Songlines, ceremony and small steps: The search for hope among the men of Alice Springs

After days of dreary rain following Kumanjayi Little Baby’s funeral, the veil of grief and Sorry Business eases over Alice Springs.

The men at Red Dust Role Models, a non-profit mentoring organisation for Indigenous people, have organised an impromptu gathering in the foothills of the East MacDonnell ranges – Country of the Black Caterpillar dreaming, Tyape Utnerrengatye.

Red Dust, along with community leaders and local men, have sought to give this masthead an understanding of the plight of men in Alice Springs, and the wider central desert region. To explore the complexity of issues that lead to, but do not excuse, the extreme rates of domestic, family and sexual violence in the community.

Now they are on Country, amid a stunning and monumental landscape. The Black Caterpillar Dreaming story of the ranges stretches out along the landscape to beyond the horizon, adorned in vibrant hues of red, pink and yellow desert blooms and vivid green tussock grass after the rain.

Traditional owner Damien Kunoth arrives early with his son Byson. The men walk the land in the way of their ancestors, along songlines, acknowledging sacred sites and searching for food; for bush banana (upali) and bush coconut (kandar), which are in abundance, but past their best.

Kunoth relates the importance of young men being on Country, of getting out of town.

“Too much poison is what we live today, in town where you are trapped by drugs, alcohol, police, courts and the system,” he says. “We have to get young people back on Country to take care of homelands, to be self-sufficient, to not rely on government.

“There’s social media and the phones are a problem. To get a young fella out of town without a phone, that phone and him is going to be the problem, to get him in a car and get him on Country, he’s going [to] want to know what his friends are doing, what his girlfriend is doing.”

The glow of a campfire lures us back to a small gathering of men watching Red Dust co-ordinator Tyrone Lynch deftly cooking chops on a barbecue grill. Kunoth and Byson join the group and a yarning circle is convened to a crackling fire as the smell of barbecue meats punctuate the fragrant desert air.

Kunoth leads the yarn by way of a simple reflection on the sort of day he’s had. Each participant follows suit, and all agree their day is better for getting out of town, on Country, and around a fire.

Kunoth then asks the question – what would they like to change about their life if they could?

Dhandrey Hagan, a young Anmatyerr man, responds by speaking about the challenges of navigating the whitefellas’ world.

“When I got to high school I experienced racism and that holds you back. It destroys your confidence, makes it harder to learn in class and that carries through to getting a job,” he says. “Confidence is a challenge, sometimes I have it, sometimes I don’t.

“I feel more confident through Red Dust and activities on Country like this because they give you that opportunity to speak and share culture. They point you in the right direction, we go out help kids with the Rangers group and get them involved, teach them to look for their tucker and look after country and native animals.”

Solomon George, also an Anmatyerr man, speaks of the benefits of being out bush. “Would be good to go out camping with the elders and learn stories and songlines. Living in Alice there’s nothing to do, just walk around, I make Aboriginal weapons like boomerang. Would be better out bush, visit sacred sites connect with the soul.”

There’s a sense of a longing for the old ways from these men; that the white man’s world doesn’t accept or work for them, and it’s a point of last resistance and hope to maintain culture and lore that gives them status as men.

The head of the snake

Regional manager Alan Palmer sits in Red Dust Role Models’ makeshift workshop where the organisation teaches mechanics and other trade skills. He uses a cultural metaphor to illustrate the plight of Aboriginal men in Alice Springs and the wider NT community – explaining their disempowerment and the consequent decline of traditional structures that have led to a breakdown in family and community responsibilities.

“If you cut the head of the snake the rest of the body is going to flounder – there’s no guidance, direction or leadership. The same thing with Indigenous people and families. In the cultural structure of Indigenous society, men play a vital role in protecting, providing, sheltering family and communities, that’s the obligation and responsibility of all Indigenous men and is embedded in our societal structures.”

Red Dust’s programs seek to encourage individual responsibility for violent behaviour, dissuading men from a mindset of saying “colonisation made me do it”, or “my wife made me do it” as an excuse.

They aim to be more nuanced in their approach, allowing men to express frustrations with modern and colonial society that undermine their roles in family, while emphasising the importance of traditional law taught through initiation.

Alan, along with his fellow Red Dust co-ordinators Lynch and Chris Hagen, relate a sense of despair among Aboriginal men about the way they are portrayed in mainstream media, describing it as stereotypical generalisations by outsiders with little knowledge of their lives or traditional responsibilities.

Palmer revisits the “head of the snake” metaphor when describing the impact of the Northern Territory Intervention in 2007 when prime minister John Howard deployed military personnel and police into Aboriginal communities in response to the Little Children are Sacred report into child sexual abuse in communities.

Aboriginal men throughout the territory felt the fallout from the intervention and have struggled to regain their place to lead and govern their families and communities.

“It was a process that degraded and demoralised the head of the snake,” Palmer says. “The Northern Territory is living (the result of) its own history, the intervention is evidence of that; we are a singular population of people that was targeted to save ourselves from ourselves where our rights were taken away from us, everything our forefathers fought for was taken back.

“What sort of sovereignty, autonomy, independence or self-determination can come from that. You’re looking at a population that’s in despair.”

Palmer says during the intervention process, lawyers sought to reduce their clients’ sentences by claiming sexual violence was part of Aboriginal culture, a misconception that led to the demonisation of all Aboriginal men.

“If the lawyers did their job they would have called it for what it was – rape and paedophilia. But sadly out of that attack on Indigenous men and Indigenous culture, (all) men got the blame for that,” Palmer says.

The Northern Territory experiences an average of 61 incidents of domestic, family and sexual violence (DFSV) a day and a homicide rate of four per 100,000 people a year. Aboriginal women account for 89 per cent of these DFSV cases. The rate is more than three times that of the wider Australian community.

The Domestic Family Violence Commission, in a summary report in 2025, listed the importance of Aboriginal-led responses and that Indigenous organisations and communities consistently emphasised the need for greater investment in Aboriginal community-controlled DFSV services, culturally grounded healing models and transitions to community control for women’s safe houses.

Elders and leaders also highlighted the importance of embedding shared decision-making into Northern Territory and national governance.

Alice Springs cultural consultant Raymond Walters, who works in communities across the Central Desert, also calls for more input from the Indigenous community on how to deal with the domestic, family and sexual violence problems.

“The funding is directed at seeing (all of) them as a problem rather than providing opportunities for them to grow,” Walters says. “It’s about autonomy, community control and co-design and men leading. They know what is best for them, based on their own priorities and aspirations.

“Men talk about healthy relationships and standing together against domestic violence. It’s challenging given the level of alcohol-fuelled violence, and ice is out of control and the impacts. Men are kind of lost at the moment.”

Walters stresses the importance of better service alignment and better language alignment. “Men are looking at educational opportunities, learning about how to mitigate jealousy, how to unpack the insecurities that we carry and that can align back to the lack of employment, and being a contributor in the family and community.

“Also there is a disconnect in counselling services and the need for family counselling. Men in prisons are learning about healthy relationships but then on the outside we don’t have anything (counselling) together with our wives.”

The sporting track

Looking to address and promote healthy, respectful relationships between young men and women are local sporting organisations such as Redtails Pinktails Right Tracks Foundation.

Kaleel Ross, a promising young footballer contracted to play for West Adelaide in the SANFL competition next year, came through the Redtails/Pinktails program as a teenager, and is a strong advocate for the benefits of their mixed-gender training and learning.

“It teaches young fellas to not be sexist, that we’re all equal, we’re all the same, we’re all learning and trying to improve ourselves,” he says.

Ross grew up in a strong family with parents who made many sacrifices and implemented strict family rules on school attendance, graduation and learning about culture.

Ross brims with pride when he talks about the importance of culture. “I did my cultural business, it’s a big thing here, young lads go out and learn about their skin names, their dreaming. Every community is strong with their culture. It’s not dying off, everyone is learning culture, their language, becoming a man and understanding all that stuff. It’s a good thing because you get respected by people when you come out, and you have more respect for your mother and women.”

Ross’s father Lachlan is proud of his son, but is less optimistic. He laments losing generations of men to substance abuse “It causes a lot of dysfunction within the family, violence and abuse against our women. Culturally we need to get hold of this generation now and put them on the right path. It’s sad with my people. I’m angry, but I’m sad, we’re not respecting our old people.”

Western Arrernte man Issaha Forbes is spending the afternoon with his family outside their home in Hoppy’s town camp. It’s a dream desert setting just outside Alice, among outcrops of rustic red hillocks and boulders.

His daughter Tahlaiyah is sporting her new dress especially made for the NAIDOC cabaret that she’ll attend in the evening, while the younger kids play on the swing in the front yard.

Forbes is a proud family man now, but with a familiar story of youthful dysfunction and time in juvenile detention. “Growing up I was running amok, found myself with the wrong crowd at the wrong time and started following their tracks and hit juvy twice when I was a teenager,” he says.

“Eventually, I realised that I don’t want to stay inside of here most of my life, and went out and did ceremony. My old man took me and from there I never looked back. I got back with my partner (Louise) and eventually had kids.”

Forbes considers himself fortunate to have a strong father figure. One, however, with a very different life experience who grew up without his natural parents, as a stolen generation victim.

“My old man didn’t know his family, was in and out of foster (care). Eventually (he) met mum and changed things for themselves. He said to me, be thankful and grateful that I’m here to lead you and show you the right way.

“A lot of men are like a closed book and don’t want to open up and talk about what they’re going through with their mates.”

Forbes sees ceremony as an important factor in changing male behaviour and opening up conversations to share the challenges they face.

“Every summer I try to get out to ceremony. I got my ceremony brothers out there, out bush, so it’s more reason for me to go out there, spend time with them and do the learning process.

“To understand the responsibilities and expectations for family and community and how I can be better, instead of being like the 90-95 per cent of Indigenous people being behind bars. We gotta try and change that somehow.”