Two initiated Wiradjuri men who walked over 150 kilometres from southern New South Wales to attend the opening of Parliament House in Canberra in 1927 will be officially commemorated as part of the building’s centenary.
Wiradjuri Elders Nangar (Jimmy Clements) and Ooloogan (George John Noble), walked from Brungle Aboriginal Mission near Tumut over the Brindabella Ranges to attend the building’s grand opening in May 1927 by the Duke and Duchess of York (later King George VI and Queen Elizabeth).
The opening ceremony was staged over two days - Monday 9 and Tuesday 10 May 1927.
The National Capital Authority (NCA) - which administers Commonwealth land across Canberra - is currently seeking a design and construction contractor to deliver an engaging and high-quality commemoration to Nangar and Ooloogan.
The NCA has asked that the delivery team should include a sculptor/artist with experience in the design and fabrication of full body, cast bronze statues and a designer (landscape architect or architect) with skills in placemaking/urban design to design a commemorative setting to suit the sculptures.
Nangar, who was also referred to as King Billy, and Ooloogan - who was also known as “Marvellous”- were both initiated men of authority and status in the Wiradjuri nation.
Both were born somewhere in the 1840s, meaning they were around 80 years old when they walked 3 days barefooted to attend the opening.
Nangar was the son of King Billy Lambert, whose Country stretched between the Cudgegong and Belubula rivers, and the nephew of Queen Nellie Hamilton of the Canberra/Queanbeyan region.
Ooloogan was a clever man – a walamira talmai in Wiradjuri - someone who had the cleverness passed on to him from his forebears.
In 1927, when the Duke and Duchess of York officially opened the new Australian national parliament house, some 15,000 locals, dignitaries and military officials attended to mark the occasion with due ceremony.
The opening was described by newspapers of the time as "a pageant of empire” and “a ceremonial display intended to engrave upon the memory of a nation the great events of its history.”
On 10 May, the second day of the festivities, police tried to remove both Wiradjuri men from Parliament House, arguing that they were inappropriately dressed, but both refused to leave.
With the support of bystanders, they won a prominent place to watch the ceremony.
A well-known clergyman in the crowd called out that “the Aborigine had a better right than any man present to be there.”
Nangar and Ooloogan joined a procession of people being presented to the Duke and Duchess of York. Ooloogan broke ranks and performed ‘an approved military salute’ to the royals, who cheerily responded.
Ooloogan is thought to have presented an axe to the Duke, who handed it back to him.
The Melbourne Argus (10 May 1927) wrote that Nangar, ‘an ancient Aborigine ... old and grey and ruggedly picturesque’, made claim to ‘sovereign rights to the Federal Capital Territory’.
“I have opened your Parliament House on my own ground,” Nangar told the Daily Telegraph.
“Now you can go and look at it.”
Nangar died in August 1927 at Queanbeyan (NSW) just four months after the opening and Ooloogan died in 1930.
A correspondent to the Herald (19 September 1927) called Nangar ‘one of the most predominating personalities throughout the Commonwealth’, a man ‘of splendid physique and personality’ and a fine artist, recommending that he should be memorialised by a statue.
After 100 years, bronze statues of both Nangar and Ooloogan will be erected in time to coincide with events planned to mark the centenary of the opening of Old Parliament House in May 2027.
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