Regions: Kalkaringi and Dagaragu
Community Shop at Kalkaringi
excerpt from McConvell, P. (to appear). Gurindji. The handbook of Australian languages. R. M. W. Dixon and B. J. Blake. Oxford, Oxford University Press.
"The Gurindji people are famous in Australia because they went on strike from Wave Hill Cattle Station in 1966, challenging the regime of dire poverty and exploitation which then existed on northern cattle stations where they worked as stockman, station hands and domestics. In the end, the strike turned out to be not just about wages and conditions but about land rights. After a change of government, the strike led to the return of some of the Gurindji traditional lands in 1975. This was a major factor which led to the enactment of Land Rights legislation for the Northern Territory in 1974 and 1976."
Wattie Creek or Dagaragu was chosen as the destination of the walk-off. Later, Kalkaringi was set up about 8 kms away on the Victoria River as a town to service the nearby stations. Many Gurindji moved to Kalkaringi and now both Kalkaringi and Dagaragu are home to the Gurindji. Kalkaringi contains most of the facilities such as the Community Office, school, abattoir, garage and shop. The CDEP office, a bakery and Batchelor Institute facilities can be found at Dagaragu. The walk-off is celebrated every year on 22 August as Freedom Day. The walk-off and subsequent return of traditional lands has been immortalised in music by the local band The Lazy Late Boys and by Paul Kelly's 'From Big Things, Little Things Grow' .
Although the older people speak Gurindji, the main language spoken in these communities is Gurindji Kriol, which is being transmitted to the younger generations. Gurindji Kriol is used in a majority of contexts including family settings, the office and shop. Children are schooled at Kalkaringi in English. The school used to run a Gurindji language program (with the Gurindji speakers and a linguist from the Katherine Language Centre), however this has been discontinued.
This part of the ACLA project is being run at Dagaragu with eight families, who have been very generous with their time and patience. Felicity Meakins visits the community every six months, and, together with Samantha Smiler Nangala, they record these families talking to their children. Felicity also has been interviewing people from different generations about their attitudes to Gurindji Kriol, and collects language texts to document Gurindji Kriol. The video and audio are transcribed and checked with Samantha Smiler on these field trips. The Dagaragu part of the project has been supported by Diwurruwurru-jaru Aboriginal Corporation (Katherine Regional Aboriginal Language Centre) by the use of their vehicles, production facilities and office space. Dagaragu Council and Batchelor Institute have allowed Felicity and Samantha to use the Batchelor caravan at Dagaragu. This project could not be conducted without the support of these organisations.
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Hardy, Frank. (1968). The unlucky Australians. Melbourne: Nelson.
Hokari, Minoru. (2000). From Wattie Creek to Wattie Creek: an oral historical approach to the Gurindji walk-off. Aboriginal History 24: 98-116.
Long, Jeremy. (1996) Frank Hardy and the 1966 Wave Hill walk-off. Northern Perspective 19.2: 1-9.
McConvell, P. (2002). Changing places: European and Aboriginal styles. The land is a map: Placenames of indigenous origin in Australia. L. Hercus, F. Hodges and J. Simpson. Canberra, Pacific Linguistics and Pandanus Press: 50-61.
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Rose, Deborah Bird. (1991). Hidden histories: black stories from Victoria River Downs, Humbert River and Wave Hill stations. Canberra: AIATSIS Press.
Wavehill, Ronnie (Jangala) and Erika Charola (trans.) 2002. Nyamuyinangkulu larrpa kujilirli yuwanani ngumpit-ma kartiya-rlu. Katherine: Diwurruwurru-jaru Aboriginal Corporation.