'Transitional provisions are presently in place to allow for a smooth change over from the old Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies to the new Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (AIATSIS). The former Council met for the last time in March and, by the time this edition of Australian Aboriginal Studies is published, four new Council members will have been elected by the membership. Hopefully the new Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, Mr Robert Tickner, will also have appointed the five Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people who will make up the balance of the nine member Council. The new Act thus ensures by statute what the membership had previously decreed through the bllot box—that there should be an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander majority on Council. The membership will also have elected the new Research Advisory Committee (RAC) consisting of eight elected members, three Council members appointed by Council and the Principal. The RA C will advise Council on research grant and membership applications and on other research-related issues. Here in Canberra, staff at the Institute are attempting to come to terms with what, by any standards, must be seen as a rather long and cumbersome name. Even the acronym (AIATSIS) can hardly be said to roll off the tongue. There are no plans to rename the journal.' (Editorial introduction)
Contents indexed selectively.
'This new book from Ronald and Catherine Berndt, based on over forty years of fieldwork with Aboriginal people throughout Australia, reminds us of the link between Aboriginal stories and the land of the story-tellers. It also presents a fascinating national perspective on the traditional life of Aboriginal Austraians.' (Introduction)
'Around August 1988 the long awaited South Australian Sesquicentenary (1986) publication Survival in Our Own Land appeared on the shelves of Adelaide's bookshops. This jubilee ISC volume is important in Aboriginal studies for a number of reasons. It is to my knowledge the second only of its kind to make a state-wide overview of Aboriginal history and affairs. The other book of similar proportions was edited by R. and C. Berndt as part of a series of volumes commemorating the Western Australian Sesquicentennial, Aborigines of the West (Berndt and Berndt, 1979). The Western Australian volume was compiled through the work of a large number of contributors who were chiefly white Australians from academic disciplines. There were very few contributors of Aboriginal descent, a lack of representativeness which did not go unnoticed and was at the time a point of criticism.' (Introduction)
'Professor Reynolds's latest book is the fifth in Allen and Unwin's series entitled 'The Australian Experience' of which Richard Broome's excellent volume, Aboriginal Australians, was the fourth. Though some years have elapsed since the appearance of that book, readers may wonder why the publishers thought it necessary to have two so far out of the series of five on Aboriginal history.' (Introduction)
'It is not entirely coincidental that these three publications, each dealing with topics until recently more or less neglected by influential literary critics, should appear at almost the same time: to borrow the title of Faith Bandler's novel, 'the time was ripe'' (Introduction)
'Both text and photographs of The Black Diggers are a revelation. This is the first comprehensive account written of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander service men and women of World War II. Among the many photographs there are two of Leonard Waters from Nindigully, South Queensland, an Aboriginal combat pilot who served in Borneo. Aboriginal ground crewmen also served in Northern Australia. Soldiers who went overseas, having enlisted early in the war, included the late Reg Saunders (promoted to Sergeant in mid-1940, and to Lieutenant late in 1944), and Stewart Murray (a Corporal in 1945). Islanders included Charles Mene, Victor Blanco and Ted Loban. Oodgeroo Noonuccal was an AWAS signaler, but Neville Bonner and Willie Thaiday were turned away as recruits, owing to military racial prejudice.' (Introduction)
'In late 1973, Bruce Shaw began recording the life-histories of several elderly Aboriginal Australians of the East Kimberley region of Western Australia. These two monographs, the result of a long process of transcription, collaborative editing, translation and revision, are the second and third in a series of six proposed volumes, the first of which, My Country of the Pelican Dreaming , appeared in 1981.' (Introduction)
'Jack Davis has deserved a biography for many years. There is no doubt that he is one of the most talented and influential Aboriginal authors and, arguably, one of Australia's finest playwrights.
