‘Koorie Boogaja’ 1971

Beth Marsden

‘This is our land and we are proud of it. After all, you white fellows weren’t the first to discover Australia—we were here first.’ Charlie Carter[1]

This poster shows a map of Australia produced by the Aborigines Advancement League in 1971. Entitled ‘Koorie Boogaja’, this eloquent graphic illustration shows Aboriginal tribal boundaries traced across the Australian continent, with a key provided to locate each tribe. Measuring 60 x 70 cm, the sub-heading ‘School Project’ shows the aim of this poster was to encourage students to develop and build an awareness of the history and complexity of Aboriginal Australia and the creator of the map—the Aborigines Advancement League— is written at the base.

On the right-hand side of the map a large ‘K’ serves as the first letter of the title ‘Key Aboriginal Tribes’. Framed inside the ‘K’, the names of 500 Aboriginal tribes each corresponding with an area marked on the map: with 1 at the geographical centre of the continent and then ascending in a counterclockwise direction. Due to a tear in the paper of this particular poster, the Aboriginal tribe names for numbers 52 to 57 are missing and those numbers 1-3 and 126-128 are incomplete, also due to damage. On the map itself, the line indicating the country of two Victorian tribes: the Wiradjuri tribe (366) outlined with purple marker, and the country of Gunditjimara, shaded in with blue pen (351). The four corners are also damaged, suggesting that it has been pinned on display, and thus they raise some questions regarding the map’s provenance. Did George Seelaf, its original owner, have this map pinned to the wall in his Trades Hall office? Or did the map come from somewhere else to the collection? The evidence that this copy has beendisplayed aligns with the map’s purpose:to be seen and thus, to change perceptions of Aboriginal Australians and Aboriginal traditional lands.

In the early 1970s, Aboriginal land rights and political activism was increasingly visible in Victoria, based on the agitation and resistance of groups such as the Aborigines Advancement League in the 1950s and 1960s, who had fought for increased access to education, housing and land rights. After a long, tough battle, the Victorian government’s 1970 Aboriginal Lands Act, permanently reserved 4000 acres of land at Lake Tyers under the perpetual licence of an Aboriginal trust.^[2] This legislation was only the second handback of land to Aboriginal people and the first of its kind that acknowledged Aboriginal connection and entitlement to land. Yet this victory was also bittersweet. In allocating shares of the reserve to Aboriginal families, the government had not given precedence to the traditional owners of the land, the Gunai, and gave many shares to families from New South Wales or elsewhere in Victoria.[3]

This mishandling was yet another instance of the government’s ignorance of and disregard for Aboriginal connection to land and reinforced the effects of forced removal of indigenous people that was the product of earlier government policy. In terms of the evidence of the map, it also echoes the arbitrary division of the Australian landmass into states based on colonial priorities and legislation. The League, who had fought so hard to secure Lake Tyers, produced Koorie Boogaja in response to this situation. While this map was produced to educate school students, it was also designed to build awareness on other, more complex levels. The lines showing the tribal boundaries are clearly marked in bold, as are the numbers which corresponds to the names of the tribe. The straight dotted lines marking the state borders of Australia contrast are faint, in contrast to the rounded lines marking the country of each Aboriginal tribe. While the tribal boundaries can be read in concordance with geographical features—such as rivers, mountains and coasts—the lines marking the borders between states seem still more arbitrary and disconnected from the land.[4]

The League continues its work today as a welfare and cultural centre based in Thornbury. Following a research project on Aboriginal languages developed between 1988 and 1994, the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies now makes a multi-coloured map of Aboriginal tribes available via their website; it is a common sight in classrooms around Victoria and has come to represent the great diversity of Indigenous tribal and language groupings in Australia.

Beth Marsden is a PhD Student with the School of Historical and Philosophical Studies, exploring the policy and practices of assimilation in Victorian schools and education in the 1950s and 1960s.

References

Broome, Richard Aboriginal Victorians: A history Since 1800, Allen and Unwin, Crow’s Nest, 2005

_______ ‘At the Grass roots of White Support: Victorian Aboriginal Advancement League Branches 1957-1972’,

The Latrobe Journal, No.85, May 2010: 148.

Identity, 1971:8

Victorian Government, Aboriginal Lands Act 1970, no. 8044.

Citations

[1] Identity, 1971:8

[2] Victorian Government, Aboriginal Lands Act 1970, no. 8044.

[3] Broome 2005:3444- 349.

[4] Richard Broome, ‘At the Grass roots of White Support: Victorian Aboriginal Advancement League Branches 1957-1972’, The Latrobe Journal, No.85, May 2010: 148; Richard Broome, Aboriginal Victorians: A history Since 1800, Allen and Unwin, Crow’s Nest, 2005: 345; a copy of the program run by McGuiness can be found here.