation often began like this:

‘Hello Uncle, how are you?’ [The people there decided that he was my uncle.]

‘Ah. Good. How’s your old lady?’ [This was a caring and respectful enquiry about my wife.]

‘Oh, she’s good. Is your old lady feeling better?’

Threads behind Gumbuli’s Story

Gumbuli has never lived in an area where Europeans are able to enter without permission and for decades, he has been one of the permission-givers. In 1920 when CMS asked the Australian government to set aside the whole of Groote Eylandt as an Aboriginal reserve, the minister’s response was ‘Where is Groote Eylandt?’² Today, most Australians are equally as ignorant. Many of the threads of this story lead to government policies for Aboriginal people; few Australians’ lives have been as manipulated by government policies as those of Indigenous Australians, who were without a vote until the 1960s.

Then there are the internal politics and policies of the Church Missionary Society and the Anglican Church. In the 1960s, CMS worked for the independence of Aborigines, but when the government took over the former mission settlements, this trend was reversed and unemployment was created. Noel Pearson argues that this has led to ‘welfare dependence’, resulting in ‘disempowerment [which is] the singular and devastating feature of Aboriginal Australia’; Pearson has concluded that ‘what Aborigines communities need most is [for government] bureaucracy to get out of the way’.³ The reader will have a chance to test that conclusion.

In 1973, Gumbuli became the first Aboriginal priest in the Northern Territory and, for more than three decades, was the key Aboriginal Anglican there. He needed to resolve his traditional Aboriginal knowledge with Christian and ‘modern’ knowledge. Indigenous traditions, indeed changing traditions (although that might be a contradiction in terms), have never been far from his thoughts.

The story of Gumbuli’s life cannot be told without telling the story of the Northern Territory town of Ngukurr, and the story of Ngukurr cannot be understood without understanding Gumbuli’s story. As one of its community leaders for many years, it is not in his nature to be the only leader in the community, neither is it in the nature of the people of Ngukurr.

Few extended stories have been written about the lives of Aborigines from remote communities as they have tried to make sense of the world of their ancestors and the world of the Europeans. This is why Gumbuli’s story is so important for Australians from every background. He was born into a world without paper, so there are few letters written by him, and only some small fragments of stories he wrote whilst undertaking a course in English in the mid-1990s. He was a talented public speaker who never used notes, so there are few records of any of his speeches or sermons. It is the same for his family, colleagues and friends. Yet later in life, Gumbuli was to devise a new method of translating the Bible into Kriol, the pidgin English used widely in the Northern Territory.

This story is really my story, rather than Gumbuli’s. Gumbuli is an Australian Aborigine; I am a fifth generation Australian with European origins. We are good friends, respect each another and enjoy our times together. Our cultures overlap, but only just. As each culture looks at the other, most of what is seen is foreign; a little is viewed but mostly not understood, with vast visas remaining unseen and unimagined.

Times of living and working with people from Arnhem Land have some parallels with the experience of living in England. Upon arrival, one is made welcome and soon feels at home. Many things are familiar. But the longer one stays, the more differences are seen. Before I arrived in the Territory, European colleagues such as Lance Tremlett, who had lived almost 40 years in Arnhem Land, wisely said to me ‘Don’t ever expect to understand everything!’, giving examples of how he was still surprised by the Aborigines who had been his neighbours for decades.

These differences mean that my story about Gumbuli is a striving for truth, and is certainly not the final word. This is true of any biographical writing, but more so across cultures. As a social scientist, I am doing what most social scientists do – seeking to learn what happened in the past and trying to explain how things came to pass. Nobody ever approaches such task from a neutral corner. I have known Gumbuli for about 20 years, and worked quite closely with him during the period 2001 to 2006, whilst I was a member of staff at Nungalinya College, Darwin.

The sources of information for this story fall into two categories: firstly, my own everyday experiences and formal interviews with Gumbuli and many other key people in Arnhem Land and Darwin and secondly, significant archival searches in Darwin, Canberra, Sydney and Melbourne. A large volume of records related to Aboriginal missions exists and these have been drawn on to piece together Gumbuli’s story.

From it, we gain a glimpse of a remarkable man’s life, and the lives of some of those around him. When these are put into their context, we can see how the policies of government work out in practice. The reader should not be surprised to find the same issues arising time and again. Some of these remain unresolved, and can still be the subject of reports in the daily newspapers.

Bickerton Island

Gumbuli’s story covers more than 75 years, starting on Bickerton Island in 1935. The Island, once known as Amagalyuwagba,⁴ is situated in the Gulf of Carpentaria between Groote Eylandt and the east coast of Arnhem Land, and covers 280 square kilometres. The nearest mainland town is Numbulwar. We may imagine an island to be circular, but this one is deeply dissected by big, shallow and stunningly beautiful bays, their sands seemingly untouched by human interference and its bright blue water irresistible. What a place to be born!

The geography of the island is the secret of its success, and one of the magnets which draws Aborigines back there. The long beaches are exactly what turtles need for laying their eggs. Different species lay their eggs at different times of the year, so that turtle eggs are on the menu for a long time. Gumbuli liked the taste of turtle eggs – and crocodile eggs too.

At times the men from Bickerton Island would spear crocodiles for meat. Not only was this dangerous, it called for a mix of wisdom and bravery and was obviously a lot of fun, if Gumbuli’s enthusiasm for describing the hunt is anything to go by. He told me it was unusual for anyone on Bickerton Island to be attacked by crocodiles after dark: ‘Crocodiles sneak up. Only at night. Crocodiles catch on to people but they only wounded.’

Dugong, otherwise known as sea cows, move into the bays of Bickerton Island to quietly feed on the sea grass in shallow waters. They are big animals, averaging about three metres in length and weighing up to about 500 kilograms, and generally move slowly. These mammals may be found individually, or in groups. The Anindilyakwa name for dugong is dinungkwulangwa. Whilst dugong may look like big seals, they are not closely related to them and their behaviour is quite different; seals swim very quickly and eat fish, whereas dugong mostly move slowly and are vegetarians, eating sea grass. I asked Gumbuli about the best time to hunt dugong:

It could be in the winter time, especially, a good time to go hunting dugong was in the night. Sometimes they would go out in the ocean with the big [swell, but there was] too much wind and the water get murky. Sometimes it’s calm, but in the night [the dugong], go to sleep, 10 o’clock in the night and catch them in the night-time more easily.

Dugong feed on [meaning along the edge of] the beach, in the sea, at night. The feeding time when all the dugong come together in one place and make a big noise.⁵

An important animal which thrives in the bays is trepang, otherwise known as sea-slugs, sea-cucumbers or bêche-de-mer. They are found in shallow waters at low tide, and are 10–50 centimetres long and may be coloured black, grey, brown blue or red.⁶

Gumbuli’s father’s family group on Bickerton Island consisted of about 20 people. They mostly lived on the south side, although under certain conditions they could go to most parts of the island. Gumbuli told me that there were eight or ten other family groups there, with the total perhaps one or two hundred people. Although this number seems large, the vast food supplies of the surrounding waters probably seemed limitless and food was shared between groups.

Flying from Numbulwar to Bickerton Island, the big blue bays that seem to almost meet in the middle of the island are its most striking features. The south end of North Bay is only two kilometres from the north end of South Bay, with the distance between the most northerly part of the island and the most southerly being about 20 kilometres (see maps). In between the ribbons of golden sand the land appears to be a mix of jungle, open forest and swamps, with some rocky outcrops. The sign at the end of the Bickerton Island runway announces our destination: Milyakburra International Airport, one of the most northerly Australian airports, about the same distance from Darwin as West Papua.

Going to Bickerton Island with Gumbuli is a bit like travelling with royalty. Everybody knows him, everybody wants a chat. This is ‘home’ for him, but it is not his only home.⁷

Transport on the small island is difficult, even restricting the movement of four-wheel drives during much of the year. A swamp cuts it in two for half the year. The alternative forms of transport are small boat or helicopter. The vegetation appears similar to the better-watered areas of the nearby mainland, except for a more varied undergrowth and less grass – signs that it has not been extensively grazed by cattle, although a cattle station began operating there in 1975.⁸ About two-thirds of the area of the island is covered by a tall, open forest of stringy-bark (Eucalyptus tetradonta).⁹ There are parts of the island that are off-limits to certain people, particularly some of the rocky areas. Visitors can only go there when accompanied by some of the ‘old men’.

Whilst Bickerton Island is home to a number of family groups, including the Wurramaras, it is a convenient resting place for people sailing in canoes between the mainland and Groote Eylandt. There are many significant stories, usually known as Dreamtime stories, associated with Bickerton Island, some incorporating Macassan elements brought via Indonesian fishermen on their annual visits (see chapter 2). One of the earliest records of Bickerton Islanders being on Groote Eylandt came from Alf Dyer, an early Roper River CMS missionary, who recorded that in December 1920 ‘the natives from Bickerton Island arrived with three turtles and we bought one’.¹⁰ It is likely that they were merely doing the same thing as they had done for Macassan visitors. However, the Bickerton Islanders had probably been visiting Groote Eylandt for a long time before Dyer’s report.

Another early record of Bickerton Islanders being on Groote Eylandt comes from 1925 when the British explorer, Captain (later Sir) Hubert Wilkins, was collecting specimens for the British Museum with CMS missionary, the Reverend H.E. (Bert) Warren as his guide. Warren showed him an ‘ancient corroboree ground’ to which, ‘some tribes come from the mainland to perform their ceremonial rites, and it is also used by the Bickerton Island and Groote Eylandt people’. It seems that Wilkins collected only ‘botanical and ornithological specimens’ there.¹¹ If he followed the example of the missionaries, he would not have collected Aboriginal artefacts. Alf Dyer describes a time in 1920 when he accidentally found some artefacts in a rock shelter on Groote Eylandt:

There were all sorts of parcels [probably human remains] neatly tied up but one did not touch them. I have always felt that their sacred things should not be taken away. It was well I did, for when I turned around, there was a native with a shovel spear poised on his woomera pointing straight at me. He watched me as I did because if he threw I had not a chance of dodging a fast-coming spear.¹²

Gumbuli’s Family

Gumbuli was born on Bickerton Island in the Gulf of Carpentaria, near Groote Eylandt in about 1935. At that time, his father would have seen few European men. Ten years prior to this, no European had ever seen an Aboriginal woman in that district. Some areas of land seemed to be held in common. Gumbuli described these as ‘everybody’s’, where people might come together and live close by each other for up to three months. Some of the island was owned by the Lalara clan from Groote Eylandt, and another part by the Wurramarrba clan.¹³ The names of Gumbuli’s immediate ancestors are listed in Appendix C.

His father was known as ‘Old Bill’ Naringgamara Wurramara and according to the census of 1969, was probably born on Bickerton Island in about 1892. ‘Wurramara’ means ‘they of pools of water’.¹⁴ The Wurramara clan belong to Moiety II (across Australia, the Aboriginal kinship divides communities into two groups, usually known as ‘moieties’) and lived around a rocky outcrop, called Malerrba Hill, near the centre of Bickerton Island.¹⁵ Gumbuli told me that Bill’s father came from Yetikba, on Groote Eylandt, near the Emerald River.¹⁶ A consequence of this link with the land at Yetikba was that the first mission on Groote Eylandt was in, or near, his country and he had a right to camp nearby.¹⁷

In 1929, there were 37 people by the name of Wurramara; by 1969, this number had grown to 77.¹⁸ It is not clear if these numbers are from Groote Eylandt or Bickerton Island or, more likely, both.

Gumbuli’s mother was Lurlungu Murungun, born in 1916 into a society that communicated well without sheets of paper. Written records have different spellings of her name but the one Gumbuli gave me had the same spelling as that of the official census. Murunguns belong to Moiety I. The Murungun land was on the mainland, around Cape Barrow, directly west of Bickerton Island. This is in the area of the Nunggubuyu people, whose language is Wubuy, although it is sometimes referred to as Nunggubuyu. Thus, Lurlungu’s first language was Wubuy.

Bill Wurramara, Gumbuli’s father, aged about 40 years, Groote Eylandt, 1935.

Donald Thomson, The Thomson Family and Museum Victoria.

The Wubuy language was used over a large area of land in 1940. Wubuy was also used by the Bickerton Islanders, including the Wurramara family, who were living around the Emerald River Mission on Groote Eylandt. One missionary described it as the lingua franca.¹⁹

The Murungun family is well-known, especially on the west coast of the Gulf. Madi Murungun, Lurlungu’s brother,²⁰ was seen as the leader of the Wubuy speakers in the mid-twentieth century. He was instrumental in convincing CMS to establish a mission at the mouth of the Rose River in 1952, the settlement now known as Numbulwar.²¹ It is not surprising that there was pressure for the establishment of this mission because there were many Wubuy-speaking people at Ngukurr, including members of the Wurramara clan and the Murungun clan. Madi invited the missionaries to establish the mission at the corroboree ground, near where sacred objects were located.

In 1945, Madi had listened to the first translation of Mark’s Gospel into Wubuy, and was utterly intrigued. He told the Nunggubuyu people to listen carefully, as it showed that ‘Jesus can speak Nunggubuyu’.²² Madi was a well-respected leader of civil and ceremonial matters, who attended church services at the Rose River Mission²³ and was effectively the leader of the new mission. The young CMS missionary, John Mercer, was the only European there at the beginning.

Gumbuli has many pleasant memories of his early days with his father and mother:

M: What do you remember about your about your father, was he a tall man?

G: No, short one. Very short, not long, my father. Very short, and hunter. He’s going hunting with some men. Sometimes they used to go to the bush and collecting woods and for making ropes, fishing rope and dugong rope and getting canoe ready for hunting, whether in the daytime or the night. He took me to go out with him sometimes and days when we would go out hunting and fishing.

M: What was he hunting for?

G: For fishing and dugong and turtle. We used to bring fish and dugong in to the camp and the people distribute to other families. And olgamen [women], they used to go out hunting for the bush fruit, like yam or white apple, or…

M: Your mother did that?

G: Yes. Mother. They used to go out and fetch bush food and get dugong and sugar-bag and bush fruit and anything they could find, bring it back to camp.

M: Your father would have made spears?

G: He used to make spear, paddle, and rope, dugong rope, turtle rope.

M: Spear-throwers?

G: Yeah, and he used to prepare canoe every day. Repair meant, wash ’im and clean it and sometime when sails used to break, sails, Macassan-way sails [referring to the sails which had been learned from an Indonesian group better known as the Macassans] …that’s what he used to do.

M: [Was it a] boat made out of bark that you paddled?

G: [No] Made out of tree. Yeah. Not palm tree, some special wood. They used to make a paddle.

M: What did you cut the wood with?

G: Tomahawk.

M: Metal tomahawk?

G: Yeah. They used to cut the tree with tomahawk and split.

M: Tomahawk like they use today?

G: Like they use today, yeah. They used to have stone bush tomahawk that they were using before, but when we were born we saw everybody using weapon what missionary taught them. Like fishing line or might be fish hook or harpoon. They used to get spear, wire spear. Missionary used to give them special issue.

M: Your father would go out?

G: That was the main thing every day, weeks and weeks, months and months.

M: What about land animals? Was there wallaby there?

G: We got no wallaby at Bickerton. Only rock wallaby. But there’s lizard and goanna and blanketty [frill neck] lizard. We got them and made a capturing and brolga and anything, ducks.

M: You’d hunt all them?

G: Yeah. We used to hunt with the spear, not with the gun.

M: So you speared the birds?

G: Yeah.

M: You didn’t throw stones?

G: No. We hunt with the spear and speared them.

M: You see kids with shanghais? With big elastic.

G: Later on when we came to the mission we used to shoot with shanghais. When we were small in that time [we] were living at Bickerton Island all that time. Family used to decide to go over to mainland and live on coastline, Rose River or Roper [River] mouth. Sometimes go out to the Blue Mud Bay.

M: This would be each season?

G: Each season, especially winter season even sometimes, summer time. But most of the year we stayed in Bickerton Island. Sometimes people used to decide to come across to Groote Eylandt and I think before Old Mission was started too, they [the Groote Eylandt people] used to come here [to Groote Eylandt].

M: You talked about moving around, how many people?

G: Were with us? Mainly about 20, family. Dad and mother and single men, some children and dogs, and whole lot of kids. And single man and single woman. [Most canoes could carry] about 5 or 6 [people]. Every family had one. So canoe could make one or two trips getting people across. A big canoe, my father’s canoe, you could fit in all the children and all the wives and animals like dogs…all the Aboriginal people used to own the dogs. They were trained…

M: How did they train them?

G: Throw stone at them or hunt them away.

M: If they did the wrong thing they would throw a stone at them?

G: Yes…We [also] use the language to stop the dogs, which is ‘DAH’ [spoken in a loud, threatening manner – and the dogs obey].²⁴

In reading this transcript, we need to remember that when speaking, we do not use the same disciplined language that we use when writing. Whilst Gumbuli is often creative in his use of tenses, his command of English is always adequate for the task at hand.²⁵

‘Old Bill’ and Lurlungu had nine children; Lurlungu was about 19 years old when Gumbuli was born.²⁶ The eldest was Joe, born in 1930 when Lurlungu was about 14 or 15 years old; five years later Gumbuli was born, then Aringari in 1938; he remained a close friend of Gumbuli’s until his death in 1996.

Gumbuli says that ‘Old Bill’ had four wives, all sisters and each with the same mother and father. They had a total of 23 children, three of whom died before the age of five years. Thus, even using European ways of describing siblings, Gumbuli had 19 brothers and sisters.

Bill belonged to Moiety II and Lurlungu to Moiety I. Marriage partners were often chosen according to a complicated formula and involved a person from one group marrying someone from the other group. This is commonly referred to as marrying ‘straight’. Marriages, or the bearing of children, derived from relationships which did not follow the rules break one of the most fundamental norms of Aboriginal society, and can cause real problems, including rejection or exclusion. Breaking the rules means that the offspring of such relationships do not conform to the approved social order. Late in the twentieth century, the elders were still concerned about marriages that were ‘not straight’; we shall return to these issues in due time.

Marriage rules were also linked to the challenges of traditional Aborigines accepting ‘half-caste’ children, who were often the result of settlers and travellers exploiting Aboriginal women. To overcome these irregularities, the elders would meet and decide on a solution.

The Reverend Dr Keith Cole, the first Principal of Nungalinya College, who worked closely with Aborigines for many years, wrote that the kinship system is ‘not confusing to anyone except the non-Aboriginal’,²⁷ anthropologists included, although some of them have worked very hard to understand.

A critical task for an Arnhem Land Aborigine meeting a new person is to determine their relationship with that person. When that is done, they know how to address the new person, and how to treat them. This leads to the process by which non-Indigenous workers who are developing an ongoing relationship with an Aboriginal group are given a title and a defined position within a clan.

The people from Groote Eylandt and surrounds are known as Warninidilyaugwa, and their language is Anindilyaugwa or Anindilyakwa. Gumbuli once told me that the Anindilyakwa language ‘belonged to the Wurramara’ mob.²⁸ I also heard that this meant that, in his older years, Gumbuli was the custodian of the language, but I was never able to have this confirmed or denied.

I once asked Gumbuli why the language belonged to the Wurramaras, and he told me that it was because the ‘snake’ went to Bickerton Island before it went to Groote Eylandt. It was one of the many stories that I did not get close to understanding.

Like in the rest of eastern Arnhem Land, the moieties are divided into clans. The term ‘Wurramara’ refers to one of the Groote Eylandt clans; it has succeeded the name ‘Warnungangkwurrakkba’ as the clan name.

Gumbuli’s mother’s clan was Murungun, but relationships there are patrilineal, so Gumbuli’s clan is Wurramara. However, his links to other clans give him some privileges reserved for those clans. The Wurramara dreaming is the ‘water python stone’ at Bickerton Island; the Murungun dreaming is linked to the dugong, the devil fly and the clouds.²⁹

Just as all people are divided into groups, all animals are divided into the same groups. This means that members of any particular group have responsibility for certain animals; there are some animals which they can kill and eat, and other ones that they must leave. Some animals, such as crocodiles, may be eaten by anybody, and there are other animals that nobody can eat, such as the noisy Orange-footed Scrub-Fowl on Groote Eylandt – so that there are plenty of these birds to make their bloodcurdling noises in the middle of the night. Hunting and food-gathering are also regulated by the seasons, and whilst sources of food may be available during an off-season, they may not be taken. Some of these prohibitions are clearly linked to breeding seasons, whilst others remain a mystery.

Gerry Blitner grew up on the first Groote Eylandt mission at Emerald River and joined the mission staff when young. I enjoyed his company and came to know him well during the five years I lived in Darwin. Every few weeks I would have a good yarn with him.³⁰ Gerry is about 15 years older than Gumbuli and he became a significant mentor to him. He knew Gumbuli and his father ‘Old Bill’ well and told me that the Bickerton Island people had always been a more peaceful group than the Groote Eylandters, whose nature was feared:

[Bill came from] a very mild type of people [and] that is a blessing that Gumbuli has…His father and maybe his grandfather were very mild people. They listened to people, they were kind, because they were go-betweens, [between] the mainland and the islands, Groote Eylandt, and they had to speak the two languages. That is why Gumbuli is gifted [with languages]. [Bill] …argued the point. He did not physically try to fight people. He might have picked up a spear to indicate that he was angry, because that is the only implement we have, Aboriginal people, but I have never known him to ever throw a spear at someone.³¹

He also told me that ‘Old Bill’ sometimes worked as a member of the crew of the mission boat Holly, ‘especially if they were going around Bickerton’.³² This would have been prior to 1940. Missionaries who knew ‘Old Bill’ in the 1950s and 1960s remember him as a kind, understanding old man, a pleasure to visit.³³ Keith Cole, who visited Groote Eylandt many times, recorded in 1980 that ‘Old Bill’ was the ‘head man’ of the Wurramara clan. At the beginning of the twenty-first century, many people would speak of Gumbuli in a similar way.

Having been born in about 1891, ‘Old Bill’ was thus living at Bickerton Island at the same stage as European settlers were moving into the Roper River area. Although isolated from the mainland, Bickerton Island could hardly be described as being ‘off the beaten track’, as long distances could be travelled efficiently using canoes, boats and ships.

The Little Boy

It is hard to imagine what life was like for Gumbuli as a little boy in the mid-1930s on Bickerton Island. He would have been without the problem of ‘What shall I wear today?’, wearing that in which he was born. His parents would not have pestered him to ‘Shut the door!’ because there were no doors. Accommodation was always a temporary dwelling, up to a metre in height, with the main shelter provided by large and strong sheets of bark taken off paperbark trees. The supports would have been round timber harvested nearby, probably cut with an iron tomahawk traded from the Macassans. The houses were made more waterproof for the wet season. In the dry season, most people probably slept under the stars on a bed of paperbark. Carefully harvested, sheets of paperbark are commonly about one metre in width and two metres in length.

The anthropologist Donald Thomson undertook research in Eastern Arnhem Land in the 1930s and it can be expected that there were many similarities between his reports and life on Bickerton Island. Thomson’s research was recently republished in a book Donald Thomson in Arnhem Land, which was an inspiration for the film Ten Canoes. The dwellings illustrated in this book and in the film are similar to those which Gumbuli describes as his first ‘house’.³⁴

The daily routine would have been clearly separated between ‘women’s work’ and ‘men’s work’. Lurlungu’s first resting places for baby Gumbuli were probably paperbark. When newly harvested, it is very clean and can be refreshingly cool in the heat. He would have been cared for by older sisters and his other ‘mothers’. The title ‘mother’ refers to the mother who actually gave ‘birth’ to the child, as well as to her sisters. Similarly, a child’s ‘fathers’ include the biological father as well as his brothers. Mother’s brothers are called ‘uncle’ and father’s sisters are called ‘aunty’, so there were plenty of carers and encouragement. Like lots of Aboriginal children, Gumbuli would have been given many opportunities to explore. According to tradition, the overseer of his discipline would probably have been an uncle – one of Lurlungu’s brothers.

As a toddler, Gumbuli would have taken part in the foraging for fruit, seeds and yams, which was women’s work. Digging for yams can be hard work as sometimes a one-metre deep hole must be dug. On the mainland, women dive in billabongs for waterlily-roots, so perhaps there were few billabongs on Bickerton Island. One food available late in the dry season was seed from the tamarind trees.

The women probably went fishing with metallic hooks made from metal obtained from the Macassans; their fishing was probably restricted to fishing from the shore. Before metal hooks were available, they used the claws of eagles tied to twine made from local plants. The method of cooking was probably that used on Groote Eylandt, as described by Julie Waddy – a fire is started on the sand, and allowed to burn long enough for the sand to get very hot. Then all of the ashes are raked off with a stick, and the fish laid directly onto the clean, hot sand. Freshwater fish were also caught, sometimes speared, other times stunned by chemicals from local plants.³⁵

On the seaside, the women would have also collected shellfish, mud crabs, hermit crabs and lots of other marine creatures. One delicacy would have been mangrove worms which live in the roots of mangroves. They can be 30 cm or more long, and are swallowed whole, and uncooked; to a novice bush tucker eater, I thought they tasted like the mud of the mangrove environment. This was a marine environment with a wide variety of healthy food. All of these activities, usually called ‘hunting’, still continue today, but mostly it is to supplement a European diet, or for recreation, with a good feed at the end.

One favourite food for everybody was, and still is, sugar-bag – Yilyakwa in Anindilyakwa. This is the honey found in the hives of small native bees, and often needs to be dug out of a tree with a tomahawk.

The season for hunting marine turtles is in about September, when the fruit of the cocky apple (Planchonia careya) is ripe.³⁶ Some types of turtles feed on the seaweed that is found near the mangroves, whilst others eat trepang, shellfish and jellyfish. During the early months of the wet season, some species of marine turtles come up the beach and lay their eggs –a great source of protein for the locals. Catching live turtles involves a group of men in a canoe locating the turtle, then capturing it and bringing it on board – without tipping over the canoe. The turtle is then taken to the beach and cooked lightly over a ‘cool’ fire. It is cooked on its back so that the shell acts as a ‘wok’, preserving the juices.

But catching turtles or tortoises in the dry season is a different matter. They burrow to the bottom of the mud as the waters dry up. They are located by walking through the soft mud – up to the knees or more – carrying a stout stick and seeking them out using feet or the stick. This is extremely hard work.

As Gumbuli grew older, he would have increasingly joined the men in their more adventurous hunting expeditions, the young boy encountering lots of important stages such as making his first spear, spearing his first fish, and later his first wallaby. Graduating to hunting dugong was a big step towards manhood. Canoes were used for hunting dugong, as well as for catching other large sea creatures, such as barramundi, swordfish and various rays, including stingrays, and shark. Hunting on the islands would include wallabies, bandicoots, native cats, goannas and fruit bats, as well as a range of birds, but nothing would compare with the thrill of hunting dugong. When they are caught they provide lots of meat for everyone. We have a clear understanding of how they were hunted in the early days as it was one of the cultural activities filmed by the missionaries. Some of this archival film about the environment of Numbulwar was shown on the SBS program Five Seasons released in 2004. It featured Moses Numamurdidi, a member of the Numurindi people from near Numbulwar.³⁷

Gumbuli told me that dugong can be hunted at any time of the year if food is scarce, but they are fattest in the dry season. Up to about six canoes, each some three metres long, with three to five men in them would go out looking for dugong. They were dugout canoes with sails and equipped with paddles, clearly based on those of the Macassans. The sails were traditionally woven from various reeds, and the rope was made from Kurrajong trees. Sometimes only one canoe would go hunting.

In the 1930s, one of the missionaries described his experiences of hunting dugong in a dugout canoe. He was with Daniel, who was to become Gumbuli’s father-in-law:

Quickly he paddled onward to where the sea-grass grows. As we neared the spot he whispered for silence, and paddled with such carefulness that not a drop from his paddle made the slightest splash. Presently on all sides I could hear the grunt and splash as the huge sea animals came to the surface to breathe…Dan picked up the harpoon, and leaving all further paddling to Boode [his helper], stood in the bow of the canoe like a statue carved from bronze, with the harpoon poised ready for a throw.

Silently the canoe drifted among the feeding dugong. Suddenly, with a ‘wush’, a dugong broke water right at the bow of the canoe, and like lightening the poised harpoon flashed downwards, Dan followed it with his body right overboard, to give extra weight. In a moment he had scrambled aboard again, and was playing out the harpoon rope coiled in the bow. As he gradually took the strain, the canoe, towed by the dugong, started to shoot through the water as though propelled by an invisible engine. For perhaps half a mile our mad race was maintained, Dan hanging on to the rope like grim death, now playing out more rope, now playing out more rope now taking up the slack, but always keeping a strain on the rope. Boode and I frantically bailed out the canoe with two great clam shells, for every second wave seemed to slap over the side and half fill the canoe with water. Presently we pulled alongside the half-exhausted dugong, and another harpoon was driven home. Away went the animal in a second mad race, again towing the canoe after it. But it was tiring rapidly. Soon the canoe was alongside it again, and once more Dan’s relentless harpoon found its mark, this time in the heart of the exhausted animal. The dead dugong, about eight feet [2.5 m] at least must have weighed at least nine hundredweight [450 kg].

[Gumbuli explained to me that, at about this stage, a rope was put around the dugong’s tail, which was then lifted onto the canoe. This prevented it from swimming, so that if it wasn’t dead it drowned. Next it was towed towards shore, into water about one and a half metres deep.]

‘How are you going to get it into the canoe, Dan?’ I asked for we were a couple of miles from shore.

‘We sink ’im canoe then roll ’im in’, he replied.

‘No fear you don’t! What about me?’

‘Oh, you just swim about. Me and Boode roll ’im in; then we bail out.’

I looked at the dark cold water. The moon was sinking now and I did not relish the idea of swimming in the dark. The blood from the dugong was staining all the water, and I thought of sharks and sea-going crocodiles, and shuddered. However, it would not do to let the blacks see I was afraid, so with a queer feeling in the pit of my stomach, I slid over the side of the canoe, and hung on to the dugong rope. Dan and Boode followed suit, and in a trice had capsized the canoe (which being wooden floated with the level of the water) and rolled in the dugong. It took some time to bail out the canoe sufficiently for it to float above the water…Finally all was ready, and I clambered aboard, wet and cold, but relieved.

There was wild rejoicing when we returned to the camp with the dugong, for the natives are very fond of the flesh of this animal…The flesh tastes somewhat like pork; often the blacks cut it into strips and salt and cure it like bacon.³⁸

This event happened a few years before Gumbuli was born, but his description of the hunt was remarkably similar.

The dugong meat was probably cooked in a variety of ways. One would have been in an earth oven, constructed in a hole in the ground, lined with rocks. A fire was lit in the hole and maintained until the rocks were very hot. Then the meat was introduced, more hot rocks put on top if it, a layer of paperbark, and finally sand. This would have cooked the meat slowly, producing a tender meal.

Whilst Gumbuli was still a young boy, his family migrated across the short stretch of water to Groote Eylandt. Gumbuli does not have a date for this migration, but Gerry Blitner says that he was a ‘little boy’ when he arrived. This suggests it was about 1939 or 1940, a conclusion supported by Gumbuli’s description of his experiences at the Emerald River and the recollections of the work of the Reverend Len Harris.³⁹ Some of this migration experience was similar to his earlier days, but much of it would be a radical departure. Of course, one would expect that Gumbuli and some of his family visited Bickerton Island from time to time.

It is interesting to note that, at the time of Gumbuli’s birth, there were still people who assumed that the Aborigines were a ‘dying race’. A group of church people in Adelaide, known as the Aborigines Friends’ Association, wrote in their 1940 Annual Report:

It is obvious that the theory that all native races are doomed to extinction after contact with western culture is not true. The theory has been used as an excuse for neglect in the past…The problem today is not to talk of smoothing down the pillow of the native race...⁴⁰

Before we turn our attention to the next stage in Gumbuli’s life, it is important to note that many aspects of his world, such as the stories and kinship system, world view and daily patterns, were similar to those which existed amongst Aborigines across Australia before European settlement. However, two differences were very important. The Aborigines of the north coast had had considerable experience with non-Aboriginal visitors, and this influenced the way they dealt with the arrival of the Europeans. The other was that by the 1920s, Aborigines living near Australia’s eastern and southern coastline had long since been deprived of their land, resulting in the disappearance of many of their traditions. Civilisation had touched them in various ways, mostly negatively. For many European Australians, what are seen to be signs of ‘civilisation’ were the tour of England by the Aboriginal cricket team in 1868, and Pastor Sir Doug Nicholls starting to play league football for Fitzroy in 1932.

One Island – Three Cultures

In 1644, the Dutch explorer Abel Janszoon Tasman and his crew sailed passed Bickerton Island, most likely the first Europeans to see it. Matthew Flinders briefly visited there in 1803, giving it a European name and drawing the first accurate map of the island, although he did not realise that only two kilometres separated the south end of North Bay from the north end of the South Bay. The next recorded visit by Europeans was in 1875, on the government vessel Woolner. The group was led by E.O. Robinson; they stayed for only one day, searching for gold. Their report was written without much regard to the conventions of the English language, but nevertheless is quite clear:

[We] saw what looked like Quartz at a distance went and found it conglomerate mixed with Quartz Pebbles, splendid Island for Water, native[s] very friendly fishing for us and bringing us water and ballast, for which I rewarded them with rice and tobacco with which they were highly pleased.¹

At that time gold was being mined at Pine Creek, 90 km north-west of Katherine, and there were rumours that more was to be found on the west coast of the Gulf of Carpentaria. Alf Dyer wrote that in about 1918, the government refused a request from CMS to establish a mission on that coast because they thought the area might contain gold.² A map of pastoral leases, made for the Federal Government in 1912, describes much of the area between Ngukurr and Borroloola as ‘Gold Mining District.’³

The Reverend Bert Warren first visited Bickerton Island in April 1916, travelling on a 6 metre boat, the Evangel. With him was another missionary, R.D. Joynt, two Aborigines, one known as Saltwater Jack, the other Rupert⁴ from Rose River (now known as Numbulwar) and Dennie Burke, described as a ‘half-caste’.⁵ Having called in at the mouth of the Rose River, they stayed overnight at Mangrove River. Warren described the trip in a letter to the CMS Committee in Melbourne:

At day-light at Wednesday [12 April] we had breakfast of oysters, fish, crabs, dugong, and damper and tea. Leaving the river at 8.30 we headed straight for Bickerton Island, but sea and wind getting up, we made slow progress till we ran into the big Gulf [now known as South Bay] on the south of Bickerton Island. Here we had to spend three days as weather was so bad we could not venture outside. We explored this end of the island as well as we could – found plenty of water, but very little game, ample supplies of fish and some sea birds were obtainable. The country is rather good in places and contains some beautiful grassed gullies, but is hardly suitable for stock owing to the great rocks everywhere. Saw tracks of natives, but although I walked right across the island, we could not find any of them. The boys [that is, Aboriginal workers] with us seemed to be very much afraid. On Friday we found two turtle nests with 57 and 60 eggs in respectively. The four boys ate 57 eggs – less [those which] Joynt and I ate – in one meal – they are slightly larger than hen’s egg. The others lasted us some days as we were getting short of tucker.⁶

They then sailed on to Groote Eylandt where they met some of the locals, but were not taken to their camp. On Sunday 16 April, they held the first Christian service on the island.

Warren returned to Bickerton in November 1916; this time the others in the group were Alf Dyer, two Aborigines from the mission, Umbiriri [which Warren spelt Umbereary, later known as Joshua], Rupert and Alex, whom Warren describes as a ‘half-caste’. Here is an extract from Warren’s report:

Saturday 25/11/16 – Landed at Woody Islet at south-west corner of Bickerton Island (at 2.15 PM). Here we got about 200 turtle eggs. Coral bottom here…Left 2.45 [PM]. Ran up Bickerton Island coast, and crossed big bay on the north of island to where we saw some smoke on extreme north of the island. Several canoes come out to meet us, and we landed at 4.45 [PM]. Quickly about 40 blacks appeared and sold us some turtle-shell for tobacco; also sold us a canoe for hatchet, nails, wire, beads, fish hooks, tobacco and flour. While cooking meal, we explained our reasons for visiting them; all seemed friendly; many Groote Island men among them, easily distinguished by the cut of their beards. Boys [Aborigines from the Mission] slept ashore. Dyer and self and Alec slept on board…⁷

Sunday 26/11/16 – Had [Christian worship] service on beach with pictures; about 30 present, and they took the keenest interest, many making comments and chattering about them. Rupert and Umbereary assisted in interpreting readily. After the service I went for a long walk into the island; saw a few lubras [Aboriginal women] running away, also a few children. Country all sand, with occasional outcrops [of rocks]. Cypress pine and stringy-bark timber. One old man asked me to take his son back to the [Roper River Mission] station, and as the son was ready, I agreed…Flies very troublesome. No mosquitoes. Plenty of fresh water. Permanent soaks behind beach, but very poor country.

Monday, 27/11/16 – Paid up purchase goods for canoe. Two more old men came and asked me to take their boys to the [Mission] station. Evidently our boys [Aborigines from Roper River Mission] have been singing the glory of life there. [With an extra five boys on board, they then sailed a few kilometres southward, still in North Bay] …and explored the country for several miles, but found bare rock and little grass or feed. Plenty of cypress and messmate timber. Then sailed to the southern end of the bay. Took Mr. Dyer to the top of the cliffs, perhaps 300 ft. [100 m] high, and gave him a swim in the natural rock baths there, 50 feet [16 m] long and fed by a spring. Found plenty of fresh water, but think it may be rain catchment. Walked to the other side of the island [he does not say which direction] taking two and a half hours over the mountains, and returned in less than 20 minutes through a beautiful green gully all the way. Rupert knew this track. Not suitable country for a [mission]