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'A very advanced
experiment'
From our South Australian Correspondent
JN a mallee clearing at
Yalata Mission a
week or so ago an Abor
iginal man of about 45
sat in the dust waiting
to die. He was in a good
deal of pain which was
relieved from time to
time by injections given
by the mission sister.
One hundred yards away his
fellow Pitjatjantjara people
were celebrating the opening of
the first Aboriginal "working
man's club" in Australia
licensed to sell beer.
His last wish, he told the
superintendent, was that he,
too, could have a can of cold
beer, and the South Australian
Minister of Aboriginal Affairs,
Mr Millhouse, took him one
and talked to him for a few
minutes before returning to
serve others clamouring at the
club's new bar.
The situation was heavily
symbolic, but it had hardly
been arranged. The Aborigine
was dying of cirrhosis brought
about by acute alcoholism
brought about by drinking
bouts which had increased in
number and duration since full
drinking rights were gfanted to
South Australian Aborigines in
April, 1965.
It was his privilege as well
as his own personal tragedy
that he should find himself in
such a position. After all,
plenty of white alcoholics die
of cirrhosis. It is in the statute
books. We are all citizens, all
with the same rights and
privileges.
To the Aborigines of South
Australia's Far West this
meant the privilege of leaving
Yalata, 130 miles west of
Ceduna and Koonibba, 100
niilcs further east, to travel by
mail bus, truck, taxi or on foot
to hotels in towns like Penong
and Ceduna, there to spend
their wages and pensions on
their favourite fruit, port wine.
In the Far West they ca®it
"carby", "gin's juice", "Nul
larbor champagne", and they
buy it in flagons and leave it
in the sun because it has more
kick that way, then they slosh
it down until they become
shambling, crying drunk.
]\OT that they all , do. Any
community has its hard
core of drinkers, but a great
number of these Aborigines
were spending every cent
earned on liquor, forgetting
about food, neglecting chil
dren, becoming less and less
interested in work as the desire
for quick' bouts of oblivion
increased.
The Aboriginal people were
as aware of the growth of the
tragedy as the mission superin
tendents. "I'm going ratty, I
reckon", one of them told me
once. He had been given two
months in the Port Lincoln
Mr MILLHOUSE Help
Mr MILLHOUSE
"cooler" for being drunk and
objectionable in Ceduna and
was genuinely grateful for the
chancc to dry out.
At Yalata they formed their
own Aborigines' council -
"longa same whiteman coun
cil", they told me - to try to
police their degradation. With
the sympathy and help of the
Lutheran Board of Aboriginal
Missions, which administers
Yalata, they have built this
new club which was described
by the Judge of the SA Licens
ing Court, when submission
was made for a licence to sell
beer, as "what is a very ad
vanced social experiment".
There are about 300
Aborigines, most of them Pit
jatjantjaras, at Yalata, and they
are not short of money. Many
of them work on Colona
Station, run in conjunction
with the mission, which carries
20,000 sheep and provides
them with award-rate wages as
stockmen and shearers. Those
too old or too ill to work get
the same pensions as everyone
else in the community, and
large families mean healthy
child endowment payments.
Unemployment benefits are
paid to a large number of
them.
Under the guidance of their
own Aboriginal council they
raised $3,000 toward the pro
vision of a "wet canteen". This,
they said, would make it easier
to keep people on the reserve.
If beer were available there
South Australian Aborigines like these often travelled more than 100 miles to hotels in Penong and Ceduna before the State Govern ment granted a licence to the club at Yalata Mission. Help
South Australian Aborigines like these often
travelled more than 100 miles to hotels in
Penong and Ceduna before the State Govern
ment granted a licence to the club at Yalata
Mission.
Mr WENTWORTH Help
Mr WENTWORTH
would be less desire and need
to go off to Ceduna and
Penong where brushes with the
law were becoming inevitable.
The Lutheran Board paid
another $32,000 to build the
club, which will double as a
movie theatre, community
centre, meeting place and now
the Commonwealth Office for
Aboriginal Affairs has
approved a loan of $27,000
which the Aborigines will
repay over the next 15 years.
They will take over owner
ship as soon as the loan is
made, which is expected to be
soon, and the licence will be
transferred from the Lutheran
Board to a management com
mittee of two Aborigines and
two Europeans.
fT'HIS has been a giant first
step by the people of
Yalata who are already plan
ning an even more adventur
ous project. With the help of
Ampol Petroleum and the
Lutheran Board they want to
establish a $30,000 motel
roadhouse on the Eyre High
way when the eventual route
of the new roadway is
decided.
When he visited Yalata just
before completion of the new
community centre the Federal
Minister in charge of Abori
ginal Affairs, Mr Wentworth,
said Commonwealth money
might be available for such a
worthwhile project.
His department, he said, was
vitally interested in supporting
projects which the Aboriginal
people themselves could run,
and which would bring them
worthwhile income. Behind the
interest was the feeling that
these people must be instilled
with the desire to help them
selves, and, to learn to work :
hard and consistently, even
tually to bridge the present gap
between black and white com
munities.
During his tour of outback
South Australia, Mr Went
worth visited Ernabella Abori
ginal Mission,* which nestles
spectacularly, in the Musgrave
Ranges just a few miles south
of the South Australia -
Northern Territory border.
There the Aborigines want a
silk-screen printing plant which
would help raise their output
of hand-painted wall drapes,
already finding a ready market
all over the country.
There, too, they hand-spin
wool from their own flocks
and loom magnificent wool
rugs, the production of which
could also be increased with
more modern equipment.
AT Amata settlement, in the
north-western corner of the
State, Mr Wentworth talked to
Pitjatjantjaras who want equip
ment to help them develop a
chrysoprase mine so that they
can exploit more fully the
market for the semi-precious,
jade-like stone the South Aus
tralian Government has already
found for them in the eastern
States.
Koonibba is only a few
miles from the spectacular
beaches of the Great Austra
lian Bight, and there Mr
Wentworth heard plans for a
fishing fleet and processing
plant which would give em
ployment and income to a
large number of Aborigines.
Time and time again during
his trip he would say to groups
of ciders: "Well, you tell me.
You tell me what you -want to
do and how you want to do it
and 1 will try to make the
money available". The theme,
has become one of self-help,
of self-realisation, and not
necessarily one of integration
into white communities as
such.
One thing will lead to an
other. The Pitjatjantjara at
Amata cannot learn the white
man's ways overnight. Nor,
probably, does he want to. But
like it or not he is part of an
Australian community, and
"self-help" and self-reliance
and a knowledge that he is
able to succeed in something
which he himself has instigated
will give both sides the confi
dence to keep trying.
If it works, the wet canteea
at Yalata could be an impor
tant beginning, one which the
whole of Australia will be
watching.
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