M.K Turner: “Born to Be”

M.K. Turner’s Iwenhe Tyerrtye: What it Means to be an Aboriginal Person provides an Arrernte insider’s perspective on the depth of meaning of Altyerre. M.K. Turner introduces herself: “Akemarre Akertarenye. That’s my proper traditional name. Akemarre is my skin name, and the Land, Akerte,15 is where my traditional site, where my grandfather’s country is, where he originated from, like aknganeke-arle.”16

Born about 80 years ago at Akerte near Harts Range/Artetyerre,130 kilometres to the north- east of Alice Springs, and raised at the Little Flower Mission17 _{at both Arltunga and Santa}

Teresa/Ltyentye Apurte, M.K. Turner is the leading religious figure of Ngkarte Mikwekenhe Catholic Community,the Catholic Arrernte community of Alice Springs. Her contribution to Australian society through cultural education, interpreting and translation18 has been

recognised with the conferral in 1997 of the Medal of the Order of Australia.

The first chapter of Iwenhe Tyerrtye is titled “Born to Be – Aknganeke-arle”, where M.K. describes how one comes to be the person one is. She says, “Aknganeke-arle means like when that name was really named. And also, it’s like where they are from … And where his Traditional Stories came.”19 _{“And aknganentye}20_{is a name that means your totem, the}

Symbol for the Land. That name comes from aknganeke,21 and means ‘Beginning Story’.”22

15 _{Akerte is known as Huckitta in English, a good example of how Arrernte names were altered and absorbed by}

the first non-Indigenous settlers.

16 _{M.K. Turner, Iwenhe Tyerrtye – what it means to be an Aboriginal person (Alice Springs: IAD Press, 2010),}

10.

17 _{Little Flower Mission was established by the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart (MSC) priests, brothers and}

associated OLSH sisters (Daughters of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart) in 1935 at Charles Creek in Alice Springs. The MSC Catholic order of priests and brothers was founded in 1854 in France by Fr Jules Chevalier. The OLSH sisters were also founded by Jules Chevalier in 1874. Both the MSC and OLSH orders came to Australia

in the late 19th _{century and have worked in parishes, schools and missions continuously since. Source: OLSH at}

http://www.olshaustralia.org.au/about-us/our-history.html, MSC: at https://misacor.org.au/index.php/what-we- do (accessed June 24, 2018). Little Flower Mission was subsequently relocated in 1942 to Arltunga, 100 kilometres to the east of Alice, and then relocated again in 1953 to Santa Teresa/Ltyentye Apurte where it continues to operate. Ltyentye Apurte is still commonly called “Mission” by Arrernte people in Central Australia. See Pye, Santa Teresa and East Aranda History, for a full account.

18 _{M.K. is acknowledged in the Eastern and Central Arrernte to English Dictionary as a major contributor.}

19 _{Turner, Iwenhe Tyerrtye, 10.}

20 _{Aknganentye, a noun meaning originating from the country of your father’s father.}

21 _{Aknganeke, a verb meaning to be born from or created from a specific place.}

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M.K.’s father’s father comes from Akerte, a place about 130 kilometres north-east of Alice Springs. So he is Akerte-renye, from Akerte. Implicit for M.K. is the understanding that Akerte is one of many places in a connected travel story about rain, kwatye/water or rain. So, although kwatye is the Arrernte word for rain, her grandfather is known not as kwatye-arenye but as Akerte-arenye, a place namewhich connotes the rain totem. Here M.K. is aligning four things: personal name/arritnye; place/apmere; story/ayeye; and totem/atywerrenge, and each is an aspect of the other. Much of the Arrernte world is contained in these four

words/concepts.

M.K. explains that personal names are a warlperle23 invention. Her own name is instructive. M.K. was originally known as Margaret Mary Neal, a family name which she had inherited from her family’s relationship to the white station people at Harts Range/Artetyerre. She had become Margaret Mary Turner when she married Maxie Turner, an Arrernte man, at Santa Teresa/Ltyentye Apurte in 1955. In the 2000s, about the time she was writing Iwenhe Tyerrtye, she adopted her skin name, Kemarre,24 as part of her name and removed the

Margaret to be replaced by the letter M. She became M(argaret) K(emarre) Turner.25 In many ways this name change process reflects her increasing pride in her identity as an

Arrernte/Akarre26 woman.

M.K. says of skin names, “The skin name is very important to us because it draws a line, every individual’s line. To what to do, to how to behave and how to carry on. It outlines where people stand, what is their right … It’s a real holding together in that way.”27 At its simplest, skin is a way of dividing Arrernte society into two equal groups (technically

23 _{Warlperle is an Arrernte word based on the English term “whitefella” for white person or non-Arrernte}

person.

24 _{Kemarre and Akemarre are the same word used alternatively by Central and Eastern Arrernte people. Even}

when the A is used in spelling the word the sounding of the word seems as if no is A used.

25 _{This name change was also stimulated by the death (murder) of her daughter whose name included Mary.}

This led to the application of a taboo on using her name and the need to either use the word Kwementyaye (no name) or adopt another name. Mary was dropped and Margaret, shortened to M, and Kemarre, shortened to K, incorporated into a new name, M.K. Turner, that maintained her identity and enhanced her place in the kin system.

26 _{Akarre is a dialect of Arrernte used by speakers around Harts Range/Artetyerre. It is M.K.’s first language.}

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anthropologists call these “generation moieties”) called nyurrpe,your mob28 and nyurrpe,29 the other mob. So, in this case it denotes a “them and us” idea. M.K. puts it this way: “So in this system, we call them nyurrpe, and they also call us nyurrpe.” Your mob is you, your sisters and brothers, cousins, your husband and his sisters and brothers, your grandparents and your grandchildren. The other mob are your parents and their sisters and brothers (your uncles and aunts) and your children and nieces and nephews – and of course your great grandparents and great grandchildren. The two moieties are nyurrpe for each other, which means they hold them in deep respect and avoidance.

The Arrernte divide each moiety into four sub-groups or skins. When it comes to

land/apmere the two opposing moieties operate in a powerful reciprocating association of being “owners”/apmereke artweye30 (one side) and “managers”/kwertengerle31 (the other side). And this is reversed. So Kemarre, Ampetyane, Pengarte and Peltharre people are apmereke artweye/owners of their land/apmere,but Perrurle, Angale, Penangke and Kngwarraye act as kwertengerle/managers for that land/apmere and vice versa.

For M.K. all this tradition comes from the creation/aknganentye. Apmere/land is the source of being for each individual. But association to apmere is completely bound to ayeye/traditional story which communicates and teaches the links, ownership or dependence of individuals to the apmere by virtue of inheritance along the father’s side;32 but because of kinship, the generational moiety system is actually derived from grandfather, who is of the same skin as the individual.

Creation/aknganentye for M.K. is the source of everything. In a sense, for her, Arrernte people are born from the creation/aknganentye. “It’s like how Creation33 _{begun, you know}

28 _{“Mob” is a very common word used by Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people in Central Australia. It is an}

English loan word adopted into Arrernte. When used as an Arrernte word it is written mape and may be used to identify one group from another – this mob and that mob. Probably derived from cattle days or sheep days on the stations, a mob means a whole lot (of cattle or sheep). It has become a numerical intensifier meaning lots or many [of everything]. The term alherntere mape (white people) used above uses the Arrernteisation of mob, mape, added to alherntere, white person.

29 _{M.K. explains the reciprocal nature of nyurrpe at Iwenhe Tyerrtye, 87. According to M.K. all people in one}

skin call the opposing skin nyurrpe and all those in the opposite skin call the first group nyurrpe as well.

30 _{Artweye means owner.}

31 _{Kwertengerle is glossed by Arrernte speakers to mean ‘manager’, as in the owner of a cattle station and the}

manager of the station, a situation that on first contact Arrernte people had become used to.

32 _{It is also possible to establish links along mother’s side through mother’s father, atyeme.}

33 _{Turner uses a capital letter when referring to Creation in Iwenhe Tyerrtye. Similarly, Wenten Rubuntja in the}

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was. My grandfather could call himself or be called, Akerte-arle aknganeke, ‘that’s where I originated from’.”34

Arrernte people see creation/aknganentye as the source of life and meaning. M.K.’s Arrernte view does not look at the world in astonishment, seeking scientific explanations for why the sun rises and sets. She sees the universe as a given from which she has been generated and which provides pleasing and satisfying meaning for her and her kin.

M.K. moves to another word/concept in Arrernte, “angampeke-arle”. The Eastern and Central Arrernte Dictionary defines angampeme as “originate in the Dreaming and exist forever.”35 _{M.K. says, “Angampeke-arle also tells the way that we all are as Aboriginal}

people.”36 _{This word/concept also implies apmere in its function. Additionally, angampeke-}

arle denotes a site or place of conception, the place where the mother and father noted the conception of a new life in the mother’s womb and ascribed that new life to the

utnenge/spirit37 of that site. M.K. is certain of her eternal origins. She says, “And how it grew. Angampintyeke is like, that’s how the eyes of Aboriginal people saw us and it always will be that way, eternally. ‘’Cause it’s not gonna end’.”38 It is of no apparent interest to M.K. to philosophise about the beginning of creation/aknganentye or its source or creator. While there is certainly an understanding that at some indeterminate time in the past the creative spirit-beings performed their work shaping the landscape, it appears that the paper upon which these creative acts were drawn may be eternal. Creative acts have a starting point but the origin or source of the creation aknganentye may well be indeterminate or eternal. What is very clear is that Altyerre is cyclic and has no ending.

The creation/aknganentye is so distant that it is inaccessible and to all intents and purposes infinitely remote and lost in a form of consciousness that only a dream can conjure up, and as M.K. says, it will never end. M.K. is sure of the collapse of time in angampeke-arle:

“Angampeke – ‘what is what’,and angampintyeke – ‘what will be’? When we first came into

34 _{Turner, Iwenhe Tyerrtye, 10.}

35 _{Henderson and Dobson, Eastern and Central Arrernte to English Dictionary (Alice Springs: IAD Press,}

1994), 129.

36 _{Turner, Iwenhe Tyerrtye, 12.}

37 _{Utnenge/Spirit is a central concept in M.K.’s world-view. M.K. sees utnenge is non-dualistic terms. For her}

there is no distinction or dichotomy between spirit and matter; they inhabit each other, reciprocate each other, are each other.

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existence, it takes us to where we are going to be. Ye,39 that’s how it is. And there’s a big feeling that people can get back to that place, in the future.”40

Here we have a form of Arrernte eschatology41 where the future is assured. The cycle of the generations, the repeated skin names in the kinship system, provide a reassuring image of a re-creating world. If the rules of angampeke-arle (where one is born from) are observed, then the future is guaranteed. In regard to the notion of time it seems that M.K. may be advancing three views of time: linear, present and eternal in both directions, and cyclical.

Apmere/ is one of the key foundational words in Arrernte. It could be translated as place, location, site, country, region, camp, home or house, even direction – meaning that way or from there. Everything flows out of apmere. M.K. says this very clearly: angampintyeke for apmere nhenhe-arle aknganeke mapeke [all the people are born to be from this place here].42 Apmere is the unifying element. Since all originate in apmere, all are related to each other.

M.K. has another word that works with apmere to link everyone to apmere. It is utyerre.43 Utyerre according to M.K. is like a string or a vein. As a string it binds things together, as a vein it brings life (as in blood). She sometimes uses the metaphor of root in a similar way, so that the roots of a tree or a yam go deep into the soil and stretch out in every direction, spawning new life and linking families. She also thinks of it as a wire (like a telephone wire) lying deep in and across the apmere sending messages from one apmere to another and essentially linking all tyerrtye mape/people to each other. So, she is able to say, “We are part of the Land. The Land is us, we are the Land. That’s how we hold the Land.”44

Another critical word for M.K. is utnenge/spirit. It has an additional meaning of ‘flesh. She fashions an association between utyerre (vein, wire, root, string) and utnenge/spirit and establishes the idea that all this connectedness is rooted in the spirit of apmere. In this way, she gives life to apmere. Apmere is a living entity, made of the utnenge/flesh of the apmere

39 _{Ye is an Arrernte way of saying yes.}

40 _{See Turner, Iwenhe Tyerrtye, 12.}

41 _{Eschatology is the theology of the end times and what happened t the soul after death.}

42 _{Turner, Iwenhe Tyerrtye, 12.}

43 _{Gavan Breen, personal communication, November 10, 2017, says: “Utyerre seems to be an M.K. coinage.}

The only utyerre I can find is the name of Dalhousie Springs.” Responding to Gavan, it could be that because Arrernte is a living language and since M.K. is a user of Arrernte, the invention of utyerre may indicate an added component of the restoration of her Arrernte world-view.

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and filled with spirit(s) of creation/aknganentye. Then she introduces ceremony or ritual. These are the enactments of traditional stories derived from apmere. She folds all this together as in a nourishing damper: “Dreams and stories and trees and songs45 _{and animals}

and ceremonies, all holds in one big patch, that apmereyanhe, (that apmere there) just in that one big country-ground it holds the whole pile.”46

All the land is charged with utnenge/spirit. So, the concept of apmereyanhe47_{has multiple}

spirits all linked to each other and all are made of the utnenge/flesh of the apmere. To demonstrate this M.K. includes in her book paintings of country which depict a large slab of land with smaller plots marked out in different colours. Each smaller plot she calls a

homeland. “Inside each apmereyanhe there are seven or nine or ten homelands … from your father’s father … us mob we look after Akerte area. And that’s our homeland boundary.”48

“Looking after Land” is another key concept associated with Altyerre. It is based on the concept that “the Land is our mother”.49 She says that apmereyanhe “is a much bigger patch than father’s father’s homeland … Because my mother comes from there.”50 _{Because her}

mother is from that Land, and her mother gave her birth, M.K.’s view is that the Land is her mother. And here is a new word, ahelhe, meaning earth or ground. The Land that M.K. came from is not just a slab of country, of trees, plains, hills and creeks, but is made of gritty earth. It is the ground of her being, and both materially and metaphorically, the ground holds her. The Arrernte terms that M.K. utilises are antirrkweme, atnyerneme and arntarntareme. She sometimes uses these terms interchangeably to describe a metaphorical process of holding, or more accurately caring for and nurturing, the country-ground and the people from that

country-ground. M.K. concludes, “The country is us.”51

As a result of this strong identity with country,52 _{marriage also comes out of country. Inside}

the apmereyanhe there are neighbouring homelands that belong to the skin groups. Perfect marriages are established from the different skins within those homelands. M.K. describes

45 _{Songs are associated with ceremony. Song is the base line, the driving force of ritual.}

46 _{Turner, Iwenhe Tyerrtye, 18.}

47 _{Gavan Breen, personal communication, November, 10, 2017, again notes that this may be an M.K. coinage:}

“Another M.K. invention is Apmereyanhe.”

48 _{Turner, Iwenhe Tyerrtye, 21.}

49 _{Turner, Iwenhe Tyerrtye, 18.}

50 _{Turner, Iwenhe Tyerrtye, 18.}

51 _{Turner, Iwenhe Tyerrtye, 18.}

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country marriage53 this way: “they marry from the strong of that Land, they marry through the flesh of that skin group, and also of that skin group, and also through utnenge/spirit, the flesh of that Land.”54 _{M.K. calls these people anpernirrentye mape, the people within the}

kinship group. This is the first time she has used the term anpernirrentye/kinship and it seems this is because it is a good way to describe the package. All the elements are contained within the capsule. This is the Arrernte world – anpernirrentye/kinship. And this is how the world in held.

Death fits into this capsule well. Arrernte people seek to pass away in their own country, returning to their country when death approaches. M.K. has buried her own son in his apmere/countrywith the knowledge that the spirit/utnenge of the country is returning to the country and “[t]hen that soil makes maybe two more people the same as the one that died”.55

Land again emerges as the central concept, “Because our story is connected to our Land and also is connected to us and our children and our children’s children. We belong to the Land