Jedda (1955)
An Aboriginal woman dies in childbirth on a remote cattle station in the Northern Territory.
The baby girl is raised by the station owner’s wife, Sarah McMann, after the death of her child. Jedda (Margaret Dingle) grows up between cultures – forbidden from learning about her own and not entirely accepted by others.
Her white mother, Sarah (Betty Suttor), wants to ‘civilise’ her. Sarah’s husband Doug (George Simpson-Lyttle) believes she will lose her ‘pride of race’.
When Jedda is about 16 (now played by Ngarla Kunoth), she becomes fascinated by a tall stranger, Marbuck (Robert Tudawali), a tribal Aboriginal man who arrives from the bush, wanting work.
When he abducts Jedda, setting fire to the camp, the head stockman Joe (Paul Reynall) sets off in pursuit. Joe, the son of an Afghan teamster and an Aboriginal woman, is in love with Jedda.
He pursues them through crocodile-infested swamps and rugged mountains to Marbuck’s traditional lands, but Marbuck’s clan has rejected him for breaking their marriage rules.
Jedda is from the wrong ‘skin’ group.
They sing his death song, but Marbuck defies them.
As Joe catches up, Marbuck has become insane.
He drags Jedda to a clifftop, determined to take her with him.
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