'Shellam writes that Meeting the Waylo is a ‘little book’, yet its immersion in multiple strands of scholarship, its impressive archival research, and its clear methodology make it a compelling and significant one. This is slow, well-crafted history; slow in the sense that three historical episodes lie at the heart of this book, and slow in the sense that the research, relationships, and insights undergirding it have accrued over time. Yet in this lies its power and its significance for historians, archivists, and curators of cross-cultural, Australian and Indigenous worlds.' (Introduction)