Home Australian Women
Biographical entry

Home | Browse | Search | Previous | Next

O'Keefe, Cherry (Tjapun) (c. 1895 - 1977)

Published Resources
Aboriginal Linguist
Born: c. 1895  Cambridge Downs Station, near Richmond?, Queensland, Australia.  Died: 1977  Hughenden, Queensland, Australia.

Cherry O'Keefe was an excellent horsewoman with a leading knowledge of the Ngawun language.


Career Highlights

Cherry O’Keefe (Tjapun) was a Ngawun woman probably born on Cambridge Downs station, near Richmond in north Queensland. In her early days she was well known as a fine horsewoman, and, at one time, as ‘the Queen of the Forest’. Later she became an expert in saddlery and leatherwork. She never married. She lived a secluded and busy life on Poseidon Downs station, west of Hughenden, where she worked hard around the homestead for the privilege of living there in a galvanised iron humpy. After surviving flood, snakebite and burns (when her humpy was burnt down after a domestic accident), she died of pneumonia in Hughenden in 1977.

Cherry O’Keefe's knowledge of the Ngawun language, though limited, was much better than anyone else’s. It was owing to her that a partial grammar and vocabulary of the language was eventually produced.

 
Sources used to compile this entry: Horton, David (ed.). The Encyclopaedia of Aboriginal Australia, Vol. 2, Aboriginal Studies Press, Canberra, 1994, pp. 817-8.
 
Published Resources

See also

  • Horton, David (ed.), The Encyclopaedia of Aboriginal Australia : Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander history, society and culture, Aboriginal Studies Press for AIATSIS, Canberra, 1994, 2 v. (xxxiii, 1340 p.) pp. [ Details... ]

Google
Structure based on ISAAR(CPF) - click here for an explanation of the fields.Prepared by: Leonarda Kovacic and Barbara Lemon
Created: 20 May 2005
Modified: 24 March 2006

Published by National Foundation for Australian Women on Australian Women's Archives Project Web Site
Comments, questions, corrections and additions: awap@womenaustralia.info
Prepared by: Acknowledgements
Updated: 14 November 2008
http://womenaustralia.info/biogs/AWE1180b.htm

[ Top of page | Australian Women Home | Browse | Search ]