Aboriginal mission station
Aboriginal mission stations were set up in all the colonies and states of Australia . The aim of the mission stations was to Christianize Aborigines . The conditions at the mission stations were very different and often depended on the person of the mission leader. Some, like Ernabella and Hermannsburg under Carl Strehlow , are considered exemplary because they offered education and work and at least tolerated the practice of traditional cultural practices.
Others, like Warburton , were characterized by strict rules and disciplinary measures. In some wards, the conditions of the accommodation were hazardous to health and it was only through liberal missionaries and the support of state funding for medical staff and targeted training that the conditions of the wards were improved in the 1950s. The children of the stolen generation were taken to individual mission stations until 1969.
history
The first mission station outside Sydney was established in what is now Newcastle in 1824 . It was financed by an attached coal mine, but closed in 1841 because the "Aborigines of this district were extinct". The second mission was the Wellington Valley Mission for the Wiradjuri Aborigines in New South Wales , founded in 1832 by the Church Missionary Society . It too had to close in 1842.
Most of the 211 missions established in Australia over time were established in the 1860s to 1880s. The missions of the Desert Cultural Area experienced a large influx between 1926 and 1930, when a long-term drought made survival as nomads very difficult.
Until the 1950s they had to finance themselves to a large extent. From the 1970s, with the land rights movement, many of the mission stations were handed over to the Aborigines under self-government.
Today 40 missions are still active in the very remote areas of the Northern Territory , Western Australia and Queensland .
Churches
Mission stations of churches in Australia were operated, for example, by the Moravian Church , Hermannsburg Mission , Church Missionary Society Australia , Seventh-day Adventist and Presbyter Church and Anglican Church of Australia .
reviews
The work of the Christian mission stations and missionaries is assessed differently by the Aborigines themselves and depends heavily on which mission is considered.
- There is an opinion that the missions and the missionaries destroyed the culture, the dream time , the nomadic way of life and brought people with different cultures together in one place. This created a group of people who lost their roots, their living environment and were not accepted by either the whites or the blacks.
- Another opinion assumes that without the presence of missionaries and mission stations, the Aborigines would have had no perspective at all. They had already been expropriated and violated by the colonizers and threatened with extinction. Their land had been expropriated, and as a result they had no chance of continuing their previous life and their dreamtime culture.
Treatment of the Aborigines in missions
language
There were missionaries like the one in Hermannsburg who learned the Aboriginal languages as early as 1902 and spoke them when dealing with them. Reverend Lancelot Threkeld published the first systematic study of an Aboriginal language in 1834, the now extinct Awabakal .
In other mission stations, the Aborigines were only allowed to speak English and, for example, Aborigines were resettled to Woorabinda from Taroom , who could hardly communicate with one another, because they came from 17 tribes with different languages.
Missionaries and Aborigines
The German missionary Carl Strehlow in Hermannsburg in the Northern Territory translated the New Testament into the language of the Arrernte -Aborigines from 1913 to 1919 and he wrote a book about the myths in this language. When he sent this to Pastor L. Kaibel, the church inspector of Adelaide , he received the following reply: “ Basically, it is a deeply sad tragedy that is taking place before our eyes, the extinction of the Australians [Aborigines] is not a confirmation of what is otherwise always applicable word: World history is the world judgment! Or better still, the biblical one: whoever does not have what he has will also be taken from him. "
Chaplain Samuel Marsden viewed the Aborigines in New South Wales in 1825 as "a degraded people who only wanted idleness and independence, " and as the founder of the New Norica Mission in Western Australia , he described them as poor natives, so ugly to look at , with other names being known such as " children of Satan ", " loathsome " (despicable), etc. A church reverend thought the Aboriginal culture was " a thing of the devil " (something of the devil).
The liberal missionaries, who were in the minority until the 1950s, saw parallels between European and indigenous cultures and religions.
When the Australian government took over the cost of medical staff and school training in 1953, the underfunding of most mission stations ended and formed the basis for self-organization.
Treatment and education
It was common practice for Aborigines to hit or kick their feet in some missions. The main place of education was the dormitory (bedroom) in which regulation and discipline took place. Boys and girls were put in separate bedrooms. Morning discipline was done by getting up at six in the morning, making beds, washing outside the bedroom, milking goats or making a fire. The bell called for going to church and another afterwards for breakfast. Then there was school for a few hours. This discipline should divert children from their original traditions and habits.
Social
Missions provided security from white settlers who took possession of land with firearms, but also from other clans. Food was offered, even to old, sick Aborigines who normally did not receive any more in their culture when food was scarce.
In exchange, Aborigines should convert to Christianity; In some mission stations, the Aborigines had to line up for the daily food distribution to demonstrate their dependency, which some leaders of missions certainly ended up doing. In various mission stations the Aborigines had to work for surrounding farmers and those who came too late were not allowed to work and did not get anything to eat the next day; From the age of 14, children had to work like adults. But there were also missionaries who let the people they care for work independently and left them with the results of their work.
The new head of mission McQuiggan provoked a strike, the Cummeragunja Walk-off , because he made drastic cuts in food, clothing and necessary blankets against the cold. This led to cases of tuberculosis and whooping cough . In protest against these conditions, 150 people from Cummeragunja moved across the border from New South Wales to Barmah in Victoria and set up camp there.
During the Second World War in 1942 the mission station in Hopevale in North Queensland was closed and the Aborigines were deported to Woorabinda . There, 235 of them died within eight years of illnesses caused by the unsanitary sanitary facilities and accommodation in huts that were not protected from frost.
Overall, the death rate from infectious diseases among those who did not seek medical help in the missions is higher than in the missions.
Christianization and church visits
The last Aborigines in Tasmania were deported to Wybalenna on Flinders Island in the 1830s . While this was not a Church-run mission station, they were required to attend the services given by Rev. Robert Clark on a regular basis. Due to a lack of language skills and apathy, the service was later limited to singing hymns.
The Church Missionary Society came to Sydney in 1825 and they established a mission station in the Wellington Valley. When the Church Society stopped working in 1842, only three Aboriginal people had been baptized. Bishop Gsell wrote of the Bathurst Island Mission that after 30 years it had failed to convert a single Aboriginal to Christianity. There were significant misunderstandings in interpreting the Bible: the Madnala Aborigines interpreted the Bible to mean that God was a white man; Adam and Eve blacks.
Stolen generation
The forced removal of the "half-caste children" from their parents took place from around 1900 to 1969, which went down in Australian history with the term stolen generation . It was ordered and carried out by government agencies; the children were placed in specific mission stations.
financing
Operating the early mission stations in central Australia was difficult in view of the poor productivity of the soil, with persistent drought combined with food and water supply shortages. The mission stations should not only work to cover costs, but also generate a profit for the mother church. The missionaries were to be financially supported by their relatives and the church leadership demanded higher financial subsidies in 1902 than those previously granted by the government.
novel
To the Islands was published in 1958 as a novel by the Australian writer Randolph Stow , which describes the problems between Aborigines and Europeans in a mission station. The novel received the Miles Franklin Award in 1958 and in 1982 Stow changed his work in the spirit of the Aborigines.
literature
- Josephine Flood: The Original Australians. Story of the Aboriginal People. Allen & Unwin, Crows Nest NSW 2006, ISBN 1-74114-872-3 .
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c Flood, page 202
- ↑ Preamble . The University of Newcastle , archived from the original on June 5, 2011 ; accessed on January 17, 2016 (English, original website no longer available).
- ^ Flood, 204
- ↑ a b http://www.southaustralianhistory.com.au/hermannsburg.htm Hermannsburg Aboriginal Mission Ntaria, accessed on July 20, 2009
- ↑ Australia's National Parks - The Red Desert (5/5) , accessed May 10, 2015.
- ↑ Chapter 1 - Theoretical framework . Department of Education, Science and Training , archived from the original on March 29, 2012 ; accessed on January 19, 2016 (English, original website no longer available).
- ^ A b Walter Veit: STREHLOW, Carl Friedrich Theodor. In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 31, Bautz, Nordhausen 2010, ISBN 978-3-88309-544-8 , Sp. 1336-1343.
- ↑ http://etd.unisa.ac.za/ETD-db/theses/available/etd-03022006-155220/unrestricted/dissertation.pdf ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically defective marked. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Dissertation v. Andre Nathan Louw: The Myth of the Guiltless Society. A Socio-ethical Appraisal of the Experience o the Aborigines in Australia since Colonization. Toward a Theology of Liberation for Australia. P. 33.
- ^ Richard Brome: Aboriginal Australians. Black Responses to white Dominance, 1788-2001. 3rd edition. Allen & Unwin, Crows Nest NSW 2002, ISBN 1-86508-755-6 , p. 113, Google fragment available .
- ^ Brome: Aboriginals of Australia. P. 113
- ^ Brome: Aboriginals of Australia. P. 119
- ↑ a b Brome: Aboriginals of Australia. P. 112
- ^ Brome: Aboriginals of Australia. P. 110
- ^ Flood, page 203
- ^ Brome: Aboriginals of Australia. P. 110 and 111
- ↑ The Cummeragunja Strike, 1939 , accessed May 10, 2015.
- ↑ The Cummera Walk Off and the return to Base Camp Politics
- ^ Page www.kooriweb.org , accessed June 20, 2009
- ^ Black Image - History ( Memento November 28, 2005 in the Internet Archive ), accessed May 10, 2015.
- ^ Brome: Aboriginals of Australia. P. 118
- ^ Brome: Aboriginals of Australia. P. 117
- ↑ The Advertiser v. August 1, 1902 ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , accessed July 20, 2009
