A White Woman Among Blacks

Northern Advocate, 13 May 1939, Page 5 (Supplement)

A White Woman Among Blacks

Australia’s Florence Nightingale Any day, in the fail of last year,, sauntering along Sydney’s crowded streets you might find yourself one of many whose attention was arrested by a lady whose appearance suggested that she either despised modern fashions or that site had been asleep for nearly as long as Rip Van Winkle, while the procession of changing styles passed by. A glance at her countenance would check any tendency to smile at her old fashioned clothes. It would immediately impress you with something so strong and fine that you would wish to know who she was. and be quite ready to forget the clothes in discovering a celebrity. All I Have Is Theirs That lady was Mrs Daisy Bates, C.8.E., vigorous in spite of 80 years, nearly half of which she has spent among the aborigines of Australia. The Passing of the Aborigines is the absorbing story of her life among the natives of Australia, which Mrs Bates has published.

She hopes the book will sell. She wants nothing for herself out of its success. The whole of the profits are dedicated by her to help her beloved natives, “I want them to have what money it earns. It is really theirs, and I shall share it with them . . . There is so much to do for these simple, kindly people. In the New Year’s Honours List Among the natives she is regarded with a devotion that almost amounts to v/orship. She is the only woman in the world upon whom these primitive tribes conferred the pre-eminent honour of blood brotherhood. Her work has been recognised by the Government, and by the Empire. The news of her decoration reached her in camp, among the natives where she had returned to take them Christmas gifts. She not only learned to live among the natives, respecting their customs and ministering to their needs, but she found among them a responding trust, respect and devotion. They revealed to her what never before was disclosed to the white race. She masi tered their languages (she can speak |to them in nearly 200 dialects), and won their hearts. They call her I "Kabbarli” (grandmother), a term of loyal affection.

“Owing to failing eyesight and advancing years I cannot continue tent life all the time,” she says, “But I want to go among them as much as 1 can to let them know that Kabbnrli has not forgotten them. A Missionary of Understanding Her source of power over the tribes was in the genuine sympathy and love she felt towards them. She did not go among them as a superior person to condemn, or even change their traditional ways of life and faith. She went first to understand and help them. They learned to trust her. and brought their sick for her capable and sensible ministry of healing. Presently they brought their troubles, their deeply pondered problems, for the help of her insight and wisdom, and they found their confidences regarded as sacred, their troubles understood, not despised, and their burdens lightened, if they could not be removed altogether. The story of her life opens to view a whole section of primitive life, full of both human and historical interest.