One old lady actually contrasted the present day safety of her two little grand-daughters with the unfortunate little victims whose brains had been knocked out against the rocks after their parents had been shot in those earlier years. One of the first missionaries, Joynt, found ample evidence all around him of atrocities and murders. Not only did he obtain stories from Aboriginal people, but also from Europeans who boasted of their exploits.
Joynt was told, for example,of a young boy who was flogged to death for running away and then his body hidden in the river to be eaten by crocodiles: [Aborigines] are treated worse than animals, and sometimes even referred to as 'black animals' and terms even worse. . . In years gone by the natives have been shot down like game and hundreds killed in a spirit of revenge. I have met men that boast of shooting the poor unprotected black 'just for fun'
Gajiyuma, or King Bob, was one of a number of Aboriginal leaders in different times and places who was astute enough to anticipate the Inevitability of the total destruction of his people by hostile European forces unless he sought the protection of those Europeans he could trust. He saw in the mission the salvation of his people and he spent the last few months of his life gathering the scattered remnants into safety.
Dinah Garadji told me of his efforts: My mother and her brothers and all the others went to the mission.That old man, Bob, was the one who told them. Everyone was still afraid of the white men and they were unsure of the missionaries - perhaps they, too, were going to shoot them! But that old man said, 'It's all right. They aren't going to shoot everyone! They are just schoolteachers! They will look after the children. All the children will be safe there.' Then he told my father's family and everybody else, too. He walked and walked everywhere. He told everybody that they did not have to be afraid any more. They all came to the old mission.A very big mob - In fact, everybody came. Gajiyuma cited in peace at the mission in February of the following year, 1909. Rex Joynt recorded his final words: 'Jesus been talking alonga me. Him been tell me no more be frightened to die. Me no more frightened feller.'
It is Ironic that in the very year that the mission was founded, the Eastern and African Cold Storage Company was liquidated. Its error was in presuming that the failure of earlier pastoral efforts was entirely due to the spearing of cattle. It was only one of many factors, such as disease, unsuitable native grasses, remoteness and the economy - all of which combined in eastern Arnhem Land to make conventional cattle raising impossible.
.Ships on the Roper
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