Read Online Remembered By Heart: An Anthology of Indigenous Writing by Sally Morgan - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Sally Morgan
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They used to give us a stick and teach us to make the wool. Make a big roll first, like that wool that whitefella doing it, but we do it different way. We use our toe to wind it together, make it long. If itâs a skirt, we must make it little bit top of the knees, and then cut it after and make a belt. Skirt will be nice. Thatâs the skirt they used to make, and boys only have got a cock-rag thing, just in the front and the back, nothing in the leg side, and the belt. Before all the whitefellas come up, thatâs the way they used to be. When the whitefellas come up they had jeans and things, then, but usually they used to do bush way, living in the bush all the time. No shirt, just with the skirt. All their skin was just black with the sun burn.
But when I was a girl I never wear that one. I seen them making it, still making it to show the young generation coming up what they used to do in the early days before the whitefella come. When I was born I had a whitefella father, and I had clothes and everything, blanket and things. But they used to still do it when we go to bush meetings; in the bush, they used to still do it. They wear them in the mallalu time â they call it mallalu â the young fella going through the Law. They wear them then, wear that proper belt from the hair, not the whitefella belt. They got to use everything bush way when they putting a boy through the Law.
Early days before the whitefella come, they had a different Law. Say I a woman, when I start getting a period I not allowed anywhere that big mob might be camping. They put that woman with the period separate, one side. She got her own camp. Only the old ladies used to look after, take her food or whatever she want, water or something. Thatâs a secret sort of a thing. No man allowed to go there, or little boys or little girls. She by herself till the periodâs over, then she come back to the people. She got to be separate. If they moving from there, she got to go one side, and this big mob are going in the one road, and sheâs got to go hiding all the time till in the next camp. Because those days no clothes â only had the kangaroo skin sort of a thing.
And when she getting a period she got to put a black mark on her face with charcoal. Her husband know then sheâs getting a period, see. The husband donât do anything,and she move out from the camp, separate, for a few days. Every month, they used to do that. Itâs very hard, those days, but they know how to work it, themselves. The grannies used to tell me.
Abridged from
Under A Bilari Tree I Born
Alice Bilari Smith with Anna Vitenbergs and Loreen Brehaut, 2002
May OâBrien
MY STORY
Mission records state that I was born in the Eastern Goldfields town of Laverton in Western Australia during one of my familyâs visits to the area. This is incorrect. I was born in the bush and delivered according to Aboriginal tradition, near the mining town of Patricia, Western Australia, where my father (a white man, unknown to me) worked. My birth, like that of many other Aborigines at that time, is not registered.
Australian policy right up to the 1940s stated that all part-Aboriginal children be taken away from their mothers and assimilated into the white community. All children who showed evidence of being part white were caught and transported to Perth. They were institutionalised and trained for domestic and government service.
Since I was classified part-Aboriginal by governmentdepartments of the time, I was placed on their list to be taken away. Police scoured the bush but they could never catch me. At the age of five I was taken by friends who wanted to protect me to Mount Margaret Mission where I spent the next twelve years. Growing up at this place was special. One of the joys was to go to school. This may sound strange but it kept us safe from the hassle of authorities raiding our camps.
As schooling was not compulsory for Aboriginal
But when I was a girl I never wear that one. I seen them making it, still making it to show the young generation coming up what they used to do in the early days before the whitefella come. When I was born I had a whitefella father, and I had clothes and everything, blanket and things. But they used to still do it when we go to bush meetings; in the bush, they used to still do it. They wear them in the mallalu time â they call it mallalu â the young fella going through the Law. They wear them then, wear that proper belt from the hair, not the whitefella belt. They got to use everything bush way when they putting a boy through the Law.
Early days before the whitefella come, they had a different Law. Say I a woman, when I start getting a period I not allowed anywhere that big mob might be camping. They put that woman with the period separate, one side. She got her own camp. Only the old ladies used to look after, take her food or whatever she want, water or something. Thatâs a secret sort of a thing. No man allowed to go there, or little boys or little girls. She by herself till the periodâs over, then she come back to the people. She got to be separate. If they moving from there, she got to go one side, and this big mob are going in the one road, and sheâs got to go hiding all the time till in the next camp. Because those days no clothes â only had the kangaroo skin sort of a thing.
And when she getting a period she got to put a black mark on her face with charcoal. Her husband know then sheâs getting a period, see. The husband donât do anything,and she move out from the camp, separate, for a few days. Every month, they used to do that. Itâs very hard, those days, but they know how to work it, themselves. The grannies used to tell me.
Abridged from
Under A Bilari Tree I Born
Alice Bilari Smith with Anna Vitenbergs and Loreen Brehaut, 2002
May OâBrien
MY STORY
Mission records state that I was born in the Eastern Goldfields town of Laverton in Western Australia during one of my familyâs visits to the area. This is incorrect. I was born in the bush and delivered according to Aboriginal tradition, near the mining town of Patricia, Western Australia, where my father (a white man, unknown to me) worked. My birth, like that of many other Aborigines at that time, is not registered.
Australian policy right up to the 1940s stated that all part-Aboriginal children be taken away from their mothers and assimilated into the white community. All children who showed evidence of being part white were caught and transported to Perth. They were institutionalised and trained for domestic and government service.
Since I was classified part-Aboriginal by governmentdepartments of the time, I was placed on their list to be taken away. Police scoured the bush but they could never catch me. At the age of five I was taken by friends who wanted to protect me to Mount Margaret Mission where I spent the next twelve years. Growing up at this place was special. One of the joys was to go to school. This may sound strange but it kept us safe from the hassle of authorities raiding our camps.
As schooling was not compulsory for Aboriginal
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