German Missionaries in Australia

Located on Thangoo Station in the pearling belt south of Broome, LaGrange had been a government ‘feeding depot’ for Garadjiri (Karajarri) and Ngungamada people.¹ With much contact between Asian crews and Aboriginal women it attracted frequent comment about the necessity for policing, and a constable and tracker were stationed there in 1903.² The Salesians, who administered the vicariate in the 1920s, had wanted to take it on as a mission, but the Western Australian administration kept the missionaries at arm’s length by stationing a superintendent there to dole out rations. During World War II the Pallottines showed interest, but the army would not suffer Germans on the coast. The new Commissioner of Native Affairs, S. G. Middleton transferred 40 ‘indigent’ desert people from Udialla there in late 1948 and mentioned plans to erect ‘institutional facilities for children’ at LaGrange.³

In the usual pattern of the ‘act first, plan later’ strategy of the Catholics in the Kimberley, Zucker relates that in the 1950s two lay missionaries started a school and children’s mess room. Elizabeth Dan came from Beagle Bay and Sr. Allie Evans, the intrepid pioneer nurse came from Balgo to provide nursing care. ⁴ Frankfurt anthropologists Dr Helmut Petri (subsequently Professor) and his wife Dr Gisela Odermann began to conduct fieldwork there in 1954.

In August 1955 Fr. Hügel pointed out to the Bishop that the hot wet season was approaching and there was no accommodation other than a Nissen hut erected by the DNA, one of the prefabricated corrugated iron half cylinders that had become popular army supply. It was not lined and without windows, and unbearably hot, though Sr. Evans had volunteered to inhabit it –it was no worse that the dormitory she had shared with the girls at Balgo.

In January 1956 the Pallottines formally took charge of the mission with Fr. Hügel, so that a building program could be commenced with dormitories, a dining hall, hospital, school, a store, provisional housing and a power generator. That same year the new mission was struck by a measles epidemic spreading through the two dormitories and several camps, resulting in two fatalities.⁵

Fr. Kevin McKelson became the superintendent at the mission and in 1959 three more lay missionaries from Melbourne joined to provide nursing, teaching, and child care.⁶ One of them was Clare Bowler, who stayed there for 30 years.⁷ Fr. McKelson (listed as rector 1966-1979) engaged in language work and translated the Lord’s Prayer into five local languages and ‘Silent Night’ into Njanumada. He also published a booklet of prayers in the local languages, a collection of Bible stories, and an outline of the kinship terms in the community languages. He was trying to resist the trend towards ‘black people with a white man’s tongue.’⁸

This was considered an ‘enlightened’ mission with much greater tolerance for traditional customs and obligations, so that mission-educated men did not need to abstain from initiation into Aboriginal culture. Petri wrote:

For the first time in the colonial history of Australia an ‘inner’ and deep encounter between the mentality and culture of Europeans and Aborigines was made possible under the influence of the Christian/Catholic ethos.’⁹

The Australian Bishops Conference of 1978 agreed to a five-year period of enculturation of the liturgy, which meant that mass could be held in a local language or a mixture of languages, an initiative pioneered by Fr. Werner Kriener and Fr. Peter Willis (who later left the Pallottines). Still, the Catholic accommodation with polygamy, subincision, circumcision, and magic was uneasy. The missionaries said they were battling against child marriage, forced marriage, and infanticide.¹⁰

Fr. Kevin McKelson with children at LaGrange, 1980. Source: Pallottine Archives, Rossmoyne

The Catholic church launched a ‘Save the Kimberley’ appeal to raise money and in 1961 Bishop Jobst purchased 202,500 hectares in the southern part of Thangoo Station, in order to add a cattle industry to the mission. The Pope contributed £6,000 and the German Catholic development fund Misereor also contributed money. In 1960 the Department of Health agreed to finance half the cost of the hospital.¹¹

In 1964 the mission was devastated by Cylcone Bessie (or Becky), which flattened the school, the hospital an all the huts in the camp. The DNA helped to finance the rebuilding.¹² In 1971 Cyclone Sally unroofed buildings and blew over the water tanks and windmills. Gardens and five miles of fencing were destroyed, and about 600 cattle died. Buildings were by now covered by insurance but not the power supply, windmills, fences, market gardens and stock. The damage was estimated at $95,000. DAA offered $15,000. The mission now housed 340 Aboriginal and 17 white people.¹³

During the 1970s the missions came under scrutiny. Fr. McKelson gave evidence in the 1973 Purnell Royal Commission. By 1981 there were about 400 persons living at LaGrange, though the numbers varied significantly. The combined income from all enterprises, including post office, petrol station, store, bank, cattle station and market garden was $152,700 compared to $504,000 in pensions and benefits.¹⁴ In 1982 the community moved for independence from the mission and Bidyadanga asked for the mission land to be transferred to them after the 1983 Seaman Aboriginal Land inquiry examined the landholding structure of missions. It was a bitter parting between the Church and the community.