16 Quotes by Doris Pilkington

And they were given the most refreshing, and what was to become the most populardrink, billy tea, black or with powdered milk and liberally sweetened with white sugar.

The Nyungar men glanced once again at Dayup, who was just as stunned and confused as they were. He put his hands out in front of him and shook his head in despair and frustration. He truly wished that he understood the language. He turned to his kinsmen and told them, "I don't know what he is talking about.""I take it that we are all agreed and that I have your consent, " said Captain Fremantle, nodding to the Nyungar men who stood motionless, staring blankly at him.

The Nyungar people, and indeed the entire Aboriginal population, grew to realise what the arrival of the European settlers meant for them: it was the destruction of their traditional society and the dispossession of their lands.

These people who were used to walking around the desert without clothing could not understand why or what covering one's nakedness had to do with the seeking and the acceptance of food and sanctuary.

As the car disappeared down the road, old Granny Frinda lay crumpled on the red dirt calling for her granddaughters and cursing the people responsible for their abduction. In their grief the women asked why their children should be taken from them. Their anguished cries echoed across the flats, carried by the wind. But no one listened to them, no one heard them.

You should have seen the other ones who were locked up for running away," she said. "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.

But you'd better make your beds first," she said. This was easy, you just straightened the blanket over the mattress. There were no sheets on the beds. They were stored away to be issued only on special occasions to impress special visitors.

The "boob" was a place of detention once described as a small, detached concrete room with a sandy floor, with only a gleam of light and little ventilation coming through a narrow, barred opening in the north wall. Every inmate of the settlement dreaded being incarcerated in this place. Some children were forced to spend up to fourteen days in that horrible place.

You girls can't talk blackfulla language here, you know," came a warning from the other side of the dorm. "You gotta forget it and talk English all the time.