Remembered By Heart: An Anthology of Indigenous Writing

by Sally Morgan

  I had no chance of controlling it and all Eddie did was stand behind me to make sure he wasn’t run over himself, watch me, laugh his head off and give a few instructions as I battled the demon. It eventually slammed into the wall with me sprawled on the floor but still attached to it.

  Eddie quickly switched it off. ‘You’re done for now.’

  At that moment the other older boys poked their heads around the open door, splitting their sides with laughter.

  ‘He’s wrecked the house,’ one of them yelled. It put a chill up my spine because I didn’t want to be sent home.

  ‘Now he’s in for it.’

  And that made it worse.

  I gingerly got up, not knowing whether to have a crack at Eddie or what.

  A clump of plaster had been knocked out of the wall but nothing else was damaged. It was the first week of my stay at McDonald House and I didn’t have any idea of what I should do about it.

  I did tell Miss Styles and fortunately didn’t lose any pocket-money on that occasion.

  Eventually I did learn to use that polisher, as the other two new boys, Morgan Williams and Morrie Millar, did, and became quite good at it.

  Morgan and Morrie soon became the two boys I most associated with; the fact that they came from my area — the central and lower Great Southern — was enough to make us a team and helped me adapt to my new life a great deal.

  Saturdays were sport days. We all played footy in winter and went swimming at the beach in summer. Saturday afternoons were for going to watch the league football, when not playing sport ourselves, or socialising. Saturday nights were set aside to go to the movies in one of the Perth theatres.

  Sundays were for church-related activities. The morning sessions were held at the North Perth Baptist church and the evenings at the People’s Church in Perth, or elsewhere. We also attended the church youth club in North Perth on Friday evenings. At Easter we attended Christian conventions at Brookton.

  Each boy in first or second year high school was required to study after school for one and a half hours, four evenings a week. Those in third or higher years studied for two hours.

  Adapting to this new life wasn’t easy for any of us that year, especially for Morrie, Morgan and me. We came from different environments where we’d developed our own set of rules about behaviour.

  Of the six boys from the South-West in my first year in Perth, five of us went to Tuart Hill Senior High and one to Mount Lawley Senior High.

  Those of us in our first year were in for another big shock, because we had to fit in pretty quickly with the educational system. At that time, no-one ever considered matters like preparing us for school, the relevancy of course materials and culturally appropriate teaching. Somehow, we just had to cope as best we could. We were receiving a special opportunity.

  For me it was the opportunity I’d been waiting for: to continue my education. I knew it was the only way I’d be able to go on to a good education and job. I’d become aware of my own capabilities during my primary schooling and knew I could cope with schooling. I knew I had the ability to do as well as Wadjala kids — in fact, I’d outdone them in several subjects in primary school; one year I even won a biro as a special prize at the Broomehill Anglican Spring Fair for being the neatest and best writer for my age group.

  So I knew I was very lucky to get the chance of a high school education. For us Noongar kids, this sort of privilege had an impact on our lives, changing our hopes and aspirations in ways which were just not possible for many others from our communities. At school we dressed the same as everyone else, we carried the same school bags and had all the textbooks and study equipment we needed. Back home it had been considerably different.

  The hostel students had lots of friends at school and at Tuart Hill Senior High, students chose three of us five hostel kids to be prefects. Four joined the army cadets. In addition we had opportunities to meet people, visit places and go to events. Once we toured the passenger liner Oranje, which was berthed at Fremantle. I also remember going to meetings of the Aboriginal Progress Association, in Bassendean. It was then, too, that I heard about the Coolbarroo League, an organisation run by and for Noongars. It held dances in Perth and several of us Noongar boys from the hostel went to them. All these experiences were good for our social development, and we began to expect a better deal in life.

  Abridged from No Free Kicks

  Eric Hedley Hayward, 2006.

  Rene Powell

  MISSION DAYS

  How does a little Aboriginal kid, who doesn’t understand English, somehow drop everything from her early life? No words can describe the feeling of being grabbed from a mother and planted among strangers. I don’t remember, but I think I must have been shocked and frightened. I was taken from the most natural childhood imaginable to a very disciplined, strict and boring existence. I daydreamed my way through school. I hated school. Some kids loved learning but I wasn’t one of those kids. Like my cousin Molly Cameron — she chose to go there, she went out at Christmas, and she was eight when she went there. Recently Molly said that she remembered the time I first arrived at Mount Margaret.

  It was night-time and this little girl walked in and we was saying, ‘Who’s that little girl? What’s her name?’

  ‘Oh, she’s from Warburton, she’s a little “half-caste” girl from Warburton and her name’s Rene.’

  She was a little thin one with a big pink woolly jumper — cardigan — on her. Thin little legs. She was head down standing because a big mob of kids was right round her. Yeah — she was frightened to see us. That’s how she came into the Home … I didn’t know she was my relation until I went out of the Home.

  I didn’t choose to go there. I hated it. It was very hard when you were four years old at Mount Margaret. I was all confused. And all these other kids, they were probably in the same boat — never experienced their own little childhood — in this institution where there’s a new language and all these rules and Christian songs and stories. And they’re alien. So it’s hard to learn because you speak and think Aboriginal and then you are thrown into school and you’ve got to be an expert on ABC.

  Every December when school closed the mothers who were not living at Mount Margaret would come to the mission to take their children for the school holidays. Teatime at Mount Margaret Mission was about four or five o’clock. Straight after tea the girls would be locked in the dormitory. Some of the big girls would stand on the beds to look out the windows to see whose mother was coming with a piece of paper in her hand with the child or children’s name on it. Everyone would get excited hoping their mother would be seen crossing the creek walking to the girls’ home. Soon the dormitory would be silent with the sad and broken-hearted girls whose mothers didn’t come. We didn’t know it at the time, but only the ‘full-blood’ girls were allowed to leave the mission with their mothers. ‘Half-caste’ girls were never given permission to go. I wonder now how the mothers felt when they arrived and were told they couldn’t take their children for the holidays. Every second year we would be taken by the mission to Cosmo Newbery or Esperance for the Christmas holidays.

  At times, lots of Aboriginal ladies would come there and stand outside the fence near the dormitory yard. My mum could have been standing out there, but after years went by I didn’t know her and the other kids wouldn’t know her because they were from Mount Margaret. I don’t know if I ever saw her then, outside the fence.

  During school recess and after school we played games like marbles, jack-bones, skipping, string games and hopscotch until we lost interest in them. One thing that we had all year was the story lead or story wire, a piece of wire we would get from a broken fence and pass around. You sat on the ground and told yourself stories or you took it in turns with a couple of others or in a group. One of the most popular stories was Guess Whose Family? We’d draw the mother, father and their kids. If there were two wives, we drew beds for the first wife and the second wife. You had to guess the family and if you c
ouldn’t the storyteller would give clues, the initials of the people or where they came from. The older kids passed it down. That’s how we knew who we were. That’s how we kept our family history going. The older girls or Aboriginal people at the mission would tell you what they knew about your family, or where you came from, using the story wire. The kids used the story wires for weapons, too. There were lots of fights with kids stealing these story wires.

  Kids can be cruel, too. If we had fights they’d call out the names of other kids’ mothers and fathers to hurt them or unsettle them or they’d say to me, ‘Go back to Warburton, you’ve got no mother here.’ That’s how I knew I came from Warburton, but I didn’t know where it was.

  Lots of girls ran away from Mount Margaret Mission and when they were brought back they were punished. They would get a belting, with a cane or a leather belt. I ran away once — there were about seven of us. Three girls ran away to Laverton the day before us. They took off after breakfast and three of us took off really early the next day. We hadn’t gone far when we heard these other girls behind us shouting. They were younger girls and we tried to make them go back. But they wouldn’t go, so we said, ‘Come along. You can come with us,’ and we started walking towards Laverton, about twenty-eight miles. About halfway we could hear a truck in the distance so we shouted ‘Get down!’ and everybody dropped. We were well off the road so when the truck went past we lifted our heads and saw it was the mission truck.

  Late in the afternoon we got to the Reserve turn-off and we sat there, back from the road, for about fifteen minutes. While we were there the mission truck went past again with the three girls who had taken off the day before. They still didn’t see us so we walked into the Reserve. The women came out to see whose kids were there and we stayed with relatives. I stayed with Aunty Lula who came and claimed me. She knew who I was but I didn’t know her. Next day, one of the mothers went into Native Welfare and asked for rations for her child. Soon as he heard that, this Native Welfare officer jumped in his car and rounded us all up. Fancy asking Native Welfare for rations! Silly woman. Later, the first three girls said that they had told the missionary they could see little kids’ tracks on the road. The driver had got off and looked at the tracks but he reckoned they were probably just women going hunting.

  In the home, the missionaries belted us with a fan belt or a leather trouser belt. Sometimes I was belted with a cane at school. If you did something wrong they’d say, ‘I’ll belt the living daylights out of you!’ I remember having welts and purple bruises on my legs. I can’t remember what I did but we were punished for not answering the bell, or for climbing trees and tearing our clothes. Little things. Nothing serious. I remember girls wearing potato sacks. It was a punishment for doing things that the missionaries considered wrong. I think the missionaries took out their frustrations on the kids. Being in an isolated place would be hard for them. Maybe they were having trouble with children who were not adapting to their way of life. You can’t just wipe Aboriginal ways and language out of a little child. So they were probably frustrated.

  At Mount Margaret I was badly burned in a fire. I now know that the accident was on the eleventh of July 1958. It was very cold in the mornings and the missionaries had a room, we called it ‘the shed’, with an open fireplace. Every morning after breakfast the babies were brought in here to keep them warm. This morning I went to the dispensary for something and on my way back one of the girls told me to go to mind the babies while she went to the dispensary. I was sitting near the fire, warming myself, when one of the big girls called me to change out of my play clothes into my school clothes. That’s the last thing I remember.

  Some of the mission girls have told me that when I went outside, I burst into flames. They said I had a spark on me and it caught alight. They called out for help and Kathy, one of the big girls, ran to me and used her coat to smother out the flames. On the way to the little mission ‘hospital’ she tore off the burnt dress and put the coat back on me. But I can’t remember any of that.

  The first thing I remembered was someone trying to feed me boiled eggs, but I don’t know if that was in Leonora Hospital or Perth. I remember the smell of the mattress in Princess Margaret Hospital. It had a funny smell to it that mattress. It was the smell of burnt skin and pus. The blankets were held by a frame so that they didn’t touch me. I remember one of the doctors trying to get me to walk and holding out his hands for me to walk to him. But I remember just standing there. I could feel the blood trickling down my legs from the wounds, so they just put me back to bed. The smell sticks to you. That’s what I remember most.

  I don’t remember much about Lucy Creeth Hospital in Perth except swimming in the pool for exercises. I remember getting excited about going back to Mount Margaret because, after all, I thought that was home. When I came back from Perth by train to the Malcolm Siding I saw the girls and Mr Jackson waiting for me. Later I was told that when we were back at Mount Margaret I hit my brother and told him off for not looking after me and not visiting me when I was in hospital.

  After the accident I was like a ‘freak show’ in that mission. The missionaries wanted to see the scars. ‘Come here, Rene, and lift up your dress,’ they said. I was treated like a freak for anyone and everyone who came to the mission. Because of the scarring I couldn’t sit up straight in school and I was always being hit with a ruler. Posture. Posture. I was hit in the back for bad posture. They didn’t think that the scarring might be a problem, that the burn scars couldn’t stretch. Even now I get pains at night from the tightness and can’t get comfortable to sleep. There were no check-ups for me. The children could be cruel, too. If I had a disagreement with any of the girls I’d get, ‘burnt this, burnt that, burnt everything else,’ which was very painful. I had to strip naked for the big girls so they could see the scars. I’d cry for my mother who was hundreds of miles away, and I’d get, ‘Go back to Warburton, you’ve got no mother here.’ That’s why I still cover up now — I never wear short clothes, or sleeveless things.

  In the mission they drummed Christianity into us. The missionaries tried to shape and rule our lives in what they thought was the Christian way of living, preparing us to be domestic servants. We were only allowed to sing Christian songs, and the older girls had to go to Bible class and have prayer meetings. On Sundays we went to church morning and afternoon, Sunday school, and then a church meeting at night. We were always being reminded that Jesus loved us, but what I really wanted was my mother. We were just brainwashed little puppets.

  Of all the children who were in Mount Margaret Mission of my age, only about four are still alive. We were led to believe that God would lead us through life. Sure we’d have temptations and Satan would lead us off the Christian path, but if we prayed and followed Jesus, he would help us. For most of us, it didn’t work.

  There wasn’t much that was good in the mission, really. I liked the walks and the picnics, otherwise you were in the yard all the time. Holidays at Esperance were good but that was miles away from relations and home. One of the good things was athletics. Mount Margaret kids were always winning the local shield. Those kids were very good at athletics. I came to Perth once for athletics. Some of us were picked to go to Leederville for the school carnival. We stayed at Bennett House in East Perth. We had to practise starting blocks and wear a little skirt. I was very self-conscious then. And nervous. We had never been in such a big crowd of people.

  After ten years at Mount Margaret I went to Kurrawang Mission, run by the Gospel Brethren. I was there for three years. There were a few differences from Mount Margaret Mission — trees and landscape for one thing, but I prefer the desert and the mulga country. On Sundays and whenever we went to church, every female had to wear a hat or scarf. At Mount Margaret we didn’t have to have our heads covered. At Kurrawang they had a tennis court and trampoline. Some days we would play day and night. I ran away from there, too.

  We had supper one night and all the younger ones were in bed. On the spur of th
e moment someone said, ‘Let’s go to Kalgoorlie!’ There were three of us. We bundled our blankets into a heap under the quilt like bodies and told one other girl to turn the lights out so when the missionary came to check she’d think we were all there. Anyhow, we took off and headed down to the main road. We thumbed a lift on the main road with an oldish man and his grandson who were going in to the pictures. We jumped off in Hannan Street and we were walking down Porter Street when we saw this policeman, so we headed into the darker part of town. One of the girls was turning around to check on that policeman and she walked straight into a tree. She hit her head, and there was blood running down her face. After that she wanted to go back. So we stood there arguing about going back to Kurrawang. In the end we felt sorry for her and headed back down the Coolgardie road. We slept the night under a peppercorn tree — no blankets and freezing.

  Next day we walked back to Kurrawang. We were sent to the missionaries’ house and brought in one by one and questioned. This missionary was a big bloke, and he gave us the cane. My hands had welts and were swollen for days. His wife made us a cup of tea and they told us to play tennis on the lawn until the school bus came back. We pretended to play, but we couldn’t even hold the racquets, our hands were so sore.

  The only people living at Kurrawang were missionaries, the children and old Aboriginal people who lived on the Reserve. No parents or relatives visited, as they had at Mount Margaret. There was one girl boarding at Kurrawang and every school holiday and Christmas she went back to Leonora. The three years I was there we went down to Esperance for a few weeks every Christmas. All the children went. We didn’t see any mothers with pieces of paper with their children’s names on them.

  If the missionaries saw you sitting on the ground telling stories, they said, ‘Stop flogging the ground. You are not at Mount Margaret now, sit on the grass!’ And we were told to forget speaking any language other than English. Today the languages are taught in some towns and communities. I spoke Ngaanyatjarra when I was taken to Mount Margaret, but by the time I was sent to Kurrawang I had lost my language and was speaking English and a type of Aboriginal slang. At Kurrawang we were not allowed to speak in any language other than English. By the time I was sent to Esperance to work I had lost my language and my identity. The missionaries had brainwashed me. The missionaries were forever putting Aboriginal people down, as heathens, and children of the devil, trying to turn me against my own people. It worked. It was all I ever heard; there was nobody telling me anything different. No wonder everyone was confused about where they belonged.