Race politics in Australia Book

4.5★

Western Australia, 1930. Not 1830. . . 1930. This is recent history. 2400km, barefoot, through rivers and harsh bush, always hiding. Three “half-caste” Aboriginal girls, 8, 11, and 15, ran away from the Moore River Native Settlement, where they’d been sent in the south of the state, and trekked all the way back north on their own, following the rabbit-proof fence.

It’s an important story, simply told.

SOME BACKGROUND
For those who are interested, I’m including web links I found. I hope they continue to work. If not, I hope someone will post new ones as comments.

There is a map in the front of the book to show how far this was. Here’s a link to a page with the map, a picture of the author, and a film trailer.

The film of this book is perhaps better known than the book itself, which was written by Molly’s daughter, Nugi Garimara (Doris Pilkington).

Nugi (the author) was herself taken and left at Moore River in 1940 when she was 4 (renamed Doris) and was reunited with her mother 21 years later at Jigalong, where she learned her mother’s story.

Nugi/Doris : the author
Molly : the author’s mother, the eldest of the 3 girls whose story this is
Maude : mother of Molly (Molly’s father was white, hence the government interest)

THE STORY
Rabbit-Proof Fence: The True Story of One of the Greatest Escapes of All Time is a fictionalised account of the girls’ adventures and ordeals. It is a straight-forward story, told in the third person without a lot of embellishment, but with descriptions of the bush, catching rabbits, and the rain and mud.

Molly’s mother, Maude, grew up at Jigalong and seems to have had an independent dispositon. She didn’t care for the fellow she was intended for (the feeling was mutual), but fell for Thomas Craig, an Englishman who was a fence inspector. Maude’s family was happy, since Maude hadn’t broken any kinship laws. And Thomas was happy and named the baby.

Molly was a pretty little baby, (noted only with an entry in the station record, not registered), and later, she had two little cousins, also “muda-mudas”, half-Aboriginal and half-white. The three girls played together and were teased and bullied by the others because they weren’t black enough.

A.J. Keeling, the Superintendent of the government depot at Jigalong noticed the attitude of the Mardu children and reported that “the girls ‘were not getting a fair chance as the blacks consider the H/Cs [half-castes] inferior to them. . .’ (Department of Native Affairs file no. 173/30.”

[POLITICAL RANT]
So the decision was made to move them, much as we consider moving children today whom we believe to be living in abusive situations. But in the cases of the Aboriginal children, moves were not into nearby family foster care but into European-style institutions where they were to be cut off from all family contact and told to speak only English. Drastic. And of course they were to live in dormitories and be trained in simple trades, not raised and educated as white children were. Shameful servitude.

BACK TO THE STORY
The families did their best to hide the girls, knowing they were at risk of being removed, but the kids were found and taken south in July 1931. Interestingly, in August 1930, a year earlier, Keeling “wrote in his report that ‘these children lean more towards the black than white and on second thoughts, think nothing would be gained in removing them.’ (Department of Native Affairs file no. 173/30.) Someone read it. No one responded.”

And there you have it. The government official who knew the families could see that the girls were better with them in spite of the teasing or bullying, much the way community services try these days to keep families together and help the family. 20-20 hindsight.

Molly was 15, Gracie was 11, and Daisy was 9. They arrived, by boat sailing down the coast (no tracks to follow home) on 27 July 1931. By 11 August 1931, the West Australian announced: “MISSING NATIVE GIRLS. . .” and went on to describe their disappearance.

Molly had good bush sense, but the bush itself and the bush tucker was different from that at home. She was counting on finding the fence to the east of them and then following it north.

“From when she was young, Molly had learned that the fence was an important landmark for the Mardudjara people of the Western Desert who migrated south from the remote regions. They knew that once they reached Bil-lanooka Station, it was simply a matter of following the rabbit-proof fence to their final destination, the Jigalong government depot; the desert outpost of the white man.

The fence cut through the country from south to north. It was a typical response to a problem of their own making. Building a fence to keep the rabbits out proved to be a futile attempt by the government of the day.

For the three runaways, the fence was a symbol of love, home and security.”

They had help along the way--people gave them food and clothing, sent them on their way, and sometimes contacted the authorities. Molly cleverly made sure they arrived at stations from one direction and left by another, so the owners would never really know where they came from or where they were going.

They were by turns cold and hot, wet, bone-weary, and had festering sores on their legs from the bush scratches. This was no picnic.

CONCLUSION
This is as close to a first-hand account of this phenomenal tale that we’ll ever get, I think. It is worth reading for that alone. Nugi/Doris has done a remarkable job putting this together and all Australian schools should teach it.

[END POLITICAL RANT]