Ros Moriarty

A sympathetic account by the white wife of an Indigenous man honoring his family and their practices and sharing their pain.

Ros Moriarty was born and raised in Tasmania in a rather liberal and artistic family. After college she worked in a research position in Canberra assessing Indigenous programs. There she met and fell in love with John Moriarty, an Indigenous man who lead the agency. He was one of the “Stolen Generation” who had been taken from his family and homeland when he was four. More fortunate than most, he later re-established contact with his family. When he and Ros married, they traveled with their infant son to his home country near Borroloola, in North Australia near the Carpentaria Gulf. For over twenty-five years, they kept returning there whenever they were able. Ros came to feel accepted as John’s wife and even was allowed to be a participant in a week of women’s rituals, known as the Law. Stories of her time during that week are interwoven with her and John’s personal histories and the histories of his Yanyuwah people.

As a white woman, Ros Moriarty is an outsider as she tries to understand about Indigenous life. She never pretends otherwise. She marvels at their ability to remain calm and happy in the face of circumstances she finds horrendous. Surprisingly, she is accepted unconditionally accept by them. She is placed within their hierarchy as a wife and sister-in-law as if she were herself Indigenous. Because sse is permitted to observe the rituals but not to write about them, she focuses on the women who were attending and her own responses to the rituals. She is consistently open to the goodness she can learn from the people and angry at the ways in which they have been treated. She is aware that much of the government assistance they have been given was not spent wisely, yet her own solutions offer little new. Her book is meant to expand appreciation of the Indigenous people living so close to the edge of disappearance. Her goal is to honor her Borroloola family; not to appropriate their secrets but to hear their songs.

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'Ros Moriarty is a white woman married to an Aboriginal man. Over the course of many visits to her husband's family, she was fascinated to discover that the older tribal women had a deep sense of happiness and purpose that transcended the abject material poverty, illness and increasing violence of their community - a happiness that she feels is related to an essential 'warmth of heart' that these women say has gone missing in today's world.

'In May 2006, she had the chance to spend time in the Tanami Desert in northern central Australia with 200 Aboriginal women, performing women's Law ceremonies. Listening to Country is the story of that trip and her friendship with these women, as she tells their stories and passes on their wisdom and understanding.

'Offering a privileged window into the spiritual and emotional world of Aboriginal women, this book is a moving story of common human experience, the getting and passing on of wisdom, and the deep friendship and bonds between women. It carries a moving and profound sense of optimism in the fundamental humanity we all share.' (From the publisher's website.)… (mehr)