Follow the Rabbit-Proof Fence: Chapter 5 Summary & Analysis

Jigalong, a government depot established in 1907, was used as a base for the maintenance men charged with attending to the rabbit-proof fence and keeping it clear of brush, debris, and dead animals. The Superintendent of the Jigalong Depot also carries the title of “Protector of Aborigines.” All Mardu people who come in to Jigalong from the desert are given food rations, clothing, tobacco, and blankets, and so the depot slowly begins to “arouse the curiosity” of nomadic people nearby. Many are sick and tired of struggling to find food in the bush, and long for a place they can sleep at night without fear of being attacked by white men.

By the 1930s, Jigalong has grown steadily, and has been deemed a base camp for secret and sacred rituals and ceremonies by tribal elders. The Mardu develop a semi-nomadic lifestyle, staying on the outskirts of the depot and hunting on the weekends to supplement their government-rationed food supply.

Maude is betrothed to an older man from her tribe, but her betrothed tells the elders that he does not want to marry Maude. Maude is secretly pleased, and glad to not be married off to someone older. Maude likes her life as it is. She has been trained to work as a domestic helper for the Superintendent at the depot, Mr. Keeling, and is known in Jigalong as a bright, reliable, and intelligent girl.

One day Maude’s mother notices that her daughter’s light cotton shirt seems stretched tight around her belly, and realizes that her daughter is pregnant. She and her husband ask Maude who the baby’s father is, and she confesses that the man is named Thomas Craig, an Englishman employed alongside Maude’s father as an inspector of the rabbit-proof fence.

As summer turns to winter, Maude gives birth to a baby girl. The baby remains nameless until Thomas Craig returns to Jigalong after a weeklong trip out to the fence, at which point he names her Molly. When the baby is six weeks old, Maude introduces her to Mr. Keeling, the Superintendent, who writes in his diary that the first half-caste child has just been born at Jigalong station.

Molly grows up into a pretty little girl, well-loved by her family. However, as she gets older, she wishes she didn’t have such light skin. She is always forced to play by herself, as her Mardu playmates insult her, tease her, and call her a “mongrel dog.” One day, her mother tells her that two of her aunties have had baby girls who are muda-muda, like her, and that they will be coming to live at Jigalong. Molly anxiously looks forward to the arrival of her new “sisters.”

Daisy and Gracie soon arrive at the station, and Gracie and Molly become “inseparable” as they grow older. They often play with Daisy, too. Mr. Keeling takes an unusual interest in the girls, noting that their playmates exclude them due to the color of their skin. He writes to the Department of Native Affairs, informing them of the girls’ presence and of the fact that “the blacks consider the [half-castes]” inferior. Keeling writes that he believes the girls would be better off if they were removed from Jigalong.

Half-caste children are being born all over Australia, and the government—believing that part-aboriginal children will be “more intelligent than their darker relations”—wants to isolate and train these children to work as domestic servants and laborers. Internment camps, or “missions,” have been set up to “improve the welfare and educational needs” of half-caste children. Pilkington writes that Molly, Gracie, and Daisy were unaware of the government’s designs on them, even as patrol officers travelled from station to station, routinely removing Aboriginal children from their families and transporting them to internment camps.

As years pass, the government keeps a watchful eye on Molly, Gracie, and Daisy, while their parents attempt to shield them both from taunts and from capture by rubbing ground charcoal all over the girls’ bodies to darken their skin.

In July of 1930, Molly and Daisy enjoy a leisurely breakfast with their families and then decide to take their clothes to the river to wash them. When they return to camp, their families’ dogs are barking and making a ruckus. A white man has entered the camp, wearing khaki clothing. Molly, Gracie, and their families realize that the “fateful day they [have] been dreading” has finally come.

Constable Riggs, Protector of Aborigines, announces that he has come to take Molly, Gracie, and Daisy off to school at the Moore River Native Settlement. The girls’ families tearfully hand them over, and the Constable instructs the girls not to gather any of their belongings, as he will get them everything they need later on. Molly and Gracie go with the officer, who asks where Daisy is. Molly’s stepfather informs him that Daisy is at another station nearby, but Constable Riggs insists that he has already checked in with that station and was unable to find her. Nevertheless, he hurries the girls onto his horse, and the three set out for the depot as the girls’ families weep and wail.

At the depot, Constable Riggs leads the girls to a car. Mr. Keeling stops him, and tells him that two local Aboriginal women need to be taken to the hospital. Riggs loads all four women—Molly, Gracie, Nellie, and Mimi-Ali—into his car. Riggs stops at outpost after outpost searching for Daisy. He eventually finds her and rips her away from her family in the middle of the night. 

Gracie’s mother informs her daughter’s white father that Gracie has been taken, and asks him why he wouldn’t do anything to stop her capture. He replies that there was nothing even he could do. She begs him to attempt to convince the government to give Gracie back, but he again insists that he is powerless. Gracie’s mother, hurt and angry, packs up and moves away from her tribe, to Wiluna.