Tulo Gordon

Tulo Gordon was born about 1918 in a camp on the shores of the Endeavour River, upstream from Cooktown where he learned the stories in this book from his mother and other elders. Tulo lived through an era of transformation of the lives of bama (asAboriginal people call themselves in Guugu Yimitihirr language). He was educated on a mission near Cooktown, then was exiled south during World War II. He returned in the 1950s to a new community and established a family. He finally was recognised as an Australian citizen in the 1960s. Tulo recorded the stories and illustrated them for a children’s book, published in English in 1978. Tulo Gordon died in 1989, but his retellings of the ancient stories live on in this new edition. Alongside the English translations, are his original words in Guugu Yimithirr, the language of the Cooktown area where Tulo’s descendants still live today.