WEST KIMBERLEY PLACE REPORT - Department of Sustainability ...

search for inmates. From 1910 to 1960, many full and mixed descent children were
removed from their families to different missions and institutions (DEH 2004; Pocock
2007). Places such as Beagle Bay, Lagrange and Forrest River drew or received
against their will, people from around the region, and thus acted as a significant driver
of dispossession for many Kimberley people. The treatment of Aboriginal people in
the missions and other institutions varied depending on the denomination of the
church and, more critically, the attitudes of the superintendent or manager. Some
mission staff were supportive of Aboriginal culture and others had attitudes and
practices that were considered extreme and not aligned with mainstream Christian
beliefs or denominations (Loos 2007). A former resident at Beagle Bay Mission,
where many Kimberley Aboriginal children were sent, recalls nuns taking Aboriginal
children in the only mission car to visit places and allowing them to gain knowledge
of Nyul Nyul country from the local residents. They attended corroborees with the
nuns, although speaking language and participation in ceremonies were forbidden
(Esther Bevan, Gija and Nyul Nyul pers. comm. 24-25 May 2010).
Some children were accompanied by their families to the missions and many have
fond memories of mission life. Phillip Cox recalled: 'Beagle Bay was a happy
place…even though the place was very poor… it was just like one, big happy family –
everybody together. Caring and sharing…they were strict, but they were kind, and
they believed in discipline' (Mr Phillip Cox, quoted in Mellor and Haebich 2002).
Children were educated and, like the adults, assisted in doing jobs to help make the
missions self reliant. Ex-students were taught trades and were involved in other
mission building projects.
Some missions, reserves and government stations gave their inmates not only rations
but also additional fresh food grown in their own gardens. For many Aboriginal
people, though, supplementing rations with bush foods was essential to their survival
(DIA 2004: Biskup 1973). At Kunmunya, where Reverend Love was superintendent
from 1927 until 1940, the mission supported itself raising cattle and goats for meat
and milk, and growing vegetables for people to eat. While those who were not able to
work were provided for, those who could were either paid for the work they
undertook, or supported themselves through traditional means. Far from forbidding
Worrorra from being spoken, Love studied the language of the Worrorra people,
translating sections of the Bible into Worrorra, and some Worrorra stories into
English (ADB 1986).
Government feeding depots and stations such as Lombadina, LaGrange, Munja and
Udialla were established to feed, train and isolate Aboriginal people, as well as to
develop a labour reserve that could be assigned to pastoralists. Reserves were created
with the rationale of preserving Aboriginal culture through isolation, and to reduce the
tension between Aboriginal people and pastoralists over cattle killing. Use of
Aboriginal reserves changed over time subject to Government policy. In 1913, part of
the original 1.6 million hectare Marndoc reserve, which had previously been set up in
1911 near the Cambridge Gulf, became the Anglican Forrest River Mission
(Oombulgurri). In 1922, the southern half of the reserve was excised for World War 1
soldier resettlement blocks (Biskup 1973; Loos 2007; DEH 2004). In 1926, the
Forrest River massacre took place in the vicinity of the mission. The findings of the
subsequent WA Royal Commission are still the subject of ongoing debate (Loos
2007).
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