aboriginal voices kirmen uribe
I txo!? They say that the linguist Ken Hale needed no more than three months to learn any language in the world. They say that the linguist took his children to Australian Outback so they could learn one of the oldest languages to be found in those parts. Ken Hale died recently. The strange language his children studied as kids is on the point of doing so. They say that about three out of every one hundred Australians are Aboriginies.
However, if you based the statistics on prision populations, they would make up thirty per cent of the people in Australia. Although what went on was unknown until quite recently, there are no words to describe what the Aboriginies have lived through. What is called "The Stolen Generation" is just one example of what I mean. Aboriginal children were taken from their parents in the first half of the last Centuary because the authorities felt that the Aboriginal lifestyle placed the children in peril. They deemed Aboriginal parents unfit to raise their own children.
The children were carted off to missions or housed with white families. They say that Abboriginies were still being hunted in Queensland a mere forty years ago. They say.
The white authorities issued an limp if official apology in 1988. Too late in the eyes of the Aboriginies. Watery whitewashing.
STONE AGE
White man, only time is between us.
once in the time long gone you lived in caves,
you used stone axe, you clothed yourself in skins,
You too feared the dark, fled the unknown.
Go back, remember your own Alcheringa*
When lightning still was magic annd you hid
From terrible thunder rolling in the sky.
White superior race, only time is between us–
As some are grown up and others yet children.
We are the last of The Stone Age tribes,
Waiting for time to help us
As time helped you.
(*Alcheringa: the time when the Universe was created).
-Odgeroo, My People, 1970.-
SHAME
And some say "Shame" when we’re talkin’ up
And "Shame" for the way we are
And "Shame" cause we ain’t got a big flash house
Or a steady job and a car.
Some call it "Shame" when our kids they die
From colds or from sheer neglect
"Shame" when we live on the river banks
While collectin’ our welfare cheques
"Shame" when we’re blind from trachoma
"Shame" when we’re crippled from blights
But I reckon the worstest shame is yours
You deny us human rights.
-Kevin Gilbert, The Blackside, 1990.-
ELDERS
Look at the elders
as they talk with their hands.
They are like trees
in our beautiful land.
Listen to the elders
as they tell of long time ago.
Watch the elders
as they take aim with their spear.
For they are like the Kinberley rains
so far yet, so near.
-Alf Taylor, Singer Songwriter, 1992.-
However, if you based the statistics on prision populations, they would make up thirty per cent of the people in Australia. Although what went on was unknown until quite recently, there are no words to describe what the Aboriginies have lived through. What is called "The Stolen Generation" is just one example of what I mean. Aboriginal children were taken from their parents in the first half of the last Centuary because the authorities felt that the Aboriginal lifestyle placed the children in peril. They deemed Aboriginal parents unfit to raise their own children.
The children were carted off to missions or housed with white families. They say that Abboriginies were still being hunted in Queensland a mere forty years ago. They say.
The white authorities issued an limp if official apology in 1988. Too late in the eyes of the Aboriginies. Watery whitewashing.
STONE AGE
White man, only time is between us.
once in the time long gone you lived in caves,
you used stone axe, you clothed yourself in skins,
You too feared the dark, fled the unknown.
Go back, remember your own Alcheringa*
When lightning still was magic annd you hid
From terrible thunder rolling in the sky.
White superior race, only time is between us–
As some are grown up and others yet children.
We are the last of The Stone Age tribes,
Waiting for time to help us
As time helped you.
(*Alcheringa: the time when the Universe was created).
-Odgeroo, My People, 1970.-
SHAME
And some say "Shame" when we’re talkin’ up
And "Shame" for the way we are
And "Shame" cause we ain’t got a big flash house
Or a steady job and a car.
Some call it "Shame" when our kids they die
From colds or from sheer neglect
"Shame" when we live on the river banks
While collectin’ our welfare cheques
"Shame" when we’re blind from trachoma
"Shame" when we’re crippled from blights
But I reckon the worstest shame is yours
You deny us human rights.
-Kevin Gilbert, The Blackside, 1990.-
ELDERS
Look at the elders
as they talk with their hands.
They are like trees
in our beautiful land.
Listen to the elders
as they tell of long time ago.
Watch the elders
as they take aim with their spear.
For they are like the Kinberley rains
so far yet, so near.
-Alf Taylor, Singer Songwriter, 1992.-
