2q' t '9à ABORIGINAL AGENCY, INSTITUTIONALISATION AND PEGGY BROCK B. A. (Hons) Universit¡r of Adelaide Thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in History/Geography, University of Adelaide March f99f ll TAT}LE OF CONTENTS ii LIST OF TAE}LES AND MAPS iii SUMMARY iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS . vii ABBREVIATIONS ix C}IAPTER ONE. INTRODUCTION I CFIAPTER TWO. TI{E HISTORICAL CONTEXT IN SOUTH AUSTRALIA 32 CHAPTER THREE. POONINDIE: HOME AWAY FROM COUNTRY 46 POONINDIE: AN trSTä,TILISHED COMMUNITY AND ITS DESTRUCTION 83 KOONIBBA: REFUGE FOR TI{E PEOPLE OF THE VI/EST COAST r22 CFIAPTER SIX. KOONIBBA: INSTITUTIONAL UPHtrAVAL AND ADJUSTMENT t70 C}IAPTER SEVEN. DISPERSAL OF KOONIBBA PEOPLE AND THE END OF TI{E MISSION ERA T98 CTIAPTER EIGHT. SURVTVAL WITHOUT INSTITUTIONALISATION236 C}IAPTER NINtr. NEPABUNNA: THtr MISSION FACTOR 268 CFIAPTER TEN. AE}ORIGINAL AGENCY, INSTITUTIONALISATION AND SURVTVAL 299 BIBLIOGRAPI{Y 320 ltt TABLES AND MAPS Table I L7 Table 2 128 Poonindie location map opposite 54 Poonindie land tenure map f 876 opposite 114 Poonindie land tenure map f 896 opposite r14 Koonibba location map opposite L27 Location of Adnyamathanha campsites in relation to pastoral station homesteads opposite 252 Map of North Flinders Ranges I93O opposite 269 lv SUMMARY The institutionalisation of Aborigines on missions and government stations has dominated Aboriginal-non-Aboriginal relations. Institutionalisation of Aborigines, under the guise of assimilation and protection policies, was only abandoned in.the lg7Os. It is therefore important to understand the implications of these policies for Aborigines and Australian society in general. I investigate the affect of institutionalisation on Aborigines, questioning the assumption tl.at they were passive victims forced onto missions and government stations and kept there as virtual prisoners. Based on evidence from three Aboriginal communities in South Australia I postulate that while Aborigines did not establish missions and government stations, many made the decision to associate themselves with an institution either peûnanently, temporarily, or spasmodically as a means of maintaining or establishing community cohesion and continuity. The unplanned effect of policies that resulted in institutionalisation was to create strong, sedentaqr Aboriginal communities ïvith closeknit but extended kinship networks. The three case studies were chosen to represent the diversity of mission experience. Poonindier t. was a nineteenth¡l century mission influenced by humanitarian and assimilationist principles. The Aborigines, who went there voluntarily, sacrifïced all previous associations and identity to be remoulded as Christian farm workers. Although tl.e mission survived into the era of protection and many Aborigines became institutionalised and dependent on the institution that punished initiative and independence, they established and maintained a strong community identity and kinship network associated with the mission. Koonibba was established at the time Poonindie was disbanded at the turn of the century, on the remote west coast. The Aborigines on the west coast and in the interior had survived the incursions of pastoralism, but Koonibba offered a refuge when agriculture was introduced into the region. The mission attracted the local population and other Aborigines from the Gawler Ranges and V Ooldea. A maJor incentive to join the institution was to protect children of mixed descent from being taken to institutions in Adelaide under the government policies of the early twentieth century, which removed them from Aboriginal environments to be trained in European institutions. By the l94Os.many people were leaving Koonibba temporarily or permanently to move into the general community, but they, nevertheless, retained strong links with the mission. The Adnyamathanha of the north Flinders Ranges offer a contrast to the two previous examples of institutions. They survived contact with Europeans for eighty years without the protection of institutions, but were savecl from starvation in the Depression by the United Aborigines Mission, who established a permanent settlement for them at Nepabunna. Unlike Poonindie and Koonibba it did not provide emplo5rment or attempt to establish a self-sufficient Christian village. In the late l960s the Adnyamathanha took the initiative in asking the government to takeover the communit5r from the UAM so tl.ey could once again control their own affairs. These three case studies epitomise the ex¡rerience of the maJority of Aboriginal families in South Australia, few of whom escaped the experience of institutionalisation, yet maintained strong communal identities which partly evolved from the institutional experience. vlr ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This thesis could not have been researched and written without the cooperation of many people. First I would like to thank the Aboriginal people and communities with whom I worked for their cooperation and interest in researching their history. In particular the Adnyamathanha living in the Flinders Ranges, who participated in numerous field trips and the Koonibba Community Council for their invitation to research their history. Also Doreen Kartinyeri, a descendant of Poonindie people who produced genealogies, which link present day Aboriginal people with the history of Poonindie. The Aborigines and non-Aborigines I interviewed in relation to this study are too numerous to mention, but I thank them all for their willingness to work with me and for the information they contributed. I would also like to acknowledge the support of the Aboriginal Heritage Bianch of the Department of Environment and Planning, for its support of my research and its foresight in recognising the importance of post-contact history to the heritage of Aborigines in South Australia. Vlad Potezny of the Aboriginal Iferitage Branch drafted many of the maps reproduced in this work and I thank him for his assistance. I would like to thank the staff of the Mortlock Library of South Australiana and the South Australian Public Record Office for their assistance over many years. Also the archivist of the Lutheran Archives for his cooperation in making Koonibl¡a records available and also for arranging for the transcription of records in the Old vltl German script into spoken German, making them accessible not only to myself, but other German scholars. I would also like to acknowledge C. V. trckermann's assistance in introducing me to the Lutheran Archives, correcting some of my German translation, and challenging my interpretation of Koonibba from his own deeply commited perspective. My supervisors Professor Fay Gale and Dr John Young have taken an interest in my research over many years, and Professor Norman Etherington has given invaluable critical comment on fìnal drafts. I thank them all for their assistance. t IX ABBREVIATIONS AL At;stralio',n Lutheran AMB Aboriginal Mission Board of tJle Evangelical Lutheran Church'of Australia GRG Government reàord group, Public Record Office of South Australia LKA Der Lutherische Kirchenbote Jür Australien PRG Private record group, Mortlock Library of South Australiana SAPP South Australian Parliamentarlr Papers SAPRO South Australian Public Record Offìce SRG Societies record group, Mortlock Library of South Australiana CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION it is very hard for us to think of our dear old homes and white people living there and we've got to pass by like strangers ...r ... We battle ourselfs we dont want to be chased about from place to place ... The minister dont want us on the Mission station & from there he hunt us away ... And when we are in Ceduna, they get the Policeman to hunt us away from here. We dont know where to go they chase us like wild dingoes...2 Could you please come up here and see how we are kicked around. I am likely to be kicked off the lCopley] Common at any time. I am not the only aborigine receiving this treatment.3 These are pleas for help and sympathy from Aborigines forced off missions in South Australia by economic and political circumstances. They have left the communal and institutional life with which they grew up, and have to struggle in a hostile world. This study will survey three South Australian Aboriginal communities which experienced the effects of institutional life. It maps their evolution in the post- contact era, and identifies strategies used by Aborigines to reinforce exästing community identities or form new ones centred on permanent, institutional settlement-s. It illustrates that these Aboriginal communal identities are not based purely on a distant, 'traditional' past, but are historical constructs, which change over time. The context oJ research This study is situated in the context of a consideral¡le body of I PRG 275 / r3O/2O7 . 2 cRG 52/r/L945/63. 3 GRG 52/r/1948/36. 2 previous research. Ttwo of the most influential schools of thought on Aboriginal history stand almost diametrically opposed to each other. One, which reflects nineteenth and early twentieth century attitudes, views white, colonial authority as all powerful, dominating technologically and culturally'primitive' Aborigines, who are unable to cope with the challenge of European 'settlement'.4 The other insists that Aboriginal people have made their own history, first by heroically resisting the white invaders and subsequently battling to 'survive in their own land'. The second, more recent school predominates today, but has not obliterated the legacy of the first.s One way in which the view of Aborigines as helpless