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23rd January 1933 - Pastor and Mrs Albrecht, Hezekiel's payment. Petering and Strehlow
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23/1/1933
Today it was decided that we should push off on our trip on Monday evening if all goes well. I am very glad to get out of this place now as it soon palls and Mrs Albrecht gives us about twice as much to eat as we need Note: The Albrecht's view of Professor Davies's expedition
'A seven-man expedition from the University of Sydney under the leadership of Professor H.W. Davies arrived. They were studying Aboriginal needs for water. Albrecht felt he could not refuse their request for accomodation and camels teams for a six-week period, though he knew that feeding them would be difficult. It was at the height of summer and there were no fresh vegetables. Trying to provide for everyone was difficult for Minna. Every nook and cranny seemed to have someone sleeping in it.'
Barbara Henson, A Straight-out Man F.W. Albrecht and Central Australian Aborigines, (University of Melbourne Press 1992) P.78
Her ideas of diet in a hot climate coincided with her ideas of diet in the colder parts of Germany and like all good Housfrau she was greatly perturbed and insulted if anything was left over.

1933 photograph: Pastor Albrecht with wife Minna behind children Helen and Theodore
The Albrechts

We have worked out that the camel trip will cost us about the same as if we stayed here so it isn't any great expense with the camels at six bob a week. 1933 photograph: camels with packs at Hermannsburg Hezekiel will get ten bob a week, his tucker and an accepted tobacco ration.

Everyone here at the mission is very congenial. There is Albrecht, a short thick, blue eyed Nordic type. He was very earnest, very keen and as broad minded as could be expected from a Lutheran Missionary. His wife was condemned to die of T.B. when they came out three years ago, but has now lost every sign of symptom. She was a tremendously hard worker, efficient, no sense of humour and as fair a Saxon as one could find. They had two small brats and an infant who were treated as equals by the native children and who seemed to have their habits as well.

1933 photograph: Course, Petering and Strehlow at Hermannsburg Mission
Course, Petering and Strehlow

The other active members of the mission are Petering, 1933 photograph: Petering cutting hair of Aboriginal boy at Hermannsburg Mission a man of 6' 3", school master, cleric and rather unfathomable (or just negative, I don't know which) and Strehlow, an expert on dialects and a decent chap. Strehlow witnessed and recorded hundreds of sacred ceremonies, most of which are no longer practised. His academic stature grew with the publication of Aranda Traditions (1947). This work had been assembled in 1934 but Strehlow delayed publication until all his informants were dead. He gained considerable recognition for the linguistic work which his father had begun. In 1971 he published the monumental work Songs Of Central Australia . He died in 1978. Strehlow's career and his role as the custodian of Aboriginal secrets has been dogged by controversy which has followed him beyond the grave. Strehlow was the son of the previous head of the mission and had grown up with the Arundta tribe and understood as much of their language, beliefs and customs as it is possible for a white man to understand. He was a blood brother and fully initiated member of the tribe and had acquired as part and parcel of himself the dreamy, impractical, carelessness and lack of foresight of the natives and yet he could on occasions give vent to wonderful tales of his tribe.

Strehlow and Petering will probably make the first two days of the trip with us before going off for a short run in another direction.

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