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 OneThe third cemetery—the only one still gaining members—crowned a small hill in the bendof the creek. This graveyard was started in the 1960s under the supervision of Brother andSister Hathaway of the United Aborigines Mission so that husbands and wives could beburied together irrespective of moiety divisions. Low white rails separated the rows. Neat,white, concrete rectangles stud the red-brown ground, barren save some weeds at the edges.The body length ridges threw shadows in the morning light. The old women I went there withlay bright pink and red artificial flowers by the headstones of husbands, brothers, children.The fourth cemetery was no more than three metres square, bounded—or not—by a fallingdown mulga and chicken wire fence reached by a dirt track winding up behind thecommunity buildings. I was first taken there by Cliff Coulthard, who I had met in my firstyear as a Uniting Church minister, when my husband and I called in at the homelands he wasturning into an Adnyamathanha cultural tourism centre. Cliff was a burly Adnyamathanhaman with a hat and greying beard, moving large rocks a wheelbarrow at a time, to carve outcamping areas and walking trails, and taking curious groups of tourists on a Social Historytour of the area. Cliff had invited us on one of these, which ended at this small cemetery onthe outskirts of Nepabunna. A mulga cross stood stubbornly at the head of a wide rectangle ofwhite gravel, gathered by small hands and large, from the hillside. ‘Jesus saves’, was carveddeeply into the iron hard wood, and then ‘James Page. 22nd Dec 1935.’‘He was the first missionary with our people’, said had Cliff, his voice a soft nasal burr.Then he had turned to us. ‘You, you’re like Jim Page.’,At right angles to James’ grave was an oblong heap of dirt and gravel.‘Who’s that?’ I had asked.6
‘That’s Rebecca, Rebecca Forbes. Old Mrs Forbes. She was a white lady who lived withour people.’A white woman, like me. Buried with a church worker, like me. How had they come to behere, buried near but not quite amongst the Adnymathanha community they made theirhome? How did they come to belong here? How could I?Monarto, South Australia, 2004I sat at my computer some years later to write the stories of the lives and deaths of these twopeople, whose stories flow into mine without my bidding. Black and white photographs ofRebecca on my wall constantly mirrored my own white, female face, and the UnitedAborigines Mission ‘Two Ways’ poster pinned to my wall challenged me with the promises7
Page 1 and 2: 2011Thesis Title:White Lives in a B
Page 3 and 4: Section A Part 1: IntroductionRefer
Page 5: South Australia, fenced about by ra
Page 9 and 10: isected Copley, where once everyone
Page 11 and 12: ackground while we talked and ignor
Page 13 and 14: from the Aborigines Act in 1950 and
Page 15 and 16: and Mum used to answer her back for
Page 18: White Lives in a Black Community: T
Page 21 and 22: Each record of the family tucked aw
Page 23 and 24: Pankhurst: it’s a slur on us, whe
Page 25 and 26: Acknowledgement to John Oxley Libra
Page 27 and 28: Becky reads the small notice again:
Page 29 and 30: take on for her. From the deck, she
Page 31 and 32: Our cabin is getting up a play call
Page 33 and 34: I have bitten my nails very short a
Page 35: Section B: IdentityRefer to Book 2
Page 39 and 40: ‘You hear of them Howells? Mrs Ho
Page 41 and 42: depending on the height of the rive
Page 43 and 44: horse, he looks past Edie, and Beck
Page 45 and 46: Winbar Station, 1913Sometimes, when
Page 47 and 48: They were married 17 January 1914 a
Page 49 and 50: …That’s what she was supposed t
Page 51 and 52: Reproduced from ‘Challenging the
Page 53 and 54: Aborigines suggesting he be commiss
Page 55 and 56: 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
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his faith was such that he kept his
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‘I’ve got a job on, Ted. Chief
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proceeds? Have you? Did you? Why? I
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eath away. 177 They said the eagle
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speak directly to him, she had know
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the fire with them, and their blast
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whose home this mission station has
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Photograph courtesy of Mary Woods.
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Nepabunna, December 20th 1935‘Mr
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tomorrow,’ and he places a set of
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….Dad talked about that Mr. Page
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their way back when they got to Pat
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‘Nyanga nyanga. Nyanga: oh we did
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a number of half-castes outside the
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Signed by MC Rosewall, and CH Downe
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Mr Wyld said that on one occasion t
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Photograph courtesy of Tracy Spence
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liquid on the side of the pot, and
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Clara nods, feeling the old woman
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Gerard’s UAM(SA) Inc. , and cease
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I presume you know that the applica
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eturns to her hut to mourn in her d
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indeed. It will take all of Samuels
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wanting to attract their attention.
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his plans for the future etc. I kno
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…I think the people felt that whe
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Forbes became the exile, living bey
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the church, ‘Where I can keep an
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was good enough to send up the more
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The wedding between Bessie and Fred
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Nepabunna General cemetery, with co
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But now the wood stove is as cold a
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Forbes’s lips are moving, and she
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Hawker, 2003Sylvia Brady told me ab
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at Copley for a quandong pie from t
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ealise, and imagine for a moment al
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together in Australia. You can’t
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Charlie JacksonMona JacksonRoger Jo
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College, Sydney Missionary Bible. "
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Lewis, Eileen. Transcript of an Int
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Adnyamathanha people of the Flinder
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15 correspondents, 'Correspondence
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56 “…[Becky] was probably livin
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91 Williams, A Song in the Desert.
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131 AP Elkin, ' Series 2 Box 9', Fi
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172 Page, Correspondence to the Chi
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213 Geary, M. (1950). Correspondenc
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2011 - Theses - Flinders University

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