The Australian Women's Register

Daisy May Bates first arrived in Australia in 1884 and worked as a governess in Berry, New South Wales from 1884-1885. She worked on the Review of Reviews in London, 1894-1899, gaining expertise in journalism.

From 1899-1900 she was at the Trappist mission, Beagle Bay, north of Broome and in 1904 was appointed by the Western Australian government to research the tribes of the State. Bates was a member of an expedition led by A.R. Radcliffe-Brown to study the social anthropology of Aboriginal people of north-west Australia in 1910.

Over more than twenty years Bates camped at several locations in South Australia and Western Australia; Eucla, 1912-1914; near Yalata, 1915-1918; and near Ooldea, 1918-1934; She was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) for Aboriginal welfare work on January 1, 1934. She was a member of the British Royal Anthropological Institute and the Australasian Anthropological Institute.

Bates wrote her autobiography ‘My natives and I’ in a tent at Pyap, South Australia, 1935-1940. This was serialised in The Adelaide Advertiser and later edited and published as The Passing of the Aborigines in 1938. Her articles appeared in several newspapers, including The Catholic Record, The Western Mail, The Adelaide Advertiser, and The Children’s Newspaper.

She lived in Wynbring, east of Ooldea, South Australia from 1941 until old age and failing health led her to return to Adelaide in 1945, where she remained until her death in 1951.

Bates is remembered in an ambivalent light by Indigenous and non-Indigenous folk-lore, and has been represented in children’s literature, theatre, film and opera. According to the Australian Dictionary of Biography, Bates was given the affectionate name ‘Kabbarli’, meaning ‘grandmotherly person’; the Encyclopaedia of Aboriginal Australia records that Anangu people living at Yalata have referred to Bates as ‘Daiji Bate mamu’ (‘mamu’ meaning ghost or devil) and as ‘that poor old lady at Ooldea.’