Aboriginal History Volume six 1982 ABORIGINAL HISTORY V O L U M E SIX Ju n e 1982 Part 1 Eliza Kennedy and Coming up out of the nhaalya: reminiscences of the life 5 Tamsin Donaldson of Eliza Kennedy Bernard J. O’Neil Beyond trinkets and beads: South Australia’s Aboriginal 28 Legal Rights Movement, 1971-1978 W.E.H. Stanner Aboriginal humour 39 R.G. Kimber Walawurru, the giant eaglehawk: Aboriginal 49 reminiscences of aircraft in central Australia, 1921-1931 David Nash Aboriginal knowledge of the aeroplane ‘Kookaburra ’ 61 R. E. Barwick The anatomy of an aircraft: A Warlpiri engraving 74 VOLUME SIX December 1982 P art 2 Alan Atkinson The ethics of conquest, 1786 82 Norman B. Tindale A South Australian looks at some beginnings of 93 archaeological research in Australia Adam Shoemaker Aboriginal creative writing: a survey to 1981 111 Fay Gale Community involvement and academic response: the 130 University of Adelaide Aboriginal Research Centre Laurie Parkes and Beginning a national Aboriginal biographical register 135 Diane Barwick at the Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies Jennifer Lavcock The Elkin Papers: a brief description and guide to the 139 collection Rosslyn Fraser A guide to selected Commonwealth archives (Canberra 1 42 and Darwin) relating to Aborigines Reviews 149 ABORIGINAL HISTORY INCORPORATED THE EDITORIAL BOARD Committee of Management Niel Gunson (Chairman), Peter Grimshaw (Treasurer/Public Officer), May McKenzie (Secretary), Diane Barwick, Isabel McBryde, James Urry. Board Members'. Diane Bell, Patricia Croft, Stephen Foster, Luise Hercus, Marcia Langton, Hank Nelson, Peter Read. ABORIGINAL HISTORY 1982 Editors-. Diane Barwick and James Urry. Review Editor. Isabel McBryde. CORRESPONDENTS Robert Reece Tom Stannage Jeremy Beckett, Gloria Brennan, V.M. Campbell, Peter Corris, Ann Curthovs, Greg Dening, Fay Gale, Mervyn Hartwig, George Harwood, Kerry Howe, Ron Lampert, M.E. Lofgren, F.D. McCarthy, Andrew Markus, John Mulvaney, John Newfong, D. Wayne Orchiston, Charles Perkins, Nicolas Peterson, N.J.B. Plomley, Marie Reay, Henry Reynolds, Charles Rowley, Lyndall Ryan, Margaret Sharpe, Bruce Sommer, John Summers, Peter Willis, Jo Woolmington. Aboriginal History aims to present articles and information in the field of Australian ethnohistory, particularly in the post-contact history of the Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders. Historical studies based on anthropological, archaeological, linguistic and sociological research, including comparative studies of other ethnic groups such as Pacific Islanders in Australia, will be welcomed. Future issues will include recorded oral traditions and biographies, vernacular narratives with translations, peviouslv unpublished manuscript accounts, resumes of current events, archival and bibliographical articles, and book reviews. Aboriginal History is administered by an Editorial Board which is responsible for all unsigned material in the journal. Views and opinions expressed by the authors of signed articles and reviews are not necessarilv shared by Board members. The editors invite contributions for consideration; reviews will be commissioned by the review editor. Contributions and correspondence should be sent to; The Editors, Aboriginal History, d- Department of Pacific and Southeast Asian History, Australian National University, P.O. Box 4, Canberra, A.C.T. 2600. Inquiries about subscriptions should be addressed to: Australian National University Press, P.O. Box 4, Canberra, A.C.T. 2600. 0 Copyright 1982 by Aboriginal History Inc., Canberra, Australia. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study, research, criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright Act, no part of this publication may be reproduced by any process whatsoever without the written permission of the publisher. Printed in Australia bv A. N.U. Printing Service ISSN 0314-8769 ABORIGINAL HISTORY VOLUME SIX 1982 PART 1 CONTENTS ARTICLES Eliza Kennedy and Coming up out of the nhaalya: reminiscences 5 Tamsin Donaldson of the life of Eliza Kennedy Bernard J. O’Neil Beyond trinkets and beads: South Australia’s 28 Aboriginal Legal Rights Movement, 1971- 1978 W.E.H. Stanner Aboriginal humour 39 R.G. Kimber Walawurru, the giant eaglehawh Aboriginal 49 reminiscences of aircraft in central Australia, 1921-1931 David Nash Aboriginal knowledge of the aeroplane 61 ‘Kookaburra’ R.E. Barwick The anatomy of an aircraft: a Warlpiri 74 engraving Cover: Scale drawings of Gvpsy Moth D.H. 60, and engraving of aero­ plane on Warlpiri pearlshell pendant, designed by R.E. Barwick from photograph and rubbing by R.G. Kimber (see Aboriginal History, 6(1), 1982: 74. ABORIGINAL HISTORY 1982 6:1 PLATE 1 Top: Eliza Kennedy and her son George (born 1932), at Mulga on Orana Station Lower: Eliza’s husband George Kennedy with his parents Jim and Margaret Kennedy (seated), Eliza’s cousin Millie Hall (rear) and niece Ida Singh, and friends Ted and Mick Gallagher, at the Kennedys’ returned soldier’s block, Yelty, Ivanhoe, c. 1923 Photographs courtesy o f Eliza Kennedy (A.I.A S. 185 7-4,2778-9). 4 COMING UP OUT OF THE NHAALYA: REMINISCENCES OF THE LIFE OF ELIZA KENNEDY* Eliza Kennedy and Tamsin Donaldson When Eliza Kennedy was bom, a year or two after the turn of the century, her people were still ‘camping about’ in their own country, the dry riverless belar tree country between Cobar and Ivanhoe in central western New South Wales. She grew up speaking Ngiyampaa, ‘the lingo’ — the kind of Ngiyampaa also known as Wangaaypuwan because wangaay is the word it has for ‘no’.1 Most of Ngiyampaa country had already been occupied by white pastoralists for several decades. They had divided the country up into stations, with fences which Eliza’s people helped to build. The newcomers had also renamed the features which mattered to them, sometimes anglicising Ngiyampaa names and sometimes supplying new ones. Because the group of families Eliza grew up with camped most often in the area around Keewong station (which they called Yakararay) they were known as ‘the Keewong mob’, and she and her sisters, like her mother and some of her other relatives, used the surname Keewong. They kept their distance from the stations, camping no closer than a couple of miles away. Rabbit scalps were taken there for payment of the bounty, and Eliza remembers the ‘big old white starched aprons and white caps’ worn by Ngiyampaa women who worked in the station kitchens. But the world of station life impinged very little on her early years, for among her closest kin only a couple of uncles ever did station work, and that late in their lives. Everything that was familiar and significant from the perspective of a small girl had to do with camp life, in particular the daily life she shared with her mother and sisters, and her maternal aunts and uncles and their families. Eliza’s mother, Rosie Keewong, had five daughters: Mabel the eldest, Elsie the youngest, and the three who are still alive today, Lizzie, Lily and Eliza2 herself, whose story continues mainly in her own words. The most dramatic part of‘camping about’ was shifting camp: Whenever they felt like doing this, they d just get their little kulay [women’s net bag], put it on their backs, and their billycan and their pint [enamel For past kindnesses and much help in the preparation of this paper we are indebted to Eliza Kennedy’s family and friends, and to Jeremy Beckett, Luise Hercus, Isobel M. White, Betty Meehan, Diane Barwick and James Urry. In this paper Ngiyampaa words are spelt according to the practical orthography adopted by the community since Donaldson’s (1980) Ngiyambaa the language of the Wangaaybuuian was published. Wangaaypuwan was commonly spelt Wongaibon in earlier ethnographic records. Paakantji, too, is the spelling used in the community’s readers. It has been rendered as Bagundjior Barkindji. Hercus (1982) uses Bägandji. There is no pracucal orthography for Wiradjuri. This is one of the more widely known of the 60-odd spellings used by earlier writers, largely because of its adoption by Tindale (1974). A photograph of the three sisters together appears in Donaldson 1979:62. 5 ABORIGINAL HISTORY 1982 6:1 mug], a little bit of tucker. Walk. Nothing to move from one dam to another, carry what belonged to you. The small girls were keen to do their bit: ‘I’ll carry this, ngathu ngina kaawayahaV Just a little pint tied with a string, bundled up. Walk along, that was even too much to carry', poor old m um ’d have to put it in her kulay. Then they would get to a camp: might be a nice spot, bit of a clean patch, ‘Ngini yuwakirril Let’s sleep here!’ Just chuck a blanket down there, that’s how we lived. In the summertimewe’djusthaveabough shed and camp around anywhere, a bit of a windbreak, and lay alongside ol that. We wouldn’t go to much bother unless it looked like coming up stormy. Then we’d have to prepare a bit of a humpy of some sort. One memorable wet night: Mummy and Lizzie, we all helped one another building this little camp with bits and pieces of bark and bushes, and bits of rag here and there. We was in this little miamia and it was leaking. I remember M ummy covering me and poor Elsie up. She used to look after us with pieces of blanket and clothes to keep us dry, but we’d be sleeping in wet beds and walking about in wet clothes that dried on us. Once there was a surprise at the end of a journey to Kirraawara, to Carowra Tank, a government water reservoir: We started from near Koonaburra station and walked around a place called malkangurrunhu that was only a crabhole [small waterhole], but they camped there for many weeks sometimes because it was a good­ holding crabhole. We left two little kittens, couldn’t carry them, at some of the camps on the way.