We Are Going

 We Are Going    

            They came in to the little town

A semi-naked band subdued and silent

All that remained of their tribe.

They came here to the place of their old bora ground

Where now the many white men hurry about like ants.

Notice of the estate agent reads: ‘Rubbish May Be Tipped Here’.

Now it half covers the traces of the old bora ring.

‘We are as strangers here now, but the white tribe are the strangers.

We belong here, we are of the old ways.

We are the corroboree and the bora ground,

We are the old ceremonies, the laws of the elders.

We are the wonder tales of Dream Time, the tribal legends told.

We are the past, the hunts and the laughing games, the wandering camp fires.

We are the lightening bolt over Gaphembah Hill

Quick and terrible,

And the Thunderer after him, that loud fellow.

We are the quiet daybreak paling the dark lagoon.

We are the shadow-ghosts creeping back as the camp fires burn low.

We are nature and the past, all the old ways

Gone now and scattered.

The scrubs are gone, the hunting and the laughter.

The eagle is gone, the emu and the kangaroo are gone from this place.

The bora ring is gone.

The corroboree is gone.

And we are going.’

Oodgeroo Noonuccal

Appreciating “We are Going” by Oodgerooo Noonuccal

Read Oodgeroo’s “We are going” (p. 32) and answer these questions on it:

1. Explain why they are “silent and subdued”.

2. How are white men represented? Why?

3. What is a bora ring and explain why it is so central to this poem.

4. Explain their reaction in line 8.

5. Lines 9-17 begin a ‘litany’. What is the effect produced?

6. Comment on the significance of metaphors used in the poem.

7. Comment on the structure and form of this poem.

8. Why does Thunder have a capital letter?

9. Comment on the mood and atmosphere created here.

10. Combine comments on its theme, title and conclusion.

       

1. They were silent and subdued because they were shocked and sad that there were strangers in their town destroying and killing innocent people.
2. They were represented by ants because there were many of them scattered around like ants.
3. The Bora Ring is a sacred place for the aborigines that is where they had their ceremonies and also used to live there.
4. They were annoyed and angry because they were like strangers in their own home and  the white people were now tacking over.
5. The effect of that litany is they were describing their past and their ancestral history how they have lived there for so long.g
6. Metaphors create the effect of how they feel and what they are going through.
7. The structure of the poem is very fast and broken up to give the effect of the scene.
8.  There is a capital letter in thunder because it is probably a person place or a thing.
9. The mood that is created here is sad, angry, upset, revengeful and helpless.
10. The title is very appropriate because it makes scenes the white people have invaded and they have to go but where. And it also ends with the same line.