Themes: Aboriginal Tasmania, Legacy of colonialism, Cultural heritage, slice of life
Read this if: You enjoy a walk in someone else’s shoes.
Don’t read this if: You have better uses of your time than learning about life in remote places.
Links to purchase: Two Dollar Radio, Amazon
Forty thousand years ago, a group of people wandered onto the Tasmanian peninsula of Australia. Then, rising water separated the peninsula from the Australian mainland. For the next eight thousand years, the Pakana (Aboriginal Tasmanian) would live in complete isolation from the rest of humanity, until Europeans arrived in 1642. In 1803, the British established their first colonies on the island. As was the case in so many places, this was a catastrophe for the locals. Within thirty years of the British arrival, foreign disease and settler violence had reduced 7000 Pakana to a mere 47. By 1876, only mixed-race Pakana remained in Tasmania. And yet, despite the full weight of history bearing down on this community, traditions and culture have survived. There are still people of Pakana-descent like Adam Thompson who are living their life on the island their ancestors have called home for thousands of years, surrounded by people descended from the colonists who drove them off the land. This is the historical legacy they have to contend with everyday, this is the sentiment behind the title of the book, ‘Born Into This’.
The book is Adam Thompson’s debut, a collection of sixteen short stories depicting the day to day life of contemporary Aboriginal Tasmanians. It is both a celebration, and an homage. The stories cover a spectrum of emotions felt by aboriginals about their heritage and its impact on the way they experience life. The anger, shame, pride, futility are all acutely felt, and well described by the author. Even more impressive than the diversity of emotions, is the diversity of the narrators in the stories. Oftentimes in short story collections, you find that the narrators of the different stories are all shades of the same color. Born Into This does not suffer from this problem in the slightest. The protagonists range from teenage girls to old men, with everything in between. Below are a collection of passages which show off the chameleon nature of the writing.
The Old Tin Mine
‘Cheers, matey,’ I said standing. The dry grind of arthritis made my movement jagged and slow. I raised my voice again so they could all hear. ‘You boys wanna remember: this is about survival. We’re blackfellas. We’ve survived for thousands of bloody years in the bush - without the need for any of this shit.’ I threw an accusing finger at the pile of bags and then let it linger on Chris, who had his back to the group.
Born Into This
The smell of the vegetation, as it closed in around her, carried her back to her childhood, to a time when her great-grandmother washed her in an old kerosene tin that lived on her rear step. A capful of ti-tree oil in the scalding water, and she was scrubbed with a stiff brush and harsh lye soap until tears came. ‘If we can wash this black off, might be hope for you yet,’ her great-grandmother would say on every occasion.
In an interview shortly before publishing Born Into This, Adam Thompson explained that, “Storytelling is a good way to disseminate messages to the wider community about issues that are important to Aboriginal people in Tasmania and the rest of Australia. Issues such as racism, destruction of cultural heritage, and the preservation of our identity.” One of the pitfalls when an author seeks to give outsiders a window into ‘the community’, is that oftentimes you can end up with wooden characters who are metaphors first, and humans second. The characters are reduced to a vehicle for the author's opinions on the issues facing the group. However, that is in no way the case with Born Into This. Adam Thompson does a phenomenal job of putting the characters front and centre, and providing commentary second.