Journey to Horseshoe Bend Strehlow Research Centre The story of Carl Strehlow’s fateful trip to obtain medical help for dropsy in the 20s. It is a classic Australian tale that incorporates TGH Strehlow’s love and respect for the traditional Arrernte landscape and people. An SRC e-book Journey to Horseshoe Bend Professor TGH Strehlow SYNOPSIS Carl Strehlow, a Lutheran missionary at Her- mannsburg, had become gravely ill with 'dropsy' and attempts were made to transport him by buggy to the railhead at Oodnadatta and then on by train to Adelaide and medical relief. The party, which included Carl's wife Frieda, their son Ted, the schoolteacher Heinrich, and Arrernte friends Hesekiel, Ja- kobus and Titus, set off on Tuesday 10 October 1922 but only got as far as Horseshoe Bend on the Finke River before Carl died. Woven into the narrative are stories of the sta- tions and the people who established them. A deeper and older strand of history is present in the Aboriginal stories that colour the country through which the party travels. Page 2 Strehlow Research Centre Table of Contents Day one 4 Day two 49 Day three 78 Day four 91 Day five 129 Day six 151 Day seven 171 Day eight 183 Day nine 193 Day ten 213 Day 11 245 Day 12 271 Day 13 291 Information about the Centre 321 Page 3 Journey to Horseshoe Bend by TGH Strehlow (first published 1969) IT WAS Tuesday, the tenth day of October, 1922. The last morning at Hermannsburg had arrived, and the bright horizon fringe of the eastern sky was begin- ning to turn into a rich, deep red. Already the great broad-fronted dome of Lalkintinerama, the highest point of the Pota Uruna or "Range of Doom" south of Hermannsburg, was being lit up by the subdued glow of the sun that was on the point of emerging; and twenty five miles to the north-west the magnificent bluffs of rugged Rutjubma were towering up in almost unearthly beauty, their deep-scarred purple faces sof- tened by a rich tracery of pink veins which had spread through their sharply serrated edges. To the east of Rutjubma, and almost due north of the station, the long line of bold bluffs which culminated in the lofty peak of Ltarkalibaka shone in a blaze of bluish-purple, tipped by delicate pink embroidery. It was from the sudden slopes of Rutjubma and Ltarkalibaka that the two source streams of the Finke River, on whose banks Hermannsburg was standing, rushed down in foaming fury during flood times; and once they had passed the station buildings, these swirling floodwa- ters penetrated into the broad southern range and dashed themselves against the immovable base of Lalkintinerama before they were forced into the thirty- five-mile gorge that ended only at the gap between the Ilaltilalta and Lalkitnama ridges, a short distance below the ever-running springs of Irbmangkara. The hushed morning air was filled with the calls of birds - miners, willy wagtails, and crows - , all of which provided a shrill and somewhat discordant tonal background to the flute-like notes of a pair of butcher Page 4 birds that were expressing their joy at the break of a new day in carefree songs of jubilation. When the sun's rays began to emerge like slim spears of fire over the eastern sandhills, other sounds burst upon the scene - the sounds of men and women who were hurrying to complete the final morning tasks necessary to enable their sick ingkata to set out on his difficult jour- ney south to seek medical help. Dark milkmaids were milking the bailed cows in the small yard east of the station buildings, while the hungry calves were bleating at them impatiently from their separate enclosure of split gum palings. Dark men were vigorously chopping up with ringing blows on a stout wooden meat bench in front of the station store the carcass of the bul- lock slaughtered the night before to provide meat for the travellers on the first part of their long journey. Some of this meat was bagged up fresh; the rest was dry-salted, and placed into large flour bags, which soon began to run freely with the copious red meat juices forced out by the rock salt. Over the plain north-east of the station a pair of dark stockmen galloped bare- back on their mounts, driving before them the buggy horses that had been newly mustered for the road. They took them down to the Finke bend at Ntjirakapa for their morning drink, and then put them up in a separate section of the yard, next to the part reserved for the milking cows. Restless and full of grass-fed arrogance after being "spelled out bush" for many months, these horses whinnied and pranced up and down in their enclosure, often throwing playful bites and kicks at one another. From time to time they sniffed and thrust with their noses at Page 5 the sturdy yard gate to ascertain whether it could not be pushed open; for none of these half-wild horses relished the prospect of being forced into harness and put to work on the sta- tion or taken on a long road journey. Excitement was riding in the air; and few of the dark folk waiting in the camp north-west of the solid whitewashed station buildings had slept much during the previous night. Ever since that Sunday in September when their ingkata, for the first time in his twenty eight years of man- aging Hermannsburg, had failed to emerge for conducting the church service because his treacherous illness had finally overcome his rug- ged physical strength and iron determination, a vague but deep-seated fear had been oppress- ing their thoughts. This fear had deepened with each week during which the familiar figure of their ingkata had not emerged from the front entrance of his stone residence. So intolerable had the suspense become that at least two of Strehlow's dark friends had written letters to him in Aranda, asking after his health, assuring him of their constant prayers on his behalf, and informing him that the whole dark population was sick with grief for their one and only teacher and leader, and that the women were crying many tears for him as well. And then, about a fortnight ago, the dreaded blow had fallen: a public announcement had at last been made by Mr H. A. Heinrich, the Hermannsburg native-school teacher, that their ingkata was now so weak and ill that he would have to seek medical aid in Adelaide, and that both the buggy and the van would have to be got ready for the three-hundred-and-eighty-mile journey south to Page 6 the railhead at Oodnadatta. The first plan had been for the party to go from Hermannsburg to Alice Springs, to contact a doctor for road medical advice either at Marree or at Port Augusta by the telephone facilities available on the Overland Telegraph Line, and then to follow the normal line-party track down to Owen Springs, and from there south along the Hugh valley to Horseshoe Bend. This would have occasioned only a slight change from the customary route which had been used by all wheeled Hermannsburg vehicles ever since the establishment of the station: this route had gone from Hermannsburg past the Long Water Hole on the Ellery Creek over a ridge of high ground to the Rarangintjita point of the Water- house Range, and thence along the northern edge of this range to Owen Springs, where it linked up with the normal North-South Route which skirted the Overland Telegraph Line. Ser- geant and Mrs Robert Stott had already sent their invitation to Hermannsburg for the Strehlow family to stay at their home during their short stay at Alice Springs. But Strehlow's condition had deteriorated so rapidly after the middle of September that this first plan had had to be dropped, and a completely new and un- tried, but rather shorter, route selected. The time-saving proposal finally adopted by the Her- mannsburg party was that they were to drive to Pmokoputa on the Ellery Creek, follow the Ellery from here to its junction with the Finke at Ru- bula, and then proceed down the Finke valley for the next hundred and thirty miles to Horse- shoe Bend Station. "It is necessary to get Mr Strehlow down to the Page 7 doctor as quickly as possible," Heinrich had ex- plained to the dark men; and a number of the latter had quickly volunteered to go to Pmokoputa and clear a track for the vehicles through some of the dense ti-tree thickets and young gum stands which had sprouted up be- tween Pmokoputa and Rubula after the heavy floods of the previous years. When some of the stockmen pointed out that some of the boulders on the banks of the Finke near Alitera would also need to be moved from the track, a second working party had gone out on horses, loaded up with crowbars and shovels, to clear a track over this dangerous portion of the road. No ve- hicle had attempted to negotiate this camel and horse trail during the past thirty years or even longer; and Strehlow himself had never gone further south into this long Finke gorge than Alitera. He had consequently never visited Hen- bury or Idracowra Stations, and he was looking forward to seeing these places after what he knew would be his final departure from Her- mannsburg.