As I stood under it, looking up into the branches, listening as the wind rustled the leaves, I could hear my Kiju's voice: "This tree holds our stories." And as I looked down at the dirt at the base and the two strong roots that protruded from the ground where women had placed their bodies for hundreds of years before these town people were even on this land, I swear the tree spoke to me in the voices of every woman who ever laid under it, whoever welcomed their next generation, one who passed out of this world at the same time she gave life to this world.
Aliet is seventeen and has been raised by her wise, loving grandmother, her Kiju. Near their home, in the village where their Indigenous community has lived for generations, is a tree, with roots pushing out of the hard earth before retreating underground, providing a cradle for women to lean into. This is the birthing tree, where women of this community have always come to deliver their babies. It is the place where Aliet was born. But it is also the place where her mother died, gently held by the tree's roots as Aliet came into the world.
Times are changing, and although Kiju has a wealth of Indigenous knowledge and experience to share, local women are increasingly reluctant to follow their community's traditional birthing rituals. At the local hospital, white doctors are sceptical of Indigenous practices, and Aliet and Kiju are distraught to witness their dismissiveness turn to action, resulting in their traditions being outlawed - even for women who are determined to choose for themselves.
Twenty-three years later, Aliet is living in the city, leading a quiet, unremarkable life while she grapples with a personal tragedy, the trauma of which has shaped her adulthood. She works as a nurse, administering the medicine which replaced Indigenous wisdom while still holding her grandmother's herbal recipes and wonderful stories dear. But when Kiju passes away suddenly, grief-stricken Aliet understands that she must return to the place where she was raised: it is only these roots that can help her reconnect with her grandmother, and herself.
