Those Hardy Pioneer Women

      Don't ever let anyone tell you that women can't be tough if they need to be. And the ones who needed it most were the pioneer women. Imagine giving birth when your husband is away, and your only midwives are two native girls, one of whom was crippled and the other spoke no English. Or what about fighting off a horde of savages when you are nine months pregnant and your husband is away? Yet these were the sort of things experienced by the wives of the early white settlers in the Channel Country, that vast stretch of desert in the corner of Queensland next to the South Australian border which, during rains, turns into a vast network of rivulets and channels. (At the time of writing, it is just recovering from extensive flooding.)

     The above anecdotes are taken from an undeservedly forgotten Australian classic, Where Stange Paths Go Down by Alice Duncan-Kemp (1901 - 1988). She had self-published a book with this title in 1952, but when a second edition (which I am citing) was to be produced in 1964, she included most of her 1933 book, Our Sandhill Country. When reading, you can tell roughly where the merger occurs. Be that as it may, the book recounts her experiences as a child on a remote Channel Country cattle run. It is filled with lyrical descriptions of the flowers, birds, small animals, and the changing colours of the land she loved.

     Predominantly, however, it deals with the Aborigines, with whom she mingled, learning their lore and customs, and for whom she developed a deep affection and respect. She mentioned, for example, having known a young tribal woman stricken with blindness when she was about fifteen, but who followed with her fingers the intricate crocheted patterns of her white mistresses' supper cloth. The result was that she was eventually able to crochet the exact same pattern of the lace.   Nevertheless, modern readers may be taken back by her language. Racial slurs are never used, not even the familiar "blackfellow". However, after indicating that a "gin" was an Aboriginal woman, she uses the term all the time. Likewise, the children are "piccaninnies", while a "myall" is an Aborigine untouched by civilisation. These are not offensive terms; or at least they are not intended as such. They are simply descriptive terms, without any negative or positive connotation.

      However, I intend to quote from Chapter 37: "White Pioneers: Black Saviours". It begins with her visit to the ruined Diamantina Homestead, at which point she starts to reminisce about the early pioneers at the site.

      It begins in 1864 when the slight, dark haired Adelaide girl, Kate Bancroft celebrated her twenty-first birthday by marrying forty-year-old Harry Miller and then, riding a camel for the first time in her life, followed him up the harsh South Australian desert 400 miles to the remote cattle station in the Channel Country. One wonders how many modern girls of twenty-one would be prepared to do the same. But, as the poet put it:

     "For love they faced the wilderness - the Women of the West."

     The stores with which they had arrived were expected to last two years. In this homestead, 60 miles from any other white person, Kate bore and raised five boys and three girls, losing only one. (You always lost some child in those days.)

      When Margaret, the third child, was born Kate's only help was a black gin. It was a long and difficult birth and Kate, lying there in agony, patiently gave directions to Minnie over and over again. She knew that the child's life and her own depended on her keeping cool and encouraging the frightened gin. Harry was out with cattle ninety miles from the homestead; but a smoke signal sent by the station blacks brought him home that night - eight hours after the child was born.

     When Richard was born Kate was alone with seven-year-old John, four-year-old Molly, and two years' toddler Margaret to look after. A house gin, crippled by a kick from a cow, crawled to the house on all fours bringing with her a myall gin. Kate gave directions to the house gin who acted as interpreter and the myall performed the duties of midwife, saving the life of mother and child.

     Young Harry was born twelve miles from the homestead, at a creek whither Kate had gone to take food and medicine to a sick gin. Tommy, the houseboy, brought her in by the station dray, saying to Kate, "While Mr. Miller is away I am personally responsible for your safety. (Tommy had been schooled along with white children until he was twelve.)

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     One year the children developed sandy blight: young Harry had it so badly that blindness threatened. Muggaree, the crippled house gin, disappeared from her humpy, "walkabout," said the houseboy when questioned by Kate. In a few days she appeared at the homestead dragging herself along with the aid of two sticks; in her bark wallet were the leaves of a small herb. These, bruised in water, brought immediate relief and within a week cleared up the eye trouble. Muggaree refused to tell Kate the name of the herb or where it was to be found; that was forbidden, she said.

     At the age of six Molly developed pneumonia. She became so ill that a gin rode two hundred and forty miles in a day and a night for medicine and help - too late.

     Then to add to their troubles the homestead caught fire. Harry was in bed with an attack of pleurisy and Kate was alone except for the gins and the children. Flames were licking the walls when they managed to carry Harry out on a stretcher into a bitter winter's night. The house was gutted and the Millers lost all their furniture and clothing.

     But they rebuilt, and educated all their children. Then, in 1886, when Kate was forty-three and Harry sixty-two, they moved west. When warned that the blacks were dangerous out there, their reply was: "We are going because the blacks are there. If it had not been for the blacks we could never have run our property successfully. They were our saviours."

     Their place was taken by Frank and Anne Mulholland.

     Anne received her baptism to bush life when she rescued a black baby from being killed by the Rain-maker as an offering to the Rain God. In the process Anne was bitten on the finger by a death adder whilst bringing the mutilated child out of the dry creek bed where it had been pegged down by a sharp stake. Frank was quickly on the scene and snipped off the finger-tip - death adder bites were usually fatal, but Anne recovered - so did the black boy. After that Ann kept the eighteen months old blackboy at the homestead for safety.

    One day when Frank was away mustering, the Eaglehawks [a tribe] besieged the homestead demanding that Anne give up the blackboy. She refused. For four days and nights the blacks prowled about the homestead, kept at bay by the rifles and shot-gun manned by Anne, Ah Fat, the Chinese cook-gardener, and two house gins. Ah Fat was fatally speared through the chest and Anne was alone except for the two loyal gins. During the night a house gin slipped through the warrior lines and sent a warning to the musterers who galloped home and dispersed the blacks. That night Anne's son was born - and died.

    Anne always said that the thing that made her really sick was pulling the wooden stake out of the black baby's tummy.

     So she was nine months pregnant when the attack began! What the author doesn't tell us is that she herself lost her father before she was six years old, and that her mother then ran the station herself. She does, however, describe going on mustering for days on end with the men, and sleeping under the stars. Only by examining the timeline in the book do you realize she must have been just in her early teens at the time. I tell you: they bred them tough in the old days.