Lewis O'Brien | |
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| Born | Lewis O'Brien 25 March 1930 Point Pearce, South Australia, Australia |
| Nationality | Australian |
| Other names | Yarlupurka or Yerloburka, Uncle Lewis |
| Known for | Educator and leader |
| Spouse | Pauline Sansbury |
Lewis William Arthur O'Brien, known as Yarlupurka AO (born 25 March 1930), usually known as Uncle Lewis O'Brien, is an Aboriginal Australian elder of the Kaurna people.
Lewis William Arthur O'Brien was born at Point Pearce Mission on Yorke Peninsula in South Australia on 25 March 1930. His father, who until late in life he had thought was an Irishman, and registered on his birth certificate as Ernest James Patrick Holmes O'Brien, was actually English. O'Brien's sister Merle found out that his birth name was actually Ernest Holmes Prince, and that his mother had changed his name after she became involved with an Irishman called Patrick O'Brien. [1] Ernest Holmes/O'Brien came to South Australia as part of an immigrant boy apprentice scheme known as "South Australian Farm Apprenticeship Scheme" introduced by the premier Henry Barwell after World War I. Lewis never met his father, who left his mother before he was born, and returned to England in 1935, remarried and had another family there. His mother was Gladys Florence Simpson, granddaughter of Kudnarto, and he had an older brother, Lawrence. [1]
Named after three maternal uncles, [1] Lewis was largely raised by his great uncle and aunt, Lewis and May Adams. [2] [1] O'Brien was ill as a child and became a ward of the state at age 12. Until the age of 18, he lived in a number of foster homes and boys' homes. [3] At the age of 18, around 1948, he went to live with his "Auntie Glad" (Gladys Elphick?) in Thebarton, an inner-western suburb of Adelaide. He later wrote that he had "blond hair and fair skin, who looked more Irish than Aboriginal. Even the kids on the mission referred to me as the white kid and used to throw stones at me for fun. And yet I grew up for a time with my Aboriginal grandparents as an Aboriginal kid". [1]
He studied at Point Pearce, Ethelton Primary School and Payneham Primary School. He gained his Intermediate Certificate of education in 1946 from Le Fevre Boys Technical High School at Glanville, South Australia, overcoming extreme difficulties to do so, and gained an apprenticeship as a fitter and machinist with the South Australian Railways, completing in 1952. [3]
While O'Brien was in his later school years and beginning his apprenticeship, he lived at Kumanka Boys' Hostel in Childers Terrace, North Adelaide. [1] In 1948, there were 23 boys aged between 13 and 18 years resident at the hostel. [4] O'Brien had fond memories of his stay there, and wrote in his memoir (pp.130-) that the Lyndons (superintendent H. A. Lyndon and his wife, who was matron [5] ), were "excellent people", who helped him attain his education.
In the 1960s, O'Brien became involved with several movements advocating advancement for Aboriginal Australians, including the first Aboriginal Community Centre and the Aboriginal Advancement League. His influence was felt on bodies such as the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission; SA Jubilee committees; and various South Australian heritage, sport and recreation committees. [6]
In 1977, he began working in schools, promoting Kaurna language and culture as well as supporting Indigenous students to complete education as a liaison officer for the South Australian Education Department. [7]
In 2002, O'Brien, along with Aboriginal scholar Alitya Wallara Rigney and linguist Rob Amery, co-founded Kaurna Warra Pintyanthi (meaning "creating Kaurna language"), a group developing and promoting the recovery of the Kaurna language. [8] [9]
For over 30 years he worked in Aboriginal education, touching every sector. [6] He has also done a great deal of research and scholarly work. [6] He served as adjunct research fellow, David Unaipon College of Indigenous Education and Research at the University of South Australia, and is a Senior Elder on Campus at Flinders University. [7]
In his 2007 memoir, O'Brien wrote that he sometimes used the name Warritya, meaning "second born male", but later took on Yerloburka, meaning "old man of the sea" (possibly related to his time in the merchant navy). [1] In 2021 he adopted the preferred spelling Yarlupurka, following clarification of the Kaurna alphabet.[ citation needed ]
In 2007, O'Brien published his memoir And the clock struck thirteen: The life and thoughts of Kaurna Elder Uncle Lewis Yerloburka O'Brien as told to Mary-Anne Gale, published by Wakefield Press. [1]
In 1957 O'Brien married Pauline Sansbury, and they had five sons and a daughter. Pauline grew up mostly in the city, but moved around the country a bit with her mother. Her father, Eddie Sansbury, had grown up in Point Pearce, and in later life lived with the O'Brien family. [1]
O'Brien met his half-siblings, his father's second family, who had since migrated to Australia, in 2006. [1]
The Kaurna people are a group of Aboriginal people whose traditional lands include the Adelaide Plains of South Australia. They were known as the Adelaide tribe by the early settlers. Kaurna culture and language were almost completely destroyed within a few decades of the British colonisation of South Australia in 1836. However, extensive documentation by early missionaries and other researchers has enabled a modern revival of both language and culture. The phrase Kaurna meyunna means "Kaurna people".
Victoria Square, also known as Tarntanyangga, is the central square of five public squares in the Adelaide city centre, South Australia.
Australian Aboriginal English is a set of dialects of the English language used by a large section of the Indigenous Australian population as a result of the colonisation of Australia. It is made up of a number of varieties which developed differently in different parts of Australia, and grammar and pronunciation differs from that of standard Australian English, along a continuum. Some of its words have also been adopted into standard or colloquial Australian English.
Kaurna is a Pama-Nyungan language historically spoken by the Kaurna peoples of the Adelaide Plains of South Australia. The Kaurna peoples are made up of various tribal clan groups, each with their own parnkarra district of land and local dialect. These dialects were historically spoken in the area bounded by Crystal Brook and Clare in the north, Cape Jervis in the south, and just over the Mount Lofty Ranges. Kaurna ceased to be spoken on an everyday basis in the 19th century and the last known native speaker, Ivaritji, died in 1929. Language revival efforts began in the 1980s, with the language now frequently used for ceremonial purposes, such as dual naming and welcome to country ceremonies.
Tjilbruke is an important creation ancestor for the Kaurna people of the Adelaide plains in the Australian state of South Australia. Tjilbruke was a Kaurna man, who appeared in Kaurna Dreaming dating back about 11,000 years. The Tjilbruke Dreaming Track or Tjilbruke Dreaming Trail is a major Dreaming trail, which connects sites from within metropolitan Adelaide southwards as far as Cape Jervis, some of which are Aboriginal sacred sites of great significance.
Rymill Park / Murlawirrapurka, and numbered as Park 14, is a recreation park located in the East Park Lands of the South Australian capital of Adelaide. There is an artificial lake with rowboats for hire, a café, children's playground and rose garden, and the Adelaide Bowling Club is on the Dequetteville Terrace side. The O-Bahn passes underneath it, to emerge at the western side opposite Grenfell Street.
Whitmore Square, also known as Iparrityi, is one of five public squares in the Adelaide city centre, South Australia. Occupying 2.4ha, it is located at the junction of Sturt and Morphett streets in the south-western quarter of the Adelaide city grid.
Point Pearce, also spelt Point Pierce in the past, is a town in the Australian state of South Australia. The town is located in the Yorke Peninsula Council local government area, 194 kilometres (121 mi) north-west of the state capital, Adelaide.
Cecil Wallace Graham (1911–1994) was an Australian rules football player in South Australia. He was also the father, grandfather, and relative of several other footballers.
Gladys Elphick, also known as Gladys Hughes and Auntie Glad, was an Australian Aboriginal woman of Kaurna and Ngadjuri descent, best known as the founding president of the Council of Aboriginal Women of South Australia, which became the Aboriginal Council of South Australia in 1973.
Tauto Sansbury was a Narungga man from the Yorke Peninsula of South Australia. He was the recipient of the NAIDOC Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2015 NAIDOC Week celebrations. Sansbury was born and raised on an Aboriginal reserve and dedicated his life to advocacy for Indigenous Australians.
Clamor Wilhelm Schürmann was a Lutheran missionary who emigrated to Australia and did fundamental pioneering work, together with his colleague Christian Gottlieb Teichelmann, on recording some Australian languages in South Australia.
Alitya Wallara Rigney, née Richards,, also knowns as Aunty Alice, was an Australian Aboriginal scholar. She was a Kaurna elder and part of the team that revived the Kaurna language.
Ivaritji also spelt Iparrityi and other variations, and also known as Amelia Taylor and Amelia Savage, was an elder of the Kaurna tribe of Aboriginal Australians from the Adelaide Plains in South Australia. She was "almost certainly the last person of full Kaurna ancestry", and the last known speaker of the Kaurna language before its revival in the 1990s.
Kudnarto, also known as Mary Ann Adams, was an Aboriginal Australian woman of the Kaurna and Ngadjuri peoples who lived in the colony of South Australia. She is notable for being the first Aboriginal woman to legally marry a colonist in South Australia, making legal history in 1848, and for having many notable descendants.
Major Lancelot "Moogy" Sumner, also known as Uncle Moogy, is an Aboriginal Australian elder, cultural adviser, dancer, and environmental activist in South Australia.
Vincent Warrior Copley was an Aboriginal Australian sportsman, activist, elder, and leader.
Robert Maxwell Amery is an Australian linguist and specialist in Australian Aboriginal languages, in particular language revitalisation of endangered languages, and focused primarily on the Kaurna language of the Adelaide Plains region of South Australia. He is the author of books, articles, and a website, among other publications.
Josephine Marjorie Agius, known as Aunty Josie, was an Aboriginal Australian health and culture educator and elder in South Australia. A Narungga, Kaurna, Ngarrindjeri, and Ngadjuri woman, Agius became well known for her Welcomes to Country at events and organisations.
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