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Central Australia (1971), although his divorce was not granted until 1972. Kathleen also being legally free, they
married.
He established a scorched earth policy about his previous family, vengeful as the all-consuming fire of his
father’s Old Testament—or of Lungkata, the mythological blue tongue lizard of ‘his’ Central Australia. In creating
distress and disorder all about him, yet railing defiantly, he was like one of Shakespeare’s great tragic figures.
And yet the greater sympathy was for those whom he had left.
During this time, in 1971, Songs of Central Australia was published. It had been promised for six years,
and into it was distilled the essence of his knowledge. There is no doubt that it is a truly great work, a labour of
love and of a lifetime. And yet, the father, Carl, still hovers, being elevated by the son who still seeks his approval.
And in so keenly wishing to prove to the world his scholarship, Ted’s references to ancient Latin, Greek, Hebrew,
English and Teutonic texts obscure as much as they illuminate. Thus, he did not, at the time, receive the acclaim
he had envisaged, though the book contains wonderful descriptions, masterly translations and erudite discussion
of the Aboriginal songs, myths and beliefs of Central Australia.
In certain ways this was his last ‘Great Hurrah!’ He was, however, reinvigorated in his interests in the Bible
and the Lutheran Church, and he and Kathy had a son Carl, named after the boy’s grandfather. He retired from the
University of Adelaide in 1973.
His retirement years were not always to be relaxed, enjoyable times. He reviled numbers of his friends and
supporters, and his extraordinary attacks on the Chairman and others of the AIAS (Strehlow had been one of
several people nominated for the Institute Council but not chosen) meant that he was at odds with many people.
Given that he had recommended that ‘all sacred caves should be declared to be inviolable places, irrespective
of where they happen to be’ in 1961, his reaction against the AIAS establishment of an authority to record such
information, under strict safeguards, can only have been personal pique at not being directly involved.
He had his loving wife Kathy at his side, and they were always to retain friends and supporters, yet for increasing
numbers of people it was the man’s work, and not Ted himself, which remained respected. Further to this, threats to
sell his vast collection of Aboriginal artefacts, films and other materials overseas, after offers of exorbitant prices
within Australia had been rejected, raised numerous questions about the collection. And his claims of, in effect,
being an Aranda—claims that in many ways Western Aranda people supported—began to lose their impact when
it became clear to all that his wife Kathy was having all revealed to her, no matter how secret or sacred. Thus in
1977 at the centenary celebrations at Hermannsburg one of his longest term Aboriginal acquaintances rebuked and
slighted him. But this was only a prelude, for in 1978 Strehlow sold photographs of secret and sacred ritual acts
to Stern magazine, which in turn sold secondary rights to People magazine in Australia. Strehlow had betrayed a
sacred trust for money and, like Judas, was to live with his betrayal. This was his great personal tragedy. When he
shattered his first family there was that about him which was like Macbeth; now he was more akin to King Lear.
He had suffered heart attacks in 1975 and 1976 but, though suffering from blood poison problems, persevered.
It seems, though, that he was well aware that his life was ending. In 1978 the Strehlow Research Foundation was
formed, its aims being to acquire, properly conserve and display in an educational way ‘articles of whatever nature
which have at any time been directly related to Aboriginal races and their heritage.’ And in the same year, he agreed
to a biography being written.
In 1954, he had delivered a public talk, ‘One Hour Before Sunset.’ Although he referred to his perceptions of
Aboriginal culture, it could also have referred to himself. In late 1978 he wrote, ‘It is now minutes before midnight,
and then will come that oblivion that has no end.’ He collapsed and died on 3 October 1978. All members of both
of his families survived him.
After years of controversy over his collection, the Strehlow Research Centre, officially opened in 1991,
now conserves the collection in Alice Springs. The secret and sacred aspects of large parts of the collection means
that access is greatly restricted, and likely to remain so for decades, if not centuries.
Strehlow’s works suffer only from a rigidity of perceptions of the past, a failure to adequately recognise
that all societies are part of a dynamic continuum, and limitations of which he was aware and which, under the
circumstances, were unavoidable. He has left as a legacy a priceless treasure trove of information, much of it
unpublished. So long as literature survives in the world, T G H Strehlow’s works deserve to be amongst a limited
number of vanguard Australian contributions. He was a great, yet tragically flawed, Australian.
R M Berndt (ed), Australian Aboriginal Art, 1964, Australian Aboriginal Anthropology, 1970; T S Dixon, The Wizard of Alice, 1987; W McNally,
Aborigines, Artefacts and Anguish, 1981; T G H Strehlow, Aranda Traditions, 1947, An Australian Viewpoint, 1950, The Sustaining Ideals of
Australian Aboriginal Societies, 1956, Nomads in No-Man’s Land, 1961, Journey to Horseshoe Bend, 1969, Songs of Central Australia, 1971;
‘The Strehlow Research Foundation’, Newsletters, 1978–1992; The Strehlow Research Centre, Alice Springs (Public Displays). [The above is
only a brief illustrative selection of references].
R G KIMBER, Vol 2.STRELE, ANTON (1825–1897), Jesuit priest, was born in Nassereit in the Austrian Tyrol on 23 August 1825.
He was educated at the Jesuit school in Innsbruck and entered the Society of Jesus at Graz on 14 August 1845.
Three years later, the Jesuits were expelled from the domains of the Austro–Hungarian Empire and from several
other European states in the ‘Year of Revolutions’, 1848, and Strele completed his Jesuit studies in arts, philosophy
and theology at Laval, France, where he was ordained priest on 23 September 1854. By that year, the Jesuits had
been readmitted into the Empire and allowed to resume their works. Strele was a scholarly man and taught senior
classes and seminarians in the Jesuit schools at Mariaschein, Linz and the ‘College of Nobles’ at Kalksburg.
The expulsion of 1848 had resulted in the first Jesuit foundation in Australia, when two young exiled priests were