Timothy Dumoo

‘I was born in 1955 in Daly River, Northern Territory. From there I grew up in the bush, I didn’t hardly know the place I only stayed in Daly River when we wanted to get tea, sugar, and flour, we moved around a lot. I never spoke English until I lived in Port Keats.

When I was young, I got sick and I was flown into Darwin Hospital. When I got better, they sent me to Port Keats, it was the wrong place, I didn’t know anyone. They put me in the mission school. When my family heard I was there, they walked from Daly River to Port Keats to look for me. I wanted to be with my family, but I was kept away. My family brought me food from the bush, but I wasn’t allowed to go near my family. They were kept away. We would do hand signs to communicate hello, goodbye. I would tell them to take the food back and eat it themselves, so the priests and nuns wouldn’t know. At school we all spoke different languages, we used hand signs. I met my wife at Port Keats, she was from Belyuen, she had no family here, her name is Irene.

At school we didn’t understand letters and numbers, we were given food, damper, and something to wear. School gave me an english name, Timothy, and showed me how to spell my name. There were no pencils or paper, we would write it on the floor in black ashes. When I started to learn how to read and write I wrote my real name Namorok. I started drawing at school.

I was sent to Kormilda College, that’s where I learned how to read and write, add and multiply. When school finished, I came back to Port Keats. We were given jobs, the girls were given jobs as nurses, the boys were given jobs teaching and operating machinery. I first started teaching and then worked driving graders and bulldozers. I worked in Port Keats and Palumpa. I started painting and would use colours from grinding rocks I would collect them while driving the grader. My family would ask “why have you got all these rocks in your bag?” They didn’t know I was becoming an artist; they didn’t show me, we had no axe to cut bark from the tree. I started buying paints and paintbrushes from the shop. Nowadays I like to paint on canvas and draw Perredarr.’