Wayward girls referred to the relationships that were being developed among Aboriginal people and the Europeans and Asiatic. Beagle Bay missions were first established to house Aboriginal women who were breaking the law by developing immoral relationships with the European and Asiatic men. The Half-caste Aboriginal girls were potentially at more risk than the full blood. These wayward girls would have their hair shaved and made to wear uniforms, as a means of reforming them from their immoral ways.
Most of the missions established in this time, were located in remote communities, so that they were not influenced by the outside community’s attitudes and feelings, as well as isolating them from their own language groups, so that they were immersed solely in the European way of living and punishment for inappropriate behaviour. Some managers, ministers turned a blind eye to Aboriginals practicing their culture, and conducting corroborree’s, some even correlated corroborree into the catholic baptism ritual. Most of the ministers, especially the catholic ministers, saw a connection between the Aboriginal beliefs and the belief s of the catholics, for example god promises an afterlife which is similar to the Aboriginal belief in reincarnation.
Using the Aboriginal beliefs with the Christian beliefs, gave the pastors and managers a way in which to manipulate the Aborigines, making them subservient to the Europeans. Every waking hour of the Aboriginals day was filled with some activity, if it was not doing jobs around the mission that helped maintain the mission or station; it was with formal reading and writing lessons. But, as all documented readings suggest, the upkeep of the mission or station came before the formal education of the Aboriginal. Choo (2001) suggests that the most amount of time dedicated for education at Beagle Bay mission was 1 hour and 15 minutes, out of a possible 11-12 hour day.
Keeping Aboriginal people busy and isolated from the wider community was a means of keeping the immoral relationships and behaviours from happening. Those that cavorted with these women were to be prosecuted, but the authorities of the time did not do so in most cases as the suspects were Europeans and opted instead to send the girls/women who cavorted with these men to missions such as Beagle Bay to reform them from their immoral behaviour. Managers and pastors of some missions/stations even resorted to arranging the marriages among the Aboriginal people so that the so called immoral cavorting did not happen, this in itself had adverse affect, some resulting in marriages of cousins which the knowledge of Aboriginal kinship relationships would have avoided.
References:
Choo, C. (2001). Homes for Wayward Girls in Mission Girls: Aboriginal Women on Catholic Missions in the Kimberley, Western Australia. 1900 – 1950. Perth: UWA Press
Green, N. (1996). The Mission as a Total Institution Forrest River Mission under Ernest Gribble in B. J. Dalton (ed) University Lectures on North Queensland History No. 5 , James Cook University: Townsville, Qld.
Hughes. T., (2008) History of Aboriginal Education: Maverick Missionaries. PowerPoint Presentation. Retrieved on Thursday 4 September from
https://blackboard.nd.edu.au/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp?tab_id=_2_1&url=%2Fwebapps%2Fblackboard%2Fexecute%2Flauncher%3Ftype%3DCourse%26id%3D_3478_1%26url%3D
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Michelle when you say 'the upkeep of the mission or station came before the formal education of the Aboriginal. Choo (2001) suggests that the most amount of time dedicated for education at Beagle Bay mission was 1 hour and 15 minutes, out of a possible 11-12 hour day' do you think that the reason for the short amount of formal education could have been that the missionaries believed that the Aborigines were only able to learn to a low level and that by training them in domestic duties they were preparing them for survival in the white society. Certainly inaccurate ideas but well-intentioned ones?
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