The theme for National Reconciliation Week 2021 is ‘More than a word: reconciliation takes action’. Engaging with Aboriginal knowledges is a way to pursue reconciliation as more than a buzzword.
‘As I learn more about First Peoples’ plant knowledge, I’m also better understanding the broader Australian community’s failure to recognise the depth and breadth of our expertise.’
Sunanda Creagh, The Conversation and 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.
The local Aboriginal people told stories and painted images of a massacre of their ancestors in the early 20th century, but there was no other evidence that the incident took place. Until now.
There is plenty of evidence to show Australia’s Indigenous people had ways of counting big numbers, yet the myth persists they couldn’t count more than a handful of things. Why?
Decolonisation of the curriculum doesn’t have to mean the destruction of Western knowledge, but it’s decentring. Such knowledge should become one way of knowing rather than the only way.
Aboriginal people have been using the stars to help remember routes between distant locations, and these routes are still alive in our highway networks today.
Who owns a Dreamtime story? The Warlpiri, like all Indigenous groups, use a complex system of kinship that regulates which people can depict, sing, dance or talk about which Dreamings.
Across Indigenous Australia, innovation is occurring locally, under the radar of government policies and support. We can look to this innovation and stop fixating on finding the elusive policy solution.
Just one generation ago Australian schoolkids were taught that Aboriginal people couldn’t count beyond five, wandered the desert scavenging for food, had no civilisation, couldn’t navigate and peacefully…