Kairos

A River Dreaming
Elizabeth Pike, Aboriginal Catholic Ministry, $19.95, paperback, 36 pages.


Elizabeth ‘Betty’ Pike is an Elder and the writer in residence at Aboriginal Catholic Ministry, Melbourne. Betty was greatly inspired by the famous address given to the Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders by Pope John Paul II at Alice Springs in 1986, when the Pope said:

“Some of the stories from your Dreamtime legends speak powerfully of the great mysteries of human life, its frailty, its need for help, its closeness to spiritual powers and the value of the human person. They are not unlike some of the great inspired lessons from the people among whom Jesus himself was born. It is wonderful to see how people, as they accept the Gospel of Jesus, find points of agreement between their own traditions and those of Jesus and his people.”

Betty regularly writes, including for Madonna magazine, stories and prayers that make connections between her Catholic faith and the traditions and spirituality of Aboriginal Australians. But growing up in Albany in Western Australia, Betty was unaware of her Aboriginal heritage and was haunted by the question of her nationality. Was she Italian, Greek, Spanish, Jewish, or maybe Lebanese? Only years later did she discover government documents that revealed that her great-grandfather was an Irishman transported to the penal colony at Albany, and her mother was Aboriginal.

Having accepted herself as Aboriginal, Betty then encountered opposition from those who didn’t consider that she looked Aboriginal enough, including traditional Aboriginal people. When studying an Aboriginal myth of the origins of the platypus, Betty realised that this was an apt parable for the sense of loss of identity and disconnection from culture that people of mixed race experience.

In A River Dreaming Betty presents the story of the platypus as such a parable. Through a long journey Platypus comes to accept his unique place in his community and in God’s creation. The story is as much for adults as for older children, and the excellent watercolour illustrations by Yvette Koreny give the book the sophisticated presentation it needs. At the end of the book is a brief account by Betty of her life story.

This simple but profound book can be ordered via the Aboriginal Catholic Ministry website, at
www.acmm.org.au.