Central Land Council

The Land is Always Alive

Little Well

In 1982 Little Well soakage – Aluralkwe – was bulldozed and destroyed. The Johnson family had been visiting and camping at Aluralkwe, the only source of good water available in the area, in the hope that they could eventually establish an outstation there. The soakage was also an important sacred site, part of the Carpet Snake Dreaming.

Gregory Johnson was interviewed by ABC radio about the destruction of Aluralkwe:

How long has your family been using that country?

Oh that country they been using for a long time, before me and my families. Before they sink the well down, you see – and that was just a soakage and sacred site. Sacred site, up on the ridge, and they were using it for a long time. Our people, my grandfather, my grandmother's and father's too. And my mother's father.

Did you ask the people on Loves Creek Station if you could go and camp there?

No, we didn't ask them because we belong to that country – we can move out anytime to stop there. Now, you'd heard there had been some damage to that well.

You've been back on the weekend. Tell me what you saw there?

Yeah, saw someone had damaged the well. How had they damaged it? With a bulldozer, just covered the well up.

Can you get water out of it now?

No we can't. It's rocky in the well. It's been filled in.

Maybe Aboriginal people did it?

No. They got no bulldozers [laughs]. Somebody else did. White people might be. Maybe, Aboriginal people have been chasing the bullocks down there, cutting the fences? No. We didn't cut any fences.

Maybe the station people don't want Aborigines down there?

Yeah. Might be too. Might be I know that already. They don't like the people to stop down there.

How do people feel now they know that well's been filled in?

Pretty worried. A lot of worries for us.

It was later confirmed that Aluralkwe was bulldozed by Loves Creek pastoralist Peter Bloomfield who said he didn't know that it was a sacred site and that he'd bulldozed the soakage to keep Aboriginal people from coming onto his lease (despite the fact that Aboriginal people have a legal right to enter pastoral leases under Northern Territory law). In 1985 the pastoralist approached the Department of Aboriginal Affairs and agreed to allow the Little Well area to be excised from their lease so that proper outstation facilities could be provided for the families living at the site. In 1992 the Bloomfields sold the lease to Loves Creek to the traditional landowners.