Film - Koorie Heritage Trust (Executive Producer), Kimba Thompson (Producer), 'Invasion' (excerpt from 'Wominjeka (Welcome)'), Koorie Heritage Trust

What must the old people have thought the first time they saw a huge white ship sail over the horizon. Some of them who remembered the experience told of monstrous birds or trees growing out of the sea. People were afraid and hid their children in the bush.

The old people first thought the white men were relatives returned from the spirit world. The fact that they had forgotten their language and customs was explained by their long journey from death back to life. Koori’s gradually realized that the settlers were ordinary men and women and these people were not visitors but intended to stay. Aboriginal customary law allowed for people to travel through each other territory but taking possession of another’s land and resources was unimaginable.

There was a lot of people from Lake Condah that went to the War. There was soldiers in the First World War. Five of my dad’s brothers…he and his brothers, there were five of them, went overseas and fought…an’ they were in the Light Horse…an’ everywhere else, they fought…Gallipoli , an’ all those places where the horror of war was worst, they were there in the middle of the fighting. I think why they went to war was because they really believed that the country was theirs…that Australia was their own an’ I believe that they went to war to fight and protect it from the enemy but when they came home the bad thing was that they never got any reward.

At a Referendum in 1967 with the YES vote of over 90% Australians amended the Constitution which allowed Aboriginals to be counted as human beings in the National Census.

Film - Koorie Heritage Trust (Executive Producer), Kimba Thompson (Producer), 'Oral History' (excerpt from 'Wominjeka (Welcome)'), Koorie Heritage Trust

Kids are beginning to understand now, who we are and thing like that. They’re being taught at school a different sort of a history about Aboriginal people or none at all. But when they see these places and know what’s happened there, like an’ our people fought and died on the land I think that that really makes them realize who they are, that they’re aboriginal people, an’ their got a heritage. There was blood spilt in the ground all over the place here in Victoria and a lot of it hasn’t been recorded. There’s a map with massacre sites and things like that on it but I mean we have still survived al that sort of thing and we are living in the future as well but you can’t have the future without a history of the past.

An’ the police came out an’ took the kids and grabbed them and put em in the police cell for that night. They never even let any families know that the kids were there and that was the sort of sneaky thing they done. Why me? Why was I taken? I didn’t feel that I got the love I was supposed to get… It’s like a hole in your heart that can never heal…like a kid’s supposed to get at that age. My feeling throughout life of hurt, pain and neglect began as far back as I can remember. That’s why I got in with the wrong crowd. I suppose. I was taken from my family along with my biological brother. They seem to care more. I didn’t know any Aboriginal people, none at all. He was with me through everything. I was placed with a white family and I was just… If it wasn’t for him I probably wouldn’t be alive today. … I was white. We moved from South Gippsland to east Gippsland by this time I was about nine years old. I never knew I accepted myself to being a black person until…I don’t know. My parents pulled me out of school because the welfare were taking the Koori kids from school, never to be seen again.

Film - Richard Frankland (Writer/director), John Foss (Producer), 'Massacre Sites' (excerpt from 'Lady of the Lake, Aunty Iris’s story'), Koorie Heritage Trust

People don’t really realize what happened in those days an’ if the truth would come out an’ people would understand what happened to our people then this feeling of sorrow that we still got in our hearts when we come to a place like this and see the desecration that’s been done an’ the way that the people were herded together like…like…sheep or animals, with no piece of humanity there to show who they were or anything else an’ I think that’s a great pity because…they used the land the way it should have been used an’ they lived the life that nothing was desecrated or…you know…pulled to pieces or anything else…not like it is now. They’ve gone and fenced off…an’ places are fenced and everything. The old people didn’t tell us everything…you know, those sort of things. I know my granny Lovett, she was only a little girl an’ her mother an’ her hid in the swamp…must have been over here…when all that was going on…an’ that’s how they got saved…she got saved. So there was things around here…they must have seen a massacre. Granny Lovett was saying that her an’ her mother hid in the swamp…see, she’ was only a baby sort of…an’ they hid there until everything was over. Oh, there was hundreds of people died in the massacres which…but what I think you can say is, there was massacres all over the place but they probably weren’t recorded, because they had a shooting board that they had with Aboriginal people…they went out an’ they shot ‘em an’ they come from every where to have a shoot against the Aboriginal race…an’ they shot women, kids and everything else…an’ that wasn’t…you know they wouldn’t say how many they shot, they wouldn’t put that down, because it was sport to them, it was like shooting animals…and that’s why massacres must have been everywhere, not only in one spot, because I’m sure that it happened all over the place…I know it happened all over Victoria, that people were shot down and things like that…but here I think was the worse because the Eumerella War took a lot of people away, you know, with fighting and things like that…but I’m proud of my people…how they stood up against the gun…you know.

Film - Richard Frankland (Writer/director), John Foss (Producer), 'Chimney Flats' (excerpt from 'Lady of the Lake, Aunty Iris’s story'), Koorie Heritage Trust

This place here was built by, a settler I suppose you’d call him, an’ I think that the reason that it was so fortified was because it was used as a fort against attack from my people. I think that’s why this was built, this immense structure of stone and things like that, an’ especially that big chimney was because of…probably the attacks that were coming from the Kerrupjmara people that lived here because this was still Gunditjmara country around here an’ the lakes an’ all this part was sort of, their ground, their heritage sort of thing, you know what I mean…an’ they were fierce people, they were fierce fighters they were, so I mean, have a look at the structure that was here an’ not only that but this other side there too, there’s a wall of stone…an’ these people must have been very fearful of the attacks that they would get from my people an’ I think it’s a great thing to know that there’s a structure like this, you might as well call it a fort, against my people that’s out here, an’ I mean, they only had spears, where other people had guns an’ other things like that, so they must have been…they were a fearful force.

There was a great war too, they called the Eumerella Wars, that was fought by the Gunditjmara people an’ it lasted for 18 years. It lasted for 18 years an’ 1843, I think, that they printed in the paper that the war was finally finished…but that’s the sort of fighters that our people were an’ that’s the sort of stock that we come from. I can imagine ‘em all of a night time, you know sort of, rounding up all their cows or whatever they had and running them straight into the house almost with all this fence an’ that around ‘em…an’ our people, you got to imagine, that they only had bare feet…they were barefooted, you know, while these, usurpers that I call them, were here with shoes and that on you know…an’ I recon this is a good part of history here where it really shows too that our people could fight.

Film - Richard Frankland (Writer/director), John Foss (Producer), 'Murderers Flat' (excerpt from 'Lady of the Lake, Aunty Iris’s story', Koorie Heritage Trust

-Right through here, this area's heavy in culture to our people, to Iris as our sister and to individual families that grew up here. The area over there, we weren't allowed to go to, because of a big massacre. What they did, they brought him out of the stones, because they couldn't shoot at them, or kill them with clubs, and things like they did do. What they did, they brought them out of the stones with flour.

And my people were starving by then, because they couldn't do their natural hunting, because they were the hunted.

-Yeah.

-So they gave them flour with arsenic in it. And then they shot the ones that they realized what was happening when people were dying.

-When they killed a person, they shot people. That was a massacre because those people were killed because they were the indigenous people of this area, and it was really only for a parcel of reasons that it happened. And we knew all about that. We knew that they were shot because of the land and the greed that was there. So what I say is you can never say how many people have been massacred-- and I'm saying massacred.

You could never say that, because individuals are shot.

-Yeah. If you take one area-- like I said, maybe 700 to 800-- well, that's only one area.

-Yeah.

-So you could walk through here. There's probably the bones of our people lying over there around underneath that stone.

-And the thing is that when bodies appear in the mouth of the river-- are found-- that's an indication of people. We weren't allowed to go to these sites, because even though they were killed, and things like that, it was a sacred site to us, and the blood of their people were still on the ground there, and we couldn't walk over that.

And that's the way it is with aboriginal people. That's why we pay respect when we go to a cemetery.

-Mhm. Yes.

Film - Richard Frankland (Writer/director), John Foss (Producer), 'First World War' (excerpt from 'Lady of the Lake, Aunty Iris’s story'), Koorie Heritage Trust

There was a lot of people from Lake Condah that went to the War. There was soldiers in the First World War. Five of my dads brothers, he an’ his brothers, there was five of them, went overseas an’ fought and they were in the Light Horse an’ everywhere else, they fought…ah, Gallipoli… and all of those places where the horror of war was worst, they were there in the middle of the fighting.

Where I’m standing now is near our creek, the Darlot Creek an’ the place that I’m standing in, now, is of great significance to our people that came from Lake Condah because this is where the ashes were scattered of a great warrior, Captain Reg Saunders. Brother Reggie, I call him my brother, an’ brother Harry an’ brother Wally Alberts, they all went to war, in the Second World War, an’ brother Harry was killed over there, an’ brother Wally Alberts was captured over there….an’ this place, Lake Condah, here on the old Mission was the place where those boys grew up with us an’ we knew them as brothers an’ they knew us as brothers and sisters. .And it’s a great loss when people like that go away from their home…homeland, go overseas an’ never come back. That’s when we miss them most. I think why they went to war was because that they really believed that the country was theirs, that Australia was their own an’ I believe they went to war to fight and protect it from the enemy…but when they came home, the mad thing was that they never got any reward an’ the Mission…an’ round about the Mission, was cut up for Soldier Settlement an’ so it was all in vain what they did. They weren’t allowed to drink or, some of them… weren’t allowed to vote I don’t think… an’ they had fights up in hotels an’ that because they went to the war an’ weren’t allowed to have a glass of beer. One was the pub up in Condah that they had a fight with. They were inside an’ the publican was outside I believe, in the gutter with a lantern waiting for the police to come an’ throw the rest of them out…an’ that’s the sort of thing that they used to do. They…they knew who they were an’ they hated people putting them down an’ that was the bad part of them even though, like, people lost their lives and things like that…an’ this old memory part here, I can never forget because this was the last saying…and saying goodbye to brother Reggie an’ we done that with his ashes and scattered them around…an’ there was a lot of people here too who felt the same way.

Film - Richard Frankland (Writer/director), John Foss (Producer), 'Brotherhood' (excerpt from 'Lady of the Lake, Aunty Iris’s story'), 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 (Writer/director), John Foss (Producer), 'War Songs' (excerpt from 'Lady of the Lake, Aunty Iris’s story'), Koorie Heritage Trust

The song that we used to sing was on their last leave when we’d have a send off for them would be the song the ‘Maoris Farewell’ an’ it went “Now is the hour that we must say goodbye, soon you’ll be sailing far across the sea, while you’re away O please remember me, I’ll still be waiting here for your return”…an’ Uncle Chrissie Saunders my Uncle, brother Reggie and brother Harry’s father, said that was the song that was sung with the soldiers, he said, that were great men an’ brave men an’ before they’d leave each other that was a song that they would sing before they went into battle or before they left each other…an’ that’s why we always sang that song for our boys when they were going because it was a great memory to think that that we thought of them in that fashion.

Film - Richard Frankland (Writer/director), John Foss (Producer), 'Second World War' (excerpt from 'Lady of the Lake, Aunty Iris’s story'), Koorie Heritage Trust

Where I’m standing now is near our creek, the Darlot Creek an’ the place that I’m standing in, now, is of great significance to our people that came from Lake Condah because this is where the ashes were scattered of a great warrior, Captain Reg Saunders. Brother Reggie, I call him my brother, an’ brother Harry an’ brother Wally Alberts, they all went to war, in the Second World War, an’ brother Harry was killed over there, an’ brother Wally Alberts was captured over there….an’ this place, Lake Condah, here on the old Mission was the place where those boys grew up with us an’ we knew them as brothers an’ they knew us as brothers and sisters. .And it’s a great loss when people like that go away from their home…homeland, go overseas an’ never come back. That’s when we miss them most. I think why they went to war was because that they really believed that the country was theirs, that Australia was their own an’ I believe they went to war to fight and protect it from the enemy…but when they came home, the mad thing was that they never got any reward an’ the Mission…an’ round about the Mission, was cut up for Soldier Settlement an’ so it was all in vain what they did. They weren’t allowed to drink or, some of them… weren’t allowed to vote I don’t think… an’ they had fights up in hotels an’ that because they went to the war an’ weren’t allowed to have a glass of beer. One was the pub up in Condah that they had a fight with. They were inside an’ the publican was outside I believe, in the gutter with a lantern waiting for the police to come an’ throw the rest of them out…an’ that’s the sort of thing that they used to do. They…they knew who they were an’ they hated people putting them down an’ that was the bad part of them even though, like, people lost their lives and things like that…an’ this old memory part here, I can never forget because this was the last saying…and saying goodbye to brother Reggie an’ we done that with his ashes and scattered them around…an’ there was a lot of people here too who felt the same way.