Colin Thomas Johnson (21 August 1938 – 20 January 2019), better known by his nom de plumeMudrooroo, was an Australian novelist, poet, essayist and playwright. His many works are centred on Aboriginal Australian characters and topics; however, there was some doubt cast upon his claims to have Aboriginal ancestry.
Born Colin Johnson in 1938,[1] he was separated from his mother (his father had died before he was born) shortly before his ninth birthday. After spending seven years at Clontarf Boys' Town, he was turned out of the institution at the age of sixteen.[2]
He then spent periods living in India and the United States, where he finished his novel Long Live Sandawara (published 1979) about the Bunuba resistance hero Jandamarra.[3]
With Jack Davis, he co-founded the National Aboriginal and Islander Writers, Oral Literature, and Dramatists Association. He was also head of Aboriginal Studies at Murdoch UniversityinPerth.[citation needed]
Johnson changed his name to Mudrooroo around the time of the Australian Bicentenary (1988).[5] He was also known as Mudrooroo Narogin and Mudrooroo Nyoongah, as well as Narogin, after the Indigenous spelling for his place of birth, and Nyoongah, after the name of the people from whom he claimed descent. Mudrooroo means paperbark in the Bibbulmun language group spoken by the Noongar.[citation needed]
In early 1996, a member of the Nyoongah community questioning Mudrooroo's Aboriginality approached journalist Victoria Laurie. Informed that Mudrooroo's oldest sister, Betty Polglaze, had conducted genealogical research in 1992 that traced some (although not all) of her family back five generations, Laurie contacted Polglaze. Polglaze, who identified as a white person,[3] told Laurie that she could find no trace of Aboriginal ancestry in the family. Laurie subsequently wrote an article for her newspaper, The Australian, titled Identity Crisis sparking a scandal that received nationwide media coverage in 1996/97.[6][7][8][5]
A request by the Nyoongah community to substantiate his claimed kinship to the Kickett family was not acknowledged because he was overseas and then in the process of relocating interstate.[citation needed] On 27 July 1996 the Nyoongah elders released a public statement: "The Kickett family rejects Colin Johnson's claim to his Aboriginality and any kinship ties to the family".[9]
Mudrooroo's prior statements about Indigenous writers such as Sally Morgan, whom he excluded from his definition of Aboriginality, did not assist his cause. He had said of Morgan's book My Place that it made Aboriginality acceptable so long as you were "young, gifted and not very black".[10][11] In addition, Mudrooroo's writings had placed emphasis on kinship and family links as key features of Aboriginal identity, and his rejection of his biological family deeply offended some in the Aboriginal community.[9]
The resulting scandal and public debate over issues of authenticity and what constitutes Aboriginal identity led to some subject coordinators removing Mudrooroo's books from academic courses and he later said he was unable to find a publisher for a sequel to his previous novel.[12] Initially, many people came to Mudrooroo's defence, some claiming it was a "white conspiracy" or a racist attack on Aboriginality,[13] with some claiming Polglaze's "amateur sleuthing" was being exploited.[14] Award-winning Indigenous author Graeme Dixon called on Mudrooroo to come forward and tell the truth, stressing that it was important to "out" pretenders and reclaim Aboriginal culture.[15] Several authors see evidence in his writings that Mudrooroo deliberately assumed an Aboriginal identity to legitimise his work when in his early 20s, although it remains possible he was unaware. Editor Gerhard Fischer believes that it was Dame Mary Durack, though not Aboriginal herself, who "defined and determined" his Aboriginal identity.[8] In an article published in 1997, Mudrooroo described Durack's foreword to his first novel as the origin of the "re-writing of his body" as Aboriginal. Mudrooroo later replied to his critics, stating that his dark skin meant he was always treated as Aboriginal by society, therefore his life experience was that of an Aborigine.[16]
After the 1996 controversy surrounding his Aboriginal identity, Mudrooroo spent 15 years living in India and Nepal, where he married (possibly for the third time[1]) and had a son. In 2011 he and his family returned to Australia, where he published Balga Boy Jackson (2017) and began work on an (unfinished) autobiography.[2]
He died in Brisbane in 2019.[17][5]
Before the Invasion: Aboriginal Life to 1788, by Mudrooroo, Colin Bourke, and Isobel White (Melbourne &London: Oxford University Press, 1980; Melbourne & New York: Oxford University Press, 1980);
The Song Circle of Jacky: And Selected Poems (Melbourne: Hyland House, 1986)
Dalwurra: The Black Bittern, A Poem Cycle, edited by Veronica Brady and Susan Miller (Nedlands: Centre for Studies in Australian Literature, University of Western Australia, 1988)
Doin Wildcat: A Novel Koori ScriptAs Constructed by Mudrooroo (Melbourne: Hyland House, 1988)
Writing from the Fringe: A Study of Modern Aboriginal Literature in Australia (South Yarra, Vic.: Hyland House, 1990)
Master of the Ghost Dreaming: A Novel (Sydney: Angus & Robertson, 1991)
The Garden of Gethsemane: Poems from the Lost Decade (South Yarra, Vic.: Hyland House, 1991)
Wildcat Screaming: A Novel (Pymble, N.S.W.: Angus & Robertson, 1992)
The Kwinkan (Pymble, N.S.W.: Angus & Robertson 1993)
Aboriginal Mythology: An A-Z Spanning the History of the Australian Aboriginal Peoples from the Earliest Legends to the Present Day (London: Aquarian, 1994)
Us Mob: History, Culture, Struggle: An Introduction to Indigenous Australia. (Sydney & London: Angus & Robertson, 1995)
Pacific Highway Boo-Blooz: Country Poems (St. Lucia: University of Queensland Press, 1996)
The Indigenous Literature of Australia: Milli Milli Wangka (South Melbourne, Vic.: Hyland House, 1997)
The Undying (Pymble, N.S.W.: Angus & Robertson, 1998)
Struggling, a novella, in Paperbark: A Collection of Black Australian Writings, edited by J. Davis, S. Muecke, Mudrooroo, and A. Shoemaker (University of Queensland Press, 1990), pp. 199–290
The Mudrooroo/Müller Project: A Theatrical Casebook, edited by Gerhard Fischer, Paul Behrendt, and Brian Syron—comprises The Aboriginal Protestors Confront
The Declaration of the Australian Republic on 26 January 2001 with the Production of The Commission by Heiner Müller (Sydney: New South Wales University Press, 1993)
Tell Them You're Indian, An Afterword, in Race Matters: Indigenous Australians and "Our" Society, ed. By Gillian Cowlishaw & Barry Morris (Canberra: Aboriginal Studies P, 1997)
^ abTamai, Lily Anne Y. Welty. (2020). Shape Shifters : Journeys across Terrains of Race and Identity. UNP - Nebraska. pp. 390–396. ISBN978-1-4962-1700-4. OCLC1126213699.
^Maureen Clark Mudrooroo: a likely story : identity and belonging in postcolonial Australia p. 9 – 11
^Maureen Clark Mudrooroo: a likely story : identity and belonging in postcolonial Australia p. 72
^Maureen Clark Mudrooroo: a likely story : identity and belonging in postcolonial Australia p. 42 On 19 July 1996, the Western Australian Genealogical Society certified the Johnson family heritage as "authentic".
^Maureen Clark Mudrooroo: a likely story : identity and belonging in postcolonial Australia p. 43
Maureen Clark Mudrooroo: a likely story : identity and belonging in postcolonial AustraliaPeter Lang (publishers) 2007 ISBN90-5201-356-X
Mudrooroo: A Critical Study, by Adam Shoemaker (Sydney: Angus & Robertson, 1993);
Mongrel Signatures, Reflections on the Work of Mudrooroo, ed. By Annalisa Oboe (Cross Cultures 64, Amsterdam-New York, Rodopi, 2003).
"The Work of Mudrooroo: thirty-one years of literary production, 1960–1991: a comprehensive listing of primary materials (including unpublished work) with secondary sources", compiled by Hugh Webb.Perth, SPAN: Journal of the South Pacific Association for Commonwealth Literature and Language Studies, ed. By Kathryn Trees. Number 33 (1992).
