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They (the police) shot the dogs in our camps, taking
no notice of the blood that flowed on our blankets.
We were very frightened by this shooting but the
police did not seem to care.
Snowy Jitammurra, who deals with white man’s Law at Strelley,
tells the story of the misery of the hard times, when ɪɪɪarmgu "were
killed, put in chains, made to work" (ɪ Snowy Speak, Mikurrunya,
23.4.81:10).
*
The 1980/81 harassment of the Noonkanbah people by police, and
the iɪnprіsonment of Strelley people for resisting the passage of
the drilling rig is seen as a continuation of the long history of
harassment and courageous resistance.
They theorize about this issue in the following way:
The people at Noonkanbah are fighting the same
fight that the marrngu of the North West have been
fighting since white men invaded their land.
The flame that was lit by the Pilbara strikers
in the 1940s is the same flame that the Noonkanbah
people are carrying today (Mikurrunya, 23.4.81:6).
The theorizing about the history of the group is made real to
young people by visits to actual sites where hardships occurred.
School age children are taken to visit the sites of settlements made
in the hard times.
In Mikurrunya (28.11.79:6, 7) a photo is reproduced, with Sambo
Bina showing people where the store shed and hospital used to be
at the old Techelo camp. The Warralong school visited the camps
at Techelo and Condon and
... saw the place where some of the Mob were living
when they were pearl shelling and shooting goats
and kangaroos for meat and skins (Mikurrunya 28.11.79:12).
The history of the group preserves memories of harassment of
the enemy over and against a united group; it preserves memories
of hardships endured together, as a united group.