MORE HISTORY
B Bunter: “Vincent Lingiari started talking about a strike in 1963. I was with him at No 3 camp.
“He had a plan. Some old people had a plan. They used to have a great big radio and some old people used to lie around and listen. Those old people were good English speakers.
“They think we’ve got to strike in 1964 but it didn’t work.
“Someone stopped it and in 1965 Newcastle Waters people went out on strike and that didn’t work. They had no support
“In 1966 we walked off here and worked because we had the Waterside Union supporting us.
“Before August the old fella (VL) got kicked by a mule in the leg and they brought him in here and then took him to the airstrip and put him on the Conellan plane to Darwin.
Jimmy Wave Hill: When he got back he had a letter from the union mob. At 8 o’clock in the morning, the head boy walked in here and the manager’s standing there.
He told him ‘I got a problem.’
‘We need to have our wages go up’
‘We need to have award wages’
‘We need to have proper house with floor and things like that’
B Bunter: Manager said ‘No way’
They didn’t want to build anything for blackfellas
‘Well that’s it’, said Vincent. ‘That’s it’
Calling everyone from the houses you know
‘Come on all you people. Come out now. I’m taking all my people out now.’ That’s what he said
People started rushing from their houses ‘Come on. Everyone come out now’
Jimmy Wave Hill: Started walking…
B Bunter: We went back to that top camp and rolled our swags and all our gear - like suitcase billy cans some buckets to carry water
We put the kids on top, boomerangs, spears. Some old people followed the creek here
We didn’t want to run into policeman
The managers used to go and try and force people to come back.
They said ‘we’ll shoot two killers for you people if you come back’. And they said ‘those two killers are too late. You should have done that before’.
Anyway our boss said ‘No way. I’m taking these people west’.
Only the pensioners were left we couldn’t carry them.
In November we borrowed a truck to pick those old people up Brain Manning and Frank Hardy and Paddy
The head of the union mob brought us back to get our wages
The old manager was standing by the woodpile He was really wild.
Jimmy Wave Hill: If those blokes weren’t there we would never have got our money
B Bunter: In December we moved west to the bottom camp to the north of where the council office is now in the creek. Bottom camp we used to call it.
Early in 1967 we borrowed tools at about 2am from the old welfare tjilpi: crosscut saw, brace and bit hatch, and plane. But he bin only helping us by night – little bit of rations when everybody asleep But when they find out he helping us with tool and ration he got kicked out. He got into big trouble.
“We didn’t know the direction of where we were going. We just walked off. We didn’t know the politics, government, laws, land rights. We didn’t know that.
But we knew that we wanted to walk off for better wages you know.
That’s what we thought in the first place but when we got there we wanted to go for land rights
And it wasn’t easy from that that time. We didn’t know anything about Government Liberal or Labor.
We didn’t know anything about that. We didn’t know we were breaking the law.
We didn’t know it was Vestey land.
Old people knew it was Aboriginal land before and it belonged to them. They knew if it was owned by Vestey then they wanted it back.
Jimmy Wave Hill: That’s what the old people used to think and they were right. They had a big radio and they were always listening.
B Bunter: I think those old people knew. I think they were waiting for the right time to go on strike. They knew someone from Darwin would back them up. When that old fella got off the plane from Darwin he had a letter with him giving instructions.
Jimmy Wave Hill: When he was in Darwin, Dexter Daniels came to him from Roper and he was asking Vincent Lingiari questions: ‘How Vesteys treating you back there at Wave Hill?’ ‘Oh, they treating us like dog and don’t give good foods, they don’t give us money. We do hard work we’re making money for white people and black fella don’t get nothing.’”
B Bunter and Jimmy Wave Hill explain life on the the station
B Bunter: Further down that lane way was a dining room for head stockmen saddler mechanic cooks for each camp no1, no 2, no 3, no 4: white blokes only
“Not us. We used to sit right back under the tree with a billy can of tea. Salt meat was given to us - a really strong taste and the bread that they used to make here, salty bread. We had no choice: dry bread, dry salty beef and a bit of tea we used to get with a bucket from a drum
“The manager and that mob had their dinner here. In that back area there used to be a meat house with beef hanging down: salty beef. And they used to throw their bones out of the window and we waited outside…”
Jimmy Wave Hill: “Take them down to the camp and cook them up (laughs).”
B Bunter: “Only beef we got from the killer was four legs - two front legs and too back legs. Foot and head only meat we got from the killer.”
Jimmy Wave Hill: “They used to have lunch just here and they would get them young girls to pull that rope for the fan - inside people eating away. Poor buggers them kids doing hard thing on the outside you know
B Bunter: “Every woman used to work in store, cleaning up, some worked in the hospital or the kitchen”
Jimmy Wave Hill “Single quarters, dining room”
B Bunter: “One woman used to turn that fan for them They used to get kids to chase the crows away – they didn’t like that noise (laughs)
“And round the back was the hospital - didn’t call it a clinic in those days. Humpies back in bottom camp.
“They were about that high (indicates about a metre). We had to crawl in. With the kids, father and mother.
“Come the wet season had to put extra iron on to make a fire underneath.
“Smoke would come in that little humpy and make the kids cough.
“But they had to make a fire to keep warm
B Bunter: When our people used to pass away we used to carry them ourselves.
Jimmy Wave Hill: Yeah they had about 20 trucks and land rovers but they don’t help us carry the body. They said that’s all right, you can carry them
B Bunter: Yeah we used to carry the body about two miles ourselves
Jimmy Wave Hill: Hard days. They wouldn’t give us crow bar either. We used to make a sharp stick and sit down and dig that grave
B Bunter: To get wood we used to have to walk miles although they had a big mob of wood here
Jimmy Wave Hill Sometimes at night we would come and steal it
B Bunter: They never knew
They never took us back for holiday. We had to walk in the bush around here
B Bunter: Holidays we used to travel on foot away for two months and come back when the moon said it was time to do a muster. Sometime they would make a big fire and we would know it was time to come back
We used to cut trees, a bit of wood to send a message to another community. Mark a message on it and send it to family
The old people would understand what the message was and when we grew up we followed in their footsteps
Coming to Wave Hill
B Bunter: “There was a big mob of people here
“My father went back to Yuendumu. We were taken away in 1953
Jimmy Wave Hill: Welfare time then…
B Bunter: “We grew up in the Top End and came down from Mt Sanford and VRD to here.
“It was the people moving days when welfare used to shift people around.
“From Mt Doreen all around.
“Some bin went to Lajamanu, some bin went to Wyndham Some went to Newcastle (Waters) Some went to VRD.
Jimmy Wave Hill: I was working on Delamere and they took us mob over to Waterloo Station then I was staying there for Christmas and then I came to Limbunya and then to Wave Hill
B Bunter: From that time it was a bit like stolen generation We were taken away and they didn’t care if it was different tribes or different land They just dumped us there to find a way ourselves
“And we didn’t remember the family from that time until later after 1971 after the strike and we started to get our families together. But we didn’t know where we were heading to. I wasn’t allowed to go back in those days If I ran away they would get the police on horseback and give me a good hiding here A whip across my back Some people used to run and they would shoot them halfway or give them a good hiding
Our people didn’t have a choice
We weren’t allowed to go back
The idea for a strike
B Bunter: Old people had a Yankee bloke from America. Used to talk to those old people. He used to camp here somewhere and they used to talk about him. He was telling them some day the time will come to take the people out on strike. That was about 20 years earlier.
But the old people were still talking about it. They never gave up. He was a worker. he used to run No 2 Camp and they had a big aerial here out the back wireless and everything like that.
Looking back
B Bunter: Today I can look back and it looks different
Jimmy Wave Hill: We made something good.
Not only for us but for everybody, black and white.
B Bunter: That’s why Freedom Day is good it teaches everybody
We feel proud but we feel a bit sad. All those people who have gone but they left something behind
We fought with them side by side. Old Mick (Rangiari) , he done a good job
