The Mithaka People, their society and history
10 The applicant has filed a number of anthropological reports that have been prepared by Professor Trigger with Dr Andrew Snedden, Dr Kevin Murphy and Dr Paul Gorecki. Important evidence in relation to the current exercise of traditional rights and interests has been provided in affidavit form by members of the claim group, Sharon Leigh-Ann Challenor, Scott Desmond Gorringe, Lorraine Violet McKellar, Jocelyn Haylock, Maxwell Phillip Gorringe, Raymond George Gorringe, Toby David Gorringe, Betty Dawn Gorringe, Helen Jean Gorringe, Alice Marrie Naish, Thelma Joyce Lander, Dean William Challenor and Noel Michael Francis Curran. The evidence of members of the native title claim group about their traditional laws and customs and rights and responsibilities in respect to land and waters is of the highest importance: Sampi v Western Australia [2005] FCA 777 at [48] per French J.
11 The pre and post-sovereignty reports by Dr Kevin Murphy have provided a broad analysis and overview of the earlier research undertaken by linguists and anthropologists working in the claim area over many years.
12 The affidavits and the anthropological reports are important, not only for this case, but as records of the history of the Mithaka People. They deserve to be read in full. For present purposes, I can only provide a brief summary of the evidence before the Court.
13 Dr Murphy's Report provides the following summary of the impact of European settlement in the region:
The first European explorations of the region were from the 1840s to the 1860s, and invasion by squatters moving in from the east and south followed shortly after. There are few records that describe interactions between the local Aboriginal population and the incoming squatters. On the adjacent region to the east, Longhurst writes:
By 1846 there was virtual open warfare on the frontier, with dozens of isolated shepherds losing their lives on the Barwon, Namoi, McIntyre and Maranoa, and a totally inadequate police force, unable to protect Aborigines or Europeans.
The situation further west appears to have been more mixed, while there were some killings of Europeans by Aborigines and of Aborigines by Europeans, evidently some local people acted as guides and helped the first squatters establish their runs. By the 1860s squatters had taken over land on the Warrego, Paroo, Bulloo and Wilson Rivers, and by the 1870s on Coopers Creek and the Diamantina River. In addition to frontier violence and new diseases, occupation of the land by Europeans with sheep, horses and cattle had devastating consequences for the Aboriginal inhabitants. Squatters took exclusive control of the permanent waters, which were vital to the Aboriginal economy in an environment where prolonged drought was common. Spearing of Europeans and their stock by Aborigines led to reprisals by squatters and Mounted Native Police, and there were numerous massacres throughout south-west Queensland in the first few decades of white occupation. Ecological damage caused by stock, restrictions on access to resource-rich water sources, and population decline led quickly to dependence of the Aboriginal population on the pastoralists for subsistence. No longer able to live independently on their own land, men and women were exploited for their labour and usually paid only in rations. Sexual exploitation of Aboriginal women by European men was commonplace, resulting in the birth of many children with European fathers. It was rare for them to acknowledge their children and, with some exceptions, they did not normally take a social role as the fathers of their offspring. The brutal treatment of Aboriginal men by Europeans was described by Meston in his account of a trip through south-western Queensland in 1900:
Never before had I seen aboriginal men living under such extraordinary terrorism, … many of them had long been treated as the dogs are treated and were scared into a belief that their employers wielded the power of life and death. They also knew that among most of the stations there was a mutual understanding that any run-away would be hunted and brought back, and as they had no one to whom they could appeal and no where to go they finally regarded their doom as inevitable and bore their wrongs in silence. The aboriginal men who work on the stations are frequently as competent as any white men and yet they receive usually only their food and clothing, the food being the roughest description and the clothing of the cheapest kind.
Meston also notes that there were some exceptions: "a few stations are remarkable for the fairness with which they treat their blacks". This led to a relative concentration of the Aboriginal population at those stations such as Tinnenburra, Caiwarro, Comongin and a few others, where they were treated more humanely.
From the late 1890s the Queensland government assumed extraordinary powers over the living conditions and movement of Aboriginal people, including instituting a system of reserves to which people could be removed. From 1900 people in south-west Queensland were being removed from camps they had established on the fringes of towns; from Meston's records on the first few years of the 20th century, most of these appear to have been elderly or sick and unable to work on the stations. For the first three decades of the 20th century there was a deliberate government policy of removing Aboriginal people to reserves, and a combination of economic depression, drought and the breaking up of large stations into smaller blocks led to a reduced demand for Aboriginal labour. Many moved to fringe camps on the edges of the towns, and from there some were taken to reserves far from their homelands, while other remained to work on stations and many of the town fringe camps remained, populated largely by elderly people along with women and children whose husbands and fathers were away much of the time working on stations.
The Queensland government continued to maintain extraordinary control over many aspects of the lives of Aboriginal people until the 1970s. The policies of Aboriginal "protection" included control over wages, with most being withheld and government approval required to spend money, control over where people could work and live, who they could marry, and prohibition of the consumption of alcohol. While on the one hand they were required to "assimilate" with the broader Australian population, at the same time most remained impoverished and many continued to live at town fringe camps, which they called yambas, while others remained at the government reserves.
The passage of the Native Title Act in 1993 brought a new set of circumstances into being. Whereas for over a century the Aboriginal people of south west Queensland had been physically and legally dispossessed of their land, all of a sudden the government presented the possibility that their traditional rights and interests in their ancestral lands could be legally recognised.
14 The evidence establishes that at sovereignty the Mithaka People were a distinct group who were united by a sense of shared affinity and language. They exercised rights over country that had their genesis in the traditional laws and customs that had been transmitted through descent.
15 The native title claim group now seeking to have their native title recognised is comprised of all of the persons descended from one or more of the following persons:
(a) Nangkaliya (alternatively spelled "Nuncleer");
(b) Katie/Kitty Wallerina (also known as Kathleen Mallyer and Kathleen Thompson);
(c) Njira Taffy;
(d) Mingelli Joe (also known as Joe St Clair/Mentuli/Minchoolie/Mintulee/Joe the Rainmaker);
(e) Maggie (sister of Mingelli Joe);
(f) Donald Morney;
(g) Bunbili;
(h) Jacky Frew;
(i) Pantya-Wanku-Ngawiranha;
(j) Tyuka-Putali;
(k) Cameron Downs;
(l) Puthi (also known as Frank);
(m) Natkillie Billy;
(n) Warinyawarinyi (also known as Jacky).
16 Contemporary group membership is governed by the following rules:
(a) a demonstrated continuous blood relation with an ancestor who is a "Mithaka person" is required;
(b) it does not matter if the ancestor is male or female;
(c) physical separation from the claim area (eg due to forced removal) does not exclude a person or family from group membership;
(d) the principle of adoption is also fully accepted.