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Hume, Lynne

English

Christianity Full Circle: Aboriginal Christianity on Yarrabah Reserve

Petri, Helmut

Petri-Odermann, Gisela

Kolig, Erich

27 
A Nativistic and Millenarian 
Movement in North West 
Australia 
Helmut Petri 
Gisela Petri-Odermann 
Translated by Erich Kolig 
[Editor's note: The following article was originally published as 'Nativismus 
und millenarismus im gegenwaertigen Australien' in 1964. It was written 
while the Petris were at La Grange in 1963, and, while not analytic, is 
marked by a refreshing immediacy. It is the only first-hand account of a 
nativistic (anti-colonial) and millenarian (prophesied future in which 
wrongs will be righted) movement with specifically Christian elements 
among Aborigines. The translation presented here is slightly abridged.] 
N ativistic and millenarian movements are usually analysed as symptoms of varying 
degrees of culture contact. Documented in Oceania, Africa, the Americas, and parts 
of Asia, they seem to have been largely, but not totally, absent from Australia 
(Muehlmann 1961; Guarglia 1959; Lanternari 1960). One known example is the 
Molonga cult. A dynamic movement hostile to Europeans, it had its origin in 
Queensland at the beginning of this century, and gradually spread throughout 
much of the continent (Siebert cited in Petri 1953:166). Until recently, no analogous 
or cognate movements have been observed in Australia.1 However, recent events 
among traditionally oriented Aboriginal groups in West and Central Australia are 
suggestive of a new nativistic-millenarian movement. 
Prior to discussing this movement, it is important to note that a kind of revitalist 
movement emerged in 1960 among local groups bound to white settlements on the 
northern fringe of the Canning Desert of Western Australia. The leaders were young 
and middle aged men who were tradition conscious and intelligent. All of them 
lived in a contact situation and attempted to come to grips intellectually with their 
experiences with European settlers and, through their own traditions and values, to 
find their own solutions to the existential problems of their people (Petri 1963:305f.). 
Petri and Petri-Odermann 
The objective was an increased awareness of their cultural heritage through an 
intense cultivation of cult and ceremonial life, and through a revival of those 
traditions and institutions whose survival was threatened. It would miss the point, · 
however, to see this endeavor as exclusively oriented toward the past. The presence 
of Europeans, and their technological supremacy, was accepted, and people were 
prepared to modify the old order to a certain extent, and to adjust to tl;te new one. 
For example, there were rarely any misgivings about releasing children between the 
ages of six and fourteen from local communities and allowing them a boarding 
school education in the mission and state schools. People demanded, however, that 
the children be returned in order to induct them into the traditional initiation system 
and thus to give them a firm place in their own social and intellectual system. It was, 
therefore, a form of revitalism which saw survival not only in a revitalisation of the 
past, but also in a realistic assessment of the present. The rev,italism of 1960 lacked 
prophetic, millenaristic, nativistic, and revolutionary ideas. Rather, it endeavoured 
to achieve a balance between the two different cultural worlds of Aboriginal and 
European Australians. 
The situation we observed in 1960 no longer obtained in 1963. Among our first 
observations was a change in attitude: certain groups of Aborigines who, three years 
before, had been extraordinarily cooperative with us, had now become reserved. A 
new cult complex called wanadjara, which revived an old and widespread tradition 
concerning the activities of powerful Dreaming women, had been imported from 
the south. We were excluded from participation in wanadjara, andonly rarely was 
H. Petri invited to the evening song sessions of the men. The people were polite, 
ostensibly regretted our dismay, and pretended that they thought we were no longer 
interested in men's and women's ceremonial life. Only after some detours were we 
to find out what was really the matter. Strong undercurrents of hostility toward 
Europeans had, in the last two years, gripped the territorial groups of the central 
western desert and seemed to have their epi-centre in the Jigalong Mission in the 
Lake Disappointment area. These hostile attitudes had spread to the northwestern 
coastal area of Australia. There they found a particularly fertile ground with all those 
Aborigines who, in the last twenty to thirty years, had moved from the arid regions 
of the south and were living in some tension with their hosts (Petri 1956): 
Our research area during 1960 and 1963 was the Pallotine mission at La Grange, 
120 miles southwest ofBroome. The Udialla, desert migrants in the coastal community, 
were more or less open to anti-European ideas. The Udialla group, of heterogeneous 
ethnic composition, has always maintained strong links with groups living on the 
Protestant-sectarian mission station of Jigalong. These contacts contributed 
significantly to the fact that for years there had been tension between the Udialla and 
the Gularabulu who were coastal people belonging to the Garadjeri and Njangorriada 
tribes. It was a continuously crisis-ridden situation which the Catholic La Grange 
mission could not ameliorate. 
The hostile attitude of the Udiall.a towards Europeans received further impetus 
through the activities of Don McLeod. A European social reformer, McLeod had 
formed mining cooperatives near Port Hedland and Roebourne organised according 
to socialist principles and composed solely of Aborigines. Aboriginal social reformers 
travelled throughout the northwest and, through generous donations of flour for 
ceremony and through promises of future social justice and wealth for Aborigines, 
created a following, particularly among the migrants from the southern desert who 
392 
Natavistic and Millenarian Movement 
hitherto had had the least con tact with Europeans. Aboriginal recruiters for socialism 
had also instructed people not to tell anything to visiting anthropologists as these 
poeple would sell their 'Law', i.e. their traditions and cults, to a hostile West 
Australian government bent on their suppression. We received this information 
from several Gularabulu who had been in contact with Europeans a few decades 
longer than the Udialla and who 'lacked sympathy for McLeod's ideas. 
Although these factors"explain the mistrust and disapproving attitudes on the 
part of some Aborigines at La Grange mission, they say little about anti-European 
attitudes among Aborigines of the western desert. 
In September 1963 we received unexpected information from W.G., a member 
of the Udialla group (Djualin tribe). People from Garo (an intertribal meeting centre 
and point ofintersection of various mythic groups) had brought the cult complex 
wanadjara to the eastern region known as Wonajagu or Woneiga.2 In this eastern 
region, it happened, so it was said, 'a short time ago' that Jinimin (Jesus) appeared 
one day to a group of Aborigines as they were about to stage one of the Wanadjara 
ceremonies. The Wonajagu people were said to have always believed in Jesus and his 
power and to have found this belief to be consistent with their Dreaming tradition 
and with the traditions and cults imported from other areas. This epiphany was said 
to have happened on a 'missionary' station. We were unable to find out the exact 
location.3 
When Jinimin-Jesus revealed himself to his believers in Wonajagu country, he 
was said to have had both black and white skin. He proclaimed that all land 
belonged 'to the Aborigines and that henceforth there would be no difference 
between Black and White Australians. This state of affairs, however, would only be 
realised if the Aborigines could muster sufficient strength and power to fight the 
Whites successfully and thus to attain a position from which they could get their 
own way. This would be achieved only if they rigorously adhered to their own Law. 
Thus the Christian saviour was attributed both with the role of a guardian and 
keeper of Aboriginal culture, and with that of a revitalist prophet. 
It was said to have been early afternoon when Jinimin-Jesus descended from 
heaven. Everybody was surprised and frightened, and no one dared to touch the 
apparition. Some men, however, had taken their box-cameras and made photographs. 
After his exhortation to keep alive the 'Old Law', Jinirnin-Jesus had people perform 
worgaia (a cult complex concerning Dreaming activities of the two earth mothers, 
probably originating in Arnhem Land).4 Afterwards, Jinimin-Jesus was said to have 
promised the Wonajagu people that after their successful fight with the Europeans, 
they themselves would receive white skin. Holy water would fall from the sky to 
cleanse them and make them light. In the late afternoon he returned to heaven, 
taking with him both wanadjara and worgaia cult complexes. 
Associated with this Jinimin-Jesus myth is another remarkable conception. 
According to both W.G. (Djualin) and W. (Yulbaridja), another member of the 
Udialla group, there is, 'on the other side of Galidjida', southeast of Fitzroy Crossing, 
at the foot of a mountain range near two water holes, a large stone ship which 
Jinitnin-Jesus sent from heaven. The informants said that the ship had been in this 
place since bugarigara (Dreaming). The ship was said to have a doubie significance. 
After the annihilation of Europeans through the deluge of Holy Water, it would 
serve as a second Noah's Ark for Aborigines. It was also said to be filled with gold 
and luminous crystal which are the basis of the future wealth of Aboriginal society. 
393 
Petri and Petri-Odermann 
That soeiety will be equal, or even superior, in power to the present White society. 
No Europeans were able to find this ship or to see it. It would reveal itself only to the 
eyes of a certain member of the Mangala tribe: T., the son of cl Garo cult chief, and a 
powerful maban (shaman) in his own right. 
The Jinimin-Jesus belief has millenarian objectives and is a new syncretistic cult 
with distinct revitalistic and nativistic tendencies. It emerged in a culture contact 
situation and can be compared to movements in New Guinea and the archipelagoes 
of eastern Melanesia, for which there is a comprehensive literature on the subject 
(Worsley 1957). Cargo cults encompass the idea that ships richly laden with goods 
will arrive and will facilitate a different future. Such beliefs always occur in Oceanic 
redemptive longing and seem comparable to the idea of the stone ship at Galidjida.5 
At this stage we cannot foresee what developments this movement may take. 
As it has already spread to the Fitzroy River area, it may be hypothesised that it had 
a large following in the western desert where it originated, but detailed information 
is not available. 
It is also unclear whether the anti-European attitudes, which originate at 
Jigalong mission, can be connected with the Jinimin-Jesus cult. According to the 
Native Welfare Department (WA), there is a cult called gurunu i!l Jigalong which has 
become a nativistic cult. However, both of our informants at La Grange maintain 
contacts with Jigalong and claim thatgurunu is just another name for wanadjara. The 
message of Jinimin-Jesus was that wanadjara would be the cult from which people 
in the desert of the south and southwest would derive power and strength to fight 
Europeans. Wanadjara activities were particularly favoured in La Grange by the 
Udialla who were hostile to Europeans, as well as by some Gularabulu. 
We can state with some certainty that reinterpreted Christian and socio-
reformatory ideas contributed to the transformation of a non-aggressive revitalism 
into an aggressive, nativisitic, and millenaristicdynamic. This development appears 
to have begun only after Australian policies towards Aborigines had become widely 
liberalised. Full citizen rights were soon to be granted to Aborigines. In addition, 
Catholic missions had moved not only to accept traditional life as far as it was 
compatible with Christian ethics, but also to support it. 
Notes 
1 The Kurangara cults in the northern Kimberley district of North west Australia, cited by 
V. Lanternari in reference to A. Lommel (1952), are not religious or prophetic movements 
which have been triggered through the contacts with White civilisation. Rather they are 
mythico-traditional lines and associated ritual practices which occupy a key position in 
the cultural and population dynamic of the arid interior of Australia. (See Petri 1956). 
2 These two terms are used by the groups of the western desert and of the Kimberley 
district to refer to all eastern desert regions and their inhabitants. Woneiga is also a tribe 
or rather territorial group which has its old hunting grounds in the central border area 
of Western Australia and the Northern Territory. (See Meggitt 1962). 
3 Aborigines in this area denote as "missionaries" all Protestant missionaries of Lutheran 
and also sectarian denomination while the Catholic missionaries are called "fathers 
longa catholic law''. Among some Aborigines not yet directly touched by missionary 
activity the idea has formed that there are two different Jes uses one is "birga" = the big 
boss of the "fathers" and has a mother. The other, who has no mother, but "made 
himself", is obeyed by the "missionaries". 
394 
Natavistic and Millenarian Movement 
4 Cf. RM. Berndt (1951). We heard of the "Worgaia" dynamic for the first time in 1954 on 
Anna Plains-station from an eastern Kimberley Aborigine who used to live there. It }:las 
spread in the course of the last nine years in a south-westerly direction along the Fitzroy 
River and reached La Grange shortly after our·arrival on this mission station, in May 
1963. "Worgaia", moreover, is the name of a tribe or territorial group whose habitation 
area is near Newcastle waters in the Northern Territory (Meggitt, loc.dt., table opp. p.5). 
How far there is a connection between the "Worgaia" tribe and the cult complex of the 
same name,we were as yet ynable to find out. 
5 . Frederick Rose conducted field work in the period between July and October 1%2 on 
Angus Downs station in Central Australia. He studied the social and economic changes 
to which Aboriginal society was subjected by the contact with the White Australian 
colonial culture. In his short report on the results of his undertaking, published in 1963, 
he mentions also a kind of cargo movement which in some respects approximates more 
closely the movements of this kind known to us in New Guinea and Melanesia than the 
as yet still very diffuse cargo idea of the Aborigines of the western desert, which is 
associated with the stone ship of Galidjida in the Fitzroy River area. Rose writes as 
follows: 
... an unusual feature in the cult life of the Aborigines is the appearance of 
the cargo cult. The belief associated with it, consists in the idea that the 
Americans will return to Angas Downs with a large number of trucks laden 
with sacks of flour, tea and sugar. The trucks and the food stuffs will be 
handed over to the Aborigines. The root of this conception of course goes 
back to the war when American trucks laden with food and ammunition 
went back and forth between Alice Springs and Darwin. Moreover, after the 
war these trucks passed into the possession of the Whites, narriely _:_ so the 
Aborigines believe-by a trick. When the Americans return, the Aborigines 
will not, as they say, be deceived a second time and will indeed receive the 
trucks and foods. The cargo cult belief is not associated with specific cult 
forms and rites .. . 
We are faced here with a range of ideas which in identical or cognate form, lie at the base 
of numerous cargo movements of Oceania in the war and post-war period. It is also 
noteworthy that here, as is the case in the western desert (and in contrast to Oceania) a 
certain, very materialistic expectation of salvation is not directly associated with the 
traditional cultural and cultic complexes. 
Bibliography 
Berndt,RM. (1951), Kunapipi, Melbourne. 
Guariglia, G. (1959), 'Prophetismus und Heilserwartungsbewegungenals Voelkerkundliches 
und Religionsgeschichtliches Problem' in Wiener Beitraege zur Kulturgeschichte und 
Linguistik, Bd. XIII. 
Lanternari, V. (1960), Movimenti Religiosi di Liberia e di Salvezza dei Populi Oppressi, Milano. 
Lommel, A. (1952), Die Unambal, ein Stamm in Nordwest-Australien, Monographien zur 
Voelkerkunde, Bd II. Hamburg. 
Meggitt, M. (1962), Desert People, Sydney. 
Muehlmann, W. (1961), 'Chiliasmus und Nativismus: Studiem zur Psychologie, Soziologie 
und Kasuistik der Umsturzbewegungen' in Studien zur Soziologie der Revolution, Bd I. 
Berlin. 
Petri, H. (1953), 'Der Australische _Medizinmann' in Annali Lateranensi, Vol. XVII. 
Petri, H. (1956), 'Dynamik im Stammesleben Nordwest-Australiens' in Paideuma, Bd. VI. 
395 
Petri and Petri-Odermann 
Petri, H. (1963), 'Gibt est noch "Unbervehrte" Wildbeuter im Heutigen Australien?' in 
Baessler-Archiv, N.F.X. 
Rose, F. (1963), 'Forschungreise nach Australien' in Ethnographisch-Archaeologische Zeitschrift, 
4(2):156-60. 
Siebert, P. (1910), 'Sagen und Sitten der Dieri und Nachbarstaemme in Zentral-Australien' in 
Globus, XCVII, 3/4. 
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396 


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Christianity Full Circle: Aboriginal Christianity on Yarrabah Reserve

A Nativistic and Millenarian Movement in North West Australia

Front Matter

The Ismaili Muslim Identity and Changing contexts

Mipela Simbu! the Pig-Festival and Simbu Identity

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Book 1 Introduction

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