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and as the embodiment of kindness and hospitality’. His further perception was that, although some of the past
criticisms had been justified, most were not and some depended on one’s perception of Christianity. In his report he
undoubtedly accepted Strehlow’s approach: ‘A little muscular Christianity’, he wrote, ‘is sometimes an excellent
thing in dealing with blacks.’
Love’s report must have been something to cherish as the war progressed for Strehlow and his wife, despite
being naturalised, were the subject of abuse, accused of spying, made to sign alien registration forms and forced to
obtain a police permit if they wished to leave their place of residence. The hysteria caused by the First World War
was not confined to Australia and can be understood to some extent in the context of the times, but it understandably
hurt the Strehlows, and infringed on the life of their son Theodor.
As always, Strehlow’s workload, as missionary with a spiritual role, as administrator, as linguist and as writer,
left him little time to do more than that at which he was best—getting on with the job. However, at times the
burden increased to almost intolerable levels: from 1917 to 1923 the government eliminated payment of the annual
subsidy of 300 Pounds, and from 1914 to 1917 Strehlow had to act as schoolteacher, so the pressures upon him,
his wife and others on the mission were enormous.
Despite the workload, the period 1919–1920 was one that Strehlow greatly appreciated. The restrictions of
the war years were over; he celebrated twenty-five years at Hermannsburg and then he and Frieda enjoyed their
silver wedding anniversary; reports about the mission were favourable; the great task of translating the New
Testament into Aranda was completed (apart from minor revisions); and visiting Victorian pastoralists gave a
generous donation to the mission. The time of enjoyment was short-lived.
After 10 unbroken years at the mission Strehlow and his wife, who was suffering ill health again, were looking
forward to a holiday. They wished to visit their older children, who were still in Germany and well toward completion
of their education, and to simply have a break from the pressures of the job. Everything seemed to go against them.
The Mission Board, the members of which suggested six months’ leave in South Australia rather than in Germany,
turned down a request for new clothes. And then Strehlow became ill. His initial reaction, as a man who had always
been healthy, was to put it aside, to shake it off. But the illness would not go away and his condition worsened until,
in September 1922, he was suffering from dropsy, asthma and pleurisy. Urgent attention was needed but, although
the members of the Mission Board were concerned and did their best to arrange assistance, their genuine concern
and their attempts to help were only expressed in brief telegrams. Strehlow, his wife and 14-year-old Theodor felt
abandoned at their time of greatest need. They had no option but to begin the buggy ride to Oodnadatta in northern
South Australia, which was then the railhead. And so a terrible journey began, along the roughest of bush tracks,
with Aborigines and rough-hewn white bushmen providing assistance. But the travel and the care were in vain.
On 19 October 1922, the small party reached Horseshoe Bend Station, at about the halfway mark. Strehlow was
made as comfortable as possible in a bed, and on the morning of the 20th, Pastor J J Stolz, Chairman of the Mission
Committee, arrived with a camel-team to assist. He was too late for other than the giving of pastoral care to the
dying man. Late in the afternoon Strehlow died. Two bushmen knocked up a coffin out of gum saplings and boards
from whisky cases and Carl Strehlow was buried at Horseshoe Bend on 21 October 1922.
Carl Strehlow was very much a man of his times, with great strength of character but also with the biases
of his era. His dedication is undoubted, but sometimes the vision he had blinded him. His great labours had,
in most instances, a deliberately restricted audience, the Aranda and their Lutheran pastors and other workers at
Hermannsburg, so that he is almost certainly known best by his son’s work, Journey To Horseshoe Bend, which
tells of the journey to his death-bed and grave through the land he had come to love.
Strehlow Street in Alice Springs commemorates the man and his family.
E Leske (ed), Hermannsburg, 1977; J R B Love, The Aborigines, 1915; W McNally, Aborigines, Artefacts and Anguish, 1981; T G H Strehlow,
Journey to Horseshoe Bend, 1969; T G H Strehlow, Songs Of Central Australia, 1971; E W Wiebush (ed), Yearbook of the Lutheran Church of
Australia, 1979; H V Barclay, ‘The Aborigines of Central Australia, and a Suggested Solution of the Difficulties surrounding the Aborigines’
Question’, Review of Reviews, 20 May 1905.
R G KIMBER, Vol 1.
STREHLOW, THEODOR GEORGE HENRY (TED) (1908–1978), anthropologist, linguist, patrol officer,
soldier, university teacher, author and one of Australia’s greatest scholars, was born at Hermannsburg, Northern
Territory, on 6 June 1908, the sixth and last child of Carl Strehlow, Lutheran missionary, and his wife Frieda,
nee Keyser. As with many children in isolated communities, with Aboriginal children as playmates, his first
language was the local one, Western Aranda. German and English were layered on it, and pervading all was his
father’s stern, Old Testament, Lutheranism.
In 1910, the family visited Germany; as with many first generation Australian migrants they still regarded their
birthplace as home, no matter how much Australia became a second home. All four brothers and his only sister
were to remain in Germany, cared for by relatives, so that they could be educated in the Fatherland. Thus, young
as he was, Ted Strehlow no doubt suffered a wrench at being parted from his family childhood mates. It probably
meant, in fact, that he compensated for their absence by becoming as one, outside the home at Hermannsburg,
with his Aranda friends. Without consciously being aware of it, he not only learnt the language but also, side by
side with his European heritage, the social rules and gained childhood understandings of beliefs and philosophy
of the Aranda.
His father Carl so submerged himself in his work, both pastoral and scholarly, that his mother Frieda must have
been a very considerable influence. Ted Strehlow’s sense of humour and his charm probably developed out of her
relationship with him, along with practical skills such as sewing, mending and cooking—all to be useful skills on
his eventual bush travels. However, it was his father Carl who dominated. He set aside hours for the instruction of