CARD GAMES AMONG ABORIGINES OF THE NORTHERN TERRITORY

Abstract

the casual observer, perhaps one of the most obvious manifestations of culture contact in the Northern Territory is the insidious card game of European or Chinese derivation. Particularly in the main centres of contact, around towns and settlements, and along the main North-South road from Alice Springs to Darwin, card games (of varying type) have reached an intensity which is unrivalled by any other indigenous or introduced secular preoccupation. Players become deeply immersed in these games to the exclusion of other activities ; they are interested not only in the intricacies of the game itself, the calculations and sorting of their hands/' but also in the money or material objects serving as the stakes, for which they play. The distribution of card-playing in the Territory might be said, generally speaking, to cover almost the whole area. From the main town of the southern part of the Territory, Alice Springs, it has spread westwards to cattle stations, and through Jay's Creek to Hermannsburg Mission on the Finke although, it is believed, it has not been adopted to any extent by the desert and hill people of the far west and south-west, who have come in to Haast's Bluff and Ariyonga. From the town it has also spread eastwards towards Arltunga Mission and to cattle stations. From the northern capital, Darwin, card-playing has been distributed for some distance along the western and eastern coastline to mission stations, buffalo camps and fishing and trepang centres. In this region it has infiltrated more or less thoroughly, so that there are probably few natives who have not heard of, or who do not possess some knowledge of, the elementary forms of card-playing ; these latter will possibly be found along the Arnhem Land coast, on certain parts of the Roper and Alligator rivers, and to the west of the north-south road along parts of the Daly River towards and at Anson Bav, and at Port Keats and the mouth of the Fitzmaurice (i.e. on the sea-coast region). From these two lateral points, to the south and north of the Main Road, cardplaying has been distributed east and west in such a way that if depicted on a map of the Territory, it would resemble a herring-bone design ; some of the projections of this pattern would extend further than others. For example, card-playing was rife at Newcastle Waters native camp and Katherine civil native settlement (or Donkey Camp ), the Manbulloo Army Settlement and the Manbulloo station