The rest of the bus journey to Alice Springs was hassle free and the transvestites kept to themselves after the “pillow” incident. We arrived in Alice Springs in the dark, Ben and I found the back-packers hostel, two sheds nailed together with dormitory style bunk beds – women and men were segregated. Tourists were usually in bed by 9pm and we could not afford alcohol so there was nothing to do but exchange “where ya been?” stories with the other travelers and sleep. The next morning Ben and I decided to “Discover Alice Springs” a town of two main roads that cross the Todd River, which at that time of the year, June/July the dry season, the river is usually a dust bowl. However, it had “pissed down” the night before. The rain on the corrugated iron hostel roof was loud but I managed to sleep.
That day in Alice Springs everything was wet. Ben turned up to breakfast in his Pringle jumper, Driz-a-Bone raincoat and R M Williams hat. I had my jeans, one of two t-shirts and a plastic poncho I’d bought from “Sports Girl” in Sydney. The plastic poncho covered me and my “extremely-small-yet-roomy” backpack. We decided to go to the museum. The pamphlet for the museum on the back-packers notice board boasted that the museum had a “diorama.” I had no idea what a diorama was so I thought that would be the most interesting thing to do. On entering the museum, the radio was turned on and we heard that the Todd River had ‘flash’ flooded over night and a number of Aboriginal people, who lived on the riverbed in the dry season, had drowned.
“Often in Australia rivers have served as racial boundaries between white towns and Aboriginal camps or reserves” writing from a Social Archaeology perspective in Nervous Landscapes: Race and Space in Australia, Denis R. Byrne (2003) analyses the experience of being on the receiving end of racial segregation. The majority of his qualitative research was conducted in New South Wales Aboriginal communities and touching on Northern Territory Aboriginal communities. He writes; “Historically, in the Australian case, [segregation] was a system that covered its own tracks and left few marks apart from those it left on the lives of its victims. The colonial, cadastral – a survey showing or including boundaries property lines – mapping of land was instrumental in racial separation.”
Darlene Johnson’s film Gulpilil – One Red Blood (2002) breaks racial boundaries telling the story of the life and success of the actor, David Gulpilil. Immersing the viewer into Gulpilil’s world, Johnson describes Gulpilil’s connection with the landscape and people of his community in Arnhem Land. Arnhem Land is one of the last great, unspoiled areas of the world. Its small population is predominantly indigenous, whose traditional Aboriginal culture remains largely intact. In the film, Johnson demonstrates that non-Aboriginal actors were used for main roles before Gulpilil acted in Walkabout in 1971. She interviewed the Anglo Australian film critic, David Stratton on Journey Out of Darkness, Stratton comments; “In 1967, there was a film made called Journey Out of Darkness. Now the authenticity of the film was compromised by the fact that […] the Aboriginal fugitive was Kamahl who is a perfectly decent singer but I don’t think has very much connection with the Aboriginal people.”
In her film, most of the subjects Johnson cites are authoritative Aboriginal commentators but there is no Aboriginal voice commenting about Kamahl playing an Aboriginal. I suggest that by not stating how Aboriginal people received this representation her argument reinforces racial segregation. The critique suggests a double segregation of Kamahl, on the one hand the dominant Anglo Australian voice of David Stratton’s consultation on casting named non-Aboriginals and on the other hand from the Aboriginal commmunity’s silence. By relying only on Stratton’s voice for the critique of Journey Out of Darkness, her analysis feels to me like Johnson is playing it safe because she does not problematise the Anglo Australian aesthetic in Journey Out of Darkness. Denis Byrne citing Francesca Merlan in her book Caging the Rainbow describes: “The landscape of the Aboriginal Dreaming around the outback town of Katherine, in the Northern Territory, was ‘permeable’ in that it was constituted in practice rather than in built structure. White settlers could not only easily insert themselves into this ‘invisibly’ structured landscape they could also ignore the existence of any such structure. This ‘levelling’ of the aboriginal topography […] is always there as part of the background of racial tension in Australia. The settler’s refusal to acknowledge the pre-existing integrity of Aboriginal social-spiritual space arguable became a charter for Aborigines to flout the niceties of white spatial order and property.” I suggest in addition to David Stratton’s critique there should have been an Aboriginal commentary about Kamahl playing one of the main roles. Byrne states that “This is the other side of segregation: the sense in which Aboriginal people voluntarily withdraw themselves from the white presence. The issue of visibility is a critical factor in racial segregation. Aboriginal people often describe how effectively the disapproval of white people – their belief in their superiority to you – is conveyed in the way they look at you. They speak of the effect of living under this disapproving gaze on a daily basis and what that does to you.” I argue, this why an Aboriginal voice critiquing Journey Out of Darkness is so important because voicing concerns creates visibility and validates opinion.
Ben and I entered the darkened room in the museum and there were three or four small scenes. Each section was a scene depicting an Aboriginal story. Red earth represented the desert and black papier-mache figures represented Aboriginals. I didn’t speak to Ben because the acoustics in the room were deafening due to the combination of the extremely high ceiling and lino floor. I just looked at each scene. I did not understand the story because there was no commentary about what we were seeing. Ben felt the same. We left the museum and went to have lunch at the cheapest cafe in town. The cafe’s music system played ACDC’s “Highway to Hell” on a loop. After lunch, we took a bus to Three Ways, a good three or so hours up the highway heading north to Darwin. At Three Ways, Ben took another bus to “plastic fantastic” Cairns on the Queensland coast on his way, he said, “to the best farming land in Australia – Quirindi, New South Wales.” I went north to Darwin to the most beautiful place on the planet, Kakadu National Park.
