Daisy Bates (author)

For other people named Daisy Bates, see Daisy Bates (disambiguation).

Daisy Bates
Bates in 1936
Born
Daisy May O'Dwyer

(1859-10-16)16 October 1859
Roscrea, County Tipperary, Ireland
Died18 April 1951(1951-04-18) (aged 91)
Adelaide, South Australia, Australia
Resting placeNorth Road Cemetery, Nailsworth, South Australia
OccupationJournalist
Spouse(s)Harry Harbord 'Breaker' Morant, possible bigamous marriage to John (Jack) Bates and definite bigamous marriage to Ernest C. Baglehole
ChildrenArnold Hamilton Bates
Bates on a railway station platform in Australia, 1934

Daisy May Bates, CBE[1] (born Margaret May O'Dwyer; 16 October 1859 – 18 April 1951) was an Irish-Australian journalist, welfare worker and self-taught anthropologist who conducted fieldwork amongst several Indigenous nations in western and southern Australia. Some of the Ngaanyatjarra and Ngaatjatjarra people referred to Bates by the courtesy name Kabbarli "grandmother."[2][3] In the 1970's in Yalata, she was referred to as mamu, meaning ghost or devil, and as "that poor old lady at Ooldea".[4]: 109 

It was not until long after her death that facts about her early life emerged,[5] and even recent biographers disagree in their accounts of her life and work.[6] Bates remains a complicated figure in the History of Indigenous Australians as well as in Australian history more broadly. Her work is considered to be an unrivaled source of ethnographic data on the Aboriginal cultures of Western Australia, while her reliability has simultaneously been questioned due to the many false claims she made about her personal history.[7]

  1. ^ Australian Women Biographical entry
  2. ^ Glass, A. and D. Hackett, (2003) Ngaanyatjarra and Ngaatjatjarra to English Dictionary, Alice Springs, IAD Press. ISBN 1-86465-053-2, p39
  3. ^ "The History Listen: The sands of Ooldea: Part 2 Kabbarli on Apple Podcasts". Apple Podcasts. Retrieved 30 July 2024.
  4. ^ Horton, David (1994). The encyclopaedia of Aboriginal Australia: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander history, society and culture - Volume 1. Canberra: Aboriginal studies press, Australian institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander studies. ISBN 0855752491. Retrieved 16 December 2023.
  5. ^ de Vries, Susanna (2008). Desert Queen: The Many Lives and Loves of Daisy Bates. Harper Collins Publishers. ISBN 9780732282431.
  6. ^ Jones, Philip (5 March 2008). "Native Entitlement". The Australian. Retrieved 19 June 2018.
  7. ^ Cite error: The named reference Reece 2007b was invoked but never defined (see the help page).