'kon gres 2011 - LEADR's 11th international ADR conference

Welcome to Country

About the Turrbal people

maroochyb Prior to European settlement in Brisbane in 1825, the Turrbal people, according to Tom Petrie (of the founding family of modem-day Brisbane), occupied the area of land extending far inland to the Gold Creek or Moggill, as far north as North Pine, and south to the Logan River.
Of all the blackfellows who were boys when he was a boy there is only one survivor; most of them died off prematurely through drink introduced by the white men (Constance Petrie, Tom Petrie’s Reminiscences of early Queensland 1904, pp. 4-5).

It is this story of near-extinction of the Turrbal people, the original inhabitants of the Brisbane area, that has enticed some neighbouring tribal groups (such as the so-called “Jagera”, Quandamooka, Gubbi Gubbi, Wakka Wakka and others) at the beginning of the 1900s to attempt to falsely claim Brisbane as their ancestral homelands. As the forthcoming book titled The Surviving Turrbal written by Turrbal Songwoman Maroochy Barambah and Principal Adviser Ade Kukoyi reveals, the Turrbal people “are not all dead and gone”. They are alive and well, and their compelling story goes back to the heroic and inspiring survival of Maroochy Barambah’s great, great, great grandmother named Kulkarawa.

Maroochy Baramba

Maroochy, of the Turrbul/ Dippil ancestry, was born on Cherbourg Aboriginal Reserve in Queensland. At the age of 12 she was fostered out to a family in Melbourne. Maroochy later attended the Melba Conservatorium of Music in Melbourne and Victorian College of the Artswhere she graduated in Dramatic Arts in 1979.

Over the years, she has acted in such television series as “The Flying Doctors”, “Winner Take All” and “Women of the Sun”. When Maroochy made her operatic debut in “Black River” in October 1989, she became the first Aborigine to perform on the Australian operatic stage.

She was also the first Australian to perform at the United Nations in New York in honour of the International Year for the World’s Indigenous Peoples in 1993 and, in November 1995, became the first Indigenous Australian to perform in an opera at the Sydney Opera House, when she starred in the American opera Porgy & Bess.

In April 2000, Maroochy was awarded an Honorary Senior Fellowship of the University of the Sunshine Coast in Qld. for her outstanding and sustained contributions to the community.

She hopes to continue to work in this area of the performing arts, while at the same time engender better understanding of Aboriginal culture.