WEST KIMBERLEY PLACE REPORT - Department of Sustainability ...

introduced by the West Australian legislature in 1898 and 1905. Those unable to work
because of old age, injury or illness were required to be looked after by pastoralists,
although many pastoralists complained about this expectation. Payment was
principally in rations and, as the twentieth century wore on, attempts by Aboriginal
people and their supporters to establish a cash wage were repeatedly resisted by most
Kimberley pastoralists and influential lobbyists. On many pastoral stations,
Aboriginal people endured harsh living and working conditions, and stories of
excessive corporal punishment are common (Marshall 1988; Jebb 2002; Smith 2000).
Aboriginal women were subject to sexual exploitation and mixed-descent children
were removed, often forcibly, to missions and institutions.
Although the changes brought by European settlement were dramatic, Aboriginal
people found ways to adapt that were in accordance with their traditional Law, and
that gave the new settlers a place in that Law also. Within the Wunan (Wurnan),
which refers to a system of exchange and sharing of resources, Aboriginal people
classified pastoral bosses and their families as 'strange relatives' giving them a similar
status to non-local Aboriginal people, thereby creating distant kin obligations and
reciprocations, as well as clearly defined rights and associations (Redmond 2005).
Aboriginal station workers considered themselves to be the land owners, and
considered the white bosses as the land managers (Redmond 2005). Managers were
responsible for looking after owners, and maintaining and interacting with country.
Aboriginal workers saw and still see themselves as being productive and autonomous,
and are proud that they 'made a good worker out of the boss… and settled the missus
properly', though they express mixed emotions at the huge amount of work they
contributed for so little reward (Redmond 2005). Some Aboriginal people have fond
memories of their former pastoral lives, and their role as station workers forms an
important part of their contemporary identity. Much pastoral work required highly
developed skills, which were taught and prized within the Aboriginal community.
Aboriginal people excelled at droving large herds of cattle safely over long distances
to fresh pastures, and for sale and slaughter. Stock work was seen as '…an important
part of Aboriginal men's identity' (Bird Rose 1991). Smith notes that 'working with
cattle replaced hunting as an activity where men acquired prestige…Their use of this
work to continue ritual ties with the land challenged colonial ownership' (Smith
2000). It was not only men who provided the labour: if they were physically able,
women, children and old people from the camp also worked around the homestead,
maintaining the gardens and undertaking daily chores such as collecting firewood,
cooking, washing and cleaning. Some women also worked alongside men, droving
and managing stock, as Daisy Angajit, a Ngarinyin elder, recalled:
* * * *
'We were ringers, not proper big house girls. We wore trousers and a proper man's
shirt, boots, leggings, spurs, whip, hat, handkerchiefs around our necks, just like a
cowboy. We worked cattle, made ropes, carried the branding iron. Jumped up quick
too, not walking or we got a whip behind us' (quote by D Angagit inMunro 1996).
* * * *
Some Aboriginal people stayed outside station life, avoiding contact with European
settlers. Others lived in the bush for most of the year and made only occasional visits
to a station. In Ngarinyin, Worrora and Wunambal country in the north Kimberley, in
jila country in the Great Sandy Desert to the south, and Tjurabalan country in the
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