The Bones of Our Ancestors single work   prose  
Issue Details: First known date: 2016... 2016 The Bones of Our Ancestors
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'The bones in Seale Gorge are the bones of Gurindji people who were massacred by kartiya on horseback. They were going around hunting kangaroos, fish and the like. Then the kartiya spotted ngurnpit people. That's when they shot everyone. Their bones are there now. Ngumpin were shot all around here. There are bones scattered everywhere. These are our ancestors which is why we get sick at heart when we see these bones. They were our countrymen. They were shot on their own land. These bones now rest in a cave in Seale Gorge. (They were taken there from Tartarr when Gurindji walked off Wave Hill Station in 1967.' (Introduction)

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  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon Yijarni : True Stories from Gurindji Country Erika Charola (editor), Felicity Meakins (editor), Canberra : Aboriginal Studies Press , 2016 9469367 2016 selected work prose Indigenous story

    'On 23 August 1966, approximately 200 Gurindji stockmen and their families walked off Wave Hill Station in the Northern Territory, protesting against poor working conditions and the taking of their land by pastoralists. Led by Vincent Lingiari, this land-mark action in 1966 precipitated the equal wages case in the pastoral industry and the establishment of the Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act 1976. While it is well known that the Walk Off was driven by the poor treatment of Aboriginal workers, what is less well known is the previous decades of massacres and killings, stolen children and other abuses by early colonists. Told in both English and Gurindji, these compelling and detailed oral accounts of the events that Gurindji elders either witnessed or heard from their parents and grandparents, will ignite the interest of audiences nationally and internationally and challenge revisionist historians who question the extent of frontier battles and the legitimacy of the Stolen Generations. ...' (Source: AIATSIS website)

         Canberra : Aboriginal Studies Press , 2016     pg. 66
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Last amended 25 Oct 2017 12:58:14
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