Prior to the mission, the Aboriginal people at Mapoon were largely free of the feelings of intense guilt that marked the missionaries’ faith. Upon their arrival, the missionaries made clear that they were suffering in order to bring the Aboriginal people the Christian message. This created an ongoing imbalance that could not be rectified and a situation likely to cause feelings of guilt and indebtedness among Aboriginal people. It would have been difficult for Aboriginal people to accommodate the feelings generated by the new social relations or give these relationships meaning using only their traditional belief systems. The Christianity the missionaries brought with them was, almost by definition, exceptionally well suited to these tasks.

Nicholas Hey writes about the start of the mission: ‘Two great difficulties confronted the pioneers at this stage. The first was the language, and the second was the absence of a sense of sin in the native mind’.^[12] The missionaries were keen to ‘correct’ this ‘problem’ and tried to

The missionaries endeavoured to pass on their European set of criteria for evaluating behaviour to Aboriginal people.

To the missionaries, Aboriginal ‘faults’ were not mere differences of belief or custom but absolute moral evils, small but definite victories for the forces of darkness. The missionaries summed up their view of Aboriginal religious beliefs in a report, ‘“I believe in devils” is the first article of their creed’.^[14] Aboriginal people at Mapoon, initially at least, did not divide the world into the forces of good and evil and so could not have thought that they were siding with the forces of darkness in believing and acting as their fathers and mothers had taught them. Convincing Aboriginal people that there were two sides in a great spiritual battle and that they were on the evil and losing side, the side of sin, was a necessary step in what the missionaries viewed as a change of allegiances — conversion. The missionaries sought to teach the Aboriginal people this division intellectually. Aboriginal people were probably more receptive to it because of the new social relationships and the feelings these generated than because of any logical argument offered by the missionaries.

One of the ways missionaries increased Aboriginal feelings of guilt was by assuming a Christ-like role, visibly suffering (much like Hey’s mother) for the sake of other people. Like Christ’s, their suffering was obviously of a condescending nature. Their message was this: just as God had to lower himself to and endure a human state to redeem humanity, the missionaries had to bear the crosses of leaving ‘civilisation’ and living amongst savages to bring the Aboriginal people the Gospel. Christ died to give the redeeming Gospel to all of humanity. The missionaries made clear the insalubriousness of the tropical climate. Like many European Australians of the time, the missionaries believed the tropical climate to be inherently unhealthy, a conception no doubt reinforced by JG Ward’s death soon after the start of the mission from malaria. Health problems continued to plague the missionaries almost throughout their time at Mapoon.^[15] They were risking, or in JG Ward’s case, sacrificing, their lives to save Aboriginal souls, like Christ.

The missionaries’ sacrifice was made known to the Aboriginal people at Mapoon, some of whom felt guilty and indebted because of it. Many of the Aboriginal Christians wrote letters to Mrs Ward for her departure. These letters were written on different dates by different people on different types of paper in different places. This and the number of spelling and grammatical errors make it unlikely that any of the missionaries were directly regulating the content, though the writers probably wanted to please Mrs Ward. These letters contain several references to Mrs Ward leaving for her health and having endured bad health for the Aboriginal people. Lena M, for instance, wrote, ‘We would like you to stay very much but it would be selfish of us to keep you here when you’re always sick and ailing God bless and keep you dear Aunty you were always kind and good to us’.^[16] It would not have been necessary for Aboriginal people to believe the Christian message in order for them to experience feelings of deep guilt and indebtedness. They might well remain undecided as to whether or not the Christian story was true but feel indebted to the missionaries for their sacrifices in bringing it to them. Of course, the mere fact that the missionaries were prepared to make these sacrifices may have added weight to their claims. In any event, the feelings of guilt created a situation in which some Aboriginal people found Christian beliefs useful.

In the minds of some of the Aboriginal people, the line between the missionaries and the newfound God was blurry on some levels. The missionaries were like, but not the same as, God or Jesus. Like Jesus, the missionaries were compared to the shepherd going after the one stray sheep. Mackie, one of Mrs Ward’s ex-students, wrote, ‘We will always have you in our mind and will never forget your teaching us and bringing us back when we went astray’.^[17] Theresa wrote to Mrs Ward, ‘I am writing to tell you Dear Auntie that I am very very sorry that I grief you and God for all the wrongs that I did. But now I am asking God to forgive me for my sins. And now Dear Auntie I ask you to pray for me’.^[18] The new concept of sin was held to be an offence against both God and the missionaries. As though she were a saint, it was believed that Mrs Ward could intercede with God on behalf of the Aboriginal people. It is notable that Theresa wrote that she was asking God for forgiveness as she wrote of repentance in her letter to the missionary. Dolly also believed that Mrs Ward had some special ability to bring Aboriginal people closer to God, ‘When I think of Auntie’s love I hope it will also bring me nearer Jesus’.^[19] Hilda thought Mrs Ward’s prayer could bring Aboriginal people closer to God by increasing their love for Him, thereby making them less sinful. She wrote, ‘Dear Auntie pray for us so that we may come to love our Saviour more and more’.^[20]

The parallel between God and the missionaries was important. Aboriginal people developed a relationship with the missionaries that was without precedent in traditional culture. This created a whole new set of emotions. The novel social situation and emotional landscape was difficult to reflect in the Aboriginal people’s traditional belief systems. It would have been problematic to accommodate the sustained imbalance of a social debt that could not be repaid in the traditional belief system in which people viewed the universe in terms of interconnection and balance. Traditional Aboriginal beliefs were therefore not well suited to explaining the feelings of guilt that the relationships with the missionaries could generate. However, Aboriginal people had another religious system at their disposal, one they could use to help explain and give meaning to their social environment. In adopting Christian beliefs, they were using a tool that the Europeans brought with them, much as they might have used a metal knife.

Moravian Christianity would have been a very useful tool in this situation, focusing as it did on the suffering of Jesus on the cross. The missionaries would have emphasised this aspect of the Christian story, making Christianity particularly useful to Aboriginal people seeking meaning and explanation in these new circumstances. Gollin describes this Moravian emphasis, ‘Since it was essential for the believer to keep the death and suffering of Christ on the Cross before his eyes at all times, the image of Christ became identified almost exclusively with His sufferings, His blood, and His wounds’.^[21]

Aboriginal people were receptive to this message. Several of the letters from Aboriginal people to Mrs Ward contain references to the ‘cruel cross’. The Christian story made clear that Jesus’ suffering, like that of the missionaries, was for them. A letter from Meaffra and Annette is illustrative: ‘I don’t forget when I was a boy you teached me about the love of Christ and how he died on the cruel cross to save us from going to hell’.^[22] Emphasis on the suffering of the Saviour would help explain feelings of guilt. That Aboriginal people chose to emphasise this in their letters buttresses the claim that it was this aspect of Christianity that they were using to help meet their emotional and spiritual needs.

The missionaries brought with them a new set of social relationships and a profound sense of guilt. Many Aboriginal people entered into these new relationships and experienced deep feelings of guilt. To help make sense of the new social structures and feelings, they adopted more or less of the belief system that had coevolved with the social structures and feelings for hundreds of years.