AustLit

'The Gulf Country Songbook, is an immersive showcase of some of the many songs composed in Yanyuwa, Marra, Garrwa and Gudanji languages in the last 100 years. There are songs of land rights claims, of the maranaja – ‘dugong hunters of excellence’, of paddling a canoe on the sea at night, of boundary riders on a pastoral station, and Ancestral Beings journeying across country' (Source: Waralungku Arts Centre Website)

This is 'John Bradley's compelling account of three decades living with the Yanyuwa people of the Gulf of Carpentaria and of how the elders revealed to him the ancient songlines of their Dreaming.

At twenty John Bradley was sent to teach Aboriginal children in a school at remote Borroloola, on the Gulf of Carpentaria in far north Australia. But it is the teacher who is educated by the Yanyuwa elders and their families. Over three decades he learns their language and their country, becoming intimately drawn into other ways of being, both practical and spiritual.

Billy Linklater was the author of Gather No Moss, a Northern Territory classic. He wrote of the Territory when he was young. The Magic Snake is his collected legends of the Warramunga tribe among whom he lived and worked for many years. A forgotten classic of the North. (Source: Hesperian Press website)

"KAJIN' is a true story told in Garawa by Hilda Jackson of Robinson River, Northern Territory. (Source: Postface,back cover verso)

A story about a friendship between a man and a cockatoo.

'In this brilliant debut novel, Alexis Wright evokes city and outback, deepening our understanding of human ambition and failure, and making the timeless heart and soul of this country pulsate on the page. Black and white cultures collide in a thousand ways as Aboriginal spirituality clashes with the complex brutality of colonisation at St Dominic's mission. With her political awareness raised by work with the city-based Aboriginal Coalition, Mary visits the old mission in the northern Gulf country, place of her mother's and grandmother's suffering.

'On Saturdays I visit Auntie Dollo.

''What would you like to do today?' she says. 'Do you want to help me make some feather flowers?'

'A vibrant story about connecting with culture and family.' (Publication summary)

This story is about a school excursion from Mutju C.E.C. Ngukurr to look for bush tucker.

Eva recalls growing up in Ngukurr and seeing mermaids.

'This book was written for the people of Groote Eylandt in the Gulf of Carpentaria, in the Northern Territory of Australia...these stories were written down from taped recordings made by representatives of each of the main family groups, and have been illustrated the appropriate men...(Source: Preface)

'A long time ago crocodile and blue tongue lizard both made houses...'

'When we go walkabout, what do we see? Up in a tree there is something flapping its wings at us. Duwedirra! Cockatoo! Down in the river we see something staring at us. Dingarrbiya! Crocodile! Back home there is someone waiting for us ... Dungkwarrika! Grandma! A beautiful story for the very young that brings to vivid life the unique world of Groote Eylandt.' (Source: Publishers website)

'Squid gives his friend Rat a lift across the water on his back, but Rat laughs at Squid's tentacles. This version of the Squid and Rat story is based on a story told by John Williams, with additions from old recordings of Kenneth Jacob and Gully Peters telling the story in Lardil and creole.'

'The author is Lardil man from Mornington Island; comments on conception beliefs, birth, food plants, camp life, Creation myth, myths on origin of death, Thuwathu the Rainbow Serpent, marriage rules, relations with Mission staff, hunting & fishing, stellar myths, dugong hunting, wild bee myth; initiation myth, describes initiation ceremony, subincision, secret Damin language; flood ceremony, 22 lines of rain stopping song (with free translation), story of Warrenby, sorcery and sorcerers, clay as medicine, love magic, moon legend, death & mourning, burial, inquest, spirit beliefs; relations with Bentinck Island (Kaiadilt) people, stories of early settlement of Sweers Island; work on cattle stations & as deckhand, encouragement to work on bark painting' (Source: Online)

'Diin yuunymen ngalu, dilanthaarr barguwenku wanginjitharr. (This is an old-time story about when people used to go about with nets, long ago.) This story tells of a group of men hunting dugong with giant nets at the mouth of Sandalwood River on Mornington Island. It is told in both English and Lardil.' (Source: Online)

'Turtle gives wallaby a lift across the water and in return wallaby helps turtle escape from hunters. The story in this book is not a traditional Lardil story, but it has been told at Mornington Island for a long time now. ' (Source: Online)

'In the 1940s Dolly was a girl in the dormitory on Mornington Island. Then as a teenager she was sent to the mainland to work as a domestic on several stations. She tells of some of the things that happened - some funny, some shocking, some sad.' (Source: Online)

Story of white men on Bentinck Island with English translation

'In 1911 a man named McKenzie obtained a government lease which, according to Queensland law, gave him title hold over all of Sweers Island and a large portion of Bentinck Island. In the 1980s Roma Kelly told linguist Nicholas Evans about the brutal massacre led by McKenzie in 1918 at Rukuthi, for which he was never punished.' (Source: Online)

'Traditional stories of birds and reptiles and stories after European contact including Wamakee Massacre' (Source: Mura Collection Catalogue, AIATSIS)

'In 1862 grass-seekers and brothers Charles and Thomas Collins secured the license for a pastoral run in North Queensland. Since that time there has been a connection between the Collins family and the cattle industry, unbroken for over 140 years. This is their story.' (Source: TROVE)

An autobiography of Australia's first Aboriginal university graduate.

'Marnie Kennedy's story begins with her birth in 1919 on the banks of Coppermine Creek in Western Queensland. She tells of her journey to Palm Island where she grew up 'under the act' which dominated the lives of Aboriginal people in Queensland.

The book includes descriptions of Kennedy's hard working life on the cattle stations throughout the north and the people she encountered there. She wrote her story so that white people would come to know and understand the plight of her people by reading of her own life as a 'half-caste'.

'Eleven-year-old Dylan has to move from Mt Isa to Brisbane and he’s not happy. But as soon as he gets to Flatwater State School he finds a former Mount Isa Miner’s footy supporter in his principal and a ‘Broncos tragic’ as a teacher. He also makes a friend in Justice Jones and an enemy in Jared Knutz. Dylan is cursed with an abnormality transforming him into a fully-grown man whenever he gets angry. Always a worry, the ‘curse’ proves to be a blessing in the city when his alter ego attracts the interest of the Broncos during a class excursion to watch the team train.

'Records the author's knowledge of the legends, customs and life of the Australian Aborigines gained from her childhood on "Mooraberrie", the family cattle station in the Channel Country of Far South-West Queensland.' (Source: Google Books website)

'While completing his full time studies in anthropology and archaeology at James Cook University, Lance embarked on a project that would see his peoples’ language and culture preserved for years to come. Lance’s book, Ngiaka Yalarrnga (sponsored by BHP Billiton’s Cannington Mine), is the culmination of hundreds of hours he spent listening to and recording older speakers of the Yalarrnga language. ' (Source: on-line)

'Based on a collection of personal stories, experiences, and reflections, Black Queen Black King explores the lives of four young Indigenous men through song, dance and storytelling. The life experiences, of these very different and complex individuals culminates in a celebration of strength, pride and cultural identity.' Source: http://www.atsis.uq.edu.au/birranews/index.html?page=44689 (Sighted 14/03/2006)

'Lionel Fogarty is a leading spokesman for Indigenous rights in Australia through a poetry of linguistic uniqueness and overwhelming passion. In resisting the colonising force of English, he has reterritorialised the language of the invaders and made of it a language that speaks for his people. As well as a selection of his recent poems, Lionel introduces works by two young poets, Yvette Walker and his son Kargun Fogarty.' (Source: publishers website)

'Damin language discussed; men's and women's love songs and other songs; initiation songs; string manufacture and use; biographical narratives; weapons and toys; sorcery practices; Bora discussion; site recording; island dance practice; Lardil glosses of sign language; oral history; flood and rain making; tooth evulsion and septum piercing; word lists; didjeridu demonstration.' (Source: Mura Collections Catalogue (AIATSIS))

'This beautifully illustrated publication features works drawn from public and private collections in an exhibition surveying the life and work of the late Mirdidingkingathi Juwarnda Sally Gabori c.1924–2015, the distinguished senior Kaiadilt woman artist from Bentinck Island in the Queensland’s Gulf of Carpentaria.'

'One of Australia’s most extraordinary practitioners, Mrs Gabori was incredibly prolific over her short career. Her indefatigable zeal to communicate her stories, knowledge, and experiences accumulated over an incredible life — spanning over 90 years from traditional life to the coming of the Australian frontier to contemporary globalised Australia — won her great admiration and has left an astonishing cultural legacy.

'This impassioned book - part quest, part travel book - by a novelist and writer widely published in the US and Europe - is based on two interlocking personal histories set on Australia's tropical Gulf of Carpentaria - border-line country seldom explored in writing. A quest for two very different men: the legendary Roger Jose, an itinerant European who lived in a remote Aboriginal community for half a century, in an upside down water tank with his beloved Aboriginal wife, reading literature and evolving his own radical bush philosophy.