This reaction to their children's abduction showed that the family were now in mourning. The two frightened and miserable girls began to cry, silently at first, then uncontrollably their grief made worse by the lamentations of their loved ones and the visions of them sitting on the ground in their camp letting their tears mix with the red blood that flowed from the cuts on their heads. Behind them, those remaining in the camp found strong sharp objects and gashed themselves and inflicted wounds to their heads and bodies as an expression of their sorrow. Molly and Gracie looked back just once before they disappeared through the river gums. The cries of agonised mothers and the women, and the deep sobs of grandfathers, uncles and cousins filled the air.

“Molly and Gracie sat silently on the horse, tears streaming down their cheeks as Constable Riggs turned the big bay stallion and led the way back to the depot. The important dates on their seasonal calendars would be forgotten.” Warriors with painted bodies and plumes of feathers on their ochre-covered heads would become faded images, buried in the past. No longer would the corroborrees be shared and danced by scores of feet, kicking up the dust in the moonlight around the glowing fires. They remembered the corroborrees and songs that they were forbidden to dance and sing unless commanded by government officials. Their pain and suffering remained hidden and repressed, silent and deep. They had to fight to find ways to return to their secret and sacred sites to perform their dances and other ceremonies that were crucial to their culture and whole way of life. They had become dispossessed these teachers and keepers of the traditional Law were prevented from practising it.

The Nyungar people who once walked tall and proud, now hung their head in sorrow. “The colonists took advantage of the Aboriginal cultural beliefs to further their own gains.

Rabbit proof fence book author