Population Vulnerabilities and Resilience: The Art and Child Artists of

the Carrolup Native Settlement, Western Australia

Ellen Percy KralyDepartment of Geography

Colgate University

IGU Commission on Population and Vulnerability Session:

Demography and the Vulnerability of Populations (1)

Organizers: Daniel Hogan and Alina Potrykowska

4th International Conference on Population Geographies

The Chinese University of Hong Kong

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I. Introduction

II. Framing Vulnerability and Resilience: Aboriginal Affairs in Western Australia through Mid-20th Century

III. Integrating Population Vulnerability and Resilience

IV. Intersections among Aboriginal Policy, Local Geography and Agency: The Case of Carrolup

V. Dislocation, Art and Dislocated Art

Organization of the Paper

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I. Introduction

II. Framing Vulnerability and Resilience: Aboriginal Affairs in Western Australia through Mid-20th Century

III. Integrating Population Vulnerability and Resilience

IV. Intersections among Aboriginal Policy, Local Geography and Agency: The Case of Carrolup

V. Dislocation, Art and Dislocated Art

Organization of the Paper

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Aboriginal Populations, Definitions, and Governance of Aboriginal Affairs, in Australian Colonies Prior to Federation

State Aboriginal Population Enumerated in 1901 Census

Official Estimates of Aboriginal Population 1901

Definition of ‘Aboriginal’ Governing Body

Victoria 652 652 Aboriginal natives and small subgroup of ‘half-castes’

Board for the Protection of Aborigines

Queensland 6,670 26,670 Aboriginal natives and ‘half-castes’ habitually associating with them

Northern Protector andSouthern Protector

Western Australia

6,212 30,000 Aboriginal natives and ‘half-castes’ habitually associating with them

Aborigines Department (replacing the Aborigines Protection Board)

New South Wales

7,434 7,434 No relevant legislation Board for the Protection of Aborigines

South Australia and Northern Territory

3,888 (South Australia)

23,235 (Northern Territory)

5,185 (South Australia)

23,235 (Northern Territory)

No relevant legislation Part-time Chief Protector of Aborigines

Tasmania 157 157 No relevant legislation No relevant body

Source: Adapted from Smith, 1980, 12; Chesterman and Galligan, 1997, 64.

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I. Introduction

II. Framing Vulnerability and Resilience: Aboriginal Affairs in Western Australia through Mid-20th Century

III. Integrating Population Vulnerability and Resilience

IV. Intersections among Aboriginal Policy, Local Geography and Agency: The Case of Carrolup

V. Dislocation, Art and Dislocated Art

Organization of the Paper

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I. Introduction

II. Framing Vulnerability and Resilience: Aboriginal Affairs in Western Australia through Mid-20th Century

III. Integrating Population Vulnerability and Resilience

IV. Intersections among Aboriginal Policy, Local Geography and Agency: The Case of Carrolup

V. Dislocation, Art and Dislocated Art

Organization of the Paper

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Out Back by Henry Lawson

He tramped away from the shanty there, when the days were long and hot, With never a soul to know or care if he died on the track or not. The poor of the city have friends in woe, no matter how much they lack, But only God and the swagmen know how a poor man fares Out Back.

He begged his way on the parched Paroo and the Warrego tracks once more, And lived like a dog, as the swagmen do, till the Western stations shore; But men were many, and sheds were full, for work in the town was slack -- The traveller never got hands in wool, though he tramped for a year Out Back.

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For time means tucker, and tramp they must, where the plains and scrubs are wide, With seldom a track that a man can trust, or a mountain peak to guide; All day long in the flies and heat the men of the outside track With stinted stomachs and blistered feet must carry their swags Out Back.

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T he Australian Sunrise By James Lister Cuthbertson

The Morning Star paled slowly, the Cross hung low to the sea, And down the shadowy reaches the tide came swirling free, The lustrous purple blackness of the soft Australian night, Waned in the gray awakening that heralded the light; Still in the dying darkness, still in the forest dim The pearly dew of the dawning clung to each giant limb, Till the sun came up from ocean, red with the cold sea mist, And smote on the limestone ridges, and the shining tree-tops kissed; Then the fiery Scorpion vanished, the magpie's note was heard, And the wind in the she-oak wavered, and the honeysuckles stirred, The airy golden vapour rose from the river breast, The kingfisher came darting out of his crannied nest, And the bulrushes and reed-beds put off their sallow gray And burnt with cloudy crimson at dawning of the day.

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“The children talked with increasing animation of trees and landscapes, of sunset and moonlight, of sunshine and shadow, of animals and birds. Their sight, always keen, was used now to a new purpose. Sometimes they would go for night walks with their teacher, and great was their delight to discover an owl or a ‘possum thrown in silhouette against full moon. They could not return quickly enough to record their discovery in water-colour and pastel (Miller and Rutter” 1952, 44).

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Spatial control and dispersal

June 27 … Reading with expression is lacking. This is due to the fact that children haven’t the opportunity of improving their knowledge after school hours. There is no place where they can meet to read or to spend the leisure hours.

Mar 12 …In the Senior section many have a desire to read but there are no opportunities available. Every building is under lock and key and there are not lights at night.

May 27 Two girls Linda and Ellen … have absconded. Two more girls Mary and Betty… are to be taken to Perth for domestic training.

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Aboriginal administration

Nov 18 It is a frequent practice for the Supt to come the school and break into school routine to address the children on the misdemeanors outside school time…. This week six boys were publicly punished in the school room by the Supt for walking through a neighbors crop. This impact the whole tone of the school and make it difficult to continue work. This form of interference in school affairs, I am instructed must not be tolerated.

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Aboriginal administration

3/11/50 On Monday the Supt comes to the school and removes one boy – Laurie … for work on the store because the previous boy there, left. – I was promptly told he was over 14 years and he had to go. This boy is just cleaning and sweeping in front of store plus doing odd jobs and messages. In other words, cheap labour at the cost of his education and future. Further, I doubt if the boy is 14 years. -

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Aboriginal administration

June 14 “The children are very shy and will not speak up clearly. …The school is extremely short of coloured pencils and materials. Native Affairs has promised to supply the necessary articles applied for, till then we are somewhat handicapped.

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Aboriginal administration

24/3/50 The boys are continue to come dirty to school It is very discouraging from a standpoint of expecting clean work in school or it is about impossible to keep up a high standard of cleanliness. … In my past interview with the Supt, he points that he had far too many other responsibilities on the Settlement, than to be worried about small details relating to the school.

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Environment and health

Aug 23 … For instance, the question of access to water. There seems to be a general shortage throughout the Settlement.

21/4/50 … For a whole week the urinal drain has been clogged so that the floor was covered with urine 4 inches deep making it impossible to use without wetting the feet. There is only 1 privy for the use of fifty-six boys. This is supposed to be removed daily, very often it is left for a week.

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Environment and health

Oct 7 …. Children have been late with varying excuses – no change of clothes, lack of washing facilities, etc. Sometimes meals are late. For the past 3 ½ years I have cut children’s hair….. there is hardly a child whose head is not affected with lice …it is no fault of the children but the primitive conditions under which they. It is a marvel to me that such good response has been obtained under such conditions.

[The] pictures … were sometimes garish but always mature, and like all true art had something vital to say about the psychology of the artists themselves and about their social life … This art is little known, mainly because it was stigmatized as ‘child art’, because it defied accepted aesthetic standards, and because many of the children were (as they used to be called)‘mixed bloods’ (Phillips and Berndt,1973, 307)

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“…nostalgic illustration of the South-West land, once heavily wooded, now stripped bare but tinted by the beautiful light characteristics of the region” (Croft 2000, 87)

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But this is the art of the South-West: it is how artists see their works in their environment, and how they tell their own stories, and express their own feelings about the experiences of their families in the past. These artists are putting something important together; they are making a vital statement about the process of colonization and their subsequent removal from their own lands. They are bringing these experiences right into the present. The art unites the past with the present – and the future. …

There is no way of going back for South-West people. Once they were removed from the land, and the knowledge base that was held within it, people no longer knew how they were related, who their kin were, and who their cousins were. This loss of family connections led to a great sadness. Negative forces like this are a trip that these paintings seek to escape from (Hill, 2000, 5-6).

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Whether the work will be a thing of lasting interest, ‘significant’ in light of later years, only time can tell (Miller and Rutter, 1952, 65)…. What they achieved may not have been aboriginal art, but it was fine old aboriginal love of country – an affirmation of their right to a place in the land of their forefathers (Miller and Rutter, 1952, 78).

In the past, our canvas was the land. When that land was taken away, so too was our canvas and, instead of using the land – its rock and earth surfaces – we had to make use of non-Aboriginal material and media. This is what lead to the creation of those works by the children at Carrolup.

An important thing about South-West art is that there is an emotional level held within each piece, reflecting the artists’ life experiences, their experience of pain, as well as of being a celebration of survival. The art itself is a celebration of places, of places in country. The images in Revel’s corroborees were a celebration of what he never saw, he and the other kids, who were already well removed from the things of that world. In that world, people were celebrating culture, telling stories, caring for the land. The paintings are visions of this imagery, drawing on the stories of the past, and the present … (Hill, 2000, 6).

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It is like a lifeline from the past for our Nyoongar people to be recognized (Western Australian, 2006).

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I. Introduction

II. Framing Vulnerability and Resilience: Aboriginal Affairs in Western Australia through Mid-20th Century

III. Integrating Population Vulnerability and Resilience

IV. Intersections among Aboriginal Policy, Local Geography and Agency: The Case of Carrolup

V. Dislocation, Art and Dislocated Art

Organization of the Paper

Geographies of Vulnerability and Resilience:The Legacies of the Art and Child Artists of

Carrolup Native Settlement, Western Australia