Initiatives of Change - Detailed view of For A Change Articles

When South Australia celebrated the centenary of white settlement, in 1936, an official history of the State was published. The authors generously devoted a chapter to the people who had been living in South Australia for over 40,000 years.

The Aborigines were not going to be caught the same way twice. For the State's 150th anniversary, in 1986, they decided to tell their own story. Through no fault of its authors, Survival in our own land overran its publication deadline. But when it appeared last year it was a historic event in itself - and an immediate best-seller.

The book is Australia's first history of the Aborigines by Aborigines. It documents 150 years of loss as land, languages, culture - and even children - were taken away by the white settlers. Over 100 Aborigines tell their stories. The book is written in the first person plural, refers to `Aborigines' and `white people' by the indigenous terms 'Nungas' and 'Goonyas' and marks the State as a white creation by placing its name in inverted commas. But the book's editor, researcher and all-but publisher is a white woman, Christobel Mattingley.

In 1983, when Christobel Mattingley was asked to work on the book, she already had 27 successful children's books to her name and was writing a full-length adult novel. For the Aborigines to make such an appeal to a white writer was no mean bouquet - but a decidedly thorny one. She knew that if and from reactionary whites. At the same time, she saw the request `as God's call to use the skills and experiences he has given me to serve him as a bridge between our two peoples'. She put her novel away.

The Aborigines' decision was not lightly taken either. Having lost so much, they saw their life experiences as all that was left to them. They had every reason to be choosy about the person to whom they entrusted their stories. In an ideal world this would have been one of their own people, but the Aboriginal committee who commissioned the book could find none qualified to do the job. 'Christobel was chosen because of her empathy with our people and her experience as a researcher and writer,' wrote one of the committee, Ken Hampton. `She became one of us.'

Christobel Mattingley is a fifth generation Australian - not much of a claim, she says, compared with the Aborigines' 1,600 - 2,000 generations. She had her first article published when she was nine. She grew up with a love of nature and an awareness of the continent's first people. `I have known since I was quite small that we white-fellas walk on Aboriginal land.'

Inner landscape
She studied modern languages at the University of Tasmania, trained as a librarian and married David Mattingley, a teacher, in 1953. Six months after her third child was born she was asked to start a library at her daughter's Anglican primary school and went back to work, accompanied by the baby in his pram.

Her first book, The Picnic Dog, was published in 1970 and four more followed in the next three years. They were simple stories of children in everyday situations and they struck a chord with the Australian public. In 1974 she was awarded a Literature Board Fellowship and gave up her job to write full-time.

She writes, she says, about `the inner landscape - usually someone coming to terms with some inner fear'. The Long Walk, for instance, tells the story of a child who has to face out bullies on his way home from school. One of her most recent books, The Miracle Tree, is a haunting story of the effect of the atom bomb on three people in Nagasaki.

`One of the greatest joys of being a writer is that you don't know what's going to be a trigger,' she says. `I tuck things away until the time comes when the story's ready to be written.' She starts writing without a plot or theme or even a target readership. `The story finds its own reading level.' It sounds like a publisher's nightmare, but it seems to work. The Miracle Tree won the Christian Children's Book of the Year Award in 1986.

She treasures the memory of the child who said that one of her books helped him to be brave when his father died - and of the adult who said that another brought her back from the point of suicide. She is thrilled when a youngster says that one of her books is the first he has ever read right through. `I'll never be another Tolstoy but I can be a stepping stone to the great writers.'

As her books started being published, speaking invitations began to arrive. In 1975 she was asked to join a pilot venture to bring culture to isolated communities in outback Queensland. `I was worried whether I could establish a rapport with Aboriginal people - the white children in my stories even wore dressing gowns! But I found I did relate with them and had something to share. The Aborigines are wonderful listeners.'

Other lecture tours followed `in parts of Australia most people never get to see'. She spent as much time as she could in Aboriginal communities and `grew in love and respect' for the people. `When I saw the third-rate jobs and culture being imposed upon them it made me very angry.'

One encounter in particular sticks in her mind. She was walking towards her hotel in the remote town of Ceduna one night when a small black boy darted up and pressed a passportsize photo into her hand. On the back was his name, `Randy'. At the hotel she checked up in her autograph book and discovered he was one of a class she had visited some days earlier. She made enquiries and found he was an orphan, looked after by his brothers and sisters. She went back twice to Ceduna to see him and still carries his photo, even though he is now grown up and they have lost touch.

Such experiences encouraged Mrs Mattingley to enrol in a course in Aboriginal studies. `During this time I was obviously being observed by Aboriginal people, who have no reason to trust white people.' When the invitation came to work on Survival in our own land, it was a sign of trust. `It was an awesome responsibility. Then, two days after I was appointed, I discovered that some of the Aborigines did not want me.' She offered to resign, but her resignation was not accepted.

For the next six years she worked `a seven-days-a-week, sixteen-hour day', filling three rooms of her home with papers. She found the task traumatic. As she began to see white history through Aboriginal eyes, she was filled with anger at what her people had done. Her anguish was compounded by the pain of those she was interviewing. Many had never exposed their suffering to a white person before and found the process agonizing.

Nine months into the project it became clear that not only did she have to research and edit the book, but she would have to ghost-write most of it as well. She was horrified not just by the loss of authenticity but also by the fact that `it had to be my words that condemned my own society'. In spite of the support she was receiving from many Aborigines, she felt devastatingly alone. `I used to cling to that verse in the Bible, "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me".'

`One day I was at my doctor's. When I left his room I sat in his garden weeping for over an hour. Then he came out. He said, "I want to do something I have never done with a patient before. I want to pray with you." We stood under a tree and he prayed for victory over the forces of darkness.'

That night it occurred to Mrs Mattingley that one person who might be able to help her was Ken Hampton, the first Aborigine to be ordained in the Anglican Church in South Australia. Since helping to initiate the book, he had been seriously ill, but he offered to become the book's co-editor. `If our names are on it together,' he said, `we'll stand back to back and you'll have to take it from your people and I'll take it from mine.' His name supplied the authenticity needed. `He could change my "they" to "we" and that is what we did.'

The manuscript was ready in April 1985, a year before the anniversary. By publishing early, the Aborigines hoped to point out that they were already there when the white settlers arrived.

Survival in our own land was one of several histories which the State Government had agreed to fund for the anniversary. It set up a new publishing house to handle the books but the publisher was lacking in resources. Christobel found herself having to do her own copy-editing and lay-out, which involved some 330 photos. She proofread the 350 pages nine times.

The Government decided to close the press at the end of 1986. Official social and political histories and a police history of the State were rushed through, but the Aboriginal work was sold off to a commercial publisher in a grab-bag of unfinished titles. The first its co-editors heard of this was through a small media item. They were incensed that the Aborigines had not been consulted and by the fact that the new publisher had no book-publishing experience. They accused the State Government of `suppressing the voice of the traditional owners of this land'.

In addition, Christobel discovered that because she had received some payment from State funds, the copyright of the book belonged to the Crown, not to the Aboriginal people quoted. She refused to sign her contract, which had never been finalized by the original publisher, and began a strenuous campaign to have full rights to the book returned to the Aborigines. `Many influential individuals and organizations of good will wrote to the Government and media. Questions were asked in Parliament. The Government replied by attacking me in Parliament and the press.'

Best-seller
By September 1987, when the controversy was at its height, the two-year struggle had affected Ken Hampton's precarious health and he died. She is still grieving.

The book eventually appeared in July 1988. As the rights would only revert to the Aborigines when the first print run was bought out, the attingleys 'worked like crazy' - and personally shifted over 1000 copies. It sold out within 10 weeks. The second edition was published, within a month, by the Aboriginal Literature Development Assistance Association (ALDAA), chaired by Ted Hampton, brother of Ken. ALDAA took Hodder and Stoughton as its commercial distributor. Any small profit will go to finance the third print run and, it is hoped, to publish other works by Aborigines.

The controversy helped to sell the book. `My phone rang solidly for weeks,' says Christobel. She was deeply moved by the response from Aborigines. `Many, when they at last had the book in their arms, held it like a baby. They didn't open it, they just sat with the tears streaming down their faces.' Two of the Aborigines who had been most hostile apologized to her.

The six years have taken their toll. She is too sensitive a person to take conflict in her stride. But, she says, she'd do it all again if she had to. At the book launching she promised the Aboriginal people she would stick with them. `I pray that I will be able to help them to be recognized for the people they are: people of great integrity, people of great intellect, great love and creativity, wonderful people.’