From Orphan to Tribe to Orphan.
Brothers, country, and the cost of being Indigenous.
This is me with my brothers, Justin, MJ, Chooky - I’m on the right. The Europeans call us Aboriginal. We prefer the term Wumpurrai (umbrani) - it means man that rises up out of the red dirt.
First time in our lives we are all together. Happened in 2023. On our homeland - Warumungu (Tennant Creek, NT, Australia).
We are all Jungarrayis, that’s our skin name. A “skin name” is a part of a traditional kinship system that assigns each person a specific name and role within our community. It helps determine social relationships, marriage possibilities, and responsibilities, similar to a family surname but more complex and interconnected.
Tell another Blakfella that you’re a Jungarrayi from Warumungu and they instantly know who you are and who you belong to.
When I say Blakfella, I mean our mob, our people.
The fella at the back in this picture, the dark one, his name is Chooky. He was our Chief. He was a full-blood. Desert man. Proud of it. His land is worth $500 million and the mining companies wanted it.
Someone sent seven men to ‘talk’ to Chooky. They found him 10 miles out of town; he had run out of gas trying to get back for dialysis. They dragged his diabetic body into the desert and left him without water, without his medication. It took him 5 days to die. He was a tough bastard.
He was murdered because he wouldn’t sell his Manu. He wanted it for his children’s children—so that they would always have a home.
Manu
Home. Manu—that’s our word for country.
There are only two places in the world. Here or there. Here is Manu. There is anywhere other than home. Country is everything to us. It is our lore, our songs, the place of our ancestors, the place where we will raise the next generations.
To sell Manu means that your ancestors have nowhere to be and your children have no place to come home to.
Breed the Black out
Melanin is dominant in Africans; it is a recessive gene in Blakfellas. The Australian government had a policy to breed the black out. They called it “absorbing” us into the white population.
This meant that our women, our wives, our mothers, our sisters were fair game to any who wanted them. European stockmen, police officers, soldiers would rape them without consequence. Children of those relationships were then taken by the government and put with European families to integrate. Forbidden to speak our language. Deny our heritage. Forced to abandon our culture and beliefs. This policy officially ended in the 1970’s. In reality it just changed it’s name, Wumpurrai (First Nations) kids are still removed at massively disproportionate rates today under child protection laws, which many mob see as a continuation.
Today we are still called: Half-caste. Mongrels. Yellafella. Quadroon. Octoroon.
We call ourselves Brothers.
My Brothers.
The fella on the right is Justin. He is an advocate for Sovereign Nations - reservation-type homelands, with self-governance, similar to Native Americans. The local cops and politicians see Justin as a trouble maker, because he urges Wumpurrai to hold onto Manu and use it for the betterment of our people and not sell out to Chinese or European interests.
Justin is in jail. A kid he was looking after didn’t like being grounded for stealing smokes. The kid told the school police officer that Justin beat him. Justin didn’t.
Justin went to town to buy some water (we don’t have fresh water at the camp) and the police arrested him. My sister-in-law (Bundji) told the cops he didn’t hit the kid. The other people living at the camp said Justin never hit the kid. When they were charging Justin, the police knew they couldn’t hold him on domestic violence so they bundled in a range of other allegations to ensure he went to lock up.
Later on the kid admitted he lied. Didn’t make any difference. Police still wanted Justin out of the community - he was one of our elders, a force amongst our people.
That was six months ago. Justin is still in jail. For the first three months they didn’t allow him legal representation. He shares a cell with eight other Wumpurrai men with one fan.
In Alice Springs. In the central desert. At 125°F heat. In 2025. One fan, eight men. Trouble. United Nation violation.
Aboriginals make up only 3% of the entire Australian population.
Approximately 84% of the adult prison population in the Northern Territory is Aboriginal.
Approximately 96% of the youth in detention in the Northern Territory are Aboriginal.
Something not right with those numbers. Something not right with the system.
They are telling us Justin might get life. He is a brilliant Sushi chef. Trained for 9 years in Japan. Michelin qualified.
This is me with MJ. His granddad was an Afghan camel jockey. They called him onion because he was so small at birth.
He was the spiritual and cultural heart of the Warumungu White Band Clan. He was the keeper of Secret Men’s Business. The holder of our lore and sacred stories.
A couple of months after he was born, word hit home camp that the police were on the way to remove him and place him with a family in Sydney. That’s 5 days’ drive from Manu in today’s terms, an impossible distance back then.
Mum ran into the bush and hid him in a creek bed behind the camp.
The police hung around for days. Raping our aunties, beating our uncles.
Five days later, after they left, Mum headed back to the creek, expecting to find MJ dead. He wasn’t. He was alive and being suckled by a dog. You don’t have to believe it. We know it is true. Things like this happen often to our people. Back then and still today. Happened to me - that’s another story.
MJ died a couple of weeks ago. He was living out at camp. Couldn’t get into town. Didn’t have fresh water. Didn’t have medication for his heart.
The Tuesday before he died, he called me - we always spoke on Tuesdays. He was telling me stories of the turkey and the dog - our totems. He was a funny bugger always wanting to teach me. Make up for lost time, he said. Make sure I had a chance to learn what I missed out on as a kid. He wanted me to belong. Wanted me to have a family.
He wanted me.
They found MJ two days later, on Thursday, collapsed, unconscious. They airlifted him to Alice Springs.
The jail where Justin is in Alice Springs, 15 minutes from the hospital.
The day they were going to turn off MJ’s life support, Corrections made a point of sitting Justin down and telling him what was going on. Making sure he knew that they had the power to let him go and say goodbye to MJ. Making sure he knew it wasn’t going to happen.
Justin’s lawyer said that something like that would not have happened if he had been European. I can’t tell you that is true.
I can tell you that stories like this are common to our mob.
I can tell you that European murderers, rapists and thieves are allowed to go visit dying relatives on compassionate grounds.
I can tell you the jail had a chance to do the right thing and they didn’t.
Then there is me.
The first picture with my brothers, is the only picture where I have ever felt normal. My head looks like their heads. My nose looks like their noses. I’ve got big boofy hair, just like them. Brothers.
When I turned 60, my wife (she is Cherokee—redfella marries a blakfella in Dallas- another story) said I had to answer the question about my family once and for all, because it plagued me. She said it was time for me to find my family and know my place in the world.
So we bought a couple of tickets and took off for Australia.
It was a miracle how they found me. I might have been looking for them, but they found me. Blakfellas are good trackers. They can look at your face. Your eyebrows. Your big blakfalla nose and make a phone call. And then you are home. On Manu for the first time in your life.
The week before he died, MJ told me I had a big song in me. One that would help people know us. One that would make sure the White Band Clan, that our lore and songs would live on.
I don’t know what that means or how that all works.
What I can tell you is that going from orphan to tribe to orphan feels like a great rock of sadness sitting where my heart use to be.
So I made this.
I made this for you, so you could meet them. So you might know us. So our songs would not be forgotten in mine dust, greed and red dirt.
This is my people. My family.
I am Wumpurrai, from the Warumungu White Band Clan.
I am Dr John A. King - Jungarrayi - Karti Manu Wani - Man who rises up out of the red dirt.
Kamita.