Fase de análisis de procesos

Before the arrival of explorers, miners, pastoralists, settlers, government officials and missionaries in Central Australia, the Arrernte were living satisfying lives in an abundant, if at times threatening, natural environment. They had interpreted natural events and social interactions mythically into a world-view through the power of their Altyerre imaginary. The secret of Arrernte success was their understanding of not living on the apmere/land but holding and being held by the apmere/land. Being was “emplaced being”. M.K. Turner summarised it this way: “The Story is the Land, and the Land is the Story. The Story holds the people, and the people live inside the Story. The Story lives inside the people, and the Land lives inside the people also. It goes all ways to hold the Land.”356

In the 1870s alien forces burst in on the Arrernte. They could well have felt that their land/apmere and their Altyerre had been overcome by an inferno. Their experience may be compared with Moses’ meeting God in the burning bush (Ex 3:1–5), which is not consumed by the fire because it was on “holy ground”. In like manner, it could be said that, in the consciousness of the Arrernte, the sacredness of Altyerre and apmere/country shielded them from the furnace of Invasion. Invasion could not kill Altyerre, nor the inferno destroy

ampere. The Arrernte emerged with a refreshed, indeed strengthened Altyerre – the guiding imaginary of their lives.

Chapter 5 explores the colliding worlds on the frontier in Central Australia. Commencing with a general survey of the effects of non-Indigenous settlement on the Arrernte, this chapter points to the cultural mismatch that characterised mission life at Hermannsburg which set many of the parameters for Christian missions in the Centre. It also argues that anthropology, rather than assisting practitioners on the frontier, disempowered the Arrernte and restricted opportunity for the Arrernte and the non-Indigenous settlers to understand each other better. The chapter finally examines government policy and the actions of officials and advisors,

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demonstrating the inconsistent and sometimes contradictory nature of public discourse and subsequent policy.

Chapter 6 describes the experience of the MparntweArrernte during the three iterations of the Catholic Mission which began in Alice Springs, but which was relocated to Arltunga in 1942, and later to Santa Teresa in 1953. It explores the missionary effort of the men and women who worked at the Catholic missions to the Arrernte. It will be argued that two elements worked in opposition/collaboration with each other: on the one hand was the narrow, hierarchical concept of Church, with a doctrine of salvation through membership of the Church; on the other hand, was a persistent and persevering commitment by the

MparntweArrernte to their place-based world-view of Altyerre. These two elements produced a unique and perhaps surprising outcome – the emergence of a preference by the MparntweArrernte to maintain their agency in the face of an apparently overwhelming force.

Chapter 7 proposes that the emergence of a unique form of Arrernte Catholicism is written in Arrernte consciousness through Altyerre. Capturing material introduced in Chapters 4, 5 and 6, it explains the typical Arrernte attitude of eclectic interest in novelty – while maintaining a commitment to tradition. The chapter continues the contrapuntal themes of kwatye/water and ure/fire. In this metaphor, water is life but presages danger. It is noteworthy that Eastern and MparntweArrernte stories, such as many included in Kathleen Kemarre Wallace’s book Listen deeply, are travel stories recounting visits and camps at life-sustaining waterholes across Arrernte country. The chapter demonstrates that the Arrernte tradition is based on a dynamic, organic process of incorporation, adaptation and assimilation of a variety of

extraneous influences which, while absorbed, never necessarily eliminated or even diluted the Arrernte pledge to Altyerre. From this intuitive way of looking at the world has emerged a form of Catholicism that is named here Altyerre-Catholicism.

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Chapter 5: Colliding Worlds – The Context

The metaphor used in this chapter is a collision between two cultures. Peter Latz describes it this way: “in many respects, the happy-go-lucky Aranda [sic] and severe German cultures could not have been much more different.”357 _{Thinking of a collision of two different cultural}

groups immediately conjures the notion of fault and injury. It might be asked, whose fault was it, who was injured, and how seriously? In this sense a “collision” is understood as being different from “contact”. Indeed, it is common to think of “first contact” between Indigenous Australians and the white settlers as being a “collision” with deleterious consequences for the Indigenous Australians. It might even be assumed that the Arrernte were ignorant of the power, difference and consequences of the impending contact/collision and destined to be its inevitable victims. While this assumption has some validity, the following sections of this chapter will indicate subtle variations on this theme. It is arguable that the Arrernte were interested in contact: they were attracted to novelty and innovation; they were quick adapters. While it might appear that they lived in a closed world, in fact they were accustomed to contact with other groups and had engaged in trade across language boundaries for

millennia.358 _{From this contact they had absorbed a number of new ideas, customs and even}

language features. In this sense the collision of worlds explored in this chapter is not necessarily a clash of cultures or a culture war, but an interface where two quite different peoples met each other on a frontier and where the Arrernte expressed a great deal of agency in the contact. Indeed, as a result of the collision the white settlers suffered some significant impediment to the immediate achievement of their goals and their assumptions of superiority. The Arrernte survived the collision through their innate adaptability and the strength of their Altyerre.