2011 - Theses - Flinders University

…That’s what she was supposed to come out for: to meet up with an Aboriginal man. 67‘Oh yes, she married an Aboriginal man, which fitted in right, you know.’… ‘and she stayedthere…She was dedicated to him,’ I’m told, over and over by Adnyamathanha yurasthroughout the Flinders Ranges. The story is always the same: ‘She came all the way fromEngland to marry Jack Forbes’. 68Nepabunna, 1950sSitting around the corner of the wooden table inside her tin hut, old Mrs. Forbes pours teainto white enamel cups for young Mrs. Woods, the station cook at Wertaloona. They are inanimated conversation, the older woman enjoying the wit and warmth of the younger woman,matching it with her lively opinions.‘Oh, here comes the pommy blood out!’ teases the visitor.The bright eyes narrow in the wrinkled face. ‘I’m not a Pom!’ 69 Mrs Forbes’ pale face isset, and she sits up straight against the inclination of her bush bowyang chair. It’s anargument she’s had before, and her reply has already been put into print in 1940, in MrsHill’s travel book:‘If, as they say, a wife takes her husband’s nationality, I am an Australian, actually theonly real white Australian there is.’ 70On her way home, Mrs. Woods tells her husband about it.‘Teach you to watch what you say!’ he replies, grinning at his young wife.49