Cirrus@Austlit

'This volume represents a brilliant fusion of Traditional Knowledge, origin narratives, Western science and contemporary art. It is based on ‘deep-time’ complex human–landscape relationships from a highly significant lake system known as Paruku in the south-east Kimberley region. Known on cartographic charts as Lake Gregory, it is the only co-ordinated drainage system that flows from the east Kimberley into the expansive linear dune fields of the Great Sandy Desert. The lake was once a mega-lake, many times its current size, reflecting massive monsoonal rains more akin to central Indonesia than the present Kimberley desert edge. It hosted an enhanced aquatic and avian fauna and was likely a highly attractive lake for early settlers — being surrounded by savannah woodlands and grasses with grazing terrestrial fauna. Indeed, it was at such major water bodies that peoples transitioned into the desert hunter gatherer adaptations we think of today as the ethnographic norm. They persisted in an increasingly arid landscape — with lakes as a chain of connection to previous pluvial states.' (Introduction)

'Monty Hale (1934–2013) has left a rich history of his life in relation to the Nyulipartu people, the 1946 Pilbara strikes, Don ‘Mirta’ McLeod, the first independent Aboriginal school in Australia and much more. Winner of the 2012 Western Australian Premier’s History Book Award, the book is an enduring Nyangumarta narrative of a time of huge adaptation for Hale and his language group. It is a collaborative production incorporating an English translation by Hale’s daughter Barbara Hale and linguist Mark Clendon, with overall editing provided by historian Anne Scrimgeour.'  (Introduction)

'Analyses and discussions of the decision in Mabo v Queensland [No. 2] (1992) are decidedly not in short supply, yet this substantial tome by Bryan Keon-Cohen QC covers novel ground, providing a personal narrative that addresses some of the persistent myths that exist alongside the formal legal findings.'  (Introduction)

'Bob Waterer of Sydney’s northern beaches, and now in his 80s, rediscovered his Aboriginal descent in 2004 after examining the birth, death and marriage certificates of his parents. As has happened so many times in southern Australia, he and his sister Joan had lived their lives under the sometimes unspoken stricture, as Waterer puts it, that ‘it was not wise to investigate our heritage too far back as there might be Aboriginal ancestors’ (p.5). Further consultation revealed the family’s connection to an Aboriginal woman well known on the Hawkesbury River in the nineteenth century, Biddy Lewis. Biddy was the daughter (or possibly the granddaughter) of Matora, first wife of the famous Bungaree, friend of Macquarie.' (Introduction)

'The missionary occupies a rather curious place in Australian colonial history. At once proselytiser, intermediary, ethnographer, linguist and cultural go-between, the missionary is an ambiguous figure. This is certainly the case with London Missionary Society missionary Lancelot Edward Threlkeld.'  (Introduction)

'Stephanie Radok is an artist who has exhibited her paintings, prints and installations widely in Australia. She is also a well-respected writer, having edited key Australian art journals Artlink and Art Monthly. Much of her writing is focused on understanding and promoting Aboriginal art. As a child, Radok travelled widely, thanks to her father’s work, and this broad and unconventional childhood has provided Radok with an enriched view of the world that she brings into both her writing and her art. This long-term exposure to different cultures and communities also supports her theories about Aboriginal art in Australia and beyond.' (Introduction)

'This compilation, useful as it is, would have been of more value if the authors had given more thought to the scope of their coverage. As it is, the book attempts to embrace traditional Aboriginal anthropology and material culture, as well as the history of black–white interaction from 1606 to the present social and political scene. In other words, it is a miniature Aboriginal encyclopaedia. Perhaps, however, this was due to the requirements of the US-based publisher’s series, Historical dictionaries of peoples and cultures, of which it is part.' (Introduction)