“No More Boomerang”
by Oodgeroo Noonuccal (Kath Walker)
Oodgeroo Noonuccal (1920-1993) is known for most of her
life as a writer, painter and political activist. She changed her name from
Kath Walker to Oodgeroo Noonuccal in 1988 to resume her traditional name. She
returned her MBE in protest at the condition of her people in the year of
Australia's Bicentenary celebrations. In
“No more Boomerang”, Oodgeroo Noonuccal explains how the so called civilization
has destroyed their culture and land.
These indigenous people have lost their
valuable instruments like the boomerang (Curved throwing weapon) and
the spear and gained the useless bar and intoxicating beer. They have lost
corroboree, the
Aboriginal singing and dancing, happy dancing and shouting, for movies where
one has to pay to watch.Once these people used
to share the animals hunted by the hunter, but now there is no sharing and one
has to work for money and pay it back for buying things. They have to go in
search of bosses to gain a few bobs. Bob is a slang term for a unit of
currency. They cannot live on their own by hunting and they have to depend on
the whites for their food.
Once they were naked but they did not
feel ashamed but now they need clothes and for that they need money. Now they
don’t live in gunya which is a basic aboriginal shelter made of bark and
sticks. But now they have to buy a bungalow by hire purchase and have to pay
for twenty long years. They have laid down their traditional tools like stone
axe for steel ones. Oodgeroo feels that now they have to persevere and exist
like a slave to make both ends meet. The white people ridiculed the fire sticks
used by the natives and the electrical stoves they gave as a replacement is no
better.
The aboriginal Australians believed in bunyas. Bunyip is a Mythical monster inhabiting the
rivers. It is a legendary spirit or creature of
the Australian aborigine. Bunyips haunt rivers, swamps, creeks and billabongs.
Their main goal in life is to cause nocturnal terror by eating the people or
the animals in their surrounding area. They are renowned for their terrifying
bellowing cries in the night and have been known to frighten aborigines to the
point where they would not approach any water source where a bunyip might be
waiting to devour them. Now the white settlers have become the bunyips.
Oodgeroo feels that the modern paintings are no match for
the old cave paintings. The expressed feelings on the walls of the caves, by
the native people, covey more than the abstract paintings of the whites.
The native people of Australia hunted the kangaroos for
living but the whites hunt for money. Oodgeroo feels that the white doctors are
witch doctors who wear dog collars. The young boys and girls have no
entertainment except television. In those days the aborigines had message
stick. A message stick is a form of communication traditionally used by
Indigenous Australians. It is usually a solid piece of wood, around 20–30cm in
length, etched with angular lines and dots. Traditionally, message sticks were
passed between different clans and language groups to establish information and
transmit messages. They were often used to invite neighbouring groups to
corroborees (a ceremonial meeting), set-fights and ball games. The television
programmes too carry more of advertisements.
The native
people have laid down their weapons like the woomera or the waddy. The woomera
or womera is a throwing stick used to
launch a spear. The waddy is an aboriginal club, any stick or cane used for
corporal punishment. The whites have the atom bomb to end the world. Thus
the land has lost its past glory.
In “The Poetemics of Oodgeroo”, Mudrooroo
calls Oodgeroo Noonuccal “a poet of the people”. As a poet of the people,
Oodgeroo expresses her opinions on how life has deformed for the aboriginals
through her poetry.
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