AustLit

'Wave Hill Station was originally established by Nat "Bluey' Buchanan in 1882 at Malyalyimalyalyi and Lipanangku, an area of the Victoria River just downstream of the area now known as Kalkaringi. The old yards are still in evidence. Sam 'Greenhide' Croker, who managed the first station, named the station 'Wave Hill' based on the terraced form of the hill on the southern side of the Victoria River. As Michael Terry, who first visited the station in 1923, noted, 'Behind the station to the south, there was a high terraced hill from which the station had received its name. The waves on its side could easily be seen from a considerable distance." The station was then stocked with 500 head of cattle in 1883 by Buchanan, brothers Hugh and Wattie Gordon, and Croker. As described in Chapter 3, the first decades of the occupation of Gurindji land were brutal. Gurindji numbers were severely depleted during this time; however, they actively resisted the occupation. Resistance involved killings of white pastoralists, ambushes of travelling parties and arson of station houses. Nonetheless, by 1901 Wave Hill Station had a 'blacks camp and by 1910 there were 30 Aboriginal station hands working on the station.' The following stories begin with Dandy Danbayarri's account of the death of a station manager at the hand of Gurindji men. Ronnie Wavehill then describes how Gurindji people came to settle at the station. The conclusion to the first era of occupation is marked by the destruction of Wave Hill Station by a massive flood in 1924.'  (Introduction)

Over here to the east - I'm not talking about Jinparrak, but the original Wave Hill Station which was washed away by the flood. I was little then. I was small and with my mother all the time, like these little Nawurla girls here. I was that age. I was starting to understand about things. So over here to the east, where the old homestead was, that's what I'm going to talk about. There was a kartiya manager who was going to arrive. He was travelling up from Darwin by boat. He got to Timber Creek and took a motor car. He unloaded all his gear, swag and everything.' (Introduction)

'This story, in which a white man travelling up the Victoria River is murdered by several local Aboriginal men, clearly correlates to the murder of Patrick O'Neill (also called 'Paddy the Lasher). Accused of the murder was a Gurindji man, reportedly called Wallagoolah (who was probably named after the place Warlakula, (see Chapter 3). Several details of the dialogue Danbayarri reports correspond with witness statements recorded in a newspaper report in December 1896, for example where two of the men were hesitant to murder the man, but one of them was convinced it was necessary and committed the murder himself. Danbayarri describes a farcical, almost comical, scene where the kartiya mocks a ngumpin over his hunting catch, a dead goanna, takes it from him and slaps one of them with it. Both Danbayarri and the newspaper accounts describe the body being thrown into the water. The witnesses in the trial, a man named Caralagoolah and a woman named Bungalla Kitty, were not eyewitnesses to the event, but were from the same Aboriginal clan and claim to have overheard one of the defendants, Jaydeadda, telling of how he had committed the so-called 'killing'.' (Introduction)

'Today I'm going to tell the story of the place where that old homestead was. Before that, there was nothing there and the kartiya put up tents. A lot of them came from Darwin and found the country east of here. I was told how kartiya arrived; my great-grandfather who made the flood told this story from a long time ago. '(Introduction)

'This account by Ronnie Wavehill tells of the establishment of Wave Hill Station and the strategy used to bring Gurindji people to the station. Dandy Danbayarri and Peanut Pontiari told a similar story to Patrick McConnell about two young men of the subsections Jangala and Japarta, who were taken from Jangawayarung (a waterhole on Gordy Creek) to the station and trained up?' ' (Introduction)

'A long time ago, east of here is where the first Wave Hill homestead used to be. I'm going to talk about what my great-grandfather, Tinker,41 did there when he went upstream from here to Seven Mile, to inundate this area. When I was little my father told me this himself, because it was about his grandfather.  (Introduction)

'We were camping at Rifle Hole in an overhang when the flood came our way. If it had come at night, we would have all drowned. The overhang was near the water's edge so if the flood had come at night time we would have all drowned. Instead it came early in the morning. '  (Introduction)

Ronnie Wavehill, Blanche Bulngari and Dandy Danbayarri (in Chapter 5) tell of the 1924 flood that washed away the original Wave Hill Station homestead, which was located at Malyalyimalyalyi and Lipanangku near the Wave Hill Police Station, 
which remains at the same location today. Burt Drew and Alex Moray were named as two kartiya present at the time.' (Introduction)

'Following the destruction of Wave Hill Station infrastructure by floodwaters in 1924, the station was moved east to Jinparrak, away from the potentially devastating power of the Victoria  River. This station is commonly referred to as old Wave Hill Station because it was moved again after the Gurindji Walk-Off in 1966 to Jamangku, where is referred to as new Wave Hill Station. '  (Introduction)

'When I was a child, a flood came and inundated everything. There were kartiya stranded up high in different places. All kinds of things were picked up and swept away by the floodwaters: plates, saucepans, camp ovens — all that kind of thing was taken by the flood. The station people had put food, like bread and sugar, in high places but anything else was swept away. The kartiya themselves stayed high up in the trees or on the roofs. They spent two nights like that.' (Introduction)

'I was a bit older when we first learnt of Welfare, the boss of Aboriginal people. They were the ones who took away the pilyingpilying and sent them to Darwin: my sister, Ronnie's brothers (Jim Ryan and Ted Henry) — there were lots of them --Jarrangka was another. I know them all. Some pilyingpilying are still living in Darwin. I know the ones who got taken from their mothers. The police took them. The children would be hiding behind their mothers when they came.'  (Introduction)

'A lot of children were taken from old Wave Hill Station. They were taken away to Croker Island.' (Introduction) 

'Yeah, my name is Maurie Ryan. I'm here at Kalkaringi recording my story. I was born in 1948 which makes me 67. I was born at Wave Hill Station - they called it Jinparrak - under the birthing tree where my mothers, sisters, and my grandmother brought me into this world. My father was Michael Patrick Ryan and my mother was Mary.'  (Introduction)

'Yes, I'm going to tell you about my two pilyingpilying brothers, Jim Ryan and Ted Henry.' (Introduction)

'The accounts above by Dandy Danbayarri, Violet Wadrill, Maurie Ryan and Biddy Wavehill of 'half-caste' or pilyingpilying children taken away from Wave Hill Station are a small number of many cases of government welfare officials separating Gurindji children from their families. Maurie Ryan also gives the names Tom and George Kelly, Nelly Kelly-Kitching, Alec Kruger, Clyde Bray (now Mohammed McGee), Maddie Frith, Bess Croft, Mickey Hill, David McGorm, Jack Cusack, Freddy Savillis and Joe Egan. These children form a part of what is now known as the Stolen Generations. There were Gurindji children with non-Indigenous fathers right from the time of the establishment of Wave Hill Station in the 1880s. For instance, Molly Dodd Tupngarri's father, who died at Jatpala, was a Chinese gardener at the original Wave Hill Station.' (Introduction)

'Okay, I'm going tell you a story from the old days. Alright, one day our boss, my father's boss, came to speak to him. 'You mob gotta go work now: all of the old girls, old men, everybody not the very old — just the fit and healthy ones. You gotta cut down trees. There's a flying machine that's going to come and land here, just over there, west from here. We've gotta clear out all the grass and trees — everything. It's going to fly over here and land right here.' The boss man was explaining '  (Introduction)

'Dandy Danbayarri's story describes in detail the construction in 1929 of the Wave Hill airstrip, which was built to accommodate planes belonging to a search party, and the first landings on it. The planes were participating in the search for aviator Charles Kingsford Smith and the airstrip was one of several that allowed them to fly directly across the country from New South Wales and Victoria, instead of following the coast via Perth.' Kingsford Smith, missing in north-western Australia, was soon found alive near Wyndham; however, the airstrip at Wave Hill was to very soon see much greater use than expected when the Kookaburra, a plane travelling north to join the search, was forced to land in scrub about 130 kilometres south-east of Wave Hill. The cattle station was then used as a base for one of the search parties. These events captured the attention of the nation at the time and are documented in many aviation histories and pilot biographies.' (Introduction)

'This story of the search for the Kookaburra was recorded in 1979 by Norm McNair. On board the ill-fated aeroplane had been the pilot Flight Lieutenant Keith Anderson and mechanic RS Hitchcock. The plane disappeared after it left Mice Springs on 10 April 1929. Anderson and Hitchcock are reported to have died of thirst several days after their emergency landing in the north-east Tanami semi-desert, and were spotted apparently lifeless from the Qantas plane Atalanta by Pilot Lester Brain, who knew the area well. Michael Terry describes meeting Lester Brain at Jervois Range in 1929, five months after the event. Brain told him that he had sighted a thick plume of smoke which showed the location of the aeroplane and missing crew who had died.' (Introduction)