Atyemeye atyenhe
I was born out at Arltunga, and I’m from Santa Teresa. I follow my grandfather’s footprints. I am related to the country in the same way as I am to my grandfather. I belong to that country, Ltyentye Apurte.
When I was a young girl we all used to live at Inteyarrkwe [Loves Creek]. My grandfather [my mother’s father] and my granny used to live there and work at the Station. Then they moved further away to Atnape, and they worked there as well. When the work at Atnape finished we came back towards Inteyarrkwe again and lived there. There were lots of old people who used to work there.
Bruce Wallace, Veronica’s grandfather, at Atnape Station, c. 1938. Photo by Roy McFadyen
School at Arltunga
We lived at Ross River and my grandfather told us that we had to go back to the Catholic Mission at Arltunga and attend school there. One morning we woke up and our grandfather said, ‘I’m going to take all the children to Arltunga so that they could live in the dormitory and go to school to learn.’ That’s where we started going to school then. I was only small when they took me into the dormitory. I was five years old.
We were all a bit quiet about it and then they put us in the dormitory. Auntie Maggie [Wallace] was a little bit older than me, and she was put in the dormitory as well. Then my grandfather returned to work at Atnape. My granny had gone on ahead. He dropped us off and then he went back to Atnape to work at the station.
I didn’t want to live in the dormitory. I was really crying and then they took us and settled us in. Then the sisters showed us the school uniforms that we had to put on to make us forget about being sad. There were lots and lots of girls in the dormitory. Then gradually I got used to being in the dormitory. But when my grandfather dropped us off and left I was still thinking of him all time and feeling really sad. Auntie Maggie told me, ‘He’s just dropped you here – he’ll be back soon.’
We all stayed together and learnt in the school with the Sisters. All the children used to work as well. Before going to school we’d collect all the rubbish outside and put it in bins. Then we’d go to school, supposedly to learn. We were only speaking very rudimentary English – we always spoke Arrernte. If we spoke Arrernte the sisters used to say, ‘Don’t speak that language! We want to teach you all in English.’
That’s how we all learnt. When we got a bit bigger we learnt to wash clothes. We used to clean the dormitory that we lived in and make our beds. That’s what we learnt to do. We all went to school. When Christmas drew near they sent us back home for a couple of weeks holiday.
Children at Arltunga, c. 1946, National Library of Australia 4806113
Taking the children away
A big army truck went to Arltunga, and they took the half-caste children away. The sisters put the smallest babies in a big box that was standing there. I must have been a child of six years, or a little bit older. They got me and stood me in the box as well.
We were standing there and we didn’t know what was going on. ‘Why are they putting us in the box?’ There was a big wooden box that was placed there and the army truck was standing close by. The small children that were still being breastfed were lined up there – people were holding them.
It was lucky that my grandfather [Bruce Wallace] was there, as the day they came to get the children was his day for working on the cattle station. They put me in that box as well – that was part of their plan to take the children away. He growled at them because of their treatment of me, saying, ‘This child is mine!’ That’s what he told them. ‘You can’t take this child’. He refused to let them take me away. ‘This child has a name.’ Because he had given me the name Veronica Wallace – they took all the children without surnames. All the half-caste children, the poor things. They put the other children, the poor things, in the back of the truck. There were some white women [welfare workers] sitting inside the truck that held onto the tiny babies. The new-borns.
The truck with all the children in it was ready to take off and it started climbing the hill. All the women chased the truck, keening in sorrow because their children had been stolen from them. The truck climbed the hill and went down the other side, disappearing. ‘Tyewe!’ Out of sight.
They [Welfare] took lots of the half-caste children that were alongside me in the dormitory. Other children were taken away and hidden. When the families heard that the whitefellers were coming they hid the children. Some of those who were in the dormitory with me were taken. And the poor little new-born children that were still being breast-fed were taken as well. They took the children away. That was a long time ago when they took all the children. They were the ones without fathers. Nowadays we call them the Stolen Generation, the poor things. Some of the ones that were taken never returned.
Moving to Santa Teresa
After a while the mission shifted from Arltunga to Santa Teresa because the drinking water was no good. After the miners washed the gold with cyanide they let the water spill into the river, and our people used water from soaks for drinking. The water tasted bitter because of the poison.
The boys used to be living at home with their families – they just kept the girls in the dormitories at Arltunga. When we all shifted to Santa Teresa the girls were kept in the dormitory and then they made a dormitory for the boys. They were looked after by the Brothers, by the trainee priests. They used to look after and teach the boys whereas we were looked after by the Sisters. That was at Ltyentye Apurte. At Arltunga only the girls were in boarding school.
After leaving school we were put into the workforce, learning to do domestic work like ironing, house cleaning, working in the laundry and learning to cook. They taught us about how to live clean.
This photo of Veronica holding an atywenpe (perentie) appeared in The Living Heart by Frank Flynn and Keith Willey (1964). The nuns would not let the girls eat the perentie and suggested that it be given to the old people living in the village.
We lived out at Santa Teresa. We were taught in English when we were still only small children. When we spoke in our own language they used to tell us off. ‘Don't talk that yabba-yabba language. We want to teach you in English.’ We kept on talking language and we only spoke a bit of bad English. They used to beat us if we spoke Arrernte. Perhaps it was because they couldn’t understand what we were saying. They wanted us to learn their language so that they could understand us talking about what we were going to do. They’d say things like, ‘Go and get that book off the table’. And you’d be standing there not knowing what was going on. ‘What are they asking me to do?’
They used to tell us not to speak the Arrernte language, but when we were playing us kids used to always speak Arrernte. You know when they came along we’d switch to sub-standard English in case we got a hiding.
Some of the nuns were good and others were not so good. We used to give them nicknames – for example one sister was known as ‘Athakwere’ [mouse]. That nun was really small you see. We thought she looked like a little mouse. Another was called ‘Atantheye’ [piercer]. If we were naughty, she used to prick us with the pins they used to pin their veils to the white thing on their heads. That’s the sort of names that we used to give them. Another’s name was ‘Arre thewake’ [swag lips] because her lips were really thick. Like a swag. When we were being cheeky, we gave them those names. When they were coming, we’d say in Arrernte, ‘There comes Swag lips’, or ‘There comes Mouse’, or ‘The Piercer/Pin-poker is coming’. That’s what we called them. We used to give names like that to people.
Veronica Dobson, 1986 Arltunga-werne alpeke. In John Henderson (Ed) Arrernte ayeye. Arrernte stories, pp 14, 15. Institute for Aboriginal Development, Yipirinya School.
Illustration by Heather Carey.
Working in Alice Springs
When I was sixteen I came to live in town [Alice Springs]. I thought that there might be work there, so I came to town to live with my auntie [Peggy Turner]. I started working doing ironing for Mrs Smith. Mr Smith was a brickmaker – he made bricks. I worked with them doing the ironing and cleaning the house. Then I asked other people about ironing and cleaning work. I used to do ironing and cleaning for Mr Neck’s wife.
After that I started doing other kinds of work – I used to work at the old Post Office. I did cleaning for old Daphne Hill, when she went on holidays. Old Emily Liddle worked at the old Courthouse as well, and she asked me to clean the Courthouse when she went away on holidays. I cleaned the old Courthouse and I cleaned the old Commonwealth bank. Then I started working at Cavanagh’s cool drink factory, washing all the bottles. They gave me work to wash the bottles in preparation for filling them with cool drink. They made the lemonade and then poured it into the bottles. I worked on there and after I left that job I did nothing much for a while before taking on more ironing work. Other people had heard that I did ironing as well, so I started back doing ironing and cleaning again.
Then I had a family. I had four children, and I stayed at home looking after them. My first-born son is Shawn.
Alan Dobson and Veronica Dobson (then Hayes) date night at the Late Night, Alice Springs Hotel, c. 1967.
Veronica, Alan and Victor Dobson, and Bluey the dog, c. 1976.
Starting work at IAD
After that I asked my younger sister who used to work at IAD, ‘Is there any cleaning work there?’ And she said, ‘Yes, there is a woman there who is about to go on maternity leave. When she leaves you can put your name down for work and come and see the bosses here.’ And she told me, ‘When that woman has her child and leaves work you can come and see the bosses and ask them about working here’. So that’s how I got a cleaning job at IAD. I worked there for a long long time.
There were linguists working there, and I heard them and thought, ‘These people are talking language.’ Then they asked me, ‘What language do you speak?’ John Henderson asked me first, ‘Are you an Arrernte speaker?’ “Yes’, I replied. ‘I am Eastern Arrernte.’ Then he said to me, ‘Oh you might want to work with us – we need language speakers.’
John Henderson and Veronica Dobson, 2024. Photo by Jennifer Green
So then I started working with them. They had two other language speakers that used to work with them – Mrs Furber and Margaret Heffernan. Their Arrernte was a little bit different from Eastern Arrernte, and then they asked me, ‘What language do you speak?’ I spoke Arrernte to them and when they heard me they said, ‘Oh you might want to work with us. Think about it first, if you want to work here in the language centre.’ And then I replied, ‘I really want to work on my language.’ That’s what I told them.
Veronica Dobson
Margaret Heffernan
Photos by Jennifer Green
Rosie Furber
Then they asked me about doing NAATI (National Accreditation Authority for Translators and Interpreters) testing. ‘We want to take on testing people for the NAATI test.’ I agreed and then they held the NAATI tests for translators and interpreters. I worked for the interpreting service for a little while. I was just learning that as I went as well, and they used to help me. We all used to work really well together at first at IAD, setting up the Interpreting Service and going to the Courts.
We also went to the Police Station and the hospital as well. And from there I really wanted to keep our language strong. I learnt from there, and others were also working, other language speakers. Western Arrernte, Pitjantjatjara, and Warlpiri mob. We all used to work together in the one place. You know we were working to help our families and our language speakers. If they got arrested by the police for breaking something, or picked up for drunk driving, we’d go to the court to help them. It was good that we were working with them.
Teaching Arrernte
in schools
Then I started working in the schools teaching language to the children who were learning Arrernte. That’s the work that I used to do. I helped to establish the year 7 and 8 curriculum (with Inge Kral) under the LOTE [Languages other than English] program. I was working there teaching little kids and the bigger ones, and the high school mob. I also worked in the Ntyarlke Unit, with the town and Amoonguna language speakers and with Mike Bowden. We were teaching Arrernte language at the High School and at the Catholic High School. We took the students on excursions and showed them honey ants and witchetty grubs. They really liked what we were doing for them. If any of them saw me in town they’d sing out, ‘Werte Mrs Dobson.’ I used to get a bit shamed when they sang out in case they were walking around with their mothers. In case their mothers would growl at me and say, ‘Why are you speaking Arrernte in the street?’ In case they said something like that to their children.
Ntyarlke Unit students, Mike Bowden and Veronica Dobson, c. 1988.
Writing Arrernte
Gavan Breen teaching literacy to adults in Central Australian languages at Yirara College through the School of Australian Linguistics. Photo courtesy of Michael Breen
Learning to read and write in our language started in 1983–1984. Part-time courses were held by Gavan Breen and other linguists. There were people from a few different languages doing the course – it wasn't only one language they dealt with in the classroom – there were Arrernte, Luritja, Pitjantjatjara and Warlpiri. We all learned together – they just didn't teach one group of language speakers.
Background artwork by Veronica Dobson
Making the Arrernte Dictionary
First edition of the Eastern and Central Arrernte to English Dictionary, 1994.
It took a long time to finish it – you know we worked for 10 years on it. There are many dictionaries down there at IAD Press, and people can buy them and use them.
The Eastern and Central Arrernte Dictionary is written in the older Arrernte language. Now we would like to see a version of the Arrernte that's used now. Then we can look back on the old language, comparing the younger generations to see how their language has changed. They are losing the original language – but you can't say that the younger generation’s language isn't a proper language. That is the language of today – younger people make up their own language. We, the elders, must understand that the languages change over time. We mustn’t say that the younger generation's language is not proper – that’s the language of today. Maybe the older language may have been a little different even from our ancestors’ languages. All languages change over time.
The old language is written down so we won't lose it. That’s what I like to see – keep the language strong by writing it down. The younger people can do these things like making language materials so that people who come along later can learn their mother tongue.
The Dictionary is very important. I am really pleased that we have written our language down so that the next generations of young people can read it. Our language originated from that language you see in the Dictionary, and it has evolved and changed from there. Some of the things we say nowadays are slightly different, but the Arrernte language came from this one that our ancestors spoke.
Veronica Dobson’s handwritten dictionary entries.
After that I worked with John Henderson, and we made the Arrernte Dictionary. We took the language that Gavan [Breen] had recorded with the old people, listened to it and wrote it down. We took all those important things that they said, translated them, and turned them into entries for the big dictionary.
Bush medicines and caring for country
Veronica Dobson at the Olive Pink Arrernte medicinal plant garden. Photo by Camille Dobson, c. 2001.
Our people always used to use bush medicines. When we went back down to the camp during school holidays for two or three weeks our families would take us out bush and sit down with us using bush medicines. We also collected and ate lots of bush foods. I’ve learnt from my families and from our elders, from my grandmothers also my grandfather. When people got sick, they used to sing them with the healing song and rub the fat onto the body, whether it’s an adult or a child. Healing songs are sung over the sick and the healing fat is then rubbed onto the person, helping them heal and get well.
I've written something about the bush medicines, also about the healing fat and how the elders used it to cure their sick. I went along with a tape recorder and asked people for some information on bush medicine and the healing fat. They told me the story about how the elders used these medicines in the early days, and how if you got sick from something that may have been done to you the healer would help make you well again. These are the things that I ask them about.
Speaker and cultural advisor: Veronica Dobson
Video editor: Dave Richards
Director and Producer: Fiona Walsh
The audio recordings in this section were made by Veronica Dobson and Jennifer Green in 2010, as part of the Central Land Council’s Every Hill got a Story project.