Numbers, dates, in fact mathematics of any kind, have little or no relevance in our traditional Aboriginal society. Nature was their social calendar, everything was measured by events and incidents affected by seasonal changes. For example, summer is pink-eye.

Yellagonga had no answer or words of encouragement for his cousins. He wasn't certain about anything anymore. Where there was once bush, there were now tents, huts or houses. Soon the white people would take his land from him and there would be no recourse for any injustices committed against his people.

The white settlers were a protected species; they were safe with their own laws and had police and soldiers to enforce these rules.

It became apparent then, that the Aboriginal social structure was not only crumbling, but it was being totally destroyed."It seems," added Moody, "that our laws are not being recognised by these strangers." The Nyungar people were hurt and confused when they were punished for carrying out their own traditional laws, handed down to them by the Dreamtime spirit beings.

Only twelve months before this, Mr A.J. Keeling, the Superintendent at the Government Depot at Jigalong, wrote in his report that, "these children lean more towards the black than white and on second thoughts, think nothing would be gained in removing them". (Department of Native Affairs file no. 173/30.) Someone read it. No one responded.

We gunna walk alongside it all the way to Jigalong," Molly said confidently. It would stand out like a beacon that would lead them out of the rugged wilderness, across a strange country to their homeland.

After roll call and lights out, Molly listened to the slide of the bolt and the rattle of the padlock, then silence. It was at that moment this free-spirited girl knew that she and her sisters must escape from this place.

You girls can't talk blackfulla language here, you know," came a warning from the other side of the dorm. "You gotta forget it and talk English all the time.

The "boob" was a place of detention once described as a small, detached concrete room with a sandy floor, with only a gleam of light and little ventilation coming through a narrow, barred opening in the north wall. Every inmate of the settlement dreaded being incarcerated in this place. Some children were forced to spend up to fourteen days in that horrible place.

But you'd better make your beds first," she said. This was easy, you just straightened the blanket over the mattress. There were no sheets on the beds. They were stored away to be issued only on special occasions to impress special visitors.