2011 - Theses - Flinders University

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White Lives in a Black Community: The lives of Jim Page and Rebecca Forbes in the Adnyamathanha communityTracy SpencerVolume One Creative Writing Component: Excerpted Chapters from Volume Three Appendix OneHawker, 2001160Druid Vale Station 2002. Photograph courtesy of Tracy Spencer* * * *Rebecca’s grandson Darrell Forbes came to see me and we sat in the ATCO hut that was myback yard office at the Manse in Hawker. He showed me a slim scrapbook of pastedyellowing photocopied articles about his grandmother, narrating what he knew as he did so.When Rebecca started to get sick, they moved her up to a corrugated iron house – biggerhouse – near the church, so they could look after her. I don’t think she liked it for a while:she’d got used to the old place. 228I had never heard that Mrs Forbes had another home at Nepabunna. I had only ever imaginedher in her hut overlooking the creek, an outpost of memory of times past while the rest of thefamilies moved inexorably towards the mission store and church. To all appearances Mrs
Forbes became the exile, living beyond the edges of the community, but those who knew saidthat wasn’t true, that Mrs. Forbes lived at the heart of the original Nepabunna community,from the days before the store and the church became the centre of things. She ‘was quitehappy to live by herself’, in the life she had chosen, and been accepted into, over twentyyears ago. 229 Amongst the ruins of that first Nepabunna settlement, hers was the only fire stillburning, sending its thin plume of smoke into the air, marking that older time. To theyoungsters of the community she had become ‘the old lady who lived over the hill’.But now Darrell was telling me she was moved from that place, and installed insteadunder the eye of the missionaries. I took the information in slowly as Darrell continued toreminisce about the kangaroo tails his family brought to her on their permitted visits, cookingthe tails in the ashes the way she liked. I tried to picture Mrs Forbes in sickness, and in acorrugated iron house by the church and mission buildings, out of sight of the creek, awayfrom the piles of stones that had been her neighbours homes, and too far away to heargrowling in the teddy bear tree.UAM Archives, Melbourne, 2003Bill Hathaway used a typewriter, bless him, and organized his weekly reports to PastorSamuels under familiar headings: Store, Medical, General, Mine, School, Church Building,Personal. Little was said of Mrs Forbes. It was slow going as I skimmed the typeface, until‘Forbes’ leapt off the page. There it was. One Friday, early in November 1955, Mrs. Forbesdidn’t come to the store at all. Brother Hathaway wrote to Pastor Samuels:The only serious case this week is old Mrs. Forbes. She has been ill for some time on andoff with dysentery and under the Flying Doctor has made good progress. When she did notcome to the store as usual on Friday my wife went over to see if she was all right andfound her in a state of semi-collapse on her bed. She was unable to walk and in a very161
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2011Thesis Title:White Lives in a B
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Section A Part 1: IntroductionRefer
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South Australia, fenced about by ra
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‘That’s Rebecca, Rebecca Forbes
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isected Copley, where once everyone
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ackground while we talked and ignor
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from the Aborigines Act in 1950 and
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and Mum used to answer her back for
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White Lives in a Black Community: T
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Each record of the family tucked aw
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Pankhurst: it’s a slur on us, whe
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Acknowledgement to John Oxley Libra
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Becky reads the small notice again:
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take on for her. From the deck, she
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Our cabin is getting up a play call
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I have bitten my nails very short a
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Section B: IdentityRefer to Book 2
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‘You hear of them Howells? Mrs Ho
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depending on the height of the rive
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horse, he looks past Edie, and Beck
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Winbar Station, 1913Sometimes, when
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They were married 17 January 1914 a
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…That’s what she was supposed t
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Reproduced from ‘Challenging the
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Aborigines suggesting he be commiss
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His is somewhere aware that others
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she has said. With uncharacteristic
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The organ, and Iris playing it, are
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He led me towards the hillsAnd the
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There is less reportage of what Ann
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Section D: MeetingsRefer to Book 2
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out of a dream and he says “Arra
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the dark serge of her shirt, her ar
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Nepabunna, Flinders Ranges, 2001On
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…they had a big story about that.
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Jim Page is on his way to Copley. S
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hurting yourself. Instead I say we
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and that bogey monster!’ He shive
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‘Mrs Jack bloody Forbes, she call
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‘That’s the track you want. Hun
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eginning or end. The land has swall
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Becky hears him, though. Not words,
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‘You’ll see. I’ll tell the ot
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‘Fred, Fred McKenzie. You’d be
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Jean giggles. ‘I’ll be too fast
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The missionaries came to us with no
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Section E: TransculturationsRefer t
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‘This would provide work for seve
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Before leaving the lectern, Duguid
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‘Well, it appears that this is an
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lamp, but makes his way in the dimn
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‘Hey, yaka! Not me, I’m too old
Page 109 and 110: his faith was such that he kept his
Page 111 and 112: ‘I’ve got a job on, Ted. Chief
Page 113 and 114: proceeds? Have you? Did you? Why? I
Page 115 and 116: eath away. 177 They said the eagle
Page 117 and 118: speak directly to him, she had know
Page 119 and 120: the fire with them, and their blast
Page 121 and 122: whose home this mission station has
Page 123 and 124: Photograph courtesy of Mary Woods.
Page 125 and 126: Nepabunna, December 20th 1935‘Mr
Page 127 and 128: tomorrow,’ and he places a set of
Page 129 and 130: ….Dad talked about that Mr. Page
Page 131 and 132: their way back when they got to Pat
Page 133 and 134: ‘Nyanga nyanga. Nyanga: oh we did
Page 135 and 136: a number of half-castes outside the
Page 137 and 138: Signed by MC Rosewall, and CH Downe
Page 139 and 140: Mr Wyld said that on one occasion t
Page 141 and 142: Photograph courtesy of Tracy Spence
Page 143 and 144: liquid on the side of the pot, and
Page 145 and 146: Clara nods, feeling the old woman
Page 147 and 148: Gerard’s UAM(SA) Inc. , and cease
Page 149 and 150: I presume you know that the applica
Page 151 and 152: eturns to her hut to mourn in her d
Page 153 and 154: indeed. It will take all of Samuels
Page 155 and 156: wanting to attract their attention.
Page 157 and 158: his plans for the future etc. I kno
Page 159: …I think the people felt that whe
Page 163 and 164: the church, ‘Where I can keep an
Page 165 and 166: was good enough to send up the more
Page 167 and 168: The wedding between Bessie and Fred
Page 169 and 170: Nepabunna General cemetery, with co
Page 171 and 172: But now the wood stove is as cold a
Page 173 and 174: Forbes’s lips are moving, and she
Page 175 and 176: Hawker, 2003Sylvia Brady told me ab
Page 177 and 178: at Copley for a quandong pie from t
Page 179 and 180: ealise, and imagine for a moment al
Page 181 and 182: together in Australia. You can’t
Page 183 and 184: Charlie JacksonMona JacksonRoger Jo
Page 185 and 186: College, Sydney Missionary Bible. "
Page 187 and 188: Lewis, Eileen. Transcript of an Int
Page 189 and 190: Adnyamathanha people of the Flinder
Page 191 and 192: 15 correspondents, 'Correspondence
Page 193 and 194: 56 “…[Becky] was probably livin
Page 195 and 196: 91 Williams, A Song in the Desert.
Page 197 and 198: 131 AP Elkin, ' Series 2 Box 9', Fi
Page 199 and 200: 172 Page, Correspondence to the Chi
Page 201 and 202: 213 Geary, M. (1950). Correspondenc
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2011 - Theses - Flinders University

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