The Pervasive Line - The Endeavour of the Canning Stock Route

Histories & Theories

Form Follows Malfunction

The Pervasive Line

The Endeavour of the Canning Stock Route Form Follows Malfunction

Histories & Theories: Term I

Tutor: Edward Bottoms

Erik Hoffmann

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2018

Histories & Theories

2018

Form Follows Malfunction

Table of Figures Figure 1 Canning Stock Route, Satellite imagery, Erik Hoffmann, 2018 Figure 2 Photograph of Kimberley CSR. Margerie Abbot, 2013 Figure 3 My Country, Majara Miluwana, 1982 Figure 4 1893, Goldfields ‘goldrush’. Kalgoorlie, ABC, 2018 Figure 5 Kimberley Pastoral fields, Putuparri And The Rainmakers, 1904 Figure 6 Lake Gregory, Alfred Canning, 1910 Figure 7 Canning Stock Route, unknown, unknown Figure 8 Canning’s party of eight, State Library of Western Australia, Battye Library, 1906 Figure 9 Chained Martu men, State Library of Western Australia, Battye Library, 1906

Figure 10 Canning Stock Route Survey, Alfred Canning, 1910 Figure 11 Departure from Wiluna, State Library of Western Australia, 1908 Figure 12 Construction of well 26, State Library of Western Australia, 1908 Figure 13 Waterhole, National Museum of Australia, 2007 Figure 14 Well 17, National Museum of Australia, 2007 Figure 15 Illustration by Canning’s Expedition, unknown, 1906-1910 Figure 16 Illustration by Canning’s Expedition, unknown, 1906-1910 Figure 17 Camels carrying timber for the reconditioning, State Library of Western Australia, 1929 Figure 18 Members of Snell’s team inspect the damage at Well 30, State Library of Western Australia, 1929 Figure 19 Aboriginal man uses a ladder, State Library of Western Australia, 1929 Figure 20 Camel Imprints, Yiwarra Kuju, 1935 Figure 21 Issue on the 1967 Referendum, Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Straits Islanders Studies, 1967 Figure 22 Cartography of Ngurrara Native Title Tribunal, Putuparri and the Rainmakers, 2015 Figure 23 Aboriginal sand carving of Dreamtime story, unknown, unknown Figure 24 cartographic representation of the CSR, Department of Tourism, 2006 Figure 25 My Country and the Canning Stock Route, Yiwarra Kuju, 2007 Figure 26 CSR contemporary warning panel, unknown, unknown Figure 27 Pins locating all wells and stack along the canning stock route on a planetary scale by GPS location - Erik Hoffmann Figure 28 Stiched satellite imagery of the canning stock route, 2018, Erik Hoffmann Figure 29- 36 Aboriginal paintings associated with the Canning Stock Route, compilation, 2011, Yiwarra Kuju Exhibition

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Histories & Theories

Form Follows Malfunction

2018

Abstract

The essay will explore the socio-political and economical implications during and after the creation of the most desolate route in the world: The Canning Stock Route. It will examine how it not only attempted to augment the booming western Australian mining and pastoral industries, but most importantly how it changed the livelihoods of various aboriginal groups living in the deserts from the onset of the 20th century until today.

To what extend can the introduction of—or more importantly the process of—premising a secular entity, such as a stock route unveil deep historical and cultural ruptures pertaining to one of the harshest terrains known to man: the arid deserts of western Australia. This seemingly vast lacuna of space presenting itself as Terra Nullius, or in other words: no man’s lands—a common expression in the colonised world to seize expanses of land that otherwise seemed no one’s due to the apparent lack of inhabitation or use of land under western pretexts—was one of the various justifications European descendants used to claim their tenure of the terra firma. Nevertheless, these culturally vibrant desert lands—perhaps blinded by the notion of desolation of the climate—have always been inhabited by one of the most enduring civilisations of today.

By analysing the onset of the first surveys and attempts for the stock route, to the actual creation of the journey itself to its consequential struggles to maintain it operable through years of contentions with the local aboriginal population, the history of the Canning Stock Route is not one of accomplishment nor defeat, but rather one of perseverance and forking paths.

Figure 1: Satellite view ‘somewhere along the Canning Stock Route”

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Histories & Theories

Form Follows Malfunction

2018

With over two decades since the arrival of James Cook in Australia and the Oceanic islands; remnants of cultural collisions still permeate the everyday. By specifically focusing in Western Australia, at the very beginning of the 20th century, the essay will focalise on the extend to which a secular object—in this case, a stock route—has had profound cultural implications from the commencement of the project in 1906, till its effectuated days in the 1910s and finally to the dignified symbol it still inseminates in the two disparate cultures inhabiting Australia today.

As many other colonies in the global south, Australia too was subjugated under the dominion of its Western European settlers starting at the end of the 1780s1 , in this case, under the vast control of the British Empire enforcing Common Law2 . Upon the arrival to a seemingly harsh end empty environment, with no apparent permanent forms of architecture on the island (mostly due to of the fact that predating Aboriginal natives lived nomadic lifestyles), the new-found land was declared as Terra Nullius3 , no man’s lands—a common expression in the colonised world to seize expanses of land that otherwise seemed no one’s due to the apparent lack of inhabitation or use of the land under western pretexts. This ignored over forty-thousand years of knowledge and a system of law generationally practiced by the natives, known as Aboriginal Customary Law4 .

It is important at this point before continuing the text to understand the underlying differences between these two differing ways of apprehending and experiencing the land:

For the European newcomers, land was alienable, measurable and quantifiable. It could be bought, sold, leased, divided, subdivided, re-merged and bought back. A process of defining land property with fact of possession. It can practically be defined as the social relationship between people and its respective objects. It is composed of formal, legal codes notional to the institutional, jural and cultural contexts formulating them.

For the Aborigines, their conception of land is unalienable, in other words: no place is like any other. Land is non-quantifiable, non-replaceable. There is a mythical context of continuity. Past is unmistakably embedded in the land as an unbreakable substance. It is a complex embodiment of ancestral knowhow deeply imbedded in the land.

The land, the body and the law are not juxtaposed but the same5 , Jukurrpa6 it is lore7, the integral societal aspect of western desert life ties with the Dreaming8 and the Songlines9 embodying it.

The essay will therefore commence by explaining the practical intentions behind the implementation of the stock route in the depths of the desert, both economically and politically. It will then illustrate the social turmoil generated by the route and the tensions created between the aboriginal and white inhabitants of the deserts. Finally, and most importantly, we will look at The Canning Stock Route as a long scar across the country and the multiple aboriginal cultures of the Western Desert, whom has over time deeply etched itself into Australian history. A scar not only of rupture, but more importantly of cultural dissemination and conversation that can be communicated with art and storytelling.

Latin expression meaning "nobody's land” / empty land, and is a principle sometimes used in international law to describe territory that may be acquired by a state's occupation of it.

1

Abramson, A. “Mythical Land, Legal Boundaries: Wondering About Landscape and Other Tracts.” Land, Law & Environment, edited by D Theodossopoulos, Pluto Press, 2000, pp. 4–34.

2

3

Linklater, Andro. Owning the Earth: the Transforming History of Land Ownership. Bloomsbury, 2015.

Strang, V, “Mythical Land, Legal Boundaries: Not so Black and White: The Effects of Aboriginal Law on Australian Legislation.” Land, Law & Environment, edited by D Theodossopoulos, Pluto Press, 2000, pp. 4–34.

4

5

Manning, Erin. Relationscapes: How Contemporary Aboriginal Art Moves Beyond The Map. 2007, Accessed 23 Sept 2018.

6

Common aboriginal word for what is now translated in English as the Dreamtime or Dreaming

7

body of traditions and knowledge on a subject or held by a particular group, typically passed from person to person by word of mouth.

Dreaming = Jukurrpa = integral aspect of Central Desert. They are stories told for more than 40’000 years, not only speak of landscapes and but of their space-time in which such landscapes a understand and lived.Reciprocal relationship to the land, an enactment of the Law, landscape as mythology, lived experiences.

8

The exchange of knowledge that links songs, ceremonies and mythologies of the dreamtime over vast tracks of country remaining in practice. When still in contemporary setting they meet to discuss about land rights and health, education, one of the first points of exchange is a discussion on their kinship and their connections.

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Histories & Theories

Form Follows Malfunction

Figure 2: Picturesque view of some of the terrain run by the Canning Stock Route. Some places are harsher than they might look.

Figure 3: Painting by Majara Miluwana of the Canning Stock Route ‘scarring’ through the salt plane of her ‘country’.

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2018

Histories & Theories

Form Follows Malfunction

2018

Conceiving a Line

The story of the Canning Stock Route commences due to economic and state-building ambitions of the Western state of Australia during the onset of the 20th century. The mining boom of the 1880s becomes a significant industry by the 1890s following discoveries of gold at Kalgoorlie and Coolgardie in the southern Goldfields region of the state10 [fig.07]. The demand of beef sky-rockets in need to accommodate the labour for the south.

With the Kimberley and Pilbara regions in the north of the state climatically well established for their pastoral enterprises, there was an endeavour to unite the two major arms of the Western Australian economy: the pastoral and mining industries by the increasing creation of stock routes to drive cattle across the vast country11 [fig.07].

West Kimberley reigned a monopoly on beef exports to the south fields. The issue with the east Kimberley beef industry was the quarantine of its stock due to an infestation of Boophilus ticks (a malaria-like parasitic disease called Babeosis affecting cattle) capable of causing what was known as a ‘red fever’.12 The stock from the east could not be transported by sea due to fears of propagation of the tick to other regions. Therefore, with a monopoly resulting in a ‘meat-ring’ effecting high meat prices in the lack of economic competition, the Western Australian government conducts a Royal Commission13 in 1904 to investigating the controlled meat price.

An independent member of the Pilbara region in 1905 proposed a preposterous solution: James Isdell argues a route running through three major deserts. Through the heart of Australia: The Great Sandy Desert, Little Sandy Desert and the Gibson desert. It was said the infectious tick would not survive the harsh, arid conditions14 of the traverse and the meat could be traded without barriers (the only barriers lying between them and the goldfields were nevertheless three boundlessly vast and arid bush lands, some which had barely been set foot by white men).

Stock routes are essentially defined routes through Crown Land were cattle can be walked/driven between pastoral properties and markets, about two to three kilometres wides to allow for free movement of cattle [fig.5&6]. Such routes needed to allow access to grassland and water to feed the travelling herds. Usually, stream corridors would be employed for these, embodying lakes, waterholes, ponds and rivers to relay the journey15 .

The scheme was endorsed by the government after seasoned bushmen endorsed the hypothesis of the climate being too arid for the ticks to survive past Lake Gregory [fig.06]. Thus, a major survey was organised to define a route through the country from Halls Creek down to Wiluna [fig.07]. The first two attempts at surveying the route were unsuccessful. The first in 1906, the Calvert Expedition led by Lawrence Wells perished of thirst, and in the same year the the Carnegie Expedition suffered substantial hardships with part of their camels dying from an ingested poisonous plant and a member of staff accidentally fatally shooting himself16 . The quest was called off as ‘too barren and of destitute vegetation’: thus impractical to carry out. Nonetheless, it was proven that the tick could not survive the journey.17

Strang, V, “Mythical Land, Legal Boundaries: Not so Black and White: The Effects of Aboriginal Law on Australian Legislation.” Land, Law & Environment, edited by D Theodossopoulos, Pluto Press, 2000, pp. 4–34.

10

11

Bianchi, Phil. "Work Completed, Canning." A comprehensive history of the Canning Stock Route. Perth, Hesperian Press, 2013.

Babeosis Tick Infestation. Nma.gov.au. (2018). Of mining and meat | National Museum of Australia. [online] Available at: http://www.nma.gov.au/exhibitions/ yiwarra_kuju/essays/of_mining_and_meat [Accessed 12 Nov. 2018].

12

13

A major ad-hoc commission of inquiry appointed by the Crown on the recommendation of the government.

14

Bianchi, Phil. "Work Completed, Canning." A comprehensive history of the Canning Stock Route. Perth, Hesperian Press, 2013.

15

"The Battle for Broken Cart". SOS-NEWS. 20 September 2006. Retrieved 31 July, 2009.

Babeosis Tick Infestation. Nma.gov.au. (2018). Of mining and meat | National Museum of Australia. [online] Available at: http://www.nma.gov.au/exhibitions/ yiwarra_kuju/essays/of_mining_and_meat [Accessed 12 Nov. 2018].

16

Babeosis Tick Infestation. Nma.gov.au. (2018). Of mining and meat | National Museum of Australia. [online] Available at: http://www.nma.gov.au/exhibitions/ yiwarra_kuju/essays/of_mining_and_meat [Accessed 12 Nov. 2018].

17

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‘The two major arms of the Western Australian economy: the mining and pastoral industries’

Figure 4: Gold mine during the Goldfields ‘goldrush’. Kalgoorlie, Western Australia, 1893

Figure 5: Pastorial field with roaming cattle in the Kimberley region, 1904

Figure 6: Lake Gregory as the expected distance needed for the Boophilus tick to die. Central dotted line is Canning Stock Route, and the offsets of 2-3 wide kilometres for cattle to roam freely. Section of Canning’s survey.

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Figure 7: Merging the two strong arms of the Australian economy. Bring cattle from Halls Creek down south to Wiluna for the mining economy

Histories & Theories

Form Follows Malfunction

2018

Water is the problem: is what Alfred Canning—surveyor with the Western Australian Department of Lands and Surveys—had read on both prior prior expeditions. Both cited extreme difficulties in finding hydration, that the use of natives was imperial for survival, since they had the knowledge on how to source it across the desert.

Renowned for his previous accomplishments finishing the Rabbit-Fence Line18 , the longest unbroken fence across Western Australia measuring a whopping 1’833km long, coast to coast (1901-1907). Canning took forward the commission for the stock route from Strut Creek to Wiluna. Canning had to find a route that would near 1’8500km of desert. The criteria for the route to be of economic value was for the possibility to drive 800 heads of cattle per journey. This criteria had to take into account significant grazing areas to feed the herds, and most importantly, enough water sources to hydrate them along the way. The route would have to be designed by setting trustworthy grazing and watering locations no more than a days walk between each station with operable wells.19

Compromising a team of eight men [fig.08], two horses, and 23 camels [fig.11], they achieved the arduous route to Halls Creek under 6 months. Once completing the route, Canning declared by telegram to Perth about “the best watered stock route in the Colony!”20 Little did anyone knew the measures taken to make the route ‘watered’.

For the trek, he partied Martu Men21, a confederation of Indigenous Aboriginal Australians part of the Western Desert bloc. The 4’000km total trek reeled on aboriginal guides to help find water. Planning to use natives as guides for water since the onset, Canning had packed cuffs and neck chains to ensure the guides could not abandon them, since without their knowledge of the land and its precious waters, the expedition would have the same fate as the previous ones [fig.09]. It is reported upon the return of the expedition that the cook had accused Canning’s solutions as demonic: accusation of force-feeding salt22 and hence de-hydrating them. Pressuring the Martu people to lead them to their soaks is what allowed the expedition to succeed (more on the subject upcoming).

The stock route itself is a relay of consecutive water sources through the 1’850km of deserts. It is important to note that the somewhat lengthy shape of the overall route might be due to some of the Martu men conceivably attempting to avoid certain sacred waterholes. Jila,23 as commonly referred in the desert dialects refers to ‘living water’: encapsulating powerful ancestral entities, places of gathering sacred to the natives. Rendering these would be harmful to their ‘cultural hotspots’.

Figure 8: Alfred Canning’s team of 8 men ready for their journey to survey the land across three major deserts of Western Australia.

Figure 9: The Martu men: Indigenous aborigines forcibly employed to find water relays for the survey of the stock route. Neck and arm chains to one another ensured the Canning party of their full participation during the journey.

Rabbit Proof Fence: formerly known as The State Barrier Fence of Western Australia or the State Vermin Fence, and Emu Fence, is still existing today. It is a pest exclusion fence constructed between 1901 and 1907 to keep rabbits and other agricultural pests introduced in australia from the east to the west, out of Western Australia pastoral areas. Three fences were created in total. No. 1 Fence crosses the state from north to south, No. 2 smaller runs further west and No. 3 even small runs east-west. They took all 6 years to be built. Stretching a total of 3,256miles. The cost to build fences at the time=£160/m ($250/m. When completed fence 1, is was 1,833km.

18

19 19

Bianchi, Phil. "Work Completed, Canning." A comprehensive history of the Canning Stock Route. Perth, Hesperian Press, 2013.

Of Mining And Meat | National Museum Of Australia". Nma.Gov.Au, 2018, http://www.nma.gov.au/exhibitions/yiwarra_kuju/essays/of_mining_and_meat. Accessed 12 Nov 2018.

20

21

The Martu are a confederation of Indigenous Aboriginal Australians part of the Western Desert bloc

Of Mining And Meat | National Museum Of Australia". Nma.Gov.Au, 2018, http://www.nma.gov.au/exhibitions/yiwarra_kuju/essays/of_mining_and_meat. Accessed 12 Nov 2018.

22

23

Muecke, Stephen, and Adam Shoemaker. Aboriginal Australians: First Nations of an Ancient Continent. Thames & Hudson, 2009. !8

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Form Follows Malfunction

Drawing the Line

Finally, Canning submitted a detailed handwritten and drawn survey [fig.10] of the entirety of the route’s observations to sustain stock along narrow desert corridors. He precisely indicates locations for a potential of 54 wells and extra soaks. His work still today is widely proclaimed as a symbol of Australia’s pioneering history.24 What is nonetheless not shown in the survey are the various aboriginal ‘countries’ located through the road. It is important to note the coinage of the word ‘country’ here, as for this term is also used by aboriginals to describe their land, nature, culture and people all linked as one. Aboriginal communities have complex relationships with their land which sometimes is based on each groups’ distinct culture, laws and traditions.25 The act of mapping here as a tool can be argued as a ‘tool of the powerful’: to assert control on spaces without illustrating the existence of various native groups may create social unrest on valuable resources.26

Some of the Martu guides joining the expedition willingly and others on horsebacks and forced to remain with survey team were made to wear neck chains [fig.09]. They would have to lead the expedition party to certain waters, and elude them away from some scared ones when possible: Alfred Canning, grab Martu, hold him days, let him go and follow him up, and dug the well all the way long. [They call Canning] a hero. He was cunning ... tricking [the] Martu.27 Jeffrey James, Pangkapini, 2007

Upon completion of the survey and return to Perth, Alfred Canning’s use of Aboriginal guides came under 28 scrutiny . As mentioned before, the expedition’s cook, Edward Blake, objected to the mistreatment and use of the guides and denounced Canning claiming they were cruelly treated. Further mistreatment of Aboriginal women, unfair trade of property and theft, not to mention the destruction of aboriginal waters considerered sacred to the natives.

The complaints were submitted to a Royal Commission in the ‘Treatment of Natives by the Canning Exploration Party’, 1908.29 The hearing did far from criminalising their immoral pursuits and Blake’s words were without evidence against the rest of the expedition. The Commission cleared Canning and his men and dropped all charges and immediately approved the start of of the stock route’s construction based on the survey30.

Between 1908-1910, two parties led by Canning left Perth with 30 men, 70 camels, 4 wagons, 267 goats for food and milk and 100 tonnes of equipment and food to construct 54 stock wells along the route. Out of 54, 48 were build on existing waters, and 37 on Aboriginal waters. Upon arrival in 1910, all the wells had been successfully built at a price totalling £22,000 pounds (A$2.54M today).31

William Blake, taking part in the journey once again compelled that the wells would be difficult for the Aboriginals to use. Indeed, he was right. 32 The largest confrontation in the making of the route was yet to come.

The route was a white mans’ device through the desert made with white man’s apparatus [fig.12&14].

The next section discusses the rupture induced through the imposition of the well technology as it underwent decades of debilitation and rehabilitation. A conflict not only for the pastoralists in need to use it, but mostly for the aborigines trying to use the waters and having a line [route] scarring through the centre of their traditional lands [fig.10&16].

Of Mining And Meat | National Museum Of Australia". Nma.Gov.Au, 2018, http://www.nma.gov.au/exhibitions/yiwarra_kuju/essays/of_mining_and_meat.

Accessed 12 Nov 2018.

24

25

Aboriginal country, more on Mungo: http://www.visitmungo.com.au/aboriginal-country. Accessed 12 Nov 2018.

26

Manning, Erin. Relationscapes: How Contemporary Aboriginal Art Moves Beyond The Map. 2007, Accessed 23 Sept 2018.

27

Yiwarra Kuju: the Canning Stock Route. Read How You Want, 2013.

28

Sculthorpe, Gaye, et al. Indigenous Australia: Enduring Civilisation 23 April - 2 August 2015. The British Museum, 2015.

29

Bianchi, Phil. "Work Completed, Canning." A comprehensive history of the Canning Stock Route. Perth, Hesperian Press, 2013.

30

Sculthorpe, Gaye, et al. Indigenous Australia: Enduring Civilisation 23 April - 2 August 2015. The British Museum, 2015.

31

Yiwarra Kuju: the Canning Stock Route. Read How You Want, 2013.

32

Yiwarra Kuju: the Canning Stock Route. Read How You Want, 2013. !9

The Canning Stock Route and its ‘Endeavours’ Histories & Theories

Form Follows Malfunction

2018

Figure 11: Alfred Canning’s party leaving for the construction of the wells from Wiluna towards Halls Creek

Figure 12: Construction and operation at well 26 of the CSR

Figure 13: Waterhole: as a minimal soak, these can actually turn out to be places of great sacred importance to the Aboriginals. It just needs some digging and the water will flow out.

Figure 15: Reports of ‘hostilities’ during the endeavour

Figure 14: Well 17, these types of wells were so deep that access to the water was complicated and needed heavy lifting operations.

Figure 16: Expansive, desolate landscapes were to be covered !10 Figure 10: Alfred Canning’s survey of the entire Canning Stock Route. It encompasses every well, observation, potential soak, land for grazing. All at a days walk of distance. It remains today a symbol of Australia’s pioneering history. Approx. 1’850km

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Maintaining the Line

The wells were mostly built on European traditions, many on sacred water points which rendered some sources undrinkable due to their structures and the cattle’s usage33. The wells were strenuous to operate for the natives due to their depths and nature [fig. 14]. Many required great strength to lift the deep steel water buckets from the excavated ground, which could take at least three men or to the least a camel. It is reported that a few aboriginals periled in their attempt to use the wells by either attempting to reach the water at the bottom or getting injuries such as broken bones whilst operating the windlasses.

“Natives cannot draw water it takes three strong white men to land a bucket of water with the equipment thereon it is beyond the natives power to land a bucket. They let go the handle some times escape with their life but get an arm and head broken in the attempt to get away. They then burn them down.”

William Snell’s Canning Stock Route diary, 1929

By 1917, a reported half of the wells had been vandalised, sabotaged or dismantled by the natives. These are thought to be in protests due to the fact they were inaccessible to them.34

After the completion of the stock route, the first drovers down the road were fatally speared to death at well 37. The following eight years saw only eight parties trekking the full lengths35, probably testing their risks for profits by using the route. At all lengths, West Kimberley still held the monopoly of the meat-ring. Thus, the famous Canning Stock Route became unsuccessful and infamous despite the large strides taken for its completion. Collisions with the locals rendered it a dangerous, desolate place. To restore certainty, Sargent RH Pilmer was asked by the Eastern Australian government for a ‘punitive expedition’ to bring the killers to justice, to keep the stock route open after the investment brought in for its making. They recorded the killing of 10 aborigines:36 “I can assure you that it is the intention of the authorities that Canning’s track shall be a main highway to the Nor-’West and that that route shall be entirely cleared of all obstacles likely to be a menace to those using that route.”

Sergeant RH Pilmer, East Murchison News, 22 September 1911

A few more droves of small groups of 42 horses followed, 9 came back. Thus, despite all the assurances and damages already made, the Canning Stock Route remained barely used for the next 20 years. It remained—as it always were—a specially bleak option, a place still today known as the most ‘lonely’ track in the world.

“It would appear that the natives disliked the whites for some reason. The cast iron pulley wheels were broken up by the natives and iron shoot taken from the well, stood alongside a bloodwood, a life sized policeman drawn on it, and bullnosed spear driven through his heart. This is the centre of large tribes.

William Snell’s Canning Stock Route diary, 1929

It was identified by William Snell that the reason for the wells to be vandalised was a protest against negligence.

Protesting for the wells to be made everyone’s usage, not only for drovers but for natives (who’s waters were originally theirs). Snell was therefore commissioned to assess the wells37 . He began accommodating ladders in 1929 [figs.17-19]. As he ran out of materials and became sick, Alfred Canning (at the age of 69) was called back on scene to finish the job once more from 1930 to 1933. Henceforth, with the reconditioned wells, the period between 1933 and 1959, hundredths of cattle herds were driven across the dangerous terrain full of traditional cultural 33

Bianchi, Phil. "Work Completed, Canning." A comprehensive history of the Canning Stock Route. Perth, Hesperian Press, 2013.

34

Yiwarra Kuju: the Canning Stock Route. Read How You Want, 2013.

Of Mining And Meat | National Museum Of Australia". Nma.Gov.Au, 2018, http://www.nma.gov.au/exhibitions/yiwarra_kuju/essays/of_mining_and_meat. Accessed 12 Nov 2018.

35

36

Manning, Erin. Relationscapes: How Contemporary Aboriginal Art Moves Beyond The Map. 2007, Accessed 23 Sept 2018.

37

Sculthorpe, Gaye, et al. Indigenous Australia: Enduring Civilisation 23 April - 2 August 2015. The British Museum, 2015. !11

Histories & Theories

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landscapes. At the height of WWII, the stock route was increasingly used and maintained in case it could serve as a channel to bring artillery supplies to the north. Many smaller scale expeditions occurred since the 1950s onwards with modern vehicles (now more a road than a stock route). Hence, a pivotal instance starts to emerge in the cultural history of the western desert: sightings between Aboriginals and whites became more frequent as the route became increasingly employed and technologised.

The next and final part will discuss how the stock route ceased to be a mere alienator, but correspondent between the cultures, and even more so for the Aborigines as they started to employ the route themselves.

Figure 17: Camels carrying timber for the reconditioning of the stock route wells 1929

Figure 18: Members of Snell’s team inspect the damage at Well 30, where timber and well materials had been stripped by local Martu, 1929.

Figure 19: An Aboriginal man uses a ladder installed by William Snell 1929

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Living the Line

In the midst of what so far has been said: ‘the story of the white man and his endeavour to conquer the land and the hostile savages that inhabit it’, the story of the Aborigines along the Canning Stock Route has been mostly ignored. How can the stock route be treated as an object of scrutiny to describe narratives and unrecorded histories? One could argue today that the ‘old-fashioned’ route opens the true story through the eyes of the Aboriginal people: The differences of perception not only of land but of space and time of the whites and the Aborigines traditionally varied at large: just as the whites permanently recorded their linear history on paper and writing [fig. 22], Aboriginals also recorded their stories and knowledges, but temporally in sand and body paints.[fig. 23]38 An interesting example of these largely disparate ways of engaging with the real is told by Kurpaliny Bessie Doonday in Yiwarra Kuju from the 1930s, when a group of Martu men came across the tracks of camels—whom actually were an introduced species in Australia—of a cattle driving team. The Martu, though they were imprints of ‘littlefella bums’, whom were known to be little spirit-beings sitting way across the country.39 Such stories are important as the perspectives on the history of the Canning Stock Route for Aboriginal people unfolded much older stories. They perceived their changing world and made it into a world they knew of their own. In their story, the camel tracks are those of a certain spirt beings from across the desert, whilst a white mans shoe prints on the sand were tracks of spirit beings of the ghosts of aboriginal people. Therefore, their own parallel stories unfolded in a fashionably tangent reality with that of the actual.

“I thought them camels were bringing bad news. I didn’t know what they were”.

Nyangkarni Penny K-Lyons, Fitzroy Crossing, 2008

“People used to look at kartiya [white people], that skin—white—and say to themselves, ’Might be kukurr [devil]. Ghosts coming out of the grave!”

Kurpaliny Bessie Doonday, Halls Creek, 2009

Figure 20: Camel imprints

For some natives, the route divided their ‘country’ (again, in Aboriginal meaning: land, nature, culture and people all linked as one). The building of the stock route did impact the cultural livelihoods of more than 15 language groups40. The stock, the people, the work it brought inevitably altered traditional familial patterns of life, connections, movements within the land. Whilst still today many Aboriginals are determined to avoid contact with ‘people of the stock route’ and the changes they bring along—some leaving to new and more reliable sources of water and food away from the road—an increasing number of others (mainly the recent generation having grown up with the route already existing) acknowledge the route as a prominent feature in the land. It serves as an avenue between their communities41.

Since the 1960s, mostly due to the Australian Referendum of 196742 [fig. 21]. many left their countries to work in other pastoral regions as stockmen, or drawn to the changes taking place around the edges of the deserts, perhaps to join a family member already living elsewhere. The stock route as a road, the road as an artery: there is a It is a recent Art movement the one of Contemporary Aboriginal Art which emerged in the central desert when they were encouraged to engrave more permanently their stories on acrylic and canvases. (1960s). Before this, all sand and body paints were meant to fade away as they contained sensitive information only acquirable through certain stages of initiation.

38

39

Yiwarra Kuju: the Canning Stock Route. Read How You Want, 2013.

40

Sculthorpe, Gaye, et al. Indigenous Australia: Enduring Civilisation 23 April - 2 August 2015. The British Museum, 2015.

41

Ma, Nicole. Putuparri And The Rainmakers.,Documentary, Sensible Films, 2015.

The 1967 referendum. On 27 May 1967, Australians voted in favour of changes to the Australian Constitution to improve the services available to IndigenousAustralians. The changes focused on two sections of the Constitution, which discriminated against Aborigines. They were granted equal wages.

42

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somewhat compelling inter-mixing between their own diverging clans and language group occurring since decades from now due to these secular entities. The extremities of the route have soared in population as families split to find new endeavours. Therefore, the events of the development of the route unfolds a much greater meaning in the social history of Australia, deep social histories.

The Canning Stock Route as an entity, as an iconic object that communicates and encapsulates meaning, stories and narrative—just like any other biography, TV commentary or history book—informs us about ruptures and others in their perseverances for forking paths.

Figure 21: Issue on the 1967 Referendum.

Figure 22: Western/‘whiteman’s cartography. Writing on paper. Measuring and quantifying lands

Figure 23: Aboriginal sand carving of the ‘Dreamtime’, narrating a story about, and in the land

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They both represent the same ‘thing’, at different depths and scopes

Figure 24: Up to date cartographic representation of the CSR from Wiluna to Halls Creek, 2006

Figure 25: Up to date representation of the CSR drawn by a collective of locals from Fitzroy Crossing. The history of a stock route that blended with the culture of the local Aboriginal community, presented in 2007 National Gallery.

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Figure 26: Remaining as the most desolate ‘road’ in the world, the stock route is frequently visited by ‘petrolheads’ looking for the adventurous rush. Local aborigines have found it to be source of income from tourists crossing it.

Figure 27: Pins locating all wells and stack along the canning stock route on a planetary scale by GPS location - Erik Hoffmann

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Bibliography

- Abramson, A. “Mythical Land, Legal Boundaries: Wondering About Landscape and Other Tracts.” Land, Law & Environment, edited by D Theodossopoulos, Pluto Press, 2000, pp. 4–34.

- Beasley, Lyn, and Susannah Churchill. Yiwarra Kuju: the Canning Stock Route: Education Package. National Museum of Australia Press, 2010.

- Bianchi, Phil. "Work Completed, Canning." A comprehensive history of the Canning Stock Route. Perth, Hesperian Press, 2013.

- Dodge, Martin, et al. The Map Reader: Theories of Mapping Practice and Cartographic Representation. Wiley-Blackwell, 2011.

- Linklater, Andro. Owning the Earth: the Transforming History of Land Ownership. Bloomsbury, 2015.

- Ma, Nicole. Putuparri And The Rainmakers. Documentary, Sensible Films, 2015.

- Manning, Erin. Relationscapes: How Contemporary Aboriginal Art Moves Beyond The Map. 2007, Accessed 23 Sept 2018.

- Muecke, Stephen, and Adam Shoemaker. Aboriginal Australians: First Nations of an Ancient Continent. Thames & Hudson, 2009.

- Neale, Margaret, et al. The Oxford Companion to Aboriginal Art and Culture. Oxford University Press, 2000.

- Of Mining And Meat | National Museum Of Australia". Nma.Gov.Au, 2018, http://www.nma.gov.au/exhibitions/yiwarra_kuju/essays/ of_mining_and_meat. Accessed 12 Nov 2018.

- Yiwarra KujuNational Museum of Australia. [online] Available at: http://www.nma.gov.au/exhibitions/yiwarra_kuju/background/about [Accessed 6 Nov. 2018].

- Yiwarra Kuju: the Canning Stock Route. Read How You Want, 2013.

- Strang, V, “Mythical Land, Legal Boundaries: Not so Black and White: The Effects of Aboriginal Law on Australian Legislation.” Land, Law & Environment, edited by D Theodossopoulos, Pluto Press, 2000, pp. 4–34.

- Sculthorpe, Gaye, et al. Indigenous Australia: Enduring Civilisation 23 April - 2 August 2015. The British Museum, 2015.

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| Paintings Associated with the Canning Stock Route in the perspective of Aborigines

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11 Well(s)

Kunkun

Nora Nangapa Nora Wompi

The central water in this painting is Kunkun, an important women’s site belonging to Marlu Jukurrpa, or ‘kangaroo Dreaming’. This Jukurrpa is also significant within men’s law and contains elements restricted to initiated men and women.

Martumili Artists 124.5 x 294 cm Acrylic on canvas

Despite the title, there are 57 named sites in this painting, 11 of which are stock route wells. These are places where the artists lived, where family members were born and died, and where ancestral beings left their power.

Well 30

Juntujuntu: Minyipuru and Kurrkurr Nancy Chapman 2007 Martumili Artists 120 x 78 cm Acrylic on canvas

Juntujuntu

On their journey the Minyipuru stopped at Juntujuntu, a permanent spring near Well 30. Mujingarra is another permanent water located six metres below ground in a cave near Juntujuntu.

This large, clear pool is known as the kurru or eye of Kurrkurr the night owl. When Kurrkurr was speared, his eye was said to have popped out, landing in Mujingarra.

When Alfred Canning’s party arrived at Mujingarra in 1906, it did not receive a warm reception from the large group of Aboriginal people who were camped there. To ensure they would sleep safely, Canning’s men forced the entire group into the cave and sealed them in for the night.

Canning’s account is silent about how this was accomplished.

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Well 17

Puntawarri, Jilakurru and Kumpupirntily Dadda Samson and Judith Samson 2008 Martumili Artists 128 x 297 cm Acrylic on linen

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Jilakurru

Jilakurru (Well 17) and Puntawarri are sites in Dadda’s Country, which she has painted here with her granddaughter, Judith. While Puntawarri lies west of the Canning Stock Route, Jilakurru and Kumpupirntily fall within the stock route corridor. Jilakurru is a culturally significant site, host to a wealth of rock art and engravings, much of which is sacred to Martu people. The rich pastures of the adjacent gorge became a resting place for drovers and their herds. Dusty Stevens, Dadda’s elder brother, encountered the drovers there as a child: My country Jilakurru. We was kids walking around there. Bullock chase my Mummy. That bullock there nearly kill Mummy now, coming for her. Too big! [The bullocks from] Billiluna, all a big one.

Well 17

Puntawarri Pukarlyi Milly Kelly Martumili Artists 46.2 x 45 cm Oil on canvas

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Puntawarri

This painting depicts Puntawarri, west of Well 17 on the Canning Stock Route, which is Milly’s traditional Country or Ngurra. The yellow arc represents the traditional shelter, or mangkaja, which housed her family in the bush before they settled in Jigalong. This is Milly’s home.

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Well 18-21

Lake Disappointment Yanjimi Peter Rowlands 2008 Martumili Artists 75 x 36 cm Acrylic on canvas

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Jilakurru

From there Nganyangu lived and walked in with other Ngayurnangalku and he became a bodyguard for the good people from Ngayurnangalku ... with his two wife and his two sons ... They all the bodyguards, they all maparn people.

Wells 18-21

Kumpupirntily Jakayu Biljabu and Dadda Samson 2007 Martumili Artists 122 x 77 cm Acrylic on linen

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Kumpupirntily

The Ngayurnangalku started round Mundawindi side. They went on their knees and wailed and crawled all the way to Lake Disappointment. Ngayurnangalku travelled all the way to Savory Creek from east and west. They stopped at Jilakurru and near Puntawarri. They travelled from long way, and stopped at Kumpupirntily.

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(no) Wells

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INSIDE Lake Disappointment

Cannibal Story Billy Atkins 2003 Martumili Artists 60 x 121.1 cm Acrylic and pen on board

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Kumpupirntily

“My grandfather went to Lake Disappointment ... that [cannibal] woman grabbed his arm and put her very long sharp fingernail through his wrist and paralysed him. [She] took him to a group of other cannibals, ready to cook him up to eat. My grandfather is a strong maparn [magic man]. Lucky for him, he got out of there. They were trying to kill him and eat him.”

Well 22 | 23 | 24

Martilirri, Kalypa and Kartarru Ngamaru Bidu 2008 Martumili Artists 147.5 x 99.6 cm Acrylic on canvas

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Martilirri, Kalypa and Kartarru

This is a well called Martilirri [Well 22]. And around there is also Kalypa [Well 23] and Kartarru [Well 24], in the middle. And in summertime we could stop in those places because they have permanent water. After the rain we could move back to our homeland because the rock holes and soaks would all be filled again.

And the footprints are a Dreamtime story of a man looking for a water. Wanti [woman] and a man travelling together and flying. When they checked it, there was no water around that rock hole, and when there was no water they flew. They went forever.

That was in the Dreamtime when they were walking around.

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Sunday Well

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Kunawarritji

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Dadda Samson Mayapu Elsie Thomas Martumili Artists 120.5 x 76 cm Acrylic on canvas

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People used to stay here. When people see the whitefella they used to run away, up to the hills and rocks. They were afraid of the whitefellas. My mother and my brothers ran away, right up to Puntawarri because the whitefellas were shooting at the Martu people.

They were sneaking in and the gun went off, and they all ran and just kept running and running until they got to Puntawarri.

Wells 25 to 33

Nyilangkurr Donald Moko 2007 Yulparija Artists 118.5 x 106.5 cm Acrylic on canvas

The story of Nyilangkurr links the southern and northern areas of stock route Country.

In this painting, Kunawarritji (Well 33) (the red cross in the top right corner) lies at the northern end of a long chain of jila, and Nyilangkurr, an important men’s ceremonial site near Well 25, lies at the other. After conducting their ceremonies at Nyilangkurr, men would travel north to continue their ceremonies at the jila in Wangkajunga Country.

Yalta, the birthplace of Rover Thomas, lies in the sandhills (the red and blue stripes) near Kunawarritji.

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Well 33

Canning Stock Route and Surrounding Kunawarritji 2008 14 women Martumili Artists 292.3 x 129 cm Acrylic on canvas

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Kunawarritji

This painting, which was produced by 14 women artists at Kunawarritji (Well 33), represents a stretch of Country crossed by the Canning Stock Route. It depicts a number of the waterholes that were made into wells, but many other permanent and ephemeral water sources are also included. When the Canning Stock Route was in use as a droving highway, many of the artists relied on these other waters to ensure their safe passage through this contested land.

Well 32-33-34

Kunawarritji Nora Wompi Martumili Artists 149.5 x 94 cm Acrylic on canvas

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Nyarruri - Kunawarritji - Nyipil

This is a rock hole that was made in the Jukurrpa. These Kanaputa [ancestral beings] are the stars in the sky. The Seven Sisters are standing up as a group of trees between Nyipil [Well 34] and Kunawarritji [Well 33]. I was a little baby here at the rock holes of Kunawarritji and Nyarruri [Well 32]. I painted all the little hills around that area. In the Jukurrpa, they were all squeezed out of the soft earth. People made them.

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Wells 35 - 36

Minyipuru (Seven Sisters) Muni Rita Simpson 2008 Martumili Artists 300 x 125 cm Acrylic on linen

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Minyipuru (Seven Sisters)

Painted at well 36. Sisters Muni, Rosie and Dulcie grew up in the Country depicted in this painting. But it is the story of the Seven Sisters or Minyipuru, one of Martu women’s most important Jukurrpa narratives, which they have described here. In this story, the old man Yurla, who had been pursuing the sisters, captured one of the women at Pangkapini, between wells 35 and 36. The Minyipuru tricked him and rescued her.

Well 39

Kukapanyu Nyuju Stumpy Brown 1989 Mangkaja Arts 122 x 91 cm Acrylic on canvas

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Kukapanyu

“From Kukapanyu [Well 39] my brother Rover left before me. He walked to old station at Mulan; he kept going to Warmun. A long way he walked. He learnt painting now, like we make ’em. A long time ago I saw his painting. I got that idea from him for painting, what he had been doing before us. I learnt different way, my way.”

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Well 39

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INTERSECTS

Kiriwirri Nada Rawlins 1998 Ngurra Artists 96.8 x 149 cm Acrylic on canvas Laverty Collection

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Kiriwirri

“This is my Country, Kiriwirri. There is a big dry salty lake; we call it warla. It gets really full during the wet season. I walked through that Country when I was a little girl with my family. You can’t walk barefoot across the [dry] salt lakes because the salt will burn your feet. You have to wear yakapiri, [bush sandshoes].”

Well 39

Ngapawarla Jila Nyuju Stumpy Brown 2007 Mangkaja Arts 59.5 x 60 cm Acrylic on canvas

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Kukapanyu

“I been born at this jila. I belong here to this jila now.”

This painting depicts Ngapawarla jila, a natural freshwater spring located in a salt lake near Kukapanyu (Well 39).

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Wells 42-48

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BETWEEN

Kurtal as Miltijaru David Downs 1989 Mangkaja Arts 183 x 121.5 cm Acrylic and ochre on canvas

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Wells 42-48

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Kaningarra = Well 48

Kurtal and Kaningarra Ngarralja Tommy May 2007 Mangkaja Arts 58.5 x 89 cm Acrylic on canvas Private collection

Kurtal

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Kurtal is shown here as the embodiment of miltijaru, a dramatic rainstorm that roars into the desert at the beginning of the wet season. Long rolling rain clouds called kutukutu, symbolised in Kurtal’s headdress, herald the approach of these storms. Kurtal also wears a jakuli (pearl shell pendant), one of the sacred objects used in rainmaking ceremonies, which he stole from other jila men across the desert.

Kurtal & Kaningarra

“This [is a] story about Dreamtime people before Canning. Before whitefella come with a camel, Dreamtime people were there. These two blokes, Kurtal [right] and Kaningarra [left].”

“Before I been born, these two waterholes, they been looking after, cleaning all the time. Kurtal mob used to come down to Kaningarra mob, looking after Kaningarra. Keep it clean and sometime make it rain.”

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