2011 - Theses - Flinders University

copy to the Chief Protector of Aborigines, Mr Francis Garnett. 70 He in turn reports on the‘Mt Serle natives’ to those he sees fit, describing that ‘there were more than 100 natives and awhite woman in the camp out somewhere east of Copley.’ 71Whatever Mrs Forbes business in Copley, and however reticent she is to make herselfknown, they have all seen Mrs Forbes now. Not only in the small town whose eyes missnothing: her presence is felt all the way to Adelaide, inscribed under government letterhead,and no doubt figuring in gossip in the panelled corridors after meetings.Adelaide 1928Mr AE Gerard, of Gerard Industries, and President of the Australian Aborigines Mission,hears about ‘the white woman’ and the ‘Mt Serle natives’, and arranges for missionarySachse en route to Oodnadatta, to stop by and verify the report.He advised that the natives pleaded for a missionary. A number of them had contacted amission one time or another. The white woman, who was living as a native, made specialappeal for her children’s sake. Mr Sachse also reported that the natives were mainlycamped on “Burr Well Station,” about 30 miles east of Copley, and that they had sevenmotor vehicles, some in working order, and that the natives, mostly half-castes, werereported to be good workers; but alas! That they were able to obtain kegs of intoxicatingliquor and bring same back to camp. 72Mr Gerard’s compassion is piqued, and he will later write, with no sense of the irony of hisplea:The good money they earned made them the prey of the Devil in our white people; andthis was the only part of our civilisation that took any interest in them-the white people ofa civilisation who were without any sense of responsibility to the natives to whom we oweso much. These were the only ones that showed any interest. You never gave them athought, did you? This all showed the great need there was for a mission, which MrSachse felt would be difficult to establish. 73As the machinery of mission begins to turn, Rebecca is long since returned to Minerawutawith her sons, with the chance conversation tucked away in the folds of memory where hopesand visions can sleep quietly. The camp she shares with her family, her people, theleaseholders and their rams, is now also shared with zealous missionary dreams and dry43