Reflections on Nana Rainbow - a Butchulla Elder

Members of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities are advised that this blog contains names and images of deceased people.

Chantel Van Wamelen belongs to the local Butchulla community. She is in her final year of university studying a Bachelor of Human Services and is a community support worker at Centacare, Fraser Coast. Through her studies at university she became interested in her family history and researched her Great Grandmother known affectionately as Nana Rainbow. She reflects on how government policies impacted her Great Grandmother and her family’s life.

Chantel and her Great Grandmother Nana Rainbow

“Queensland had a number of policies implemented to manage Indigenous people. In Queensland the Chief Protector was able to enforce protection polices to the effect that Indigenous people could be removed into large, highly regulated government settlements and missions. Children were removed from their mothers at about the age of four years and placed in dormitories away from their families. At about the age of 14 years, the children were sent off the missions and settlements to work” she continued.

"This happened to my Great Grandmother Eileen Rainbow nee Gala". 

Eileen Rainbow as a young woman.

“At the age of 10 she was removed from her mother in Hervey Bay and placed in a Cherbourg dormitory with her sister Maudie” Chantel explains.  “She was separated from siblings at age 13 -17 and sent to Blackall to work on a station. She then worked as a nanny and servant for a local lawyer’s family in Maryborough.  She reunited with her mother Emily Gala and with her siblings. She remained close with them until they all passed. She met my great grandfather William Rainbow in Maryborough and married him and they started their own family. They moved to Childers and she worked for a family called the Kingstons".

Nana Rainbow and her grandson Noel (Chantel's father).

Chantel continues “This has had an impact on me by people doubting my identity and our family’s connection with the local Butchulla community. It resulted in deep losses of identity, culture, language, history, family and community. In the face of this hardship, our family have drawn on our incredible strength of character and unshakable knowledge of our Aboriginal identity. We have worked to find all the documentation and oral history to ensure that our links to our country and our ancestors is kept intact"


“The repercussions that this policy had on Nanna Rainbow and her family were devastating and huge” reflects Chantel.  “We may never know the full ramifications of these events as she rarely spoke about what had happened to her. I am not sure if this was out of shame or fear or if the events were so disturbing that she couldn’t bring herself to discuss it.” “My Aunty Annette has said that when my Great Grandmother, her mother and her sisters would get together around the camp fire they would grieve together by crying and wailing. Being separated would have caused loneliness, dislocation, deprivation of affection and love, and created stress and grief.” Chantel continues. “It was thought to have made them stronger women and pulled the family unit closer together.” Chantel said “It changed their ability to practice traditional culture. The woman only carried out traditions amongst themselves and not around others. The trust in governments and mainstream society was destroyed and they lived in fear of this happening again”.

Nana Rainbow and the younger members of the family.

Chantel concludes "Recent land rights success handing ownership of K’Gari (Fraser Island) back to Butchulla people has been a positive step forward to acknowledge Butchulla people. I am very proud to be part of this process and we have great hope for our future”.

Tags #Butchulla #K'Gari #FraserIsland #Frasercoastlibraries