Thursday, June 20, 2013

MISS PINK CHALLENGES THE NATION-Ongoing biography of NT Crusading Editor,"Big Jim" Bowditch


 
At  some stage , anthropologist  Miss Olive  Pink  was  forced  out  of  Thompson’s Rockhole  and   came back to  Alice Springs to live. According to Professor  Elkin  , the  NT  Director of Native Affairs , E.W.P.  Chinnery, may  have  banned Miss Pink from  going back to the Tanami . The professor recalled that  something, he was not sure, had happened out  in the desert and  this made Chinnery  feel it was not safe for her.  Some Alice residents claimed an Aborigine  attacked her and she shot him in the rump with the pistol she carried for safety.
  
One account  of what  happened  was  put  forward by Mrs  Braitling  of Mt Doreen Station . She said Miss Pink had been trying to prevent the Aborigines  from  contaminating   the  water  in the rockhole , which was at  a  low  level .   To   achieve this  goal , she had tried to stop them  from  just dipping things in the water or  bending down  and drinking .  A  man  had  become annoyed  at the restrictions  and  knocked Miss Pink to the ground. She, it seems ,  may have pulled out her gun and shot him in  the  buttock 
 
After that  attack , it  appears that she   made her way to The Granites goldmine  and narrowly escaped being shot  in mistake for an animal  when  she  crawled into  the Chapmans’  camp  late at  night .  Apart from  having a five stamp  gold battery , the Chapmans  had   tapped  a good artesian  water supply  for their   swimming pool and a  garden ,  netted off   from animals.  However, the persistent desert animals managed to  nibble the  vegetables at night . One of the  Chapman sons armed himself with a  rifle and  sat up  late at    night  to shoot  the marauders.  Hearing  strange noises , he was ready to shoot  when he discovered it was Miss Pink,  who had been  on the track  for three  days without water, crawling  along the ground.  She was picked up , taken inside  and given a spoonful  of  brandy which she spat out in her rescuer’s face.

 REAL TRUTH EVADED
 
In a scathing  lecture  in l936 ,Miss Pink   said  discussion of the real  truth about the extermination of the native race was generally evaded.  In her opinion, and that of medical authority , the main cause  of “ native  depopulation” was  venereal infection of full blood  native women.  Some people used the “ camouflage” explanations of “ race suicide” and “ malnutrition ”.  Because an entirely male regime had failed to afford  the Aborigines any  real benefits,  she said  it was time  women took an active and prominent part in the administration of  native affairs.  Medical women were urgently needed  in North Australia to  treat veneral disease among  full blood native women.  Miss Pink also attacked “malicious ” statements  in novels  which reiterated  such phrases as  “treacherous ”and “ glaring warriors”.
 
She  wrote another paper for  Oceania in l936 , The Landowners in the Northern Division of the Aranda Tribe ,  Central Australia.  Commenting on Miss Pink’s work, Elkin said  that she came up with good material , having an eye for important points.  In particular , he remembered her using the   expression  totemic clan estates in relation to  land ownership.  Professor W.E.H.  Stanner had used the same expression in a paper, and Professor Elkin  said he took delight in pointing out to him  that the term had  initially been  used  by Miss Pink.  Stanner  had been reluctant to admit Miss Pink had  been  the  originator.
 
At the time Elkin was  corresponding with  Miss Pink  in the  l930s, he was also  writing to author Xavier Herbert in  Darwin  whose  prize winning 1938  novel  Capricornia exposed the  plight of  Aborigines in the Territory, especially  women .
               BETRAYAL OF FULLBLOODS
 
On  December 6, l938 there appeared an article( see head of post ) in the Canberra Times  by Miss Pink, described as a research worker in anthropology and sociology, in which she urged the nation to consider  the plight of Aborigines in Australia . Under the proposed new  federal government policy  she said it was proposed   to give votes, education  and  citizen  rights to “  picked full-bloods ” This would be utterly  inconsistent with   democratic principles, and would eventually lead to  further betrayal of the aboriginal.  Those selected for the “rights” would be those least competent to  express the true nature of the aboriginal mind- police  blacktrackers and “  mission pets ”,   who would virtually betray  the l5,000 full bloods  still in the Territory  by becoming the    tools and marionettes  of whites  against their own race.
 
She urged  the nation give  each tribe a secular sanctuary  where it could shape its own destiny in an atmosphere  free of repression . Once again, she was dismissive of  missions .  She told Elkin  that  if the “Golden   Age ”of  the Aboriginal Native Affairs  Department arrived  there would be one interpreter  for each tribe  and she would be the interpreter-adviser for  the  Wailbri NEXT: Miss Pink hits Bowditch with umbrella.