Nomad Girl by Myra Ah Chee
"I can still see it, in my mind's eye, exactly as it was back in my time. The Country still calls me back to where I was born, a very exposed and stony land, but I still love it. That's where my spirit is."
Kanakiya Myra Ah Chee was born at Oodnadatta in remote South Australia in 1932. When her mother tragically died Myra was only eight. Her grieving father gathered up the remaining family and walked north away from her childhood home.
They spent years as nomads, travelling with the camels that were her fathers livelihood, up and down the Finke River. Her father sought work where and when he could, while he looked after his children, teaching them about the bush, their culture and life. It was a childhood of freedom, bush tucker, bush games, fires, stories at night and sleeping under the stars, at times idyllic but, at other times, terrifying and tragic.
Myra's father was a safe and reassuring presence, but when he decided education was the key to his childrens future, Myra's life was changed forever.
"My family pulled all their strengths together from the bush life and from school education. We have shown how it is possible to be successful in life, bringing both sides of our cultures into line."
'Told through the powerful words of Kanakiya Myra Ah Chee Nomad Girl is a moving story of strength and resilience. Recounted in meticulous detail, this story follows the life of a woman born on the Oodnadatta in remote south Australia through her education on Country, to the western class, to her life as a translator of various Western Desert languages and founder the Institute for Aboriginal Development Interpreter Training program and a well-known artist. This is a story that the nation needs to read.'
- Associate Professor Jeanine Leane, The University of Melbourne, Wiradjuri writer, poet and academic
'From the lively child travelling with her father and siblings along the Lhere Pirnte (Finke) river, to the proud grandmother, artist and interpreter of today, the robust, engaging voice of Myra Ah Chee braids together the many strands of a wonderfully well-lived life. This is, more than anything, a story of family – of a father caring for his motherless children, of older siblings caring for younger, of a web of relationships that nurture and protect and mitigate the impacts of racism and inequity. It is also the story of how family is woven into country, and different ethnicities are subsumed into an all-embracing Aboriginal identity.
It’s a book for our times, and an important addition to the growing literature of Indigenous storytelling.'
- Kim Mahood
