Our History

9th August 1974 Mangarrayi families moved from Elsey Station to Jilkminggan (aka Djembere, Duck Creek). Uncle Clancy together with his sisters Jessie Roberts and Sheila Conway and their husbands looked for a place to live.

Mid 1974

Early housing built by families when they first moved to Djembere. The second hand galvanised iron used was obtained by knocking down the old Native Ward at Katherine Hospital. Patrol Officer Kirk Whelan and Patrol Assistant Clancy Roberts undertook the demolition of the building and arranged for it to be transported to Djembere utilising Jim Braun’s truck who was at the time one of the proprietors of the Mataranka Store.

Why Managarrayi people wanted to move from Elsey Station.

Living conditions were appalling at the Station and were directly responsible for high rates of infant mortality. At the time a Senate Inquiry commonly called the Gibb Report had just concluded. This report recommended that the Federal Government should excise land from pastoral properties and that the government should then provide basic essential services like power water sewerage and housing.

Djembere or Jilkminggan was possibly the first community established under the Gibb recommendations.

The first buildings other than housing In Djembere a Primary School and Health Clinic

1983 FREEHOLD TITLE for the then Djembere

Being handed over to Jessie Roberts and Sheila Conway Elders, by the then Honorable Chief Minister, Paul Everingham.

History of Elsey Area

According to the stories handed down from our ancestors, the Mangarrayi people have always lived in the area around the Roper River. Our traditions revolved around caring for the land, culture, ceremony, family, hunting, fishing and gathering. Our lands border those of the Yangman, Alawa, Ngalakan and Jawoyn peoples so of course there was a lot of intermarriage to the different tribes surrounding us, there are places on our land that are of ceremonial significance to the wider region. Some early contact with settlers occurred during the exploration of the area by Charles Augustus Gregory in 1856 and during the construction of the Overland Telegraph which was completed in 1872. However, it was the occupation of the area by pastoralists in the 1880s that changed our Mangarrayi way of life forever (Merlan 1996).

Leases for areas along Elsey and Birdum Creeks were taken up in 1877 and cattle were first released onto Elsey Station in 1881. Over the next twenty years the Elsey Station homestead sat on three different places, the first in Yangman country and the last two in Mangarrayi country.

Yangman people were the workers at the first homestead at Garlyag (Warloch Ponds). When the homestead was moved to Ngarrmirngan (Big Red Lily Lagoon) and then to its current location at Guyanggan (Elsey Station Homestead), most of the remaining Yangman people moved north onto our country. From that time on, the core workers at Elsey Station were both Yangman and Manggarrayi (Merlan 1996).

Like many other tribes around Australia, disease and massacres caused a lot of deaths amongst local Indigenous peoples during the early years of white settlement.

In 1903 Elsey Station was joined with Hodgson Downs Station and bought by the Eastern and African Cold Storage Company Ltd. They thought that ‘wild’, cattle-spearing Aborigines were bad for business. Historians record several large massacres and atrocities in the Elsey area and in Arnhem Land during the reign of the Eastern and African Cold Storage Company Ltd in this region (Dewar 1985). Our old people still tell stories they heard from their parents about this sad time.

Our men were good strong hunters and they became very good stockmen, experts at working with cattle and horses. Many worked on our country where Elsey Station is, and some on nearby properties. Families often moved with the men from other nearby traditional lands and stayed in camps near the homestead of the station they were working on. Station Managers used to support the old people and families of their stockmen with some food, blankets and tobacco.

Some stations provided some health care and education for children. Many gave work to some of our women in the Big House - cleaning, laundry, cooking and looking after children. There was a big, permanent camp on Elsey station until 1974.

In 1968 the minimum wage decision for the pastoral industry occurred. After this, Station Managers said they couldn’t afford to pay our men the new wages and they didn’t want camps full of old people, women and children on their stations any more. A lot of Station Managers forced Aboriginal people to move off the station that was part of their traditional land. Some families dispersed to other communities as far as Barunga, others stayed at the camp near Elsey Station homestead until 1974. Hot on the legal heels were Excisions off Pastoral Lots, these passed legislation and traditional owners could then return to their country. A few men still had work but most didn’t. A lot of men started drinking beer because they had no work anymore.

In 1991 the Aboriginal Development Corporation bought Elsey Station on behalf of the Mangarrayi Traditional Owners and handed it back to them this came about after traditional owners read a notice in the NT papers publishing a plan that this area was to become a ‘dude ranch’ where anyone who has the money could come and kill wildlife.

If you are interested in gaining more understanding and answers as to why problems seem to prevail in communities the book ‘Why Warriors lie down and die’ is recommended a good read.