55
The meeting lasted for six weeks. People talked
about the damage that whitemen were doing to the
Aboriginal way of life. They said that they
wanted to stop this destruction, they wanted land
of their own where whitemen could not break them
down. Don told them that the way to do this was
to walk off the stations. They could then work
minerals to lease their own land (Mikurrunya 23.7.79).
In setting themselves up finally at cattle stations, the
marrnguɪ sought to build a new model of an Aboriginal world to
prevent the destruction of the Aboriginal way of life.
The Strelley community embraces all the marrngu associated
with the Nomads group.
locations
included Strelley Station, Warralong Station, Coongan Station
and Carlindi Station. Lala Rookh was settled during the , period
of the study. Two school locations existed at the time of the
study, at Strelley and at the Warralong annexe. It is difficult
to give precise numbers for the group, as there is considerable
movement in and out of it. At the time of the study the voting
2
roll listed 152 names . There were 123 children in attendance at
the Warralong annexe and at Strelley and 48 adults and teenagers
receiving adult education.
•Important men’ are responsible for different areas of concern;
one man, for example, is the acknowledged ’Law-man’, others are
responsible for white man’s law, others for interaction with the
courts for the school activities at Strelley, for interaction with
the state and federal education authorities, for school activities
at Warralong, for station work, and so on. Permission to visit
the station had to be sought and obtained beforehand from the
important men.
ɪMarrngu is the word used by Aborigines of the area to designate
man, mankind, i.e. themselves.
⅛arris, (1980), gave the numbers for the total group,
including children, as 600.