Butchulla Peoples

My people : The Gubbi Gubbi and Butchulla (Badtjala) Peoples

My Dog - Rocky

I am a proud aboriginal woman with European and Aboriginal (First Australian) heritage.

We are descendants and custodians of the  South Burnett and Wide Bay region land in South East Queensland QLD including the famous K'gari Island (fraser island).

Our Aboriginal ancestry on my Fathers side has always been recognised  from within my community, family and relatives such as Aunts, Uncles and Cousins living within the same rural area as us and also across the country. In my living memory their has been a sense of loss or lack of connection though because most of us did not know or were connected to anyone in our wider Aboriginal community. I first felt this loss strongly at university because each year when enrolling I was asked on the formal documentation if I had aboriginal ancestry - I would tick the box "yes" and then feel a pang that stronger links, (by which I mean  language and culture) were already lost to my fathers generation let alone my generation.

My father had the art of story telling in his blood and he would tell stories from his childhood, especially of events that happened and with a twist of humor showing through. His story telling spilled over into poetry and I feature some of his poems on this blog. I remember an Aunt of my Dad's was a poet as well and I always felt this was connected to people and our heritage.

Sadly, we lost strong connection to our larger community, "and people" just over 2 generations ago as did many people in those times. We believe we descend from the Badtjala and Gubbi Gubbi peoples and lived for a long time on Badtjala people land - this region is the Wide Bay-Burnett area including  K'Gari (fraser island). Our region belonging to the Gubbi Gubbi peoples includes Caboolture, Bribie Island, Bauple Mountain and hugs Maryborough and the coast up to K'Gari Island. I have an Uncle Gil who I am proud to say is a respected elder in the community within which he lives.

When I was about 19, I remember a special meeting with my great Aunt (the poet) at a family reunion (she was living at Nambucca Heads in NSW) and she came up to see us all at Teebar near Brooweena *. My Father was simply over joyed to see her again and he kept up his letter writing to her for the rest of her life. She was a much loved Matriarch of the family.

Since 2011, I have been painting in what I call a contemporary Aboriginal style and I have a strong feeling of peace when I paint. I think in a small way I can acknowledge my father and his father and his grand-mother in this artistic form of my paintings. I am acknowledging their personal strength in the face of adversity, their love of the land, their grace and generosity to others who thought them inferior or judged them.

Kerrie Thomsen

June 2012


*Brooweena
Tiny township in the hinterland and part of the Wide Bay-Burnett Area of Queensland.
Located 304 km north-west of Brisbane and 49 km west of Maryborough, Brooweena is a tiny town which owes its existence to a saw mill and a railway station. It is one of those towns which is easy to overlook, especially as the main road now passes by 500 metres from the township.
The area around Brooweena (known as the Shire of Woocoo) was first settled in 1849 during a period when land in the Wide Bay area was subject to a rather frenetic land grab. The two properties which covered the area around the present town were known as Teebar and Gigoomgan. It was the arrival of the railway line which created a settlement at Brooweena. The railway station, which was opened in 1889, was called Teebar but the name was changed the following year to Brooweena which probably means 'crab' or 'crayfish' in the language of the local Aborigines. As early as 1892 there was a butcher's shop to supply the railway workers. Shortly afterwards the first residence, appropriately the stationmasters cottage, was built. In 1915 the Woocoo shire office was built. However, the most important event, and the one that was to ensure the town's continuing existence, came in 1924 when Talbot Lahey built the local sawmill.
In spite of these rather humble historical facts the town now boasts an historical museum which is almost as large as the town itself. The Woocoo Historical Society managed to produce a 278 page book (there are considerably more pages in the book than there are people in the town) during 1988 called Pioneers and Progress: A History of Division One, Shire of Woocoo, Queensland. It is an excellent piece of folk history which gives an insight into the development of the area.