This book is biographical. It’s a slightly fictionalised story of her mother’s childhood. Some of the names have been changed to give people some anonymity. To me, this is a very important book. It’s great for white folks to understand how we’ve wronged entire communites. But it’s even more important for Australia’s First Nations to be able to read their stories. I’m told it helps with the healing.
But, back to the beginning. I bought this book when I was in Adelaide for the Australian Discworld Convention. The hotel was only a few doors from Imprints Booksellers and I wasn’t going to leave Adelaide until I’d been through its doors. I had a good wander around then asked for a recommendation. Recently I’ve been asking for either a local author or an Indigenous author. I hit gold very quickly after I uttered my request. I would have preferred a new book so that Coleman would get the royalties, but they were out of stock of new copies of this book. I ended up with the one copy he had in stock, pre-loved, but only lightly. Dylan Coleman is both local to Adelaide and also an Indigenous author.
This book is written in a mixture of English words and Kokatha words. For a white person such as me I find the mixture to be engaging, but there are not too many Kokatha words to be overwhelming. For someone learning the Kokatha language, it’d be a good primer. If it were to be totally translated into Kokatha it would change the book entirely. I wouldn’t mind reading it in that way. I’d have to have the dictionary printed out beside me, though.
There is a Dictionary at the beginning of the book. I quite liked that. I’ve read other Indigenous books where the Dictionary is in the back. Having the words in the front made me feel as if these Kokatha words are really quite important. And to an Indigenous person they are.
I do feel the Kokatha Dictionary was almost superfluous. The author is such a good writer that I was able to understand what most of the words meant without looking at the Dictionary. The Kokatha words in the book didn’t slow my reading down, it was stopping to look in the Dictionary and double check my understanding. There was enough repetition that
I found myself so engrossed in this book that after I finished was starting to adopt some of the turns of phrase. Coleman has added the word ‘way’ to many words. It sounds very much as Indigenous children might talk. The phrase I have in front of me is ‘We play nice-way at school together’. It’s not proper English but it sounds like proper Kokatha translated into English, at least to my brain. Remember, I’m white, so this all sounds rather condescending when I attempt to change my point of view. I found in my brain I’d added the word ‘way’ to words which enhanced the meaning of them. If you see me and I’m starting to do that then you know where I’ve got it from.
Coleman has detailed a family in the intersect of families who aren’t quite Indigenous and families who aren’t quite white. Some of these children are in between. They have an Indigenous mother and a white father. The father doesn’t acknowledge that they’re his daughters, although he does make things easier for them by bringing them food and taking them shopping for clothes occasionally. It’s a hard place to be because they’re teased and belittled by everyone.
We hear about the Stolen Generation and how some children were taken from their families and raised on Missions. White people tried to take away their Indigeneity and integrate them into white society, mostly belittling them and overworking them while they did so.
I love how we’re taught a little of Indigenous laws. Not a lot because there’s a lot that white folk aren’t allowed to know. Walbiya laws are contrasted with Nyunga laws. Walbiya being white folk and Nyunga being Indigeous. Walbiya laws mean people are locked up and people might still be angry when they get out. Nyunga-way is much quicker, ‘you might get a spear in the leg, you might get sick or you might even die, but it’s over quick-way.’ Once the fight is over the anger is done and dusted so the problem is gone. I think we can learn a lot from the Indigeous, the white court system takes such a long time and then there’s a lengthy jail sentence…I just wonder if things could be done differently.
In summary, I loved this book. I’d like to leave you some words spoken by Mercy to her daughter. In the book Mercy is called Grace. The title says everyone, Grace is amazing, but I can’t do any better than her words.
‘You’re Aboriginal. Always be proud of that.’
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