Indigenous Australia

This book invites you to step into the magical world of Aboriginal Dreamtime and to share in the world's oldest living culture - its ancient knowledge and spiritual wisdom. Inside are Dreamtime concepts that everyone can understand. Come on a journey with Aboriginal elder Aunty Munya as she guides you in discovering your purpose in life and how to walk in the footsteps of our ancestors. Learn what it means to truly belong and be family to everyone and everything.

According to the Australian government’s website, at the time of first contact with Europeans, there were some 500 distinct Indigenous nations, speaking different languages and following their own religious and cultural practices. As with all human societies, that of the Indigenous Australians is abounding in stories. Stories of how the world came to be the way it is, stories of heroism and perfidy, stories about animals and birds, and stories about love and hate all have parts to play in the wide array of myths, legends, and tales created by Indigenous Australians.

What is it like to grow up Aboriginal in Australia? This anthology, compiled by award-winning author Anita Heiss, showcases many diverse voices, experiences and stories in order to answer that question. Accounts from well-known authors and high-profile identities sit alongside those from newly discovered writers of all ages. All of the contributors speak from the heart - sometimes calling for empathy, oftentimes challenging stereotypes, always demanding respect.

For years, Amy Thunig thought she knew all the details about the day she was born, often demanding that the story of her birth be retold. Years later, heavily pregnant with her own first child, she learns what really happened that day. It’s a tale that exemplifies many of the events of her early life, where circumstances sometimes dictated that things be slightly different from how they might seem–including what is meant by her dad being away for ‘work’ and why her legal last name differs from her family’s.

It is a misconception that indigenous Australians meekly accepted the invasion of their country by the British, for they did not. They certainly resisted, but as far as colonial wars during that era went, the frontier conflicts of Australia did not warrant a great deal of attention. Indigenous Australians were hardly a warlike people, and without central organization or political cohesion beyond scattered family groups, they succumbed to the orchestrated advance of white settlement with passionate but futile resistance.

In ancient, pre-literate cultures across the globe, tribal elders had encyclopedic memories. They could name all the animals and plants across a landscape, identify the stars in the sky, and recite the history of their people. Yet today, most of us struggle to memorize more than a short poem. Using traditional Aboriginal Australian song lines as a starting point, Dr. Lynne Kelly has since identified the powerful memory technique used by our ancestors and indigenous people around the world.

The film Rabbit-Proof Fence is based on this true account of Doris Pilkington's mother Molly, who as a young girl led her two sisters on an extraordinary 1,600 kilometer walk home. Under Western Australia's invidious removal policy of the 1930s, the girls were taken from their Aboriginal families at Jigalong on the edge of the Little Sandy Desert, and transported halfway across the state to the Native Settlement at Moore River, north of Perth. Here Aboriginal children were instructed in the ways of white society and forbidden to speak their native tongue.

In 1769, Captain James Cook’s historic expedition would lead to an English claim on Australia, but before he reached Australia, he sailed near New Zealand and spent weeks mapping part of New Zealand’s coast. Thus, he was one of the first to observe and take note of the indigenous peoples of the two islands.

In the past the elders had encyclopaedic memories. They could name all the animals and plants across the landscape and the stars in the sky, too. Yet most of us struggle to memorise more than a short poem. Using traditional Aboriginal Australian songlines as the key, Lynne Kelly has identified the powerful memory technique used by indigenous people around the world.

Gundagai, 1852. The powerful Murrumbidgee River surges through town leaving death and destruction in its wake. It is a stark reminder that while the river can give life, it can just as easily take it away. Wagadhaany is one of the lucky ones. She survives. But is her life now better than the fate she escaped? Forced to move away from her miyagan, she walks through each day with no trace of dance in her step, her broken heart forever calling her back home to Gundagai.

“I love food” Nakkiah Lui says, and in the next breath whispers “so give us back our land”. In First Eat, a confrontational, raw and highly personal exploration of food politics, power and body sovereignty, Nakkiah Lui asks how our meals would look different if First Nations people owned the land from which the food came. First Eat is about more than just food, it’s an aural feast for a rich future.

We know the European story from diaries, journals and letters. For the first time, this is the other side. Who were the people watching the Endeavour sail by? How did they understand their world and what sense did they make of this strange vision? And what was the impact of these first encounters with Europeans? The answers lie in tales passed down from 1770 and in truth-telling of the often more brutal engagements that followed.

Soon after Billy Griffiths joins his first archaeological dig as camp manager and cook, he is hooked. Equipped with a historian’s inquiring mind, he embarks on a journey through time, seeking to understand the extraordinary deep history of the Australian continent. Deep Time Dreaming is the passionate product of that journey. It investigates a twin revolution: the reassertion of Aboriginal identity in the second half of the 20th century and the uncovering of the traces of ancient Australia.

From one of Australia's leading Indigenous journalists comes a collection of fierce and powerful essays proving why the media need to believe Black witnesses and showcasing ways that journalism can be used to hold the powerful to account and make the world a more equitable place. Black Witness is the essential collection of First Nations journalism that we need right now – and always have.

Jamie lives in Dalton's Bay with Aunty Dawn and Uncle Bobby. He spends his downtime hanging out with his mates, Dally and Lenny. Mark Cassidy and his white mates - the Footy Heads - take every opportunity they can to bully Jamie and his friends. On Lenny's last night in town before moving to Sydney, after another episode of racist harassment, Jamie, Dally and Lenny decide to retaliate by vandalising Mark Cassidy's car. And when they discover the keys are in the ignition… Dally changes the plan.

In this collection of deeply insightful and powerful essays, Chelsea Watego examines the ongoing and daily racism faced by First Nations peoples in so-called Australia. Rather than offer yet another account of ‘the Aboriginal problem’, she theorises a strategy for living in a society that has only ever imagined Indigenous peoples as destined to die out. Drawing on her own experiences and observations of the operations of the colony, she exposes the lies that settlers tell about Indigenous people.

In a landmark essay, Stan Grant writes indigenous people back into the economic and multicultural history of Australia. This is the fascinating story of how fringe dwellers fought not just to survive but to prosper. Their legacy is the extraordinary flowering of indigenous success - cultural, sporting, intellectual and social - that we see today. Yet this flourishing coexists with the boys of Don Dale and the many others like them who live in the shadows of the nation.

When 17-year-old Jonah arrives in a new town – Patience – with his dad and younger brothers, it feels like a foreign place. A new town means he needs to make new friends - which isn't always easy. Especially when he's wrestling with his body image, and his memories of his mother.

Embark on an extraordinary visual journey through the stunning artistic heritage of Australia and Oceania with "Vibrant Australia and Oceania"! This captivating eBook unveils the rich, diverse, and inspiring world of art from these fascinating regions. Allow yourself to be immersed in the intricate tapestry of traditional Oceanian art and the indigenous roots of Australian artistic expressions as you navigate each chapter. Discover the stories held within each stroke of a masterpiece as you explore remarkable art forms, from the complex patterns of Maori culture to the captivating beauty of...

In 1769, Captain James Cook’s historic expedition in the region would lead to an English claim on Australia, but before he reached Australia, he sailed near New Zealand and spent weeks mapping part of New Zealand’s coast. Thus, he was also one of the first to observe and take note of the indigenous peoples of the two islands.