Bruce Pascoe

Dark Emu puts forward an argument for a reconsideration of the hunter-gatherer tag for pre-colonial Aboriginal Australians. The evidence insists that Aboriginal people right across the continent were using domesticated plants, sowing, harvesting, irrigating and storing - behaviors inconsistent with the hunter-gatherer tag. Gerritsen and Gammage in their latest books support this premise but Pascoe takes this further and challenges the hunter-gatherer tag as a convenient lie. Almost all the evidence comes from the records and diaries of the Australian explorers, impeccable sources.

Black Seeds : Agriculture Or Accident?

Dark Emu

Vicky Shukuroglou

Loving Country is a book that inspires ultimate respect for Mother Earth and the role of her custodians. While readers are encouraged to discover the sacred country of Australia in an open-minded and sensitive manner, the intention of this book is to foster communication and understanding between all peoples and country, to bring about a range of environmental and social changes. Co-authors Bruce Pascoe and Vicky Shukuroglou hope to empower communities to tell their own stories, and for people to honour them and the country from which they have grown. Beautifully designed, all of the writing and photography in Loving Country has been created in consultation with communities. From the ingenious fish traps at Brewarrina and the rivers that feed the Great Barrier Reef, to the love stories of Wiluna and the whale story of Margaret River, there is so much to celebrate and admire about the oldest continuing culture in the world. For those who want to do more than a whistle-stop tour of Australia, this book offers some keys to unlock and reveal the heart of this loving country.

A Guide to Sacred Australia

Loving Country

A collection of stories and essays by the award-winning author of Dark Emu, showcasing his shimmering genius across a lifetime of work. This volume of Bruce Pascoe's best and most celebrated stories and essays, collected here for the first time, traverses his long career and explores his enduring fascination with Australia's landscape, culture and history. Featuring new fiction alongside Pascoe's most revered and thought-provoking nonfiction - including from his modern classic Dark Emu - Salt distils the intellect, passion and virtuosity of his work. It's time all Australians know the range and depth of this most marvellous of our writers.

Selected Stories and Essays

Salt

This is the perfect starting point for those who want to know about Australia's rich Indigenous cultures, but don't know where to begin. This is an invaluable pocket-sized guide written from an Indigenous perspective, with mini-essays providing a range of views. The topics covered include: history; culture; arts; sport; languages; population; health; participation in education; employment; governance; resistance and reconciliation. Information on travelling respectfully on Indigenous land, and Indigenous festivals and tours, is included. A list of Further Reading and a complementary website allows readers to explore further the themes in the book. This is the ideal tool for people who want to learn what they weren't taught at school; for cross-cultural training; for tourists; for reconciliation groups, and within education.

An Introduction to Indigenous Australia

The Little Red, Yellow, Black Book

Dark Emu - Black Seeds

Peter Read

Dennis Foley

What the Colonists Never Knew paints a vivid picture of what it was like to grow up Aboriginal in Sydney, alongside the colonists, from 1788 to the present.Peter Read's exploration of the history of Aboriginal Sydney is interwoven with Dennis Foley's memories of his own Gai-mariagal country, taking readers on a journey through the region's past. This book offers an honest account of the disappointment, pain and terror experienced by Sydney's First Peoples, and celebrates the survival of their spirit and their culture.

A History of Aboriginal Sydney

What the Colonists Never Knew

'Dark Emu injects a profound authenticity into the conversation about how we Australians understand our continent ... [It is] essential reading for anyone who wants to understand what Australia once was, or what it might yet be if we heed the lessons of long and sophisticated human occupation.' Judges for 2016 NSW Premier's Literary AwardsDark Emu puts forward an argument for a reconsideration of the hunter-gatherer tag for pre-colonial Aboriginal Australians. The evidence insists that Aboriginal people right across the continent were using domesticated plants, sowing, harvesting, irrigating,

Aboriginal Australia and the Birth of Agriculture

Bill Gammage

Margo Neale

What do you need to know to prosper as a people for at least 65,000 years? The First Knowledges series provides a deeper understanding of the expertise and ingenuity of Indigenous Australians. For millennia, Indigenous Australians harvested this continent in ways that can offer contemporary environmental and economic solutions. Bill Gammage and Bruce Pascoe demonstrate how Aboriginal people cultivated the land through manipulation of water flows, vegetation and firestick practice. Not solely hunters and gatherers, the First Australians also farmed and stored food. They employed complex seasonal fire programs that protected Country and animals alike. In doing so, they avoided the killer fires that we fear today. Country: Future Fire, Future Farming highlights the consequences of ignoring this deep history and living in unsustainable ways. It details the remarkable agricultural and land-care techniques of First Nations peoples and shows how such practices are needed now more than ever.

Future Fire, Future Farming

Country

"Convincing Ground" pulses with love of country. In this powerful, lyrical and passionate new work Bruce Pascoe asks us to fully acknowledge our past and the way those actions continue to influence our nation today, both physically and intellectually. The book resonates with ongoing debates about identity, dispossession, memory and community. Pascoe draws on the past through a critical examination of major historical works and witness accounts and finds uncanny parallels between the techniques and language used there to today's national political stage. He has written the book for all Australians, as an antidote to the great Australian inability to deal respectfully with the nation's constructed Indigenous past. For Pascoe, the Australian character was not forged at Gallipoli, Eureka and the back of Bourke, but in the furnace of Murdering Flat, Convincing Ground and Werribee. He knows we can't reverse the past, but believes we can bring in our soul from the fog of delusion. Pascoe proposes a way forward, beyond shady intellectual argument and immature nationalism, with our strengths enhanced and our weaknesses acknowledged and addressed.

Learning to Fall in Love with Your Country

Convincing Ground

Age range 0-8 Winner of the Kestin Indigenous Illustrator Award This gentle story set in the rugged Australian bush is about a small calf who becomes separated from his family. The little calf is alone and simply wants his mother, sisters and brothers. He can see other animals, and after running to the river, manages to ask some horses if they are his family. The calf's family have been taken away in the back of a noisy truck. So begins the little calf's journey to find his family. In Found we share the calf's point of view in an evocative story, accompanied by stunning illustrations.

Found

A Piece of Doggerel from Warragul

Foxies in a Firehose

A gripping novel about Maree Fox's efforts to find her father, who is fighting in Irian Jaya. It examines relations between Indigenous Australians and West Papuans over the centuries.

Ruby-eyed Coucal

In David Hardy's beautifully illustrated new picture book we join a young boy, Alfie, on a quest for companionship. When at first his friends leave with their parents, he searches high and low for somebody new to play with. Sad and lonely at the end of the day, Alfie makes a big wish. When he wakes up, he finds out that sometimes wishes really do come true!.

Alfie's Big Wish

Age range 9 to 12 Marnie Clark of Curdie Vale can ride but she doesn't have a horse. She dreams of owning one and having the whole world to ride it in. Before too long Marnie is gifted Mrs Margaret 'Maggie' Whitlam, a beautiful, big Clydesdale - bold, fearless and able to jump anything. From the very first ride, Marnie and Maggie get more adventure than they bargained for. Soon Marnie is learning to negotiate newfound friendships, pony club and how to stand up for what she believes in. Will her friendship with George Costa, another outsider, make being accepted harder? Or will being true to yourself be the hardest decision Marnie makes?

Mrs Whitlam

Loving Country is a powerful and essential guidebook that offers a new way to travel and discover Australia through an Indigenous narrative. In this beautifully designed and photographed edition, co-authors Bruce Pascoe and Vicky Shukuroglou, in consultation with communities and Elders across Australia, show travellers how to see the country as herself, to know her whole and old story, and to find the way to fall in love with her, our home. Featuring 18 places in detail, from the ingenious fish traps at Brewarrina and the rivers that feed the Great Barrier Reef, to the love stories of Wiluna and the whale story of Margaret River, there is so much to celebrate. This immersive book covers history, Dreaming stories, traditional cultural practices, Indigenous tours and the importance of recognition and protection of place. It offers keys to unlock the heart of this loving country for those who want to enrich their understanding of our continent, and for travellers looking for more than a whistle-stop tour of Australia. In Loving Country, Bruce and Vicky hope that all communities will be heard when they tell their stories, and that these stories and the country from which they have grown will be honoured. Readers are encouraged to discover sacred Australia by reconsidering the accepted history, and hearing diverse stories of her Indigenous peoples. It is a roadmap to communication and understanding, between all peoples and country, to encourage environmental and social change.

Albert Cutts is a tree feller. A fella who cuts down trees. Fog is a fox cub raised by a dingo. He's called a dox because people are suspicious of foxes and Albert Cutts owns the dingo and now the dox. Albert is a bushman and lives a remote life surrounded by animals and birds. All goes well until Albert has an accident. This is a story of courage, acceptance and respect. It is reminiscent of the gentle story-telling style of Australian author Alan Marshall (I can jump puddles). The dialogue is finely crafted and Indigenous cultural knowledge and awareness are seamlessly integrated into the story.

Bruce Pascoe

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