‘The stories were always there, they kept us strong': surviving one of the darkest periods of Queensland's colonial past

The Guardian

05-04-2025

When Ena Sam emerged from a year-long stay in hospital, recovering from a severe kidney infection that led to both her hands and feet being amputated, her family was understandably concerned about her welfare.
'I said 'There's nothing wrong with me',' she recalls.
'I might have lost a few body parts but it didn't affect my spirit, aye?'
Her toughness is characteristic of her people, the Kalkadunga (Kalkadoon) – whose survival of one of the darkest periods of Queensland's colonial past has inspired a new exhibition, The unbroken spirit of the Kalkadoons.
For Ena, this spirit was forged by the campfire in a small compound in outback Queensland where, as a young girl, she would sit under the stars to hear stories from her elders.
'As soon as that sun went down, all the old people made the kids sit down and listen,' she says.
They told the Dreaming story of how their ancestral totem, the black cockatoo, first emerged from a sacred mound on the edge of the Leichhardt River, and conjured images of her people living in huts of spinifex and mud on their country in north-western Queensland – until the arrival of the pale-skinned newcomers, whom they mistook for yaannyi (ghosts).
Some nights the stories were chilling.
One told of two Kalkadunga sisters, around 14, tied to a pole at a men's camp.
Their family had just been slaughtered by settlers on horseback, according to the oral history passed down through generations. The girls had tried to run, but were captured.
Chained up for weeks, they refused to eat, believing the food to be poisoned.
Eventually, on the brink of starvation, they relented.
The sisters were separated and sent to work on different cattle stations, never to see each other again.
One of them was Ena's grandmother, who recounted the story to her by the firelight.
In the 1980s, living in Brisbane as a single mother of five, Ena would pass on the tales to her children, illustrating them by making huts out of sticks, drawing pictures in the sand, moulding animals from playdough and gesturing to hidden shapes in the stars.
Ena's daughter, Colleen Sam, says her mother's stories turned their home into a sanctuary from the racism she encountered as a child.
'We didn't know if we were going to be abused that day or if something was going to be thrown out the window at us,' Colleen says.
'But when we came home … the stories were always there, and they kept us strong.'
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Sometimes Ena would sketch simple pencil illustrations, but the drawings – believed to be the first visual record of her family history – were boxed up, and the knowledge remained a closely held secret.
When Ena developed sepsis in 2017, and her heart became too weak to pump blood to her hands and feet, it was the catalyst to finally share it with the world.
'It was like a fine string,' says Colleen. 'If that had been cut and Mum was the main one carrying it, then it would have just been lost.'
Tales once whispered around a campfire are now on display at the State Library of Queensland.
'It's like all that hidden knowledge has come to light,' says Colleen.
The exhibition traces the journey of the Kalkadoon from the first sightings of white colonists in the 1840s to the decades of bloody resistance that followed, culminating with the Kalkadoon's last stand at Battle Mountain – known as 'the big finish up' – where the warriors were finally outgunned and the survivors forced to flee to neighbouring lands.
The history is captured in stark detail in paintings by Colleen, a visual artist, alongside Ena's original pencil sketches and historical archives showing the contrasting ways the bloodshed was described by the colonial forces.
The cavernous exhibition space is alive with the sounds of the bush: steady rain, the call of the black cockatoo and the crack of thunder – mentally transporting visitors to Kalkadoon country, as Ena did with her children.
The final section comprises brightly coloured paintings of ancient Dreaming stories that leap off the wall – a defiant celebration of Kalkadoon culture.
'Because that survived,' says Colleen.
The unbroken spirit of the Kalkadoons runs at the State Library of Queensland until 24 August