mission

The children at the mission learned to read and write in Guugu Yimidhirr (which had been transcribed earlier by the missionaries), and the girls helped in the missionaries’ houses and in the garden. It was routine for the girls to be confined to a dormitory each night and to have limited access to their families. Initially, the missionary Wilhelm Poland supervised them closely at Elim while the senior missionary, Georg Heinrich Schwarz, attempted to establish a second station at Hope Valley. This arrangement was altered in 1890 after the older girls, including Mulun, secretly invited Guugu Yimidhirr boys into their dormitory at night. Thereafter the older girls were periodically sent to Hope Valley to stay with Schwarz. Source: ia.anu.edu.au/biography/mulun-magdalena-29712

Ancient traditions Yarrabah is the traditional country of the Gunggandji and Mandingalbay Yidinji people. These people had traditional beliefs and values different from those we have today. They were guided by Buleru, ancestral spirits who gave us our cultural law, belief system, and creation stories and followed a defined social structure and kinship system. Our people were hunters and gatherers, and the surrounding rainforest and beachside traditional lands around Cape Grafton provided food in abundance. Dwellings were made from material found within the environment, the structure dependent on wet season or dry season needs. The lands we occupy are ancient. Our people have a connection to the country stretching back into the dream time. Our local customs and traditions, continue today and our people continue their responsibilities as custodians of the land. Source: www.gyhsac.org.au/site/user-assets/Yarrabah%20Community%2...

Living Conditions: Dormitories were where children from the age of 10 lived Under the Aboriginals Protection and Restriction of the Sale of Opium Act 1897 children were started to be taken from their parents and kept in these dormitories In the early 1900s the church created unpaid work for all of the residents at the mission which was compulsory Children worked in agriculture to supply food Businesses from Cairns also used the Aboriginals for cheap labor in local industries including coffee and sugar farming 'We never had any choices back in those days. We was told to do what we had to do. It wasn't a good place to live. It was very difficult' Eric Bell a Nugunnawal elder 'We never had any choices back in those days. We were told to do what we had to do. It wasn't a good place to live. It was very difficult' Eric Bell a Nugunnawal elder Children used to hide in shrubs and bushy areas to hide from the government people when they came around The point of missions was to protect the Aboriginal people of the surrounding area Their goal was also to 'Christianize' the Aboriginal people At the time many people didn’t like them because they wanted their own land the colonial government responded by setting up reserves or stations Aboriginal people who heavily restricted to their land and freedom The reserves had their own machinery and the Aboriginals were forced to crop and look after livestock Devastating things went on at the missions such as disease, pastoral expansion, and conflict. Source: yarrabahlife.weebly.com/yarrabah-mission.html

Doomadgee is a largely Indigenous community located in the Gulf of Carpentaria, approximately 140km from the Northern Territory border and 93km west of Burketown. The community is positioned alongside the Nicholson River and provides access to the coast, freshwater rivers, and Lawn Hill National Park, one of the Gulf’s most popular natural tourist attractions. The Waanyi and Gangalidda people are recognized as the Traditional Owners of the region surrounding Doomadgee. The original mission, known as ‘Old Doomadgee’, was established in 1933 by a non-Indigenous family, the Akehurst family, with the support of the Christian Brethren Assemblies and Chief Protector of Aboriginals[2]. The mission was located at ‘Dumaji’ at Bayley Point Aboriginal reserve, on Gangalidda land. Archival records and personal accounts by residents describe the restrictive and difficult conditions at Doomadgee. In 1950, a government report severely criticized practices in use in the dormitory. At the time, mission policy required that all children over 6 years old lived in dormitories[14]. Boys left the dormitory around the age of 14 to take up station work. Girls were trained in domestic duties and often remained in the dormitories until they married. By the late 1950s, many residents left Doomadgee and went to the Mornington Island mission, where the practice of separating children from parents in dormitories had been abandoned. During the 1960s, older, unmarried girls began returning to their parents[16]. The dormitories closed at some point in the late 1960s. Source: www.qld.gov.au/firstnations/cultural-awareness-heritage-a...