Quandamooka people

Quandamooka people
Location: Moreton Bay, Southeast Queensland
Coordinates: 27°30′S 143°30′E / 27.500°S 143.500°E / -27.500; 143.500Coordinates: 27°30′S 143°30′E / 27.500°S 143.500°E / -27.500; 143.500
Notable people

Oodgeroo Noonuccal[1]


Leeanne Enoch
Moreton Island and North Stradbroke Island from the air
Moreton Bay, Moreton Island and North Stradbroke Island, the traditional homes of the Quandamooka people

The Quandamooka people are an Aboriginal Australian group that live around Moreton Bay in Southeastern Queensland. They are composed of three distinct tribes, the Nunukul, the Goenpul[lower-alpha 1] and the Ngugi, and they live primarily on Moreton and North Stradbroke Islands, that form the eastern side of the bay. Many of them were pushed out of their lands when the English colonial government established a penal colony near there in 1824. Each group has its own language. A number of local food sources are utilised by the tribes.

Name

The term Quandamooka refers geographically to the southern Moreton Bay, the waters, islands and adjacent coastal areas of the mainland.[3] The Nunukul and Goenpul tribes lived on Stradbroke Island, while the Ngugi tribe lived on Moreton Island.[4] The Nunukul, Goenpul and Ngugi tribes together constitute the Quandamooka people.[3]

History

The archaeological remains of the Moreton Bay islands were studied intensively by V.V. Ponosov in the mid 1960s,[5] and indigenous occupation of the islands seems to go back at least some 18,000 years BP.[6]

The Quandamooka people first encountered Europeans in 1799, when the English navigator and cartographer Matthew Flinders passsed several weeks exploring Moreton Bay.[7] The Moreton Bay people occasionally took in and cared for English ticket-of-leave castaways, most notably Thomas Pamphlet, Richard Parsons and John Finnegan, whom the explorer John Oxley found when he sailed into the bay in 1823.[8] The first settlement, a penal colony, was established the following year by Oxley at Redcliffe with 50 settlers, 20-30 of whom were convicts.[9][lower-alpha 2] Contacts were scarce for over a decade, as no free settlers were allowed to enter within a 50 mile radius of the penal colony.[10] As free settlers began to move in, the indigenous peoples were pushed out of the more fertile lands into the coastal fringe, with many of them moving to the less occupied small islands.[11] The three Quandamooka peoples each faced dispossession and the loss of their hunting and fishing grounds. The presence of settlers introduced a number of diseases that ravaged the islands and coastal areas. Forced displacements and the removal of children also had an impact.[12] The indigenous people living on Stradbroke island were able to sustain their lifestyle for the longest period; however, in 1897 the Aboriginal Protection and Restriction of the sale of Opium Act moved all indigenous people to reservations, with the exception of those who were imprisoned or were employed as servants.

Culture

Nomadism

The lifestyle of the Quandamooka people was nomadic, moving between semi-permanent campsites. They built shelters of various kinds, ranging from simple lean-tos for an overnight stay to more robust huts used at well-frequented campsites. Their traditions were recorded in the form of art, songs, and dances.[11]

Language

The three tribes that comprise the Quandamooka people spoke dialects of a Durubalic language. The language that the Goenpul tribe of central and southern Stradbroke Island speaks is Jandai, and the Nunukul dialect of northern Stradbroke island was called Moondjan, the term for its distinctive word for 'no'.[13]

Food

The Quandamooka people used several local food sources, including many from the ocean. The collection of these resources was often segregated by gender. Canoes were used to fish in Moreton Bay for Mullet, and to hunt Dugongs and Sea Turtles. They were also used to travel to the mainland to hunt.[11]

Hunting and fishing were male specialisations. Dugongs were highly prized catch, because of their multiple uses. The meat was roasted and eaten, while medicinal oil was also obtained from the animals. The men used several different techniques to catch fish. These included netting them from canoes using nets made of vines or bark, spearing them, and trapping them.[11]

The collection of other sources of food was done by women. These included shellfish, fern roots, Pandanus trees, insect larvae, berries, lily bulbs, honey, and small game. The fern roots were roasted and pounded into flour, while the fleshy part of Pandanus trees were used to make a drink. The game animals consumed by the Quandamooka included lizards, snakes, waterbirds, and marsupials.[11]

Art and tools

The Quandamooka people made several tools and weapons from materials found locally. These included boomerangs and shields, as well as dilly bags made from woven reeds. These tools were frequently decorated with patterns, which were either burned or painted. Tools and weapons were also occasionally traded with other nearby tribes.[11]

Native title

On 4 July 2011, the Quandamooka people were granted Native title to a 568-square-kilometre (219 sq mi) plot of land, following a 16-year legal battle. The title that was granted covered most of North Stradbroke Island, many smaller islands, and the adjoining parts of Moreton Bay. The title was the first granted to indigenous people in South Queensland.[14][15]

Prominent people

Oodgeroo Noonuccal

Oodgeroo Noonuccal (born Kath Walker, 1920-1993) was one of the most nationally prominent members of the Quandamooka people. She served as a wireless operator in the Australian Women's Army Service, and later became a poet.[16] She was also a political activist, campaigning for Aboriginal rights.[17] Oodgeroo was best known for her poetry, and was hailed as the first Aboriginal Australian to publish a book of verse.[18]

Leeanne Enoch

Leeanne Enoch, a Quandamooka of Nunukul-Nughi descent, is the Labor party member for the district of Algester in the Queensland assembly since 2015. She is the first indigenous woman to be elected to the Parliament of Queensland and has held various ministerial positions.[19][20]

Lisa Bellear

Lisa Bellear (2 May 1961 in Melbourne, Victoria – 5 July 2006 in Melbourne) was an Indigenous Australian poet, photographer, activist, spokeswoman, dramatist, comedian and broadcaster. Bellear was a broadcaster at the community radio station 3CR in Melbourne where she presented the show 'Not Another Koori Show' for over 20 years.[21]

Bob Bellear

Bob Bellear also known as Robert William "Bob" Bellear (17 June 1944 — 15 March 2005) was an Australian social activist, lawyer and judge. Robert was the first Aboriginal Australian judge. His grandmother was an Aboriginal Australian woman from Minjerribah, married to a Vanuatu man blackbirded Jack Corowa.[21][22]

Megan Cope

Megan Cope is a contemporary Indigenous Australian artist. Cope is a member of the Brisbane based Indigenous Art Collective ProppaNOW and was the winner of the Western Australian Indigenous Art Award 2015 for her video satire of Australian stereotypes over indigenous inclusion The Blaktism.[23][24]

Notes

  1. ↑ The Goenpul's contemporary descendants prefer the ethnonym Dandrubin Gorenpul.[2]
  2. ↑ Dutton, in 1983, 4 years before Hughes' book, writes of 20 convicts and 14 soldiers, plus an assortment of help and family.[10]

Citations

Sources

  • Brown, Jen Jewel (24 July 2006). "An inspiring, dynamic warrior woman". The Sydney Morning Herald.
  • Collins, John (1994). "Obituary: Oodgeroo of the Tribe Noonuccal". Aboriginal History. 18 (1–2): 1–4. JSTOR 24046080.
  • Connors, Libby (2015). Warrior: A legendary leader's dramatic life and violent death on the colonial frontier. Allen & Unwin. ISBN 978-1-760-11048-2.
  • Diamond, Marion (July 2012). Stradbroke: A Brief History (pdf). Fryer Folios. pp. 1–4.
  • Dixon, Robert M. W. (2002). Australian Languages: Their Nature and Development. Volume 1. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-47378-1.
  • Dutton, Tom (1983). "The origin and spread of Aboriginal Pidgin English in Queensland and: A Prelimionary Account" (PDF). Aboriginal History. Cambridge University Press. 7 (1–2): 90–122.
  • Fox, Karen (2011). Maori and Aboriginal Women in the Public Eye. ANU E Press. p. 106. ISBN 978-1-921-86262-5.
  • Green, Antony (2 February 2015). "Algester". Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
  • Hughes, Robert (2010) [First published 1987]. The Fatal Shore. Random House. pp. 440–450. ISBN 978-1-407-05407-0.
  • Ivanitz, Michele (2000) [First published 1987]. "Local Government and Native Title Process Agreements in Australia and Canada: Ethical practice and shifting contexts". In Bishop, Patrick; Preston, Noel. Local Government, Public Enterprise and Ethics. Federation Press. pp. 79–101. ISBN 978-1-862-87135-9.
  • "Local Indigenous Peoples". wynnummanly.com. Retrieved 23 March 2015.
  • Manning, Peter (17 March 2005). "From the depths to the heights". The Sydney Morning Herald.
  • Northover, Kylie (29 April 2014). "Artist Megan Cope takes a fresh look at the question of identity". The Sydney Morning Herald.
  • O'Faircheallaigh, Ciaran (2015). Negotiations in the Indigenous World: Aboriginal Peoples and the Extractive Industry in Australia and Canada. Routledge. p. 125. ISBN 978-1-317-51153-3.
  • Ponosov, Vladimir Vasil'evich (1974). Results of an archaeological survey of the Southern region of Moreton Bay and of Moreton Island (1963-1964) (pdf). University of Queensland.
  • "QSNTS - Quandamooka People". Qsnts.com.au. Retrieved 23 March 2015.
  • "Quandamooka". Redland.qld.gov.au. Retrieved 23 March 2015.
  • Rainforth, Dylasn (15 July 2015). "WA Artist Megan Cope takes a fresh look at the question of identity". The Sydney Morning Herald.
  • Robertson, Joshua (1 February 2015). "Leeanne Enoch's election in Queensland 'opens door' for Indigenous politicians". The Guardian.
  • Ross, Anne; Sherman, Kathleen Pickering; Snodgrass, Jeffrey G; Delcore, Henry D; Sherman, Richard (2016). Indigenous Peoples and the Collaborative Stewardship of Nature: Knowledge Binds and Institutional Conflicts (PDF). Routledge. ISBN 978-1-315-42659-4.
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