In honour of NAIDOC week, I spoke to Cathy Gorman about her and her family’s experiences hosting the girls. Gorman says, “I do not want to presume what the experience has been for the girls and for their families. I can only speak from what the experience has been for me. I’m very mindful of that.”
She reflects: “It was just such a beautiful experience in terms of the Kangaroo Valley children and parents, the community and how Kitohnia, Marcus and Mark were part of that. A lovely sharing of getting to know each other and building those relationships.”
Whilst in Kangaroo Valley Kitohnia played netball with the local kids and the boys played AFL. I also remember Grace and Kitohnia participating in art lessons with Kerrie Leishman.”
During a trip to Arnhem Land in 2015, Mike Gorman was warmly welcomed by the Yolngu people of Matamata. There he met Grace and Kitohnia’s grandmother (now deceased and whom I will not name out of respect), and the girls’ visits followed.
Cathy Gorman explains, “One of the amazing things about having a relationship with Arnhem Land is that when you come into a community, somebody with whom you develop an initial connection will give you a kinship relationship. That then determines the nature of your kinship relationship with everyone else, you come into a web of connection. In this case, Grace and Kitohnia’s grandmother brought Mike into the community as her son.”
Indigenous culture is largely centred on kinship ties which allocate different responsibilities and relationships within a community (Watarrka Foundation, n.a). Understandably, entering a new environment that is not organised by the same family and communal structures as Arnhem Land was challenging for Grace and Kitohnia.
“From my observation, if the girls met a member of my family, for example my sister or my daughter, it was more comfortable for them to connect with those new people and not feel as shy. But because our social system is not structured in that way, often you’re meeting people that you have no obvious relationship with, which seems to make it harder.” says Gorman.
Having visited Arnhem Land several times, Gorman likened these feelings to her own when navigating a new place with unique lifestyles and customs.
“I’ve felt that when I’ve been up in Matamata and at other communities, when you’re meeting a whole lot of people with a very different cultural way of being it’s just really hard emotionally and cognitively to hold that.”
Gorman also reflected on how kinship relationships are intertwined with the land, defining different individuals’ attachments to certain places. This can make it challenging to settle in a new location.
“The girls’ grandmother came to help them get settled and I remember being quite confused about her apparent lack of ‘interest’ – I’ll use that word in a Western way – in our place. I thought that she would be fascinated by our natural environment. But what I experienced from her was almost a sense of dislocation. I wondered if she felt that she was in a place of discomfort or isolation from the environment because it wasn’t her place, and she didn’t feel yet that she knew it.”
Again, Gorman related to these feelings on her visits to Arnhem Land.
“In my first few visits, the environment felt quite hostile to me. And then in the last visit, I almost felt like the environment was getting to know me as much as I was getting to know it. And I felt a sense of ease and a sense of like, ‘Oh, this place feels welcoming, and I feel comfortable and safe here’, which I hadn’t felt the first few times.”
Today, Grace and Kitohnia are 23 and 20. Grace has a 3-year-old son. In discussing how the girls’ lives had been impacted by their exchanges in Kangaroo Valley, Gorman felt that from her perspective, the most valuable outcomes have been the bonds formed along the way.
“We’ve had a lot of people asking what’s come of it and whether the girls have gone on to have different educational experiences because of staying with us and all the rest of it. But I think the real richness and the real value has been our families building a relationship with each other. And hopefully for their family, that’s been a rich thing, too. It’s very easy to put all these Western standards on what makes something valuable.”
She emphasised the importance of seeking opportunities to learn and further our own knowledge of First Nations histories and culture, widening our worldview beyond what is commonly held in Western societies.
“It’s often easy as a Westerner to measure the success of relationships by what we give. But I think that the important thing is for me to be the one doing the learning and at times, the changing. If I want to measure the value, as we Westerners often want to do, it is the learning that I’ve done and the relationships I’ve formed. I’m the one I feel that the change can happen in. And that’s the crucial thing if I’m a person living in this country, for the change to be within me.”
The Gormans’ involvement with Indigenous communities extended to Josh, Cathy and Mike’s son, who moved with his wife Josie to Arnhem Land for five years to teach. Josh and Josie lived on Elcho Island where by chance, their house neighboured two other girls, Rebecca and Julien, who had also visited Cathy and Mike, and Josh taught the girls at school.
“They went on to have this lovely connection, which has really strengthened our relationship as families.”
“The more experiences I’ve had, both in my relationships with these young people and their families and with Arnhem Land generally, the more I realise how much I don’t know. Every interaction makes me feel a huge respect for the incredible depth of relationship with country and with kinship and all aspects of First Nations culture. I greatly treasure my connection with these families that have so generously shared so much with us.”
