Sacred sites: Alice Springs Aboriginal elder leads tours in bid for better understanding

An Alice Springs Aboriginal elder is providing artist tours as an unique opportunity to create better understanding.

On a bright Sunday morning a small group of locals gathered on the pavement in one of the town's industrial areas, to embark on a sacred sites tour led by senior custodian Doris Stuart.

These tours are informal and aimed at people in creative industries. They began as part of a regional arts conference there in 2008.

"It's really good to work in with the artists and good to talk openly about what our sites mean to us," Doris said.

"It's hard to imagine that there's a story that needs to be told, with the trees, the hills and our sites. I find that only artists can do that."

For Doris, these tours are a bid for understanding and an attempt to convey both the importance and the difficulty of caring for country in the face of ongoing urban development.

From Alice Springs to Mparntwe

The area in and around Alice Springs is one of the most densely populated with sacred sites in the Northern Territory.

Known as Mparntwe to the local Arrernte people, Alice Springs was once an important ceremonial area where different songlines converged.

Two of those songlines relate to important ancestral figures — the caterpillar and the dog.

In Aboriginal belief, damage or disturbance to sacred sites results in serious danger to the well-being of the country and wider community.

Doris believes members of her family have lost their lives because of compromises made in the name of urban development.

On the trip, Doris introduced the group to Akngwelye, the local dog whose fight with an intruder created many of the natural features of the landscape west of Alice Springs.

Akngwelye is embodied in the striking peak of Mt Gillen, a prominent ridge standing sentry over the town.

"We're following the battle of the intruder dog coming in from the south... creating this big fight with our local dog," Doris explained.

"They fought in the plains here, they kicked up all the dust... Akngwelye, our local dog, rips out the intestines of his enemy."

Doris showed the group where custodians proved their association to the area during the Arrernte native title claim in the 1990s.

"This was one of the sites that the men chose. We all sat around here, away from the men explaining and singing songs ...," she said.

"You could feel that power coming out, you know, because that was your connection, you had your identity."

Ancestral caterpillars replaced by roads

On the eastern side of Alice Springs Doris introduced the group to Coolibah Swamp, just minutes from the CBD and an important ceremonial ground for the Arrente people.

Travelling ancestral caterpillars are said to have met up with their local counterparts there.

"You see that big old coolabah?" she asked the group.

"That represents the big old boss waiting for the travelling Yeperenye caterpillar ... same species as us here.

"He ushers them in, you know, happy to see one another.

"If you look at those trees, you'll see they're swaying and they danced and danced there."

Today the area is choked with saltbush and dissected by roads.

"They created a connector road through our sacred site," Doris said.

"Family had to choose which trees had to go to bring that connector road into being.

"Who could stand and point to the trees?

"Family had to close their eyes because these are family we're talking about, they're not just trees; we're one and the same."

Important sites severely compromised by development

Over the course of a few hours the tour took in more than a dozen important sites around Alice Springs, all of which have been severely compromised by the impact of roads, houses, suburbs and industry.

Doris tells the group about the development of a new road in the 1980s, when the traditional owners were asked where a road could be put, only to have their wishes ignored.

"They promised family they'd come back and consult before anything was done... but 'round about Christmas in the early '80s, they blasted it," she said.

"I can still see the men standing around, crying."

Plein-Air painter Jenny Taylor was hoping to produce work as a response to the tour for a future exhibition.

"I guess the understanding is that artists and writers will get what she's saying, in different ways, including intuitive ways," she said.

"I will never know in detail those things about country that Doris knows, but what I can take away is an attitude of respect."

Recently Doris spoke at the launch of a book by the Central Land council called Every Hill Got A Story, in which her late brother, a senior Arrente custodian is quoted.

In her speech she voiced her opposition to a move by the Territory government to formalise a walking track up Mt Gillen.

"There are over a hundred sacred sites in this small area we call Mparntwe," she said.

"We lost many of them to development, so the few that are left are very precious; we must protect them at all costs."

Note: The names of deceased Aboriginal people have been omitted to respect Aboriginal cultural protocols