My cultural experience upon returning from the APY Lands

By: Brady Flinchum

     My experience of spending over a week in the outback on the Anangu Pitjantjatjar Yankunytjatjar (APY) Lands extremely special. I got to see, and photograph a part of the world that very few people have ever been to. I had the chance to talk to long time government employees and even got shown around by a very old aboriginal man. Although it was very hard to understand him it was an amazing experience. I know the experience was very special because even the Australians that I talked to in Adelaide prior to departure have never been there or thought about going out there. This is a part of the world that is so isolated and culturally different than anywhere I have ever been. 

Andy, Denys and me on the first in the APY lands.

We stayed in an Australian government facility that was built for the Indigenous people to lean new trades such as cooking, welding or becoming mechanics. The building was completely self sustaining. It ran everything via solar power and septic tanks. We stayed in a village called Umawa, this is the small community where some regional services are centralized. This was really neat because I got to sit down and chat with a few different people who have been working and helping the aboriginal people. Some of these employees have been up there for over 15 years. I had the privilege to interview Gary McWilliams, the Mining Officer for the lands.  

Gary was an interesting old bloke. His job was to facilitate communications between outside mining companies and the traditional land owners and council. Gary had been working out of Umawa for about 15 years. Gary was somewhat of a photographer and  was a very gentle, nostalgic guy. As you can tell from the image he had lots of pictures pinned up all around his office. I asked him about some of his images and he told me that anyone that came by to talk to him he would ask them for a picture. He also told me the ones on his walls were  his favorite and he had many more on his computer.

Gary McWilliams telling me a story about this older gentleman,
his wife and their niece that came to talk to him one afternoon.

When I interviewed Gary I asked him about the importance of water on the indigenous culture. Gary iterated how important groundwater is in this part of the world, not only for the survival of the indigenous people but it is also required for moving infrastructure into the outback.
Gary told me about an experience of him and other indigenous people cleaning out ancient rock holes. Rock holes are areas where after rain storms water would pool for long periods of times or a rock hole could imply a a hole in the ground that had access to the local water table. Now that we have modern technology and can drill into the groundwater these rock holes are no longer used, but they are being preserved. After about an hour to two hour talk with Gary I he really made me understand the importance of groundwater in this part of the world. It rarely rains and gets up to 40-45 degrees C (~102-113 F) in the summer time out here.

     I also had the chance to talk with an anthropologist named Mike. The most interesting fact that he told me was that the map of the the original indigenous people was separated by languages. The each individual letter in the APY Lands stands for a different language: Anangu, Pitjantjatjar and Yankunytjatjara. Mike was showing me a map and explaining that the groups of people who spoke these languages interacted and merged because of a large drought that occurred in the late 1800 early 1900s. The indigenous people were forced to interact with the railroaders and move toward the coast lines in order to get water. Mike also spoke of the rock holes and how important they were to the culture. It was such an interesting experience because so many of the elders are still alive and remember times prior to white man. They didn’t have full infrastructure in Fregon until the 1990’s! 

The Double Tank well bore. There is current infrastructure that the
now permanent communities rely on to raise cattle and stay in one
 place. This is image of an older well that is run by wind power.

     Since data collection went really well I finally had the chance to go emerge myself and actually talk with the aboriginal people. On our last day in the APY lands I traveled to Fregon and spend the day in their art gallery. Early in the morning I was greeting and shown around by an older aboriginal man, his name was Wijiti George. He was probably in his 70’s was was living on he lands prior to any buildings or water wells going up. I told him that we were there to look for groundwater. He then proceeded to gestured and explain where the groundwater goes. Despite the language barrier he very clearly explained which way the groundwater is flowing by giving names of mountains and towns. He said that the water started in the Musgrove ranges and traveled south west toward Mimli. He was able to identify a groundwater divide. This was a really cool experience because here we are with all of our fancy equipment to quantify the water and he has know the general trend for probably more than 50 years! Unfortunately I was not able to get his picture because the language barrier prevented me from getting consent.

A dried out skull of a cow. In the heat of
summer it probably didn’t make it back to
the watering hole. This was a common
 site on the APY Lands. Groundwater is so
 critical to everyone’s survival.

     All of the interactions I had with the people of the APY Lands really emphasized how important groundwater is to survival and culture. Everywhere you looked there was influences of water. Throughout the outback there were completely bone dry cows who obviously didn’t make it back to their watering hole. There were dried up creek beds and areas where you could see overland flow occurred, but hasn’t occurred in a long time ago. In almost all of the paintings in the art gallery water or rock holes was a major theme. It seems to me that the aboriginal culture was based around groundwater, pretty cool if you ask me.

Me standing in front of the old Fregon store. The art was incredible, you can even see they painted a small lake/pool or something on the building in the lefthand corner.