Indigenous Voices

 Indigenous Australians were here long before British Colonisation and they had their own ways of life, and sharing stories. Aborigines pass down their stories by performing dances and songs in their own languages.

Here is a collection of Indigenous Australian poems, and songs:

Whrilwind - Talu

Tabi in Karierra (translated)

As a whirlwind I grabbed the edge of the plain,

As a whirlwind I sent it whirling around.

As a whirlwind I grabbed the edge of the plain,

As a whirlwind I hurled it,

Caught it at the sky's bend,

Caught it at the sky's bend -

That's how Marbirrimarra dreamt it.

Jim Murray - Thunder (translated)

A mighty noise rises up, roars as it rushes by

Rushes and rises, a might noise that roar

Hurl out a leaf that is soaked in sweat

Bolts of lightning strike, and flare

A might noise rises up, roars as it rushes by

Hurl out a leaf that is soaked in sweat

A mighty noise rises up, roars as it rushes by

Hurl out a leaf that is soaked in sweat

Bolts of lightning strike, and flare

A mighty noise rises up, roars as it rushes by

White engine against Black Magic (Tabi in Njamal)

(translated version)

You steer the plane with both arms;

Sending it straigh through the air.

Inside, what a noise!

We are nobody with our cleverness,

Against the whitefellow.

He can read, and write, and sure enough,

Drive the big things in the sky-

Magic? - He doesn't need it.

Our medicine-men, the whole lot

Are utterly useless.

The Last of his tribe - Henry Kendall (first 3 stanzas)

He crouches, and buries his face on his knees,
   And hides in the dark of his hair;
For he cannot look up to the storm-smitten trees,
   Or think of the loneliness there --
   Of the loss and the loneliness there.


The wallaroos grope through the tufts of the grass,
   And turn to their coverts for fear;
But he sits in the ashes and lets them pass
   Where the boomerangs sleep with the spear --
   With the nullah, the sling and the spear.


Uloola, behold him!  The thunder that breaks
   On the tops of the rocks with the rain,
And the wind which drives up with the salt of the lakes,
   Have made him a hunter again --
   A hunter and fisher again.