WAC332/23 – Madeline Purdie

– 45 x 120 cm

Madeline Purdie is a Gija Community Leader and Artist. Gija country, in the East Kimberley, has the highest concentration of massacre sites in Western Australia. Madeline is passionate about educating Australia about this history through her artworks. Despite these hard times, Madeline is proud of her ancestors and community for remaining strong in their culture. Like the Elders before her, Madeline carries on the tradition of painting about the truth-telling stories of the violence of the station days, and paints with ochres collected across Gija country, as taught to her by her mother, Shirley Purdie, and grandmother, Madigan Thomas. 

For her Mistake Creek Massacre painting, Madeline explains, “This story what my old people told me. They told me that Old mister Rhatigan, the telegraph linesman, was sleeping in the old telegraph building (that big green house, at Warmun Art Centre). He had an employee, an Aboriginal tracker named Nipper (Bill) from Darwin somewhere. Somewhere that side, Northern Territory, and this employee for him he went to Mistake Creek, where all our ancestors had travelled from as far as Springvale, Bedford Downs, Mabel Downs, Texas, and Lissadell, to have their holiday camp and exchange gifts (wunan). They all gathered there at their holiday camp and was cooking a big feast of kangaroos in the goon-goon hole. The young mothers were washing and bathing at Mistake Creek when that Aboriginal tracker for Rhatigan bin trying have an affair with one of these ladies and she said no I already got husband, so he took a sulk. He got angry that she didn’t want to have an affair with him, so he took that pet cow of Rhatigan – he had a pet cow with a big bell on it. He took it long way behind that hill and hid it, he tied it up to a tree and he took the bell off the cow and brought it back to Rhatigan and he said, “My boss look here them people there at that holiday camp at Mistake Creek here them kill your cow and they cooking it up!” but they was cooking kangaroo. They had kangaroo covered up. And he bin go and tell his boss liar story and the boss and him bin go back and shoot all them people there… at Mistake Creek they just go and kill the lot, including all the children. And they were just waiting for their dinner to be cooked. Then after he killed them, he opened the goon-goon hole up to find that they were only cooking five kangaroos in there. So Rhatigan and his tracker, they just chucked all my ancestors in the fire and burnt them. Burnt all the remains of our people.”