The Things She's Seen

The Palyku culture to which Ambelin and Ezekial Kwaymullina belong represents just one of the hundreds of distinct communities that make up the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander population of Australia. The word “Aboriginal” refers to the ethnically distinct peoples who first migrated into Australia about 65,000 years ago, while the phrase “Torres Strait Islander” refers to people of Melanesian descent whose communities were originally based in the Torres Strait Islands off of Queensland. Together, these two groups are collectively called “Indigenous Australians,” although some people dislike the colonial history associated with this term. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures are among the world’s oldest continuous cultures. Although they are historically and culturally diverse, most Indigenous Australian communities do share certain features, such as an intense spiritual connection to the land and nature, a belief in personal identity as inextricable from kinship and community identity, and an overarching respect for community elders. Values are commonly passed from person to person and generation to generation through collective storytelling and traditional dances and songs.

Another feature that many Indigenous Australian communities have in common is the inescapable fact that their traditional worldviews, lifestyles, and settlements have been irreparably disrupted by the incursion of European colonists. Historically, Europeans killed thousands of Indigenous Australian people, enslaved thousands more, committed sexual violence against Indigenous women and girls. The colonists also exposed Indigenous Australian people to unfamiliar diseases, banned their cultural practices, and forced many Indigenous Australian peoples to move onto reserves. One particularly cruel practice was the separation of Indigenous children from their families. These children, who were removed by force from their communities and sent away to group homes or were adopted into white families, are now referred to as the “Stolen Generations.” The violence and oppression that many generations of Indigenous Australians experienced fractured their cultures, communities, and families.

Today, Indigenous Australians make up about four percent of Australia’s population. Although some live on their communities’ traditional lands and many continue to speak the original languages of their cultures, the majority live in cities and speak English as at least one of their first languages. Relative to non-Indigenous Australians, they are more likely to suffer from poor health and economic deprivation. They are also statistically more likely to be incarcerated and more likely to become victims of police violence, racist harassment, and discrimination.

The oppression of Indigenous Australians by Australian society has been the subject of many books, plays, films, and other works. For example, in Tara June Winch’s acclaimed 2019 novel The Yield, for example, the author tells the story of the Gondiwindis, an early-20th-century Aboriginal family struggling to preserve their home and culture from the forces of colonialism. Similarly, the author Jack Davis uses his 1986 play No Sugar to explore the 1930’s depression-era racism, forced displacement of families, poverty, and continuing sexual violence directed against Aboriginal women and girls. Kim Scott’s award-winning 2010 historical novel, That Deadman Dance, illustrates the impact of colonialism on the Noongar people during the first few decades of the 19th century, and Doris Pilkington Garimara’s Follow the Rabbit-Proof Fence (1996) explores the specific issue of the Stolen Generations in depth.

The Things She’s Seen continues this trend in a number of ways, for Catching’s survival hinges upon her connection to the stories and strengths of her matrilineal ancestors, all of whom suffered great injustices under the yoke of colonial oppression. Additionally, the modern-day wrongs that several Aboriginal characters suffer as the novel unfolds reflect the fact that racism against Aboriginal people still exists in Australia today, manifesting in overt forms of violence and in subtler injustices from established authority figures and institutions.