Oodgeroo Noonuccal

Residence 1

📍One Mile, Dunwich, North Stradbroke Island (Minjerribah), QLD 4183, Australia

“I was born Kathleen Ruska at One Mile on Minjerribah — North Stradbroke Island — Noonuccal country in Quandamooka. My father Ted taught us to respect our heritage, to hunt and fish only for what we needed, never for the sake of killing; my totem was Kabool, the carpet snake. Unlike so many Aboriginal families we were not driven from our land, and so I grew up steeped in the old ways, on sand and saltwater. That island childhood gave me my name, my politics and my poetry. When I left for Brisbane at thirteen the wider world's injustices met me at once — but Minjerribah had already shown me who I was.”

Sources: Wikipedia: Oodgeroo Noonuccal

Residence 2

📍Moongalba, Myora, North Stradbroke Island (Minjerribah), QLD 4183, Australia

“When I could, I came home. In the 1970s I returned to Minjerribah and made a place I called Moongalba — sitting-down place — on the island of my birth. There I built a cultural and education centre and welcomed thousands of children, black and white, to learn the land and the old ways. After a lifetime fighting for our rights in the cities, Moongalba was where I planted myself back into Quandamooka soil. I returned my English name and took my own: Oodgeroo of the tribe Noonuccal, custodian of the paperbark. The island had made me, and at the end I gave myself back to it.”

Sources: Wikipedia: Oodgeroo Noonuccal