Brother Pye

BROTHER PYE

by Robert Pascoe

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This article was originally published, and still appears, on www.robertpascoe.net. It is reproduced here by kind permission of the site author, Professor Robert Pascoe.

The Northern Territory has but two seasons, a wet and a dry. Australian Rules is the code of football played here, played across 'the Wet', from October through to March, just as the AFL takes a breather between seasons.

For the first time in more than half a century, Br. John Pye is spending this year's dry season on the mainland, in Darwin itself, thanks to a kidney operation.

Br. Pye, far fitter and more sprightly than a 92-year-old man ought by rights be, is the man who brought football to the Aborigines of the outlying parts of the Northern Territory.

Born up on the Murray River at Mullewa, Br. Pye boarded at Wagga with the Marists and joined the Catholic religious Order called the MSC (Missionary of Sacred Heart).

Br. Pye joined the Order because 'I wanted to help people in faraway places', as he puts it now. Now of course the places he once thought were 'faraway' are the centre of his world: Port Keats (Wadeye) and the beautiful Tiwi Islands.

The Tiwi Islands are a pair of islands (Bathurst and Melville) located 80 km north of Darwin, home to 1,750 Aboriginal people living in three communities.

After serving the MSC for ten years in Toowoomba, Br. Pye was sent to the Tiwi Islands in 1941. The Mission had been working on the islands for only thirty years at that time, its presence there having been established by the redoubtable Father Francis Xavier Gsell MSC.

In 1941 the Tiwi people still played a traditional form of football, whose object was to run or kick the ball over a line. Br. Pye had been a sportsman in his youth, having excelled in sprinting and having captained the school football team.

It was natural for him to introduce the Tiwi people to the brand of football he had played as a younger man, and on their part the Tiwi people took to it enthusiastically.

The Tiwi Football League was established in the 1969/70 wet season, starting with five teams: Pumarali, Tapalinga, Imalu, Tuyu and Irrimaru.

The teams were not based on clans, permitting people to mix with others from outside their immediate group. Three new teams have joined the Tiwi League since - Taracumbie, Warankuwu and Nguiu - bringing the total competition to eight.

The Tiwi Grand Final has earned a place in the annual sporting calendar of the Northern Territory . Territorians and others travel long distances to be at this event. First Ted Whitten, and then his son Ted Whitten junior, have taken great pride in presenting the trophy on that occasion.

Ted Whitten junior now works in the marketing department of Melbourne's Victoria University, a university with a strong interest in Australian football.

From the Tiwi Islands have come several AFL stars, the most famous of which have been the Rioli men. Richmond 's Maurice Rioli was the first of this family to make it into the big time. Another star was David Kantilla, who progressed from a tin shed to a spot in the South Adelaide team, later tragically killed in a car smash. Tiwi also boasts the Long family, including the inspiring Michael at Essendon.

The Tiwi Islands became Br. Pye's adopted home. He found love and friendship among the people here, and he is regarded as genuine family by many people both on Tiwi Islands and at Port Keats, to the South-West of Darwin.

In 1975 he took several Port Keats and Tiwi people on a pilgrimage to the Vatican by air. As they flew from Bombay to Rome , as luck would have it, the jet caught fire and they had to escape down the emergency slides. One Tiwi woman plucked a three-year-old white passenger to safety. Br. Pye was the last to leave the plane and pulled a muscle when sliding down from the grounded aircraft. Undaunted, he and his companions kept on their journey. Asked what he thought of the episode, one Tiwi man, Jackie Bourke, remarked dryly, "That's the second suitcase I have lost!" (His first had gone missing at Sydney Airport .)

Now Br. Pye has come to have a kidney operation in Darwin . Good-natured as ever, he tells the story of how the hospital almost yanked out the one kidney which was still functioning. Most of us would have trouble telling that story with a laugh, but Br. Pye is not an ordinary person. He even jokes that his kidney problems may have derived from his long residence on the Islands , for Tiwi people have a well-documented history of renal troubles.

A football branded with the school emblem was recently presented to Br. Pye on behalf of the Marist school in Melbourne, Marcellin College, in honour of his contribution to the cause of indigenous Australians. Marcellin principal, Mr. Paul Herrick, praised the work of Br. Pye and recalled the wonderful experience for his school of having Territorian Robbie Ahmat at Marcellin in 1995.

Br. Pye, bedizened in the new Tiwi guernsey he and his mates had just designed, accepted the ball gratefully. The sun was setting over the harbour at the Darwin Sailing Club. Off to the north were his beloved Tiwi Islands. All was at peace with this man's world. He sat back and had another sip of his beer.

Br. Pye wants the museum of artefacts he has collected on Tiwi to be properly maintained, for, through this strange pastime called Australian Rules, a means of communication between two very different people has been established.

Over the years the game has become more tolerant of indigenous players, but there is still more the AFL should do to combat racism, he thinks.

Football in the Territory is flourishing, thanks to people like Br. Pye and local Darwin businessman Tony Shaw, himself a former South Adelaide player, latterly president of the Northern Territory Football League. The NTFL has now been invited to field a team in the South Australian state competition.

Where now?