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According To Harriette #2
$5,500.00
Maralinga bomb – (I am ready, This is the Day)
A long time ago Aṉangu were walking by foot from, probably Ernabella, walking to
Maralinga. Those early days people, they were on the other side, out west. And then the whitefellas detonated the bomb. And that bomb blew up and shook everything. Aṉangu thought that perhaps they had caused the bomb, but no, it was whitefellas who did it. They travelled on, kept walking, but then soldiers from the army put them in the back of Toyotas and took them to Ooldea or Yalata. They talked to people via the radio and they sung a song. They sung ‘I am ready’, that Christian song they’d learnt when they were at Ernabella. They sung that song.
White people looking at the bomb with one Aṉangu family standing on the other
side of the bomb
At Maralinga right where the bomb had blown up. The whitefellas searched for Aṉangu, and then took them away. They gave them food, and then they took them away. They gave them blankets, those old black or grey blankets. They handed them out, one for each person, then took them to Yalata and showed them to their family and explained it to them.
All the Aṉangu men heading out to clean up the mess that bomb made
They don’t cook kangaroo there, near where the bomb went off and it spread all around. They can’t make fire to cook anything, damper or anything. People will scold each other, ‘Don’t cook anything there!’
Tea and sugar train
Daisy Bates had no car and used to walk from Ooldea all the way to the railway station. Get water, get mail and walk back. There was a waterhole at Ooldea but, well – Ooldea the place was in one spot, and the real Ooldea was in a slightly different place. There was Ooldea, the station, on the railway line, and then Ooldea, the waterhole.
Waiting for the Promised Land
I learnt all this story from Mr J Windlass’ grandson. It felt like I was the only one listening to the stories and photos he was showing me. Mr J Windlass was in the centre of the land rights meetings about Maralinga.
Daisy Bates in her study, writing home to England
Daisy used to care for children at Ooldea. From Ooldea, a long time ago they illegally,
stupidly, took one young Aṉangu girl to London, and they kept her there for ages, showing her around, and she passed away. A young Pitjantjatjara / Yankunytjatjara girl.
Ooldea – before the bomb
This was the school for all of the little kids in Ooldea, and Daisy was nana for all of them. Daisy is my nana. We used to call Daisy Bates nana and the old people called her Kapali. Sometimes she was a good woman and sometimes…she was the only one who was looking after all the people.
