No-one went to mass after Pwomiga left them, there was no point. He had proved to them what a few of the more astute had always suspected. They’d been sucked in good and proper by the mission mob with all their talk about God and saints and angels. And when Jerrengkerritirti and Kumwarrni went to Father Voleur to ask that the mission mob leave because no-one wanted them there anymore, and Father had in so many words told them to bugger off, they knew that something had changed while they’d been occupied with learning how to act like a muruntani and there was nothing they could do to change things back to how they were before.
So began the slow downwards spiral of despair. It wasn’t long before Jerrengkerritirti with his unruly teeth joined Pwomiga because he didn’t want to be in that place anymore. And young Seth not long after that. Then the grog came and the winding path of good intentions became a straight bitumen four-laned highway that led even deeper into a world of self-destruction and hopelessness that no-one knew how to fix. And then more and more people began to leave unexpectedly without goodbyes or explanations and a sorrow so deep that no-one could see an end to the despair descended upon them and they’d be found hanging from trees or electrocuted by the power lines and the cemetery had to be made bigger to accommodate the unexpected influx of new residents. But there was one thing they were certain of. They didn’t have to die to go to hell because the mission had happily brought that with them when they’d arrived unasked on the fateful shores of the place that was their heaven all those years before.
Acknowledgments
I would like to acknowledge the following people for their support during the writing of this book (I’d also like to thank them for putting up with my tantrums, for keeping my wine glass full, and for loving me unconditionally):
My children, my sister Julie, Marny, Sutti Ah Mat, Mich Bazin, Wayne Sweet, Vicki and Greggles, Chris Capper, Ray Orr, Brown Duck, Jeff Graham, Tony Rutter, Phil Brock, Greg Jarvis, Sandra Thibideaux.
Special thanks to Madonna Duffy and Janet Hutchinson for making it all happen.
About the David Unaipon Award
Established in 1988, the David Unaipon Award is an annual literary competition for unpublished manuscripts in any writing genre or Indigenous language by an Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander writer.
The award is named after David Unaipon (1872–1967), who, in 1929, was the first Indigenous author to be published in Australia. He was also a political activist, a scientist, a preacher and an inventor. David Unaipon was born in Port McLeay in South Australia and is commemorated on the $50 note.
This prize is judged and chosen by a panel of established Indigenous authors and a representative of University of Queensland Press. The author of the winning manuscript is mentored and the work published by University of Queensland Press.
Winners of the David Unaipon Award receive financial assistance from the Queensland Government through the Minister for the Arts.
Previous winners of the award include Tara June Winch, Vivienne Cleven, Gayle Kennedy, Sam Wagan Watson and Larissa Behrendt.
Information is available from the Queensland Premier’s Literary Awards website.
First published 2009 by University of Queensland Press
PO Box 6042, St Lucia, Queensland 4067 Australia
Reprinted 2011
www.uqp.com.au
© 2009 Marie Munkara
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no part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system,
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Cataloguing in Publication Data
National Library of Australia
Munkara, Marie.
Every secret thing
ISBN 978 0 7022 3719 5 (pbk)
ISBN 978 0 7022 5067 5 (pdf)
ISBN 978 0 7022 5068 2 (epub)
ISBN 978 0 7022 5069 9 (kindle)
1. Aboriginal Australians – Missions – Australia, Northern – Fiction. 2. Aboriginal Australians – Australia, Northern – Social life and customs – Fiction. 3. Missionaries – Australia, Northern – Fiction. 4. Australia, Northern – Social conditions – Fiction.
A823.4
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Every Secret Thing Page 14