Showing 1–12 of 14 results
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Dark Emu: Aboriginal Australia and the Birth of Agriculture, (New Edition)
Artist/Author: Pascoe, Bruce$20.00 Add to cartDark Emu injects a profound authenticity into the conversation about how we Australians understand our continent…[It is] essential reading for anyone who wants to understand what Australia once was, or what it might yet be if we heed the lessons of long and sophisticated human occupation.’ — Judges for 2016 NSW Premier’s Literary Awards
Dark Emu puts forward an argument for a reconsideration of the hunter-gatherer tag for pre-colonial Aboriginal Australians. The evidence insists that Aboriginal people right across the continent were using domesticated plants, sowing, harvesting, irrigating, and storing — behaviours inconsistent with the hunter-gatherer tag. Gerritsen and Gammage in their latest books support this premise but Pascoe takes this further and challenges the hunter-gatherer tag as a convenient lie. Almost all the evidence in Dark Emu comes from the records and diaries of the Australian explorers, impeccable sources.
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An-me Arri-ngun: The Food We Eat: Traditional Plant Foods of the Kundjeyhmi People of Kakadu National Park
Artist/Author: Fox, Gary, Murray Garde$34.00 Add to cartA landmark book which is the culmination of decades of work describing the bush tucker and bush medicine of Kakadu National Park. The authors and Kundjeyhmi people have worked closely to photograph and describe 149 plant species: from the toffee-like gum of river wattle tosweet an-badju yams sought by singing children. Each plant’s description includes: Kundjeyhmi, scientific and English common names; plant uses; plant preparation; its cultural significance. The information is presented in simple, easy-to-read language, accompanied by over 500 spectacular photographs.
Over 60,000 years, the Kundjeyhmi people of Kakadu have gained an intimate knowledge of the area’s plant foods. An-me Arri-ngun: The Food We Eat will fascinate all those interested in Aboriginal life and culture, bush tucker, bush medicine, and Australian flora.
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Between the Murray and the Sea: Aboriginal Archaeology of Southeastern Australia
Artist/Author: Frankel, David$50.00 Add to cartThis book explores the Indigenous archaeology of Victoria, focusing on areas south and east of the Murray River. Frankel considers the nature of archaeological evidence and what archaeology reveals about the Indigenous society.
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Noongar Bush Medicine: Medicinal Plants of the South-West of Western Australia
Artist/Author: Horsfall, John, Vivienne Hansen$35.00 Add to cartNoongar Bush Medicine provides for the first time a comprehensive account of the the medicinal plants that were used by Aboriginal people of the south-west of Western Australia before European settlement.
The book is a guide to how to use plants for alternative treatments and protection from common ailments.
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Adnyamathanha and Beyond: Useful Plants of an Ancient Land
Artist/Author: Bonney, Neville$44.00 Add to cartThe history and other features of the area have been written about in books and other publications. Yet a colourful, rarely mentioned chapter still visible today, are the trees, shrubs, herbs and grasses that grace the slopes and valley floors of the Ranges. These plants have provided the people of the land, the Adnyamathanha, with plentiful food, medicine, craft and hardware supplies for thousands of years.
With the help of the Adnyamathanha people, the story of the plants is told in this book. Many of the stories are interwoven in the Muda (Dreaming), and today, the plants are still growing and are indeed harvested for traditional tribal use as well as sustenance. Adnyamathanha and beyond – useful plants of an ancient land fills a gap in previous works written about the Flinders Ranges.
This book is complete with botanical descriptions and illustrations of many plants, as well as photographs depicting the unique landscapes of the region. Importantly, the book also features language and cultural input by the local Adnyamathanha people.
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Born in the Desert: The Land and Travels of a last Australian Nomad
Artist/Author: Hercock, Marion with Georgina (Dadina) Brown$35.00 Add to cartThis uniquely West Australian story combines the memories of a last aboriginal nomad with a history and geography of the Little Sandy Desert.
Personal stories merge with images of desert landscapes in a colourful, descriptive and candid account of outback life.
Dadina Georgina Brown was born in that desert, but outside the bounds of her Mandildjara aboriginal tribe. Like her famous kinsman Warri, and his wife Yatungka, Ms Brown is one of the last people to have lived the traditional nomad life. Her stories about her early childhood as Dadina, living wild and free; and then adjusting to life as Georgina, resident in the outback community at Wiluna, feature in this new release.
The transition from the nomadic life began in 1976 when seven year old Dadina and her family, met a party of men from the Geraldton Historical Society, who were retracing the 1896 route of David Carnegie. Expedition leader Stan Gratte, and camp cook Harry Leaver, lend their words and photographs to the account of their meeting with the nomads, who opted to leave the desert and start a new life in Wiluna.
Geographer Dr Marion Hercock has added information about the wildlife, landscapes and history of the Little Sandy Desert to Dadina Georgina’s stories. The book has adventure, crime, tragedy and sorrow, a little mystery, and even food. The preparation of bush tucker is shown in detail with Dadina Georgina’s lively demonstration of how to catch, kill, gut and cook a goanna.
This book is refreshingly honest and, while not glossing over the horrible aspects of life on the fringe, does not dwell on issues. It is backed up by scholarly research with extensive footnotes and illustrated with photographs and maps.
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God before Gugeri: Luggers, Trucks & Water bores & other Kimberley Stories
Artist/Author: Gugeri, Michael$50.00 Add to cartThe Gugeri family have been landmarks in the Kimberley for nearly a century. This book follows four generations of life in the north, from pearling, carrying, Anna Plains station, water boring, Cockatoo Island, oil drilling, wool carting, the Underworld, rockets, fishing, and many incidents and characters. Biographies of Doug Blythe, Billie King and details of many other Kimberley personalities are also offered.
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The Best of Times
Artist/Author: Gugeri, Michael$55.00 Add to cartMichael’s first book, God Before Gugeri, is popular among all who know the Derby family. This new book continues the stories of Kimberley life and people with an emphasis on his family. His unconventional tales are a favourite among all who have lived in the Kimberley.
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Aboriginal Country
Artist/Author: Bellear, Lisa, Edited by Jen Jewel Brown$23.00 Add to cartMuch of Lisa Bellear’s poetry is politics made eloquent. In Aboriginal Country many poems seem to spark with frustrated energy over Australia’s political crossed circuits regarding a treaty with our First Nations peoples – as promised by Prime Minister Hawke in 1988. Reading the title poem for the first time I was struck by its power. We are on Aboriginal Country in Australia. With subtle barbs she wakes us as to how the ‘ownership’ (via naming ‘rights’) of Australian public lands and monuments lauds absent white English royalty and ‘intrepid god fearing discoverers’. Yet in her closing lines the poet transforms this potential for bitterness into a moment of hushed respect for country. – Jen Jewel Brown, Editor
I am one of many Australians who never met Lisa Bellear, yet was shocked by her unexpected and tragic passing. These poems are her gift! In this collection the poems resonate her warrior spirit, and the spirit of Aboriginal Country, as was her wish. – Ali Cobby Eckermann, Nunga poet and writer
Lisa Bellear became a close friend when I studied and taught at Melbourne University from the mid-1990s. During that time she became renowned not only as a poet but also as a community photographer recording numerous events and people in the local Aboriginal community. Her sudden departure was a great shock to all who knew her, but she lives on in our memories because her poems and photographs are the powerful legacy she left us. – Dr Gary Foley, Associate Professor in History, Moondani Balluk, Victoria University
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Aboriginal Myths: Tales of the Dreamtime
Artist/Author: Reed, A.W.$19.00 Add to cartAboriginal Myths: Tales of the Dreamtime gives a fascinating glimpse of the wild and entertaining deeds of the mythic beings populating Aboriginal spiritual life. From acts of creation and the deeds of the Great Spirit, to totemic ancestors and tales explaining natural phenomena, this delightful collection of stories paints a picture of the mystical bond that exists between Aboriginal people, the environment and the spirit life of the Dreamtime.
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Blood on the Wattle: Massacres and Maltreatment of Aboriginal Australians Since 1788 (Third Edition)
Artist/Author: Elder, Bruce$30.00 Add to cartBlood on the Wattle draws together, in a single volume, most of the information about the massacres of Aboriginal people which has been recorded in books and journals. It also creates a broad-based level of awareness of the scale of the massacres of Aboriginal people so that this dimension of Australian history can become part of the Australian consciousness.
Bruce Elder, the author is a writer, commentator, and journalist with the Sydney Morning Herald specialising in travel and popular culture. His other areas of expertise include film, television and popular music. He has written extensively about Australia and has a passion for Australian history. He has been involved in writing over 60 books, including Blood on the Wattle which, in 2000, was nominated as one of the 10 most influential works of non-fiction published in Australia in the twentieth century.
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Aboriginal Myths, Legends and Fables
Artist/Author: Reed, A.W.$25.00 Add to cartAboriginal Myths, Legends & Fables presents a wealth of poetic and imaginative tales from Aboriginal cultural heritage. While retelling the stories simply, this book captures the mystical bonds that exist between Aboriginal people, their environment and the spirit life of the Dreamtime. Each story provides the reader with an insight into the fascinating beliefs of one of the oldest living cultures on Earth.
