26 Issue no. 38 / October 2017

10 IMPORTANT BOOKS ON INDIGENOUS CULTURES, HISTORIES AND POLITICS

Reconciliation News has put together a list of some of the most significant and influential books on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander histories, cultures and politics.

Because a White Man’ll Never Australians: Origins to Eureka (2009) Do It (1973) By Thomas Keneally By Kevin Gilbert In this widely acclaimed volume, best- Kevin Gilbert’s powerful expose of past selling author Thomas Keneally brings and present race relations in Australia is to life the vast range of characters who an alarming story of land theft, human have formed our national story. Convicts rights abuse, slavery, inequality and and Aboriginal people, settlers and soldiers, patriots and paternalism. Today considered a classic, the book paints reformers, bushrangers and gold seekers, it is from their a disturbing image of the impact of the colonisation of lives and their stories that he has woven a vibrant history to Australia and the ongoing problems faced by Aboriginal do full justice to the rich and colourful nature of our unique people. national character.

Written with the hope of provoking a galvanisation of his Were the first European mothers whores or matriarchs? people, Gilbert makes a plea that white Australia leave How did this often cruel and brutal penal experiment lead black Australia alone. Demonstrating his vision for justice to a coherent civil society? Tom Keneally brings to life the and equality, Gilbert’s arguments are still significant and high and the low, the convict and the free of early Australian relevant in 21st century Australia. society.

The Tall Man: Death and Life on Black Politics (2009) Palm Island (2009) By Sarah Maddison By Chloe Hooper Based on original interviews with influential The Tall Man tells a true story that took Aboriginal leaders including Mick place on Palm Island, the tropical paradise Dodson, Tom Calma, Alison Anderson, where one morning Cameron Doomadgee Jackie Huggins, Warren Mundine and swore at a policeman and 40 minutes Larissa Behrendt, Black Politics seeks to later lay dead in a watch-house cell. It is the story of that understand why Aboriginal communities find it so difficult to policeman, the tall, enigmatic Christopher Hurley who be heard, get support, and organise internally. chose to work in some of the toughest and wildest places in Australia, and of the struggle to bring him to trial. Sarah Maddison identifies the tensions that lie at the heart of all Aboriginal politics, arguing that until Australian governments come to grips with this complexity they will continue to make bad policy with disastrous consequences for Aboriginal people. Issue no. 38 / October 2017 27

Am I Black Treading Talking to my Enough for You? Lightly: The Country (2016) (2012) Hidden Wisdom By Stan Grant By Anita Heiss of the World’s Oldest In July 2015, as Anita Heiss, People (2006) the debate over successful author By Karl-Erik Sveiby Adam Goodes and passionate and Tex Skuthorpe being booed at campaigner for Aboriginal literacy, AFL games raged and got ever more was born a member of the Wiradjuri Aboriginal people taught heated and ugly, Stan Grant – one of nation of central , themselves thousands of years Australia’s leading journalists – wrote but was raised in the suburbs of ago how to live sustainably in a short but powerful piece for The Sydney and educated at the local Australia’s fragile landscape. Guardian that went viral, not only in Catholic school. She is Aboriginal A Scandinavian knowledge Australia but right around the world. – however, this does not mean she management professor meets an His was a personal, passionate likes to go barefoot. And please don’t Aboriginal cultural custodian and and powerful response to racism in ask her to camp in the desert. dares to ask the simple but vital Australia and the sorrow, shame, question: what can we learn from anger and hardship of being an In this deeply personal memoir, the traditional Aboriginal lifestyle Indigenous man. Heiss gives a first-hand account of to create a sustainable society her experiences as a woman with in modern Australia? Treading Talking to my Country is not just an Aboriginal mother and Austrian Lightly takes us on a unique about race, or about Indigenous father, and explains the development journey into traditional Aboriginal people, but about all of us, our of her activist consciousness. life and culture, and offers a shared identity. Grant might not have Read her story and ask: what does it powerful and original model for all the answers but he wants us to take for someone to be black enough building sustainable organisations, keep on asking the question: how for you? communities and ecologies. can we be better?

Dark Emu (2014) Forgotten War Carpentaria (2006) By (2013) By Alex Wright By Henry Reynolds Dark Emu argues for Carpentaria is an a reconsideration Australia is dotted epic novel set in of the ‘hunter- with memorials the Gulf country gatherer’ tag to soldiers who of north-western for pre-colonial fought in wars . Its and attempts overseas. Why are there no official portrait of family life in the precariously to rebut the colonial myths that have memorials or commemorations settled coastal town of Desperance worked to justify dispossession. of the wars that were fought on centres on the powerful Phantom Accomplished author Bruce Pascoe Australian soil between Aboriginal family, leader of the Westend provides compelling evidence from people and white colonists? Pricklebush people, and its battles the diaries of early explorers that with old Joseph Midnight’s renegade Forgotten War gives a systematic suggests that systems of food Eastend mob on the one hand, and account of what caused the production and land management the white officials of Uptown and the frontier wars between white have been blatantly understated in neighbouring Gurfurrit mine on colonists and Aboriginal people, modern retellings of early Aboriginal the other. how many people died and history, and that a new look at whether the colonists themselves Carpentaria was rejected by every Australia’s past is required. saw frontier conflict as a form of major publisher in Australia before it warfare. This powerful book argues was published by the small literary that there can be no reconciliation house Giramondo. It went on to win without acknowledging the wars Australia’s most prestigious literary fought on our own soil. prize, the Miles Franklin Award.