Film - Roderick Marks, 'Take a Walk with my Son and Meet the World', Australian Centre for the Moving Image (ACMI)

Tyler is the product of the union of two families from north and south of the mighty Murray. I am a Wergaia man. That is the Wimmera. My wife’s family come from Balranald in New South. But Tyler was born in Gippsland, born and bred. The wife and five kids and myself moved about back and forth from the city and to Gippsland. Then one day the wife went west and the kids and I settled in the part of the University town of Churchill, known as “the Don”. Take a walk with my 12 year old Tyler and I challenge you to find someone unknown to him. Sons and daughters fill the few hundred houses in a series of curving roads and courts abound the vast and lovely Glendonald. Tyler is a big brother to the tiny tots that play in every court. He stands alongside bigger brothers whilst they endlessly toy and tinker with rally bombs and trail bikes. He heads for the bush with friends, beyond the back fence to fish for yabbies from the creek and maybe follow the kangaroo mob as they feed on the hilltop and wonder at great goannas that do wander around. He is ready for a challenge, first on the site of a mishaps and dramas. He laughs with the games, he mops up the tears. He makes everybody feel unique whether he is giving you a serve of cheek or a shoulder to lean on. I am immensely proud of my children and Tyler brings fresh pride, opens my eyes. These are his mates round here, families born far from here and growing in this town. Where they’re from, it is for the kids they came. Whatever the various dreams, this is the children’s home. The houses went up twenty years ago but the homes are being laid down by the likes of Tyler and his world of mate’s and the people and friends that make this town what it is.

Film - Richard Frankland and John Foss, 'Granny Foster's House' (excerpt from Lady of the Lake), Koorie Heritage Trust

Granny Foster, that’s my mum’s mother, she used to live at the dormitory an’ we’d come down here on Christmas times an’ that an’ all the cousins was here Like there was the Saunders, the Clarks, Lovett’s, the King’s, the Foster’s, all of the families was here an’ at Christmas time it was a good thing, that was before they was all taken away, you know…an’ it was a good thing we’d all join together an’ have a Christmas at Granny’s an’ that was the lovely times that I remember, you know, an’ it was always joyful when we were here together with each other because that’s the way it was with us as kids. Even saying it Brother Reggie and Brother Harry, they lived over there with Auntie Ina an’ them, and that’s where we used to slide down the hill on bags, us kids used to…an’ they showed us all these things and put us in tyres and rolled us around in tyres an’ things like that, so it was a good sort of a place that we had. We didn’t know about what was really going on, sort of, you know as kids you don’t, but later on when we found out it was sort of disheartening to know the way that they took the children an’ you couldn’t do anything about it an’ even though the families fought, like went to court for them, they couldn’t do nothing…but there was happy times too, as kids you know…an’ when the fruit an’ that used to come there’s pears an’ apples an’ stuff like that down the old orchard…because that orchard was good then, it was giving good fruit…an’ then there was blackberry, granny used to make blackberry pies an’ when there was cream, we’d have blackberry pie and cream. We was really spoilt, when we were spoilt but then when we weren’t spoilt, we was living on hard tack like damper, but we loved damper and eel and all that sort of thing. The food that we ate was good food…it was only that you couldn’t get enough of the stuff we really liked an’ had to go into the shop all the time to get stuff like that, bread an’ meat and’that sort of thing.

Film - Tim Church, 'Me and My Mob', 'Us Mob' ACMI Digital Storytelling

NARRATOR: It was a life 60,000 years ago. It's a life now. Culture. I'm a Gunditjmara man from the Western District of Victoria. My homelands-- the volcanic plains. Our clan's totem is the yellow-tailed black cockatoo. And my skin totem is the emu.

We are part of the Gunditjmara Nation, which covers the areas from Warrnambool down through to Portland, up to Hamilton, back to Warrnambool. My people live from the land and build stone fish traps, weirs, and huts from the volcanic rocks. A lot of bad things have happened to our people, over the years, and culture has been lost.

I like to share my people's culture and history through my artwork and dance. I've been a part of the Windamara dance group for over eight years. Our dance group isn't just about performing. It's also about being a  tight family and keeping together-- helping each other out.

If a cousin is feeling down, we make sure they are feeling good by the end of the day. We're more like brothers. We can share everything together.

My family are the most important thing to me. I never like to see them hurt or upset. That's why I've always acted like the clown in our family. At every family function or party, I'll grab every opportunity to crack a joke or do something stupid. I've even been known to jump on a table and perform a strip show, with the whole room laughing up at me.

I just like to see people having a laugh, even if it is at my expense. And I reckon our people connect better when they're having a good time and keep their sense of humor.

When I moved to Melbourne, me, my cousin, and three other boys from Shep started a new dance group. It's going pretty good for us, so far. I'm loving it. It makes me proud of my people and where I'm from.

I just want to share our culture with other people, to make them aware that it is still pretty strong in our lives. And yes, I'm still known to take my clothes off every chance I get.

Film - Dixon Patten, 'The Black Nan', Koorie Heritage Trust

NARRATOR: This is my family story. My great grandmother's story. My story The Black Nan, there was always a mystery about you. You were always happy and never let anything worry you. No personal situation would phase you. As a young fella, I thought there was something I wasn't yet able to spell out. With your soft, wrinkly, dark skin, and silky, smooth white hair, you portrayed grace and strength, just like your totem, the eagle.

You smiled always, but I know in my heart that there was something behind it. What was it? Whenever I would ask about family, he told me to mind my own business and then smile. I could never understand why. I want to know more. He told me to be patient, and that if you seek, you shall find. And in time, I did, just like you said. It wasn't until your journey ended here on earth did I learn about what happened to you.

As a young girl, you were removed from your traditional home and family and taken to an unknown land, and made to live in isolation among strangers. How did you cope? Who did you turn to? People say that the missions of Christianity destroyed our language, culture, and identity. But you always said that if not for them, we wouldn't be here.

You kept it all inside, the pain and anger. How strong. You protected your family. You forgave, but never forgot. The happier times were more rewarding to share. Whenever life becomes overwhelming, and I begin to doubt, I close my eyes and travel to a peaceful place. I push my way through the thick scrub, and the aroma of the eucalyptus from the gum leaves filters into my nostrils, and I hear a gentle flow of running water.

I'm on your country now. I stare into the river at my reflection. The mist fades. An eagle shoots across the sky and circles mid-flight, waiting for me, I'm sure. It sweeps down to land in a tree. We stare at each other for a while. A glimmer of light catches my eye from the water. What is it?

My cross. I remind of who to turn to when in doubt. What a wonderful testament. Your faith, grace, and strength emulated into your children and their children's lives into mine. Thanks for your teachings.

Film - Jim Berg, Richard Frankland and John Foss, 'Brotherhood' (excerpt from Lady of the Lake), Koorie Heritage Trust

The old fellas, they used to…like my dad and Uncle Chrissie, they went to the First World War, an’ I seen them walk around all day with each other an’ not say a word…not say a word. That’s the way their brotherly love was with them, because they knew what they’d been through together an’ I think it was just…they wanted to be in companionship with each other an’ there with each other. So we just let ‘em sit around in the sun and gave them biscuits an’ tea and things like that, an’ they’d walk about, shoulder to shoulder, they’d walk about. You’d never hear them talkin’ about anything but you knew what they was thinkin’ an’ too you never heard them say much about what they went through, the horrors that they went through, in the war, an’ I think it’s a great pity that things like that were lost to us….like their families an’ that missed them, an’ when they didn’t come home that was a greater misery, you know, an’ it seemed to all be for nothing because people never got… our people never got anything out of that, not even a thank you, you know… for the soldiers that really served and really knew what it was to leave their homeland to go somewhere else to fight. When they came home they were shell shocked an’ things like that…there were things like that with ‘em…an’ ah…my mother was telling me that her an’ dad were walking along the road to Heyworth and a bullock roared…sung out…an’ soon as it did, he ran and hid behind a stump. He sort of wasn’t over the war …the effects of the war still, you know. He used to get terrible headaches from gas, mustard gas an’ things like that. They all suffered in their own way but they never let anybody know…you know.

Film - Richard Frankland and John Foss, 'Grandmothers' (excerpt from Lady of the Lake), Koorie Heritage Trust

Our grandmother, she used to walk into Heywood for the rations…an’ it was only a lousy bit of meat an’ bread an’ all that sort of thing, because the pension that they used to get, you know, was hardly anything. So it was bad, as the rations you could only get a bit of meat and bread an’ stuff like that…it wasn’t a big grocery list. She’d carry ‘em home on her back in a sugar bag…that’s how much she could only buy with the money that she got…an’ along the road…she came along the road…all along from Heywood, an’ there’s about five houses…there were then, along the road…an’ there was six or seven or five kids or whatever it was, an’ she had a lolly for every kid…an’ that was black an’ white kids…she had a lolly for everyone of those kids…to give them comin’ home in the dark. You know…she was a marvellous old woman she kept us on the straight and narrow. She used to tell us things about the Bible an’ things like that, you know, an’ in a way she taught us to be respectful of other people, you know…an’ even dad, an’ Uncle Chrissie, was another one. The old people used to say things to us that, even though they’re gone, we still remember them…an’ this is what I say with us there’s a spirituality there that we knew from these old people….like when it was a beautiful day Uncle Chrissie would say it was God’s own day. So, you know, you knew when you was doing wrong…if what you was doing was wrong an’ that’s when you’d get switched with the apple switch, you know, around the legs, because you knew better than that because you were taught better…an’ the elders that were around here then…they were…they were strict in a way of loving strict, they were, because they didn’t want to see you get hurt or they didn’t want you to be rude or anything to anybody, you know.

Film - Richard Frankland and John Foss, 'Greenvale' (excerpt from Lady of the Lake), Koorie Heritage Trust

Well this is Greenvale or the place we lived before went into Hamilton an’ things like that. This was a place where a lot of my people…our people came, mums relatives an’ things like that… they came from everywhere to Greenvale here…an’ there was always a home even though we had nothing, as usual, but it was always a home for somebody that could come here an’ feel at home with the place, because that’s what Greenvale meant to everybody. It done good things for people who didn’t have a place to live…people lived here like Aunty Li and Uncle Monty lived here before they moved down to the Mission and before they got hunted off there. Aunty Dina came through visiting…people came through visiting, even people from South Australia came through and visited here an’ so it was more or less the hub of the place here…because the Mission was sort of finished then, you know. There was Granny Foster…was still there an’ that then, but this was, I s’pose, closer to the Road and everything else an’ rather than go there… so a lot of people came here. Uncle Freddie lived down that way, him an’ his family, Peter Kanoa’s grandfather that everybody knows…they lived down there an’ there was nine children there. There was fifteen children altogether in Greenvale between the two houses. When the war came and everything sort of was uprooted then. We moved up to Hamilton too, from here, yeah we moved up there…an’ then we came back again to Greenvale…but the second time around then the houses got mysteriously burnt down an’ there was not electricity or anything here, there was nothing that would set a house alight. It must have been a devious move by somebody to get us off the land which it did do, which it did do. We owned the land because my father bought two places from the Mission, two cottages…they were two room cottages. One he put up here on Greenvale in 1934, that he had his dad and mum living there and whoever was there then with the family lived there as well an’ then in 1927 he bought the two rooms that we had here an’ that we knew as our house an’ until we got that place here. Dad bought it from the Mission, it’s documented that he bought these two places an’ that’s why I always say this was our home an’ Greenvale was ours, because otherwise they wouldn’t have let him put two houses on, one up there and one down here…you know he must have owned it.

Film - Richard Frankland and John Foss, 'The Mission' (excerpt from Lady of the Lake), Koorie Heritage Trust

I was born here, we’re at the Lake Condah Mission an’ I was born here in 1926 at the place we call the Dormitory, which is over that way. This place that you see here now behind me was at one time the Mission House where the Manager lived and this is where he controlled the whole Mission from, this place here. It was a big house, this was an’ a fire came through here in 1938 and burnt a lot of people out. The Mission wasn’t like it is now. It was full of life an’ everybody was happy, you know, in a way that they could be. We all knew each other, loved each other an’ things like that. But this place holds a great significance for a lot of our people even they’ve been moved off the Mission an’ the Mission has been desecrated, broken down and things like that, the houses where people had lived in that area in 1918 and all that sort of thing. We still hold a good memory here because I think when you are a child and hold a memory of a place that never fades. The journey through life is a different thing altogether. That’s where you build yourself up or let yourself down, one thing or the other. We used to roam all over this place but there were places we weren’t allowed to go. We weren’t allowed to go to places because of what the elders said, “don’t go there” an’ we never questioned ‘em. Once they said you don’t go you didn’t go and that was it. All the other things came out later on when we sort of found out about the Mission an’ what had happened here and went and looked at old records about how Stahle ran this place and how he treated our great ones, you know our grandfathers and grandmothers. In here my brother was born, my brother Charlie he was born here and my sister Feemie, so there’s three of us were born on the Mission …that’s why we hold it very dearly to ourselves.

Film - Richard Frankland and John Foss, 'Aces' (excerpt from Lady of the Lake), Koorie Heritage Trust

The greatest thing I think I’ve ever done was build ACES*…an’ that’s a place for Aboriginal Elders, an’ that came through because our people were dying in Melbourne…dying in…just rooms, you know, being found in rooms dead an’ things like that…an’ another woman that we really liked, she used to come with us in all our concert things, she died in a institution…we didn’t even know she died there for a week, buried a fortnight after…an’ I thought, well that’s it, you know, make somewhere where we can all keep them under our eyes and know where they are.

*(Aboriginal Community Elders Services)

Film - Richard Frankland and John Foss, 'Stolen Children' (excerpt from Lady of the Lake), Koorie Heritage Trust

The mother had gone into hospital, she had TB and so the kids were home but the father was up the bush cutting wood, getting wood and the police came out and took the kids an grabbed them and put them in the Police cells for that night.. They never even let any families know that the kids were there and that was the sort of sneaky thing that they done. But when they appeared in Court all the families went, like mum and dad went for them and Auntie Fanny and them done. Well people that were known amongst their people, that was the aboriginal community, they went to court and they weren’t aloud to take them. And those kids were put away and suffered, that sort of thing. The mother didn’t know where her kids were because nobody told her through welfare and she didn’t know, and she used to cry and she was a sick woman. She was in that hospital up there for two years, in Hamilton. And that’s the way they treated people, there was nothing there, no humanity was shown anybody, as far as I’m concerned anyway. And there was a lot of kids taken from here on welfare, a lot of kids were taken away and put in homes like Auntie Li’s kids, F…’s (?) kids they were put in the homes down at Ballarat, a lot of them went to Ballarat, an when the police took them they put them in the cell in Heywood, the foster kids through the night and they had to stop in a police cell and yet there was families that went there to the court to see if they could take them home because you know the extended family thing that’s the way it was with everybody and they tried but no, it was no use because they reckoned that still the upbringing wasn’t good enough for the kids you know.

Film - Ben Edwards, 'Memories of Mookie', Australian Centre for the Moving Image (ACMI)

BEN EDWARDS: My cousin's name is Mookie. He's 26. He was born on Swan Hill. He's my hero. Mookie used to make me laugh. We used to have talks together. Every time he goes up the street, he'll let me go with him. I was happy to go, because I could spend more time with him. Mookie would ask me if I was hungry, and he would buy me a pie. Mookie was a good deadly BMX rider. He taught me how to ride a bike when I was on training wheels.

I used to hate it when he teased me. He makes me feel ashamed and upset. Every time he used to tease me, I used to say, how you feel teasing me now? Then he would just laugh. Mookie moves away to Woolongong. It made me feel angry and sad because I thought I wasn't going to see them again. He and his family came down to Swan Hill to stay for a few weeks. I was happy to see Mookie and his family again. But they went back to Woolongong. We visit not long after. We went BMX riding. We had fun like we used to. Mookie shouldn't have died.

He was a young man with a seven year old daughter. Mookie was a brother to me. He's my hero.

Film - Nick Casey, 'My Pop', ACMI Digital Storytelling

I love my pop. He looks after all of my family. My pop had it hard when he was growing up. When someone in the family was sick, he would have to look after him. He's still doing it to this day. He's an old fellow, but he's cool for an old fellow. He lives in St. Arnaud. I love going there fishing with my pop because he's fun. He taught me a lot. He was the one that taught me how to put a slimy worm on a hook. He also will let me help when he fixes up lawnmowers. He tells me stories all about how it was growing up with his brothers and sisters. Sadly, many of his family's passed away. Now, he has just buried his mom. I hope I can be like my pop, looking after all my family when I'm older.