The Finke is 250 million years old and is Central Australia’s main river. It was named by John McDougall Stuart in 1860 to honour his friend and financier the South Australian pastoralist William Finke. The Aboriginal name for the river is usually given as Lhira peninsula, from the Western Arrernte Lhere pirnte, which means salty river. Like other parts of Central Australia, the river is textured with Dreamtime legends. A photographic essay in 'Australian Geographic' tells the story of the hailstone ridge near Hermannsburg, a sacred site 'about 1 km long, 30 m wide and 3 m high, composed of rubble that resembles hailstones' (69). According to legend, the site cannot be disturbed without invoking the anger of the ancestors. In 1975 the NT Daepartemnt of Transport bulldozed part of this site for aggregate. The work was stopped by Arrernte elders. One month later, the worst hailstorm in living memory devastated th Hermannsburg precinct. 'It unroofed houses on stations, uprooted trees and littered the ground with dead birds' (69) Reference: Paul Mann, ‘The Finke’ in Australian Geographic, no 21, Jan-March 1991, pp 58-83
This image shows the wild waters of the Finke. It was probably taken during the 1918 floods. The image is held at the Museum of South Australia in the Scholz collection.
As JTHB illustrates, the Mission was subject to the full scale of extremes of Central Australian weather. Whether in drought or in flood, the river had the power to dramatically affect life at Hermannsburg. In 1921, for example, the floodwaters creatd enormous disruption to the delivery of goods and mail.
In his 1921 report, published in the 'Lutheran Herald', Carl Strehlow described the power of the Finke waters in flood: 'On the 24. February the rain started; first light rains fell; afterwards heavier showers set in and in the morning of 3 March the biggest flood since 26 years came down in the Finke. The water rose continually, till the rushing flood in the Finke River broke the sam in a few minutes, on which the Station blacks had worked for months and months. Afterwards the wild waters rushed into our Station grdens and took the great parts of the surrounding brush fence away without doing much damage to the gardens themselves. But higher and higher rose the unruly waters till they took Mr. Heinrichs (sic) garden on the opposite bank of the Finke right away. Having completed this work of destruction the waters seemed to be satisfied; they fell just as quick as they had risen and in the evening the Finke was running in his own bed again. What a glorious sight it was to see a stream nearly half a mile wide, with very high waves passing the station [...] About 24 natives had to work about 3 months with pick and shovel and scoop to renovate the dams dividing the Finke and Sandy Creek, that the big flood destroyed in a few minutes. In June we got heavy rains and floods again so that the whole amount of rains from July 1 1920 til June 1921 was about 30 inches and the Finke has now ran (sic) continually near the station for over one year - which has never happened since I have been in this country.'
The school-teacher Heinrich also wrote about the enormous path of destruction caused by the Finke floodwaters: 'How desolate, torn and tattered appearance the dear old Finke presented after the floodwaters had subsided; banks torn away, trees uprooted and rubbish, mud and slit everywhere.'
References
C. Strehlow, 'Finke Mission', in "Lutheran Herald", March 27, 1922, p 102
H.A. Heinrich, 'Finke Mission', in "Lutheran Herald", April 10, 1922, p 18
