ABSTRACT
The Ancestors’ Words project works with ancestors’ letters in the archives of West Australian government departments that implemented the state’s oppressive race-based policies and legislation from 1897–1972. Written in the ancestors’ words, they are testimony to the cruel hardships and oppression of settler colonisation. They also record the ancestors’ determination to claim their rights. Patterns of their thoughts and traces of their touch are present in their personal expressions and handwriting. This chapter outlines Nyungar project strategies to decolonise the government archives. Elders in the project Nyungar Working Group claim the letters as foundational documents of the Nyungar nation. The heart of the project is a process based on Nyungar kartijin, ethics and protocols led by Nyungar elder Darryl Kickett to return copies of the letters to Elder descendants of the letter writers. The letters’ political and spiritual power becomes palpable as they are reunited with the riches of family memories and storytelling. Also returned to Elders with great care and sensitivity are file pages documenting the toxic responses of government officers to the letters. These words from the past speak directly to the Uluru Statement: they ‘tell plainly the structural nature of our problem…the torment of our powerlessness’. The chapter also discusses the shifting goals for achieving decolonisation. Family and community meetings and workshops prompted calls for a Nyungar role in their management. Pessimism about decolonising state archives was the outcome of a workshop between Elders, archivists and Nelson Mandela’s archivist Verne Harris. The magnetic power of original letters was on show at the State Records Office when families openly shed tears of sorrow and joy. A suggestion to add the letters to a State Library on-line site for Aboriginal photos was declined due to the level of state control. Community opinion shifted to consolidate regional strategies to establish local Nyungar keeping places. However, a project survey showed the lack of resource capacity to achieve this goal. A proposal for a Nyungar Digital Keeping Place followed. The original call for keeping places with physical copies of letters and family genealogies and histories remains the much-preferred option.
