• Dr.Bollavarapu.Raju

  Author

Colonized Australia presents a very grim picture of Aboriginal people in general. They are in a
minority in their own land and many Aboriginal tribes and languages in fact, became extinct.
Land, sacred to Aboriginals, has been lost to the colonizers. It is only the Aboriginal
consciousness that keeps them united in this predicament in spite of their differences in
language, culture, colour, region and religion. It is also this unity that makes them fight, at times
with a martial spirit, against discrimination and motivates them to assert their Aboriginal
identity. In the past few decades Australia has produced a considerable amount of Aboriginal
Literature reflecting Aboriginal struggle economic freedom, legal recognition and reforms for
basic living conditions. Mudrooroo, Jack Davis, Alexis Wright, Kim Scott, and other Aboriginal
Writers represent these issues through different literary genres of poetry, fiction and drama. In
this paper I try to explain how Aboriginal form can be identified and how functions of
Aboriginality can be recognized in the writings of Mudrooroo and Jack Davis writings that
belong to the early phase of Aboriginal period.
Mudrooroo, in his attempt to reconstruct history and visualize the future, he comes across to us
committed Aboriginal historians as well. It is not out of place to quote here his classification of
Aboriginal past in order to contextualize the Aboriginal situation as the Aboriginal people may
see it. This classification of Aboriginal history throws better light for understanding Aboriginal
literature in better perspectives.(Mudrooroo 1997:5):
1. The Time of the Dreaming: From the Beginning to 1788; Prehistory. Before the coming
of the Europeans.
2. The Time of the Invasion(s): A convenient cutoff date for this period might be 1901 and
the coming into being of the federation of the Australian colonies.
3. Punitive Expeditions and Protection: The utter conquering and control of Indigenous
people with the framing of restrictive legislation.
4. The Colonial Period: Paternalism, then Assimilation: A convenient cutoff date is 1967
when a referendum was conducted which made Indigenous people Australian citizens.
5. The Period of Self-determination and Self-management; The official policy from 1967
to1988.
6. The Period of Reconciliation: Sharing cultures.

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