Part One
I’m sitting in the Griffith University Library at Nathan. It’s the mid-90s and I’m researching an assignment for my Bachelor’s degree. One of my subjects this semester is Aboriginal Studies. I open the study guide and turn to the required reading. As I read, great silent tears start to flow down my cheeks, splashing onto the page below. I don’t sob. There are no histrionics. I don’t make a sound. My face just starts to resemble a waterfall in slow motion. It is the strangest, saddest feeling, and one I will never forget.
In the 1920s and ‘30s it was accepted as inevitable that Aborigines were a ‘dying race’. The only way future generations would know what Aborigines looked like – at least ‘full blood’ Aborigines – was from photographs, preserved skulls and models in museums. But, of course, the museum models needed to be ‘authentic’.
In 1924, the Australian Museum decided to produce an exhibit of Australian Aborigines from live models. It was decided to make three sculptures: a man, a woman and a boy. The sculptures were to be made as realistic as possible by taking plaster casts of the faces of the subjects. This was not the first, nor was it the last activity of its type. The practice went on until at least 1931.
At some point, someone decided that having the subjects close their eyes while the plaster was applied resulted in a less than perfect mould. So, at least in some cases, subjects were encouraged to keep their eyes open during the procedure.
I’ve had a plaster cast made of my face. Even knowing in advance what it involved, and doing it voluntarily it was a ghastly experience I wouldn’t want to repeat. I can only imagine what it was like for Aborigines with poor or no English, amongst people they didn’t know, and having no real idea what was being done to them or why!
I want to scream at the scientists, “Stop accepting the ‘inevitable’ and work to save them! Don’t accept their fate – fight for them!” But no words will come, only tears.
Part Two
I am sitting in the study room, upstairs at the Nambour public library. I’m researching for my [never completed] doctoral thesis on the history of property development at the Sunshine Coast. Once again, tears begin to flow and I watch silently as the page below becomes wet and bubbled with my outpouring of silent grief. This time I am reading about the massacre of Aborigines at Murdering Creek, near Noosa, in the 1860s.
Details are sketchy, but a contemporary account suggests the massacre was a pre-meditated act, cooked up between a local policeman and the manager of Yandina Station. The motive appears to have been the removal of Aborigines camped near the northern boundary of the station at Lake Weyba.
Top Comments
Oh Chrys, what an amazing piece. Thank you. I moved to Noosa 6 months ago and I drive past Murdering Creek Road every day on my way to work, and have often wondered about the origins of the name. Tomorrow's commute will have a measure of sadness as I pass the road sign.
I am a regular reader of your blog and a regular commenter on SAVN and related sites. I've also just started working in the primary healthcare section up here on the Sunshine Coast and I hope we will be able to provide a real benefit to communities like Tiga's on the Sunshine Coast.
The good news is Woodford have changed the program and Ms Dorey will no longer be talking about autism. The bad news is she'll now take part in a forum with an actual expert in the field of vaccination.
Why she would would be included in such a discussion is anyone's guess. It's a bit like asking your local pastry chef for an opinion on bridge construction with the implication that their information is just as useful as that of engineers.
Yeah, but it'll be a reasonably public pwning of her.
But that's great news surely? I would love to see her in a debate with someone who makes sense!!
It's better than giving her a solo spot to spout unchallenged nonsense - but it still makes no sense to elevate her to that status of an expert by standing her alongside one.