AustLit

''I will continue my work on my land, building a future. It is the only thing that is certain to me now and I want to advance while I can. I am trying to light the fire in our young men and women. We are setting fires to our own lives as we really should, and the flame will burn and intensify – an immense smoke, cloud-like and black, will arise, which will send off a signal and remind people that we, the Gumatj people, are the people of the fire. There are people of the fire around Alice Springs – and I reach out to them, too. We can then burn united, together.'

'Tradition, Truth & Tomorrow is 'no mere essay. It is an existential prayer,' writes Noel Pearson. Galarrwuy Yunupingu tells of his clan and his early life. He recounts his dealings with prime ministers, and how he learnt that nothing is ever what it seems. And behind him, he writes, 'the Yolngu world is always under threat, being swallowed up by whitefellas. This is a weight that is bearing down on me; at night it is like a splinter in my mind.' ' (Publication summary)

'Our Land is Our Life is a rare opportunity to sit down with Galarrwuy Yunupingu, Marcia Langton, Michael Dodson and Patrick Dodson, Noel Pearson, Lois O'Donoghue, Michael Mansell, Peter Yu, and many more whose names appear in the daily media. In this collection the most influential indigenous leaders of our time provide analyses and reveal their passions for their people and land, and for the Australia we all want to call home. Our Land is Our Life is inspired by the twentieth anniversary of the Aboriginal Land Rights (NT) Act, and coincides with the final year for lodgement of claims. As the ground is shifting beneath indigenous Australia, in a political sense, there is an even greater need to stand firm on the central issue of land rights. To forsake our land is to deny not just ourselves but also the future of Australia, socially, environmentally and culturally. This collection features valuable archival material, including photographs and cartoons, as well as landmark documents.

Barunga settlement was originally known as Beswick Creek and the Indigenous people living on this site were relocated from Tandangal in 1948. The Barunga Statement was written on bark and it outlined the rights of the Indigenous people of Australia that had been denied them since invasion in 1788. The statement was handed to the then Prime Minister R.J.L. (Bob) Hawke on the 12 June 1988 and called upon the Federal Government to negotiate a treaty with Indigenous people and pass laws that sought recognition of their rights and addressed their disadvantages.