WEST AUSTRALIANA Indigenous Aboriginal
In 1926, Aboriginal elders gave permission for Lallie Matbar, a young woman of the “Linden mob”, to marry Jack Akbar, an Afghan cameleer. Under the Aboriginal Act of 1905, however, their relationship was illegal. From 1926 to 1928, Jack, armed with character references attesting to his reliable standing in the community, repeatedly petitioned the Western Australian government for permission to marry the woman he loved. Despite Jack’s efforts, the government not only denied that permission, but sought to hunt the couple down and separate them forever. This book is the astonishing true story of two outlawed lives – a tale of escape from persecution in the hands of misguided, over-zealous government authorities, providing a chilling reminder of a shameful chapter in the social and political history of this country. Institutional internment, flight to South Australia, arrest and extradition, duplicity and harassment; suffering a lifetime of scrutiny, the file on the irrepressible Lallie Matbar was only closed by her death in 1970. Xa

Biography of Lallie Matbar and Jack Akbar; effect of the Aboriginal Act of 1905, WA on mixed marriages; government policy; Mount Margaret Mission; Afghan community and relationships with Aboriginal people; Moore River Native Settlement; assimilation; education of children; Linden; Auber Octavius Neville, Chief Protector of Aborigines; police; treatment of Aboriginal women; Wongai; cameleers.
304 p. : ill. ; 23 cm. #210122/260123