A Yarn With Sandra Hill

A conversation with Sue Schlueter and Sandra Hill

Aunty Sandra Hill is a renowned Wadandi/Pibbulmun/Menang artist, whose work is recognised nationally and internationally. She is also an elder of the Wadandi people.  

Sue Schlueter has been working with her on a public art project, representing a songline of the Wadandi people, at Yallingup Lagoon in Western Australia. 

They had a yarn about her life as a Stolen Generation survivor, the place of art in that life and the importance of public art works.

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Sue Schlueter
Part of your early life was spent on the coast in the NW of WA, Sandra. Where was that? 

Sandra Hill
I lived with my parents and three siblings at Point Samson, up north near Roebourne. My Dad worked in the mine at Wittenoom but we lived on the coast and my Mum worked as a maid at the Point Sampson motel. Our house was close to the beach and it was a very free and happy life. 

Sue Schlueter
That changed very suddenly when you were six. What happened? 

Sandra Hill
A policeman turned up one day with a piece of paper. Dad was away in the Eastern States doing army training so only Mum was at home that day. We were hiding behind our mum when he gave her the piece of paper. She started crying and then he asked us kids if we’d like to go for a ride in his 4WD. Being little kids we jumped at the chance. He drove around the local streets for a while and then we were on the main road to Roebourne. We knew that road from going to school and we started to cry and told him to take us back to mum. He didn’t. 

Sue Schlueter
Where were you taken? 

Sandra Hill
He drove us straight to the Roebourne police station. Trish and I were taken to the hospital next to the jail and we were both given chloroform for reasons neither of us knew. We were then taken to the old Roebourne Jail where Barbara and our baby brother were. 

Sue Schlueter
How did you kids respond to this situation? 

Sandra Hill
Barbara was eight, I was six and our sister and brother were much younger. We decided we wanted to go home so we started walking back to Point Samson. Barbara carried Darryl on her back and I carried Trish on mine. The policeman came after us in his car. We had nowhere to go, he grabbed us all and put us in the car. After that we were locked up in the cell for a day or so, then driven to Port Hedland and flown down to Perth. We were admitted to the Mount Lawley Receiving Home before they took us, the next day, to ‘Sister Kate’s Home for Half Caste Children.’ 

Sue Schlueter
I can’t imagine your mother’s pain when you children were stolen from her. 

Sandra Hill
Dad was away, Mum couldn’t do anything about it, she didn’t know where we’d gone – she was powerless to get us back. Back in those days the Welfare had complete control over Aboriginal people. 

Sue Schlueter
Why? You had a stable family life and your parents were employed, what was the justification? 

Sandra Hill
The 1905 Aborigines Act was the justification. 

Sue Schlueter
Can you explain that? 

Sandra Hill
It was a government policy legislated for controlling and assimilating Aboriginal people. In those times the thinking was to take lighter skinned children away from their Aboriginal parents. The government knew there was no atavism in Aboriginal people, no ‘throwback’ gene. If a black woman married a white man her children would become lighter in colour, and if that child married a white person their children would be even whiter. Section 41 of the 1905 Aborigines Act of 1905 was created to ‘breed out the black.’ That’s why all Aboriginal people right up to the 1950s had to get government permission to marry.  My mum and dad had to get Native Welfare permission in 1948. 

Sue Schlueter
How long did that policy exist? 

Sandra Hill
This went on for years! My mother and her older sister were stolen in 1933.  My grandfather, mum’s dad, was stolen before her and my great grandfather was also stolen before him.  This was ongoing, well into the 1970s.  

When my mother was taken, she was sent to Moore River Native Settlement to be trained. The Protector of Aboriginals, Mr A. O. Neville, personally inspected the children there and, because she had lighter skin, she was sent to Sister Kate’s Home for domestic training. This is the very same place where we ended up in 1958. 

Sue Schlueter
‘Sister Kate’s’ orphanage figures strongly in the life of so many West Australian Aboriginal people who were stolen from their families as children. What was it like for you there? 

Sandra Hill
It was disgusting. I hated it. It was a bad place full of cruel adults whose rules were impossible for any small child to follow. 

None of us had any control over any part of our life. We were fed disgusting food and clothed with charity hand-me-downs, there was no love, no sense of family. It was violent and abusive. And we were told endless lies. The Welfare told us that our mother didn’t want us and that she’d left us under a sheet of tin in the bush where we were found and ‘rescued’ by the policeman. 

Sue Schlueter
After three years you were fostered out to a white family. What was the situation there? 

Sandra Hill
The Welfare Officer kept telling us lies about our mum and dad. It was strange being part of their family, I never felt I belonged a lot of the time, especially later on as I got older. After about 10 months Barbara came to join me and we both stayed there until we were married. We always knew we were different; I always knew I was Aboriginal, but I didn’t know anything about our extended family, our history or our culture. We were treated differently to how our white ‘brothers’ in the family were treated. 

Sue Schlueter
How did art start to become important in your life? 

Sandra Hill
At primary school I had a teacher, Mr Hall, who believed I was really good at drawing. He always encouraged me and even bought me new boxes of coloured chalk so I could do Christmas designs on the classroom blackboards. I’ll never forget him saying to me that I could be a real artist when I grow up. 

I kept telling myself that throughout my life. 

Sue Schlueter
Did you continue to think about, and worry about, your mother? 

Sandra Hill
Always.  

We had no information. We weren’t allowed access to any of the Welfare files, which contained our history. I had such resentment about that. While working as the Aboriginal Liaison Officer at Midland TAFE I started researching Aboriginal history and culture and was horrified to find out the true history of what my people had suffered since colonisation. When the Statute of Limitations on my Welfare files was reached, Barbara and I applied for mum’s information to try and find out why we were removed from our family. 

Sue Schlueter
Was that straightforward? 

Sandra Hill
We were told our dad had died – that was a lie, told to us by the Welfare. We just hit a wall trying to find our mother. The names and dates didn’t match. Later, when it all came out, we found that the Welfare records had changed her birth name from Dorothy to Doreen and even changed her date of birth – which made her impossible to find. 

Sue Schlueter
So how did you come to find her? 

Sandra Hill
We were visiting our foster mother one day and talking about how frustrated we were at not being able to find the information we needed. She asked why we were spending so much time and effort trying to find our mother. I was gobsmacked and told her that this was our mother we were trying to find, our family, our history – trying to get a sense of who we were and where we belonged! 

It was then she told us that our Mum was in Geraldton. She had known for 20 years where mum was and had never once told us. 

We were able to get an address and write to Mum – and she wrote back. 

Sue Schlueter
Were you able to re-connect with your parents? 

Sandra Hill
We finally got to reunite with mum and dad at my sister’s house at Innaloo. It was a strange experience. My younger sister and I were very wary about whether or not she was our mum, but as soon as we got there, we knew she was. My sister Barbara was the spitting image of her and everything just fell into place after that. 

Sue Schlueter
Could you re-establish a relationship with your mother? 

Sandra Hill
In 1994 I applied for and got a job in Geraldton as an Aboriginal Cultural Arts Officer. For the next twelve months I would see mum every single day, either before or after work, for lunch or a cuppa and a yarn. She would come out to the farm I was living on and we’d have a barbecue and just hang out. That’s when she saw her Native Welfare files for the very first time. It was a really watershed moment, being there. The mother/daughter relationship I’d hoped for didn’t fit right, because we hadn’t stayed connected throughout my childhood. But we did become best mates. It was the best year of my life.  

Sue Schlueter
Did you always have a full recollection of that moment of being taken from your family? 

Sandra Hill
No, it was much later on. My partner at the time was working in Port Hedland and I took the bus up to spend some time with him. He suggested that we drive to Roebourne and Point Samson, that it might be helpful to confront my past. I thought okay, I’m with you, I can do this. 

Sue Schlueter
Did you feel apprehensive? 

Sandra Hill
As we drove from Port Hedland to Roebourne and on to Point Samson, I drew a mud map of what I remembered – where the bay was, where the beach was, where the jetty was. I drew the trees. I could remember where everything in the landscape was and talked to him about it as we drove. When we got to Point Samson there was a great big new car park, but as soon as we got down on to the beach it was all exactly as I had drawn it. I even counted the trees – there were five trees I’d drawn and there were five trees there. They were tall skinny trees with long needle leaves – I know now that they are she-oaks, but we used to call them the singing trees. As the wind came off the sea into those branches, the trees would sing. 

Sue Schlueter
That must have been a really emotional moment. 

Sandra Hill
I used to wonder did I make this all up? Did I make it up so that I’d had a life, so that I’d had parents? Was it all in my mind to make me feel better? And to be honest with you, I’d wiped the event out of my mind. It wasn’t till we got to Point Samson that day and walked all that area that was so familiar, and I found my house, that it all came flooding back. The minute I was standing in front of that house I could see the policeman and the 4WD. I just collapsed, and my fella had to grab me. I said to him ‘Oh my god, I know exactly what happened.’ 

Sue Schlueter
Sandra, you have told me your story and I have seen you recounting it in other situations. It seems apparent that each time the retelling is painful and difficult. Why do you put yourself through this emotional distress? 

Sandra Hill
I think because people tend to think it’s all in the past, that Stolen Generation kids were in the past; that it happened a long time ago. But it didn’t. I’m still alive and I’m Stolen Generation. My mother was Stolen Generation. It went on into the 1970s. I’m still around! There are lots of middle-aged men and women still here who are Stolen Generation. They’re still around and they were forcibly removed – stolen – from their families.  

Sue Schlueter
So, hearing it actually makes it more real? 

Sandra Hill
Learning the personal side of it and listening to the experience makes people take it into their hearts and not just their heads. 

We can justify anything. We justify murder, we justify war, we justify a whole bunch of horrible things, but you can’t justify it when you’re hearing someone talk about the heartbreaking experience of being taken from their family, you know? 

So, people tend to take it in at a heart level, not at a cognitive, intellectual level and I’ve seen that happen over many, many decades. So, the only way is to talk it, so that’s what I do. Mind you, I don’t do it for every Tom, Dick, and Harry.  

I do it for people who really need it. Police, educators, judges, and magistrates – people who can change the way that they interact with our people and maybe see our culture in a different light. We have to stop the negative stereotypical thinking that all our people are bad, because there’s a knock-on effect from that. 

Sue Schlueter
Your art reflects a world of hurt, pain, loss, and marginalisation drawn from your own life and the experiences of your people. Has it helped you? 

Sandra Hill
My art has played an important role in helping me reclaim my cultural and personal identity.  

Art gave me a voice, which made me strong. It helped to guide me back home, back to my family, my people, and my community. Art has been the one constant in my life. 

There have been angry periods, but art has actually helped me to tell my story, process my grief and turn that anger into healing. I want people to understand what’s been done to my people because until there’s real understanding there can be no real reconciliation.  

Sue Schlueter
One of your recent successes in the area of public art was your creation for the new Capel Police Station. Why did you decide to take on that project? 

Sandra Hill
That was part of trying to move to education and healing.  

I’ve hated the police, hated them all my life – it was the police that destroyed my family by taking us kids away. But the new Police Commissioner, Chris Dawson seems genuine in wanting to see real change.  

Sue Schlueter
Are you involved in that? 

Sandra Hill
I’m currently doing Cultural Awareness Workshops with the Wadandi Cultural Custodians from the Undalup Association and the Police Department. 

I had a large group of them recently, two from every station in the South West, and they just don’t know the history of police interaction with our people. These weren’t just young fellas – there were older guys there too, but when I asked who had heard of the 1905 Aborigines Act, not one of them put their hand up. Not one! And this is the legislation that enabled the stealing of children away from their families – for generations! 

I presented them with my family Native Welfare File documents and I said to them, ‘It probably feels like I’m hounding you fellas, but you have to understand I was taken by a policeman and I hated police, hated them, never trusted them and it was because of that experience when I was six years old.’ 

Sue Schlueter
That’s your experience and the lived experience of so many Aboriginal people. 

Sandra Hill
It wasn’t the fault of these officers, but it will be unless they change the way they see us, the way they treat us, the way they behave toward us, the disrespect that we’re constantly shown, and the racism we’re faced with from the police establishment. Unless they understand why the bad feelings toward them are there, they’ll never understand why our people respond so negatively toward them. Things are changing for the better in regard to police engagement with our people since we have been conducting these workshops. 

But I’ve got a story to tell you about me and the Police Commissioner. 

Sue Schlueter
I’d love to hear it. 

Sandra Hill
One of my artworks incorporates an apron – a maid’s apron that I handmade myself, referencing my mother’s Stolen Generation experience as a maid.  

The apron is the centrepiece of the artwork, but it also incorporates photographs, letters and some printed material – including information about one of my white ancestors, Elijah Dawson. That piece was bought by Janet Holmes A’Court and was on display as part of the collection at her Vasse Felix Art Gallery.  

Janet told me that she had noticed a woman looking at my artwork for a very long time, who appeared to become quite emotional. When asked if everything was okay, the woman said she had been reading all the paperwork very carefully and had realised that her ancestor, Elijah Dawson, was also the ancestor of the artist, Sandra Hill.  She had never known that her family had any Aboriginal links, and she couldn’t wait to tell her brother about it. Her brother is Police Commissioner, Chris Dawson. 

Sue Schlueter
Wow! How do you feel about that? 

Sandra Hill
I just tucked it into my mind, but at the opening of the Capel Police Station, he was there, along with the Premier and all the media. When I was pointed out to him, he just came running to me calling ‘Sandra Hill!’ with his arms wide open. 

During his speech he acknowledged the relationship, describing how Elijah Dawson had been living in the Augusta area, had formed a relationship with an Aboriginal woman and that a daughter had been born of that union. He told everyone there that he and I shared a great, great grandfather. 

When he became Police Commissioner, Chris said that he would see to it that an Aboriginal flag flew from every police station in the State. At the time I thought ‘Yeah right, that’s a nice idea,’ but he’s actually made it happen. 

Sue Schlueter
Sandra your art has taken a bit of a back seat recently to your work as a Wadandi elder. How important to you is this education of young Aboriginal people?  

Sandra Hill
It’s virtually taken over my life! My Culture and my Country is everything to me. 

When I was given Eldership through my Aunties in Bunbury, I took on the responsibility for working with and teaching not just my own family, but also our young people, to hopefully reconnect them with their culture and the country they live on. 

Our young people are our only hope for the future of our ongoing culture. We need to build in them a strong sense of their own identity as well as their cultural identity, so that they are able to take on the responsibility of caring for Country into the future.  

Sue Schlueter
The development of the Korrianne Gnwirri statue is part of the education process too, isn’t it? 

Sandra Hill
It is. Korrianne Gnwirri, (Korrianne the Beautiful), was part of the song line of the Wadandi people that Cultural Custodian Wayne Webb shared with the Yallingup community to develop a piece of public art. The song line tells how Aboriginal families would come to Yallingup when the tides were very, very low to hunt and gather seafood.  

The entire group would start the day by catching the little orange rock crabs and crush them up for burley. When the tide was at its lowest point, the men would take their spears out onto the reef platform, throw out the burley and spear any of the larger fish that came up to take it. The women and girls worked along the cliffs gathering abalone and other shellfish while the children were sent up the creek to catch gilgies.  Towards the evening, some of the young girls would go over to the Slippery Rocks area, where there are pockets of shells in among the rocks. They wove the shells and wildflowers they found into their hair for decoration. At the end of the day, all the seafood would be combined for the families to have a big feed. 

Sue Schlueter
What is Korrianne’s significance? 

Sandra Hill
Korrianne represents one of the young girls who was part of the group and has her own particular story of love and loss. She was promised in marriage, according to tribal law, to an older hunter, Datton. She would not go against that law, but was secretly in love with a younger man, Medinite. Medinite knew his love for Korrianne was hopeless – he stopped eating and eventually died. The statue shows Korrianne looking wistfully at the horizon, Kuranup, where the spirit of Medinite has gone to join the ancestors. 

Sue Schlueter
What was your role in the project? 

Sandra Hill
I did the original concept drawings from stories Wayne Webb, as Cultural Custodian, had told me and I was to mentor the sculptor chosen for the project. 

Sue Schlueter
Why was that mentoring so important? 

Sandra Hill
This young girl, the statue, had to be a pre-colonial Wadandi girl representing our people as they lived in those times. It was really important that she looked authentic, a SW Wadandi/Pibbulmun girl – and we were a well-fed people. There were so many food resources in the South West, from both the land and the sea, that our bones were very well covered! 

The sculptor is not an Aboriginal artist and she had to lose her Western aesthetic for the development of the clay model of the young girl. That’s where I was able to help her. I found reference photographs from the early settlement period of Western Australia so she had a real idea of what a girl of those times would have looked like. 

Sue Schlueter
Were you happy with the result? 

Sandra Hill
Very happy. I chose the position on the rocks where she would sit, so it matched the song line, and as she was installed, I knew she was beautiful there.  

This statue will help educate locals and visitors about a part of Wadandi Culture and hopefully help towards real reconciliation. 

It’s also a focus for Aboriginal people because she is the first female Aboriginal statue in the South West.  We watched the young Aboriginal girls from Busselton SHS unveiling the sign telling the story of Korrianne. We knew they would be sharing the story with their families and bringing them back to see Korrianne. 

Sue Schlueter
You’ve described your current project to me as probably your final public art piece and your most important. What is it? 

Sandra Hill
I was awarded the commission to design the Stolen Generation Memorial to be installed in Wellington Square in Perth. 

The Stolen Generation has always been the primary focus for my artwork. I understand the grief and heartache of those who were forcibly removed from their families because I have lived it. I wanted to create something that was respectful, cultural but also imaginative, so people could connect with it at many different levels. 

The memorial will centre on five Mia Mias (dwellings) which represents the Kalleep (camp). The openings of the Mias will be oriented to face the five regions of WA from which children were stolen and will feature a central piece that will consist of a male and a female Kaarak (Red Tailed Black Cockatoo) feather.  

Sue Schlueter
Are the Mias fully enclosed? 

Sandra Hill
The Mias are simple remnants; minimal structures which will symbolise the loss of family, the breakdown of our communities and our culture. When our children were taken away, we abandoned our ‘homes’ and moved away to stop the endless grief from swallowing us.  

Sue Schlueter
Can you tell me the story of the concrete floor detail in the Mias? 

Sandra Hill

In the 1970s I saw a video of an Aboriginal gentleman talking about the day that he and his siblings were taken. The family lived in a small humpy. When his parents opened the door, the only thing left of their children were their footprints in the sandy floor of their home. The parents were so heartbroken they closed the door and never allowed anyone to enter the house again, for fear of losing the only thing that they had left of their children – their footprints.  

The poignancy of that story gave me the idea of asking Stolen Generation survivors to have their little ones walk across the damp concrete floor of each of the Mias. The footprints, of their children and grandchildren, will symbolise a free generation of Aboriginal children who stayed with their families and their communities. 

Sue Schlueter
Will the Memorial be clearly visible? 

Sandra Hill
The centrepiece of the Memorial will be two 6.2m high Red Tail Black Cockatoo feathers, made from perforated, painted aluminium. Internal lighting will make the red areas glow through the perforations and create the colour and patterns of the feathers at night. 

I want this to be a beacon that draws our people to the memorial. I hope that being in the space with the artwork, sharing memories, and reflecting on the past together can bring some comfort and healing to the spirits of our people who were forcibly removed from everything that they cherished and loved. I want this to be an artwork that they can not only relate to, but a monument to their courage, their resilience and their survival. This work is hopefully one that they take full ownership of and one that they can call their own. 

Sue Schlueter
Sandra, thank you for sharing your own past and your work to secure the future.