Oodgeroo Noonuccal

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Oodgeroo Noonuccal

Photo of Oodgeroo Noonuccal
at Brisbane's King George Square, March 1975
Born Kathleen Jean Mary Ruska
3 November 1920 (1920-11-03)
Minjerribah (Stradbroke Island)
Died 16 September 1993 (1993-09-17)
altona medows
Residence Moongalba
Nationality Australian
Other names Kath Walker
Ethnicity Aboriginal Australian
Citizenship Australian
Education book keeping, typing, & shorthand
Occupation domestic servant, corporal, writer, educator
Employer Australian Womens Army Service, Noonuccal-Nughie Education Cultural Centre
Known for poetry, acting, writing, Aboriginal rights activism
Political party Communist Party of Australia
Board member of Federal Council for the Advancement of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders (FCAATSI)
Religious beliefs Aboriginal Australian
Spouse(s) Bruce Walker
Children Denis Walker,Vivian Walker
Parents Ted and Lucy Ruska
Website
National Foundation for Australian Women's Biographical Entry
Notes
* Mary Gilmore Medal (1970)
* Jessie Litchfield Award (1975)
* International Acting Award
* Fellowship of Australian Writers' Award
* Member of the Order of the British Empire
* Honorary Doctorate (Macquarie University)
* Doctorate (Griffith University)[1]

Oodgeroo Noonuccal, MBE (born Kathleen Jean Mary Ruska, 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.[2] Oodgeroo was best known for her poetry, and was the first Aboriginal Australian to publish a book of verse.[3]

Contents

[edit] Life

Oodgeroo Noonuccal (pronounced Ood-gerr-rooh Nooh-nuh-cal) was born on North Stradbroke Island (also known as Minjerribahin) Moreton Bay (east of Brisbane), the traditional land and waters of the Noonuccal tribe. Baptised Kathleen Jean Mary Ruska, she was the second youngest of six children to parents Ted and Lucy Ruska. Ted was a labourer and led a strike in 1935; he instilled a fierce sense of justice in his daughter, with whom he shared the dreaming totem Kabul (the carpet snake). She wrote the poems Municipal Gum and Understand old one.

Oodgeroo loved the sea and the seashore, but not her schooling. She wrote with her left hand, and was punished for it. She left school at age 13 in 1933, at the height of the Depression, to work as a domestic servant in Brisbane.[2] In 1942, during World War II with her brothers Eddie and Eric imprisoned as POWs in Singapore, she volunteered for war service in the Australian Women's Army Service.[4] As a communication worker in Army HQ in Brisbane she received training in book keeping, typing and shorthand, reaching the rank of corporal.[citation needed] During her war service “Oodgeroo noticed a big difference in the way she was treated once she had enlisted. She experienced social equality.”[4]

During the same year as she enlisted, Oodgeroo married Bruce Walker, an Aboriginal welder and boxer, in 1942, but they had gone their separate ways by the time her first son, Denis Walker, was born in December 1946. In the early 1950s she began work as a domestic in the household of Raphael Cilento and during this time she conceived and gave birth to her second son Vivian Walker (February 1953–20 February 1991). During this time she joined the Communist Party of Australia, which at the time was the only Australian political party opposed to the White Australia policy.[5]

Through the 1960s she began to emerge as a prominent figure, both as a political activist and as a writer. She was Queensland state secretary of the Federal Council for the Advancement of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders (FCAATSI),[citation needed] 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.[citation needed]

She wrote many books, beginning with We Are Going (1964), the first book to be published by an Aboriginal woman, and won several literary awards, such as the Mary Gilmore Medal (1970), the Jessie Litchfield Award (1975), and the Fellowship of Australian Writers’ Award. She was also awarded an MBE in 1970.

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.[citation needed]

In 1985 she appeared with her grandson, Denis Walker (Jr) in Bruce Beresford’s film The Fringe Dwellers.

In 1988 she adopted her traditional name Oodgeroo (meaning "paperbark tree")[citation needed] and returned her MBE in protest and to make a political statement at the condition of her people in the year of Australia's Bicentenary celebrations. She died in 1993.

A play has since been written by Sam Watson entitled "Oodgeroo: Bloodline to Country" commemorating Oodgeroo Noonuccal's life, being a play swinging around 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[6]

[edit] Bibliography

Poetry

  • We are Going: Poems (1964)
  • The Dawn is at Hand: Poems (1966)
  • My People: A Kath Walker collection 1970)
  • Stradbroke Dreamtime (1972)
  • Quandamooka, the Art of Kath Walker (1985)
  • Little Fella (1986)
  • Kath Walker in China (1988)
  • The Rainbow Serpent (1988)
  • The Colour Bar (1990)
  • Oodgeroo (1994)

For children

  • Father Sky and Mother Earth (1981)

Non fiction

  • Towards a Global Village in the Southern Hemisphere (1989)
  • The Spirit of Australia (1989)
  • Australian Legends And Landscapes (1990)
  • Australia's Unwritten History: More legends of our land (1992)

Secondary sources

[edit] References

 This article needs additional citations for verification.
Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (February 2009)
  1. ^ National Foundation for Australian Women's Biographical Entry Accessed 20 February 2009
  2. ^ a b Land, Clare (2002-08-26). "Oodgeroo Noonuccal (1920–1993)". Australian Women's Archives Project. http://www.womenaustralia.info/biogs/IMP0082b.htm. Retrieved on 2007-03-14. 
  3. ^ "Oodgeroo Noonuccal." Encyclopedia of World Biography Supplement, Vol. 27. Gale, 2007
  4. ^ a b Dolphin, Gina. "Oodgeroo Noonuccal (1920–1993)". Australian History Museum (Macquarie University). http://www.austhistmuseum.mq.edu.au/vg_ind/oodgeroo.htm. Retrieved on 2007-03-14. 
  5. ^ "Oodgeroo’s story" (PDF). Australian Workers Heritage Centre. http://www.australianworkersheritagecentre.com.au/10_pdf/oodgeroo.pdf. Retrieved on 2007-03-19. "During the 1950s, Kath became a member of the Communist Party, believing that this offered the best opportunity for advancing the interests of Aboriginal people. At that time, the Communist Party was the only Australian political party which did not have a ‘white Australia’ policy." 
  6. ^ Sorensen, Rosemary (8 June 2009) An ode to Oodgeroo, The Australian Accessed 8 June 2009

[edit] External links

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oodgeroo_Noonuccal"
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