
Zita is sitting on a stool feeding a poddy calf. In voice-over Aggie Abbott says most children who were taken away never returned to their country. Zita on the other hand has sought her family and is committed to learning her culture. Zita sits on the ground with Aggie preparing kangaroo for the fire. Zita talks about the experience being ‘an ongoing learning process’. Summary by Romaine Moreton.
In this incredibly moving heart of the film, a woman journeys back to her land and people, and to her cultural self. Zita Wallace is confronting the different cultural sensibility of Western and Indigenous society. The squeezing of grass from the kangaroo’s intestine, or 'poo’ as Zita later refers to it, represents the contrast between Western and Indigenous cultural practice. In Indigenous cosmology, the relationship between the land and the people, and the kinship system that exists between the human and non-human world, assigns all beings to one family. Zita, in participating in the preparation of kangaroo with her family, is re-connecting with an ancient ritual, religion and cosmological practice.
When she was eight years old, Zita Wallace was removed from her families by the authorities. This is a documentary about the Stolen Generations, and the journey of one woman to reconnect with the Eastern Arrernte family from whom she was denied for most of her life.
Beyond Sorry is part of the Nganampa Anwernekenhe series produced by Central Australian Aboriginal Media Association (CAAMA) Productions. Nganampa Anwernekenhe means 'ours’ in the Pitjantjatjara and Arrernte lanuages, and the series aims to contribute to the preservation of Indigenous languages and cultures.
This is a haunting documentary about the beauty and pain of a child, now an elderly woman, who was removed from her family by the authorities. The filmmakers tell the parallel stories of Zita Wallace and her Aunty Aggie Abbott to represent two positions; two half-caste children, one child removed, one not. Zita grew up within white culture and, through her own testimony, is again like an 8 year old, picking up her education in Indigenous culture from the moment in her life when she was taken from her family. Seeking the connection with family and place that was denied her, Zita Wallace is fully committed to overcoming broken ties.
There is a complex range of issues covered here, conveyed with filmic fluidity. One of them being that the removal of Aboriginal children from their families left great holes in those communities, and that the children, without a self-knowledge within Indigenous cultural context, became vulnerable to discrimination within white society. Another is the broken spirit of the parents from whom the children were taken. Zita’s mother, having been told her daughter was dead, believed her daughter to be a spirit child when she finally returned. The greatest disruption is to the social fabric of Indigenous societies, where each child would have served a specific role in the continuation of Indigenous cultural practice and religion, being entitled to different parts of the country. The filmmakers get to the heart of the consequence of child removal, yet tell a story that is painfully humane, and never compromising the humanity and beauty of its subjects.
Notes by Romaine Moreton
This clip shows Zita Wallace, an Eastern Arrernte woman, in her grandfather’s country learning and speaking about culture. The first scene of her feeding a poddy calf has subtitled voice-over by Aggie Abbott, Wallace’s aunt, observing that her niece is one of the few 'Stolen Generation’ children to return to country. In the second sequence Abbott describes how Wallace went about finding her family. In the final scenes Abbott is demonstrating how to clean a kangaroo and Wallace is commenting on the difference between the Eastern Arrernte and non-Indigenous cultures.
Education notes provided by The Learning Federation and Education Services Australia
This clip starts approximately 37 minutes into the documentary.
Zita is sitting on a stool in a yard feeding a poddy calf. There are other calves in the yard with her. An interview with Aggie Abbott, of Eastern Arrernte people, Zita’s Aunt, plays over the footage. The English subtitles read:
Aggie Abbott Most of the other children who were taken away never returned. Some who did come back didn’t look for their country. They still lived like white people.
Aggie Abbott is interviewed in a studio.
Aggie But this child sought out her uncle, looked in vain for her grandfather and met her mother. She did it like that. She knows her grandfather’s country. But she is still learning about other things.
The sun shines through the trees and several women, including Zita, sit together preparing a kangaroo for the fire. There are children watching.
Aggie At first she couldn’t understand. She didn’t know anything about our law and culture.
Zita Wallace It’s an ongoing learning process for me, even though I’m 63 years old, it’s a wonderful – like I’m a little 8-year-old child again. I’ve been given a second opportunity that a lot of people haven’t had, to go back to country and actually learn. Living a life as an Aboriginal person, and as a European person, is two totally different worlds. Um, in a white man’s world, where I was living, everything that I had done, I did for my family, was mine. But with the Aboriginal family, you share around so I found that – I find that very difficult at times.
The National Film and Sound Archive of Australia acknowledges Australia’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the Traditional Custodians of the land on which we work and live and gives respect to their Elders both past and present.