Hermannsburg (Australia)

Hermannsburg (Ntaria)
Lutheran Church in Hermannsburg
State :  Australia State : Northern Territory
Coordinates : 23 ° 57 ′  S , 132 ° 47 ′  E Coordinates: 23 ° 57 ′  S , 132 ° 47 ′  E Area : 13.3  km²
Residents : 605 (2016) Population density : 45 inhabitants per km²
Time zone : ACST (UTC + 9: 30) Postal code : 0872 LGA : MacDonnell Region
Hermannsburg (Ntaria)

Hermannsburg is an Aboriginal community about 120 kilometers west of Alice Springs in the MacDonnell Ranges on the Finke River in the Northern Territory in Australia with around 600 inhabitants. Aborigines call the place Ntaria.

Hermannsburg is connected to Alice Springs (asphalted) and Kings Canyon in Watarrka National Park via the paved Larapinta Drive . In Hermannsburg a road goes south to the Finke Gorge National Park with the Palm Valley .

history

Aboriginal huts in Hermannsburg (1923)

Hermannsburg was the first Aboriginal mission station in the Northern Territory and was built by a Lutheran church in 1877 on the territory of the local members of the western Arrernte tribe (also Aranda ).

The mission site was originally established by the Hermannsburg Mission in Germany . The first missionaries were trained here and continued to receive support from there. Regionally, the mission was also supported by the Evangelical Lutheran Synod of the State of South Australia .

The founding fathers left Hermannsburg again in 1891. Three years later, the mission was taken over by the Immanuel Synod of South Australia and put back into operation. This branch of the Church maintained them continuously for the next 88 years. In the course of the changes in the land rights law, the mission area was returned to the traditional owners, the Aranda, in 1982.

The 390,000 hectare area of ​​the mission is now divided into five separate areas according to traditional family associations. These areas are now owned by the Uruna, Roulpmaulpma, Ltalantuma and the Ntaria.

The missionaries planned a permanent, self-sustaining church. Your first attempts were promising. In the 1880s, the white population of Hermannsburg grew to 21 people, making it the second largest European settlement in Central Australia alongside Alice Springs . In 1891 the first missionaries, Kempe and Schwarz, were exhausted and exhausted and left the mission.

Great seclusion and high transport costs forced the missionaries to use almost entirely locally available building materials. They mined sandstone and whitewashed the walls made of it, cut stones for the floor and used desert oak where lumber was needed. The first roofs were thatched roofs , which were later replaced by galvanized iron.

The oldest surviving buildings date from two phases: from the 1880s, when the first permanent structures were built here, and from around 1900, when the Mission saw its reconstruction and consolidation after its temporary closure.

administration

Hermannsburg is part of the Ljirapinta Ward district of MacDonnell Shire parish .

Hermannsburg School

The most famous son of the village is the artist Albert Namatjira , who was an Australian painter and artist from the Arrernte people and is considered the founder of the Hermannsburg School .

The artist Namatjira was the first Aborigine who broke with the traditional forms of representation of the Aborigines by painting landscape pictures as watercolors . His first exhibition in Melbourne in 1938 made him well known, so that Queen Elizabeth II awarded him the Queen's Coronation Medal in recognition of his achievements in 1953 and met him in person in Canberra a year later .

His painting style encouraged numerous other Aboriginal painters and he founded the so-called Hermannsburg School of Landscape Pictures. Due to his popularity, he was the first Aboriginal to receive Australian citizenship alongside those who participated in the First World War .

Preserved houses

The ensemble of historic houses - a total of three hectares - was entered on the Australian National Heritage List on March 27, 2006 as one of the few Lutheran mission stations in Australia that have been preserved in their entirety .

The restoration of these historic buildings had started in 1987/88 by the municipality of Ntaria with the aid of the United Northern Territory Commonwealth as part of a series of projects to commemorate the 200-year history of the white population.

Strehlow's house

Pastor Carl Strehlow lived in this building . He was the chief missionary from 1894 to 1922. His son Theodore Strehlow was born during this time . After Carl Strehlow, his successor, Pastor F. W. Albrecht, lived in this house from 1926 to 1952. Built in 1897, the house was added in later years and largely rebuilt in 1965. Today the building houses the Kata-Anga tearooms.

Old church

Hermannsburg's first church , completed in 1880, was a small building that served as a chapel for the missionaries and later for the first converted Aborigines. It was also used as a classroom for the Aranda children. The existing building was built in 1897 after the original one was destroyed by storms. For over 20 years it was the only church between Lake Eyre in South Australia and the tropical north of the Territory. The text on the memorial stone above the entrance reads: “Go to his gates all in them, to his courts with praise” (Ps 100: 4). Another line follows from the Bible in Aranda , German and English: "Blessed are those who hear and keep God's word" (Lk 11, 28).

Old Colonist House (today's museum)

This residence was built in 1885. It served as accommodation for married workers or colonists who assisted the missionaries. Before the old schoolhouse was built in 1896, one room in this building served as an Aboriginal school.

Rancher's house

This house, built in 1911, was the residence of the cattle farmer who managed the herd on behalf of the mission. Today it is a private residence.

Wrought

Built in 1882, this is the oldest surviving building in Hermannsburg. In a practical sense, it was also one of the most important. The blacksmith's shop housed a fireplace where horses were re-shod and objects such as pumps, wagon parts, tools, and building parts were made and repaired.

House of the dead

Epidemics of imported diseases and scurvy temporarily covered Hermannsburg and caused many deaths among the Aborigines. This house of the dead was built in the 1930s.

Web links

Commons : Hermannsburg, Northern Territory  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} Australian Bureau of Statistics : Hermannsburg (L) ( English ) In: 2016 Census QuickStats . June 27, 2017. Retrieved April 5, 2020.
2. ↑ environment.gov.au ( Memento from October 15, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) (PDF; 223 kB): Hermannsburg Historic Precinct (English)