Indigenous Australia

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.

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.

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.

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.

Deep in the heart of Australia's high country, along an ancient, hidden track, lives Molly Johnson and her four surviving children, another on the way. Husband Joe is away months at a time droving livestock up north, leaving his family in the bush to fend for itself. Molly's children are her world, and life is hard and precarious with only their dog, Alligator, and a shotgun for protection - but it can be harder when Joe's around.

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.

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.

At just ten years old, Vanessa Turnbull-Roberts was forcibly removed – stolen – from her family, community and kinship systems. After eight years in various out-of-home care placements, Vanessa fled the system, reconnected with kin and returned to country for the very first time.

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.

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.

In Loving Country, coauthors Bruce Pascoe and Vicky Shukurolgou show travellers how to see the country as herself, to know her whole and old story and to find the way to fall in love with her, our home. Listeners are encouraged to discover sacred Australia by reconsidering the accepted history and hearing diverse stories of her Indigenous people. The intention of this audiobook is to foster communication and understanding between all peoples and country, to encourage environmental and social change.

From a young age, Victor Steffensen has had a passion for traditional cultural and ecological knowledge. This was further developed after meeting two Elders, who were to become his mentors and teach him the importance of cultural burning. Developed over many generations, this knowledge shows clearly that Australia actually needs fire. Steffensen's story is unassuming and honest, while demonstrating the incredibly sophisticated and complex cultural knowledge that has been passed down to him, which he wants to share with others.

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.

Greg Mullins followed his father into fighting bushfires - it was in the blood. He fought major fires around Sydney and the Blue Mountains for decades, and studied bushfires in Europe, Canada and the US. He risked his life in the 1994 Sydney fires and, later, during our catastrophic Black Summer of 2019-20. As a career firefighter, he worked his way up the ranks to become commissioner of one of the world's largest fire services, Fire and Rescue NSW, for nearly 14 years. When it came to natural disasters there was little, if anything, he hadn't witnessed first-hand.

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 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.

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.

Miinaa was a young girl when the white ghosts first arrived. She remembers the day they raised a piece of cloth and renamed her homeland 'Bathurst'. Now she lives at Cloverdale and works for a white family who have settled there. The Nugents are kind, but Miinaa misses her miyagan. His brother, Windradyne, is a Wiradyuri leader, and visits when he can, bringing news of unrest across their ngurambang. Miinaa hopes the violence will not come to Cloverdale.

“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.