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A return to the land of their birth for 'Stolen Generation'

By Kathy Marks

20 December 2003 - Fifty years after Doris Pilkington was forcibly separated from her family, she persuaded her mother, Molly Craig, to take her back to the place where she was born; under a mulga tree on a cattle station in Western Australia's remote Pilbara region.

As mother and daughter drove through Balfour Downs Station, Doris caught sight of one tree and was struck by a peculiar sensation. "I said, 'That's the one'. We stopped, and she said, 'Yes, that's it'. We sat under the tree and talked. There were feelings of warmth all around me, and a breeze was passing through. It was like the spirits of our ancestors were welcoming me back. It felt like a special place for me, the earth itself. I took my shoes off and stood on it, my birthing place."

The connection with the land described so eloquently by Doris in an interview at her home in Perth is the core of Aboriginal tradition, spirituality and beliefs. So the appropriation of their ancient lands was an especially cruel blow for Australia's indigenous people, who were subjected to a government policy of removing mixed-race children from their parents and assimilating them into the white community.

Doris, 66, is a member of the "Stolen Generation", as is her mother, whose story inspired the internationally acclaimed feature film, Rabbit Proof Fence. Molly and two other girls, all taken from their families, escaped from an institution in 1931 and walked 1,600km back home by following a fence that ran the length of Western Australia.

Doris's father belonged to the Martudjara people, who were evicted in the 1950s and resettled in government camps on the fringes of the Great Sandy Desert. The area was later used by the British to test ballistic missiles.

In the early 1980s, the Martudjara began moving back to their desert homelands, setting up two new communities, Parnngurr and Punmu, with the help of Survival International, one of the three charities featured in this year's Independent Christmas Appeal.

Survival, a charity that campaigns for the rights of tribal peoples, funded water boreholes for the two communities. It also supported the Martudjara in a lengthy battle to reclaim ownership of their ancestral lands, which culminated in a High Court decision last year recognising their "native title" rights to 136,000sq km, an area the size of England.

It was the largest victory for Aborigines, who have lodged a series of similar claims since a watershed High Court ruling in 1992 that indigenous people owned the land before European colonisation. Survival's international campaign is thought to have helped sway public opinion.

For Aborigines, afflicted by chronic health and social problems, the restoration of native title rights is mitigating the historic effects of dispossession and alienation. It is also assisting the psychological recovery of those belonging to the Stolen Generation, who were brought up in Christian-run missions and orphanages, cut off from their language and culture. "The first step in the journey of healing is to reconnect with the land," Doris said. "The land symbolises so much to us: it's our family, our parents, our grandparents. It's the umbilical cord, the bond between mother and children."

Molly was taken - abducted, in effect - from Jigalong, a remote township on the edge of the Western Desert, under a policy introduced early last century and not abandoned until 1965. Conceived in response to the perceived threat to "White Australia" from the intermingling of Aborigines and Europeans, its aim was to integrate mixed-race children into white society and "breed out" their colour. The "full-blood" Aborigines, it was believed, were becoming extinct.

Molly was taken to Moore River, a mission north of Perth. Aged 14, she ran away with her sister, Daisy Kadibil, and her cousin, Gracie Fields. After their mammoth trek, she moved to a cattle station, married an Aboriginal stockman, Toby Kelly, and had two daughters, Doris and Annabelle.

But when she went to Perth for medical treatment, the authorities took the two girls. So in 1941 Molly absconded again, managing to take Annabelle with her, and returned to Jigalong, again walking most of the way. Doris, then aged three, grew up in Moore River, believing she had been abandoned by her mother. In the mission, she was beaten for speaking her native language. "They taught us Aboriginal culture was evil, that Aborigines were pagans and devil worshippers," she said. "They taught us to be ashamed of our own people. They tried to deprive us of our identity."

In 1962, she was reunited with her parents and has since written three books about her family's experiences, including one on which Rabbit Proof Fence was based. She is relearning her native language and plans to use it to write children's books. She is close to her mother, who is 87 and living in Jigalong, but Annabelle - taken from Molly again at five and brought up in a children's home - is estranged from the family.

But the two communities established by the Martudjara, about 1,000 people who speak 12 different languages, are thriving. Many lead traditional lives, hunting local game and participating in ancient rituals.

It is a spectacle that thrills Doris. "It has been amazing for them to re-establish themselves on their traditional lands," she said. "They are reconnecting the umbilical cord. They're very strong communities. They're protecting cultural sites, rediscovering their language, reviving their Creation stories.

"My father's land is not desolate land now. There are the sounds of children's laughter, of arguments, of everyday living. The life is there. The spirits of my grandparents are there and will always be."

Source: The Independent (UK)

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