The Little Black Princess

This week for our Literature read alouds we have been reading the Australian children's classic, The Little Black Princess by Mrs Aeneas Gunn. Also known as Jeannie Taylor, the author wrote the book after the year she spent with her husband on a remote cattle station in the Northern Territory in 1902. Mrs Aeneas Gunn is also famous for her novel for adults, We of the Never-Never.

From the Publisher's preface: "It must have been a frightening experience for the thirty-year old bride to leave the city and travel the vast distance to the Roper River where she found herself living on a property so large that the front gate was forty-five miles from the house and so remote that the mail was delivered only eight times each year.

But Mrs Gunn appears to have accepted this difficult way of life and to have taken a great interest in the Aborigines with whom she came in contact. ... Compared to those around her, Mrs Gunn appears to have had a great love for the Aborigines and a respect for their way of life."

There are 13 chapters in this book, plus a chapter-length collection of letters from Mrs Gunn, excerpted for the anecdotes they contained relating to Bett-Bett, the little black princess of the title, an orphaned Aboriginal girl fostered by Mrs Gunn who later became the matriarch of the Bonson clan. According to my dad, a descendent of Bett-Bett, Matthew Bonson, is currently a member of the Northern Territory parliament.

Here is one incident from chapter 10, with a few of my added vocabulary explanations in square brackets, for those who are unfamiliar with Australianisms and Aboriginal pidgin English:

Bett-Bett and I very often went down to the billabong [a landlocked section of a river] for an early morning bogey [swim], and she and the lubras [Aboriginal women and older girls] were always greatly amused at my bathing-gown. They called it "that one bogey dress", and said it was "silly fellow".

My swimming also amused them. They saw something very comical and unnatural in my movements, and I often caught them imitating me. They seemed to expect me to sink every moment, and never went very far from me in case of accidents.

One morning, we swam right across the billabong to the "nuzzer side", as Bett-Bett called it; and, there, I noticed a man's tracks on the bank, and asked whose they were; for, of course, I did not recognise them. To my surprise, the lubras burst into shrieks of laughter.

"Him Maluka!" they shouted in delight! "Him track belonga Maluka; him bin bogey last night."

Then, Bett-Bett screamed to the lubras on the opposite bank, "Missus no more savey [recognise/know/understand] track belonga boss."

It was the best joke they had ever heard - a woman who did not know her own husband's tracks! I felt very small indeed, and as soon as possible, went back to the house and breakfast.

We have only a few more chapters to go, and I have thoroughly enjoyed reading this book with the kids so far. There is a lot of discussion in it about Aboriginal Dreaming stories of the Roper River people, which has neccessitated some explaining with the kids, and my rusty pidgin English accent is getting a work out. I am enjoying the way Mrs Gunn has carefully related the knowledge, conversation and activities of the people she spent her days with. Mrs Gunn certainly had an eye and ear for detail and a keen interest in the way of life of the local Aboriginal people. Her book gives a fascinating insight into the turn of the century lives of the traditionally nomadic Aboriginal people who were faced with the changes brought by the new culture of white station life. I think if Charlotte Mason were to read it, she would definitely classify The Little Black Princess as a "living book".

This book is a great way to come face-to-face with Australian history.