AustLit

Recommendation 7a: That the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission, in consultation with the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation, arrange for a national ‘Sorry Day’ to be celebrated each year to commemorate the history of forcible removals and its effects. (Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission 1997:254)

This recommendation from the Bringing Them Home Report was the beginning of the annual ‘National Sorry Day’ commemoration, held on 26 May. Sorry Day is a significant day for Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, particularly for Stolen Generations survivors and their families. This day also gives people a chance to write their messages and sign ‘Sorry Books’, a way of showing their commitment towards reconciliation. This poem about a sorry book was dedicated to Stolen Generations survivor Lowitja O'Donoghue who, in 2008, provided counsel to Prime Minister Kevin Rudd regarding the National Apology to the Stolen Generations.

The sorry book comes through at lunch.

Small groups of friends sit down to sign it,

looking for the words.

Sixteen to eighteen, they have felt it,

the shriek of children carried off,

this "whisper in our hearts".

Certain teachers also sign it,

privately and with no flourish,

no more articulate.

their phrases likewise close to mawkish,

cliches in themselves declaring

words are not enough.

(Geoff Page, 1999)

O’Donoghue never knew her white father and was taken from her mother at the age of two; it was 33 years before O’Donoghue saw her mother again. Many people from the Stolen Generations have written accounts, in a variety of literary forms, of their experiences of survival and the impact such policies had and still have on Aboriginal people. Writing has been a means of healing the scars of removal (Heiss 2015). BlackWords’ Stolen Generations trail presents autobiographies, biographies, novels, children's stories, anthologies, short stories, poems and songs, oral histories, plays, and films written by many Stolen Generations survivors, and/or by their family members. They depict the emotional, psychological and physical traumas of their experiences, and the disruption of their oral and cultural knowledge.

AustLit's BlackWords database lists a range of works relating to Sorry Day, Reconciliation, and the Stolen Generations. We also encourage you to read Anita Heiss’s essay 'Our Truths: Aboriginal Writers and the Stolen Generations' and explore the associated information trail.

Works Cited

Heiss, Anita. 'BlackWords: Our Truths - Aboriginal Writers and the Stolen Generations.' The BlackWords Essays AustLit (http://www.austlit.edu.au/austlit/page/8678017), 2015 [Retrieved 25/05/2016].

Wilson, Ronald, and Mick Dodson. 'Bringing Them Home: Report of the National Inquiry into the Separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children from their Families'. Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission, Sydney, 1997.

Page, Geoff. 'The Sorry Book.' Westerly 44.2 (1999): 22-23.

Standish, Anne. 'O'Donoghue, Lowitja (Lois) (1932 - )'. In The Encyclopedia of Women & Leadership in Twentieth-Century Australia, 2014. Available http://www.womenaustralia.info/leaders/biogs/WLE0354b.htm

What does ‘Australia Day’ mean for both Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Australians?

Falling on 26 January, the holiday commonly known as Australia Day marks the arrival of the First Fleet at Port Jackson, New South Wales, in 1788, and the raising of the flag of United Kingdom at Sydney Cove by Governor Arthur Phillip.

The meaning and significance of Australia Day has changed over time. Even the names of the day have altered, from Anniversary Day, Foundation Day and ANA (Australian Natives’ Association) Day to Australia Day a century later. The day was proclaimed a public holiday in 1818, on the thirtieth anniversary of the landing. The poem 'Song' (published in the Sydney Gazette in 1817 and sung to the tune of 'Rule Britannia') shows the strong patriotism toward their new country, and to their homeland. Over a century later, in 1942, Ian Mudie wrote a poem in commemoration of Australia Day called 'Australia Day 1942'. For many Australians, it is a day of celebrations, BBQs, festivals, concerts, and fireworks.

But for many Aboriginal Australians, 26 January is a day about loss of rights to their land, loss of family, and the loss of the right to practice their culture.

Australia Day has been called different names by Aboriginal people over the years. In 1938, William Cooper, a member of the Aboriginal Progressive Association, declared the day a ‘Day of Mourning’. In 2012, Fregmonto Stokes and Ashlee Clapp drew on William Cooper’s proclamation to write an opera, called 1938: An Opera, that invents a satirical alternative history of post-1788 Australian history. In 1992, the day became ‘Survival Day’ when the first Survival Day concert was held in Sydney–one the biggest Aboriginal cultural events in Australia. More recently, many Aboriginal people have preferred the term ‘Invasion Day’ as a reference what happened when Captain Cook landed in Australia. Then, in 2006, the name ‘Aboriginal Sovereignty Day’, which represents a unity of all Aboriginal nations in the continuous fight for their rights, began circulating. Coralie Kay Cassady expresses an Indigenous aspect on Australia Day in her poem 'What’s Our Day?', and Mudrooroo identifies the Aboriginal aspects of Australia Day in his poem 'Beached Party', written in 1991.

Further Reading:

Explore Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander writing and story-telling from pre-1788 to the present day in BlackWords.

Explore the legacy of a colonial history in Trauma Trails.

First the art works and symposium, then the book, Courting Blakness: Recalibrating Knowledge in the Sandstone University and now it’s the website/ archive!

It all began when the curator, UQ Adjunct Professor Fiona Foley, and the project manager, Dr Fiona Nicoll, brought eight Aboriginal artists and their works to The University of Queensland’s historical sandstone Great Court, in an exhibition held between 5-28 September in 2014. The exhibition displayed works from contemporary artists Michael Cook, Karla Dickens, Megan Cope, Natalie Harkin, r e a, Ryan Presley, Archie Moore, and Christian Thompson. With the works presented in and around that dramatic heritage-listed space, university staff, students, and members of the public were able to engage with new and challenging ideas and issues around Australia and Australian-ness that matter to both Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples.

The outcome of this exhibition was followed by the launch, in October 2015, of a beautifully illustrated collection of essays, Courting Blakness: Recalibrating Knowledge in the Sandstone University. The essays are reflections and conversations fostered by the Courting Blakness project. As Fiona Nicoll asserts, 'in the essays Indigenous and non-Indigenous authors produce new knowledge about the interface of politics, art and knowledge in the sandstone university' (Foley, Martin-Chew and Nicoll 2015:10-12).

The Courting Blakness website is a digital archive of the project, where you can discover the artists, their works, reflections, conversations, and memories arising from the Courting Blakness exhibition.

The website/archive will be launched at The University of Queensland on 17 December 2015 at the Michie Building (bldg 9), Level 6, Room 601 at 2-4pm.

Following an introduction and tour of the web archive by Fiona Nicoll and an introduction of BlackWords by Irene Howe, cross-cultural communication expert Dr Zala Volcic will deliver a short talk to launch the resource to which Fiona Foley will respond. David Bergener will then report on early findings of his research holding dialogues while the exhibition was on site. The event will wrap up with a facilitated conversation about the project and sales of the Courting Blakness book.

Foley, Fiona, Martin-Chew, Louise, and Nicoll, Fiona, Courting Blakness: Recalibrating Knowledge in the Sandstone University. St Lucia, Queensland, University of Queensland Press, 2015.

Notes from an Indexer: A new blog series in which our indexers talk about what they've been doing recently.

Irene Howe (BlackWords and current indexing):

I have recently indexed 397 picture books from the Living Archive of Aboriginal Languages website, a digital archive of endangered literature in Australian Indigenous languages. These picture books were collected from various literature production centres from around the Northern Territory, which had bilingual education programs running from the 1970s.

The books were written and illustrated by Aboriginal children and adults in 25 languages from groups such as Maningrida, Milingimbi, Tiwi, Yirrkala and many other remote Aboriginal communities. The books have been written in Aboriginal languages, some in parallel Aboriginal language and English text, and some have been translated from one Aboriginal dialect into another.

These books were educational learning guides for children and other community members; for example, the Warlpiri language book Nyurruwiyi-warnu talks about kinship, and how people lived and spoke Warlpiri in the pre-settlement days, and children’s responsibilities. Some of the books tell the stories related to the dreamtime; for example, a book from Areyonga in the Pitjantjatjara language, Nganngingku walytja putu ngurintja tells the story about a little frog. This story is also written in other languages. Some books are based on historical events, such as the Macassans, and World War II. Others are humorously illustrated and drawn on daily lives of children within the remote communities, my favourite being Arrkenekenhe mwerre (I like Toys) in the Eastern Arrente language, from Ltyentye Apurte literature production centres.

This important project undertaken by the Charles Darwin University is a MUST-SEE: it is one of the most enjoyable and interesting records that I have had to index to date. To see this record, go to the Living Archive of Aboriginal Languages.

For the previous instalment in the Notes from an Indexer series, click here.