The Remaining Tribe Members (Symbol)
The group walking into the town, subdued and silent, which comprises "all that remained of their tribe" is a symbol of the genocide that occurred in Australia (Lines 2-3). These few that remain are later contrasted with the "many white men" that hurry about like ants.
Noonuccal complicates the symbolic resonance of the remaining tribe members by using metaphors that reclaim their cultural heritage in the present day despite the ongoing impacts of colonization. The speaker repeatedly states "We are" to insist on their presence and weave the pre-invasion past into the present.
Rubbish (Symbol)
Half covering the traces of the old bora ring is a notice of the estate agent that reads, "Rubbish May Be Tipped Here" (Line 6). This symbolizes the opposing ways that Europeans and Indigenous people view land. For Europeans, land is a blank slate to be owned and developed. Beginning with the arrival of the British in 1788, invaders claimed Australian land based on the premise of terra nullius, meaning that the land was legally deemed to be unoccupied and uninhabited. This piece of history has shaped the dominant society's relationship to land. An "estate agent" is a person whose job involves selling and renting out land, signifying ownership. The disrespect for the land equates to the contempt for indigenous culture. The bora ground is the site where the corroboree (Aboriginal dance ceremony and gathering) occurs.
Estrangement (Motif)
Estrangement occurs throughout the poem. In the first section, the use of the pronoun "they" to describe the remaining tribe members as they return, subdued and silent, to their ancestral lands shows the way they have been othered by the dominant white society. The tribe's old bora ground has been severely altered and disrespected, meaning that their connection to the land and cultural practices has been ruptured. The speaker then slips into the plural "we," stating "'We are as strangers here now" (Line 8). However, the truth is that "the white tribe are the strangers" because they live in an individualistic and disconnected society (Line 8).
The poem simultaneously expresses the tribe's connection to land and tradition and their estrangement from the old ways. By the end of the poem, after all the flora and fauna are professed to be gone, the tribe, too, "are going" (Line 25).
