Each girl felt the pain of being torn from their mothers’ and grandmothers’ arms.
Neither Molly nor her cousins wanted to leave their families and go to an unknown place, where they were supposed to lead a completely different – deprived of freedom – life. They were “weeping”, for it was clear that nothing and no one could help them to stay. The wailing grew “louder as the vehicle that was taking them away headed towards the gate”. They saw how their mother and grandmothers were beating themselves and felt “the pain of being torn from their mothers’ and grandmothers’ arms”.
They all got seven days punishment with just bread and water. Mr. Johnson shaved their heads bald and made them parade around the compound so that everyone could see them. They got the strap too.
The Moore River Native Settlement was a real prison for people who had every right to walk their own land freely. Molly and the girls saw how severely those who wanted to run away were punished. According to Martha, “they all got seven days punishment with just bread and water”. Their heads were shaved “bald” and – to humiliate them even more – they “made them parade around the compound so that everyone could see them”. All of those terrible actions were supposed to show them that there was no freedom for them.
You gotta forget it and talk English all the time.
The Moore River Native Settlement was also an adaptation center. It was supposed to teach the boys and girls of mixed race how to forget about their roots, the Aboriginal part of identity. To catalyze this process, the settlers “gotta forget” their native languages and “talk English all the time”. It was a well-known fact that a language was one of the largest parts of one’s culture, so by making them speak English, the Western Australian Government wanted to make them forget who they were.
