Extraordinary: Alice’s dreaming is an astonishing look at the past through the eyes of a girl who lived near Aboriginal culture, written by celebrated Australian historian Tom Griffiths. Photo: Supplied.
An instant page-turner, Alice’s dreaming, by award-winning Australian historian Tom Griffiths, delivers a compelling start to an exceptional account of a young girl and the Aboriginal society she discovered.
Captivation with Alice Duncan-Kemp was instant. Griffiths was 14 when he came across a book by her, Where Strange Paths Go Down, and found even its title was mysterious. It looked different from its companions and immediately attracted attention.
According to the Emeritus Professor of History at the Australian National University, “the book described happy childhood memories of warmth and companionship with Aboriginal women and men at home on their own Country”.
“I was surprised to read about friendship and learning across cultures in outback Australia in the early 20th century, and to find loving evocations of a sentient land,” he writes. “It seemed to be a true account but I couldn’t be sure. I was drawn into its glowing stories, and the compelling strangeness of the book stayed with me.”
Being a fifth-generation Australian of Anglo-Celtic heritage, descended from Victorian goldminers and a Van Demonian convict, Griffiths found Alice’s captivating book presented a vastly different Australia.
“Within its pages, I found an intimate portrait of named and beloved Aboriginal people interacting with a white child, sharing their lore and learning with her, and doing so with dignity, humour and joy. The land itself was an immense abiding force that was animated with meaning.”
Alice grew up on a remote Queensland cattle station early last century. Later she would write down her childhood memories of learning from Aboriginal women and men at home on their own Country. In her writings, she evoked a rich parallel universe of narrative and mythology, which she felt privileged to witness. She also spoke of an informal local treaty that curbed the violence of the frontier.
What are we to make of “Alice’s dreaming” today? Griffiths guides us right into — and far past — this eye-opening experience. Through it we see the chaos of a troubled and painful borderland, together with an extraordinary tale of endurance and heritage preservation. In recent times, the Mithaka people Alice lived among and wrote about have reclaimed their Country, drawing in part on her writing to support their claims.
Alice’s dreaming shows why their bond still matters today: history told by the unheard. It’s an immersive history that reads like an intimate memoir, a fast-paced mystery, and a striking portrait of the land. It shows that history can be close-up, emotional and unexpected.
We need to realise that ancient history is a big part of who Australians are today. How has 60,000 years of First Nations culture impacted modern Australian life and beliefs? This complex link is explained clearly. It is also comprehensive and photographically detailed.
“… At every stage this history has surprised me, especially the way that my research into Alice became a story of her teachers, the Mithaka people and their descendants …”
In carrying out the research, Griffiths was “warmly encouraged in this work and recognised as a collaborator”. Naturally, he began to feel that he had inherited some of Alice’s responsibilities and that her teachers knew what they were doing, along with his.
This book has launched Griffiths on a journey to places, to people, to histories, to Country. Alice felt, as a child, that part of a landscape inhabited not only by humans, but also by known plants, animals and spirits, and by invisible creatures of the Dreaming and the here and now.
“She was literally in a kind of ‘wonderland’, a world animated by the parallel universe of Aboriginal storytelling and lore. As ‘a white intruder though born on their hunting grounds’, she felt privileged to glimpse this other world. Her knowledge was built through observation, education and experience, not by direct analysis.”
Alice was trying to explain everything just as they would have told it. “Alice was not mimicking an Aboriginal storytelling mode; she was repaying and representing it. It was a performance. This is Alice’s dreaming.”
Griffiths then goes on to introduce us to Alice’s childhood through her own experiences and memories. The first three chapters are evocations of her early life, respectful of her storytelling, and immerses us in her world, laying the groundwork for the historical narratives and literary explorations that follow.
Alice’s years of living with the Mithaka people brought her the greatest joy of life, so much so that she never stopped writing about them!
Alice’s dreaming, by Tom Griffiths, Black Inc., $36.99
