2011 - Theses - Flinders University

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White Lives in a Black Community: The lives of Jim Page and Rebecca Forbes in the Adnyamathanha communityTracy SpencerVolume Three Appendices:Creative Life WritingSection Three: Contact ZoneThe organ, and Iris playing it, are simply frightening, but the Aboriginal audience seementertained by Will’s repertoire, joining in with hearty ‘Halabulah’s’. 92 The large picturebooks illustrating stories of Jesus, Hell and Heaven, are a curio, but he has no idea what theymight mean across the language barrier. The few words he has picked up at Oodnadatta donot serve with these folk, and they have no reason to want to learn English. So when his turn56
comes, he struggles to preach in mute mime. Iris prays God Himself will translate. And Will,who had little time for learning, just beams and opened his arms wide to embrace any whocame close, calling out his one phrase which he said—or at least he hoped— meant:‘Welcome friend’ however much a stranger he is in their country. 93 They come to him,holding up children with running sores, elderly women with broken arms, the blind, the lame,the hungry. Neither Will, Iris nor Jim know more than first aid, but they clean wounds, applysalves, set bandages and most of all, pray. Will’s favourite quote and only teaching he giveshis probationer, is:And I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year:“Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown”.And he replied “Go out into the darkness and put your hand into the hand of God.That shall be to you better than light and safer than a known way.” 94Druid Vale Station, 2003Minnie Louise Haskin’s famous poem ‘The Desert’ was read at the Queen Mother’s funeral,as it had been read by her husband on the eve of World War II. I imagined Jim repeating thesaying to himself, standing alone in the cooling night, beyond the campfire light. I have hisreport, reflecting that ‘This shatters the mirage of romance, and we are face to face with theactual.’ Then his report becomes a string of Christian acclamations: wrestling against‘principalities and powers’, where only the ‘Precious Blood of Christ’ can cleanse these poorsouls; where the enemy roars at the message of the ‘Cross of Christ’ and the ‘Lion of Judah’roars back, pleading the ‘Victory of Calvary.’ 95 Jim’s dark night is full of noisy and fearfulbattle. I wish for him that Will Wade had been a man of letters, and that he might haverecited the rest of the poem:So I went forth and finding the Hand of God57
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2011Thesis Title:White Lives in a B
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Life Writing Chapter SevenAdnyamath
Page 5 and 6: ‘Nangga, Tracy-nha,’ she offere
Page 7 and 8: Wooltana Station 1917 Photo by Trac
Page 9: Rebecca sits back on the heels of h
Page 13 and 14: Jack watches her for a moment, abse
Page 15 and 16: shoulder. ‘Got to dig a soak here
Page 17 and 18: alright and not poison so we all ha
Page 19 and 20: ‘King Bobby’ Mt Searle, PAC 190
Page 21 and 22: ‘Nangga!’ Jack jumps down from
Page 23 and 24: ‘So we got to leave here. Got to
Page 25 and 26: Tunstill, Guy, ed. Adnyamathanha Ye
Page 27 and 28: ‘So there was a gate across the t
Page 29 and 30: Just then, Rita called out and held
Page 31 and 32: Angepena years before, amongst his
Page 33 and 34: The shadows lengthened, and I knew
Page 35 and 36: green rasping weeds at her feet, gr
Page 37 and 38: ‘Mrs Forbes’, Fred says, quietl
Page 39 and 40: pregnant again. 60Jean takes the un
Page 41 and 42: Adelaide, 2001Eileen Lewis remember
Page 43 and 44: copy to the Chief Protector of Abor
Page 45 and 46: Works CitedAborigines, Advisory Cou
Page 47 and 48: Life Writing Chapter NineJimDruid V
Page 49 and 50: Jim came relatively well prepared f
Page 51 and 52: nearby, which is not always conveni
Page 53 and 54: infestations and skin diseases and
Page 55: ‘Poor old Kitty had a cry when we
Page 59 and 60: Did Jim see such a vision in his da
Page 61 and 62: Ram Paddock Gate, 1928The mail that
Page 63 and 64: Life Writing Chapter TenJim and the
Page 65 and 66: ‘Ah, so it could supply the “na
Page 67 and 68: supply of every need [by] God who h
Page 69 and 70: Grote St, Adelaide, May 1929Jim Pag
Page 71 and 72: draws breath accounting for the cus
Page 73 and 74: Gerard does not seem to notice. ‘
Page 75 and 76: een a journalist, collecting tales
Page 77 and 78: Australia. Prayer is needed that th
Page 79 and 80: Works Cited(Secretary), JH Sexton.
Page 81 and 82: 2 South Australia Dorothy Tunbridge
Page 83 and 84: 26 Education, The Adnyamathanha Peo
Page 85 and 86: 54 Clara Brady, Transcript of Inter
Page 87 and 88: 84 Ian Buckley, Conversation with I
Page 89: 122 Mission, 'Constitution of the U
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2011 - Theses - Flinders University

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