Cora Gooseberry
{{Short description|Aboriginal Australian Murro-ore-dial woman and cultural knowledge keeper}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}}
{{Infobox person
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| name = Cora Gooseberry
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| image = Cora Gooseberry.png
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| caption = 1845 portrait of Cora Gooseberry
by George French Angas
| native_name = Caroo
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| birth_name = Caroo
| birth_date = {{circa|1777}}
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| death_date = {{death date|1852|07|30}} (aged 74–75)
| death_place = Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
| body_discovered = Sydney Arms Hotel, Castlereagh Street
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| nationality = Australian Aborigonal
| other_names = Queen Gooseberry
Lady Gooseberry
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| occupation = Clan monarch
Cultural knowledge keeper
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| spouse = Bungaree (w. 1830)
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| parents = Moorooboora (father)
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Cora Gooseberry (also known as Queen Gooseberry and Lady Bungaree;{{#tag:ref|Also recorded as Kaaroo, Carra, Caroo, Car-roo or Ba-ran-gan. Her native name was Caroo.|group="note"}} {{circa|1777}} – 30 July 1852) was an Indigenous Australian woman and cultural knowledge keeper of the Murro-ore-dial clan of the Eora nation. In popular culture, she is often depicted smoking a pipe and wearing a scarf on her head.{{cite book|title=Indigenous Australia for Dummies |author=Larissa Behrendt |year=2012 |publisher=John Wiley & Sons |isbn=9781118308448 |page=96 }} She received two breastplates, one of which was inscribed "Cora Gooseberry/ Freeman/ Bungaree / Queen of Sydney and Botany".{{Cite book|title=Sydney's Aboriginal past : investigating the archaeological and historical records|last=Attenbrow|first=Val|date=2010-01-01|publisher=UNSW Press|isbn=9781742231167|location=|pages=61|oclc=659579866|quote=}} It is held by the Mitchell Library.
Early life
Cora Gooseberry was born Caroo,{{cite book|title=King Plates: A History of Aboriginal Gorgets |author=Jakelin Troy |publisher=Aboriginals Studies Press |page=8 |year=1993 }} her given Aboriginal Australian name, circa 1777.{{cite book|title=Australian Dictionary of Biography|author=Keith Vincent Smith |year=2005 |publisher=Australian National University |title-link=Australian Dictionary of Biography }} She was the daughter of Moorooboora (also known as Maroubra; circa 1758 to 1798), an important man of the Murro-ore-dial (Pathway Place) clan from what is now the Maroubra area of eastern Sydney.
Personal life
File:Cora Gooseberry Widow of King Bungaree Brocken Bay Tribe 1836.jpg
Cora was one of the two known wives of the notable Aboriginal
explorer and celebrity Bungaree.{{cite web|url=http://www.historyofaboriginalsydney.edu.au/central/queen-cora-gooseberry-wife-bungaree |title=Queen Cora Gooseberry, wife of Bungaree |accessdate=28 December 2012 |publisher=A history of Aboriginal Sydney }}{{cite book|title=Library of Dreams: Treasures from the National Library of Australia |page=21 |year=2011 |publisher=National Library of Australia }}{{cite web |url=http://www.cityofsydney.nsw.gov.au/barani/themes/popups/cora_gooseberry.htm |title=Barani |publisher=City of Sydney |access-date=28 December 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130116165053/http://www.cityofsydney.nsw.gov.au/barani/themes/popups/cora_gooseberry.htm |archive-date=16 January 2013 |url-status=dead }} After Bungaree's first wife, Matora, died in the mid 1820s, Cora became Bungaree's principal wife and the couple were readily identified in Sydney as the "king" and "queen" of the local Aboriginal population.{{cite book |last1=Irish |first1=Paul |title=Hidden in Plain View |date=2017 |publisher=NewSouth |location=Sydney |isbn=9781742235110}}
Bungaree and Cora were associated with a group of surviving Indigenous people from a number of coastal clans of the Sydney, Central Coast and Newcastle regions. They camped at various places along the eastern harbour, such as Georges Head, Rose Bay, Camp Cove, The Domain and Elizabeth Bay. Camp Cove in particular was a favourite place of residence, attracting up to a few hundred Indigenous people at any one time due to its fishing and cultural importance.
Cora and Bungaree may not have had any children together, but Cora helped raise a son named Boin (better known as Bowen Bungaree) that Bungaree had with his other wife Matora.{{cite book |last1=Smith |first1=Keith Vincent |title=Mari Nawi: Aboriginal Odysseys |date=2010 |publisher=Rosenberg |location=Dural |isbn=9781921719004}} Cora was widowed after Bungaree's death in 1830.{{Cite book|title=Aboriginal Sydney : a guide to important places of the past and present|date=2001-01-01|publisher=Aboriginal Studies Press|isbn=0855753706|location=|pages=49|oclc=47152902|quote=}}
Cora continued living with other Aboriginal people at places like Camp Cove into her older years, retaining cultural knowledge of the coastal Sydney area, only some of which she guardedly shared with enquiring British people.{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article13387735 |title=HUNTING FOR HIEROGLYPHICS. |newspaper=The Sydney Morning Herald |volume=LXXVI |issue=12,218 |location=New South Wales, Australia |date=16 July 1877 |accessdate=26 March 2025 |page=2 |via=National Library of Australia}}
In her last few years of life, she moved into the city, where she became a resident at the hotels owned by her ex-convict friend named Edward Borton.
Death
On 30 July 1852, Cora Gooseberry was found dead at the Sydney Arms Hotel in Castlereagh Street, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.{{Cite news|url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article114833747|title=No title|date=1852-08-05|work=Freeman's Journal (Sydney, NSW : 1850 - 1932)|access-date=2019-04-16|pages=9}} According to her coroner's verdict, she had died of natural causes. She was buried in the Presbyterian section of the Sandhills cemetery, but her tombstone was relocated shortly after. It is now located in Pioneers Cemetery, Botany.{{cite book|title=Capturing Time: Panoramas of Old Australia |author=Edwin Barnard |publisher=National Library of Australia |year=2012 }}
Notes
{{Portal|Australia|Biography}}
{{Reflist|group=note}}
References
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External links
- {{Australian Dictionary of Biography |id2=gooseberry-cora-12942 |title=Gooseberry, Cora |last=Smith |first=Keith Vincent |accessdate=28 December 2012 }}
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Category:Year of birth uncertain
Category:Indigenous Australian people
Category:19th-century Australian people
Category:19th-century Indigenous Australian people