Miss Pink Kirli (Taking Care of Miss Pink)…is an edited tract of story owned by some men of Jangala-Jampijinpa in the central desert, concerning an illness experienced by Ms Olive Pink, anthropologist and botanist, 1944

They carried her to Puyurru

They had tied poles together, from trees. They cut the poles from the trees, then they bound them around, around and around. They made a thing like a bed. They bound it round with the kurrara vine.

They carried her and carried her.

Ah, they went looking for water at Yumurrpa. Then they took her to Yumurrpa. There she stayed. They looked after her at the camp, they cared for her, until she was a little better. They gave her goanna meat. She was treated by ngangkayi, by Aboriginal people, by witch-doctors. The witch doctors sang to heal her, they used to sing to her. They used to give her goanna meat, kangaroo, rabbit, karrarrpa. She used to eat karrarrpa. She also ate yams, in particular the little yam, ngarlajiyi. After that they dug up wild onions for her, which they used to put in a coolimon. Then they took the wild onions to her.

Consider Allowing for translation, what is missing in this story? The people ensure she has plenty of water, and feed her meat believing it to be healthy. The rabbit belies any purist notion of traditional medicine.

They take her to a white man’s station, hoping to find a nurse for her, telling the white man they have ‘done the right thing’.

There is no record at all of anything Ms Pink says or does; there is no diagnosis, or even mention of symptoms or signs.

There is no mention of what the ‘witch-doctors’ said or did. Why?

updated: 22/03/2010