Nauiyu – Daly River, Northern Territory
A Landscape Of Plenty
Before the arrival of white settlers, the landscape along the Daly River was home to many different Aboriginal clans who shared song lines and operated cooperatively to share plenties of nature that the river supported.
Historical middens and paintings show the breadth and longevity of this habitation and the languages of many of these clans are still spoken today. There were no towns as such and people knew their local landscape intimately
The town that is Nauiyu today is situated approximately 250km by road South West of Darwin in the Northern Territory of Australia. It began life as a Jesuit Mission which was first established in 1885 with 3 missionaries. By 1891 it had four priests and seven brothers.
In 1955 the Catholic church purchased a local farm to build a new mission which opened in 1961. The mission was set up as a place where Aboriginals could send their children to get an education whilst they worked on local cattle stations and farms. Cattle stations and farms employed a good proportion of the local Indigenous people and workers were paid in produce such as flour, sugar and tobacco. The Indigenous people were also allowed to set up camp and live on the pastoral lands in which they worked.
In the 1970s and ’80s laws were passed that were meant to help Aboriginal families. These laws stipulated that Aboriginal families were to be paid a proper wage rather than being paid in produce. This however backfired and meant that many Indigenous families were displaced from local farms and retreated to the mission to avoid homelessness.
