Oodgeroo Noonuccal

Oodgeroo Noonuccal
(Kath Walker)

Oodgeroo Noonuccal
at Brisbane's King George Square, March 1975
Born Kathleen Jean Mary Ruska
3 November 1920
Minjerribah (North Stradbroke Island), Queensland, Australia
Died 16 September 1993(1993-09-16) (aged 72)
Residence Moongalba
Nationality Australian
Other names Kath Walker and Kathleen Ruska
Education book keeping, typing, & shorthand
Occupation domestic servant, corporal, writer, educator, poet
Employer Australian Women's Army Service, Noonuccal-Nughie Education Cultural Centre
Known for poetry, acting, writing, Aboriginal rights activism
Political party Communist Party of Australia Australian Democrats
Board member of Federal Council for the Advancement of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders (FCAATSI)
Religion Aboriginal Australian
Spouse(s) Bruce Walker
Children Dennis Walker, Vivian Walker
Parent(s) Ted and Lucy Ruska
Notes

Oodgeroo Noonuccal (/ˈʊdʒ/ /ˈnuːnəkəl/ UUD-gə-roo NOO-nə-kəl; born Kathleen Jean Mary Ruska, in 1920, formerly Kath Walker) (3 November 1920 – 16 September 1993) was an Australian poet, political activist, artist and educator. She was also a campaigner for Aboriginal rights.[1] Oodgeroo was best known for her poetry, and was the first Aboriginal Australian to publish a book of verse.[2]

Life as a poet, artist, writer and activist

During the 1960s Kath Walker emerged as a prominent political activist and writer. She was Queensland state secretary of the Federal Council for the Advancement of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders (FCAATSI),[3] and was involved in a number of other political organisations. She was a key figure in the campaign for the reform of the Australian constitution to allow Aboriginal people full citizenship, lobbying Prime Minister Robert Menzies in 1965, and his successor Harold Holt in 1966.[4] At one deputation in 1963, she taught Robert Menzies a lesson in the realities of Aboriginal life. After the Prime Minister offered the deputation an alcoholic drink, he was startled to learn from her that in Queensland he could be jailed for this.[5]

She wrote many books, beginning with We Are Going (1964), the first book to be published by an Aboriginal woman.[6] The title poem concludes:

The scrubs are gone, the hunting and the laughter.
The eagle is gone, the emu and the kangaroo are gone from this place.
The bora ring is gone.
The corroboree is gone.
And we are going.

This first book of poetry was extraordinarily successful, selling out in several editions, and setting Oodgeroo well on the way to be Australia's highest-selling poet alongside C. J. Dennis.[7] Critics' responses, however, were mixed, with some questioning whether Oodgeroo, as an Aboriginal person, could really have written it herself. Others were disturbed by the activism of the poems, and found that they were "propaganda" rather than what they considered to be real poetry.[8] Oodgeroo embraced the idea of her poetry as propaganda, and described her own style as "sloganistic, civil-writerish, plain and simple."[9] She wanted to convey pride in her Aboriginality to the broadest possible audience, and to popularise equality and Aboriginal rights through her writing.[10]

In 1972 she bought a property on North Stradbroke Island (also known as Minjerribah) which she called Moongalba ('sitting-down place'), and established the Noonuccal-Nughie Education and Cultural Centre.[1] And in 1977, a documentary about her, called Shadow Sister, was released. It was directed and produced by Frank Heimans and photographed by Geoff Burton. It describes her return to Moongalba and her life there.[11] In a 1987 interview, she described her education program at Moongalba, saying that over "the last seventeen years I've had 26,500 children on the island. White kids as well as black. And if there were green ones, I'd like them too ... I'm colour blind, you see. I teach them about Aboriginal culture. I teach them about the balance of nature."[12] Oodgeroo was committed to education at all levels, and collaborated with universities in creating programs for teacher education that would lead to better teaching in Australian schools.[13]

In 1974 Noonuccal was aboard a British Airways flight that was hijacked by terrorists campaigning for Palestinian liberation. The hijackers shot a crew member and a passenger and forced the plane to fly to several different African destinations. During her three days in captivity, she used a blunt pencil and an airline sickbag from the seat pocket to write two poems, 'Commonplace' and 'Yusuf (Hijacker)'.[14]

In 1983 Noonuccal ran in the Queensland state election for the Australian Democrats political party in the Electoral district of Redlands. Her campaign focused around policies promoting the environment and Aboriginal rights.[15]

In 1988 she adopted a traditional name: Oodgeroo (meaning "paperbark tree") Noonuccal (her tribe's name).[16]

She died in 1993 in Victoria aged 72.[1]

A play has since been written by Sam Watson entitled Oodgeroo: Bloodline to Country commemorating Oodgeroo Noonuccal's life, being a play based on Oodgeroo Noonuccal's real life experience as an Aboriginal woman on board a flight hijacked by Palestinian terrorists on her way home from a committee meeting in Nigeria for the World Black and African Festival of Arts and Culture[17]

Awards

Oodgeroo won several literary awards, including the Mary Gilmore Medal (1970), the Jessie Litchfield Award (1975), and the Fellowship of Australian Writers' Award.

In 1979, she was awarded the Sixth Annual Oscar at the Micheaux Awards Ceremony, hosted by the US Black Filmmakers Hall of Fame and in the same year received the International Acting Award for the film Shadow Sisters.[18]

She was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire in 1970, returning it in 1987 to protest the Australian Bicentenary celebrations, and to make a political statement at the condition of her people.[16][1]

Her work

Poetry

For children

Non fiction

Notes

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 Land, Clare (16 September 2013). "Oodgeroo Noonuccal (1920–1993)". Australian Women's Archives Project. Retrieved 23 February 2016.
  2. ↑ "Oodgeroo Noonuccal." Encyclopedia of World Biography Supplement, Vol. 27. Gale, 2007
  3. ↑ Cochrane, (1994), p. 67; Elaine Darling, They spoke out pretty good: politics and gender in the Brisbane Aboriginal Rights Movement 1958–1962 (St Kilda, Vic.: Janoan Media Exchange, c1998.), p. 189.
  4. ↑ Cochrane, (1994), p. 63.
  5. ↑ "Oodgeroo Noonuccal (Kath (Ruska) Walker)". Reconciliation Australia. Archived from the original on 5 April 2012. Retrieved 20 May 2016.
  6. ↑ "Maori and Aboriginal Women in the Public Eye: Representing Difference, 1950-2000". ANU E Press. Retrieved 2014-02-23.
  7. ↑ Mitchell, (1987), pp. 200–2.
  8. ↑ Rooney, Brigid, Literary activists: writer-intellectuals and Australian public life (St Lucia, Qld.) : University of Queensland Press, 2009, pp. 68–9
  9. ↑ Kath Walker, "Aboriginal Literature" Identity 2.3 (1975) pp. 39–40
  10. ↑ Cochrane, (1994), p. 37
  11. ↑ Shadow Sister: A Film Biography of Aboriginal Poet Kath Walker (Oodgeroo Noonuccal), MBE
  12. ↑ Mitchell, (1987), p. 206.
  13. ↑ Rhonda Craven, "The role of teachers in the Year of Indigenous people: Oodgeroo of the Tribe Noonuccal (Kath Walker)", Aboriginal Studies Association Journal, No. 3 (1994), p. 55-56.
  14. ↑ Powell, Marg; Rickertt, Jeff. "Kath Walker - Sick Bag Poem - Treasures from the Fryer Library". Library.uq.edu.au. Archived from the original on 31 March 2012. Retrieved 2012-01-12.
  15. ↑ Floyd, B., Inside Story, p. 71, Boolarong Press, Salisbury.
  16. 1 2 "Encyclopedia of World Biography Supplement: Supplement (Mi-So): Oodgeroo Noonuccal Biography". Notable Biographies. Retrieved 23 February 2016.
  17. ↑ "Oodgeroo - Bloodline To Country". AustralianPlays.org. Retrieved 2012-01-12.
  18. ↑ Who's Who of Australian Women. Methuen Australia Pty Ltd. 1982. ISBN 0454004370.

References

Secondary sources

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