KUNGUN NGARRINDJERI MIMINAR YUNNAN
LISTEN TO NGARRINDJERI WOMEN SPEAKING
EDITED BY DIANE BELL FOR THE NGARRINDJERI NATION
SPINIFEX PRESS, 2008
UNSETTLING THE LAND
SUZANNE BELLAMY AND SUSAN HAWTHORNE
SPINIFEX PRESS, 2008
Order from Spinifex Press, Melbourne, Australia: http://www.spinifexpress.com.au
LISTENING TO THE LAND AND THE STORIES OF THE WOMEN:
Spinifex Press has always been a leader in publishing the voices of indigenous women and issues surrounding our stories and our lands. In these two books recently launched by Spinifex Press, a wealth of knowledge, struggle and celebration of survival is reflected in the vast project undertaken by Diane Bell and the Ngarrindjeri Miminar [women] to document Ngarrindjeri history and stories and in the poetry of Susan Hawthorne and art of Suszanne Bellamy in reflecting on the plight of the land in drought afflicated times.
The connexions between these books may not at first seem clear to some readers, but they each tell stories about women and the land and they each document the importance of sustainable land to the survival of us as a species. Susan Hawthorne talks about the “unsettling of the land” by the removal of the “seasons and the birds”, in effect, the influence of man’s work in affecting global climate change and altering the seasons which has an effect on every living species. This crisis echoes the painful stories of the Ngarrindjeri miminar in recalling the stolen generations of babies that were ripped away from them by the Australian Government in a desperate attempt to obliterate and dissolve their Ngarrindjeri identities, alongside those of other Aboriginal peoples. Both books are intense collaborations that reflect the many decades of work that has gone before their births and both are electrifying reading in their own right.
One of the most fascinating features of the Ngarrindjeri book is the methodology and process by which it came about. I spoke at the International Feminist Bookfair in 1994 about the need for editors and publishers to address the issues of oral storytelling and working with indigenous cultures in different ways and to work with the writers and storytellers rather than dictating an academic or publishing style to them. I have since spoken at the Frankfurt and Istanbul Bookfairs on similar themes and in a recent book tour of Canada from which the Talkstory text emerged [ see: http://www.apwn.net for further details and to download this text.] So it is especially gratifying for me to see Diane Bell working so collaboratively with the Ngarrindjeri Miminar during this project, as indeed Zohl de Ishtar has also done in her work in recording Pacific women’s stories in Daughters of the Pacific and Aboriginal Women’s stories in her latest text. It should come as no surprise to find that, yet again, Spinifex Press is the publisher that nurtured these projects. Very few publishers globally would be capable of encouraging, honouring and publishing such vast collaborative projects that truly reflect the ability of Pakeha or non-indigenous academics and writers to work so closely with indigenous women, honouring their cultures and own ways of working in the process.
Reading these stories, you really feel as if you are around the fire, listening to the oral stories as they unfold, in the manner that they were originally expressed, and this is no small feat. The process of working on the book is constantly examined and negotiated and this is as fascinating as the stories themselves. The book not only brings forward the stories and encourages them from the miminar but it delineates the vast journey of trust and growing awareness undertaken by the cultural groups involved, and in so doing, lays out a possible blueprint for other academics, writers, editors and publishers to follow when contemplating such vital cross-cultural research as this.
The stories themselves are intense, with a wide range of material and emotions covered. They touch us in ways we might never imagine before entering the book. The struggle and time it has taken to commit these stories to paper in a way that still honours the oral process by which they were and are still shared is reflected on every page of the book. The design of the book and every single word has been collaborated between the Narrindjeri miminar and other kringkarar [pakeha/non-indigenous] women working on the project. If you have never been involved in working on such a text, it would be hard to conceive of the time this takes and the sheer satisfaction from working in such a collaborative way, where all voices need to be heard before the final text and its style and presentation is decided. But, to the delight of the reader, this process is delineated in depth within the book, adding to its appeal and helping to set a pattern for future work by others.
The Narrindjeri miminar talk about racism and genocide that is still happening for them and their people. Yes, they do use the word “Genocide” and it is appropriate. Maori politician Tariana Turia justified her use of the terms holocaust and genocide in relation to the systematic killing of Maori during the Taranaki Land Wars in a session in the New Zealand Parliament. Many people supported her words. Others were outraged. I talked about the holocaust and genocide in relation to the constant nuclear testing in the Pacific and the toll this had taken on the Maohi people in Manawa Toa: Heart Warrior. This was questioned on a book tour of Germany. I’d already had to argue it past my German-Jewish publisher, Antje Landshoff Ellermann. On the German Book Tour, I quoted Tariana Turia’s words in parliament and talked further about the context. Many agreed. Some remained in denial. The systematic genocide of Aboriginal people, stealing babies from their mothers, expunging languages and cultures that are some of the most ancient on this planet, cannot be argued. It happened. Unless you want to join the ranks of Holocaust Deniers. Yet this word was picked out of this book and questioned by a Pakeha reader, so I knew that, yet again, the issue needed to be addressed in this review.
All the more reason that the Ngarrindjeri women do speak out so strongly and powerfully and passionately in this book. Despite the eloquent and much awaited Apology To Australia’s Indigenous Peoples from Kevin Rudd, the Australian Prime Minister, which is printed in the back of the book. Like many others, I am waiting to see what Real Action will be follow this Apology. Will the government and people of Australia be willing to fork out the millions and millions of dollars and return of traditional land that has taken place in Aotearoa/New Zealand the past few decades and is still taking place? Will the words be endorsed by significant action and reparation? Will the government be willing to support the kind of solid research and stories that Dianne Bell and the Njarrindjeri women and Spinifex Press have collaborated to produce here, by their actions? Time will tell. This significant book and the process to achieve it, gives us huge hope for the future of cultural respect and sharing in Australia.
You will be deeply moved by the voices of the aunties and the powerful struggles and beautiful words of their stories. None of these stories should be reproduced here in this review. It takes the voices of the miminar themselves to tell their stories with such grace and power. Too many times their words have been stolen by others, like their children were stolen. Instead, I urge all readers to buy this book for your families, use it as a model to discuss ways that all Australians can learn and grow and discover more about the culture that defines their land. You will be enthralled, captivated and empowered by these stories and this process. All power to Dianne Bell, the Ngarrindjeri miminar and to Spinifex Press for producing such a stunning document that could not have been timed better for the Great Auzzie Apology. Use this book to insist that more be done to act on that apology and to discover ways you can help support the movement for Ngarrindjeri and other Aboriginal cultures to retain their cultures, languages and rights. Make sure the Apology is backed up by action.
UNSETTLING THE LAND is a collaboration of a different kind, but one which has links to the themes of the Ngarrindjeri text. Here the powerful poems of Susan Hawthorne are beautifully enhanced by the imaginative art of Suzanne Bellamy. Fans of Hawthorne’s impressive publishing portfolio, including novels, poetry, documentary, print and internet work and her performances, will be familiar with past collaborations she has done with Suzanne Bellamy. I will never forget being so entranced by the ceramic mastery of Bellamy on the cover of Susan Hawthorne’s The Falling Woman that it took me a while to dive between the pages because I was so intent on capturing the ephemeral and ethereal imagery before finding what the text had to offer. I was not disappointed. This novel is still a favourite of mine, which stands up to the test of time on several readings.With the latent imagery of falling ever since the biblical “fall” to the present day realities of falling as a woman living with epilepsy, as Hawthorne does, let alone one who dares to defy reality by becoming a circus aerialist as well, this book and Hawthorne’s life and work is an impressive journey across many frontiers, where the reader is always surprised and constantly challenged to look within as well as look at the world in different ways.
This creative collaboration between Hawthorne and Bellamy has lasted over thirty years and is evocatively expressed in Unsettling the Land. Hawthorne’s poetic voice details so much that has been lost by the first world presence of greed on this planet. These are my words, not hers. But it is hard to divorce the current collapse of capitalism through a first world nation like Amerika living way beyonds its means and the devastating effects this is having on the rest of the world as I read this book. Hawthorne re-members a childhood world of discovery of the natural world with her brother in Birdlife. Behind, Suzanne Bellamy sculpts an exquisitely female, Papatuanuku shaped world into clay. The body of woman/land echoes out from the words and the images. What have we done to rape her so violently, so unforgivingly?
In Drought, 1967, Hawthorne recalls her mother’s expression about the drought back then and how it broke her heart. It’s now thirty years later and the poet wonders what her mother would say of the current drought and how long it might take for recovery. Behind these poignant words is a ceramic work by Bellamy that evokes a giant tree trunk etched with stories, symbolic images that might tell of times past, narratives from the centuries gone. On the top lie symbolic creatures lying on their backs, as if killed by the strength of the sun on the desert, their legs reaching skyward, as if pleading to the heavens for some kind of redepemption, some answer to this drought. Both poem and image ask unanswerable questions, ask us to seek the answers. How can sustainability exist within a world bent on such greed?
Just when you think the drought can never end, comes the Flood, 1974. In this poem, the roar seems so vast it appears “unearthly” to the poet. Yet she realises it is very earthly, in fact. A day of contrasts in a land of contrasts, the water “thrilling to the sudden birdlife.” Behind the poem, Bellamy’s images of women, a globe, faces and skulls and manuscripts, narratives of time and place and sustenance etch words onto a green and brown earth, rejoicing with water but being inundated by flood. When we use the resources unsustainably, we get the extremes of drought and flood. It’s a fact. We see it daily and yearly. Yet we still consume.
Water, 2008. Suddenly we are immersed in water, drowning in the flood. The poet’s words float on the sea, emerge from the surf. Here water is seen to fit the land like a glove fits the hand. It ekes its way into all the valleys and cracks. But drought “is our unsettling” and claws at the land, “it chops out the fingers/to claw at earth’s innards.”
Earth’s Pod, 2008 shows the earth breaking open, a beautiful seed pod in Bellamy’s ceramic imagination, while the poet’s words talk of the forcing open of the world, the pod, to allow “Big Mac houses cheek by jowl”, causing her to plant trees by the dozen to make up for her overseas flights, to assuage her “ecological guilt”. But is it so easy? We are left to contemplate the consequences. This poem and the imagery reminds me of Muriel Rukeyer’s words when she contemplated what would happen if one woman spoke the truth about existence and surmised: ‘The world would split open.”
Unsettling the Land causes us to both appreciate and value nature and the earth we live in and to question how we leave our ecological footprint on it, just as Kungan Ngarrindjeri Miminar Yunnan also talks of the importance of original footprints, of how we lay our print upon the land and the consequences of ignoring or suppressing these lives, these stories. Each book provides a blueprint for future survival hidden between the lines and stories. It is up to us to see the answers, and even more, to act on them.
[c] Dr. Cathie Dunsford, 2008.
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Dr. Cathie Koa Dunsford [Ngapuhi/Hawai’ian/Pakeha] is author of 22 books in print and translation in USA, Canada, UK, Australia, New Zealand, Germany and Turkey, including the popular Cowrie novel series featuring strong tangata whenua from the Pacific region. She has taught Literature, Creative Writing and Publishing at Auckland University since 1975. She is director of Dunsford Publishing Consultants, which has brought 192 new and award winning Pacific authors into print internationally: http://www.dunsfordpublishing.com She is recipient of two literary grants from Creative New Zealand Arts Council and was International Woman of the Year in Publishing in 1997. Cathie Dunsford has performed her work at the Frankfurt, Leipzig and Istanbul Bookfairs. She tours the world performing from the books with traditional Maori waiata and taonga puoro. Contact: