'Surviving Between Two Cultures': The Family in Don't Take Your Love to Town
Kathryn Trees

Family is the organising theme of Don't Take Your Love to Town. As Ruby Langford Ginibi says, this is a book about families and the raising of families. She begins:

started this book on 23 May 1984. It is a true life story about an Aboriginal woman's struggle to raise a family of nine children in a society divided between black and white culture in Australia...And, it is dedicated to every black woman who's battled to raise a family and kept her sense of humor.

Although this text is largely autobiographical, focusing as it does, on the life of Ginibi and her large extended family, it is the story of many Aboriginal families. Most importantly, it is a celebration of the strength and tenacity of people who, in spite of formidable odds, raise their families and maintain their joy of living.

As readers of this text will find, there are many commonalities between Ginibi and her family's experiences and those of other Australians. Mothers working to support their children; looking after them when they are ill; dealing with weddings and death are all such instances. Ginibi's account of her husband, Sam Griffin's, family is a poignant example, though most families do not experience as many tragedies. Sam's father died when he was about thirty and Sam's mother, "was left with two young kids, Sam and Bill. When Bill was about two, he'd burnt to death in a fire at Burra Be Dee mission."(55) All readers, either from direct personal experience or through other people, can understand what it means to have a husband, father or child die. If readers are able to feel compassion for the people spoken of in the text they might be able to explore the particular difficulties experienced by Aboriginal women.

Many Australians know little or nothing about the legislation that governed the lives of Aboriginal people so it may be difficult for a reader to make immediate links between this legislation and the "battle" that Ginibi describes. If an empathetic relationship is created between the reader and the people described in the text s/he may be more inclined to find out more about the background events and thus establish a context for understanding "the divide between black and white society" that Ginibi says increases the struggle for Aboriginal women.

This struggle has a history. Since the arrival of Phillip in 1788 Aboriginal peoples have been subjected to government legislation that has directly impacted on family life, this has taken many forms. Throughout the country there has been a continual movement of people from their traditional lands to missions and reserves. This was carried out under the direction of the Aborigines' Protection Board which was responsible for the 'care' of all Aboriginal people. It had the power to decide where people could live, who they could marry and even whether they were fit to look after their own children.

The Board had separate policies for 'full-blood and part-Aboriginal' children. 'Full-blood' children were considered to be 'primitive' and unteachable while 'half or quarter caste' children were considered teachable because of their 'white' blood. In many cases people defined as 'half, quarter, eighth part' Aboriginal were taken from their families to separate missions to be 'educated' to live and work as 'white' people. This resulted in thousands of children being taken from their families, country, language, cultural heritage. Comparing the works of writers such as Glenyse Ward, Sally Morgan, Kevin Gilbert and several others provides some comprehension of the extent to which this happened.

Parents were most often given no official information about the location or health of their children, including whether a child had died or not. Children, on the other hand, were often told that their parents had died. These strategies were implemented, in particular, to break connections between families and thus stop movement of people back to their country. Only in this last decade, particularly as a response to the recommendations of the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody, has there been limited government support for the reuniting of families who were separated during the assimilationist era.

Ginibi was fortunate, she was not taken away from her family. Although her mother left them when she was six she remained with her father, extended family and friends. Later, Ginibi had nine children of her own and adopted others along the way. The father of her first three children, Bill, Pearl and Dianne, is Sam Griffin, a Koorie. Gordon Campbell, a gubb or whiteman, is Nobby, David and Aileen's father. Then she married Peter Langford, also a gubb, and had Ellen and Pauline. Her youngest child Jeff has a Koorie father, Lance Marriot.(2) Ginibi's family is an intersection of black and white, at this personal level the cultural divide is not apparent. This raises important questions about the ways in which cultural and racial divides are institutionalised in Australian society.

From Ginibi's opening statement it is clear that raising a family for her and other Aboriginal women involves more than the usual concerns: health, education, growing up, employment. As she has said the "divide between black and white culture", as exemplified historically by Protectionist policies, continues to impact upon Aboriginal mothers. Although the 1967 referendum and citizenship marked the end of these policies there are continuing ramifications including institutionalised racism effecting almost every facet of life. For instance when Ginibi and her family moved to Green Valley they were isolated from other Aboriginal families through the Housing Commission's integration policy. A few Aboriginal families were placed in houses in predominately 'white' areas. They were answerable to the Commission for disturbances to neighbours and for having anyone come to stay.(174)

Although the ongoing effects of protectionist policies are central to an understanding of the lives of Ginibi, her family and the many other people she writes about there is, in fact, very little direct or extensive information about them given anywhere in the text. Consider the opening sentences of the first paragraph:

I was called after my great aunt Ruby. In the mission photo, she's sitting beside her identical twin, Pearl. (1)

This very simple statement, through the phrase "the mission photo" situates Ginibi and her family's life within the context of the protectionist legislation, and the colonial process that it developed from. The simplicity of this statement makes it powerful. The lack of explanation reinforces the fact that this was a common experience, it was life for Aboriginal people.

Government sanctioned separation of families, under the umbrella of protectionism, continued in most states until the late sixties or early seventies. Knowledge of these practices makes it possible for us to understand Aboriginal peoples fear of government intervention in their lives and anger at the Aborigines' Protection Board that was directly responsible for implementing these policies under the guise of caring for the welfare of Aboriginal people. There are unimaginable psychological consequences for Aboriginal people when children have been forcibly taken from families, often never to return. The reader is left to imagine how this affects a mother, such as Ginibi, when she has to place her children in a home because she is temporarily unable to provide for them.

It is as a direct result of this history that Ginibi's father, Henry Anderson, refused to have anything to do with the Aborigines' Protection Board even if it might benefit his family. When Mr Rubenach, the school principal, suggested that Ruby be allowed to complete her Intermediate Certificate and go on to College with funding from the Board her father would not even consider it. He said to Ruby:

I don't know about third year. You decide about that. But I'm not having any protection board put you through college. All the protection they've done is take people from their land and split up families. (37-8)

Ginibi gives no further account of her father's feelings towards the Board or the legislation that governed their lives. Readers of the text are responsible for drawing on, or supplying, their own knowledge of this history as a way of understanding why it is "a battle" for many black women to raise a family.

Since the late sixties and early seventies many families have continued to be separated but for apparently different reasons. Ruby Langford Ginibi foregrounds many of these. In her account of family life she demonstrates the ways in which both men and women have suffered because their extended families were disrupted. For many people there have been few positive role models for being a father or mother. Then separation from country and disruption of kinship systems has meant that other traditional support structures are not available. The end result of this has been a high rate of family breakdown.

Urban neighbourhood support structures are often not available or are constantly changing because families cannot find adequate housing and regular work. This has resulted in women having to 'voluntarily' place their children in homes, for varying lengths of time, until they could support them again. Many children attended several schools because they had to move so often resulting in high attrition rates and low achievement. Families then often become caught in a cycle of unemployment, alcoholism, family breakdown and even imprisonment.

It is through the experiences of Nobby, Ginibi's fourth child, that the reader most clearly sees the ways in which alcoholism, imprisonment and institutionalised violence affect families. Ginibi recalls the first time that Nobby is arrested and gaoled.

I got a message from (son-in-law) Steve saying Nobby had been gaoled for firing shots at police...Nob had heard that Penny was seeing another bloke, so he got blind drunk and asked his mate Maxwell to drive him home to the Valley...Maxwell was driving negligently so the police chased them. Then shots were fired at the police car...Nob was to spend six years of a ten year sentence in Long Bay.

It began 21 June 1973 when they were charged and in court in Bankstown. I went to see Nob in the cells and he had two black eyes. We knew what this meant. (182)

Ginibi gives a matter of fact account of what happened. She is not judgemental about Nobby, Penny or Maxwell's behaviour. Nobby's lack of constructive ways of dealing with relationship problems is clearly foregrounded. His response to his girlfriend seeing someone else, is to get "blind drunk". It is the tone in which this description of Nobby's behaviour is written that is very important. It suggests that while Ginibi is disappointed and concerned, what Nobby did and what happened to him is not entirely unexpected, it is part of Ginibi's experience of life. The reader is prompted to ask why Ginibi is able to maintain this attitude, and she does, throughout the book. The answer for Ginibi and many Aboriginal people lies in the effects of assimilationist policies that continue to undermine Aboriginal families.

Very often some of the difficulties Aboriginal families experience, poor health, low standards of education and especially, high imprisonment rates, are dismissed as having little to do with the continuing effects of past government legislation and much to do with Aboriginal peoples 'lack of desire to help themselves'. It is difficult for readers of Don't Take Your Love to Town to be so easily dismissive of the effects of past legislation on the lives of Aboriginal families today however. Statements such as:

I went to see Nob in the cells and he had two black eyes. We knew what this meant. (182)

leave no doubt in the mind of the reader that Nobby has been beaten by the police and that this behaviour has a history. It is well known that historically the police have worked with the Aborigines' Protection Boards to move people from their lands; take children from their families; keep people out of towns. Violence has, as a result, often been synonymous with Aboriginal / police relationships so that now there is little expectation that the police will act ethically.

Police violence, and potential violence, impacted on Ginibi and the rest of the family both emotionally and physically. This was particularly so after Nobby's arrest when the family overtly opposed the police. For instance when Nobby was on the run, after escaping from prison, David acted as a decoy to help his brother escape. (185-7) Then when a young friend of David's was running from the police Ginibi concealed him in the manhole and gave erroneous directions to officers chasing him. She allowed others, running from the police, to stay in her house even though it meant she could be arrested for aiding and abetting criminals and that this would result in her younger children being taken from her.

Don't Take Your Love to Town, however tragic, is foremost a story of love, integrity, generosity, support and humor. It is the story of many families providing support for each other, often in the face of formidable odds, including family breakdowns, domestic violence, alcoholism and neglect. Too often readers of lifestories such as Ginibi's focus on the social problems and hardships without celebrating this generosity and support. For whatever the hardships that contribute to the "battle" to raise a family it is generosity that allows families to continue as Don' t Take Your Love to Town demonstrates.

Ginibi's story abounds with generosity. When she was six her Mum left to live with Eddie Webb. When she was nine her Dad took her and her sisters "to stay with Aunty Nell and Uncle Sam."(1) The spirit in which Ginibi recounts this time clearly demonstrates that Nell and Sam did more than merely look after the children. The reader is able to feel the love and care that was given. Just two years later, when Ruby had finished sixth grade she went to live with Aunty Amy and Uncle Harry Pentland because there was no high school in Bonalbo.(25) There were already four other children living there, they had all lost their parents. Her account of this time focuses on the fun that she had not the trauma of leaving home and family once again. Ginibi's telling of her experiences with the families who looked after her shows very clearly the support and generosity that was shown to her and continue a tradition of orphaned children being cared for by other close relatives.

Ginibi's accounts of her childhood experiences recounted early in the book may be critiqued by some as romanticised reminicence. Reading further however we see that Ginibi does not romantisise family life or specifically Aboriginal families. Consider what she says about Patrick's experience:

(Patrick's) parents had died in a car accident when he was a kid. Big family. The kids were sent to relatives, Patrick to his uncle. The uncle was cruel to him and Pat laid him out with a side of planking, so the uncle put him in the boys' home. (198)

Patrick's parents have died, the children have been separated and Patrick was cruelly treated. Ginibi recounts this tragic series of events simply. There is no suggestion that what happened to Patrick is an extraordinary case and it is certainly not romanticised.

As an adult Ginibi adopted many young people like Patrick and Allen Barrett. Her primary concern is that all who come to her home are welcomed and receive the support that they need. As a reader it is valuable to consider the strengths of extended Aboriginal families that offer support regardless of a person's circumstances. Our understanding of how such families work is enriched by knowing more about traditional Aboriginal kinship systems.

Although little specific information is given about traditional or "tribal" (183) families and kinship systems, in Don't take Your Love to Town, these obviously inform aspects of Ginibi's text. Traditional community relationships, extended families, that take responsibility for children other than their own, are very much part of Ginibi's contemporary, urban experience. Consideration of this broader notion of family allows the reader to understand that assimilationist policies though detrimental to Aboriginal family structures and relationships have not destroyed them.

In many traditional Aboriginal communities complex kinship systems have, and in some instances continue to, ensure that particular roles within families are always maintained. For instance in some communities the sisters of a mother also 'function' as mothers, that is, they are both Aunty and mother to any children. In this way the death of a child's mother does not mean the child is left without someone fulfilling this central role. Likewise if a child's father dies the mother's eldest brother takes on the responsibilities of this role. In this way the care of children is always ensured.

In Ginibi's own life, as already discussed, extended family often provided support when her mother and father were unable to do so. One function of extended families in most cultures is to do this. The form of support given and whose responsibility it is to provide this are often historically or traditionally determined.

When I was six mum left us. My sisters were four and two. The person who took over our mothering was an Aboriginal clever man, Uncle Ernie Ord. He's telling us our totems. He says my totem is a willy waytail, he says I'll always know if there's trouble because the willy wagtail will warn me. (1)

For many Aboriginal families these responsibilities include teaching children their cultural heritage and responsibilities. Too often it is assumed that this is no longer relevant to urban families.

Don't Take Your Love to Town is a way of understanding family as a very different construct from the average white, suburban, 2.4 children. This is crucial if we are to appreciate that Australia is not a homogeneous society. Very often expectations that we have about the ways people 'should' live come from our own lack of knowledge of the complex, diverse and rich models of families. Ginibi gives the reader some of these models.

Ginibi ends her story with a discussion of Aboriginal deaths in custody. She describes in detail the senseless violence and lack of all compassion that caused these deaths. Because the reader has come to know and empathise with Ginibi and her family John Pat, Eddie Murray, Robert Walker, Charlie Michaels, B.T. Leslie and Allan Clayton Parker become more than merely a list of names of people who have died.(252-8) Through Ginibi they become: members of families; people who have struggled to survive in a society that shows little respect for their histories; fellow human beings.

Ginibi's desire is that Don't Take Your Love to Town "help better the relationship between the Aboriginal and white people. That it might give some idea of the difficulty we have surviving between two cultures, that we are here and will always be here."(269) This book certainly provides all readers with an opportunity to understand the relationship between contemporary, urban, Aboriginal families and Australian government legislation. It is an important contribution to Australian politics because it clearly demonstrates that legislation has direct affects on peoples lives.

Kathryn Trees
Lecturer English and Comparative Literature, Murdoch University