ARANDA MEMORIES
“ … the Aranda nation are not as violent as a lot of the other nations …”
Sixty five year old Betty Pearce, an Aranda woman living in Alice Springs, described matters of tribal importance – and general interest – in June, 1998.
Betty, a daughter of the old-time drover, Tom Williams, said:
To the Aranda people, the place called Emily Gap is just as sacred as Ayers Rock is to the Mutitjulu people. Emily Gap, as it is known, was the site of our creation, the place where our people started.
The Aranda have three family groups: the Untulya – or Undoolya, as the white man calls it – and there’s Umbarnda, or Umbardarinya. ‘Arinya’ means ‘belonging to’. Then there’s my family group, Iltma, which is on the north side of Bond Springs and back towards the Junction Waterhole area.
In the old days we were never allowed to stay or to look at the paintings on the walls at Emily Gap. Also, we were not allowed to stay there after dark. The paintings behind the fig trees were absolutely taboo altogether. The women weren’t allowed to look at them at all, so I don’t even know what they look like.. I’ve just heard that there are paintings behind the fig trees. There is a gap there, or a chasm, sort of a narrow place – and, again, I haven’t been through there it was where the ceremonial activities took place.
It’s funny really because it was the women who started all the ceremonies. There were some very sacred sites north of Emily Gap. There’s a couple of white quartzite – what do you call them? – like Chamber’s Pillar. A white quartz pillar sort of thing. It’s maybe about two and a half kilometers north of Emily Gap. Women and kids were not allowed to go within cooee of that place. It is a really important place, even to this day.
One of the really important sites in the old days was the one at Heavitree Gap. There was a cave. But I don’t remember seeing it. I was told about it. It was on the western side of the Range where the railway goes. It was all blasted out when they put the railways in. As children, whenever we went through Heavitree Gap, we used to have to walk along the foot pad that’s up against the eastern side of the Gap. We had to walk with our heads down. We were only allowed to make one foot print. We had to put our feet into the foot print of the person who was walking in front of us. One of my aunties, Amelia Kunoth, was one of the senior women who could escort women through there. Women had to stay on the other side (the south) until a senior person brought them through. I don’t know who used to bring the men through. The men – that is, the visiting men – had to be brought through the Gap, too. But they didn’t have to keep their heads down. They looked straight ahead. Even though that ceremonial site had been blasted to hell, and wasn’t there any more, we still weren’t supposed to look at that area.
It makes me feel sad when I see Pitjantjatjara people coming through Heavitree Gap and running amuck – you know, just taking over – in ceremony times. They almost threaten the Aranda people within their own tribal country. In the old days those people’s ancestors, the Pitjantjatjara, had to go through Honeymoon Gap. And when they travelled up this way, they didn’t even come here, in the Alice Springs area. They had to go through where the Larapinta sub-division is, and the cattle trucking yards. From there, they went north. They were not allowed to come this way at all. Only the Aranda people came here to carry out ceremonies, but the people from the other areas didn’t come anywhere near this way (Alice Springs proper). They had to go around. There was a sort of corridor where they could travel. They didn’t scatter themselves all over the countryside like they do nowadays.
Sometimes I get so frustrated and angry that our Aranda men haven’t been strong enough to stop them doing this. Our men have allowed them to do it, to take over Alice Springs and to get involved in drunken sprees, fighting and stabbing, stuff like that. If only our men could become strong enough, maybe the drunkenness and the stabbing in the town itself would be lessened. A lot of the people who come in here are violent. They come from more violent societies than ours are. Different nations of people have different degrees of violence. The Aranda nation are not as violent as a lot of the other nations. Sometimes their violence is unacceptable. It’s worse now. They use star pickets and stuff like that on people. Knives and so on. They didn’t use things like that in the old days.
You know the Larapinta town camp area? In that area there was a story told when I was a kid about an albino Aboriginal family who were living there. They were white people. White hair. Quite a few times I was told I belonged to them because I used to have blonde hair when I was young, with very light blue eyes which made the old people identify me with the albinos. I’ve asked a few people about the albino Aboriginal family, but they don’t know about them. But I can remember them okay. They used to live and hunt in that area. We had to be careful not to hunt too close to them. I never saw them. I“ve seen the albinos up with the Kadaitj people (Barrow Creek region), but I never actually seen the albino people here. There aren’t any more left. There was an imaginary border where we couldn’t go to hunt. I believe the albinos were a husband, wife, and two kids, a boy and a girl. They said I belonged to them because of my flourbag hair. The albinos hunting ground went as far as Mt. Gillen, in a semi-circle sort of thing, to the (Heavitree) Gap. The only name I remember is Urrupulla. But that just means ‘albino’. Only the older people in their 60s and 70s would remember the albinos. The younger ones know nothing about them.
On the eastern side of the Todd River were ceremonial sites for the Aranda men. Up to what is known as Middle Park. Then the men’s ceremonial track goes out to the East. The hill overlooking the waterhole at the Telegraph Station is a women’s site. This belongs to the story of the two women, Ulujaburra, and this is a travelling story, all the way to Boorooloola.
Along the MacDonnell Range, to the east, is Jessie Gap. There’s a story about that, too, but it doesn’t belong to me so I can’t talk about it.
Then there’s N’Dalia Gorge. A beautiful place. When I went there I realised it must have been a really big ceremonial place. I found out women shouldn’t be going there. Tourists come and go like yo-yos. I’m a bit uncomfortable about pronouncing that word, N’Dalia, because it’s so close to the Aranda word for pubic hair.
One of the things people forget is that women’s stories are actually stronger than the mens. When a group of women get together, the men get really worried about what they are up to. No, it’s not jealousy. Scared. Up at the Top End the men have taken over ceremonies that are actually women’s stories. The ceremonies are about the Seven Sisters. Now that’s a women’s story. The men have taken it over, and the women aren’t allowed to look at their stories any more. Up there on the Roper River, between Ngukurr and Numbulwar, there’s that place called The Ruined City. That’s all to do with women’s stories. It’s absolutely crazy. The men keep the women out of it today.
Coming back down this way, there’s Corroboree Rock. That was a meeting place. I can’t pronounce its real name. It was probably a place where they started ceremonies. I can only remember two corroborees happening there when I was a kid. My dad (Tom Williams, the drover) was involved with them both. While we kids were not allowed to climb on the rock, or go too close to it, or to touch it, it wasn’t a really sacred ceremonial site.
Further along, there are some caves and other things – east and north – where really sacred ceremonies did take place. I only found out about this because I’m in the habit of exploring. I drove down a valley and I got this dreadful feeling that seemed to say DON’T COME HERE. So I went back. I asked a couple of relatives about it and I took them to the place. They asked how far I had gone. I said I had only gone to the start of the valley when I started to feel really bad, like a terrible feeling that I shouldn’t go there. They told me some really strong ceremonial stuff had happened there abouts. They said they were in the process of shifting some tjuringas (ceremonial objects) away from there. That was in 1982. I haven’t been back. People from all over the place used to go to Corroboree Rock for special ceremonies, to exchange songs, dances and stories.
The Catholic church had the Aranda mob in the early times – that is, in the missions. During the war (World War II) the Catholics decided that they would shift the Aboriginal kids from the Charles Creek Mission out to Arltunga. After the war they brought all the kids over to the St. Theresa Mission. Now, Santa Theresa was actually a Roman Catholic cattle station in the early days. So the Catholic church actually alienated the Aranda people and this has caused a lot of confusion in the minds of those kids who were shifted from Alice Springs to Arltunga and then Santa Theresa. This is their Aranda country. It’s the same with the Pitjantjatjara people. When they talk about themselves, they always say ‘Pit. homelands,’ because they are a whole lot of nations – about six, I think – and about 30 or 40 tribes. They are now all lumped into that Pit. homelands thing.
On the western side of Heavitree Gap – well, we were not allowed to walk on there because there were sacred sites all along. It’s to do with the Dog story. On the eastern side of the Gap, we could climb up there. While there were some sacred sites, they were of secondary importance. Climbing up there as kids got me interested in Paleontology. We climbed up on the southern side, and when we were walking along the top of the Range we used to pick up fossilised oyster shells. They were about 75 millimetres long and about 40-45 millimetres wide. They weren’t solidified into quartz. They were quartite and calzite mixed. It was calcified rather than totally quartz. So, geologically, it wasn’t as old as other stuff I’ve seen. They were very modern, only a couple of million years old.
South of the Alice Springs hospital, around about where the swimming pool is, and south to the roundabout near the Gap, that area was actually the Arranda people’s fighting ground. The different tribal groups used to steal each other’s women when they ran short, and that’s what most of the fighting was about. All over that area, before they built houses over it, you could find bits of boomerangs, spears, those little chips of rock they used on some weapons, also stone heads from those old shovel-nosed spears. We never gave it a second thought back then. I never appreciated what it was, or what it was about, until years and years later. I think now it is very sad that none of it was preserved. Probably a lot of those old artefacts are still there, under those Housing Commission homes.
Chinaman’s Creek, at the Gap, was a permanent waterhole. It had salty water. I don’t ever remember Aboriginal people living at the base of the MacDonnell Range, near the Gap. Not on the northern side. Only the southern side. There was a big camp of Arranda people to the south., and they were the traditional owners of that area. While we associated with them, we didn’t identify with them; they were more connected to another tribe from the Hermannsburg area. Us mob on the northern side of the Range, we were more closely attached to each other. On the eastern side of the Todd River, from the Gap all the way up, we identified with that mob. That was all women’s country – and I know that because it’s my grand-mother’s tribal land. She was one of the traditional owners.
There were lots of significant places along the Todd River. It’s not for me to identify them. I can’t really pronounce it properly. It sounds like ‘Untulyawulla.’
Betty Pearce was asked for her personal recollections of the legendary Centralian bushman, Bob Buck, who allegedly found the skeletal remains of Harold Lasseter. She said:
Bob Buck? Well, my dad reckoned he was one of the biggest liars under the sun. We kids always took his stories with a grain of salt. He used to tell us some fantastic stories. One story that really sticks out in my mind is about Harold Lasseter. He told us that Lasseter was a lunatic for thinking he had found gold in that particular area. Bob Buck reckoned that he and a mate had been paid about five pounds ($10) by two of Lasseter’s friends to salt a cave with gold nuggets. Bob Buck said there was no such a thing as Lassetter claimed he found out in the desert. Bob Buck used to say to us, ‘Look, just remember this because people will believe what Lasseter said. We put the gold there. We salted it. It was us who put the gold nuggets in the wall of that cave and under the ground and wherever he could see it and pick it up.’
We asked him how much gold he was talking about, and he said, ‘Oh, quite a lot of it.’
We couldn’t understand how Bob Buck could have chucked all this gold around and only taken five pounds for doing it. I reckon Bob Buck was part of the Lasseter fraud. I always felt that this was one of those stories that was true. We could always pick up those stories that weren’t quite true when we started questioning him. We’d say, ‘Eh, what’s this? And what happened there? Who did this? How did you do that?’
Bob Buck told us the names of the friends who helped him salt the cave with gold, but I can’t remember the names now. No, I can’t remember Alan Brumby, Harold Brown or Stan Humiston. Sorry.
And he’d start coming up with with all this airy-fairy stuff. Like, he’d tell us about droving cattle all the way to England, travelling them along the beaches – that sort of stuff. Well, we knew it wasn’t possible. We went to school and we knew about geography. At that time, when he was telling us those things, he seemed to be a very old man. I think he must have been in his late 60s or even his 70s. He was weathered looking. An older person’s voice sounds different. His voice made us think of him as an old man. I was aged somewhere between 10 and 12 at that time. He used to tell us to come and sit down and listen to him because he was passing on history to us. Like the other kids, I didn’t really understand what ‘passing on history’ meant, not until later years.
He told us also of his involvement with Madigan, the explorer. Back then, I didn’t even know who the hell Madigan was, not until a long time later.
I think my main interest in Bob Buck was that he knew my grand-father, the white man, Tom Williams, snr. He often talked about Tom Williams, his mail run and stuff like that. On the other side, I’ve always been interested in stories about history.
Betty was requested to elaborate on specific information given to her as a young girl by the camel-man, Bob Buck, including ‘Aboriginal royalty.’
She continued:
Well, Bob Buck used to drop names like leaves falling off a tree in autumn. He was the one who originally told me of the Aboriginal people who were directly related to the royal family in England. They were the Bradens, the Bloomfields, the Spencers, who were all connected to royalty. Then there were the Montagues and the Ogilvies. All of them were the illegitimate kids of the Queen’s cousins and various other aristocracy. Some were Lord Mountbatten’s relations, or dukes. They came out to Australia years ago and played around with Aboriginal women. Just like all the white men did. The only ones who didn’t play around were the eunochs or homosexuals. Sometimes they were younger sons who didn’t have a chance of inheriting anything, or maybe someone who played up and was an embarrassment.
The Montague fellow was one who played up at home and he was sent out to Australia because they didn’t want him in England. These fellows were given land. Old Queen Victoria handed out land like you wouldn’t believe in the early days. All of these people whose names I mentioned, they were all given land back in Queen Victoria’s day, and probably George the Fifth’s days as well – or whoever they were – and it was hoped they would develop it. Tobermorey is one of the stations that was named after the family seat in England. Years later, I asked my uncle, Mort Conway, about it and he verified what Bob Buck had told us about the Aboriginal royal family.
When Princess Diana, one of the Spencer family, was getting married to Prince Charles, all of the Aboriginal people were waiting for the whole story to get told, but the Aboriginal connection never got printed. I’m a part of the Bradens, the Bloomfields and the Spencers.
Of course, one of the more recent relatives of British royalty was a Centralian chap called Tony Chisolm, whose father was the Duke of Windsor. When the Duke was visiting Australia in the 1920s, Tony was born in 1929, about nine or ten months after the Duke had gone home. There were a number of other Australian women who had children by him, too. I know of two in Victoria. Anyway, Roy Chisolm came from a very wealthy family. He set up cattle stations. His family had a horse stud in New South Wales, in the Hawkesbury area. Later, with others, he helped pioneer cattle stations in the Northern Territory. One property he had was Roper Valley Station. Then he bought Bond Springs Station when it was a dilapidated dump of a place that had been abandoned.
Anyway, Roy went to Sydney looking for a wife. He married this woman. Seven months after getting married, his wife had a baby. Tony. As far as I know, Roy hadn’t met the woman he married before travelling to the city. Tony was four or five years older than me, and I remember him always saying that his father was the Duke of Windsor. He told us kids he was royalty and we should bow down to him. I couldn’t stand him. He had an arrogance over his royal family connections. His step-father, Roy Chisolm, never said anything about it, but Tony talked about it quite openly. When he was young, Tony didn’t look at all like the Duke of Windsor, but when I saw him in 1982 I couldn’t believe it was really Tony. He looked so much like the Duke of Windsor it wasn’t funny. He was even short like the Duke. Yet Roy Chisolm was a tall man, about six foot six. He wore size 13 boots. The last time I saw Tony he was drunk and carrying on about being the son of the Duke of Windsor. It’s interesting, too, that when Princess Elizabeth and the Duke of Edinburgh came out on their first trip to Australia in 1952, they spent five days with Tony Chisolm at Ininji Station. Over the years I know Prince Charles has spent time there, and so has Princess Ann and her first husband. In 1982 or 83 Charles and Diana stayed there, too.
Tony Chisolm had a child named Barbara to one of my Aboriginal relatives. One time a journalist showed me five photographs and he asked if I recognised the person shown. I said, ‘Yes, that’s Tony Chisolm photographed at five different stages of his life.’
And the journalist said, ‘No, that’s five different people.’
So God only knows how many kids the Duke left behind in Australia.
