Caprice by Doris Pilkington Garimara

to go through a cleansing process. First there was the bodily cleansing. Our long hair was shorn from above the ears, almost shorter than the boys at the mission. Nine years old, I bawled my eyes out as I watched my beautiful long tresses fall on to the floor in an untidy heap amongst the others. Then came the delousing process where our heads were saturated with kerosene. I hated that, the smell was enough to knock you out. The head lice had no chance of survival in those fumes.
    This was followed by a hot bath with disinfectant in it—Dettol I think.
    With the bodily cleansing completed, we were taken to our dormitories and introduced to our fellow inmates.
    There were twenty girls whose ages ranged from five to fourteen, some from Carrolup Settlement (later known as the Marribank Mission) near Katanning, south of Perth, and the rest of us from Moore River Native Settlement.
    We were labelled the “new girls”, which only served to alienate us and cause rivalry between us and the “old girls”, and we felt discriminated against because we were not “born again” Christians.
    The environment at Roelands Native Mission Farm was totally different from Settlement conditions. The buildings were always clean and sparkling—almost sterile in fact—with the highly polished floors, the snow-white sheets, table cloths, and curtains in the dining room, with the fruits of the spirit sewn in green cotton on the frills. Therewas Faith, Hope, Love, Peace and Joy. Everywhere and everything about the place gave it an air of godliness, and righteousness prevailed.
    The missionaries’ aim was to save souls—and the business of saving our souls began in earnest. Our guidance through the paths of righteousness began with religious instruction that immediately took precedence over normal education. Our education in a fundamentalist religious indoctrination introduced us to the Christian virtues, principles and behaviour.
    These missionaries believed in the literal translation of the bible, baptism and the power of prayer and the Holy Spirit. Their religion had no room for Aboriginal religion, Aboriginal customs and Aboriginal culture. Stronger criticisms reinforced the superstition and fear of our traditional culture. The colonial terms such as “uncivilised” and “primitive” were replaced with Christian terminologies. “Evil”, “devil worshippers” and the “powers of darkness” were used when referring to Aboriginal culture.
    This kind of indoctrination served only to widen the already established gulf between the traditionally-oriented and the ruralised Aborigines.

    Within two or three years the missionaries had achieved their aim, many of us were converted and became born again Christians. We could memorise portions of the bible and learnt to identify quotes, texts and characters of the bible.
    I believe it was through the continuous indoctrination of the Christian morality and tenets—and the constant warnings of the “wages of sin” and “wrath of God”—that all of us tried diligently and faithfully to stay on the path of righteousness and never stray off it.
    With this new belief came even more heroes—thoughthis time they were biblical. These heroes were different from the previous ones, they were real, and seemed to be either punished severely for wrong-doings or highly praised and rewarded for their achievements—always about the good and the evil.
    As our Christian education progressed, our formal education fell behind the rest of the state school system. With no formal education there were no formal examinations. Whilst we made satisfactory progress and advancement in the Christian faith, we gained no further knowledge of the world in the class at the little schoolhouse on the hill.
    The teacher who taught the upper primary level was unqualified. A former Yorkshire grocer, Mr Bennett should have been called “Mr