A different lens: ‘The Shortest History of Australia’ by Mark McKenna
This latest volume of Black Inc’s Shortest History books offers an invigorating challenge to traditional southeast-focused and chronological narratives of Australian history.
In this book the national story is told via themes, such as ‘the founding lie’, ‘the Island dilemma’, ‘taking the land’, ‘fire and water’, or ‘the big picture.’ As the author remarks in chapter one: …history is not inherently linear; only historians make it that way. (p7)
The ‘usual’ big events and national turning points are all here: Captain Cook and the Endeavour; the penal colony, land and gold rushes, wars, legends like Ned Kelly and the ANZACS, migration, Federation, the legal sorcery of ‘terra nullius’ and the Mabo and Wik cases that overturned this doctrine, and so on.
However they are viewed through a series of different lenses: First Nations people and their stories and experiences; non-British migrants; the folk who occupied or visited the continent’s north over untold years; those who suffered under the endemic racism embedded in the British colonisation; asylum seekers in recent decades; droughts, floods and fires.
The story of pearl diving in the north is told alongside the stories of gold, wheat and wool in the southern states.
The centrality of Country to First Nations peoples’ worldview and the growing recognition of this among non-indigenous Australians is discussed, along with examples of the newly created Commonwealth’s wilful blindness to the humanity of Indigenous Australians at Federation (p230) and the heroic and persistent campaigners for Aboriginal rights over many, many years.
Mark McKenna has an informative and engaging narrative style; his book reads like a series of fascinating stories rather than a history text. Highly recommended for those who enjoy non-fiction that asks its readers to question and revisit what we think we know about our own national history.
The Shortest History of Australia was published by Black Inc in 2025.
Contested stories: ‘Warra Warra Wai’ by Darren Rix & Craig Cormick
If, like me, you grew up with stories of ‘Captain Cook’ and his heroic voyages around the world, ‘discovering’ ‘claiming’ and ‘naming’ great swathes of the Pacific region including the continent now known as Australia, Warra Warra Wai will be an eye-opening read.
With its subtitle – one of the best I have ever seen – (How Indigenous Australians discovered Captain Cook and what they tell about the coming of the Ghost People) the authors make clear that this book, while tracing Cook’s voyage up the entire east coast of Australia, will be focused on the stories from the shore: what has been remembered, handed down, and/or written about from the perspectives of the First Peoples encountered by those on board the Endeavour.
Flipping the usual script allows for a rich exploration of those people, their Countries, languages, lifestyles, law and lore. What did they make of the strange ship and its passengers? What beliefs, customs and protocols dictated the ways in which these newcomers were met by the people on the shore? And what followed this first contact – the years and decades in which more white people arrived and the consequences for the land and its First Peoples.
The authors (Gunditjmara-GunaiKurnai radio broadcaster and culture sites officer Darren Rix, and author and science communicator Craig Cormick) set out with a seemingly simple goal: visit all of the places on the east coast renamed by James Cook, put back the original names, and ask the First Nations people there what stories they wanted to share. As simple as that. Just ask them. (p1)
Simple, and profound.
The result is a stunning ‘travel memoir’ of sorts, meeting people who act as guides to their Country, their Creation stories and cultural practices, the law that has guided their people for thousands of years. They also describe their histories since European contact, most of which is, unsurprisingly, grim: disease; violence; theft; rape; forced removal of family; forced removal from traditional homelands; forced discontinuation of traditional lifestyles, religious practices, language; thinly disguised slavery; to name the more obvious ones.
There are commonalities, apart from the dreadful violence and mistreatment. For example, all the stories of the first sightings of the English ship include the fact that each of the groups along that shoreline knew about the strange arrival ahead of time, through smoke signals and other communication from the people further south.
There are multiple interpretations of events and behaviours: those recorded in Cook’s journal, the ship’s logs, or the journals of the two other men on board who write about events as they occured, and those from oral histories of the First People involved. As the authors point out,
So what does it all mean? Well, it probably means that because most people cherrypick the information that agrees with their biases and opinions, different readers will conclude that the arguments support their own point of view on the matter.
Warra Warra Wai p299
There are many ‘what if?’ or sliding door moments, where if one or more of the people involved had chosen a different behaviour, or understood a little more about what they were seeing/hearing, or given events a slightly different interpretation, history could have played out rather differently. I find those moments rather sad to contemplate: missed opportunities, I suppose.
There are stories of resilience, strength, resistance. Of slowly reclaiming language and culture. Of acts of kindness and reconciliation. Of truth-telling and of people willing to listen.
The use of the word ‘renaming’ for Cook’s bestowing English names on the places he sailed past reinforces the fact that everywhere he looked was already know, beloved, sometimes sacred Country to its First Peoples. It was not empty land waiting to be discovered and claimed by white people.
Since the High Court ruling on the Mabo case, the terra nullius fallacy is no longer widely held, but so many others remain. This book is an accessible and enlightening way to learn more about Australian history – from both sides of the shore – and reconsider some of the more contested stories of our national beginning.
As is often the case, the First People interviewed for this book demonstrate generosity of spirit and a desire to reach out across the cultural divide. When asked what he most wanted Australians to know, one interviewee, Phil Rist (a Nywaigi man living in Cardwell, across from Munamudanamy or Hinchinbrook Island) had a reply that sweeps aside all the complexity of the past:
It’s not about race, it’s about need. If we agree that this is the oldest living continuing culture in the world, so how do we protect that?
Warra Warra Wai p229
If you are going to be travelling through any parts of the eastern coastal country of Australia, I would suggest taking this book with you. It will give you insights, stories and understandings that most travel guides cannot provide.
Warra Warra Wai was published by Scribner in 2024.
Founding documents: ‘Naku Dharuk: The Bark Petitions’ by Clare Wright
I was very excited to be gifted this big, fat book last Christmas (thank you, Anita!) However, I put it aside for several months because I wanted to be able to give it the attention it was due.
When I finally picked it up I knew I was in for another of historian and writer Clare Wright’s thoroughly researched and compelling stories of Australian history. This is the third in her ‘Australian democracy’ trilogy. The first two (The Forgotten Rebels of Eureka and You Daughters of Freedom) tell two earlier foundation stories of modern Australia – the role played by women in the Eureka rebellion on the Victorian goldfields in the mid-19th century, and later, the trailblazing fight for the vote by Australian women.
The Bark Petitions is both a smaller and a much bigger story. Smaller, because of its location. Bigger, because the repercussions of the events echo to this day.
They centre around a group of people from Yirrkala, on the Gove Peninsula in Australia’s far north who, when confronted in 1963 with the takeover and likely desecration of their Country, their sacred lands and their livelihood by a proposed French-owned bauxite mine, presented a unique petition to Federal Parliament – on four exquisite traditional paintings by tribal elders on bark.
Back in the mid 1980s I briefly visited Yirrkala in Arnhem Land, as part of my work for the then Federal Department of Aboriginal Affairs. At the time I had never heard of the Bark Petitions. No one in the Department in Darwin where I was based, or at Nhulunbuy, the township at Yirrkala I visited, mentioned them. I learned from Wright’s book that Nhulunbuy was established because of the mine, only thirteen or so years before my visit. Looking back, I am amazed at my ignorance then.
The book relates how the Yolŋu people of Yirrkala, who had lived on their ancestral land for thousands of years, that land having been (under white man’s law) legally reserved for them in 1931, suddenly found themselves forced to defend that same land against commercial interests and mining activity authorised by the Federal government. There was no consultation. No accurate information provided to them. The first the Yirrkala people knew of the imminent threat to their land was the appearance of white survey pegs across a paddock. The leases to a foreign owned mining corporation were announced by then Prime Minister Menzies in a press statement.
Wright describes the cast of characters that populated this story. As with any drama there were protagonists and antagonists; not always neatly lined up along race lines. The Yirrkala Methodist Mission had brought together a number of Yolŋu clan groups who now needed to unite in a struggle to save their land. In this they had some allies from staff within the Mission, particularly Edgar Wells, the Mission Superintendant who early on took on a whistleblower role, to the detriment of his own career and physical and mental health; and his wife Ann, who wrote about much that she observed during that fateful year.
Actually I was surprised to learn that the official policy of the Methodist missions was not assimilation, which was government policy at the time. Methodist missions aimed to equip residents with literacy and other skills needed for survival in the modern world while encouraging the continued use of traditional language and customary practices.
Non-indigenous characters in the story who appear less…sympathetic, let’s say…are those from the halls of Parliament, or heads of government departments in Sydney, Darwin or Canberra. Paul Hasluck, then Minister for Territories, stood out for me as someone who did not cover himself in glory at this time. Perhaps unfair to single him out from a crowd of fellow politicians (and also bureaucrats) for whom political and commercial priorities rode roughshod over indigenous rights; but my heart sank when I remembered that he went on to become Australia’s Governor General just six years later.
There were others, such as Kim Beazley Snr, who was the Member for Fremantle and planted a seed which led to the idea of the petitions being presented in the form they took, and later with Gordon Bryant (Member for Wills) led a debate in Parliament which put forward new principles when considering rights of Aboriginal people: native title; self-determination; consultation. These had been pretty much absent until now (certainly at Yirrkala) but would become part of official policy in future years.
There is so much to admire in Clare Wright’s book. The forensic detail in which she describes events as they took place, from various perspectives – a testament to the thoroughness of her research, involving exhaustive trawls through the official archives, but also deep dives into private journals, letters and also interviews with the families and individuals of many of the people involved.
If there are ‘sides’ in this historical drama the author makes no apology about where she stands. Having lived for a time amongst the community at Yirrkala, her emotional loyalties are clear. Her descriptions, and those of mission staff at the time, of the way Yolŋu conducted their own internal discussions and decision making processes, based on lore and law from time immemorial, are vivid, as are the significance of the Bark Petitions themselves, the processes by which they were created and the ‘momentous double act of diplomacy’ they represented. (p346)
From the Yolŋu : we offer you this gift. Our knowledge. Our stories. Our symbols…Every bark painting…depicted food or a place where food could be found. This food, these places, mirrored the clan identifications that established the right to gather...Together, told in art, the symbols required neighbouring clans to seek permission to enter other than their own privileged food resource area. Established entitlement. Marked the boundaries…
So: we offer you this gift. This gift of our knowledge. The key to our mind maps.
What we ask in return: your respect. This is this second act of diplomacy…
The printed words – the petition – are what you require. In your language and ours. Dharuk.
The paintings that frame the words – the bark – this is what we require. Naku.
Diplomacy, not assimilation. Two sovereign nations, testing the boundaries.
Naku Dharuk. Bark Petitions.
The Bark Petitions pp348-349It is probably no spoiler to say that the original petitions were rejected by Parliament, and that the bauxite mine went ahead. I knew that, but it still felt like a punch to the belly when I read the actual words of parliamentarians as they attempted to undermine the significance – indeed, the integrity – of the petitions when they were first presented. Paul Hasluck was a main player here. A tried and true tactic, to shoot the messenger and/or the message. Divisive, dirty politics for divisive, dirty gains.
Australia saw it again in 2023 with the defeat of the referendum aimed at establishing an Indigenous Voice to Parliament.
Eighty years after the Bark Petitions, their message has still not been properly heard.
Nevertheless, Clare Wright has made a compelling argument that the Petitions from 1963 represent an important step towards legal recognition of First Nations land rights in this country; but also that they ‘constitute nothing less than the third pillar of a trinity of material objects that, read together, along a historical, political and cultural continuum, constitute Australia’s founding documents.’ (p552)
The others are the Eureka Flag of 1854 and the Women’s Suffrage Banner of the early 1900s.Flag. Banner. Bark.
Each of these declamatory objects speaks back to power, a creative act of resistance to a perceived political injustice. Each makes a claim for inclusion in the dominant power structures: first of the colonies, then of the nation of Australia.
The Bark Petitions p554Naku Dharuk: The Bark Petitions is a hefty book. At 573 pages, it’s not a quick read. But I am very glad I allowed myself the time to read it from cover to cover, absorbing the detail, the characters, the setting, and the aspects of Yolŋu culture and language included throughout. I feel richer for it. I am certain Australia is, and I thank Ms. Wright for bringing us this work. I can’t wait to see which significant event or period in our collective history the author will tackle next.
Naku Dharuk: The Bark Petitions was published by Text Publishing Australia in 2024
Fitting end to trilogy: ‘The Settlement’ by Jock Serong
The Settlement is the conclusion to a trilogy of historical fiction novels by award-winning Aussie author Jock Serong. Set in early colonial times in Van Diemen’s Land (Tasmania) the three books tell the uncomfortable story of the violence of the colonial project, the evil manifested by those involved, and the defiance of the island’s First Nations.
I can’t recommend the first (Preservation) and second (The Burning Island) highly enough. If you enjoy both historical and crime fiction these novels are for you.
The Settlement again moves forward in time to the 1830’s, where we meet the real-life George Augustus Robinson, the evangelistic character who took it upon himself to try to solve the problem of spiraling conflict between First Nations people and the settlers in Van Diemen’s Land.
The so-called ‘Black Line’ – a very expensive and (for the British authorities at least) completely unsuccessful attempt to corral and capture Aboriginal people to eliminate the problem, had been a failure. Robinson convinced the authorities to allow him to locate and meet with the leaders of the groups posing a threat to white settlement, with the aim of convincing them to quit their homelands and move to a settlement on an island in the northeast.
So the ill-fated and eponymous settlement of ‘Wybalenna’ on Flinders Island was established.
The narrative moves between key characters: Robinson himself, and other historical figures including leading First Nations figure Mannalargenna, among others; and fictional characters such as two Aboriginal orphans, Whelk and Pipi. A sympathetic, if powerless and conflicted character is the settlement’s Storekeeper, who wrestles with his conscience and his own personal issues throughout the novel.
Robinson himself, now called the settlement’s Commandant, also struggles with the morality of his actions, but always manages to hide behind his religious beliefs and expediency, with an eye to his future position and legacy. He becomes an illustration of the moral blankness at the heart of colonisation.
The chilling character of the Catechist is a remake, of sorts, of the evil figures from the first two books. I heard the author in an interview describe this recurring / reincarnated character as embodying the evils of colonialism and the violence inherent in it. Or, as described in this novel, as an embodiment of the place, the hands and face of an otherwise formless despair. (p108)
The scenes involving the death and funeral of Mannalargenna are almost unbearable, lifted only by the strength and dignity of the man’s spirit even as his body fails, and beautifully conveyed:
Mannalargenna cared little for displays of suffering. He continued to use the grease on his skin and the ochre in the short tufts of his hair, in defiance of the Commandant’s wishes. He persisted in adorning himself in other ways, and in speaking language. Far from rendering him an alien in their midst, it made aliens of his captors. Like a holed and smoking ship of war, he would slide beneath the waves imperious.
The Settlement p174-175Jock Serong has again woven a dark story around the equally dark bones of historical fact. He has cemented his place as one of my favourite Australian contemporary authors.
The Settlement was published by Text Publishing in August 2023.
Truth-telling: ‘Killing for Country’ by David Marr
Squatter.
If you are Australian, that word probably conjures images of sheep or cattle farmers on large tracts of land in the 1800’s. Men (always men) who heroically ‘opened up’ new territory, braving dangers and isolation, finding new and productive areas to settle. Improving the land: fencing, clearing, building homesteads and woolsheds. A national economy ‘riding on the sheep’s back.’ If you grew up in the 1960’s and 70’s, you may even have played the board game by that name.
Some of these things were true.
But so many other things about squatters were resolutely ignored or buried, until relatively recent years. One of the distressing truths about squatters ‘opening up new land for settlement’ and other aspects of our colonial history, is that all this was accompanied by sustained campaigns of brutality and murder. This is the main topic of David Marr’s book Killing for Country.
The subtitle is ‘A Family History’ and given that the narrative covers regions from the Hunter Valley to Queensland, the Gulf Country, the Northern Territory and the Western Australian goldfields, readers might wonder why. The reason is that the story is also about several of his ancestors: Edmund Uhr and his sons Reginald and D’arcy. Marr was shocked to discover that these forebears were officers of the ‘Native Police’, a brutal collection of militia groups under the direction of white officers, established to protect squatters and their livestock.
This protection was provided by clearing squatters’ runs, or occupied lands, of Aboriginal people.
To be blunt, clearing most often meant killing: men old or young, women, children. It also meant destroying or stealing property and campsites. It meant kidnapping and raping Aboriginal women, and sometimes children.
I heard David Marr interviewed about his book on the Guardian newspaper Big Picture podcast on 10th October this year, and I knew I had to get a copy.
Why? Because in my family history tree, one family in particular were squatters, firstly around Maitland and Singleton, then up in the northwest of NSW near the Namoi River. Regions where violence between black and white was bloody and sustained.
When my copy of the book arrived in the mail, the first thing I did was check the index for that family’s name. It wasn’t there. I felt a mixture of relief and disappointment : relief that so far, I’ve not found evidence that my ancestors were – directly – involved in these war-like events; disappointment because I am seeking the truth and accurate sources are hard to find.)
The second thing I did was to look through the book’s many hand-drawn illustrative maps of regions being discussed, for the area where my family had squatted and grazed livestock. On the map showing the lands of the Wonnarua and Kamilaroi peoples in the Hunter region, there are three marked sites of slaughter – one of them twice over. On the page showing the Namoi, Peel and Gwyder Rivers, there are eight massacre sites.
If anything, the picture becomes even grimmer the further north the story goes. As the author describes events before, during and after the establishment of the new colony of Queensland in 1859, it is clear that the violence increased; the role of the Native Police and its officers grew murkier and more shameful as the weeks, months and years passed and the death toll climbed.
There were protests about the increasing violence. There were settlers, journalists, missionaries, officials, even some squatters, unhappy about what was going on. For some it was for moral reasons – the violence was illegal and simply wrong. For others, it was because the actions of the Native Police all but guaranteed continuing problems, because raiding and killing by white men so often resulted in retribution in kind by black men, and vice versa.
There was no empty territory for Aboriginals to retreat to. Everywhere was black country. For one people to move onto the lands of another was an unpardonable violation of law. Stay or go, the people…faced reprisals. Fighting to stay was the most honourable course.
Killing for Country p179One of the most frustrating and distressing aspects of this story is that so often, the carnage could have been averted or reduced if there had been decisive action by authorities in Britain or the colonies. Time and time again, those who could have stopped it chose to turn a blind eye. A succession of weak, indecisive, or corrupt officials at all levels failed to act.
The squatters wanted an empty landscape for sheep to graze. It was an article of faith…that peace was only possible if the blacks were gone. From time to time, squatters were reminded that the terms of their leases guaranteed the rights of the first inhabitants of the country to continue hunting and fishing on their land. This was ignored. Already it was being taken for granted in Australia that the men of the bush could decide which laws applied to them. Stockmen and shepherds were armed and put to the task. So were the Native Police.
Killing for Country p272This is a big, masterful, detailed and grim book. It is not an easy story to read because the enormity of what happened in this country can come as a shock, including for readers like myself who have learnt something of the more shameful aspects of our nation’s history. When the appalling events are laid out over 400-odd pages, revulsion and dismay are natural responses.
In his Afterword, Marr says:
I have been asked how I could bear to write this book. It is an act of atonement, of penance by storytelling. But I wasn’t wallowing in my own shame. None of us are free of this past.
Killing for Country p408I take heart from the fact that today, when I checked out the website of the publishers, Black Inc Books, this book was listed as ‘Out of Stock’. I hope that means many purchasers and many readers. Hard as it is, it is a story that needs to be told.
Killing for Country is published by Black Inc Books in 2023.
Travels with my ancestors #2: Darkness and light in family history
Photo by Raphael Brasileiro: https://www.pexels.com/photo/shadow-of-a-person-2920850/ Every family history contains its shadows: people or events we might prefer to remain in the dark.
The problem with ignoring them is that we are only getting half a history: rather than the full story of our ancestors and the worlds they lived in, we get a trimmed, sanitised, unsatisfying narrative. We are no closer to understanding the context of our ancestors’ lives and the times in which they lived.
In my family history writing, I have chosen to incorporate information which can be confronting, because I want to present a richer, more truthful story of their lives.
I haven’t done this to make anyone feel guilty or resentful. We can only understand the wider history of this country and its people if we are mature enough to look at the darkness as well as the light.
There is the inevitable theme of ‘land grants’ given by colonial authorities to many of my ancestors, who came here either in chains or as free immigrants. It is important to remember that this land was taken by the British government as theirs to give: however, it was never ceded by those who came first—indigenous Australians. All land purchased by non-indigenous people since colonisation in 1788 is therefore based on the same error.
In writing about my ancestors, I have tried to refer to the places in which they lived by the original names, the ones used by the First Nations of Australia, as well as the names commonly used today. I have consulted maps and online sources for this: any errors are my own.
Indigenous Australia map by AIATSIS Canberra The so-called ‘frontier wars’ of the seventeenth, eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries (more accurately called the wars of resistance, or Australian wars) were widespread and prolonged. They were the result of First Nations people being forced off their lands, away from livelihoods, history and sacred places: the Country to which they had been deeply and profoundly linked for millennia. The wars featured horrible violence, massacres, and sickening atrocities. As with any war, violence was perpetrated on both sides.
I have no evidence that my family forebears were directly involved in such acts of violence. It is possible that some were. But what is undeniable is that by arriving here (willingly or unwillingly) and settling on land, building homes, fencing off land for livestock or crops, and changing the landscape, they contributed to the dispossession of First Nations people.
I believe it is possible to stay with the discomfort of simultaneously feeling proud of what our forebears endured and achieved, while recognising the part they played in this fracturing of ancient cultures and ways of being.
It’s all part of our real, collective Australian story. By acknowledging it, even if that is difficult, we can better understand our own place here. To feel truly Australian, we must connect with all parts of Australia’s past—even the darker ones.
Stories and silences: ‘After Story’ by Larissa Behrendt
Amongst loss, you need to hold onto what you still have.’
After Story p260What do Australian First Nation’s cultural stories and history have to do with the writings and times of Dickens, Shakespeare, Woolfe, Keats or Austen? The surprising answers to this question are to be found in the pages of After Story, by First Nations lawyer, academic, author, speaker and film-maker Larissa Behrendt.
A tragic loss opens the story, one that forever scars Della and her family. All the other events of the novel hang off that one devastating event and its consequences.
Years later, Della accompanies her now adult daughter Jasmine on a literary tour of England, taking in the places where many of the ‘greats’ of British literature were born, or lived, or worked.
Jasmine sees books as her escape from the claustrophobia, racism and limited opportunities of the small town in which she grew up. She has read widely, graduated from university, and now works in a legal career. She invites Della on the tour with her as a way of bridging the gap that has arisen between them over the years. Alternating viewpoints allow us to experience both women’s perspectives on the tour. Della’s viewpoint is less sophisticated than her daughter’s, especially as she knows little about the writers and their works, but no less heartfelt or insightful for that.
At every significant place visited, the characters in the group chat, argue and reflect on the particular writer, their historical context and achievements. The author has skillfully linked all of these with commentary and reflections on Aboriginal experiences. An example: when told of the plague that struck England during Shakespeare’s time, followed by London’s Great Fire in 1666, Della relates these catastrophic events to the smallpox outbreak and land dispossession that decimated First Nations communities in the earliest years of English settlement:
I thought about what it must have been like for those Aboriginal people who watched the world around them change hard and fast when the colony was set up, who had to watch the destruction of the life they knew.
After Story p43Della’s deceased Aunty Eileen is an important, if unseen, character. It is through Della’s and Jasmine’s remembered conversations with her, that key features of Aboriginal culture, history and beliefs are shared and further linked to European lives and histories. Gazing at a copy of the Magna Carta in the British Library, Jasmine reflects that:
If Dickens reminded us that the system is not fair, here was the hope, the ancient promise, that it might be. Aunty Elaine’s generation had advocated for changes that made opportunities in my life different from those for Mum and Dad. It’s not just the words on the page but the people who push the ideas at the heart of them who really alter the world.
After Story p82The characters are all three dimensional and fresh, their struggles real, and at times there are uncomfortable moments, as the author invites us to consider our own culture’s role in the theft, forgetting or dismissal of cultures other than our own. But for anyone who loves literature and/or stories and their long histories, this is a book to relish, made all the more special by the weaving together of old and contemporary, indigenous and non-indigenous traditions, tragedy and loss with hope and love.
After Story was published by Queensland University Press in 2021.
Cycles of tragedy and hope: ‘Daughter of the River Country’ by Dianne O’Brien with Sue Williams
Imagine being not quite sixteen, alone in the world and pregnant. Now imagine being faced with two intolerable alternatives: give up your baby for adoption or choose a life of violence, terror and misery.
This is what happened to the author of this memoir – not a hundred years ago, but in the mid twentieth century. Brought up in a white Australian family in the 1950’s, Dianne experienced unwavering love from her mother, but abuse at the hands of her father. She did not know she was adopted until later and was confused about many things, including why she always felt different from others around her.
Daughter of the River Country paints a vivid picture of suburban Australia in the latter half of the last century: the casual racism, bullying and violence meted out to those who least deserved it; the White Australia Policy that was still firmly in place; the neglect, jaw-dropping abuse and cruelty by those in charge of institutions meant to care for girls with no safe home to live in. For these reasons the memoir is hard to read at times but no less important for that. It tells of parts of our country’s history that many would prefer to forget, but which must be remembered so that we don’t keep repeating into the future. And as the author reminds us, some things haven’t changed as yet – the shameful gaps in life expectancy between indigenous and other Australians is one example, as is the shocking rate of incarceration and deaths in custody of indigenous people.
Dianne discovered that she was one of the Stolen Generations, taken from her birth mother when a baby. Her people were Yorta Yorta, from the river country of Victoria. Her adoptive mother had very much wanted her and Dianne had a relatively happy childhood, though with edges of danger from her adoptive father that were fully expressed in cruelty after her mother died. From there, everything fell apart for the young girl: she experienced multiple violent relationships, incarceration in both a girls’ home and gaol; alcohol addiction and indifference or outright abuse from some who should have helped her.
Discovering her birth family, her Aboriginal heritage and her people, brought about an incredible turn of events and her life took an upward turn, though not without tragedy along the way. It is the true measure of the woman that she was able to rise above the awfulness of her earlier life and work towards a better future for herself and her own children and grandchildren, and for her community.
I have nothing but admiration for Dianne O’Brien and her memoir sheds further light on what has often been a hidden part of Australia’s past. It is one of the growing number of books that allow Australians to learn, reflect and hopefully understand more about the experiences of First Nations communities.
Daughter of the River Country is published by Echo Publishing in July 2021.
My thanks to Better Reading for an advance reading copy to review.Tragedy & survival: ‘Benevolence’ by Julie Janson
The title of this book is a subtle reflection on its theme: the nature of dealings between Aboriginal people and white settlers in the early decades of the colonial experiment that eventually became the nation of Australia.
The story is told from the perspective of a young woman from the Darug Nation, in part inspired by the experiences of the author’s own ancestors on and around the Hawkesbury- Nepean River, Parramatta and Sydney Town.
We meet Muraging as a child in 1816, being taken by her father to live at the Parramatta Native Institution. This was a boarding school set up by Governor Macquarie, to educate Aboriginal children in the language and ways of the English. Muraging’s father takes her there in the hope that if his daughter can learn to understand the settlers’ ways, she may be able to help her people. He promises to return for her.
What follows is a tangled series of events in which Muraging, now known as Mary James, experiences some kindness, but also many instances of heartlessness and misunderstanding by the people who are meant to help Mary and others like her. Mary excels in her English education but longs for her own home and her own people.
This longing permeates the novel and it drives Mary throughout her life, through tragedy, danger, periods of freedom and happiness, horrific episodes of abuse at the hands of some English. As Mary grows and matures, so does the colony, bringing further encroachment of settler farms and towns on Darug lands and livelihood.
The conflicts that arise from misunderstandings are illuminated:
Through the cracks in the wall, the children look out and see a row of warriors with spears high on the hill near the town. They are silhouetted against the light. Mr Shelley is terrified. He sweats and paces, mumbling.
Benevolence p32
‘Why you lock us in, Mr Shelley?’ asks Mary.
‘Sweet innocent girl! Can’t you see that the heathen perpetrators of murder want to break down the doors and kill us and eat our hearts?’ says Mr Shelley.
‘They dancing, Mr Shelley. They not hurt us; don’t be frighten,’ says Mary.I found the narrative spare and sometimes disjointed; however it occurred to me that the novel’s style can also represent Mary’s life: this is no ‘happy ever after’ historical fiction, but a portrayal of turbulence and upheaval as a society and culture are taken apart. Mary’s life can not have a smooth trajectory or a satisfying story arc, because the colonial and religious authorities do not allow for that.
Muraging’s growing defiance of the people who mistreat her leads her into some perilous situations and much heartache, as she endures the agony of trying to live in two worlds. But it is also her salvation and allows her to find a way to survive and to live on her own terms.
At the heart of this novel is the enormous injustice dealt by the colonisers, personified in one girl. As Muraging/Mary matures, the injustices grow:
In Windsor Prison, Mary wears a grey blanket with a red stripe and the printed words ‘New South Wales Aborigine’. Just in case she forgets. Mary has many hours to ponder the injustice of being locked up for taking a few birds while the English take everything from her and her people.
Benevolence p232I found it especially engrossing to read about the Darug experience in the region where I grew up and was educated, because I’d learnt nothing back then about the area’s first inhabitants. This novel also challenges the myth that the Darug and other indigenous peoples around the greater Sydney, Hawkesbury, Blue Mountains, Broken Bay and Hunter regions, largely vanished soon after colonisation.
Muraging’s story shows the many ways in which they stayed and survived: sometimes living side by side with settlers, or working on farms or in towns, or gathered in small communities in the bush or isolated spots along rivers and creeks.
Benevolence is a welcome and timely addition to fiction which tells a more honest version of the story of our origins as a modern nation, and shows the strength of Australia’s first people.
Benevolence was published by Magabala Books in 2020.
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#AWW2020‘Taboo’ by Kim Scott: a novel of reconciliation
This novel by Western Australian Noongar author Kim Scott was published in 2017 and won a swag of awards including the 2018 NSW Premier’s Literary Award and the Indigenous Writer’s Prize, and shortlisted for many others including the 2018 Miles Franklin Literary Award.
It is a novel about reconciliation between black and white Australia, specifically between a group of Noongar people who come together to try to lay to rest the ghosts of those who died in a corner of south western WA at the hands of white settlers in the nineteenth century. The property where the massacre happened is near the fictional town of Kokanarup, but the historical events are based on atrocities that actually took place.
In the novel, Dan Horton is an elderly widower who runs the farm on which the massacres occurred. His ancestors were complicit in the murders and he is keen to offer a hand of friendship to the descendants of those who died. He gets involved in planning for a Peace Park in town and invites the Noongar people to visit his property, as a well meaning act of reconciliation between his family and the families of those who were wronged.
Dan learns that Tilly, a high school student, will be joining the visitors and his hearts lifts. Tilly was fostered by Dan and his wife Janet when she was a baby, when her Noongar father was incarcerated and her non indigenous mother unable to cope for a time. Dan has fond memories of that time and longs to see Tilly again. But the visit does not go as he’d planned and hoped for.
The visitors gather at a local caravan park for a ‘culture camp’, during which several elders teach some of the Noongar language, culture and ceremony. The camp also serves as an informal ‘rehab’ for those needing time and space to have a break from alcohol or drug addiction. We follow Tilly as she observes people going about the various activities. She feels like an outsider, having only fairly recently met her father (before he died and was still in prison) and her Noongar extended family, who nevertheless welcome her with a loving embrace. The reader is given hints, small glimpses via flashbacks or partial memories, of Tilly’s own trauma at the hands of a depraved and cruel white man, as she tries to reconcile her own past and the connections between her black and white heritages.
The novel has moments of humour and characters that are recognisable though never caricatures. There are some cringe-worthy moments, including the well meaning but completely uninformed (and non-indigenous) Aboriginal support person at Tilly’s school, for example.
The core of the novel is how the language and culture of the Noongar people, hold the disparate group together. Kim Scott explores how language can be a strength that people can draw on in difficult times, to make sense of their experiences and histories, and to forge a way forward into the future.
It’s language brings things properly alive.
Taboo p197This novel does not shirk from the difficult parts of Aboriginal and white shared histories. It also does not shy away from the betrayals and cruelties that people can inflict on each other. It does offer hope, that with goodwill we can move to a better future.
Here’s a short YouTube video of Kim Scott reading from the opening of Taboo. It includes these beautiful sentences:
…we are hardly alone in having been clumsy, and having stumbled and struggled to properly breathe and speak and find our place again. But we were never hungry for human flesh, or revenge of any kind. Our people gave up on that payback stuff a long time ago.
Kim Scott from TabooTaboo was published in 2017 by Picador
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