Lynne Kelly

Margo Neale

'Let this series begin the discussion.' - Bruce Pascoe 'An act of intellectual reconciliation.' - Lynette RussellSonglines are an archive for powerful knowledges that ensured Australia's many Indigenous cultures flourished for over 60,000 years. Much more than a navigational path in the cartographic sense, these vast and robust stores of information are encoded through song, story, dance, art and ceremony, rather than simply recorded in writing. Weaving deeply personal storytelling with extensive research on mnemonics, Songlines offers unique insights into Indigenous traditional knowledges, how they apply today and how they could help all peoples thrive into the future. This book invites readers to understand a remarkable way for storing knowledge in memory by adapting song, art, and most importantly, Country, into their lives.About the series:The First Knowedges books are co-authored by Indigenous and non-Indigenous writers; the series is edited by Margo Neale, senior Indigenous curator at the National Museum of Australia. Forthcoming titles:2021Architecture / DesignLand Management / Future Farms 2022Healing / Medicine / Plants Astronomy 2023Innovation

The Power and Promise

Songlines

Bruce Pascoe

Bill Gammage

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

This stunning companion to the National Museum of Australia's blockbuster Indigenous-led exhibition, Songlines: Tracking the Seven Sisters, explores the history and meaning of songlines, the Dreaming or creation tracks that crisscross the Australian continent, of which the Seven Sisters songline is one of the most extensive. Through stunning artworks (many created especially for the exhibition), story, and in-depth analysis, the book will provide the definitive resource for those interested in finding out more about these complex pathways of spiritual, ecological, economic, cultural, and ontological knowledge - the stories `written in the land'.

Tracking the Seven Sisters

Looks at the current trend for treating Aboriginal artists working in a traditional style as individual geniuses; Rover Thomas; Emily Kngwarreye.

Black on White Or White on Black

The Cult of Cultural Convergence

"Contacts between Indigenous Australians and outsiders - Macassans, Portuguese, Dutch, English, French, Americans and others - are known to have occurred for 400 years. This book explores these diverse, subtle, dynamic and volatile first encounters from Indigenous and non-Indigenous perspectives. It also looks at the myriad elements of these cross-cultural exchanges, which resulted in profound outcomes for the First Australians. Strangers on the Shore: A Conference on Early Coastal Contacts with Australia was a landmark conference held at the National Museum of Australia on 30-31 March 2006"--Provided by publisher.

Strangers on the Shore

Martin Thomas

"In 1948 a collection of scientists, anthropologists and photographers journeyed to northern Australia for a seven-month tour of research and discovery - now regarded as 'the last of the big expeditions'. The American-Australian Scientific Expedition to Arnhem Land was front-page news at the time, but 60 years later it is virtually unknown. This lapse into obscurity was due partly to the fraught politics of Australian anthropology and animus towards its leader, the Adelaide-based writer-photographer Charles Mountford. Promoted as a 'friendly mission that would foster good relations between Australia and its most powerful wartime ally, the Expedition was sponsored by National Geographic, the Smithsonian Institution and the Australian Government. An unlikely cocktail of science, diplomacy and popular geography, the Arnhem Land Expedition put the Aboriginal cultures of the vast Arnhem Land reserve on an international stage." -- Publisher's website.

Margo Neale

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