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Trail:

To the Ends of the Earth

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That evening, I pushed Warren in his wheelchair to the aeroplane bound for Groote. After some comical difficulties manhandling Warren up the steep steps to the plane, the hostess helped me belt him in. Warren was going to take me back to his former island home of Angurugu and introduce me to the surviving members of his clan - those still living out their lives in the ‘hotspot’ cluster region of Groote syndrome.

The aeroplane filled up with a strange incongruous mix of passengers; western mining tycoons, an Anglican priest and a pair of first time Aboriginal parents bringing their newborn babies home after a "hygienic" hospital birth .

As the plane began its descent to the island, Warren croaked at me - since he could no longer talk properly. He was frantically stubbing at the window with the butt of his clawed back hand and managed to get out some protracted pronunciation of a word that sounded like "u-usheerr". I guessed that he was referring to ‘the crusher’ since we were passing over some industrial looking bright lights which must have been those of the mine’s crusher where Warren and his neighbours had worked since the early 1960s.

A slight shiver numbed my enthusiasm for the approaching investigation, as I remembered Jenny’s stories about the dramatic changes to Aboriginal life since western culture had imposed its stranglehold of controls - one such legacy involved an upsurge in extreme violence and deviant behavioural psychoses. This seems to have run in tandem with the emergence of Groote Eylandt syndrome

For instance, news had travelled from Groote to the mainland last week, reporting how Angurugu residents had awoken to witness two ‘pay back’ killings where young lads had macheted two people to pieces.

I had also been warned that the mining corporation might get funny about my arrival on the island and start harassing me for my permit - a weapon that they all too commonly employ to get potential ‘troublemakers’ extradited off the island ! But Warren had already acted as my proposer to the Aboriginal Land council and I was in possession of the necessary permit to visit Groote Aboriginal territory. So any potential agitators had no choice but to accept my rightful presence on the island?

Brian and Kathy Massey had come to the airport to meet us. I was shortly to discover that the Masseys, along with their small group of Anglican missionaries, represented the only non-Aboriginal body of people who really cared about the ill fated demise of the Angurugu community. They had kindly invited us to stay at their day care centre, and after seeing the gigantic size of the centre in relation to the small size of the village, I asked Brian whether the incidence rate of Groote syndrome was increasing. As I suspected, he said that there were a record 30 people who were currently suspected of suffering from Groote syndrome, and explained why issues such as lack of space in their temporary hospital were of pressing importance for the future . The figure of 30 sufferers out of a community of 900 people suggested that 1 out of 30 people were going down with Groote Syndrome.

I write this alone, as I prepare to go to sleep in the so called ‘dying house’. Outside in the mordant blackness of the night, I sense the restless ghosts of a community at breaking point. I can hear a crocodile down by the creek, a gunshot from an Aboriginal ghetto across the track, and the fidgeting of the fruit bats in the pandanus trees. I think of Warren’s inescapable isolation. His helpless vacant stare, his ego and life force totally ‘shot’ out of him.

I drew some comfort from an invite to go "yamming" in the rainforest sometime with Warren’s only surviving sister, Gayangwa, who, fortunately, has not contracted the disease to date.

I awoke to the sound of the Missionary woman’s keys opening up the health centre for another new day. I stepped out of my room to find the wooden veranda of the mission building virtually carpeted in mattresses; some of which were already occupied by the frail skeletal figures of those in advanced stages of some ageing condition - probably some variant of Groote syndrome. 

I remember bumping into an angelic looking young baby in a dilapidated pushchair, who, according to her carer, was suffering from some ‘undefined’ neurological disorder. She was apparently born with the condition. Despite her predicament, she gave me one of those broad Aboriginal smiles as I photographed her.

When I rounded the corner to enter the day room, my sudden appearance surprised one of the girls, just nineteen years old, who skulked off with an ataxic wobble, shock tremors breaking out in waves along her limbs. I later heard about the case of a pair of twins, famously known as the Bird Girls, who had been born with this same type of neuro-degenerative ataxic wasting syndrome.

Despite the peaceful presence of the morning sunlight fluttering across the cycad fronds around the Mission building, there was an atmosphere of panic. Their worst case victim , Ernie Lalara, had taken a turn for the worst and was shortly to be rushed off to the next aeroplane bound for Darwin. He needed emergency hospitalisation, since his muscle spasms were becoming so permanent that he could no longer keep his head forwards or draw breath. All night, he had been crying out like a wild animal in acute agony.

My anger surged to the extent that I could hardly eat breakfast. These formerly healthy Aboriginal communities had suddenly found themselves blighted with a grotesque new disease which first emerged after they had been persuaded by the early missionaries to abandon their ‘savage’ nomadic lifestyle and take up permanent residence in the village of Angurugu . And all the while I was preoccupied with the intransigent conclusions of the corporation controlled "experts" who were making certain that the cause of this whole syndrome was conveniently misappropriated onto Aboriginal genetics.

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Last updated 09-Feb-2007