Settler colonials are beginning to understand the true impacts of the criminal takeover of Indigenous lands. They are seeking to right the balance and achieve a spiritual resolution.
Opiate of Opulence, from the series Horror Has A Face, Fiona Foley, 2017.
Courtesy of Andrew Baker Art Dealer
An analysis of Australian history narratives in secondary school textbooks shows many still repeat the myth that Aboriginal peoples were nomadic hunter-gatherers.
Submerged in the waters off Western Australia lies an ancient site home to Aboriginal people thousands of years ago, when sea levels were lower than they are today.
There are many questions about the inquiry into the destruction of an Aboriginal heritage site, including how it will be conducted, what will be publicly disclosed and who will be protected.
This sketch depicts the Waterloo Creek massacre (also known as the Slaughterhouse Creek massacre), part of the conflict between mounted police and Indigenous Australians in 1838.
Godfrey Charles Mundy/National Library of Australia
Britain had an urgent problem after it lost its American colonies: where to send its convicts. It settled on NSW after rejecting other options, but the new spot didn’t exactly live up to its billing.
Uncle Fred Deeral as little old man in the film The Message, by Zakpage, to be shown at the National Museum of Australia in April. Nik Lachajczak of Zakpage
An honest reckoning with Captain Cook’s legacy won’t heal things overnight. But it’s a start
The Conversation41,4 MB(download)
The impact of 1770 has never eased for Aboriginal people. It was a collision of catastrophic proportions.
A scene from the author’s film The Message, commissioned by the National Museum of Australia. At the first encounter in Botany Bay, two Gweagal warriors threw stones and spears at Cook, saying ‘warrawarrawa’, meaning ‘they are all dead’.
Nik Lachajczak of Zakpage
Incidents from Cook’s first voyage highlight themes relevant in Indigenous-settler relations today: environmental care, reconciliation and governance. This collision of beliefs, it seems, wasn’t lost on Cook.
State archives hold precious Noongar letters pleading for the return of Stolen Generations children. Among them, I find my grandmother’s grandfather: historical records of love.
The first people to walk along the shores of northern Australia arrived more than 50,000 years ago.
Corey Bradshaw
Sunanda Creagh, The Conversation e Nina Maile Gordon, The Conversation
Mukurtu: an online dilly bag for keeping Indigenous digital archives safe
The Conversation71,5 MB(download)
Mukurtu - Warumungu word meaning 'dilly bag' or a safe keeping place for sacred materials - is an online system helping Indigenous people conserve photos, songs and other digital archives.
Etchings over much earlier Aboriginal engravings show foreign whalers made contact with Australia’s remote northwest long before colonial settlement of the area.
Indigenous Australians must be involved in research around provenance and country. Here, representatives of the Willandra Aboriginal Elders visit the Griffith University ancient DNA laboratory.
Renee Chapman
Museums around the world hold remains of Aboriginal people that were often taken without permission and in the absence of accurate records. New DNA methods may help return these items to country.