WHY AUSTRALIA DAY HAS TO FINISH, NOT BE MOVED TO ANOTHER DAY OR MONTH OR RENAMED, BUT FINISHED.

In the 50 years from the mid 1850’s up to 1908 when Missionaries established Port Roper in the top end of the Northern Territory, the European settlers massacred Aboriginal language groups at their whim. The killings got that bad that by 1908 the church established the now Ngukurr, Port Roper settlement for one purpose, to try and save Aboriginal lives. Seven language groups left their homelands and came to Ngukurr for safety and protection as the Eastern and African Cattle Company had employed Aboriginal mounted Police from Queensland to help them track down large groups of Aboriginal people to point the white hunters in the right direction.

Today all the language groups still live on Ngukurr but the white man never broke Clan Family title to land and all of the old areas have stayed under family control. The harsh treatment and murder of Aboriginal people in this region is, compared to southern states, still fresh as it went on well into the mid 1900’s. As a young man I worked with an old Aboriginal Kitja man named Pluto who told me in 1930 he and his family were coming in to get water to drink when white stockman galloped up and shot all the men and women taking a few young boys, him included back to Moola Bulla Station to be trained as stockman. Old Dreamer another great old man I worked with had whip marks on his back that when he had a ‘bogi’ (wash) would stand out. These were received as punishment when he was a station worker as late as 1955. They still were painful marks to look at when I saw them in 1985. Little Billy, he had a sunken hole in the back of his right shoulder blade where he had been shot by a head stockman before WW2. I asked why and he said he had been ‘cheeky’ to the boss. This year in Roper, Australia Day, I asked two young girls at the shop what Australia day was, one said “ ….. it’s something to do with when the whitefellas chased our grandmothers around shooting them in the bush”……………..so you get to understand how ‘fresh’ this is as old people here are survivors of events not long ago stopped in the NT.

About a month ago I was taken by Arnhem Elders fishing on their country to a waterhole. While fishing I was asked did I want to see some “blackfella bones”. I got told the Clan people that camped here died long ago, about 100 of them, entire family clan, as a ‘snake spirit’ got angry and killed them all. What I was taken to see was heartbreaking, bones from babies to adults in a heap. When I asked can I take pictures I got told its alright as there are no ‘speakers’ left for this area as they all got killed at the same time. (Traditional Aboriginal people only claim and speak for their own clan country in their language group, nothing else).

Evidence of white man first showing up was painted on the wall as a horse. They would not have known that over time this horse brought in what was eventually going to kill them.

The large waterhole was a place the Europeans watered their cattle and horses. Over time the family group camped there were interfering with the cattle. When other Clan people found the dead in a heap, no survivors, they went back and a law man said the snake spirit did this. None of the skulls had bullet marks as poisoned food was most likely used. It had been used before, on Florida Station in Arnhem Land 1885 the White man had feed poisoned horse meat given to a family group that had killed a steer to eat. They were all wiped out.

Ten years before that in June 1875 a white telegraph worker was killed by Aboriginals on the Roper River. The Police Inspector in charge of the investigation based in Darwin at the time, Inspector Foelsche gave unlawful orders that “ I cannot give you orders to shoot all the natives you come across, but circumstances may occur for which I cannot provide definite instructions” In other words kill all Aboriginal people you come across. Foelsche was upset that because the police party was so big he could not attend as he didn’t want to be seen killing too many Aboriginal people by others, but sent his best man in his place and knew he wouldn’t be let down. As revenge for the death of this one white man, the Police/Civilian party killed every man, women and child they came across along the length of the Roper River over a four week period. (Foelsche had a river named after him for his ‘good’ service).

The Station near where I was on this day was set up, now long ago abandoned, 200 meters from the Aboriginal camp. Today, no Clan people have claimed this section of country, no one tends to its burning or clearing water holes. To me on this day in 2014, I got to stand on what has to be one of Australia’s largest mass murder sites. Old Alawa people took me to a hole in the ground at Minyerri where their grandparents were shot and burnt, (three ran and survived to tell the story) but this site still has the bones of young and old, heaped up, as they were left…………..

It was this day that I fully accepted that Australia Day has to finish, not be moved to another day or month or renamed, but finished.