Amamoo
Sanchez
Ucha
Cheng
Visionaries:
Production:
Rumbalara Aboriginal Cooperative Ltd engaged Inception Strategies to develop a Rumbalara Children’s Storybook that shows the journey of Shepparton Aboriginal peoples from pre-contact to the ‘Walk-Off’ at Cummeragunja Mission in 1930’s. Living at the flats in Mooroopna and later moving into houses at Rumbalara & up to the present 200 employee strong Rumbalara community service organisation.
Damian: Workshop, Script, Creative Supervision Ricardo: Pencils and Inks Guillermo: Colours Sebastian: Colours Elsie: Proofing Jacinta: Proofing Rochelle: Layout
Workshops: A workshop was held with Aboriginal community members in Shepparton to develop the storyline.
We hope this children’s storybook raises important discussion about the past present and future in Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal families
Thanks to:
Damian Amamoo, CEO, Inception Strategies www.inception.clinic
Lee Joachim and Kim Sedick for their support. Thanks also to the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Healing Foundation for their support of this project.
@damamoo
Our land below sings songs we know, walking history’s past. Our people can hear our ancestors’ cheer and tell us to walk the march. Back before time, the great-spirit rhyme, came forth from the dreaming. The voice of Mother Earth about our birth, and a connection to the healing. She says, ‘Follow me through the bush and the trees. Walk into the clearing. Listen with your heart. Feel the land at your feet and dance into the meaning. The earth is your place, the wide brown space that joins to rivers meeting. Help them see true, inside me and you, to protect the land for safe-keeping.’
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The land gave us food and ‘roo so bountiful and marvellous. Our early peoples gathered fruits like a never-ending harvest. Then the white man brought farming to land and new ways of making tucker. So we applied our bush skills to the farm life and discovered bread and others. We built ‘r own houses & washed up our trousers, till we sparkled a brightly sheen. We set a high standard for our new ways, growing cultures in between. In the golden days, we made big food for everyone & commoner. The downriver mob would say ‘Hey pass the grub from that lovely Cummeragunja.’
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Secret words & places the white man faces gave us rations for our investment. They took our produce and sold it to market without payment for our efforts. Toiling at ‘Cummera’ for years with hopes we’d get settler’s rights, and be gifted a hundred acres we cleared and a chance to earn things right. But the white-fellas said ‘no, blackfellas shouldn’t show, aspiration above their station. Best keep down, with your face to the ground and stick to your black relations.’ So they sold the land we cleared to new settlers and our unpleasant exclamation! A spit in the eye for us black fellas watching them twice take away our nation.
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McQuiggan arrived at Cummera in ’37 & we found him quite offensive. A cruel man, he was sent to us from Kempsey boys Kinchella. He’d wave his rifle and threaten us with pain and torture waiting. He’d rent us out to station owners and pocket our wages baiting. He stole our kids from their mother’s arms and shipped them off to stations. Lost souls they became, drops in the sea of the Stolen Generations. McQuiggan bulldozed our homes & church and sold the timbers straight. Then he’d pocket the money and punish complainers until it was quite late.
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‘That’s last straw McQuiggan. We’ve had enough of you. You gubbahs don’t protect us. You just keep us under your shoe. We’ve been living here long time, we don’t need your white-fella ration. Our peoples are Australian, we walk our freedom with a passion.’ So off they went, the families walked off from the mission. Along the river & up to the punt, crossing at Barmah without division. McQuiggan screamed there’d be ‘consequences’ for every deserter. He made a list and pinned it up to shame & try and hurt us.
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Jack Patten & William Cooper made the ‘Walk-Off’ more than a complaint. Defiant, we kept adding words with meaning to our escape. Rights to work & rights to earn & rights to own a property. Rights to freedom and of movement not a white-fella people monopoly. Aunty Hyllus Briggs taught our school kids under the ‘bough shed’ at Barmah creek. Just like Thomas Shadrach James taught our leaders at Maloga keep. Our bush teachers showed there’s a blackfella road to wisdom & education. They seeded great men and women of ten, who led us by representation.
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In need of employment, our people left Barmah, their home away from home. Back on the road, they walked in families for miles all alone. Through heat, haze and frosty maze they trod the dusty track. With children, pets and bags of clothes weighted heavy upon their backs. Some settled here and others there. They parted for work conditions. New jobs lifted their hearts up high, from those old days on the mission. Through Kotupna, Undera, Coomboona and Mooropna they walked till they were black. Exhausted each evening they stretched right out on gum leaves at the flats.
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In 1956, ‘Mr Brussell’, the policeman, stormed our camp at Daishes Paddock. Using hessian bags he hid our shanties and barked warnings tragic. We didn’t know what all the fuss was about till we heard the motorcade. It was the ‘56 Olympics Queen Elizabeth’s visit day. The Queen looked out the window and said ‘Excuse me who’s over there?’. They told her ‘Queen it’s mob from the ‘Walk Off - better not to stare’. Then Queen said, ‘Well that’s not safe for children & families in the open. Can’t you find place for them without the mud and soaking?’
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So the housing mob built ten houses for us at Rumba reserve. And ten families moved in to the new houses without hot water or sewage first. Sleeping end to end without a bed against the icy floors. A houseproud mob we loved to grow great gardens outside our doors. Rumba gave us a sense of place, a break from sleepy trees. An address for our community members, an Aboriginal place for you and me. The children played and our families thrived in the new Rumba wonder, but we never forgot where we came from and the mission at Cummeragunja.
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In the early days of Rumba we helped community. We did it without funding, cars or buildings, just unity. We visited the prisons to offer a word of support for our brothers inside. We took their messages of love to families struggling with faith and pride. At the end of day we’d arrive at the bakery to take the surplus bread. Then we took it to the elders without the mobility to make sure they were fed. We went to court and supported our brothers & sisters standing accused. We made true statements about their characters so judges felt less confused.
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Aboriginal Jim Peters caught the Canberra train along the great dividing range. He took our story to Gough Whitlam and on to the national stage. Jim argued for housing, health and human rights. He was tireless for his age. He never gave up the fight for us blackfellas & he did it all without a wage. Eventually the pollies listened to the almighty chorus he sang. ‘Cause he did it with such a terrible frequency they could hardly ignore him again. So Rumbalara was finally given a medical centre in trust and chair John ‘Sandy’ Atkinson managed it well and without a fuss.
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Rumba’s clinic is a wonderful service to help keep your family safe. We have doctors, nurses and health workers from university, schools and TAFE. Aged Care at Rumba is like a warm kind of mother who cares for the residents neat. With clothes washed each day by a worker in pay who sings for residents sweet. Rumba’s family services have a variety of people who work with a helping heart. There’s youth, justice and financial counselling for our people to make a new start. So when they ask us ‘Why?’ We tell ’em we’re Rumba proud to show ‘em our book. We invite you again to walk with us next year in celebration from Barmah brook.
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Some of the colonial impact themes in the early part of this storybook can provoke a range of emotions amongst young people. Parents, carers and school teachers are encouraged to freely open up these conversations, follow up the issues raised and help young people understand that these things did happen.
‘Rumbalara - Our Story’ is aimed to assist in the promotion of a shared path between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people that acknowledges the past, honours the present and focuses on the future.
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We would like to thank the following talented people for their assistance in developing the storyline: Cheryl Bourke, Anne Kennedy, Michael Bourke, Valerie Atkinson, Frances Mathyssen, Kayla Baksh, Ella Anselmi & Kella Robinson.
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