Noongar Dolls: Stories of survival, resilience and healing

The making of Noongar dolls has a history that goes way back to the improvised making and play that Elders recall from times living on reserves and on Country.

Materials were as eclectic as the dolls themselves – bush nuts, pegs and sauce bottles were refashioned to fuel the imagination and joy of Noongar children.

Parents and family members, or sometimes the children themselves, would mimic the dolls and toys they saw white children playing with, making their own versions from whatever they could find from around camp, or the rubbish tip.

Simple, but full of love. Symbols of resilience.

These photos were uncovered during a CAN workshop in Goomalling in 2015. Local Aboriginal woman Dallas Phillips had been carrying around an old chocolate tin full of slides which were bequeathed to her by her late mother Mavis Walley.

The images were taken on the native reserve by Mavis between the 1950s and 70s. The collection is unique in that it documents life on the reserve from an Aboriginal perspective; a rarity for the time.

The Moora doll-making workshops took place at the New Norcia Mission, east of Perth.

The Mission was set up by the Benedictine monks.

Aboriginal children were taken from their parents and raised as orphans. Many of them had family living in makeshift housing nearby, but they were not allowed to mix with them. It was part of a government policy of assimilation.

While it is a place of deep sorrow and suffering for many of those children, for some, it is the only home they knew and they return regularly for reunions.

Award-wining Noongar artist Sharyn Egan made these dolls during the workshops in Moora. Sharyn is a former ‘homie’ from New Norcia Mission.

Sharyn and her sister were both placed in there, however, because her sister was older, they were separated and not allowed to see each other. Sharyn and her sister reconnected after Sharyn was released from the Mission at 16.

This work toured Australia for three years as part of the Open House exhibition for the Tamworth Textile Triennial. It has since been acquired by the Tamworth Gallery for permanent display.

Each doll made in these workshops is a journey in healing; a legacy. Marcelle Riley is a past participant in the doll-making program, and is now an independent artist and facilitator of the workshops for others.

Bibool Yok is the first doll Marcelle ever made. It was a finalist in the University of Queensland's invitation-only National Self Portrait Prize of Australia, 2017.

A collection of Dolls were made during the first Noongar doll-making revival workshops in Narrogin during the 1980s. The dolls were exhibited in Perth, toured to China and some were then acquired by the National Gallery of Australia.

In 2010 Community Arts Network (CAN) in Western Australia was invited to deliver workshops in Narrogin to help heal community tensions.

Community members were asked what creative activities they would like to do. They wanted to revive the traditional art of Noongar doll-making. To this day, this is one of CAN’s most popular and enduring workshops.

Noongar doll-making is such an important part of contemporary Noongar culture, it will be featured in Western Australia’s new museum, Boola Bardip.

Women, children and sometimes men, come together to form circles of yarning and stitching. Stories are shared. Some sad, most happy. So many of these memories manifest into dolls.

The dolls are a testament to the strength and resilience of the Noongar families who survived genocide, displacement and assimilation, to retain the longest continuous culture on earth.