EXPERIMENTS IN SELF-DETERMINATION Histories of the outstation movement in Australia EXPERIMENTS IN SELF-DETERMINATION Histories of the outstation movement in Australia Edited by Nicolas Peterson and Fred Myers MONOGRAPHS IN ANTHROPOLOGY SERIES Published by ANU Press The Australian National University Acton ACT 2601, Australia Email: [email protected] This title is also available online at press.anu.edu.au National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry Title: Experiments in self-determination : histories of the outstation movement in Australia / editors: Nicolas Peterson, Fred Myers. ISBN: 9781925022896 (paperback) 9781925022902 (ebook) Subjects: Community life. Community organization. Aboriginal Australians--Social conditions--20th century. Aboriginal Australians--Social life and customs--20th century. Other Creators/Contributors: Peterson, Nicolas, 1941- editor. Myers, Fred R., 1948- editor. Dewey Number: 305.89915 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher. Cover design and layout by ANU Press This edition © 2016 ANU Press Contents List of maps . vii List of figures . ix List of tables . xi Preface and acknowledgements . xiii 1 . The origins and history of outstations as Aboriginal life projects . 1 Fred Myers and Nicolas Peterson History and memory 2 . From Coombes to Coombs: Reflections on the Pitjantjatjara outstation movement . 25 Bill Edwards 3 . Returning to country: The Docker River project . 47 Jeremy Long 4 . ‘Shifting’: The Western Arrernte’s outstation movement . 61 Diane Austin-Broos Western Desert complexities 5 . History, memory and the politics of self-determination at an early outstation . 81 Fred Myers 6 . The interwoven histories of Mount Liebig and Papunya-Luritja . 105 Sarah Holcombe 7 . Out of sight, out of mind, but making the best of it: How outstations have worked in the Ngaanyatjarra Lands . 121 David Brooks and Vikki Plant 8 . Outstations through art: Acrylic painting, self-determination and the history of the homelands movement in the Pintupi-Ngaanyatjarra Lands . 135 Peter Thorley Policy visions and their realisation 9 . What was Dr Coombs thinking? Nyirrpi, policy and the future . 161 Nicolas Peterson 10 . Homelands as outstations of public policy . 181 Kingsley Palmer 11 . Challenging simplistic notions of outstations as manifestations of Aboriginal self-determination: Wik strategic engagement and disengagement over the past four decades . 201 David F. Martin and Bruce F. Martin 12 . Peret: A Cape York Peninsula outstation, 1976–1978 . 229 Peter Sutton Frustrated aspirations 13 . People and policy in the development and destruction of Yagga Yagga outstation, Western Australia . 253 Scott Cane 14 . Imagining Mumeka: Bureaucratic and Kuninjku perspectives . 279 Jon Altman 15 . Thwarted aspirations: The political economy of a Yolngu outstation, 1972 to the present . 301 Frances Morphy and Howard Morphy 16 . A history of Donydji outstation, north-east Arnhem Land . 323 Neville White Contributors . 347 Index . 353 List of maps Map 2.1 Ernabella and its Pitjantjatjara outstations. ................... 27 Map 3.1 Docker River in relation to Areyonga and Haasts Bluff. ......... 48 Map 4.1 Arrernte outstations. ................................... 70 Map 5.1 Yayayi in relation to Papunya and Kintore. ................... 82 Map 6.1 Luritja-Pintupi outstations. ...............................108 Map 7.1 Ngaanyatjara outstations. ................................123 Map 9.1 Nyirrpi in relation to Yuendumu and outstations with infrastructure, although none were currently occupied other than Mount Theo, to which petrol sniffers were taken for rehabilitation at the time of writing. .......................162 Map 10.1 Wadangine in relation to Yandeyarra. ......................183 Map 11.1 Aurukun outstations. ..................................204 Map 12.1 Cape York Peninsula and Peret Outstation. ..................230 Map 12.2 Lower Mitchell River, Cape York Peninsula. .................232 Map 13.1 Yagga Yagga outstation. .................................254 Map 14.1 Mumeka and outstations in the Maningrida region. ...........280 Map 15.1 Yilpara and the Laynhapuy homelands area, north-east Arnhem Land. .305 Map 16.1 Doyndji outstation in north-east Arnhem Land. ..............324 vii List of figures Figure 2.1 Aparatjara outstation in 1978. ........................... 30 Figure 2.2 Nyapari outstation from the air, 1980s. .................... 38 Figure 2.3 Pipalayatjara, 1989 .................................... 42 Figure 5.1 Minyina Tjampitjinpa’s camp at Yayayi, 1974. ............... 83 Figure 5.2 Pintupi watching archival footage, Kintore, 2006. ............ 84 Figure 5.3 All aboard the ‘red truck’ at Yayayi, 1973. .................. 90 Figure 8.1 Giles Weather Station, 2011, by Dorcas Tinamayi Bennett. Courtesy of Warakurna Artists. .147 Figure 8.2 Macaulay and MacDougall, 2011, by Jean Inyalanka Burke. Courtesy of Warakurna Artists. .148 Figure 8.3 Mr MacDougall and Tommy Dodd, 2011, by Judith Yinyika Chambers. Courtesy of Warakurna Artists. .....................149 Figure 8.4 Waiting for Shop, 2011, by Eunice Yunurupa Porter. Courtesy of Warakurna Artists. .150 Figure 8.5 Holiday Time, 2011, by Eunice Yunurupa Porter. Courtesy of Warakurna Artists. .151 Figure 8.6 Warburton Mission Leaving Time, 2011, by Judith Yinyika Chambers. Courtesy of Warakurna Artists. .....................152 Figure 8.7 Going Home, 2011, by Eunice Yunurupa Porter. Courtesy of Warakurna Artists. .154 Figure 8.8 Cutline, Warakurna to Warburton, 2011, by Judith Yinyika Chambers, Martha Ward and Dorcas Tinamayi Bennett. Courtesy of Warakurna Artists. .155 Figure 9.1 Lunch near Nyirrpi on 5 May 1972. ......................164 ix ExPERIMENTS IN SELF-Determination Figure 11.1 Wik and Kugu Rangers burning open floodplain country near the Kirke River, south of Aurukun, as part of their fire management and carbon abatement strategy. In 2015, APN received its first carbon abatement payment, quantified through a research partnership with the CSIRO. ................................220 Figure 11.2 David Martin in 2014 at the Kuchenteypenh Well with a group of younger Wik from Kendall River families, seeing their country for the first time. ..............................221 Figure 12.1 Isobel Wolmby loading native bamboo spear shafts in her clan country south of Cape Keerweer, 1977. ...............237 Figure 12.2 Marjorie Yunkaporta and some of her children cleaning up Peret airstrip, 1976. .............................241 Figure 12.3 Alan Wolmby, 1976, with the tree he inscribed in 1971 marking the first day of his work on Victor Wolmby’s outstation at Aayk with Victor. ......................................245 Figure 13.1 The locked gate. .....................................270 Figure 13.2 Bundles of newly collected spear shafts. ..................271 Figure 13.3 Yagga Yagga in 2002.. .272 Figure 14.1 An aerial view of Mumeka outstation. ....................281 Figure 14.2 Mumeka house and school. ............................291 Figure 14.3 ‘Development’ comes to Mumeka, July 2012. ..............292 Figure 15.1 An aerial view of Yilpara. ..............................302 Figure 16.1 View of the Donydji (Gurrumala) Homeland community, taken in 2012. Most of the buildings were constructed by Vietnam veteran volunteers, working with community members using charitable funds provided through the Rotary Club of Melbourne. ....325 Figure 16.2 Workshop activities: Vietnam veteran volunteer, Graham Singleton, in 2013, mentoring single men in the construction of furniture for community use and sale to other homelands and organisations in the region. The workshop was constructed in 2005, by volunteers and local men using charitable funds.. .332 Figure 16.3 The three rooms in the single-man’s quarters, constructed by volunteers and community members in 2008. Philanthropic funds donated through the Rotary Club of Melbourne financed the project. .............................................334 Figure 16.4 Inside the single-men’s quarters: the TV was used to view Australian Football League videos, which remain popular. Electricity is from solar energy. ..............................335 x List of tables Table 2.1 Population figures ..................................... 39 Table 10.1 Some estimates of outstation populations at 24 ORAs and Australia-wide, 1997 ...................................188 Table 10.2 Some estimates of outstation costs and resources, 1997 ........188 Table 10.3 Agency funding, outstation numbers and average costs per outstation, 1997. 189 xi Preface and acknowledgements This volume has its origins in an Australian Research Council (ARC) Linkage Project (LP1000200359), ‘Pintupi dialogues: reconstructing memories of art, land and community through the visual record’. The project brought together Nicolas Peterson and Pip Deveson from The Australian National University, Peter Thorley from the National Museum of Australia, Fred Myers from New York University and Papunya Tula Limited to work on 13 hours of archival footage shot by Ian Dunlop at the Central Australian outstation of Yayayi in 1974. The footage was of particular interest not only because it recorded the lives of people who had only settled down in the previous 12 years, but also because it documented one of the first outstations that was established following the