Oodgeroo Noonuccal's Last Of His Tribe And The Past

Poetry is beautifully written text that can provide a wide view on a topic and helps to illustrate the beliefs and values of society; poetry is often a representation of Australian identity. Oodgeroo Noonuccal, the poet of Last of his Tribe and The Past has portrayed examples of Australian identity and a strong emotional portrayal of the Indigenous displacement and mistreatment in each of these poems. Clearly, these poems provide an insight into their adversity.
Last of his Tribe provides a serious and sensitive perspective of Australian identity and the emotional breakdown the Indigenous Australians have gone through. Many of the beliefs and values have been submissive due to the "white culture" becoming dominant and replacing all that was once valued. – "Change is the law. The new must oust the old". Noonuccal shared a different light of Australian identity, that is, where Aborigines are not treated equally. From the eyes of an Aboriginal, Noonuccal describes the suffering of one particular man named Willie Mackenzie; he is the last representative of his tribe and is referred to as a – "displaced person in your own country". Although this man is the last of his tribe, readers are reminded of his displacement and alienation - "lonely in teeming city crowds, Last of his tribe". It is evident that Noonuccal’s writing

Firstly, Noonuccal has used repetition of the words “let” and “the past”. The connotative meanings in the lines “let no one say the past is dead” and “let none tell me that past is wholly gone” are very much the same. Personification is another language device particularly in the line when death, a human quality is given to a non-human thing such as the past. Also, deceased and gone are implications of the word “dead.” For the reader to appreciate a deeper connotation of the poem Noonuccal has used effective language