`I Reckon They Should Keep That Hut': Reflections on Aboriginal Tracking in the Kimberley
1999; Aboriginal Studies Press; Volume: 1; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês
ISSN
0729-4352
Autores Tópico(s)Geographies of human-animal interactions
ResumoIntroduction In this article we discuss responses to the threatened destruction of an Aboriginal police trackers hut in Halls Creek in the East Kimberley, Western Australia (Figure 1). These responses were recorded by us in late 1996 when we were commissioned by architects working for the Western Australian Building Management Authority to assess the social and historical significance of the hut to Aboriginal people, especially members of local language groups such as Jaru, Kija and Gooniyandi. The Halls Creek Shire Council asked the authority to commission the assessment as plans for a new police station indicated that the hut would be demolished and some councillors believed that it might be culturally significant because of its association with Aboriginal trackers. [Figure 1 ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] The hut is significant because purpose-built accommodation for police trackers is rare in Australia. It is a physical symbol of the early relations between police and Aboriginal people. However, our investigations revealed divergent views both within and between Indigenous and non-Indigenous groups of people about the importance of the place. Here we firstly provide some historical background to Aboriginal tracking in Western Australia and a physical description of the hut before turning to varied responses to news of its possible destruction. Aboriginal trackers in Western Australia In Western Australia, Aboriginal men were appointed as `trackers' under the 1916 Regulations of the WA Aborigines Protection Act of 1905 (Haebich 1989, 204-05). Such men were regarded as `trusties' or `trustees' by the police, that is, as men who had committed a non-violent crime and were regarded to be `trust worthy'. Trackers, often recruited when prison inmates (Chief Secretary's Office 1921), were mostly engaged as `casual workers' who were attached to, and employed by, individual police constables rather than contracted to the Police Department (Bohemia and McGregor 1995, 57). Provided with food and clothing rations by the Department of Police, trackers were allowed certain liberties denied other Aboriginal people. Bohemia and McGregor (1995, 63) point out that being associated with the police gave trackers greater powers in relation to whites, including the freedom to travel over the countryside and to kill cattle as the need for food arose. Many trackers were privately employed; by 1953 some earned a wage of 1 [pounds sterling] a week. Despite this modest remuneration, there is little evidence to suggest that Aboriginal trackers were treated as equals by the police or the colonisers (see Haebich 1989, 204). The role of the trackers was formally replaced by `police aides' in 1975 (through the implementation of Act 18 of WA Statutes 1975). Aboriginal trackers in the Kimberley In the first 50 years (from about 1885 to 1935) of European colonisation of the Kimberley, Aboriginal trackers were crucial to the work and well-being of local police and settlers. Expected to undertake a variety of tasks (Bohemia and McGregor 1995, 58), trackers were required to navigate and lead patrols; follow the tracks of sought-after individuals (including alleged criminals, lost people, and locating Aboriginal victims of diseases such as leprosy); act as intermediaries; tend horses and mules; perform physical labour such as digging for graves and water; attend to the needs of prisoners; take command of the plant; and interpret in court. Aboriginal people who had worked as trackers at Halls Creek told us that they were also expected to carry out domestic duties at the police station, such as cooking for the police and inmates, tending police grounds (gardening, sweeping), and caring for livestock attached to the police station (goats and cows used for milking purposes). Primary police work took the form of patrols which, in the inland parts of the Kimberley, were to prevent Aboriginal attacks on the flocks, herds and teamsters of the colonists' properties, and to conduct surveillance on the Halls Creek Wyndham telegraph line (Gill 1977, 5). …
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