Autobiographical Memory in an Aboriginal Australian Community

Culture, Place and Narrative

A. Monchamp

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781137325273
• Topic: Scienze sociali
• Subtopic: Antropologia culturale e sociale

This book shares and analyses the stories of Opal, a senior Alyawarra woman. Through her stories the reader glimpses the harsh colonial realities which many Aboriginal Australians have faced, highlighting the cultural embeddedness of autobiographical memory from a philosophical, psychological and anthropological perspective.

1

Opal’s Stories¹

Figure 1.1 Opal collecting bush berries

White man want us for nothin’

Opal:	I been liven’ at Beantree now, me an’ Polly.
Anne:	Beantree, how long did you stay there?
Opal:	Long time.
Anne:	Long time?
Opal:	Before them policemen come, been pick me up and take me away.
Anne:	Why did them policemen take you away?
Opal:	Yeah, take ’em, take ’em back away, long work, all away now.
Anne:	They made you go work?
Opal:	More tucker, been livin’ there work long stockmen.
Anne:	So the police wouldn’t let you live in Beantree, they picked you up and made you go to work?
Opal:	Yeah, me and Donny go back, Donny go back longa’ house and I been goin’ out longa’ police station. Young girl.
Anne:	Was it, I mean, did they pay you any money? Did they pay you for working?
Opal:	No, nothing.
Anne:	Nothing, they just made you work?
Opal:	Nothing.
Anne:	And you had to follow them around to all the camps and do the cooking?
Opal:	Yeah, yeah. Clean ’em and I been wash ’em plate, yeah, an cookin’.
Anne:	Just you by yourself?
Opal:	Yeah only me. I been work longa’, I been worken’ longa’ police station too. Old people been worken’, comen’ there. Jim Martin there and Tommy Hurt. I ain’t worken’ no. Why but we gotta’ get the money? Why we gotta’ work for flour and sugar, treacle that sort? White man want us for nothen’, for clothes and sugar, treacle, flour. Yeah that old Jim Martin, old policeman been here, Polly been here Donny been worken’ here. And I been thinkin’, aye, big mob been come here. And that old policemen been comen’ right up there, up to Martin. Martin, just throwed your swag and go out, out-bush. We been just get out, no more swag, we’d a go now [tears glisten in Opal’s eyes as she finishes this final monologue].

Figure 1.2 Hunting goanna

Figure 1.3 Dotty, May ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Figures
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction: Remembering Alpurrurulam
• 1 Opal’s Stories
• 2 ‘Auto’ Is Not Automatic
• 3 ‘Auto’ Is Not Alone
• 4 Translating Memory
• 5 Journey of a Lifetime
• 6 Country, Memory, Culture
• 7 Memory and Dreaming
• Discussion
• Notes
• References
• Index