Diana Giese visits Magabala Books in Broome, WA In September 1984 there was a festival of Indigenous song and dance at Ngumpan, near Fitzroy Crossing in Western Australia’s north. The 200 people there found time to discuss the future. They voted to establish the Kimberley Aboriginal Law and Culture Centre. It was intended to support traditional leaders travelling to ceremonies, and to protect and develop the work of artists and craftspeople. From this initiative, Magabala Books was born. In 1990, it was set up as an independent Aboriginal corporation, to record, promote and pass on Aboriginal traditions and culture in book form. This is a huge undertaking, since stories have in the past been told orally, or as song or dance. Like the bush banana that is its namesake, Magabala wants to ‘spread the seeds of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures’. When young, the banana is green, moist and sweet. It flourishes during the Wet season, and every part of it, its skin, green seeds and pulp, can be eaten. Later it hardens and dries before dispersing its many showy seeds. Magabala spreads its own seeds by offering employment and training for Indigenous people. Protection and education of individuals and groups on issues of copyright and control have been a further focus. Who owns a particular story in a community, and who has the right to pass it on? How can images and illustrations be appropriately used? What about developing such materials as CDs, film or Websites? These are questions constantly under discussion. Magabala and its workers are very much a part of the lively Broome arts scene. From this tiny town of 14 000 people radiates music, dance, theatre, and song. The organisation is run by an eight-strong management committee made up entirely of Kimberley Indigenous people, and chaired by actor, musician and performer Stephen ‘Baamba’ Albert. All books published have an Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander author, editor or illustrator. ‘We don’t want our stories to be forgotten,’ says Magabala’s Tazuko Kaino. ‘Books are everywhere in the world; everyone reads books. We print the book, and later on, someone might want to put it out as an audiotape or make a movie from it. But the book is there forever.’ Kaino herself epitomises Broome’s rich multicultural mix. She is of Aboriginal, English, Sri Lankan and Japanese ancestry—all groups who helped put Broome on the map as a centre of the pearling industry. A community arts adviser, Kaino has been president of Shinju Matsuri, the annual Festival of the Pearl—nine days and nights of balls, sporting meetings, displays and feasts reflecting the town’s diverse traditions, which also include Southeast Asian and Chinese influences. Magabala receives submissions from all over Australia, and books have been published from every state except Tasmania. An early success was Bill Neidjie’s Story About Feeling, with its powerful sense of life in coastal Arnhem Land. But there is particular interest in servicing the Kimberley communities, with whom Magabala closely liaises. Workers are constantly out in the communities, listening to people and their ideas. The management committee meets every month, and the editorial committee reads all submitted manuscripts, three or four a month. Says editor Rachael Christensen: ‘The germ of an idea might also come in from a community. The process of developing it might take four or five years: talking with local families, recording, writing it down.’ Magabala has also applied for funding for a travelling editor to go into communities to elicit and work on stories. Collaboration between organisations is very much a part of Magabala’s ethos. It works with the two other Indigenous Australian publishers, IAD Press in Alice Springs and the Aboriginal Studies Press in Canberra. Together they have published a catalogue, The ABC of Australian Indigenous Publishing, launched in 1997. In 1998, they ran a joint training program with IAD Press. Further affiliations with other publishers are now being actively sought. They also share training programs with Broome-based Goolarri Media Enterprises. Like Magabala, Goolarri fosters the development of skills by people from Indigenous communities. It’s active in radio, television and film production, in music and events management. ‘We can share skills in, say, graphic design and multimedia,’ says Kaino. ‘We need to train people for technology.’ New in-house editorial and management programs are also planned. Then there are the vital literary, support and funding links interstate. A writer from Queensland might send a manuscript, and Magabala would liaise with the Queensland Writers Centre to appoint a mentor to help work through, and develop the manuscript. Bodies such as ArtsWA and the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Arts Board of the Australia Council have also given assistance over the years. Magabala publishes novels, poetry, life stories and plays. Several authors have published two or more books. The work of traditional storyteller Daisy Utemorrah is presented as poetry and prose in the stunning picture-book form for which the company has built a reputation. She tells morality tales which discourage disobedience and jealousy. Glenyse Ward’s Wandering Girl and Unna You Fullas trace her mission upbringing and the time when she was sent to work as a domestic on a wealthy Western Australian farm. There have been four collaborations between husband-and-wife team Pat Lowe and Jimmy Pike, with Pike providing his distinctive illustrations. Poet and raconteur Alf Taylor uses Nyoongar language and imagery to tell stories ‘with grace, humour and a raw edge’. Prize-winning urban novelists Philip McLaren and Bruce Pascoe have received national acclaim and a wide readership. Moola Bulla is a lively oral account of the government-run station near Hall’s Creek, presented multilingually in local languages Kija and Jaru, and Kriol, Aboriginal English. Language maintenance is further stressed in the many bilingual books designed to be read aloud.
Children’s publishing has been particularly productive and popular. Says Kaino: ‘Our stories have got to be told to our children so they’re embedded in their minds, so they don’t forget.’ She doesn’t mean just local or Australian children, but ‘children everywhere—the world’. Many Magabala books have been translated into languages and cultures as different as Japanese and German. ‘There’s a world-wide feeling about wanting to know,’ she says. The company is currently re-evaluating its role and going through a period of restructuring, in consultation with the community, at bush meetings and with organisations such as the Kimberley Land Council and the Kimberley Aboriginal Law and Culture Centre. The original aims and objectives are under scrutiny, now that other publishing houses have also taken up the work of Indigenous writers and artists. Other issues under consideration include the need to publish material judged as culturally important, but which might have limited appeal in terms of the number of books which might sell. Sales of the backlist must be pushed, and priorities determined, such as whether to focus more on the Kimberley area. Says administrator Suzie Haslehurst: ‘Given increasing competition in the industry, the financial reality of arts-based, government-funded activity, and the fact that Magabala has just entered its fifteenth year of operation, it’s timely to define our mission and vision and set achievable objectives for the next 15 years.’ She goes on to speak of making sure the organisation’s infrastructure is strong, to guarantee survival beyond the involvement of current staff. In the past, she says, Magabala has encountered difficulties when long-standing staff members have left. ‘Succession planning and risk management will play an important part in the review process,’ she says. Policy development, financial management and the use of information technology will also be vital considerations. Magabala plans in future to attend international book fairs such as Frankfurt in Europe and the Book Expo in the United States, to increase awareness of its titles and boost sales. Another focus will be school curricula around the country. If all these initiatives are focused on ‘the business end’ of the organisation, staff are not losing sight of the main reason they’re there. Haslehurst calls it the ‘cultural heart’ of the organisation: ‘preservation of Indigenous cultures and heritage through publishing the stories of our Indigenous people. We need to grow and develop to do this,’ she says, ‘and to make the rest of the world aware of the work we do.’ DIANA GIESE also interviewed Carol Tang Wei (Magabala management committee member) and Kevin Fong (Broome Shire President, and head of Goolarri Media Enterprises) while in Broome, for the Library’s Oral History Collection
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