AustLit

'The experience and impact of Bennelong on the London scene is compared to Omai, a Tahitian predecessor who had visited the court 20 years. Bennelong's role as an object of curiosity. How he compared with Omai in this regard is hard to estimate. There could be some truth in saying that while Omai was taken up and cultivated, Bennelong was politely inspected. He seems not to have excited anyone's philosophical, literary or artistic imagination, and there is certainly nothing on record comparable with Granville Sharp's discourses with Omai (Hoare 1820:220-7).No portrait of Bennelong in London has survived, nor evidence that one was ever made. Perhaps the lack of interest merely reflects how readily the exotic is betrayed by familiarity. All the same, some contrasts between the two men and their contexts are worth considering.'  (Publication abstract)

'This paper is a teamwork of the writer and the story teller. The story teller gives his perceptions about tapes and video recordings and the writer follows him with the usage of his language.' (Publication abstract)

'When we consider the regions where Indigenous Australians live today, we wonder how they came to be in these places. How did people from central and northern Australia, living today in Aboriginal communities or small towns, make their way from traditional lands to these settlements and how did they understand their journey? This marvellous book reveals the different trajectories of two sisters who recount their transition from a hunter-gatherer life to life in a small rural town.'  (Introduction)

'For those working with Australian Indigenous languages, one of the challenges is to help speakers find ways to pass the language on to younger generations. Linguists and language centres have produced a range of resources for this purpose: wordbooks, bilingual dictionaries, learner’s grammars, language learning courses, to name a few. With the new series of picture dictionaries, planned for languages in Central Australia, IAD has come up with an innovative resource. Kaytetye picture dictionary is the second in this series and, as the name suggests, illustrations are an integral part of it.' (Introduction)

'This is a handsome little book that purports to tell a big story, about the work of the Secretariat of National Aboriginal and Islander Child Care Agencies. The issue of the removal of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children from their families is now well known, but the role of Indigenous peoples in publicising it, and changing government policy, has received little attention. This is a history of that activism, and therefore promises to provide both a corrective to white-written histories of the Stolen Generations, and an activists’ resource book. It is unique, gaining considerable significance from the author’s own history of activism in this field, and her close associations with many of the people interviewed for the book.' (Introduction)

'An arresting cover, with the title superimposed over an engaging photo of two Kaytetye children, sets the tone for Growing up Kaytetye. It is a book of stories, holding the theme of beginnings, culture and history of the Kaytetye people originally told by Tommy Kngwarraye Thompson in his mother tongue and transcribed by Myfany Turpin. But don’t be alarmed, there is a translation. Turpin has, in collaboration with Thompson and others, produced a paragraph-byparagraph Australian English translation which has been written in a clear English style. The two languages are contrasted by the use of two-colour print so that it is easy to follow either of the languages.' (Introduction)

'The Pilbara is not a part of Australia that gets much attention in the literature. Of the traditional languages of the region we know little, and of the songs we know less. There is Carl Georg von Brandenstein’s book of song poetry, Taruru (Brandenstein & Thomas 1974), which includes some Ngarla songs and other, more recent, recordings of song performances from the region to the west by Mike Burns and by the filmmakers Frank Rijevec and Noellene Harrison. Ngarla songs provides some 68 song texts in Ngarla, with English translations. Ngarla is the language of Port Hedland and east past the De Grey River for which little has been recorded beyond a dictionary (Brown et al. 1991).'  (Introduction)

'Shadow lines is a deeply moving biography of Stephen Kinnane’s maternal grandmother, Jessie Smith (née Argyle), removed in 1906 from her mother and extended family in Miriwoong country, eastern Kimberley. It also traces the life of his English grandfather, Edward Smith: his childhood, immigration to Western Australia and later marriage to Jessie Argyle. Shadow lines is a remarkable story of a woman’s fight for the right to live unhindered by government policies regarding Aborigines, at a time when Aboriginal lives were forfeit to the whims of white bureaucracy.' (Introduction)

'When the then Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies made funding available for a big thrust to record Australian Aboriginal languages that were endangered or going out of use, four positions were made available at the University of Queensland. I was given a research fellowship with the hope, among other things, that I could supervise three research scholars who were also appointed. The Rev. Allen Hall was one of these.' (Introduction)

'Lorna Lippmann was a tireless advocate for Aboriginal rights to self-determination. Her commitment was underpinned by, in her own words, humanistic values of justice and concern for those less privileged. Lorna was formidable, even intimidating, because her priorities were so clear-cut. She was petite, elegantly dressed and wasted nothing on trivialities or unnecessary explanations. A huge intellect cloaked in elegance and charm was how one person described her.' (Introduction)