Everything Everywhere Daily: History, Science, Geography & More - The Pintupi Nine

Episode Date: November 18, 2020

In October 1984, nine members of the Pintupi Tribe in Western Australia met some long lost relatives they hadn’t seen in years. The significance of this event is that those nine people, two women with four boys and three girls, were the last aboriginal people in Australia to have contact with the outside world. Up until 1984, they had lived their lives the same as their ancestors had for tens of thousands of years. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In October 1984, nine members of the Pintupi tribe of Western Australia met some long-lost relatives they hadn't seen in years. The relatives invited the nine people to come and live with them in their community in Kyrrika. The significance of the event is that those nine people, two women with four boys and three girls, were the last Aboriginal people in Australia to have contact with the outside world. Up until 1984, they had lived their lives in the same fashion as their ancestors had for tens of of thousands of years. Learn more about the Pintupe 9 on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. Fear is the virus is trending on TikTok. Vaccines are poison. Then your yoga teacher says that sex traffic children are being sacrificed by satanic liberals, but it's all okay. The

Great Awakening is coming. What is happening? Every week on Conspiratuality Podcast, we explore the fever dreams that suck friends, family, and wellness gurus down the right-wing cult spiral in a search for salvation. This episode is sponsored by audible.com. Today's audiobook recommendation is Grit, the unauthorized history of Australia, written and narrated by David Hunt. Grit, no word could better capture the essence of Australia. In this hilarious history, David Hunt reveals the truth of Australia's past, from

megafauna to McCrary, the cock-ups and curiosities, the forgotten exeseses, centricities and eureka moments that have made them who they are. Grit introduces forgotten heroes like Mary McLaughlin, transported for the crime of felony of sock, and trim the cat who beat a French monkey to become the first animal to circumnavigate Australia. You can claim your one-month trial to Audible and your two free audiobooks by going to audibletrial.com slash everything everywhere, or by clicking on the link in the show notes.

The story of the Pintupe 9 starts back in the 1950s, when the British military began doing blue-streak missile tests in the remote desert of Western Australia. As a safety precaution, they rounded up all of the Aboriginal people who were living in the region, mostly from the Pin Tupi tribe, and brought them to live in settlements. They managed to get everyone, except for one family. The people who were brought in to live in the settlements had been living a nomadic existence, similar to how their ancestors had lived for thousands of years. The people who were left didn't know where everyone went.

Suddenly, everyone they knew was gone, and they had to keep on living. Their existence was centered around food. They would spend their days going from watering hole to watering hole, hunting for guana lizards and kangaroo. They would eat grubs, damper seeds, and bush onions. Basically, anything and everything they could find to stay alive. They didn't have clothes. They didn't have anything to sleep on at night.

They weren't missing these things because they never knew that they were things. They weren't in survival mode per se. They were just living, living the same life their people had done for thousands of years. They had no knowledge of the outside world. They had never seen a machine, a house, or a car. They had no idea that Australia was crawling with white people from Europe because they had never seen one before. They did, however, see some signs. They would occasionally see an airplane flying overhead, and they had no idea what it was.

They would climb trees to avoid them as they thought they were demons. Once they came across the wreckage from a plane crash, and it was a mystery to them. One of them found a rope in the wreckage and tied it around their waist to hold the goanna lizards that they hunted. Eventually, the father of the family and the husband of the two wives died, and life for the family became more difficult. They were now down to nine people, and seven of them weren't adults. Their relatives who were taken to the settlements back in the 1950s knew that they had family out there in the bush. They made an effort to try to find them. In 1984, they were close.

They were out camping one day when they made contact. Warlim Paringa, the eldest brother and the head of the family after the father's death, recalled the events of that day and they made contact. He said, quote, We had just speared a kangaroo. We could smell the feces of the other humans in the air. They were probably a couple of kilometers away, and we saw smoke in the distance. We moved closer and stood on a rock, and I could see people camping down below.

So I began to move closer to their camp. I ran towards where they were standing. I snuck over closer, then I coughed. The people heard me. It looked like they were scared. They became frantic, running back and forth. This is my grandfather's land, I said. One of the men started to fill a billy can with water for them.

When he did, we thought, we won't spear him. They were so scared. They were really scared of us, scared out of their wits, unquote. After this initial bad first contact, the campers went back to their settlement of Kuraura to tell everyone what they had seen. They found naked men out in the bottom. bush. Others realized who they had met. It was their long-lost family members. They gathered some of the closest relatives and went back out to find them. For three days, they tracked them through the bush.

When they finally found them, there was a great deal of fear and confusion. Some of the nine were grabbed and placed in a car. They later said that they didn't understand how the trees went by so fast, because they had never gone faster than they could run before. The fear and confusion soon disappeared as the relatives told them about the settlement they lived in, Kira. They told them they had water which came from pipes, and there was plenty of food. The nine agreed to join them in the settlement. The truth was that there just wasn't enough of them anymore, and survival was becoming difficult. They agreed to stay in the settlement with the rest of the Pentupi people.

It was there they met a man called Charlie McMahon. He was there to help the people in Curicura. He was also the only white person in the settlement, and the first white person that the nine had ever seen. Some of them were terrified of the white-skinned person. thought it was a ghost that had come to eat them. A medical examination performed on the nine showed them to be in perfect health and without an ounce of fat. Eventually, their fears of the new world dissipated, and they came to understand their new life. One of the new things that they went out of their way to comment on was sugar. One of the younger women noted, quote,

I tasted the sugar. We didn't know what it was, but it was so sweet. I tasted the sugar, and it tasted so sweet like the Kulun Kulun flower. My mother tasted it as well. It was so sweet. It was good, unquote. In fact, one of the relatives suggested giving them sugar as a means to make them stay, and it worked. None of them have regretted the decision as life in the settlement is much easier, but there have been some downsides. They, like so many other Aboriginal people, have succumbed to what they call white fellow diseases, such as diabetes, obesity, alcoholism, and substance abuse. Since their contact in 1984, one of the mothers has passed away. One brother, Paiyurti, returned back to the bush.

He couldn't handle all the interpersonal drama of living with other people. All of the rest of the children are now in their 50s. Three of them have become well-known artists. Even though they live in a community, they still practice the skills they used when they lived in the outback. As one of the last practitioners of the ancient ways, they've passed along their knowledge to a new generation, and to researchers who wanted to know more about how they lived before they joined the settlement. While they no longer hunt and gather for a living, they still have strong, ties to the land. As one of the

sisters Yaculchee put it best, this is my country, my home, my dream time stories, my birthplace. This is my place, my country. I grew up here, and this is where I was born. Executive producer of Everything Everywhere Daily is James Mackala.

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