Noongar Aboriginal People Summary

The Australian Indigenous community hold extremely significant corrections to the land of Australia, of which they refer to as ‘Country.’ Indigenous people acquire deep meaning from the land, sea and the countless resources derived from them. This special relationship has formed for many centuries. To them ‘Country’ is paramount for overall wellbeing; the strong, significant, spiritual bonds embody their entire existence. Knowledge is continually passed down to create an unbroken connection of past,

Through the use of poetic devices, the author has successfully encouraged the audience to explore their thoughts on Australian identity and to reflect on our nation’s history.

The notion of the contemporary indigenous identity and the impact of these notions are both explored in texts that have been studied. Ivan Sen’s 2002 film ‘Beneath Clouds’ focuses on the stereotypical behaviours of Indigenous Australians highlighting Lina and Vaughn’s journey. This also signifies the status and place of the Australian identity today. Through the use of visual techniques and stereotypes the ideas that the Indigenous are uneducated, involved in crime and the stereotypical portrayal of white people are all explored. Similarly the notion of urban and rural life is represented in Kennith Slessor’s ‘William Street’ and ‘Country Towns’.

The poet Oodgeroo Noonuccal, draws the realistic image of the confronting realities of alienation and displacement of Indigenous Australians. It is because of such experiences that has empowered Noonuccal to express and advocate learning from experiences by positioning the audience to view the horrors that occurred, creating a platform for her poetry. Through the emphasis of identity, it allows the audience to deeply connect with the past, determining and illustrating a profound link between the ancient past and contemporary present. Oodgeroo’s deep connectivity with art and poetry highlights the importance of learning from experiences, for not only the Aboriginal culture but, for all cultures, and that colonisation does not destroy self-identity. Through the poems The Past and China…Woman, it has allowed the individual to promote change, encouraging the survival of cultures through learning from past experiences

I respectfully acknowledge the past and present Nooongar Whadjuk people on which land Curtin University is based and of the Bindjareb Noongar people, the traditional custodians of Mandjoogoodrap (Mandurah) the land on which I live and work. Mandjoogoordap means meeting place of the heart and is a unique, distinctive and authentic place within the Gnaala Karla Boondja region, consisting of waterways, rivers, lakes, the estuary, ocean and coastal plains, and a rich history of Aboriginal people’s lives and stories. I respect the vibrant, endless culture that past and present Noongar people bring to this boodja (country).

The Apology Day Breakfast, and, Heart’s Core Lament are two powerful indigenous poems which use poetic techniques and devices to portray theme, times, places and identities. These poems both address the stolen generation and the impact that white colonisation has had on the Australian indigenous community. However, Natalie Harkin’s, Heart’s Core Lament has more impact through using graphic imagery to connect the poem to historical

Before the European invasion in the 1700’s, Indigenous Australians lived in tribes all over the country, with an estimated population of 750,000 people (Australian Museum, 2013). By 1901, less than 100,000 remained. Their deeply rooted belief and spiritual system, known as the Dreaming, was a

The Dreaming is communicated through songs, stories and rituals, in which is explains how the “creator ancestors shaped the land and brought it to life” (Gammage, 2011, p. 1419). All of life, from religion, geography, life and more, are explained and connected to the Aboriginal people’s spirituality, land and family through this form of communication. The Dreamtime “shapes the Aboriginal people’s view of the universe and themselves” (Wierzbicka & Goddard, 2015, p. 43). The passing on of the Dreaming stories from one generation to the next was a “most important aspect of education” (Edwards, 1998, p. 83) and is seen as the fundamental reality. Edwards stated that through ritual, humans are able to “enter into a direct relationship with

Australia’s National Film and Sound Registry is a prestigious collection of media which portrays the zeitgeist of a group of people or time, this registry is updated annually with powerful songs which are considered anthems. Archie Roach’s 1990 folk song ‘Took The Children Away’ has recently been selected for consideration as it eloquently draws attention to an important part of Australian history and is undoubtedly a uniting anthem for the Aboriginal people. There are a myriad of poetic devices successfully implemented in this song which serve to intensify meaning and provoke thought. In addition, there are powerful ideologies subtly woven throughout the lyrics which allow listeners to understand and relate to Roach’s words and feelings. Also,

He calls this process ‘oral history'. Myles Lalor lives in a cosmopolitan environment, but does not pine for ‘country' to give meaning to his life. He insists that even in his suburban environment he can still live an aboriginal life (Becket 1996). By recounting his experiences of people and places to Beckett, Lalor is able to not only record his history, but also gain a sense of who he is.

The construction of Aboriginality in Australia has been achieved through a variety of processes, in various places and at various levels of society, giving rise to a complex interaction between the constructions. At the local level, the most striking line of tension may seem to lie between what Aboriginal people say about themselves and what others say about them. But crosscutting this is another field of tension between the ideas of Aboriginality (and non-Aboriginality) that people of all kinds construct and reproduce for themselves, and the constructions produced at the national level by the state in its various manifestations, the mass media, science, the arts and so on (Beckett, 1988).

As Ottoson remarks, music acts as a cross-cultural tool for a marginalized and disadvantaged minority to “talk back” to a dominant non-Aboriginal mainstream, as well as a means for “sharing culture” with, and creating greater understanding in, a non-Aboriginal public” (287-88).Recently, Indigenous music has received unprecedented attention and accolades from audiences in Australia and overseas, accompaniedwith a general upsurge of interest in Aboriginal artists. It was a gradual process. An examination of Dunbar-Hall’s (1995) discography reveals that very few Indigenous performers- male or female- recorded their contemporary music in the 1950s and 1960s. Indigenous male performers Jimmy Little and Dougie Young recorded their music in the 1960s and 1970s. Since the early 1980s, contemporary music recordings made by Indigenous Australian performers have increased along with recordings by Indigenous Australian women.

Before I can start talking about the Australian Aborigines Music, I must inform you about the rich history of the people. For this part I watched a documentary called The First People: Aboriginal Australians on You Tube. The documentary talked about The traditional music of indigenous Australians which held a lot of meaning to their culture. The music is used throughout their aboriginal life to teach them what must be known about their culture, and about their place in it, and about their place in the world of nature and supernatural. As a very young child, the aboriginal children are encouraged to dance and sing about everyday tasks. At puberty, he or she learns their first karma song, which teachings them about totemic plants and animals of his or her clan and the history and mythology of their group.

In her poems, Oodgeroo Noonuccal highlights issues about her people’s past and present in Caucasian society. Noonuccal’s main audience is the people of the 1960s and 70s; however, her poetry still applies to Australian audiences today. Both Noonuccal’s poetry and the issues she addresses have outlast her and become a somewhat popular topic of the present. People easily shed empathy; so by exposing vulgar situations through either piteous writing or ridicule, the reader is quickly engaged. Noonuccal’s poems are particularly successful with the Australian people as they address topics close to the history of Australia and its colonisation; thus, Australian readers are able to hold the issues close to heart and be engaged by the poems. The tone of the poems embody the dejected state in society that aboriginals live through. Her opinions on the matter are not noticeable in her writing but conveyed in her depictions. Ultimately, Noonuccal expresses ridicule towards society in her depiction of issues.

Her poem surmises a tribe returning home to “the old bora ground” only to find that Westerners have constructed buildings and defaced the natives’ sacred spaces with their urban existence. Oodgeroo begins by describing the tribe as defenseless and dwindling: “subdued and silent [and]… all that remained”. This message is fairly consistent throughout the first half of the poem but suddenly changes into one that says the Aboriginal culture has been completely extinguished. By foregrounding these discourses of colonization, dispossession and oppression consistently, Noonuccal’s poem presents an invited reading which portrays how the power of western ignorance has managed to abolish the pride and culture of the