Full Circle: From Mission to Community a Family Story

By Edie Wright, Fremantle: FACP, 2001, 288 pages, paperback, $24.95. Reviewed by Jo Lampert in the June 2002 issue.

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As a non-indigenous person reviewing a book like Full Circle, it is important to acknowledge up-front the problems of 'gaze'. This is probably also true of biography or autobiography in general: a reviewer can never really know the reasons compelling a writer to tell about their own life, or that of their family or communities. With indigenous literature, particularly in the reasonably common genre of 'life story', it can only be presumed that the purpose for writing the story is at least three-fold: to help the author on their personal journey to self-discovery, to inform the reader about indigenous story in Australia in a way that cannot help but be political, and to preserve the voices of older indigenous people who might not have had a voice in the past, and who will not be around forever to share their stories. Indigenous writers feel a particularly strong responsibility to set the story straight, and to honour their families, who 'did it tough'.

Edith Wright, now principal of Wangkatjunka Remote Community School, honours her grandfather, Alfred Brown, and then her mother, Laurelle, in this family history. Her grandfather's story not only reflects the histories experienced by so many Aboriginal people who are members of 'the stolen generation', but his subsequent career, as respected skipper of the lugger the Watt Leggatt in Western Australia, gave him another fascinating role in Australia's past. Removed from his family in the early 1900's, Brown was sent to live at Mapoon mission and given the English name Alfred, after a visitor to the mission. In later years when his wife died, he took the responsibility of raising his young family by himself, moving with them to Kunmunya mission in Western Australia. His daughter Laurelle's memories of mission life and their subsequent moves make up the rest of the book.

Full Circle offers more than an oral history, although interspersed throughout the book are quoted memories from Alfred, Laurelle and other relatives and friends of the family. These, of course, help bring the story to life, and the book sometimes shifts in point of view, referring in one chapter to Laurelle, and the next to 'mum'.

But the author has also done a great deal of research, and contextualises the family's experiences in Australia, so we get, for instance, both a personal remembrance of the effect leprosy had on Aboriginal families in the 1950s (the author's brother was sent to a leprosarium outside of Derby for several years at a time), but also a well documented discussion of the epidemic. There is a similar balance between the personal and the 'factual' on other issues as well, for example her mother Laurelle was exempted from the Aborigines Act as a 'half caste', but not her husband, Doug. Whenever possible the author gives the names of individuals, a well-researched technique I find enlightening, and one which gives individuals their proper place in history. This makes Aboriginal people visible in a history, which has erased them from the stories. This strong merging of a personal as well as a well-written academic narrative gives the book strong credibility, particularly since we're told that 'Recording statistics of this nature about Aboriginal people was not a legal requirement until after 1967 and was virtually non-existent for those born at the turn of the century'.

When I first started reading the book I found it strangely romantic and sympathetic towards the Presbyterian mission, the site of such displacement for Aboriginal people. For instance, Mrs Beard is described as 'the matron (who) looked after the welfare of the women' (she names one of Laurelle's siblings, Alwyn, after her own son, apparently a common practice), and praises Reverend Love for 'encouraging the Worrorra people to keep much of their traditional ways'. We're told that Aboriginal people on the mission had to set aside their wages in a process 'designed to foster good planning and finance skills'. The praise bestowed on some of the missionaries for what is, to my mind, a condescending control over people's lives, initially puzzled me. On the other hand, this is Alfred's story, and must be the way he told it to the author, so it's not up to me to question it. On a personal level, there appears to have been quite a lot of mutual respect.

This tone of gratitude does not remain throughout the book, though, and in some ways condemnation is slipped into the text subtly. Families living on the Mapoon mission are casually referred to as 'inmates', which reflects the author's politicised analysis; and the book includes a lot of commentary regarding the appalling conditions imposed on indigenous people by the Australian government. It is often acknowledged that the kindness this family experienced on the missions was not the norm; that 'Most non-Aboriginal people interacting with Aboriginal people proceeded along the path of cultural genocide', and 'violent dispossession that frequently came with contact'.

The history told in this book enlightens us on Aboriginal experiences in such things as schooling, medical treatment, government policy and their crucial role in world war two, and it brings us up to the land rights struggles of today, ending with Laurelle's attempts (difficult and frustrating) to start an Aboriginal community, Djarworrada, after she was reunited with her northern Queensland family. The 'full circle' referred to in the title not only refers to the journey undertaken by the author and her own family, but the journey, difficult and still unfolding, of non-indigenous Australia's own relationship with indigenous Australia.

Citation

• Jo Lampert. 'Review: Full Circle: From Mission to Community a Family Story by Edie Wright' [online]. Network Review of Books (Perth, Australian Public Intellectual Network), June 2002. Availability: <please cite the web address here> ISSN 1833-0932. [accessed 24 May 2013].

Back Cover Blurb

• Edie Wright's ancestors were taken, through the early twentieth century mission system, from Queensland to the other side of the country and relocated in the Kimberley of Western Australia.
  
  Full Circle, is a positive, spirited and imaginative story of a remarkable Aboriginal family who, despite considerable difficulties, were able to remain together when many others in similar circumstances were being forced apart.

Visitors' Responses

• I Loved It
  Hello I loved the book, it really touched my heart and it brang tears to my eyes when the sad parts came along.

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