No More Boomerang

Words: Oodgeroo Noonuccal
Tune: Phyl Lobl



No more boomerang no more spear,
Now all civilised colour bar and beer,
No more corroboree gay dance and din,
Now we got movies and pay to go in.

No more sharing what the hunter brings,
Now we work for money and pay it back for things,
Now we track bosses to catch a few bob,
Now we go walkabout on bus to the job.

One time naked who never knew shame,
Now we put clothes on to hide whatsaname.
No more gunyah now bungalow,
Paid by hire purchase in twenty years or so.

Lay down the stone axe take up the steel,
Work like a nigger for a white man's meal,
No more firestick that made whites scoff,
Now all electric and no better off.

Bunyip he finish got now instead,
White-fella bunyip call him red.
Abstract pictures now, what they comin' at
Cripes in our caves we did better than that.

Black hunted wallaby, white hunt dollar.
White-fella witch-doctor wear dog collar.
No more message lubras and lads,
Got television now, mostly ads,

Lay down the woomera, lay down the waddy,
No we got atom bomb. End everybody.



Author and political activist Oodgeroo Noonuccall (1920–1993) is most commonly lauded as the first Aboriginal poet to publish a collection of verse. Her writing, informed by the oral traditions of her ancestors and guided by her desire to capture that unique, Aboriginal inflection using the English language, strove to share the nuances of the author's beloved culture with a wide audience.

This poem was set to music by Phyl Lobl.