Learning times. An experience of Arabana life and mission education

Abstract

Mission experiences in Aboriginal history have been divers and controversial. The situation at Finniss Springs South Australia combining pastoral station and mission brings its own unique variation to this theme. Although the environment was harsh and the situation demanded continual adjustment to climatic extremes of flood and drought, the memories of the children growing up at Finniss from the late 1930s onwards are of 'happy times' and learning times. They are not filled with bitterness and repression as so often is the case. By this time mission approaches had 'mellowed'. The complete removal of children from relatives and culture which occurred in the 1920s around Oodnadatta was ceasing. The influence of one European man, Francis Dunbar Warren, in a position to facilitate his younger Aboriginal friends and relatives receiving a western education within a pastoral environment, complementing that received from their own extended families, was also crucial.