“We Are Going” According to Lucille Clifton “Poetry is a matter of life not just a matter of language” (Clifton). Many Australians experienced hardships during the settlement of white Europeans. They were thought to be inferior and were forced to adopted white ways. All Indigenous Australians suffered loss of culture during this time. Oodgeroo Noonuccal is an Indigenous poet who expressed this through her poems before her death in 1993. The poem “We Are Going” expresses life as an Indigenous Australian as they slowly began to lose their culture. Indigenous people in Australia experienced loss of Place, something that Oodgeroo Noonuccal expressed through her use of poet devices. The use of repetition in “We are” in the poem is used by Noonuccal to establish a connection between the Indigenous Australians and the land. A clear example of this is “We are as strangers here now, but the white tribe are the strangers” (Noonuccal, 1965). After the Europeans settled upon Australia, they took over the land and claimed it as theirs. The …show more content…
Indigenous Australians felt they were the strangers, but the Europeans were the strangers as they had just arrived upon the land. At the end of the poem it states, “The Bora ring is gone, the Corroboree is gone, and we are going” (Noonuccal, 1965). This contradicts that though they are part of the land the Indigenous have lost their place and are about to disappear themselves. With the help of these techniques, loss of place is clearly shown throughout Oodgeroo Noonuccal’s poem “We are Going”. Oodgeroo Noonuccal expresses through her use of poetic techniques “loss of ritual”, something that Indigenous Australians experienced.
Noonuccal’s use of metaphors ingrains within readers that the culture of the Indigenous Australians is who they are. A great example of this is “We are the sacred ceremonies, the laws of the elders” (Noonuccal, 1965). Through this metaphor, Oodgeroo shows that Indigenous Australians considered their rituals an important part of them and their lives. “The bora ring is gone; the corroboree is gone” (Noonuccal, 1965) shows that Indigenous Australians lost their rituals to the Europeans. Another example of this is “Rubbish may be tipped here… half covers the traces of the old bora ring” (Noonuccal, 1965) This shows that Europeans had disregarded the Indigenous culture and rituals. Oodgeroo Noonuccal’s use of poetic devices to voice her message about loss of ritual are shown largely throughout “We are
Going”. Using poetic techniques, Oodgeroo clearly states what the Indigenous Australians lost and what remains for them now. “The bora ring is gone, the corroboree is gone, and we are going” (Noonuccal, 1965) gives readers the impression that they are all that remains of their culture but even they are fading from existence. With the use of alliteration “A semi-naked band, subdued and silent” (Noonuccal, 1965) shows that after the loss of their culture, only the tribes remained. The indigenous Australians lost their place and rituals to the Europeans and all that remained was a band of natives with no voice or name in the new world. Therefore, Oodgeroo Noonuccal clearly shows what remains of Indigenous culture. Oodgeroo Noonuccal shows clearly throughout her writing that “Poetry is a matter of life, not just language” (Clifton). As part of the Stolen Generation, Oodgeroo knows first-hand what it was like to lose your culture and land to strangers. She evidently demonstrates this in her poem “We are going”.
“a verse for the cheated” discusses the effects of colonialism in Australia. The poem suggests the the European invaders or “tourists” arrive and are ignorant in respect to the Indigenous Australians.
‘Sometimes Gladness’, a collection of poems by Bruce Dawe presents various references to Australian culture; although these can often be overlooked by the reader, due to more prominent themes relating to the human experience, which engages and preoccupies the reader instead. ‘Drifters’ and the ‘Reverie of a Swimmer’ can be easily recognised as Australian, however, these poems amongst others like ‘Homecoming’, ‘Enter Without so much as Knocking’ and ‘LifeCycle’ also aim to address and engage a larger audience to consider universal issues like grief, isolation and loss. Lastly, a distinct Australian poem would only be expected to explore issues relating to the country’s individual culture or issues, though Dawe chooses to represent many prevalent
So, on Australia Day we often neglect the very different experience of Indigenous people whose land was invaded and cultural integrity stolen by ignorant ideologies of white supremacy. Their perspectives expressed through literature powerfully protests the silenced voices. From evaluation, Dawe’s Beggars’ Choice elicits a colloquial and relaxed mood, as the message is indirect and addressed in a satirical manner, while Sykes’s Ambrose is direct; its shorter sharper sentences underlining its provocative tone. Ultimately, this alters the mood of the poems even though both share the theme of the loss of tradition, depreciation of life and the social ramifications foisted on our indigenous people by their white
As majority of the narrative in this poem is told through the perspective of a deceased Nishnaabeg native, there is a sense of entitlement to the land present which is evident through the passage: “ breathe we are supposed to be on the lake … we are not supposed to be standing on this desecrated mound looking not looking”. Through this poem, Simpson conveys the point of how natives are the true owners of the land and that colonizers are merely intruders and borrowers of the land. There is an underlying idea that instead of turning a blind eye to the abominations colonizers have created, the natives are supposed to be the ones enjoying and utilising the land. The notion of colonizers simply being visitors is furthered in the conclusion of the poem, in which the colonizers are welcomed to the land but are also told “please don’t stay too long” in the same passage. The conclusion of this poem breaks the colonialistic idea of land belonging to the colonizer once colonized by putting in perspective that colonizers are, in essence, just passerbys on land that is not
Nan Dear, the matriarch of the family, is challenged and is subsequently forced to reflect on her past experience with white Australians. In the past, Nan Dear experience the Stolen generation, ‘they forced us to leave. Forced us to leave Cummeragunja. Our home.’ The inclusive pronoun ‘us’ places herself amongst other children who were taken away from their home.
Rachel Perkins, director of the film Mabo, highlighted the fact that Aboriginal Australians value their land. In this film Edie Mabo says “We've been farming this land since before you set foot on it, passed down from father to son, how can we not own it,” during this time the background speeds up and becomes more dramatic as he becomes more angry. This is because the director is trying to convey the message that the Aboriginal people are passionate about their land and how they believe it is one of the most important things to them. Also in the poem We are Going, written by Oodegeroo Noonuccal, one of the lines are is “We belong here, we are of the old ways”. This line is used to show that the Aboriginal Australians have lived in Australia for many generations, and also that they belong on that land, not the White Australians who colonized it. Both of these quotes convey the Aboriginal Australians value, which is
Oodgeroo Noonuccal uses personification, metaphors, and imagery to show how the gumtree in the city is like Aborigines who have been forced to implement and adopt white peoples’ ways and traditions. An example of a personification shown in the poem is “the gum tree is dolorous”. This is used to describe the gum tree’s emotions. The line in the poem “What have they done to us” portrays that the aborigines also face the same sadness. In the poem, the phrase “O fellow citizen” is also a personification because the poet is giving human qualities to the gum tree. The poet gives citizenship status to the tree to reflect the Aboriginal belief that all living things and the surrounding land them deserve respect. Oodgeroo uses metaphors in the poem such as ‘Hard bitumen around your feet’. This means that the gumtree has been placed in the cityscape where it is suppressed and not allowed to spread out. This links to the pain, misery, and suffering endured by the aborigines. The poet uses a rhetorical question “What have they done to us?” at the end to accuse against those who have displaced and suppressed the
A Comparison of Civilization by Oodgeroo Noonuccal and Beds Are Burning by Peter Garrett In the Australian culture, there have been many debates about the rightful ownership of Australian land and about whether the Aborigines have the right to retain the land taken from them. Further more, indigenous writers have expressed anger and protest towards the loss of their culture to white civilization. Peter Garrett and Oodgeroo Noonuccal are two artists who seek to raise the issues of the native land title and the oppression of Australian Aborigines. "Civilization" by Oodgeroo Noonuccal is a poem, which comments on the effects of white civilization on Aboriginal people and "Beds are Burning" by Peter Garrett comments on the issue of native land title. Throughout the two texts, various poetic techniques such as imagery, irony, tone and point of view, as well as poetic form are used to express deeply held views about the values and issues raised.
Aboriginal people disclose their Dreaming stories to pass on knowledge, cultural values, traditions and law to future generations. Their Dreamtime stories are passed on through various sacred customs such as ceremonial body painting, storytelling song and dance. (Artlandish Aboriginal Art Gallery, 2018). Dreamtime stories have a major importance in the daily lives of the adherents of the Aboriginal culture. This importance is demonstrated in the Australian film Ten Canoes, in this film and is established through the representation of kinship, belonging to the land and tribal law and ancient storytelling.
Aboriginal poet, Kevin Gilbert’s ‘The New True Anthem’ (1988), challenges and questions Dorothea Mackellar’s famous poem ‘My Country’ as well as other patriotic Australian poems. Whilst typical Australian poems depict the country’s identity under a positive light, Gilbert criticises its flaws and defects rather than appreciating its culture and beauty. The poet utilises high modality language and personification to portray what he believes to be the ‘true’ identity of Australia.
Choo, C and Hollbach, S. 2003. History and Native Title. Western Australia: Studies in Western Australian History.
Aboriginal spirituality originally derives from the stories of the dreaming. The dreaming is the knowledge and a sense of belonging that the Aboriginals had of the beginning of life and the relationship to the land and sea (Australian Museum, 2011). The dreaming stories are passed on from one generation to the next orally. These stories teach the following generations how to behave towards the land and other people. The dreaming stories give them a sense of duty to protect the land and appreciate it because the dreamtime stories indicate that the spirits have not died but are still alive in different forms as animals or humans, therefore the ancestor’s power is still felt through the landforms (Clark, 1963), (Australian Governement, 2008)
Australian indigenous culture is the world’s oldest surviving culture, dating back sixty-thousand years. Aboriginals and Torres Strait Islanders have been represented in a myriad of ways through various channels such as poetry, articles, and images, in both fiction and non-fiction. Over the years, they have been portrayed as inferior, oppressed, isolated, principled and admirable. Three such texts that portray them in these ways are poems Circles and Squares and Grade One Primary by Ali Cobby Eckermann, James Packer slams booing; joins three cheers for footballer and the accompanying visual text and Heywire article Family is the most important thing to an islander by Richard Barba. Even though the texts are different as ….. is/are …., while
Within Australia, beginning from approximately the time of European settlement to late 1969, the Aboriginal population of Australia experienced the detrimental effects of the stolen generation. A majority of the abducted children were ’half-castes’, in which they had one white parent and the other of Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander descent. Following the government policies, the European police and government continued the assimilation of Aboriginal children into ‘white’ society. Oblivious to the destruction and devastation they were causing, the British had believed that they were doing this for “their [Aborigines] own good”, that they were “protecting” them as their families and culture were deemed unfit to raise them. These beliefs caused ...
This is an incredible paragraph extracted from Bora Ring. This poem depicts perfectly of the European invasion of Australia. It shows how the traditions and stories are gone, how the hunting and rituals are gone and ‘lost in an alien tale’, the Europeans being the aliens. This poem also describes that it seemed as if the tradition of Aborigines was ‘breathed sleeping and forgot’. These are powerful words Judith Wright used to show how they Aborigines were quickly invaded and ‘forgotten’. This poem is an excellent example of why Australian students should study her poetry.