21 The Grey Gum’s Story

The Grey Gum’s Story

Dedicated to Raymond Walker

by Oodgeroo Noonuccal aka Kath Walker 1974

I am a gum tree. I am very old and I am dying.

I am very sad.

I was not always sad like I am today.

Once I was very happy.

When I was young, Aboriginal children played under my branches and built little gunyas (houses) of my leaves.

Their tribal elders liked us trees very much and they taught their children about how important we were to the human race.

They know they could not live without use and we could not live without them.

You see the air the humans breathe out we inhale and the air we breathe out the humans inhale.

In this was we both need each other.

The tribal elders taught their children that gum trees were blood brothers of the Aborigines.

When they needed a canoe they cut it out of our bark.

They cut such a canoe from the trunk of me and I was glad to be able to help them build a canoe.

My trunk quickly healed and I was none the worse for them taking my bark.

See I still have the scar to show for it.

However, not all human beings were as kind to us as our brothers and friends, the Aborigines.

Many silly, thoughtless humans came and set fire to my sisters, brothers and cousins.

They chopped them down and cleared large acres of land and built their homes of us.

There isn’t many of us left in this part of the country now.

I have watched the humans come with their firesticks and axes and slowly acre by acre, they felled many trees.

What they did not want, they burned.

Now they have decided the land I am on must be cleared of all trees and the day I dreaded is now at hand.

Yesterday a man with an axe came and ring-barked me and all the trees around me and I felt the sharp cut of the axe on my trunk.

I do not mind dying for I have lived for a long time and I am very old, but there are many trees who are too young to die.

We trees want only to live and help our human brothers and we cannot understand why so many of them wish only to destroy us.

We know not all humans are like that.

Our Aboriginal friends were not greedy.

They shared with each other and they lived in happiness with the trees of the forests.

When will the greedy humans realise that when they have cut us all down and killed us all, they too will die.

I wish someone will tell them soon before they destroy themselves with their own greed.

Perhaps when I die other humans will come and see what others have done to me. Perhaps they will stop the greedy ones before it is too late.

I Hope so.

The Song of the Grey Gum

I am a Noonuccal Quandamooka mother, carer and academic. I am currently living and working on Turbal/Yuggera Country. I take great joy in many things including my children, all things saltwater, and connecting with and supporting other Quandamooka people. I am passionate about inclusion, sustainability and reclaiming the narrative about disability.

I chose this piece from Oodgeroo because that is part of my ancestry and it was written in an exercise book dedicated to Raymond Walker who was my mentor for my PhD, so this felt very personal. My first weekend in the city I took my children for walks and we kept finding huge old gum trees isolated in various places in the city. I felt overwhelming sadness from these trees and could only imagine the changes they have endured in their lifetimes. When I found the story of the grey gums I knew that this was exactly what I needed to write about.

When I was a child my father told me that if I sat still and listened as deeply as I could that I would hear the trees talking.

The song of the weeping willow was the first that I ever loved.

Flash forward 30 years and I move my family to the city.

Concrete to the horizon and humans stacked high in every crevice.

The concrete lays cold and flat, the humans all a blur,

But I see the gums are still here, scattered, poking their heads to the sky.

Hello old grey gum,

I see you still standing here, restrained on every side. A miracle that you have survived from forest to concrete desert.

I have come to this white man’s place of knowing to read the words of the Aborigines.

 I wonder what you have witnessed, all your brothers, sisters and cousins gone, you seem all alone. I walk carefully in this place where the story is unknown.

My children think I’m crazy as I reach out to feel your touch and whisper… don’t give up, we are in this together old grey gum, the Aborigines are still here.

One day the young ones will seek the shade of your wisdom, they too will be straining to learn your song.

So don’t give up old grey gum, we have to wait…till time comes round again and this knowing place is forgotten… then the humans can stop long enough to hear the whispers of the grey gum’s song.

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Biography

I am a Saltwater woman, a Quandamooka woman, a mother and carer. I am an early career academic at the UQ Business School. My current research interests centre around decolonising the disability sector and imparting First Nations knowledges and practices. I have a background in psychology and I am passionate about decolonisation, sustainability and inclusion with a special interest in developing Indigenist research tools.