The poem “Ngingali” by Ali Cobby Eckermann is a reflection of

The poem “Ngingali” by Ali Cobby Eckermann is a reflection of the poet’s inner
thoughts and experiences. To understand the poem, one needs to understand the
poet and her background.
Ali Cobby Eckermann is Yankunytjatjara Aboriginal origin of Australia. Between the
years 1910 and 1970, the children below the age of 5 years, of the indigenous
Australian families, were taken away from their original family due to several
government policies prevalent during that time. The generations of Children taken
away at the behest of this policy are known as Stolen generation. This policy created
a severe tradition of loss and grievance that keeps on continuing till date (Behrendt,
2012).
The history behind the removal of the children from the indigenous community was
based on the concept of superiority of the white skinned people and the
simultaneous assumption of black inferiority. The process was known as
“Assimilation”, where the proposition was to eliminate the population of aborigines by
leaving them to die or wherever possible to incorporate them into the white
community. Hence, comes the concept of taking away the newborn babies from their
biological mother. These children were forced to adopt the culture of the white
people and renounce their original legacy. Some of the children were adopted by
couples from the white community and others were placed in institutions. These
institutions were dens of neglect and exploitation (Health, 2018).
This is how, Ali Cobby Eckermann was separated from her biological mother at birth
and was adopted by a white family of farmers (Garsd, 2017). The poem “Ngingali”,
the poet generally describes the angst of growing up without her own mother or
rather her biological mother. The poem is steeped with the burden of grief and wrath
and the word “mother” in the poem has several significances. In this poem, the word
“mother” not only refers to the biological mother, but also the “mother tongue”. The
deprivation of the mother as well as the mother tongue forms the base of the poem.
The spirit of the language which she had to forego forcefully in childhood pervades
the entire work (Ball, 2015).
The poem “Ngingali”, was written for her late mother whom she met when the poet
was 34 years. But throughout the poem, you can understand how she felt and how
she missed her company and the separated childhood. The poem illustrates her
mother’s grave and how she can no longer be the little child running around her
mother or climb on her lap. She remains sitting in the shadow of the grave and
literally the burden of her death is too much to bear. The shadow of the gulls sitting
on her grave creates an epitaph (Vincent, 2017).
The continuous use of the word “shadow” pervades throughout her work. The
shadow does not always literally imply the actual word in the poem, but the concept
of being a shadow of her own self. She grew up being abused and bullied for her
being an aborigine. She was forcefully dragged out of her own community and not
accepted in the community she was forced into. Her original mother tongue was kept