Whispers of This Wik Woman by Fiona Doyle

Author:Fiona Doyle
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Biography & Autobiography/General
ISBN: 9780702250538
Publisher: University of Queensland Press
Published: 2008-12-31T22:00:00+00:00

My people must have extremely big hearts. All my grandmother’s generation and even the generation that belongs to my mother’s age group are incredibly strong. They have endured so much throughout their lives that I am curious as to what keeps them going. What helps them keep on living? What they have to endure now is a different type of pain, disappointment and misfortune.

The people, my people, the ones who were moved from the original Weipa Mission, and including those relatives who joined them from neighbouring communities such as Aurukun, witnessed the rapid evolution of their community structure. They were continuously being challenged to accept and adapt to these changes. Surviving these changes they endured being dictated to and controlled to an extent which was damaging.

I, a descendant of these people, can’t even begin to fathom how one would live, and continue to live, under such circumstances. There is no denying that much good was done for the people during these times. Grandmother and mother both confirm this whenever yarning about Mission times takes place.

In my eyes, however, changes once more escalated after the discovery of the mineral bauxite. This red pebble is used to produce aluminium and our country is indeed rich in bauxite. As a result of this discovery, an influx of explorers and then later on miners began to populate the region. The arrival of the white miners in the mid 1950s brought a very different lifestyle to the area, which contributed to the ongoing social breakdown of the Aboriginal community.

No more did the younger generation sit and learn the songs and dances of our old people. Instead, they worked as servants in the nearby newly built township. They preferred to go up to ‘Top Camp’, a place where the explorers had set up camp at an area known traditionally as Munthing to the people. There they watched movies or they just sat around yarning together. Getting to know the new white faces that were slowly beginning to populate the land was obviously much more interesting than learning the old ways.

With this invasion, my people suffered the consequences of a breakdown of language, and a decline in the performance of cultural activities that were common then. This ‘breakdown’ was probably due to the availability of alcohol and the introduction of white man’s activities, which seemed both new and interesting and pricked the curiosity of the younger generation of that time. Consequently, there was a rejection of their own cultural lifestyle and a thirst for what seemed like a better alternative.

My three grandfathers (that is, my mother’s father and his two brothers), Willy, Roy and Benny George, all served in World War II along with other men from the three communities of Mapoon, Aurukun and Weipa. My direct grandfather, Roy, was ranked Private. He served in the Australian Citizen Military Forces from 3 November 1943 to 4 November 1944, serving in the Second Australian Water Transport Group and the Fourteenth Australian Small Ships Company. He received the Defence

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