The Secret Life of An Aborigine Memoirs of Shane Coghill, Goenpul Man: Quandamooka Stories as Heritage

Abstract

Stories told to us by our family members, and stories that we tell inside and beyond our families not only become ‘our heritage’, but are integral to our sense of self. As ‘Aborigines’ (Indigenous, or First Nation peoples) our stories also become a form of resistance to the taking on of identities based on stories told about us by writers (historians, anthropologists, journalists) from cultures other than our own. The argument of this thesis is that strategies of colonisation – oppression, domination, and genocide – that were and still are perpetrated against Aborigines result in the living out of ‘secret’ lives. This is how we have survived and how our ancient culture has endured. My thesis encompasses the secret life of a Goenpul man in modern Queensland. It is based on my experiences of living and interacting in two worlds - one brutally harsh and public and the other secret and loving.