White, Isobel --- "Book Review - Body, Land and Spirit: Health and Healing in Aboriginal Society" [1983] AboriginalLawB 12; (1983) 1(7) Aboriginal Law Bulletin 15

• Book Review-Body, Land And Spirit: Health And Healing In Aboriginal Society

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Book Review -


Body, Land and Spirit:
Health and Healing in Aboriginal Society

edited by Janice Reid

University of Queensland Press, St. Lucia

1982 ($29.95)

reviewed by Isobel White

The title of this collection suggests that Aboriginal body and spirit may be closely dependent on the land. The contributors, all of whom have first-hand knowledge of health and healing in remote Aboriginal communities, confirm this suggestion and reveal that major causes of the prevalent ill-health are dispossession and dependence. The struggle for land rights and for community self-government are therefore worthy of support by concerned members of the legal profession, not only to achieve justice but also to improve mental and physical health.

The editor opens her introduction with an imaginary satire set in the year 2070 when Australia had been conquered and occupied by an alien power for fifty years. White Australians had been forced to leave their cities and houses and to live in makeshift camps in the most inhospitable regions of the continent, where they still tried to maintain their religion, language, culture and medical practices against pressure to adopt those of the new rulers. Their bad physical and mental health was deplored by the authorities who claimed that 'the Australians, through ignorance or defiance, thwarted efforts to help them'. Reading this fable helps the reader to understand why Aboriginal ill-health persists despite the expenditure by government of large sums of money - mostly going to white medical personnel.

Some minor legal problems are raised as well as the major ones of land rights and autonomy. A contribution by Maggie Brady and Rodney Morice examines the habit of petrol-sniffing, all too common among children and teen-agers in many Aboriginal communities; their research was based in far west South Australia. Sniffers achieve a `high', often accompanied by hallucination and deviant behaviour. The habit is potentially dangerous in the long term, particularly when the petrol contains lead; it can result in damage to the central nervous system, the liver, kidney and bone-marrow. Should those caught sniffing be treated as delinquents and how should they be punished? Should they be handed over to their parents for punishment or sent to a detention centre?

Or should an intensive program be mounted to warn the sniffers and their parents of the dangers? All these methods have been tried but with little, or only temporary, effects. In addition attempts have been made to give the children and teenagers a more rewarding and challenging environment, but obviously this can be only 'band-aid' treatment as long as the major content of the environment remains unchanged. Commenting on this article the editor writes, 'As with alcoholism, petrol-sniffing is a cause not a consequence, and may be a barometer of the degree to which the community has lost purpose and self-respect'.

Some of the contributions probably have more relevance than others for readers of the Aboriginal Law Bulletin. However, the whole collection offers informative and interesting reading. Jack Waterford suggests that the quite large funds spent by government on Aboriginal health are largely misdirected and that more should be spent on promoting good health rather than on attempts to cure ill-health, and advocates the further development of community-based medical services, directed and staffed as far as possible by Aborigines. The efficacy of traditional healing practices is the message of three contributions: Myrna Tonkinson describes cures effected by Aboriginal doctors ('medicine men') and Diane Bell reveals the way in which women's healing ceremonies bring about social reintegration of the patient with consequent improvement in health; Neville Scarlett, Neville White and Janice Reid list many 'bush medicines' still used by Arnhem Landers. David Biernoff takes issue with those psychiatrists who claim to have discovered that Aboriginal communities contain many individuals manifesting mental illness. He suggests that these psychiatrists are making judgments based on their own society's behaviour patterns and fail to understand the Aboriginal framework of social relations and social control.

Annette Hamilton and Gillian Cowlishaw throw some light on the high mortality and morbidity among Aboriginal infants. Cowlishaw suggests reasons for the increase in women's reproductive rates, which makes it difficult for mothers to give the traditional care to each infant. Hamilton ascribes women's increasing difficulty in rearing children to the undermining of their previous autonomy in family matters. Betty Meehan's description of the improved health of a small group of Arnhem Landers after they moved from settlement to outstation shows that large outback settlements in themselves are the cause of much ill-health. These results indicate that the return by small groups to more traditional life-styles on old camp sites - even for only part of each year - would benefit health and spirits; for this to happen, secure ownership of the sites would be necessary.

Consideration of Aboriginal health brings us back again and again to the same conclusion, namely that health will not improve until Aborigines regain their rightful place as important and respected citizens of this country.