Share
Clip description
Movement through trees, country. A song is sung. It is the song communicated by the spirit of a man murdered at Mowla Bluff. The translation appears on screen. It tells of the many people who were murdered here. An elder lists the family roles of each of the murdered – mother, father, grandfather. We then move on to the official accounts of the murder-cum-massacre as recorded in police documents.
Curator’s notes
The elder, as she sits and speaks the roles of the murdered, is shattering the administrative silence surrounding the incident at Mowla Bluff. Often in the cases of massacre, the victims are nameless and faceless, the human loss of such tragedy obscured by the absence of information that makes each person special. The listing of roles and names of the murdered Aboriginal people is a remembrance, a giving of names to the nameless. It is the underside of quietness.
