July 14:
“…the tribal people are frightened of troubled spirits…”
While making enquiries about government funding available for the rehabilitation of petrol sniffing addicts, I received a long distance phone call from a doctor in Melbourne. He told me he had once been based in this area – around the Aboriginal communities in the South Australia and Northern Territory border – and he told me he could remember an occasion when Gnanampa Health had been given a grant, a huge grant, to set up a rehabilitation programme for juvenile petrol sniffers. I should make my enquiries there, he suggested. When I did so, in both States, I was told they knew nothing about such a grant. One ex-nurse said, cynically: “If it did exist, it has probably been used on something else, or to feather someone’s nest. Nothing would surprise me any more.”
An elderly Aboriginal bloke said one time the old blokes rounded up all the sniffers, took them far out into the bush and made them live in a bush camp. If any ran away, or made any trouble, the old blokes belted them with sticks until they were unconscious; they were then driven into the nearest Nganampa Health clinic for treatment and, when recovered, transported back immediately to the Sniffer’s Camp. When one young sniffer died, the camp was abandoned.
“It didn’t do much good,” the old man said. “All them sniffers went back sniffing when we let ‘em go. They’re nearly all dead now …”
All over the so-called “homelands” various families or individuals have told the government they want to set up their own places – homes for family members, paddocks for livestock, etc. These pockets of farms are established at enormous cost, all factors considered, and, if someone dies, everyone abandons the farm en masse and returns, usually, to the main settlement. With death, the tribal people are frightened of troubled spirits haunting the premises. Thus, their immediate departure. When this happens, the part-Aboriginal residents (who are usually more mercenary and less superstitious than their full-blood friends) tend to plunder the properties: removing whole houses (or parts thereof), fittings, furniture, sheds, vehicles (trucks, cars and motorbikes), fencing, watertanks, diesel lighting plant, tractor, road grader, air conditioners, bulldozer, pumps, etc., and installing the stolen items on their own “homeland” acquisitions. I did an assessment of one part-Aboriginal’s homeland property and documented over two million dollars worth of stolen items. When I queried him and his wife about the origin of many items they became very agitated and nervous and couldn’t wait to see the last of me. At the next council meeting, the same fellow announced that he was moving away and was leaving his property and its possessions to a tribal relative. In other words, in case there was an official investigation, someone else would have to answer the questions while he vanished into the anonymity of Port Augusta or Alice Springs under a fictitious name.
It is ever surprising the number of part-Aboriginals who have come here from elsewhere to quietly attach themselves to the full-blooded Aborigines and start calling them uncle, auntie, etc., giving the impression they are directly connected. Having done this, they then insidiously take over everything – the best paid jobs, the town council, even (when it existed) the very lucrative ATSIC positions. No one seems to question the validity of their connections to the tribal Aborigines or their traditional lands. Some of them are damned parasites of the worst kind, and neither do they care a hoot for the true Aboriginal people; they blatantly use them for everything they can grab for themselves. If the Australian government suddenly withheld all funding to the Aboriginal area (and that means millions of dollars), the part-Aboriginals, I’m sure, would disappear overnight. The part-Aboriginals are the main source of all the trouble and problems around here. They are the major corrupting influence. The resident whites are not too far behind.
