Cirrus@Austlit

'First Footprints tells the epic story of Australia's Aboriginal people. It is a story of ancient life on the driest continent on earth through the greatest environmental changes experienced in human history: ice ages, extreme drought and inundating seas. It is chronicled through astonishing archaeological discoveries, ancient oral histories and the largest and oldest art galleries on earth. Australia's first inhabitants were the first people to believe in an afterlife, cremate their dead, engrave representations of the human face, and depict human sound and emotion. They created new technologies, designed ornamentation, engaged in trade, and crafted the earliest documents of war. Ultimately, they developed a sustainable society based on shared religious tradition and far-reaching social networks across the length and breadth of Australia. ' (Source: Publishers website)

'The People of the Sun and Shadow are the Spinifex people. The duality reflects their association with land, defines their kinship and is the backbone of their religion. That association with land, law and people continued, cocooned within the spinifex plains of the Western Desert, for hundreds of generations until the Spinifex People were shaken from their nomadic solitude by the atomic shock of Maralinga. It was 1952 and the Spinifex people were about to meet white Australia.'

The Spinifex People do not identify themselves with a particular or specific tribal name, they identify themselves directly with country, people who live in and own the spinifex plains of the Great Victoria Desert between the Nullabor Plain and the foothills of the Warburton ranges. They call themselves, the Anangu tjuta pila nguru - meaning the Aboriginal people (Anangu) many (tjuta), Spinifex (pila) from nguru.

Since the successful titles claim to their heritage Spinifex people have moved back on to their land. On successive field trips to specific locations they have continued to record their sacred places in paintings. That are aesthetically different than any others amongst Australian desert artists. (Pila Nguru: The Spinifex People; National Library of Australia; Co ee website www.cooeeart.com.au)