Dear all,
In 1931 a young woman, Molly, 14, and her sisters, were forcibly removed from their families in East Pulbara, West Australia and transported to Moore river, North of Perth.
This was a period in Australian history when children were forcibly removed from their parents 'for their own good'.
They were of the people Mardudjura.
Molly was the daughter borne or Maude, a Mardu woman, in 1917 and grew up around Jigalong, North East of Perth.
She spoke Martuwangka.
In 1931, the chief protector of aborigines in Western Australia decided that Molly and her sisters, Gracie, 11, and Dasie, 8 should be taken from their family and sent to a settlement, Moore river, in the south, 1600km away.
However Molly could not sing the new country.
It had white, sandy soil, not the burnt ochre of her home, Jigalong, and she could not sing the trees.
She decided then and there that she and her sisters would return, to her mother earth, and the land of her songline.
At this time a fence, known as the Rabbit Proof fence, stretched north to south, and Molly figured that if she could just find the fence, it would lead her eventually home through the strange songlines back to Jigalong.
The three sisters embarked on one of the most remarkable walkabouts ever known.
They travelled an astonishing 1600km in nine weeks, through flash-flooded creeks, hearthlands, endless wheatfields, gibber plains, the red dusted outbacks, salt-lakes, spinifex and claypan.
They lived off rabbits, bibjali and karkula.
When their legs weer tired, Molly would piggy-back her younger sisters, in turn.
They eluded the Moore river trackers and police, keeping to the edge of the fence, and survived by Mollys cunning, hunting skills and determination.
The three children outwitted the whole state apparatus over a nine week period.
Then tragedy struck, when Gracie wandered off one night on her own and was captured.
Molly never forgave herself for that.
When Molly and Dasie found their songlines, they swiftly returned to their families, who then spirited them away into the desert.
Years later, married with two daughters, Molly sufffered appendicitis, and was taken to Perth for an operation, after which she was once more forcibly transported to Moore river.
She was forced to leave her eldest daughter, Doris, at Moore river, but with baby Anabelle in her arms, she once more went walkabout and returned in the same manner, along the rabbit proof fence, to her dreaming, her the land of her songlines, Jigalong.
Anabelle was taken from Molly when she was three and taken south.
Molly never saw her daughter Anabelle again.
Years later, Doris, her eldest daughter, managed to track Molly down, and they were finally reunited.
They eventually lived next door to one another, though Molly could never get used to living indoors and instead slept on the veranda, shifting her bed depending on which way the desert was breathing.
Much later, Doris would write of her mothers story, and this became immortalised in the book, 'Follow the Rabbit Proof Fence'.
In 2002, the world premiere of the film, Rabbitproof fence, was shown in the desert at Jigalong.
Molly and Daisy walked across the red sands of their dreaming to see the very first film they had ever seen.
And it was their story.
Many people attended including at least a thousand blackfellas.
People always thought that they knew what was best for Molly, from the first day that she had been forcibly removed from her family.
But Molly knew otherwise.
Molly lived her life the way that she always felt that it should.
She was strong and clever and proud.
And above all determined to decide her own destiny.
And this was her triumph.
yechydda,
Footnote: Molly died, aged 86, last week.
She is survived by her daughters, and numerous grandchildren and great grandchildren.