ABSTRACT
Ooldea siding, on the railway line between Adelaide and Perth, was in 1941 home to a few fettlers and gangers and their families, a watering halt for steam engines, an optional stop for travellers on the main passenger trains, and a supply-stop for the weekly tea-and-sugar train. When the author first arrived at Ooldea there were about 200 people in the main camp. Oodnadatta in 1944 was a small town in northern South Australia, on the railway line between Port Augusta and Alice Springs. Some women of partly Aboriginal physical descent and partly Aboriginal cultural upbringing lived in the town, but the main Aboriginal camp was a short distance away. Point McLeay mission station was established in 1859 by the Reverend George Taplin, and had a profound influence on the lower Murray and Lakes region. Taplin's attitude to Aboriginal culture was made up of two dimensions, over and above his humane concern for Aborigines as people.
