MOGUMBER BURIAL GROUNDS
MOORE RIVER NATIVE SETTLEMENT
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But sitting here today
is a big space
between the tail end
of the 30s

And this is my second visit here now
but there’s a space of 50 years
or 51 years away
back down the track

My Grandmother is there
laying
in the surroundings
of the silent sand plain

Mogumber mission is still there
the pine trees are still there
the areas where the compounds was
and the main office
and the bakehouse
where my father stood
in there
and baked bread with old Jimmy Sandy
who was the husband of Betty Leyland
when she married him
she automatically become
Betty Sandy

So walking through
the area there

Is the memories
it wakes up your thoughts
it’s like a light
of remembrance

I know that Betty Sandy
and her husband Jimmy
when they was alive
used to cook
for the camp people
which was further down the river

There was a lot of old camps there

Most of the old people are gone now
like Stanley Withamurra
I was fortunate enough
to see him in some stage
of his prime of his life

John T Jackamurra
he’s dead now
Daphne Long
Ronny Bolton
Jesse Willock
all those old people are dead
Plum Morrison
that’s just to name a few

That were taken into the settlement
there was the tale
of the Andersons
the Colbungs
the Brophos
the Leylands
the Mippys

And Mogumber mission
was looked on as a holding pen
for Aboriginal people
to be sent there

It was also a place
like a big factory
passing you through there
and destroying your Aboriginality
grading the Aboriginal people there
as one would put it

Further down
than Mogumber mission
the Moore River native settlement
was the sh? farm
and I was fortunate enough to be down there
where we escaped from

to run that farm
in my time
was myself
Caesar Jackson
who’s dead
? Yates
who’s dead
? Scott
I don’t know whether he’s alive or dead
ralph dalgetty
was the head Aborigine man there
and his wife
we looked after that place
with mister donagan

It was in the days of the old Chevrolet
utilities
and we were given the task
with the horse
and farrows
axes and picks
and crowbars
to make a road from there
back to settlement
a bush road
which we did

But I’m pissed off with
what I see here today
what the people did
to this cemetery

it’s pretty obvious
I’m looking up the track now

because
south
north
east and west
of this old cemetery
is all farmland
it’s been cleared
this is just the last strip of bush here
on the side of this little hill here
going down the hollow
going up to the big hill
it is a big section of scrub here

but my guess is
the greedy lust for power
and the wanting of the land

will be taken from us soon

but what will happen to the remains
of my grandmother?
and all her friends
and the people
that’s been buried there
since the years 1918
right up until
the place closed down

so
I don’t know what’s going to happen

so I’ve made this tape today
speaking into it
hoping that it will
pass through
a lot of people hearing
what’s been said on here
it some sort of a record
of the
history
of what I’m saying here now
about Mogumber
I keep saying Mogumber
Moore River native settlement days

The long pool’s
silent now
where the Aboriginal people
used to go and swim

Chalk cliff is another place

going from the main road
at Mogumber
railway station out there
to the cemetery
is cleared fields on each side
and sheep and emus
wandering through
the paddocks

But I
when I looked at those things
I visualised all the wild scrub
and the early day old roads
when we all went out there
to camp
when Grandmother was sick

it was couple of days
we camped there
then one morning
early hours of the morning
all the dogs started howling
in the compound
and all through the settlement
and we knew then
that Grandmother was dead

come 8 o’clock
when the office
opened up to see
the black trackers
coming down to the camps
telling people
that the old lady
Clara leyland died

then the wailing
and the crying
and the
the quietness
fell over the
whole
of this
compound
aboriginal people were in mourning

but that was the funeral of my Grandmother
in the late 30s
and that memory
of all us going up the hill
like a big long huge black Waugal Snake
following this old truck

and the remains
of my Grandmother
laying on the back
silent in that box

I’m 62 years old now
but my memory’s clear as day
I suppose if I had long elastic hand
I could reach back down to the past
to those days

But the memory of that
cannot be
blackened out

it could be
at the tail end of my life
but all my grandmother’s sons and daughters
had huge families
and they in turn had children

My Mum now
at the age
of the late 80s
or whatever

she was in Carolup mission
down at ca? ?
which closed down in 1930
carolup mission was opened up in 1915
and moore river native settlement
opened up 3 years after that
in 1918

So my Mum right now
is a Great
Great
Great
Grandmother
and she’s not been recognised for this

She’s the oldest person living
in both communities
of Saunders Street
and Lockridge in the Swan Valley

And she’s full of history
of the Dreaming Track
of the Rainbow Serpent
and the Waugal in the Swan Valley
and no one respects her for that

These days you get all sorts
of farty arse people
half castes
and educated blackfellas
reckon they speakers
of aboriginal issues
but they not

They know nothing

Knowing it for real
through one’s system and mind
is one thing

Reading it in white man’s books
and being told what to say
is another thing

Anyway
I’ve made this bit of the tape
to explain
that my grandmother lays up there
and I am her grandson

And that can be never denied

And if my Mum’s too old to speak
on behalf of her Grandmother
of her Mother
then it is my sole place
as spokesperson
for my people in the Swan Valley

That I have every right
to speak on behalf of my Grandmother
and I have every right to take up
court action
if need be

Where her human remains
lays in peace
in the sandplains
of the Moore River native settlement
burial grounds

Not cemetery
burial grounds

She was put back into her Mother
the Land
where she came from

© Copyright Swan Valley Nyungah Community 1992, 2007

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