AustLit
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13 Jun 2017(Display Format : Landscape)
BlackWords : Some SFF Reading
Here, in one handy list, are works of science fiction, fantasy, and magical realism by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander authors. All these works are currently available, so if you've been seeking diversity in your reading, now is the time to add these to the list.
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8166980569780452991.jpg4661874875488433239.gif3524630988317250575.jpgTerra Nullius Claire G. Coleman , 2017 single work novel
Winner of the prestigious black&write! fellowship, but not due for release until August, Terra Nullius tells of a future Australia facing another wave of colonisation.
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A post-apocalyptic trilogy of super-powered teenagers, internment camps, and the search for self-identity, the Tribe trilogy is a thrilling read and an AustLit favourite.
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7492778020210478580.jpegStopwatch Sally Morgan , Ambelin Kwaymullina , Blaze Kwaymullina , Ezekiel Kwaymullina , 2009 series - author children's fiction
Each of the 60 black lines on the stopwatch take Tom to a new and very different world. This series is designed for younger readers, from about eight upwards.
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1329997261487_FUYy.JPG1326182755425721055.jpgThe Not-So-Goblin Boy Ezekiel Kwaymullina , 2011 single work children's fiction
Samuel wants to be green, covered in slime, and capable of producing farts so lethal they could knock out an elephant. But he's not. He's the only human boy in a goblin empire.
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Rift Breaker is purest SF adventure: space opera with aliens, gun-toting women, and the constant risk of explosive decompression–plus themes of identity and alienation.
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Paranormal romance? Check. Mythical and magical beings hanging out in high school? Check. Set in Brisbane? Check. Indigenous author? Check. Teagan Chilcott's Rise of the Fallen definitely has it all.
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Winner of the David Unaipon Award, this series of three interlinked novellas is magical realism at its best–from the explicitly futuristic to the modern but uncanny.
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A gently fantastic work, in which ghosts and vision intertwine with high-school rivalry and the Australian summer heat.
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Set in the Broome of fifty years ago, Ubby's Underdogs is a gloriously chaotic mix-and-match of Indigenous and Chinese characters and ideas, with a fabulously scrappy heroine.
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One of the earliest and most significant works of high fantasy by an Indigenous Australian author, Land of the Golden Clouds is here presented as an end point, but should perhaps be considered as the starting point for an exploration of Indigneous-authored SFF.
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9 Jul 2016(Display Format : Landscape)
Songlines
Irene Howe, BlackWords researcher
A songline or storyline is the path or corridor along which a creator ancestor moved to bring country into being. It is also the way of the ancestor’s totem, the geographical expression of the songs, dances and paintings animating its country, and ecological proof of unity of things.
(Gammage, 2011:125)
This year, the 2016 National NAIDOC week’s theme was Songlines. Songlines or Dreaming paths are embedded in the traditional Aboriginal cultural belief system. They are the Creation or Dreaming story lines that criss-cross the Australian continent, which put into place all geographical and sacred sites in Aboriginal culture. Songs are related to Country, Dreaming beings, and the collective memory about places, kinship and for those who told the stories associated with them. Songs carry power and force, and can activate connections of people to both human and spiritual ancestors. John Bradley (2010:242) said, 'For Yanyuwa people their country is …a soundscape vibrating with thousands upon thousands of syllables; song is the force that brings country into being'.
In the Dreaming the land and its people are connected, and the legacy of the Dreaming Ancestors is in the landscape, and their marks are the sacred sites. The sacred sites had been left behind by Ancestral beings who travelled across the country and are recognised by Aboriginal people in form of mountains, waterholes, plant formations and other environmental and geographical phenomena (see Clarke, 2003:18). These places are tangible evidence of the Dreaming and provide living people with their identity and connections to the Dreaming.
Aboriginal stories and songlines are integral to the well-being of Country and the well-being of Aboriginal communities. The songlines and stories below have travelled over landscapes signifying places, and formed part of the Dreaming tracks of the ancestral beings. They embody real geographical features and reference points for Aboriginal peoples having both mythological and practical significance.
Works Cited
Gammage, Bill. The Biggest Estate on Earth: How Aborigines made Australia. Crows Nest, N.S.W. Allen & Unwin, 2011.
Bradley, John. Singing Saltwater Country: Journey to the Songlines of Carpentaria. Allen & Unwin, 2010.
Clarke, Philip A. Where the Ancestors Walked: Australia as an Aboriginal Landscape. Allen & Unwin, Crows Nest, N.S.W, 2003.
Hall, Phillip. 'Phillip Hall reviews George Dyungayan’s Bulu Line: A West Kimberley Song Cycle by Stuart Cooke and Eelahroo (Long Ago) Nyah (Looking) Mobo-Mobo (Future) by Lionel Fogarty.' Plumwood Mountain, 3:1 (2016).
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singingsalt_FSFy.jpgSinging Saltwater Country : Journey to the Songlines of Carpentaria John Bradley , 2010 single work autobiography
Singing Saltwater country: Journey to the Songlines of Carpentaria, written by John Bradley, exemplifies his account of living with the Yanyuwa people of the Gulf of Carpentaria and how the elders revealed to him the ancient songlines of the Dreaming, and their Country. These Dreaming stories from the Yanyuwa can be accessed through the BlackWords record The Dreamings from the Saltwater Country.
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5528173549641045083.jpgAntarrengeny Awely : Alyawarr Women's Songs from Antarrengeny 2013 oral history prose
In Antarrengeny Awely: Alyawarr Women’s Songs from Antarrengeny, senior Antarrengeny custodians explain the meanings and significance of their songs that tell the stories of both every day and important events, and the travels of ancestral women across Antarrengeny Country.
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340395477644217907.jpgSinging the Coast Margaret Somerville , Tony Perkins , 2010 single work prose
In Singing the Coast, Margaret Somerville and Tony Perkins explored the experience of the Gumbayngirr peoples of the mid north coast of New South Wales, in maintaining the stories and songs of their Country.
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2109015894750138031.jpgNinu Last Journey Tjirrkarli Community Members , Maimie Nginytja Butler (translator), 2012 single work children's fiction
Children can also learn from songlines; for example, Ninu Last Journey is a story from the Gibson Desert and told by community members of Tjirrkarli. They tell of how the land and water was created in the desert land.
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And from the Yindjibarndi people who come from Roebourne, Western Australia, a story originally dreamt by a blind songsmith, Warlu Song. Warlu Song is a graphic novel that explores the events of a spirit man’s journey.
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7639032414347049791.jpgGeorge Dyunjgayan's Bulu Line : A West Kimberley Song Cycle Stuart Cooke (translator), 2014 selected work poetry criticism
Many songlines both traditional and contemporary have been translated as song-poems, or as verse-in-translation. One in particular was George Dyunjgayan’s Bulu Line: A West Kimberley Song Cycle. This 'unrestricted song cycle from the Bulu Line is a collection of 17 songs, received by George Dyungayan in a dream from his father (the late Bulu) before being passed onto Paddy Roe' (Phillip Hall, 2016).
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2443560726110502425.jpgDyirbal Song Poetry : The Oral Literature of an Australian Rainforest People 1996 anthology poetry criticism
Another work, Dyirbal Song Poetry: The Oral Literature of an Australian Rainforest People, is a collection, sung by nineteen Dyirbal singers, that explores the poetic tradition of a culture which flourished in Australia prior to European impact. This songs come from the Cairns rainforest region in North Queensland.
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10 Jun 2016(Display Format : Landscape)
Teach. Aust. Lit.
What's Trending?The data on Australian works being taught at tertiary institutions has been collected for Semester 1, 2016, and the results are very interesting. The aim of the TAL project (Teaching Australian Literature) is to index all tertiary courses worldwide that use the Australian works as set texts, and to index all creative writing courses within Australian tertiary institutions.
We have indexed 221 courses for first semester, and indexing this year looks like it will break last year's record of 338 courses. Of the 221 courses we have indexed, 143 of them have been classified as "Creative Writing", 72 of them as "Literary Studies", and 17 as "Film Studies". Most interestingly, the AusLit work that is currently most taught in tertiary institutions is That Deadman Dance by Kim Scott, which is a set text in seven courses.
Actually, Kim Scott, when counting his works True Country and Benang : From the Heart, is (so far) the most taught author for 2016, with his texts being taught in 13 courses. David Malouf comes in second place with 11 courses so far this year.
This highlights an interesting trend over recent years in the teaching of Australian literature, away from away from texts such as Kate Grenville's The Secret River (taught in 14 courses in 2009, and steadily dropping - 2 so far in 2016) towards writing by Indigenous voices that address the same issue of the relationship between settler and First Nations Australians.
The text that comes in second place is none other than My Brilliant Career by Miles Franklin, so far this year being taught in six courses. You can see the full list of results here.
* Please note that in the graph above, all figures for 2013 have been doubled to correct for a poor data collecting year. The figures for 2016 are now correct as the data for semester two has been gathered.
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902678824908213901.jpg4498170486125623600.jpg405643967348642849.jpg7820189383264703127.jpg1981339287598792053.pngThat Deadman Dance Kim Scott , 2010 single work novel
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26 May 2016(Display Format : Landscape)(Scheme : scheme-orange)
Sorry Day
Recommendation 7a: That the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission, in consultation with the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation, arrange for a national ‘Sorry Day’ to be celebrated each year to commemorate the history of forcible removals and its effects. (Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission 1997:254)
This recommendation from the Bringing Them Home Report was the beginning of the annual ‘National Sorry Day’ commemoration, held on 26 May. Sorry Day is a significant day for Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, particularly for Stolen Generations survivors and their families. This day also gives people a chance to write their messages and sign ‘Sorry Books’, a way of showing their commitment towards reconciliation. This poem about a sorry book was dedicated to Stolen Generations survivor Lowitja O'Donoghue who, in 2008, provided counsel to Prime Minister Kevin Rudd regarding the National Apology to the Stolen Generations.
The sorry book comes through at lunch.
Small groups of friends sit down to sign it,
looking for the words.
Sixteen to eighteen, they have felt it,
the shriek of children carried off,
this "whisper in our hearts".
Certain teachers also sign it,
privately and with no flourish,
no more articulate.
their phrases likewise close to mawkish,
cliches in themselves declaring
words are not enough.
(Geoff Page, 1999)
O’Donoghue never knew her white father and was taken from her mother at the age of two; it was 33 years before O’Donoghue saw her mother again. Many people from the Stolen Generations have written accounts, in a variety of literary forms, of their experiences of survival and the impact such policies had and still have on Aboriginal people. Writing has been a means of healing the scars of removal (Heiss 2015). BlackWords’ Stolen Generations trail presents autobiographies, biographies, novels, children's stories, anthologies, short stories, poems and songs, oral histories, plays, and films written by many Stolen Generations survivors, and/or by their family members. They depict the emotional, psychological and physical traumas of their experiences, and the disruption of their oral and cultural knowledge.
AustLit's BlackWords database lists a range of works relating to Sorry Day, Reconciliation, and the Stolen Generations. We also encourage you to read Anita Heiss’s essay 'Our Truths: Aboriginal Writers and the Stolen Generations' and explore the associated information trail.
Works Cited
Heiss, Anita. 'BlackWords: Our Truths - Aboriginal Writers and the Stolen Generations.' The BlackWords Essays AustLit (http://www.austlit.edu.au/austlit/page/8678017), 2015 [Retrieved 25/05/2016].
Wilson, Ronald, and Mick Dodson. 'Bringing Them Home: Report of the National Inquiry into the Separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children from their Families'. Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission, Sydney, 1997.
Page, Geoff. 'The Sorry Book.' Westerly 44.2 (1999): 22-23.
Standish, Anne. 'O'Donoghue, Lowitja (Lois) (1932 - )'. In The Encyclopedia of Women & Leadership in Twentieth-Century Australia, 2014. Available http://www.womenaustralia.info/leaders/biogs/WLE0354b.htm
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1 Feb 2016(Display Format : Landscape)
Aboriginal English : The Start of a List
This morning, the wonderful IndigenousX Twitter account–currently in the hands of Sharon Davis–posted the following update:
There is comparably little literature on Aboriginal variations of English in Australia. (See tweet.)
The discussion this sparked led to Anita Heiss suggesting that we could use the AustLit database to put together a literary trail on Aboriginal English.
And we think that's an excellent idea. Because so often such language is dismissed as 'bad' English, instead being lauded as uniquely Australian adaptive vernaculars.
As a first step, we wanted to hear what you thought were the books that most beautifully present Aboriginal uses of English.
We didn't give you much time to put the list together, but here's a starting place. What would you add to this list?
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9156302392410607552.jpgMy Girragundji Meme McDonald , Boori Pryor , 1998 single work children's fiction
The first in the Girragunddji Trilogy, from former Children's Laureate Monty Boori Pryor and Meme McDonald.
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8750916762757571020.pngThe Binna Binna Man Meme McDonald , Boori Pryor , 1999 single work children's fiction
The second in the Girragundji Trilogy.
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The final instalment of the Girragundji Trilogy.
So significant is this trilogy that two of the works (My Girragundji and Njunjul the Sun were both adapted for the stage). Between them, the three books have won five major awards. Indeed, The Binna Binna Man swept the NSW Premier's Awards in 200, picking up the Ethel Turner Prize and Book of the Year.
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393279324693208856.pngDiwurruwurru : Poetry from the Gulf of Carpentaria Phillip Hall , Diwurruwurru , 2015 selected work poetry
Written by Phillip Hall and the Booroloola Poetry Club (also called Diwurruwurru, and from which the collection takes its name), this short collection is a collaborative work written in the vernacular Aboriginal English of the Carpentaria region.
The one disadvantage of this little collection to the reader is that it was published as an extremely limited edition chapbook, and so is hard to find. But you can read a detailed review on Plumwood Mountain here.
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Set on Bundjalung land in the beautiful Byron Bay hinterland, Mullumbimby brought Melissa Lucashenko a swathe of nominations (including longlisting for both the Stella Prize and the Miles Franklin Award), as well as wins in the Queensland Literary Awards and the Victorian Premier's Literary Awards.
And don't forget the author's two young adult novels: Too Flash and Killing Darcy.
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Finally, we couldn't end this (hopefully) short start to a (hopefully) long list without mentioning Diana Eades's longform critical work, Aboriginal Ways of Using English, published by Aboriginal Studies Press in 2013. Such a recent work perhaps indicates that Aboriginal ways of using English are starting to come to the fore.
You can also read a fascinating interview with Diana Eades, originally published on the AIATSIS website, on this blog.
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Sam Watson has occupied many roles–including, perhaps most notably, that of activist, in a series of protests against brutalities both within Australia and without. The Kadaitcha Sung was his first (and so far only) novel, for which he was shortlisted for the Vance Palmer Prize (Victorian Premier's Literary Awards)–it has subsequently been the subject of dozens of critical works.
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27 Jan 2016(Display Format : Custom)(Scheme : scheme-orange)
January 26
What does ‘Australia Day’ mean for both Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Australians?
Falling on 26 January, the holiday commonly known as Australia Day marks the arrival of the First Fleet at Port Jackson, New South Wales, in 1788, and the raising of the flag of United Kingdom at Sydney Cove by Governor Arthur Phillip.
The meaning and significance of Australia Day has changed over time. Even the names of the day have altered, from Anniversary Day, Foundation Day and ANA (Australian Natives’ Association) Day to Australia Day a century later. The day was proclaimed a public holiday in 1818, on the thirtieth anniversary of the landing. The poem 'Song' (published in the Sydney Gazette in 1817 and sung to the tune of 'Rule Britannia') shows the strong patriotism toward their new country, and to their homeland. Over a century later, in 1942, Ian Mudie wrote a poem in commemoration of Australia Day called 'Australia Day 1942'. For many Australians, it is a day of celebrations, BBQs, festivals, concerts, and fireworks.
But for many Aboriginal Australians, 26 January is a day about loss of rights to their land, loss of family, and the loss of the right to practice their culture.
Australia Day has been called different names by Aboriginal people over the years. In 1938, William Cooper, a member of the Aboriginal Progressive Association, declared the day a ‘Day of Mourning’. In 2012, Fregmonto Stokes and Ashlee Clapp drew on William Cooper’s proclamation to write an opera, called 1938: An Opera, that invents a satirical alternative history of post-1788 Australian history. In 1992, the day became ‘Survival Day’ when the first Survival Day concert was held in Sydney–one the biggest Aboriginal cultural events in Australia. More recently, many Aboriginal people have preferred the term ‘Invasion Day’ as a reference what happened when Captain Cook landed in Australia. Then, in 2006, the name ‘Aboriginal Sovereignty Day’, which represents a unity of all Aboriginal nations in the continuous fight for their rights, began circulating. Coralie Kay Cassady expresses an Indigenous aspect on Australia Day in her poem 'What’s Our Day?', and Mudrooroo identifies the Aboriginal aspects of Australia Day in his poem 'Beached Party', written in 1991.
Further Reading:
Explore Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander writing and story-telling from pre-1788 to the present day in BlackWords.
Explore the legacy of a colonial history in Trauma Trails.
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10 Dec 2015(Display Format : Portrait)
COURTING BLAKNESS Website Launch 17 Dec 2015
First the art works and symposium, then the book, Courting Blakness: Recalibrating Knowledge in the Sandstone University and now it’s the website/ archive!
It all began when the curator, UQ Adjunct Professor Fiona Foley, and the project manager, Dr Fiona Nicoll, brought eight Aboriginal artists and their works to The University of Queensland’s historical sandstone Great Court, in an exhibition held between 5-28 September in 2014. The exhibition displayed works from contemporary artists Michael Cook, Karla Dickens, Megan Cope, Natalie Harkin, r e a, Ryan Presley, Archie Moore, and Christian Thompson. With the works presented in and around that dramatic heritage-listed space, university staff, students, and members of the public were able to engage with new and challenging ideas and issues around Australia and Australian-ness that matter to both Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples.
The outcome of this exhibition was followed by the launch, in October 2015, of a beautifully illustrated collection of essays, Courting Blakness: Recalibrating Knowledge in the Sandstone University. The essays are reflections and conversations fostered by the Courting Blakness project. As Fiona Nicoll asserts, 'in the essays Indigenous and non-Indigenous authors produce new knowledge about the interface of politics, art and knowledge in the sandstone university' (Foley, Martin-Chew and Nicoll 2015:10-12).
The Courting Blakness website is a digital archive of the project, where you can discover the artists, their works, reflections, conversations, and memories arising from the Courting Blakness exhibition.
The website/archive will be launched at The University of Queensland on 17 December 2015 at the Michie Building (bldg 9), Level 6, Room 601 at 2-4pm.
Following an introduction and tour of the web archive by Fiona Nicoll and an introduction of BlackWords by Irene Howe, cross-cultural communication expert Dr Zala Volcic will deliver a short talk to launch the resource to which Fiona Foley will respond. David Bergener will then report on early findings of his research holding dialogues while the exhibition was on site. The event will wrap up with a facilitated conversation about the project and sales of the Courting Blakness book.
Foley, Fiona, Martin-Chew, Louise, and Nicoll, Fiona, Courting Blakness: Recalibrating Knowledge in the Sandstone University. St Lucia, Queensland, University of Queensland Press, 2015.
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8 Jul 2015(Display Format : Portrait)
Celebrating NAIDOC Week 2015
Irene Howe, BlackWords researcher and indexer
So what has been written about NAIDOC week? Searching through the BlackWords database, I have uncovered poems and a short story.
Poems that celebrate NAIDOC week have been penned by authors Norman Rosas and Jerry Maher.
Norman E. Rosas’s poem 'Respect' falls quite nicely into this year’s theme: 'We All Stand on Sacred Ground – Learn, Respect and Celebrate.' This poem comes from his collection Poems from the Heart; Rosas also takes the celebration of NAIDOC week back to 1999, in his poem 'Kalano’s Naidoc 1999'.
Jerry Maher had also penned the poems 'Come Together', written in honour of NAIDOC week in 2012, with the first line: 'Hey my friends come join with me', and 'Celebrating Together' in 2014, with the first line 'Celebrations right across the land'. Both poems set atmosphere for celebration, unity, and remembrance of our Indigenous peoples’ history, culture and achievements.
In his short story, 'NAIDOC 2011', Marcus Waters talks about his Aboriginality and his experience of celebrating NAIDOC Day in 2011, at Musgrave Park, Brisbane.
Regardless of when these works were written, they are fitting for this year’s theme: 'We All Stand on Sacred Ground'.
Explore these works through the links to their AustLit records below.
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Norman Rosas's collection includes his poem 'Respect.'
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First line: 'N is for Nine and fourteen years since Kalano'.
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Sub-titled 'Written for NAIDOC Week'.
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The most recent of Jerry Maher's NAIDOC-themed poems.
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Published with the epigraph 'Waalun buwarr biiba (A personal note)', this is exploration of Waters's Aboriginality.
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26 Feb 2015(Display Format : Landscape)(Scheme : scheme-orange)
Indexer's Notes: Living Archive of Aboriginal Languages
Notes from an Indexer: A new blog series in which our indexers talk about what they've been doing recently.
Irene Howe (BlackWords and current indexing):
I have recently indexed 397 picture books from the Living Archive of Aboriginal Languages website, a digital archive of endangered literature in Australian Indigenous languages. These picture books were collected from various literature production centres from around the Northern Territory, which had bilingual education programs running from the 1970s.
The books were written and illustrated by Aboriginal children and adults in 25 languages from groups such as Maningrida, Milingimbi, Tiwi, Yirrkala and many other remote Aboriginal communities. The books have been written in Aboriginal languages, some in parallel Aboriginal language and English text, and some have been translated from one Aboriginal dialect into another.
These books were educational learning guides for children and other community members; for example, the Warlpiri language book Nyurruwiyi-warnu talks about kinship, and how people lived and spoke Warlpiri in the pre-settlement days, and children’s responsibilities. Some of the books tell the stories related to the dreamtime; for example, a book from Areyonga in the Pitjantjatjara language, Nganngingku walytja putu ngurintja tells the story about a little frog. This story is also written in other languages. Some books are based on historical events, such as the Macassans, and World War II. Others are humorously illustrated and drawn on daily lives of children within the remote communities, my favourite being Arrkenekenhe mwerre (I like Toys) in the Eastern Arrente language, from Ltyentye Apurte literature production centres.
This important project undertaken by the Charles Darwin University is a MUST-SEE: it is one of the most enjoyable and interesting records that I have had to index to date. To see this record, go to the Living Archive of Aboriginal Languages.
For the previous instalment in the Notes from an Indexer series, click here.