AustLit
The material on this page is available to AustLit subscribers. If you are a subscriber or are from a subscribing organisation, please log in to gain full access. To explore options for subscribing to this unique teaching, research, and publishing resource for Australian culture and storytelling, please contact us or find out more.
Latest Issues
AbstractHistoryArchive Description
'This article examines the life experiences of Aboriginal women domestics during the inter-war years of the the 1920s and 1930s. [...] Interviews were conducted in Brisbane in June and July 1987 with the late June Bond, Rita Huggins, Margaret Pickering and Agnes Williams of Cherbourg Aboriginal Settlement, Daphne Lavelle from Hervey Bay and Annie Hansen from Lake Nash.' (p. 3).
Notes
-
Author's note [from Sister Girl]: I wanted to write about the silent history of Aboriginal women that has been the experience of so many of my mother's and grandmother's generatoin. Although we learnt about the pioneering efforts of mostly European males, little was recorded about the 'backbone' of the pastoral industry, the Aboriginal men and women who toiled as stockmen and domestic servants. This is so much a part of Australian history and it is about my history. The stories deserve recognition and need to be rescued, recorded and shared. I wrote this piece in 1987, just prior to the bicentenary. (p. 1)
-
Epigraph: In attempting to present evidence of our true situation we are furiously attacked by white Australians... going back 200 years... the past is finished!... Yet kill [our] mother, rape [our] land, psychologically attack and keep [us] in a powerless position each day - does it not fire on in the mind of the victim? Does it continue to scar and affect the thinking? Deny it, but still it exists. -- Kevin Gilbert
Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of
Last amended 22 Nov 2011 14:49:26
1-24
Firing on in the Mind
Firing on in the Mind
Hecate
Subjects:
- Born a Half-Caste 1985 single work autobiography
- Dreamtime Nightmares : Biographies of Aborigines under the Queensland Aborigines Act 1985 anthology biography
Export this record