Gerry Georgatos - The Native Title process is being called into question with a public stoush in the West Kimberley that for far too long has languished and has been kept out of the light of day. There is a divide between the Bunaba and Nyikina peoples in terms of Native Title claims and connection to Country – particularly over historical Women’s Country . A point of contention is whether the great warrior Jandamarra was Bunaba or Nikyina. The stoush threatens to escalate and threaten the integrity of the Native Title process, bringing into question the credentialed decisions of anthropologists, historians, and any number of Native Title players - on this occasion the Kimberley Land Council (KLC) and its boss Wayne Bergmann.
The National Indigenous Times interviewed the grand-daughter of Jandamarra – Margie Deegan; however Mrs Deegan is not Bunaba - despite every book and film on Jandamarra depicting him as a Bunaba warrior. She is a Nikyina woman and she said that Jandamarra was Nikyina. She is not alone in this claim, Nikyina Elders support the claim. She has discredited the Bunaba claimants and is angry at the KLC and its CEO Mr Bergmann “for brokering the rewriting of history.”
However the Bunaba peoples of Fitzroy Crossing are adamant Jandamarra was Bunaba and will argue that it has been proven by federal court determinations in reference to Native Title. If Mrs Deegan’s claim can be upheld then the Court processes will have been brought into question.
Bunuba land stretches from the town of Fitzroy Crossing to the King Leopold Ranges of the Kimberley. Mrs Deegan said some of this land is in fact Nikyina, and indeed Women’s Country – her grandmother, Jandamarra’s wife, Mary-Annie, was the Senior Law Woman of the Country, “where only the women went and where Women’s Business was conducted.”
“My grandmother, Mary-Annie, was Nikyina, and this is our land, and it is not only Nikyina Country, it is Women’s Country,” said Ms Deegan.
“Women’s Business cannot be forgotten and steamrolled by the agenda of claiming Country as one’s own for the purpose of securing interests from mining deals.”
She has called the Bunaba claim to Jandamarra as “one of the biggest frauds of all time.” She said genealogy and ethnography was discarded as the KLC and interest groups pushed ahead in securing benefits from the Ellendale mining areas through an ‘Ellendale Negotiating Committee’ some ten years ago. Anthropologic reports from Dr Tony Redmond supporting the Nikyina Women’s claims were excluded from the Committee’s deliberations according to Mrs Deegan.
Jandamarra was born in 1873 and was killed in 1897. He was a skilled horseman and marksman who was employed as a Tracker by the Kimberley police force. Despite his work for the police his loyalties to his people always came to the fore. When his uncle Ellemarra was arrested by police for spearing farm sheep Jandamarra freed him, and later when a patrol captured a large group of his people Jandamarra gunned down his friend, Constable Richardson, stole weapons and freed his people. He then led a three year guerrilla war against the colonialists, which historians would later refer to as ‘the Bunaba War’. Many Aboriginal people would be killed however Jandamarra would become a hero to the Kimberley’s Aboriginal tribes. He was shot dead April 1, 1897 at Tunnel Creek, and the colonial troopers cut off his head.
Mrs Deegan said that books and films claiming Jandamarra as Bunaba and dismissing her grandmother, the Senior Law Woman of Women’s Country, “have stolen our Women’s rights away, and also our very Aboriginality because our whole identity is being denied.”
She is dejected that Governments will not do enough to intervene despite overwhelming evidence, and that indeed they don’t care. “Our country has been ripped apart by a system that does not care, that does not take into the national interest the authenticity of Aboriginal peoples,” said Mrs Deegan.
“Our own Aboriginal woman representative in parliament, for the Kimberley, Carol Martin has done nothing to resolve this.” The National Indigenous Times has sent questions to Ms Martin and will publish any responses in our next edition.
Despite the plethora of literature published that Jandamarra was of the Bunaba peoples, there are anthropologists who say otherwise and who back Mrs Deegan – Dr Tony Redmond, Dr Kingsley Palmer, Kara Dunn and Catherine Wohlan.
In hunting down Jandamarra the colonialists in one raid killed 30 Aboriginal people, including his mother Jini, and they took hostage his wife, Mary-Annie. Mrs Deegan’s grandmother had a child with Jandamarra, and after his death she would have 8 more children, one of them the mother of Mrs Deegan.
“Jandamarra was my Gubbi (step-grandfather) and his skin was Nikyina, and he married of his skin, my grandmother, Mary-Annie, who before she died was the Senior Woman Law Boss, and our Women’s Country has been ripped from us and we must fight for it back, for Nikyina people and for the Business of Nikyina women.”
Bunaba Elders and the KLC have been contacted for comment however it is noted they have long claimed that Jandamarra was Bunaba. More recently, ‘Jandamarra and the Bunuba Resistance’ was written by Howard Pederson, and won the Western Australian Premier’s Book Award. A stage play, ‘Jandamarra’ was also recently produced by Perth’s Black Swan Theatre Company and playwright Stephen Hawke. An ABC documentary about his life was first screened a couple of years ago, produced by Aboriginal company Wawili Pitjas. To them Jandamarra was Bunaba, and there was passing mention to his wife Mary-Annie. To Nikyina Elder, Mrs Deegan, Jandamarra is her Nikyina grandfather, her ‘Gubbi’, and Mary-Annie was her Nikyina grandmother, the Senior most Law Boss of Country, Women’s Country, that she said should not have been claimed by the Bunaba.
