This novel contains the language of the Wiradjuri people. Before colonisation there were two hundred and fifty distinct languages in Australia that subdivided into six hundred dialects. The Wiradjuri language is a Pama–Nyungan language of the Wiradhuric subgroup and has been reclaimed and preserved through the efforts of Dr Uncle Stan Grant Snr AM and linguist Dr John Rudder. The spelling and pronunciation that Uncle Stan and John compiled is within these pages. If there are any errors, they rest solely with my interpretation. Historical spelling of the Wiradjuri language in this book has been sourced from the records of H. Withers, a local landholder from Wagga Wagga (records: 1878); H. Baylis, a police magistrate from Wagga Wagga (records: 1887); J. Baylis, a surveyor landholder from the Riverina (records: 1880s–1927); and C. Richards, a linguist and scholar (records: 1902–1903). Further and updated study of the Wiradjuri language can be found in The New Wiradjuri Dictionary authored by Uncle Stan and John.
The experiences of the fictional Gondiwindi family reflect those experienced by all Indigenous people touched by violence, segregation, abuse and the dehumanising policies and practices of colonialism. As part of these separation policies, the government and churches banned and discouraged the use of the native tongue. They did this by forcibly removing children from their families, where they were taken into missions and institutions in order to expunge the Indigenous culture. This practice began in 1910 and continued until the 1970s.
Cultural knowledge, community history, customs, modes of thinking and belonging to the land are carried through languages. In the last two hundred years, Australia has suffered the largest and most rapid loss of languages known to history. Today, despite efforts of revitalisation, Australia’s languages are some of the most endangered in the world.
The depictions of violence and intergenerational trauma suffered by Indigenous people affected by separation policies has been documented in various publications including the 1997 Bringing Them Home: Report of the National Inquiry into the Separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children from Their Families. Depictions of mission life from the perspective of Reverend Greenleaf are derived from the writings of Reverend J.B. Gribble including A Plea For Aborigines of New South Wales. Gribble founded and ran the Christian Warangesda Aboriginal Mission in Darlington Point, New South Wales. Prosperous Mission, Station and Home were inspired by Warangesda, which ran as an Aboriginal mission between 1880 and 1884; as Warangesda Aboriginal Station under the Aborigines Protection Association between 1884 and 1897; under government management by the Aborigines Protection Act between 1897 and 1925; under private management between 1925 and 2014.
The girls’ and boys’ homes mentioned are fictional, but have been drawn from the descriptions of the Aboriginal Girls’ Training Home of Cootamundra and the Kinchela Aboriginal Boys’ Training Home. In reality the children’s experiences were much harsher in comparison to those depicted. Prior to the opening of the Aboriginal Girls’ Training Home at Cootamundra, children from all over the state were sent to Warangesda. In The Stolen Generations – The Removal of Aboriginal Children in NSW 1883 to 1969, prepared for the New South Wales Ministry of Aboriginal Affairs, Professor Peter Read estimates that there were ‘300 girls placed at the Warangesda dormitory and subsequently in service before 1916.’ In Beverley Gulambali Elphick, and Don Elphick’s The Camp of Mercy: An Historical and Biographical Record of the Warangesda Aboriginal Mission/Station, Darlington Point, New South Wales the authors write that ‘apart from the occasional child mentioned in the Minute Books of the Aborigines Protection and Welfare Boards and the enrolment registers for the Kinchela Aboriginal Boys’ Training Home, no records now exist, if indeed any were ever kept, of the other children removed from Warangesda between 1909 and when the Camp of Mercy closed in 1925. A conservative estimate for this period would be 200, making an overall total of 500 children removed.’
There were many births and marriages held at Warangesda; there were also many deaths at the mission site. As stated in Ray Cristison and Naomi Parry’s Conservation Management Plan Warangesda Aboriginal Mission and Station, ‘The main cemetery containing the remains of up to two hundred former residents, remains part of a ploughed field.’
The geography of the fictional town of Massacre Plains was drawn from towns in Wiradjuri country and also the Rock Nature Reserve – Kengal Aboriginal Place. The fictional Murrumby River of this novel was based on the tributaries of the Murray–Darling Basin. The names of places, including Massacre and Poisoned Waterhole Creek, are indeed actual placenames in Australia and are a reminder of the atrocities inflicted upon Indigenous people during colonisation.
Many of the native plants and cooking techniques can be explored further in Bruce Pascoe’s Dark Emu, and Eric Roll’s A Million Wild Acres. Additionally, Yuval Noah Harari’s Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind also explores the history and sophistication of Indigenous Australians.
I encourage readers to explore personal histories from former mission, settlement and station residents, collectively known as the Stolen Generation, including Is That You Ruthie? by Ruth Hegarty; Up From the Mission: Selected Writings by Noel Pearson; Follow the Rabbit-Proof Fence by Doris Pilkington Garimara; If Everyone Cared by Margaret Tucker; Of Ashes and Rivers that Run to the Sea by Marie Munkara, and the works of Jack Davis.
Further reading about Indigenous culture and history includes Indigenous Australia for Dummies by Professor Larissa Behrendt; John Harris’ One Blood: 200 Years of Aboriginal Encounter with Christianity: A Story of Hope; and the works by historians Henry Reynolds, Peter Read and Marcia Langton.
Australia is the only Commonwealth country to not have a treaty with its Indigenous populations.