Medicine Tree
Living and working so far from my Grandmother’s Country takes its toll on me at times so when I travel home I make a point of visiting this tree, a Gumbi Gumbi tree.
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Girraweenlay on a pathway that ran between southern New South Wales and the BunyaMountains in Queensland. People from the New England, south-east coastalQueensland, Wide Bay, Burnett, Dawson and Darling Downs districts would travelalong this path to gather for the triennial Bunya Nut Festival.
When I first began to compile my book ‘WhenTime Means Nothing’ I knew next to nothing about myself, my siblings, myparents or my family history hence the 17 long years and four months it took tonot just sort myself out, but to discover just ‘Who was Who in the Zoo!’
I felt so incredibly proud of myself forwhat I had achieved for myself. But as with what happened to me in a shoppingcentre in 2019 when a complete stranger had completely turned my world upsidedown in regard to what happened to aboriginal babies taken from their mothersin the 1950’s and 1960’s, I was flabbergasted. I was totally flabbergasted tolearn that I still know diddly-squat about my aboriginal history!
Only when a cousin of mine eluded to imagesI had included at the back of my book, did I realise just how little I knew. Mycousin being none other than Isabelle, the daughter of Jean Turbane who was theyounger sister of my mother Emily Tobane. Isabelle very gently added in boththe facts and missing pieces of my aboriginal past, a past that should havealways been mine to have and cherish.
What an absolute tragedy for anyone havingfloundered about their entire life not knowing anything of significance abouttheir family or their families history. As is the case with countlessAboriginal families who to this day are being denied by heavily ladenbureaucratic systems, their right to information that would allow them to makecontact with lost ones. As has been the case regarding my mother Emily whosename was changed to a name completely foreign to her family and whose file wasstamped with ‘Never to be Released’. And furthermore, whose file has beensealed for 100 years which in effect means for me as the sole survivor:
