AustLit

'The fractured reality of indigenous Australia is built on theft, destruction and abuse: the theft of land and children, the destruction of identity, and a kaleidoscope of abuse of many kinds. Whereas the south-eastern part of the continent was settled early, white pastoralists only started pushing into Australia's far north-east region in the 1860s. The people of the Gulf of Carpentaria, where Queensland and the Northern Territory meet, called this frontier period the Wild Time, when they were hunted and shot. The time after, when they were tamed and corralled, they called Mission Time. There was no more Dream Time.' (Introduction)