'Coo-ee': the Aboriginal word that became a powerful symbol of wartime recruitment

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First recorded by European colonists in the late 18th, the word ‘coo-ee’ was adopted into Australian English for long-distance communication in the bush and became a symbol of Australian national identity.

The Coo-ee March was a famous World War I recruitment drive that began on October 10 1915 in Gilgandra, New South Wales, and arrived in Sydney a month later.

Men answered the call of “Coo-ee! Come and join us!” and fell into line in the towns and villages along the route of the 515 kilometre march, which left Gilgandra with 25 men and arrived in Sydney with 263 recruits.

They marched through Dubbo, Wellington, Parkes, Orange, Bathurst, Lithgow, Katoomba, Penrith, and Parramatta. When the men arrived in Sydney after five wearying weeks on the road, a crowd of some 100,000 gave them a stirring welcome.

The march attracted enormous public attention and inspired similar community-led recruitment marches across Australia to combat declining voluntary enlistments.

The word coo-ee featured prominently in wartime recruitment posters and patriotic campaigns.

The origin of coo-ee is traditionally attributed to the Dharug language of the Sydney basin, from the word gawi or guwi, meaning “come here” and is a distinctive call used by Aboriginal people to communicate over long distances.

One of first references to coo-ee is from Daniel Southwell, a 24-year-old officer of the Royal Navy who sailed with the First Fleet to Australia.

During his period in Sydney from 1788 to March 1791, Southwell kept a journal and wrote letters back to his mother and uncle – all later published as Journal and Letters of Daniel Southwell in 1893 – which included ‘A list of words used by the Natives of Port Jackson’.

Southwell's letters to his uncle – the Reverend Weeden Butler - had many references to the Aboriginal people of the Port Jackson district and included a brief vocabulary of their language.

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