The stories keep on coming, the stories, I mean, of indigenous children stolen from their families and what happened to them afterwards. I’ve posted on Carmel Bird’s compilation of stories from the Bringing them home report, The stolen children: Their stories, and also on Ali Cobby Eckermann’s memoir Too afraid to cry. Now it’s Marie Munkara’s turn with her excruciatingly honest, but also frequently laugh-out-loud-funny memoir, Of ashes and rivers that run to the sea.
Late in her memoir, Munkara learns that she was born “under a tree on the banks of the Mainoru River in Western Arnhem Land.” But, what she writes next is shocking
‘Too white,’ my Nanna Clara said as they checked me out by the camp-fire light, and everyone knew what that meant. Back in those days any coloured babies in my family were given to the crocs because dealing with these things right away saved a lot of suffering later on. It was better that we die in our own piece of country than be taken by the authorities and lost to our families forever.
Does that remind you of anything? It did me – of Toni Morrison’s novel Beloved, and the slave mother’s decision there. Anyhow, knowing what we know now about the lives of many stolen children, we can surely understand her indigenous family’s actions. Luckily, though, for Munkara – and us – Nanna Clara saw something “special” in her, and she was kept. That was in 1960. Three years later, now living on the Tiwi Islands, the inevitable happened and she was taken from home one day when her mother was at work at the mission laundry. Her mother begged for her to be returned, to no avail.
All this, however, we learn near the end of the book. Munkara starts the book when, at the age of 28 and quite by accident, she came across her baptismal card tucked in a book in her parents’ library. It told her that she was born in Mainoru in Arnhem Land. “In the space of an instant,” she writes, “excitement was replaced with mortification as old geography lessons began to resurface” about a “wild and untamed place where Aborigines hunted kangaroos and walked around butt-naked.” However, she decides to find out more, and soon discovers that her mother was still alive and still living in the Tiwi Islands. She decides to go meet her, with no advance notice.
To say that she was shocked by what she found is an understatement. “This is not the tropical island I had imagined,” she writes, “with luscious vegetation and cute little palm-frond houses. It is a dump.” She tries hard to enjoy her time there, but hates it and three days later returns home. However, it’s not long before she realises that she has to return. This ends Part 1 of the four-part book. In Part 2, she goes back in time and tells of her life as the foster child of two unhappy but highly religious people. Her mother was strict, and cruel, but her father was worse. He molested her for many years. A sad, sad upbringing but Munkara, as she admits herself, is a survivor:
But aren’t human beings amazing creatures and even at an early age we can choose to let the bad things in life devour us and we sink or we can make the most of the good bits and swim. … I chose to swim.
Part 2, then, makes for hard reading, but Munkara’s sense of humour, her ability to believe that things will work out, and her independent mind bring her, and us, through. She’s a great story-teller, which makes this section more manageable than you might expect – but it still leaves you angry!
And then we come to Part 3 in which she tells of her return to Bathurst Island. This is where the real interest of the book lies because it is here that Munkara takes us on her journey into another culture. She is us – to a degree. She has been brought up white – albeit “a dusky maiden” version – and her expectations and initial reactions are very much as ours would be. She describes how she tries to apply her whitefella ways to her new life with her Aboriginal family. She expects privacy, cleanliness, order and, most of all, respect for her possessions. None of these sit well with traditional indigenous values as she found them on Tiwi, but she’s determined nonetheless. We can feel her horror and frustration – but she’s telling this story long after the events, and imbues them with a light touch of self-deprecation and a warmth for her family which encourages acceptance rather than judgement (in herself and us).
Some examples:
I spend the day scrubbing the kitchen and neatly place all my things by themselves on a shelf so everyone can see they belong to me, and then I have a well-earnt nap. I sleep soundly and wake up to the smells of cooking. Stretching and yawning I make my way to the kitchen to put on the billy for tea only to stop at the doorway in horror, my mouth still open from the yawn. The room in an absolute shithole of a mess. My stuff is strewn everywhere […] Everyone tiptoes around me now they know I’m in a bad mood and I’m fine with that, maybe they’ll learn not to touch things that they shouldn’t.
and
They are instantly awake when they see that I’m only dressed in my bra and underpants. Thankfully my underwear is matching…
Haha, as if they’d care! And,
… after going to the footy on the weekend with my family for protection I’ve gotten over my fear of big crowds of black people. I now feel quite foolish for thinking they could be harmful to me and reckon I must have gotten this irrational fear from my white parents.
So much of this section resonated with me because it reflected many of the things Mr Gums and I were learning and experiencing as I was reading it. I’ve already posted on the cars, but there’s also the mess, the confusing kinship (including her having to call various dogs her brother, her son, her uncle and so on), the trust in spirits, the lack of concern for possessions, all of which can result in decisions and behaviours mystifying to us whitefellas.
But Munkara also learnt more seriously confronting things, such as that her mother’s damaged leg was caused by leprosy, something she’d thought only happened in the Bible and poor countries:
I slide my ill-informed thoughts into the rubbish bin and slam the lid down tight, angry that our First World country can live in ignorant bliss of our Third World problems. … I bet there wouldn’t be too many white people afflicted with leprosy in Australia because if there were it would be front-page news.
However, while the memoir is, for us, an eye-opening, necessary journey into another culture, it is, ultimately for Munkara, a journey to her self. By the end of Part 3, she has come to a better understanding of who she is:
But they don’t realise that there is no stolen and there is no lost, there is no black and there is no white. There is just me. And I am perfect the way I am. And I know now that I have to leave this place because I’ve learnt all I can for the time being and this lesson is over now.
She only leaves as far as Darwin, however, so she can remain in contact with her family. And so it is that, late in the book, Munkara writes about her (biological) mother’s dying:
When I asked her if she had any regrets she said there were no words in any of our family languages for regret. To regret something was a waste of time so why make a word for something that you didn’t need.
Munkara’s mother’s comment that her language doesn’t have a word for “regret” encapsulates for me the value of reading this book, which is its chronicling of the meeting of two opposing cultures. I thoroughly recommend the book, because understanding what divides us is critical to reconciliation – and because it is a darned good read. She can tell a story, that one!
Lisa (ANZLitLovers) has reviewed this book, as has French blogger Emma (Book around the corner) and the Resident Judge. Read for Lisa’s (ANZLitLovers) Indigenous Literature Week.
Marie Munkara
Of ashes and rivers that run to the sea
North Sydney: Penguin Random House, 2016
179pp. (print version)
ISBN: 9780857987280 (eBook)
Whispering Gums 
Super commentary on this book. It sounds so good. Though I knew about the stolen chindren the concept still seems too shocking to comprehend. The culture clash parts of this book sound both very amusing and very enlightening.
All that Brian! the most shocking thing about the stolen children I think is how long it went on for.
Beautifully written – empathy as most appropriate – book now in my library as I write. Thank you for this alert to Marie Munkara’s writing of her story. I was already 11 when she was born – and though not an easy story – crocodiles were not among the possibilities lying in wait – but like her I have strong reasons to offer up blessings for my grand-mothers!
Thanks Jim. I’m glad you had great grandmothers too. You’ve alluded to some childhood challenges so it’s great to hear there were good grandmas around.
I had heard vaguely about ‘stolen children’ but this is the first time for me to hear the details. sounds like a powerful and very important book sue
So glad then, Karen, that the book has brought this to you. It’s our history but it’s also world history isn’t it?
Sadly there is so much history that we seldom get to hear about in school/college because it comes from another country.
True, Karen, but I guess we can’t learn all the history of all the countries can we. Just as well we have books and blogs to help us catch up on all we missed at school.
I had never heard of the stolen generation until I moved here 30 years ago and remember how shocked I was, including how long it went on. How religious folks could condone it didn’t surprise me but I’ll leave that alone for once. Am going to see if our library has this important book.
Oh good Pam. I’m glad if my post has encouraged you to read this book. I hope the library has it. I suspect that few of us non-indigenous Australians knew much about the stolen generations 30 years ago. It was probably around then – or early 90s – that it started really to come out into general Australian consciousness.
It’s just so hard to imagine.
Wonderful write up, Sue. I’ll be adding this one to the (groaning) TBR pile.
Oh Angela, I’m so sorry to do that to you – because I was just looking at the piles surrounding me and telling myself not to panic – this reading is supposed to be fun!! But, I’m glad my post has inspired you to consider this one.
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Well, this is a very special review indeed because of your visit to Arnhem land. I have added it to the master Indigenous Reading List at ANZLL.
Thank you for participating in #ILW, you are a real stalwart.
BTW did you know that Melissa Lucashenko has a new novel out, it’s called Too Much Lip, gotta love the title, eh?
Thanks Lisa – and as you know I’m very happy to support ILW. I hope you keep doing it. Just wish I could have done more. I had planned another read but you know…
As for Lucashenko, I only heard about it today. Yes, great title – particularly given the current furore.
Great review, it gives a good idea of the book. It must have been a powerful book to read while you were travelling up there.
She’s touching and resilient and through her honest tale of her reactions when she started to live with her family, she makes us touch the cultural differences. It becomes real, concrete and shows that it’s such a different way of seing the world than it’ll need a good dose of willingness on both parts to progress in the way of a better respect and mutual acceptance.
It’s a tall order for the country.
Thanks Emma. And it was – powerful, and I’m sure has helped drive some knowledge and understandings home.
You’re right about the “good dose of willingness” needed on both parts. I guess we are slowly getting there – but it’s very very slow, and that’s bad because so many people are suffering in the meantime. A tall order as you say.
Reblogged this on Tasmanian Bibliophile @Large and commented:
I must read this as well.
It’s a good read Jennifer – as you’ve probably gathered!
The disgraceful living conditions of some Aboriginal people is a difficult subject for a white person to address without racism. Some of it comes from alcohol and some of the alcoholism from an understandable despair. We’ve been struggling a long time with where to start and what to do. If I believe anything it is that the answers must come from indigenous people themselves and I applaud Munkara for not hiding the problem, from herself and from us.
All that Bill … can’t really add anything to that. Some of the programs we heard about in Arnhem Land were self directed.
Wonderful review! I just finished reading the book, inspired by Emma who was inspired by Indigenous Literature Week. I agree that it’s an eye-opening journey, and one aspect that I loved but didn’t really mention in my review was the humour—you’re right, she can definitely tell a story! It’s wonderful that you were able to visit the Tiwi Islands recently and see the place for yourself. Was it more or less as Marie Munkara described, or did you see any signs of change? (I’m asking because I guess her initial visit was quite a few years ago now, and I wondered if living conditions had improved there in the meantime.)
Thanks Andrew. I’ll come visit yours. Yes, she first returned there in the very late 1980s I think, so nearly 30 years ago. We first visited there in 2006. It’s hard for me to say as we didn’t visit the more residential areas. I would say it has changed to some degree… Increased focus on education for the young, more active development of tourism but it’s still limited and controlled. The ferry still just pulls up at the beach with a ramp laid down BUT a terminal is being built now. How much change in lifestyle though is hard to gauge.
That’s interesting to hear! Yes, it’s tough to gauge things like that as a visitor to a place, but it’s good to get your impressions. Thanks! Must have been a really interesting trip.
It truly was. I won’t forget it quickly.
What an important story! If you enjoy listening to podcasts, there is a very well-crafted one from CBC here, which considers the open case of a missing indigenous girl who had been relocated across the US-Canada border decades ago (not to place her with an indigenous family but to place her with a white family) as part of what is called here “the sixties scoop”. The journalist (also an indigenous woman) does a great job of bringing together a bunch of complicated issues and the story takes some unexpected turns. Regularly I am surprised by the similarities in the way Australian and Canadian governments enacted their genocidal policies and practices. http://www.cbc.ca/radio/findingcleo
Thanks Buried. I like podcasts but don’t listen to many just because of time. I’ll try to listen to t his one though as it would be interesting to understand some of the international parallels more.