ISSUE 32 ISSUE AUSTRALIAN SCREEN EDUCATION SCREEN AUSTRALIAN 1 STUDYGUIDE ROBERT LEWIS MEETING DAISY BATES CURRICULUM SIGNPOST married a drover, Jack Bates, in 1885 and they had a son in 1886. MAGINE THAT THE WOMAN IN This film will be useful in: centre photograph on the right was In the early 1890s she left her family and Icoming to talk to your class. HISTORY travelled to England. She acquired skills that enabled her to work as a journalist. First, write down any impressions you • critically analysing important people have of her – such as what she was like, and events in the past She returned to Australia at the turn of what she did, where, who she worked • exploring our culture and identity the century and was briefly re-united with, how she felt about her work, why • analysing representations of people with her husband and son. She left them she did it, when she was active. and issues soon after to travel to the Kimberley • understanding aspects of Aboriginal area of Western Australia to investigate Then list some of the questions you culture and identity claims of European atrocities against would want to ask her. Aboriginal people. Her report was a ENGLISH ‘whitewash’ but she became passion- Some questions I would like to ask her ately interested in Aboriginal languages are: _____________________________ • creating a biography and culture. _________________________________ To do this we need to study at least _________________________________ five different sets of information In 1904 Daisy Bates was appointed by _________________________________ about a person: the Western Australian government to _________________________________ 1 The basic facts about the per- study the languages and customs of _________________________________ son Western Australian Aborigines. She 2 The person’s view of herself, who spent 6 years, travelling extensively The woman you have just wondered she was, what she did and what around the vast Western Australian about is Daisy Bates, who worked it meant to her frontier and prepared a manuscript for among Aboriginal people from the early 3 How others saw her publication entitled: The Native Tribes 1900s to her death in 1951. 4 The times in which she lived of Western Australia. (The manuscript 5 Our values and attitudes today, was rejected for publication and was • ‘Strait-laced do-gooder.’ and how these shape our judge- not published until 1985, 35 years after • ‘Pioneer anthropologist.’ ment of a person her death). • ‘True friend to the Aborigines.’ • ‘Eccentric recluse.’ In doing this for Daisy Bates we will In 1910, Daisy fled white society and she • ‘Spreader of untruths about Aborigi- look at both what the film says about set up a camp at Eucla, on the edge of nal life.’ her, and what other sources exist to the Nullarbor Plain. Here, she continued help us gather information and make her ethnographic investigation of the These are some of the contradic- judgements. life and customs of Western Australian tory judgements that have been made Aborigines. Around this time Daisy Bates about her. Obviously, she was, and still WATCHING THE FILM also became a welfare worker and cared is, a controversial person in Australian KABBARLI for the Aboriginal people who were suf- history. fering cultural and physical dislocation ISSUE 32 ISSUE 32 Watch the film Kabbarli, and discuss it as a result of the European colonisation So what do we make of this person? using this guide to help you summarise of their land. She moved to Ooldea in AUSTRALIAN SCREEN EDUCATION AUSTRALIAN SCREEN EDUCATION some of the key information and ideas 1919, where she stayed for the next The film Kabbarli presents a view of in the film, and the short biographical sixteen years – and where we are first Daisy Bates that we can explore to help sketch of Bates to help you understand introduced to her in the film. This was understand the various judgements of the context. the period when the transcontinental her, but even more importantly, to see railway had been built, exposing many how biographies can be constructed. BIOGRAPHICAL OUTLINE OF DAISY Aboriginal people to Europeans for the You can then apply this structure to BATES first time. any other biography, and to any that you write yourself. Daisy Bates was a young Irishwoman Ernestine Hill, the well-known journalist 2 who came to Australia in 1883. She and writer, came to see her in 1932, and 3 ISSUE 32 AUSTRALIAN SCREEN EDUCATION 3 ISSUE 32 AUSTRALIAN SCREEN EDUCATION 2 in 1935 Hill helped Bates with the writ- you need to see a variety of other infor- from white hands, then they are nothing ing of her autobiography, serialised in mation and ideas. more than derelicts, rubbish, that will soon newspapers as ‘My natives and I’, and be pushed to one side and removed. My edited into The Passing of the Aborigi- A: WHO WAS DAISY BATES? poor people, how will they manage once nes in 1938. Her work with the Aborigi- kabbarli has gone? nal people of the area was recognised (see chart 02) with her appointed as a Commander of ∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞ the British Empire in 1934. B: SOME EXTRACTS FROM DAISY BATES’ WRITINGS My sole desire now is to live among my She was paid by the Commonwealth black friends . I have not a particle of Government to prepare her Western My People. When you see them walking na- personal ambition or self-seeking beyond Australian manuscripts for transfer to ked out of the desert they appear like kings my desire to impress upon the native race the National Library, completing that and queens, princes and princesses, but that there is one woman who is absolutely in 1940. standing barefoot on the edge of the railway their friend, without thought of self-ad- track, dressed in stiff and stinking clothes, vancement. She moved back to the Ooldea region black hands held out to receive charity in 1941, but was now in failing health. She returned to Adelaide in 1945, and died there in 1951. Summarising scenes from the film (see chart 01) How we find out about people What the film shows 1 Basic facts of her life (e.g. date of birth, Having made your notes, discuss the marriage, family, etc.) following questions, referring to your 2 The person’s view of herself (e.g. what notes to support your ideas. she said about herself, her motivations, etc.) 1 How would you describe Daisy 3 How others saw her (e.g. the comments Bates’ life? of people who knew her, Ernestine Hill, 2 What would you consider to be her etc.) main character traits, both good and bad? 4 The times in which she lived (e.g. at- 3 What motivated Daisy Bates – why titudes, values, experiences, etc.) did she do what she did? 5 Applying our values today (e.g. our 4 What did Daisy Bates achieve? attitudes to race, Indigenous culture, 5 Discuss the different views or judge- colonisation, etc.) ments of her that are presented in the film. 6 What image or idea about Aboriginal TWO VERSIONS culture do you get from the film? Daisy Bates’ version of her background Biographer Julia Blackburn’s version of 7 Many of her critics judge her harshly and arrival in Australia her background and arrival in Australia by today’s standards. Look at what Daisy O’Dwyer Daisy Dwyer she did – are there any aspects that you might disapprove of today, but Born 1863 Born 1859 that might be acceptable in the so- To a wealthy Protestant Irish family To a poor Catholic Irish family ciety of 70 years ago? Orphaned at 5 Orphaned at a young age 8 How well does the film present the ISSUE 32 ISSUE 32 Brought up by a loving grandmother Brought up in an orphanage complexity of Daisy Bates’ life, and the issues that her life raises? How At her grandmother’s death, adopted by an Became a governess to an English family AUSTRALIAN SCREEN EDUCATION AUSTRALIAN SCREEN EDUCATION do the makers of the film use differ- aristocratic English family ent techniques to tell the story and Tubercular illness led her to move to Aus- Travelled to Australia after a personal scan- raise issues? tralia, travelling first class dal involving a young man in the family Arrived in Queensland in 1884 Arrived in Queensland in 1883 and married CONSIDERING OTHER Edwin Murrant (later ‘Breaker Morant’) EVIDENCE Out of a spirit of independence became a Left Murrant after he was arrested for theft governess in NSW one month after their marriage In answering these questions you have really only drawn ideas and information Married drover Jack Bates in 1885 Married drover Jack Bates without having 4 from the film. To answer them more fully divorced Murrant 5 TOP - BOTTOM: CHART 01; CHART 02. ISSUE 32 AUSTRALIAN SCREEN EDUCATION 5 ISSUE 32 AUSTRALIAN SCREEN EDUCATION 4 ∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞ (Richard Hall, Black Armband Days, Vintage, dispossessed of their land and cultural Sydney, 1998) continuities and decimated by white I have never made servants or attendants of diseases. She devoted nearly fifty years them. I have waited upon the sick and the ∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞ to nursing and feeding these people and old, and carried their burdens, fed the blind recording their lives and deaths . Onto and the babies, sewed for the women and The people she writes about are repre- the figure of Bates as sacrificial mother buried the dead – only in the quiet hours sented as barely human, and certainly could be displaced white Australian guilt gleaning, gathering, learning . knowing not as deserving any recognisable for the colonialist crimes of disposses- how soon it would be too late. rights, justice or citizenship, in their sion and genocide.