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Her earliest memories were of Ilara waterhole, a large spring fed permanent water on the Palmer River. It is
possible that her father had decided that the family should retreat to the permanent water during the severe drought
of the mid 1860s. Here also, for a time, lived her extended family—her grandparents, her further classificatory
father Lunkuta-tukuta (a medicine man), her mother’s brother Ngatu who often cared for her, her uncles Ikintapi
and Mutu-tani, and their families. It is likely that Tjintji-wara’s baby brother was born here.
As with other Aboriginal children she learnt of the evil spirits of the country, the demons of the night, known
variously as pankalanga, erintja and mamu.
As she grew older, and the seasons began to improve, the family travelled westerly to various named waters,
including Wanmara (Bagot’s Creek, not far from the well known Watarrka [King’s Canyon]). Tjintji-wara became
a skilled tracker and food gatherer, and delighted in her father’s hunting skills: at one particular rock hole he
invariably speared emus.
However, this was a dangerous period too. Inter tribal guerrilla warfare was being waged, with groups of blood
avengers coming like the evil spirits of the night. Her uncle, Mutu-tani, a big man, was a legendary leader of the
local blood avengers, and also a powerful medicine man. As with her other medicine man relation, Lunkuta-tukulta,
he was able to work both protective magic and evil magic, the latter assisting to overcome blood avenger enemies.
It is little wonder that, in this environment, Tjintji-wara also became expert in the use of the woman’s pointing
bone.
The blood feud raged for several years from about 1875 and claimed between 150 and 200 people. Tjintji-wara’s
grandfather was the first of her family to die, ‘simply riddled with spears’. At much the same time, her mother
killed her baby son, an act that greatly angered Tjintji-wara’s father, yet which he also understood. In killing her
son, she had given the family a greater chance of survival. Then soon afterwards the marauding blood avengers
killed her father.
Tjintji-wara and her mother left the places of death and sought more peaceful home country. It is likely that, with
the blood letting over by the late 1870s, she now legitimately avoided marriage to her promised husband, Yuna,
and instead married Merilkna, who had long been ‘chasing’ her. Now, though, there were great changes coming.
Between 1870 and 1885 the Overland Telegraph had been built, cattle stations had been formed, Hermannsburg
Mission was established, and the explorers Giles and Chewings had traversed Mantuntara country. The years
1885 and 1886 saw Tempe Downs cattle station established on the Walker Creek, with a man called Thornton
as Manager, and 6 000 head of cattle suddenly drinking at and fouling the main waters. The Mantuntara men
retaliated by spearing the cattle.
Tjintji-wara was aware of these changes, through stories, her own sightings of white men and their animals, and
probably through tentative tasting of some of the strange foods. However, like many of her kinfolk she kept away
from the stations for a time. Then one day, probably in 1887, she and her mother suddenly came upon a murdered
warrior; he had been killed for seriously transgressing the men’s sacred Law. The murdered man resembled her
uncle Mutu-tani, and the sight greatly shocked Tjintji-wara. She decided to get away from the place of death by
visiting the new cattle station.
By this time Tjintji-wara, who was never to bear children, was a strikingly handsome, blonde haired woman.
Thornton, the Manager, gave her ‘plenty flour and bread’ and, as he did with some other young women, locked her
in a room. Thereafter he raped them all but, in the process, became enamoured of Tjintji-wara. She responded to
his advances and for a time became his ‘wife’.
As the cattle killing increased, police patrols became more frequent, and from 1889 until 1891 Mounted
Constable Willshire, was based at nearby Boggy Hole Police Camp. Patrols under his leadership, with upwards
of six ‘native constables’ assisting, resulted in the deaths of Mantuntara men (including Tjintji-wara’s rejected
prospective husband, Yuna). At this time, he recorded Tjintji-wara’s name as Chincy-wara, whereas Mounted
Constable South recorded it as Chinchewarra.
When native constables murdered two Aborigines in February 1891, and Willshire ordered that their bodies
be burnt, the actions caused revulsion. His fellow officer, Mounted Constable South of Alice Springs, arrested
Willshire. One of those who assisted him in his investigations, and later travelled to Port Augusta as a witness,
was Tjintji-wara. (Conflicting Aboriginal evidence meant that Willshire was found ‘not guilty’, but he was not
permitted to return to Central Australia. As with other Aboriginal witnesses, Tjintji-wara was returned to her home
country.)
A new police station was established at Illamurta in 1893, and a relatively short period afterwards, Thornton
left his job as Manager of Tempe Downs. Tjintji-wara returned to her traditional way of life, almost certainly
becoming the wife of a man only recorded as ‘Friday’. As ‘Friday’ had become a notorious cattle killer, he enlisted
Tjintji-wara’s and other people’s help in harassing stock and then killed the animals. Constable Cowle of Illamurta
recorded Tjintji-wara’s involvement in such cattle killing in a report of May 1896.
Time passed and a kind of truce was established, with but infrequent spearing of cattle over the next two
decades. A terrible drought then set in, commencing in 1927. So severe was it that many Aborigines, Tjintji-wara
amongst them, migrated to Hermannsburg Mission. Here, in 1929, Geza Roheim, the first psychoanalytically
trained anthropologist, interviewed her. He described her as ‘a very lively, talkative old woman’, and encouraged
her to record her dreams and aspects associated with evil magic. He further described her in the following words:
‘Old Chinchi-wara is decidedly what we should call a “chief” among the women. Her prestige is undoubtedly
connected with her knowledge of evil magic.’
Roheim’s perception that this knowledge was ‘in full keeping with her personality’ and that she rejoiced
‘in cruelty inflicted on others’ ignores the fact that he had encouraged the stories, which he clearly understood
derived from the traumatic experiences of her youth.