Aboriginality

Following the success of First Invaders, Alan Twigg turns his attention to First Nations writers, unearthing more than 300 books by more than 170 mostly unheralded aboriginal authors.Taking the reader from residential schools to art galleries, this lively and unprecedented panorama of British Columbia includes trailblazer Pauline Johnson, political organizer George Manuel, Haida carver Bill Reid, indigenous rights activist Jeannette Armstrong, pioneering novelist Mourning Dove, actorChief Dan George, painters George Clutesi and Norval Morrisseau (living in Nanaimo), politician Len Marchand, playwright Marie Clements and Haisla novelist Eden Robinson.Equally important, Aboriginality sheds new light on fascinating, lesser-known figures such as Chief William Sepass, Howard Adams, Domanic Charlie, Earl Maquinna George, George Hunt, Chief Charlie Nowell, Henry Pennier, Harry Robinson, Gordon Robinson (Eden Robinson's uncle), James Sewid and Michael Nicoll Yagulanaas-to name only a few. Nearly half the author profiles are women, including Marilyn Dumont, Lizette Hall, Heather Harris, Beverly Hungry Wolf, Mary John, Vera Manuel, Lee Maracle, Gloria Nahanee, Daphne Odjig, Bernadette Rosetti, Shirley Sterling, Gloria Cranmer Webster, Ellen White, Annabel Cropped Eared Wolf and Annie Zetco York.Each author is presented in historical and chronological context, along with background material on aboriginal history, as well as rare photos, illustrations and a comprehensivebibliography.

Representing Aboriginality takes a close look at the dominant trends in the representation of aboriginal people in Australian, South African and Aotearoa/ New Zealand film. Jan Mohamed's thesis of The Economy of the Manichean Allegory is employed to interrogate these trends in terms of Other/Self binaries, where representations of the Other are understood to be sensitive to tensions within the individual psyches of the media-makers as well as to social tensions and stresses within the "political unconscious" of the society in which they appear. Thee films are analyzed in the discussion of the dominant trends: The Great Dance- a hunter's story, The Last Wave, and Once Were Warriors. Clelland-Stokes' forceful analysis of visual representations pf aboriginality will be of interest to scholars and students on the fields of visual anthropology, cultural anthropology, culture and media studies, film studies, and anyone interested in the visual culture of aboriginal and indigenous communities.

Taxidermy has been traced back over four centuries to imperial Europe. This text decodes the practice of taxidermy as it was performed in North America from the late 19th century onwards, revealing its connection to ecological and racial discourses integral to the maintenance of colonial power

Seven anthropologists and a law scholar address issues surrounding the claim of some groups to nationhood based on their ethnicity, among them French Canadians, Australian Aborigines, Malays, and peoples of Kenya and Nigeria. They also examine legal, historical, and cultural aspects, and conclude that the similarity of terminology obscures the very different situations of the various peoples. From a symposium in Toronto, December 1990. Paper edition (unseen), $19.95. Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Sounding 7 begins with Echo 107 titled CONTEMPORARY EUROPEAN EYES ON THE OZ CULTURE-CLASH FRONTIER followed by echoes on BUCKLEY REVISITED, AFTER THE PROTECTORATE CRUMBLED and WHAT OF PROTECTOR ROBINSON? Echoes follow on salvaging tribal ways, the Merri Creek black orphanage, ‘going round the bend’ at the Asylum and Echo 114: THE CELESTIALS OF VICTORIA, being the resented Chinese gold miners. Exploring the contrasting fate of Batman, La Trobe and Derrimut, leads into echoes on fringe-dwelling, cultural resistance and Oz racism, in particular the mass psychology of racist ideology that culminated with World War 2. After the gold rush era, life and right behaviour at the Healesville Coranderrk mission station and re-thinking William Thomas the Aboriginal Guardian lead to the pleasant notion of civilizing British colonies through sport. The life and exploits of Tom Wills is celebrated in Echo 122: THE MAKING & BREAKING OF VICTORIA’S FIRST SPORTING HERO. Turning to political history, Oz class struggles – convicts, capitalism and nation-building asks the question with Echo 124: WHITHER MARXISM [?] and then BRITISH EMPIRE POLICY REFORMS IN THE 1840s to contain a Chartist-led revolution. Facets of Victorian ‘quality of life’ since the land grab are followed by echoes on the astrology of the 1802 Port Phillip Crown possession claim and an echo titled TOWARDS AN ASTROLOGY OF CIVILIZATION. The Sounding concludes with approaches to researching Aboriginal society, an undergraduate essay on the Dreamtime and finally with Echo 130: A RAINBOW SERPENT BRIDGE. Today in the 21s century, I wonder how differently Oz would have developed if the then ruling British government in Sydney and London had not used censorship to delay the gold rush for almost 40 years! Sounding 8 begins with Echo 131: HISTORY DISTORTION & CENSORSHIP and is backed up with a critique of Britannia’s pirate empire that together spawn two more echoes of doubtful but controversial polemics in 1421 – THE YEAR CHINA DISCOVERED THE WORLD suggesting they were here in Oz many centuries before Captain Cook. Echo 135: THE KADAITCHA SUNG MEETS THE DRUID INHERITANCE pits Palm Islander Sam Watson’s 1990s fiction The Kadaitcha Sung [the ‘clever’ occult Oz Dreamtime] in occult war with the equally ancient European / Celtic / Druid magic in the psyche of the Aryan ‘race’, so to speak. Going even further out on a limb, the focus shifts to recent light shed on ‘dark ages barbarians’ now considered by some historians to have been more culturally refined than the modern city individual. Back in Oz with Echo 137: WHITE MAN’S LAW – BLACKFELLOW LAW and Echo 138: McLEOD’S BUCKET FROM SKULL CREEK brings Western Australia after WW2 into wider awareness with the Pilbara pastoral workers strike of 1946-49 that won half-decent wage rights for Aboriginal stockmen. Moving further north, Echo 141: RECENT ARNHEMLAND CONNECTIONS Part 1: Taming the NT is the stuff of White Australia’s race-based patriotism as depicted in Ion Idriess’s once-mainstream fascist fictions counterpointed by Part 2: James Gaykamangus’s Striving to bridge the chasm: my cultural learning journey. The final echo 142 talks treaty.

Revised edition; six new entries replace six from previous edition; Gordon Bennett; Karen Casey; Ian Abdulla; Donna Leslie; Judy Watson; Treahna Hamm.

In 1982, Canada formally recognized Aboriginal rights within its Constitution. The move reflected a consensus that states should and could use group rights to protect and accommodate subnational groups within their borders. Decades later, however, no one is happy. This state of affairs, Panagos argues, is rooted in a failure to define what aboriginality means, which has led to the promotion and protection of a single vision of aboriginality – that of the justices of the Supreme Court. He concludes that there can be no justice so long as the state continues to safeguard a set of values and interests defined by non-Aboriginal people.

A fresh twenty-first century look at Australian literature in a broad, inclusive and multicultural sense.