Read Caprice for Free Online Page B
Authors: Doris Pilkington Garimara
makers hoped to produce.
Fortunately for these children they had at least some interaction and contact with adults even if it was under controlled conditions. These adults were the nurse maids, cooks, laundresses and surrogate mothers at the Settlement. Breast-feeding motherless babies was a common practice amongst nursing mothers. Baby Kate Muldune was one of many babies who was loved and nurtured by her aunt Josie Leach, mother of Kevin John born a couple of days before her.
On arrival at the Settlement the newcomers were told that speaking ânative languageâ was forbidden. Those who misunderstood or knowingly disobeyed the instruction (which had become an unwritten law) and continued to communicate in their traditional language were intimidated and victimised by others. Foreign and colonial words such as âuncivilisedâ, âprimitiveâ and âsavagesâ were bandied about in the compound and the school playground.
This was a form of subtle indoctrination based on fear and superstition that gave birth to one of the damaging concepts in this so-called new Aboriginal societyâdiscrimination against their own people.
With their mothers, grandmothers and other blood relations behind an invisible wall of silence and obscurity, all traces of their existence vanished. All links to their traditional, cultural and historical past were severed forever.
No one imagined or perceived at that time what repercussions and effects this would have on future generations, and what a fatal impact it would have on the Aboriginal people of Western Australia who were deprived of their history and their values. These light-skinned institutionalised, ruralised people were living under what we know now to be a misconception that they were superior to their fullblooded relations, whom they despised and were ashamed to own. This proved that the indoctrination and conditioning had succeeded on one level at least. These half-caste or part-Aboriginal children would never choose a husband or wife whose skin colour was darker than theirs.
All memories of the past will be forgotten. Rejection of their own culture is permanent. The process of reshaping their lives has just begun. They will become children and indeed persons with no past, the new people of tomorrow, the new breed of children to be known as the Settlement kids.
The Compound
In 1947, Kate Muldune was seven, old enough to start school, so she was transferred to the schoolgirls dormitory. The kindergarten had been her home since she was two years old. It cared for all the children aged six years and under and the conditions there were better than anywhere else on the Settlement. The food was adequate: pots of soups and stews, daily supply of milk, dried or tinned fruit and tinned vegetables. The children thrived on the loving care given by the white sister-in-charge and her dedicated staff. The children were doted on and cuddled often, no one missed out. Kate still remembers the smell of Lifebuoy Soap at bath-times.
The schoolgirls dormitory was an overcrowded, dilapidated, vermin-infested building. The beds were covered with mattresses filled with coconut hair or husks, no sheets, just government-issued rugs. At night the beds were pushed closely together, the older girls at the ends protecting their younger relatives in the middle. During the winter, spare mattresses were thrown over the blankets for extra warmth.
âThe big girls told us that the dormitory was built on a cemetery or an old yard, and that every night ghosts wandered around the dormitory seeking revenge on the violators of sacred ground,â said Kate.
âIf we wanted to go to the toilet bucket at night, a small fire of coconut husks or fibre was lit. Still you glanced nervously around before you sat down over the bucket,â she added.
The girls were locked in every evening at six oâclock and confined there until sunrise the next morning.
âThe food was terrible.
Fortunately for these children they had at least some interaction and contact with adults even if it was under controlled conditions. These adults were the nurse maids, cooks, laundresses and surrogate mothers at the Settlement. Breast-feeding motherless babies was a common practice amongst nursing mothers. Baby Kate Muldune was one of many babies who was loved and nurtured by her aunt Josie Leach, mother of Kevin John born a couple of days before her.
On arrival at the Settlement the newcomers were told that speaking ânative languageâ was forbidden. Those who misunderstood or knowingly disobeyed the instruction (which had become an unwritten law) and continued to communicate in their traditional language were intimidated and victimised by others. Foreign and colonial words such as âuncivilisedâ, âprimitiveâ and âsavagesâ were bandied about in the compound and the school playground.
This was a form of subtle indoctrination based on fear and superstition that gave birth to one of the damaging concepts in this so-called new Aboriginal societyâdiscrimination against their own people.
With their mothers, grandmothers and other blood relations behind an invisible wall of silence and obscurity, all traces of their existence vanished. All links to their traditional, cultural and historical past were severed forever.
No one imagined or perceived at that time what repercussions and effects this would have on future generations, and what a fatal impact it would have on the Aboriginal people of Western Australia who were deprived of their history and their values. These light-skinned institutionalised, ruralised people were living under what we know now to be a misconception that they were superior to their fullblooded relations, whom they despised and were ashamed to own. This proved that the indoctrination and conditioning had succeeded on one level at least. These half-caste or part-Aboriginal children would never choose a husband or wife whose skin colour was darker than theirs.
All memories of the past will be forgotten. Rejection of their own culture is permanent. The process of reshaping their lives has just begun. They will become children and indeed persons with no past, the new people of tomorrow, the new breed of children to be known as the Settlement kids.
The Compound
In 1947, Kate Muldune was seven, old enough to start school, so she was transferred to the schoolgirls dormitory. The kindergarten had been her home since she was two years old. It cared for all the children aged six years and under and the conditions there were better than anywhere else on the Settlement. The food was adequate: pots of soups and stews, daily supply of milk, dried or tinned fruit and tinned vegetables. The children thrived on the loving care given by the white sister-in-charge and her dedicated staff. The children were doted on and cuddled often, no one missed out. Kate still remembers the smell of Lifebuoy Soap at bath-times.
The schoolgirls dormitory was an overcrowded, dilapidated, vermin-infested building. The beds were covered with mattresses filled with coconut hair or husks, no sheets, just government-issued rugs. At night the beds were pushed closely together, the older girls at the ends protecting their younger relatives in the middle. During the winter, spare mattresses were thrown over the blankets for extra warmth.
âThe big girls told us that the dormitory was built on a cemetery or an old yard, and that every night ghosts wandered around the dormitory seeking revenge on the violators of sacred ground,â said Kate.
âIf we wanted to go to the toilet bucket at night, a small fire of coconut husks or fibre was lit. Still you glanced nervously around before you sat down over the bucket,â she added.
The girls were locked in every evening at six oâclock and confined there until sunrise the next morning.
âThe food was terrible.