Remembered By Heart: An Anthology of Indigenous Writing

by Sally Morgan

  From the city where he’d reached adulthood, he moved back close to the country of our Noongar ancestors, and worked on the roads as ‘leading hand’ in a gang of mainly Aboriginal men. Returning home after being away from us for ten days of every fortnight, he usually took us camping. He wanted to be a professional fisherman, and we rattled along the coast in a battered 4WD and trailed nets from a dinghy in the country of our countless ancestors, ‘going home’ together. We kids helped with the nets, cleaned fish, and even hawked them around the neighbourhood. My mother broke up blocks of ice with the back of an axe, and we carefully layered fish and ice into crates which my father then loaded onto a train bound for the city.

  One among other Noongar and wadjela children running barefoot in a suburb a skip, hop and a step from the reserve, I was only ever at the fringe of a community which showed all the signs of being under siege.

  My immediate family line didn’t have the experience of reserves or missions. I don’t know that sort of anger, can’t claim the same sense of a collective identity forged by the experience of oppression. I knew something about the shame — just from being ‘of Aboriginal descent’ in the Australia I’ve known — and I knew something about the pride, if not how to adequately express and articulate it.

  Abridged from Kayang & Me

  Kim Scott and Hazel Brown, 2005.

  Bronwyn Bancroft

  CROSSING THE LINE

  On the second of April 1949 a man and a woman crossed the line. One was black and one was white and they thought it would be all right.

  My father was black. My mother was white. Racism was rife. It was a small country town called Tenterfield in the 1950s and times were hard. Bill Bancroft, my father, wasn’t even an Australian citizen, yet he married my mother, a white woman whose name was Dorothy Moss. Who could question their courage, in particular Dorothy, who had everything to lose. It is the union of these two people that shows what is great about the human race — the desire to follow instinct. It didn’t matter that one person had black skin. What mattered was they were in love. A love you can read of in fairytales — defying boundaries, defying doubters, defying the White Australia Policy. From this partnership I was born. My name is Bronwyn Bancroft and this is my story.

  Born in 1958, I was the last of seven children. My eldest brothers and sisters were not that much older than me, as my mum had one child each year for eight years, but they used to say to visitors and other family members that Mum and Dad only had me to wear out the old clothes. The earliest memories I have are of lying under the kitchen table. I would rub my eyes then look around the room. The mist of tears distorted everything I saw. The tablecloth with the interwoven shapes took life. Everywhere I looked there were patterns.

  It was as if I was born in another time, another place, another family. Like my brothers and sisters though, I woke to a world of inequality. I was in Tenterfield, New South Wales. Population: 3000. I was born not black, not white — an Aboriginal Australian.

  In a small country town I was either going to be very creative or a lot of trouble. My different perspective would distance me from my siblings, not only because I was the last of seven children, but also because they came across a lot more racism than I did. One brother had many fights under the bridge after school when people called him a boong or a coon. I was saved from that because they cut a path of respect that I followed, blissfully unaware at the time of their trials and tribulations. I did not have to live daily through such horrendous moments. That’s not to say I haven’t experienced racism. I have, and when it happens it always sends an arrow straight into my heart. I wonder what makes a person think they have the right to speak or act in such an inhumane way. I never understand it.

  I think the lack of respect afforded to my siblings by some elements of a small country town pushed them into a place where they did not want to go. Challenged as Aboriginal people, they would have preferred to be treated as Australians, but they mostly succumbed to the tweener world, where whites never accepted you and neither did blacks. You were caught in that vacuous space in between. I never wanted to be a tweener. I knew I couldn’t live like that. I was Aboriginal and I was extremely proud of my dad. I embraced my Aboriginality wholeheartedly and my identity became the whole focal point for my life and for what I later taught my children.

  I was fortunate in that throughout my life I had much greater social freedom than my brothers and sisters. When I was nine years old, the 1967 referendum voted in favour of including Indigenous people in the census, which effectively recognised our citizenship. When I was fourteen years old, the 1972 Tent Embassy was set up outside Parliament House, Canberra, to protest against the treatment of Indigenous Australians in this country. I was born into a generation of change and I embraced that too. I came to understand how important and meaningful my identity was for me. It was so much more than a name and a family. It was a belief, a deep sense of spirituality, a lifestyle and it meant that I also opened my arms to my ancestral land from an early age.

  I always loved going to the bush at Lionsville, where my father’s family are the traditional custodians of the land. I enjoyed the sanctity of the bush kingdom and felt a freedom there like no other place. Without over-romanticising, I really felt that when I set foot on our land a weight was lifted from me. It was like that feeling you get when you arrive home after a long day at school carrying around a bag full of heavy books. Walking into your room, you fling the bag down on the floor. Without the weight you feel immediately stronger. The bed beckons. You lie down and are momentarily free from everything that weighs you down. That’s how I felt in Lionsville. I even loved the drive there, crammed into the back of the old Ford with my brothers and sisters. The road from Tenterfield was mainly dirt. I remember looking out the back at the dust exploding behind us. The road took us past Tabulam, and Baryulgil, then on to this remote area called Lionsville. All of us kids were on the lookout for the three big hills. When we saw them we knew our destination was just ahead. Hill one, two, and three passed. We were here. We were excited. It was time to get to the creek.

  The creek was out the back of our grandfather’s place. We were so happy to arrive after being crammed together in the truck, in the heat and dust, and we would rush straight down to the creek. There were catfish in the water, but we were careful not to disturb their nest. Diving off the fallen log into the pristine waters of the Washpool Creek — what a divine moment. Laughter and excitement and the thrill of eating fresh fish and homemade bread by nightfall.

  What I felt more than anything was the sense of peace and space that this bush hideaway offered. I loved the little tin cubby nestling under the giant crepe myrtle with its own little stove and playthings. It was my retreat.

  Then, after we were sent to bed, you could hear the old people telling stories. Our beds were on the front verandah, and we listened in as much as we could. I loved being able to fall asleep in the company of adults while they related the day’s events. I never heard anyone speak about racism. Ignorance is bliss, especially when you are a child. As my eyes started to close I would look at and listen to the world beyond the verandah. You could hear the frogs in the galvanised pipe bars that made the front fence, and see the stars lining the interior of the night sky … the saucepan … the three sisters. The stars always made me think about how Dad and Uncle Pat would say that these signposts in the sky were their compasses when they were out doing jobs for their dad, my grandfather. All this created a sense of home. I was enchanted with the knowledge that I was walking on the same land as my grandmother’s mother and her mother. Walking the land allowed me to connect spiritually to my ancestors. As young as I was, I knew even then that this was the ultimate in personal freedom.

  I am descended from Aboriginal, English, Polish and Scottish. My father always used to say, ‘You are what you are and nothing else!’ and I thought this was an interesting and perceptive statement from a black man who felt that he was surrounded by inequality. I did not have a chan
ce to meet all my great grandparents but I knew they existed as a part of me.

  People always ask me why I identify as an Aboriginal person with this mixed up ancestry. It is important to note that in Australia you are either recognised as an Aboriginal person or you are not. I am descended from the best people in this country: smart, resilient and survivors. Why would I not want to recognise my own family? Also, I live in Australia, not Scotland or Poland or England, and as such I feel the heartbeat of my Old People. I feel the resonance of their lives and their times and this is what guides me, and in them I trust.

  I am proud of who I am. I am proud of where I’ve come from. I am proud of what I’ve done and I’m proud of where I’m going. I am a Bundjalung woman who sees each new day as the beginning of the rest of my life. You can’t change the past, but you can live a different future.

  Abridged from Speaking from the Heart

  edited by Sally Morgan, Tjalaminu Mia and Blaze Kwaymullina, 2007.

  BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES

  BRONWYN BANCROFT was born in 1958 and belongs to the Bundjalung people of Northern New South Wales. She is a well-known painter and is also interested in the environment and teaching other people the joy of creating art.

  ALICE BILARI SMITH was born at Rocklea Station in the Pilbara in 1928. Her mother was a Banyjima woman and her father was a white teamster. She was raised by her Aboriginal family and, although she did not know it at the time, narrowly escaped being removed to Moore River. After marriage to Bulluru Jack Smith, Alice lived in the bush and raised a large family before settling in Roebourne so that her children could attend school.

  HAZEL BROWN is the senior elder of a large, extended Noongar family. She has worked as a rural labourer, was a member of Western Australia’s first Metropolitan Commission of Elders, and is a registered Native Title claimant over part of the south coast of Western Australia.

  JUKUNA MONA CHUGUNA was a young woman when she walked out of the desert with her husband. They worked on cattle stations for a number of years, then moved to the mission at Fitzroy Crossing in the early 1970s. Jukuna was among the first women to attend Walmajarri literacy classes and worked on Walmajarri projects with linguists. She has travelled widely in Australia and overseas to exhibit her paintings.

  ERIC HEDLEY HAYWARD is a Noongar Elder from south-west Western Australia. He hails from a family of leaders in sport. Eric has continued his family’s contribution by promoting Aboriginal community sport, particularly football and golf, for which he has coordinated state and local events. He is currently completing a Doctor of Philosophy at Curtin University.

  STEPHEN KINNANE is a descendant through his mother’s mother of the Miriwoong people of the East Kimberley and was raised in Noongar country in the south-west of Western Australia. He is the author of Shadow Lines (2003); collaborated with Lauren Marsh and Alice Nannup on the book When the Pelican Laughed (1992) and co-wrote and co-produced a documentary, The Coolbaroo Club (1996).

  TJALAMINU MIA is a Nyungar woman with bloodline links to the Minang and Goreng peoples of the south-west of Western Australia. She works as a research fellow in oral history and the arts in the School of Indigenous Studies at The University of Western Australia.

  SALLY MORGAN was born in Perth in 1951. She has published books for both adults and children, including her acclaimed autobiography, My Place. She has a national reputation as an artist and has works in many private and public collections.

  ALICE NANNUP was born on a Pilbara station in 1911 to an Aboriginal mother and white father. She was taken from her community at the age of twelve and sent south to work as a domestic servant. After her marriage in 1932, Alice raised ten children. Known as ‘Nan’, she lived in Geraldton surrounded by her friends and extensive family until she passed away in November 1995.

  MAY L O’BRIEN BEM was born in the Eastern Goldfields of Western Australia, and at the age of five was taken to Mount Margaret Mission where she spent the next twelve years. May is a long-standing statesperson within Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander education. She has lived and worked within Aboriginal education systems for more than four decades and, although officially retired, continues to be an active advocate for improving the educational outcomes of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children.

  RENE POWELL was born in 1948 in the Warburton Ranges, in the Central Desert of Western Australia. Her people are the Ngaanyatjarra. Removed from her family at the age of four, she grew up at Mount Margaret Mission and then Kurrawang Mission where she was trained for domestic work. Most of her adult life was spent in Perth until, after the death of her husband, she went back to Warburton to live and start a garden.

  KIM SCOTT is a descendant of people living along the south coast of Western Australia prior to colonisation, and is proud to be one among those who call themselves Noongar. Kim’s most recent novel, That Deadman Dance, won the Miles Franklin Award, along with a number of other literary awards and prizes. He is currently Professor of Writing at Curtin University in Western Australia.

  DAVID SIMMONS was born in Perth to parents from the Nyoongar language group of far-south Western Australia but has lived and worked in Roebourne for most of his adult life.

  JOAN WINCH was born in 1935 and belongs to the Nyungar and Martujarra people of Western Australia. She is a well-known fighter for Aboriginal rights and was awarded the World Health Organization’s Sasakawa Award in 1987 for her work on Indigenous primary health care.

  LOLA YOUNG was born on Rocklea Station in the Pilbara in 1942 to Aboriginal parents. At an early age she went with her grandparents to learn Aboriginal bush medicine and culture. Her working life started at the age of about ten and when she turned fourteen she was given away in marriage. Lola established the Wakuthuni Community in 1990 to bring her people back home to their country. She taught Aboriginal culture, bush medicine and bush tucker to both black and white people until her death in 2010.