Oodgeroo Noonuccal

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Profile

Oodgeroo Noonuccal (Kath Walker) (1920-93) was born on Stradbroke Island, Qld of the Noonuccal people of Quandamooka group. At 16 she applied for training as a nurse but was rejected because she was Aboriginal. During World War 2 she spent 4 years (1941-44) in the Australian Womens Army Service. She later trained in secretarial work and book-keeping under the Army’s rehabilitation scheme. In 1960 she joined FCAATSI and served as its Qld state secretary for the next 10 years. During that time she became prominent in FCAATSI’s campaign for the 1967 referendum. In 1970 she and Doug Micholls led the breakaway group that split from FCAATSI to form the National Tribal Council, of which her son Denis Walker later became president. Following the split she withdrew from active involvement in political organisations to live in semi-retirement on a lease-hold property, Moongalba, part of her group’s traditional lands near Dunwich on Stradbroke Island. Here she established the Noonuccal-Nughie Eucation and Cultural Centre which she ran on behalf of the local Stradbroke Island Native Association and of which she was managing director from 1972.

Oodgeroo made her name as a writer with the publication of her first 3 books, We are going (1964), Dawn is at hand (1966) and My people (1970). Stradbroke Dreamtime followed in 1972 and Father Sky and Mother Water, illustrated with her own paintings, in 1981. Her writing included poetry, short stories, essays, speeches and later plays.

She became a member of the Aboriginal Arts Board of the Australian Council in 1983. In 1985 she appeared with her grandson, Denis Walker (Jr) in Bruce Beresford’s film The Fringedwellers. In 1970 she was awarded an MBE for services to the community but returned it in 1987 as a protest against the forthcoming bicentenary celebrations. She was declared Aborigine of the Year by the National Aborigines Day Observance Community in 1985, and both Griffith and Macquarie Universities awarded her honorary doctorates.

Oodgeroo was a leader and a creative artist of international standing whose influence has permeated many aspects of Australian life, particularly through her art and her commitment to the maintenance of Aboriginal culture, and to education.

Last of His Tribe

Change is the law. The new must oust the old.
I look at you and am back in the long ago,
Old pinaroo lonely and lost here
Last of your clan.
Left only with your memories, you sit
And think of the gay throng, the happy people,
The voices and the laughter
All gone, all gone,
And you remain alone.

I asked and you let me hear
The soft vowelly tongue to be heard now
No more for ever. For me
You enact old scenes, old ways, you who have used
Boomerang and spear.
You singer of ancient tribal songs,
You leader once in the corroboree,
You twice in fierce tribal fights
With wild enemy blacks from over the river,
All gone, all gone. And I feel
The sudden sting of tears, Willie Mackenzie
In the Salvation Army Home.
Displaced person in your own country,
Lonely in teeming city crowds,
Last of your tribe.

Willie Mackenzie was a full-blood Aboriginal, the last surviving member of the Darwarbada tribe of the Caboolture district. He died in 1968, age unknown but probably in the eighties. His tribal name was Geerbo, his totem the native bee. The ‘Mackenzie’ came from his family’s first white boss, a selector of that name.

Song of Hope

Look up, my people,
The dawn is breaking,
The world is waking,
To a new bright day,
When none defame us,
Nor colour shame us,
Nor sneer dismay.

Now brood no more
On the years behind you,
The hope assigned you
Shall the past replace,
When juster justice
Grown wise and stronger
Points the bone no longer
At a darker race.

So long we waited
Bound and frustrated,
Till hate be hated
And caste deposed;
Now light shall guide us,
And all doors open
That long were closed

See plain the promise,
Dark freedom-lover!
Night’s nearly over,
And though long the climb,
New rights will greet us,
New mateship meet us,
And joy complete us
In our new Dream Time.

To our father’s fathers
The pain, the sorrow;
To our children’s children
The glad tomorrow.

The Dawn is at Hand

Dark brothers, first Australian race,
Soon you will take your rightful place
In the brotherhood long waited for,
Fringe – dwellers no more.

Sore, sore the tears you shed
When hope seemed folly and justice dead.
Was the long night weary? Look up, dark band,
The dawn is at hand

Go forward proudly and unafraid
To your birthright all too long delayed,
For soon now the shame of the past
Will be over at last.

You will be welcomed mateship-wise
In industry and in enterprise;
No profession will bar the door,
Fringe-dwellers no more.

Dark and white upon common ground
In club and office and social round,
Yours the feel of a friendly land
The grip of the hand

Sharing the same equality
In college and university,
All ambitions of hand or brain
Yours to attain.

For ban and bias will soon be gone,
The future beckons you bravely on
To art and letters and nation lore,
Fringe-dwellers no more