Sunday History, Dame Daisy Bates

Geez, too much Tennent's Lager, lol.
Unashamedely and Wickepedia.

Cheers,
Dennis

14C @ 11.30pm, Sat night here, heavy North Sea 'pea souper' fog.

You must be psychic!!

I just finished reading a book about her called "Desert Queen - The Many Lives and Loves of Daisy Bates" by Susanna de Vries. Very interesting.

Jack

I've been past Ooldea on the Railway Line three times in recent years. You can't help but be dismayed at the way the railway people plundered the area in the early 1900's - especially the way they turned Ooldea soak (the major source of permanent water on the edge of GVD) into a sieve which was no longer capable of holding any water - I think they sunk about 50 bores - straight through the bedrock.

It forced the nomadic aboriginal people to become dependant on the railway line for food and water and exposed them to disease. Thats when Daisy Bates stepped in.

25 years after Daisy left, the aboriginal people got plundered again with the bombs at Maralinga which was only a short distance from Ooldea.

Anyway, thats history!

I travelled on the Indian Pacific in May & looked for the memorial head stone to Daisy as we went through Ooldea but was unable to spot it. I was looking forward to getting a photo but alas.............

John

G'day Dennis

The recorded life and times of " Dame Daisy Bates " has many truths and a whole lot of miss ~ truths.

None the less her manuscripts on life and rituals in various Australian Aboriginal groups was used and possibly still refered to, today.

She and her husband/partner Jack Bates were reputedly owner ~ managers of a cattle property in the Pilbara region, again popular belief says it was somewhere close to the Newman townsite area, I can't find any hard evidence to substantiate this claim.

Not long after comming to Newman, back in the late 1980's, I had the honour of talking with the late William "Bill" Dunn, he was a very much respected Martu elder, who could not elaborate on the stories of Daisy Bates, but he had heard mention of "Kabbarli".

Todays Aboriginal population in and around Newman is largely fragmented and it is quite difficult to get a genuine response to any part of history where there is a connection with "white australia" that isnt negative.

None the less "Dame Daisy Bates" is very firmly etched in Australian history.

Regards:

Dennis
You must have missed thread 66845 on March 15th 2009 .

Thread ID 66845


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