Cyclone Tracy: Aboriginal people foresaw 'bad event' in Darwin
It is Darwin folklore that right before Cyclone Tracy hit the city on Christmas Eve 1974, Aboriginal people had already deserted the town.
Historians have struggled to find facts to back up the rumour, and even suggested it may have been a way authorities avoided their duty of care to Aboriginal people.
But from time to time some people have suggested it could be true.
Historian and former NT Police Officer Bill Wilson said in the ABC documentary Blown Away that there was talk Aboriginal people had taken off after seeing that birds were leaving and that ants were building on high ground.
"There seemed to be fewer traditional people around in the immediate aftermath than I might have expected," he said.
Now one woman has come forward to say she was the reason Aboriginal people left Darwin, and the warnings she gave were one of the most amazing experiences of her life.
'Something bad' was going to happen
Betty Pearce, an Aboriginal woman from Central Australia who grew up in the Barkly Tablelands, had been living in Darwin in 1974 and was involved with the Labor Party.
As part of the run-up to the Northern Territory's first general election in October that year, Ms Pearce travelled to Arnhem Land in August. There, people recognised her family name.
They told her they had a warning to give to people living in the Aboriginal community of Bagot, which is located close to Darwin's heart.
"They wanted me to tell family members at Bagot to go home to their homelands before Christmas," Ms Pearce recounted.
"They didn't know what was going to happen but something really bad was going to happen, and because of my own Aboriginal upbringing I sort of thought, oh yes ... there are some stories, lores," she said.
Not content to simply repeat the warning without evidence, she asked for something more concrete she could tell the people in Bagot.
Goannas and snakes sparked fear
To her astonishment the Arnhem Land people she spoke with took her to an area with rock slabs.
At first she could not see anything unusual, but then she saw a sight she has not forgotten in the decades since.
"I realised there were snakes coiled up and sunning themselves and the goannas lying only a few feet away, a metre or so away from each other," she said.
"Goannas were facing the sun, the morning sun, but there were other goannas with their backs to the sun facing the west.
"I said, 'Ooh that's funny, I've never seen that before'.
"They said, 'No, this is why we're telling you you tell everybody to come back. Everybody you see you tell them to come back to their country because something really bad's going to happen but we don't know what it is. Snakes and goannas - they're natural enemies and here they are sunning themselves on the same slabs of rock.'"
Despite her fears that she could be wrong, in August Ms Pearce faithfully passed on the message to the people in Bagot.
Taking the warning to the people
"I told a couple of the people from Oenpelli and they said, 'No, ah, that's olden times stuff, we won't go'," she said.
"I said, 'Well I'm telling you I've given you that information and I'm going to send a ... fax out to Oenpelli to tell them that I've given the messages to you fellas.'"
She said that word spread quickly at her warning, and by the time Christmas Eve arrived, even those she had spoken to who were sceptical had taken notice and gone.
People from Ngukurr, about 600km south-east of Darwin went back, she said, as did at least six people from Oenpelli.
"Yeah quite a few people I hadn't told must have heard the story and listened as well," she said.
"To me it's one of the most amazing experiences I'd ever had."
Time for the truth to be known
She said that two years after Tracy hit, she finally returned to Oenpelli where she had been given the warning.
The old people there thanked her for passing it on, but told her not to speak of it again.
But 40 years after she passed on her message, Mr Pearce said she feels she has to let people know the truth.
"It's something that's really, really important and really valuable. It's valuable knowledge that our people, Aboriginal people, are losing," she said.
"Just listening to me talking maybe one of the some of the younger ones might pick it up and start going back to learning those ways."
