Published Messenger Newspapers, November 12, 2003


YOU SPEAKING TO ME, KUNMANARA?


A NAME can make a big difference to your day. Call a child Christian, say, and the kid may have a chance of becoming Pope but he is unlikely to become the Malaysian Prime Minister. Or, based solely on their names, the Zimbabwean cricketers Heath Streak and Trevor Gripper both could have great futures as porno movie stars after their sporting careers end. Names not only identify individuals but in some cases they can also provide insights into the complex nature of a culture. For example, in the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Lands which I visited recently as a guest of the Education Department,the name of a dead person cannot be spoken. Bad luck if someone else happens to share the same name - they lose it too. But since people cannot go around nameless, the Anangu have devised a way around the problem by providing a temporary replacement name, Kunmunara. A person could be known as Kunmunara for a few months or for several years, depending on the importance of the person who died. If the period looks like being a long one, a new name is usually assigned since, over time, there could be any number of Kunmunaras wandering around the place. At Amata school, there were four Kunmunara kids at one unfortunate time. Then a fifth turned up to make matters even more confusing. At their wits' end, the teachers checked the latest arrival's enrolment form to see if he had a second name they could use. Finding none, they looked up his birth date and discovered he was born under the zodiac sign of Leo. He became Leo and liked the name so much, he was still Leo 20 years later. Just was well he was not a Sagittarian. At Mimili, a teacher named Lisa was called Armory; at Ernabella, a Russell was called Tom; and another Russell was called Kunmunara while awaiting a renaming. One teacher named Peter Russell became Kunmunara Russell when another Peter died. And then someone named Russell died and the teacher became Kunmunara Kunmunara, or Kunmunara Squared to his colleagues. All this has a sad side to it - the high Aboriginal death rate. On average, they live 20 years less than the rest of the population at a death rate two to three times higher; in the 35-54 age group, their death rate is at least five times higher. For men, the life expectancy is 56. Their 50th birthday parties tend to be big ones. At Ernabella when I was there, the community had spent several days in a Sorry Camp following the death of a woman hit by a freight train. Sorry Camps are an unfortunate fact of life and teachers showing old photo albums to their students must be careful to place a hand over the image of anyone who has died. At Indulkana, among the junior primary students were the names Driscilla Walkabout, Nadia Whiskey and Julian Lennon. Such wonderful names. I hope they never become Kunmunara.