Daisy Bates (born Margaret Dwyer) was an Irish-born Australian journalist and writer on Aboriginal Australians. Her 1938 book, The Passing of the Aborigines is an account of the four decades she spent studying Aboriginal customs, rites, beliefs and history. Bates travelled through Western Australia, South Australia and the Northern Territory, setting up camps to assist and defend Aboriginal Australians affected by maltreatment from colonial authorities. This earned her the courtesy name Kabbarli meaning 'grandmother' from some communities.
However, Bates believed that Aboriginal Australians were destined to die out and that her mission was simply to observe Indigenous communities before they disappeared forever. She advocated for a ‘woman patrol’ to stop Aboriginal Australians from leaving reservations and to prevent intermarriage between different groups. She also publicised the book by asserting that cannibalism and infanticide occurred within Aboriginal communities.