also if they want to share good news with me, I’m available. It’s different to being a Native American Chief; we’re not above anyone, but we’re respected by the children and their families. Yes, it is common for women to be in these positions at schools in Australia. I teach Aboriginal painting, share Dreaming stories, Aboriginal dance, and we sing songs. Some schools also have Pacific Islander Elders come in.
Faktorovich: In the first chapter, you describe needing to write a “letter to the government to ask…” to “buy a dress or shoes or stockings.” You also say a permit was needed to move or get married. Have most of these laws been outlawed since you were young (if so, when)? These restrictions seem very foreign, even with America’s pre-civil rights laws that discriminated against African Americans. What was the purpose of these restrictions? How were they legitimized?
Collard-Spratt: Please see my answer to the question about the Native Administration Act 1936 (WA). These laws were repealed in 1967 after a national Referendum, which finally recognized Aboriginal people as Australian citizens. Until then, the government believed that Aboriginal people were not really people. It goes back to when white people first invaded Australia in 1788. The English saw Australia as Terra Nullius, a land without owners. Until 1920 in Western Australia, Aboriginal matters came under the Fisheries Department. Even after the 1967 Referendum, Australia regulated Aboriginal people under Assimilation Laws, which weren’t repealed until 1975 in favour of self-determination. Under Assimilation, we had to turn our backs on our families, culture, spirituality, and language and live as white people do. They expected that we would die out, and they planned to breed us out.
Ferro: The treatment of Aboriginal Australians is probably much more similar to America’s treatment of its own First People’s than its treatment of African-Americans. Native Americans also lost their identity as Indians by being placed on reserves, being stripped of their cultural dress, language, and ways of living; children were stolen from their mothers with no one to comfort them, and they were herded onto reserves and missions like little animals.
Faktorovich: In Chapter 5, when girls ask you if you are a virgin, you react thus: “In my rage, I forgot about doing my client’s hair. I just wanted to get even. Picking up rollers, brushes, clips, anything my Yamatji hands could find, I let rip. Things went flying through the air every which way. I didn’t care; I wanted to get them. The girls were dodging, ducking and hiding, so they wouldn’t get hit…” You guys mention in your marketing materials that this is not a book where you see yourself as a victim of the system, but rather as its survivor. Were you concerned about disclosing this somewhat violent outburst?
Collard-Spratt: No. I was treated violently all my life up till then. I’d experienced violent outbursts from missionaries throughout my childhood. Their words and actions were violent and they scarred my heart and soul. I guess that was my first incident of releasing all that anger; we weren’t allowed to act up over all those years of being flogged and told we were nothing.
Faktorovich: Can it be that the girls were simply curious about you?
Collard-Spratt: No. They knew they could make fun of me and that they had no one to answer to, and they knew I had no one to speak up for me.
Faktorovich: What about the way they asked the question made you feel that they were insulting you?
Collard-Spratt: Well, they were whispering to each other under their breath and giggling. So, I knew they were up to no good by just their body language.
Faktorovich: Did you react somewhat violently because of the corporal punishment you were exposed to in school that made it feel like this was a fitting punishment for the girls’ moral crime?
Collard-Spratt: Yes. I didn’t think it was punishment. I was hurt and, in the past, I had no way of retaliating, so finally, I was somewhere where I could show how I felt. I didn’t hurt anyone. This was the first time I showed anger and, no, I am not ashamed to share this.
Faktorovich: What kinds of material do you paint on (as for your “Rainbow Snake Dancer” painting from 2014)?
Collard-Spratt: Canvas, bark, silk, stones, wood.
Faktorovich: What kind of paint did you use for it or for the majority of your paintings?