Darkness Into Light: Missionaries, Modernists and Aboriginal Education

Abstract

One of the early missionaries at Milingimbi is said to have rounded up men from a ceremony and hosed off the sacred designs they had painted on their chests. I have often been told that story, always by Balanda ¹usually as a way of illustrating how terrible missionaries can be. Ali the same, other Balanda in other places were often a lot worse. Missionaries for example did not poison water holes and flour. Moreover the missionaries were not always feared or distrusted.