Hermannsburg, Northern Territory

Hermannsburg was established on 4 June 1877 at a sacred site known as Ntaria, which was associated with the Aranda ratapa dreaming.[3] It was conceived as an Aboriginal mission by two Lutheran missionaries, A. Hermann Kempe (from Dauben, near Dresden[4]) and Wilhelm F. Schwarz (from Württemberg[4]) of the Hermannsburg Mission from Germany, who had travelled overland from Bethany in the Barossa Valley in South Australia. They named their new mission among the Arrernte people after Hermannsburg in Germany where they had trained.[5][6]

They arrived with 37 horses, 20 cattle and nearly 2000 sheep,[3] five dogs and chickens. Construction began on the first building in late June 1877 made from wood and reed grass. By August a stockyard, kitchen and living quarters were also completed.[7] They had nearly no contact with Aboriginal people in the first few months, although their activities were being observed. At the end of August a group of 15 Arrernte men visited the mission camping near the settlement. Realising that communication was difficult, the missionaries quickly learnt the local Arrernte language.[8]

A third missionary, Louis Schulze (from Saxony[4]), arrived in Adelaide in October 1877, accompanying three additional lay workers and the wives of Kempe and Schwarz. With the additional workers, five buildings were complete by December 1878. By 1880 at church was constructed with the assistance of Aboriginal labour and the first church service took place on 12 November followed by school on 14 November.[9] The first Aboriginal baptisms took place and in 1887 as many as 20 young people were baptised.[9]

A 54-page dictionary of 1750 words was published in 1890.[8] In 1891 the mission published an Arrernte-language book on Christian instruction and worship, containing a catechism, stories from the Bible, psalms, prayers and 53 hymns. In the same year, the Royal Society of South Australia published Schulze's thesis on the habits and customs of the local Aboriginal people and the geography of the Finke River area.[6]

While the population fluctuated, there were always about 100 people living at the mission as pastoralism increased and racial issues developed. Hostilities escalated in 1883 during a drought which saw local Aboriginal people hunt wandering stock.[7] Kempe endured trouble from the native police, who would bribe some Aboriginal men to kill their fellow tribesmen, sometimes offering them sex with the women as a reward. Kempe assisted Francis Gillen in bringing the notorious Constable Willshire to trial in Port Augusta.[10]

Fried Schwartz left the mission in 1889 due to ill health, followed by Schulze in 1891. Kempe lost his wife and child during childbirth and was himself suffering from typhoid, so also left the mission in 1891. In this way the first term of administration of he mission ended.[10][11]

The settlement was continued by lay workers until Pastor Carl Strehlow arrived in October 1894[12] (or 1895?) with his wife, Frieda Strehlow (née Kaysser). Frieda was born in 1875, and had met Strehlow when he was training to be a missionary in 1892. After marrying in Adelaide, the couple travelled by horse and buggy to Hermannsburg. Many of the locals could by this time speak German,[10] and Pastor Strehlow continued documenting the local language, and was involved with local people in Bible translation and hymn writing. In 1896 additional construction took place of a school house, which was also used as a chapel and an eating house. Frieda taught the women about a healthy diet and how to help reduced child mortality.[10] Severe droughts during 1897-8 and again in 1903 meant poor food production and an influx of Aboriginal people.[7]

The new Bethlehem Lutheran church, built in 1964

The Strehlows left to have a break Germany in mid-1910 and placed their five eldest children with relatives and friends there, in order to secure a good education for them.[12] While they were away, they were replaced by Leibler and then by teacher H. H. Heinrich.[7] Carl, Frieda, and their son Theo (Ted Strehlow), returned in 1912,[12] having received letters from Aranda elders imploring them to return.[10]

Many English-speaking people in the area mistrusted the German missionaries, and did not have a high opinion of the Aboriginal people.[10] From 1912 to 1922, Baldwin Spencer, then Special Commissioner and Chief Protector of Aborigines, attempted to shut down the mission. In his 1913 report, Spencer proposed taking all Aboriginal children away from their parents and setting up reserves where the children would be denied any contact with their parents, be prevented from speaking their languages and made incapable of living in the bush.[13] He was particularly keen to make sure that "half-caste" children had no contact with camp life. Hermannsburg was to be taken away from the Lutherans and "serve as a reserve for the remnants of the southern central tribes where they can, under proper and competent control, be trained to habits of industry".[14] However, when the Administrator of the Northern Territory, John A. Gilruth, came down from Darwin in 1913 to see whether these negative reports were true, he gave Strehlow his support.[10]

The Strehlows finally left on 22 October 1922 when Pastor Strehlow contracted dropsy. He died the next day at Horseshoe Bend.[7]

The mission was without a missionary until Pastor Johannes Riedel arrived in late 1923, followed by Pastor Friedrich Wilhelm Albrecht on 19 April 1926 with his wife. They stayed until 1962. Drought stuck again in 1927 causing ill heath and scurvy. There was yet another influx of Aboriginal people and 85 per cent of Aboriginal children died during this time. A delivery of oranges was considered "a miracle".[9]

Albrecht was integral to the development of the Kuprilya Springs Pipeline, which piped water from a permanent water hole 6 km (3.7 mi) to the mission. It was funded in part by Melbourne artist Violet Teague and her sister Una, and was completed on 1 October 1935.[15] Albrecht also developed various other enterprises such as a large vegetable garden and orchard, beef cattle ranching and a tannery. They also supported the development of the school of watercolour landscape artists, which became one of the special heritages of the Hermannsburg area.[7]

The first two Aboriginal pastors were ordained in 1964, Conrad Rabaraba and Cyril Motna.[6] Doug Radke was pastor from 1965 to 1969.[16]

The mission land was handed over to traditional ownership in 1982 under the Aboriginal Land Rights Act 1976.[17]

The settlement and its satellite communities were funded as an outstation during the 1980s.[18]

By 2014, there were 24 Aboriginal pastors, and more than 40 trainees and female church leaders. The congregation included around 6,000 people, and sermons were being delivered in Luritja, Western Arrarnta, Pitjantjatjara, Anmatyerre, and Alyawarr, as well as English.[19]

Reverend Doug Radke and his wife Olga Radke OAM, along with their four children, moved to the Finke River Mission in 1965. Both worked with the Aboriginal community until 1969. They both loved music, and worked with the choir, including taking the singers on a tour to the southern states in 1967, for which Olga was the piano accompanist and organist. After leaving Hermannsburg they moved on to work with other Lutheran congregations, until Doug's untimely death, when Olga moved moved to Alice Springs to work at the Strehlow Research Centre as a volunteer. In 2003, she became a member of the Prisoners' Aid and Rehabilitation Association of Alice Springs. She lobbied for a support group for people with mental illness, and has continued to work with churches and choirs. In the 2015 Queen's Birthday honours list, Olga was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia for service to the community of Alice Springs.[16][28] In 2021, she wrote and published a book about the 1967 tour, entitled Hermannsburg Choir on Tour - Remembering the 1967 Choir Tour. The book includes her original detailed "Choir Tour Diary".[29][16]

• Yvette Holt, a poet from Brisbane, has lived in Hermannsburg since 2009 (as of 2021)[30]
• Peter Latz (1941–), botanist, grew up there
• Shane Nicholson, after a visit to Hermannsburg with Warren H Williams, wrote a song called "Hermannsburg" in 2015
• Otto Pareroultja, first painter in the region to paint in a more impressionist style[31][32]
• Ted Strehlow (1908–1978), son of Carl, noted anthropologist, initiated into Aranda customs
• Gus Williams, Aboriginal country music singer
• Warren H Williams, son of Gus, also a singer, and a traditional owner of Ntaria