Debesa: The Story of Frank and Katie Rodriguez by Cindy Solonec

$24.99 AUD

Category: History

'I listened to my family’s narratives and my ancestors began to emerge in an almost life-like way.' — Cindy Solonec This extraordinary and heartfelt story chronicles the lives of the Rodriguez family of Debesa Station in the West Kimberley; their livelihood through difficult times, love of family, plac e and culture, and the challenges of day-to-day living on a small sheep station amid huge pastoral properties.Spanning four generations from the 1880s when the author’s maternal great-grandfather, Indian deckhand, Jimmy Casim, met and lived with Nigena woman, Lucy Muninga on Yeeda Station near Derby, Debesa centres on the unlikely partnership of Cindy’s parents: Frank Rodriguez, once a Benedictine novice monk from Spain, and Katie Fraser, who had been a novitiate in a very different sort of abbey – a convent for ‘black’ women at Beagle Bay Mission, 130 kilometres north of Broome.Together, Frank and Katie Rodriguez established Debesa, where Cindy and her three siblings grew up with the rich cultural heritage of their Spanish, Nigena and English ancestors.Debesa is a sweeping social history of one family’s struggles and triumphs set against the backdrop of the beauty of the West Kimberley. 'I listened to my family’s narratives and my ancestors began to emerge in an almost life-like way.' — Cindy SolonecThis extraordinary and heartfelt story chronicles the lives of the Rodriguez family of Debesa Station in the West Kimberley; their livelihood through difficult times, love of family, place and culture, and the challenges of day-to-day living on a small sheep station amid huge pastoral properties.Spanning four generations from the 1880s when the author’s maternal great-grandfather, Indian deckhand, Jimmy Casim, met and lived with Nigena woman, Lucy Muninga on Yeeda Station near Derby, Debesa centres on the unlikely partnership of Cindy’s parents: Frank Rodriguez, once a Benedictine novice monk from Spain, and Katie Fraser, who had been a novitiate in a very different sort of abbey – a convent for ‘black’ women at Beagle Bay Mission, 130 kilometres north of Broome.Together, Frank and Katie Rodriguez established Debesa, where Cindy and her three siblings grew up with the rich cultural heritage of their Spanish, Nigena and English ancestors.Debesa is a sweeping social history of one family’s struggles and triumphs set against the backdrop of the beauty of the West Kimberley.   ...Show more

Keeping The Wanjinas Fresh

$35.00 AUD

Category: History

Keeping the Wanjinas Fresh: Sam Woolagoodja and the Enduring Power of Lalai is the story of the people of the Wanjinas and their unbroken living cosmology of Lalai- the Dreaming- manifested most memorably in the dazzling giant Wanjina designed by Donny Woolagoodja for the opening ceremony of the Sydney Olympics It is also the story of Sam Woolagoodja, who was responsible for repainting the sacred Wanjinas in many of the rock shelters that dot the Kimberley landscape, and was among the first to paint the sacred stories on bark and board for Worrorra children living far from their homelands   ...Show more

Dark Emu by Bruce Pascoe

$19.99 AUD

Category: History

Dark Emu argues for a reconsideration of the 'hunter-gatherer' tag for pre-colonial Aboriginal Australians and attempts to rebut the colonial myths that have worked to justify dispossession. Accomplished author Bruce Pascoe provides compelling evidence from the diaries of early explorers that suggests that systems of food production and land management have been blatantly understated in modern retellings of early Aboriginal history, and that a new look at Australia's past is required. ...Show more

Two Sisters by Ngarta Jinny Bent; Jukuna Mona Chuguna; Pat Lowe; Eirlys Richards

$24.99 AUD

Category: History

Ngarta and Jukuna lived in the Great Sandy Desert. They traversed country according to the seasons, just as the Walmajarri people had done for thousands of years. But it was a time of change. Desert people who had lived with little knowledge of European settlement were now moving onto cattle stations. T hose left behind were vulnerable and faced unimaginable challenges. In 1961, when Jukuna leaves with her new husband, young Ngarta remains with a group of women and children. Tragedy strikes and Ngarta is forced to travel alone. Her survival depends on cunning and courage as she is pursued by two murderers in a vast unforgiving landscape. Jukuna’s rich account may be the first autobiography written in an Aboriginal language. Presented in English and Walmajarri, her determination to see her language written has made her one of our most valued authors. ...Show more

Black and White and In between Arthur Dimer and the Nullabor

$34.99 AUD

Category: History

Two Cultures, One Story by Robert Isaacs

$24.99 AUD

Category: History

'I stood at the school gates with nothing but the clothes on my back. I had no money, no family, no home — nothing to show for the past 16 years except my cheap cardboard suitcase and a reasonable grasp of reading, writing and arithmetic … I didn't know what I was going to do next, but I knew that whate ver it would be, it would be on my own terms.' — Prologue, Two Cultures, One StoryDr Robert Francis Isaacs AM, OAM, PhD (Hon) has spent his life bridging the divide between white and black Australia. Taken from his mother as a baby, Robert was raised in institutions not knowing he had a family and not knowing he was Aboriginal.Enduring severe hardship, discipline and abuse at the hands of the Christian Brothers, Robert went out into the world at the age of 16 determined to make a life for himself and a family of his own.A chance encounter with a member of his extended family would help shape the rest of his life. Determined to both embrace his culture and build on his faith and education, Robert immersed himself in the world of Aboriginal health and housing, proving to be a straight-talking, deft political negotiator who can achieve real outcomes for Aboriginal people. Over the decades, Robert brings his considerable interpersonal skills to bear in the areas of alcohol and drug abuse, employment, relations with the police, the justice system and education.Told with grace and strength, this memoir shares the inside story of a respected Elder and his drive to break down cultural barriers and improve the lives of his people. ...Show more

Jandamarra and the Bunuba Resistance: A True Story by Banjo Woorunmurra; Howard Pedersen

$24.99 AUD

Category: History

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Last Truck Out by LOCKYER Betty

$21.99 AUD

Category: History

WWII, 1942 - Broome, pearling town on the far north coast of Western Australia. The enemy was snaking its way towards the Australian coastline. Broome was being evacuated. The resident Japanese and their families had already been interned. Aboriginal families were being trucked to Beagle Bay Mission, 12 0 km north, under the care of the German brothers and Irish nuns. Betty Lockyer's mother was on the last truck to leave Broome on 17 February, heavy with child. Worst fears were realised when the Japanese attacked Darwin. On March 3, they blew twenty-four Dutch flying boats out of the water in Broome. Men, women and children died. Betty was born two weeks later, safe in the relative peacefulness of the mission. ...Show more

Yornadaiyn Woolagoodja by Yornadaiyn Woolagoodja

$34.99 AUD

Category: History

This stunning book is a biography and a generous sharing of Yorna's Culture and traditional beliefs. Explore the meaning of Country, Lalai ('Creation'), Wandjina, Woongudd (the 'Snake'), in the author's Country in the Kimberley region of Western Australia. Full of extraordinary images of the landscape, rock art, stone arrangements and the artist's paintings, Yornadaiyn Woolagoodja is a feast for anyone interested in this rich Cultural heritage. Special feature boxes on Joonba ('Corroborree'), Native Title, Permisson and Respect, Sugarbag, Ancestors' Bones, Collecting Turtle and many more.  ...Show more

God, the Devil and Me by Alf Taylor

$29.99 AUD

Category: Biography

In this unique and highly entertaining autobiography, Alf Taylor chronicles his life growing up in the infamous New Norcia Mission, north of Perth in the fifties and sixties. At once darkly humorous and achingly tragic, God, The Devil and Me tells of the life and desperation of the young children forced into the care of the Spanish Nuns and Brothers who ran the Mission. Their lives made up of varying degrees of cruelty and punishments, these children were the 'little black devils' that God and religion forgot. Written with an acerbic and brutal wit, Alf intersperses dark childhood memories with a Monty Pythonesque retelling of the Bible, in which Peter is an alcoholic and Judas is a good guy.As a child, underfed, poorly clothed and missing his family, Alf sought refuge in the library in the company of Shakespeare and Michelangelo. He writes with joy about the camaraderie of the boys, their love of sport and their own company, but also notes that many descended into despair upon leaving. Most died early. Alf Taylor is one of the 'lucky ones'.'At once horrific and hilarious, this "little black devil" has created a work unique not just in Aboriginal writing, but in Australian literature altogether.' — Dennis Haskell, Australian poet, critic and academic ...Show more

OUT OF THE DESERT by BULUGARDIE HONEY

$39.99 AUD

Category: History

Out of the Desert is a compelling collection of stories, art and photographs from the Walmajarri people of the Great Sandy Desert, in north western Australia. It tells of their remarkable exodus from remote desert country to an unfamiliar modern society. Within only one generation the Walmajarri desert dwellers left their traditional places behind to face station life and a world far beyond the sandhills. These accounts of a recent past reveal the challenges of the epic journey north to station country, the courage of the Walmajarri in confronting the unknown, and their first contact with white people. ...Show more

Return to Uluru by Mark McKenna

$34.99 AUD

Category: History

A killing. A hidden history. A story that goes to the heart of the nation. When Mark McKenna set out to write a history of the centre of Australia, he had no idea what he would discover. One event in 1934 - the shooting at Uluru of Aboriginal man Yokunnuna by white policeman Bill McKinnon, and subseque nt Commonwealth inquiry - stood out as a mirror of racial politics in the Northern Territory at the time. But then, through speaking with the families of both killer and victim, McKenna unearthed new evidence that transformed the historical record and the meaning of the event for today. As he explains, 'Every thread of the story connected to the present in surprising ways.' In a sequence of powerful revelations, McKenna explores what truth-telling and reconciliation look like in practice. Return to Uluru brings a cold case to life. It speaks directly to the Black Lives Matter movement, but is completely Australian. Recalling Chloe Hooper's The Tall Man, it is superbly written, moving, and full of astonishing, unexpected twists. Ultimately it is a story of recognition and return, which goes to the very heart of the country. At the centre of it all is Uluru, the sacred site where paths fatefully converged. 'Mark McKenna has exposed the wounded heart of Australia. Never has a history of our country so assumed the power of sacred myth. Return to Uluru is a spellbinding story of death and resurrection that is Australian to its core.' --James Boyce 'Mark McKenna sets the highest standard for truth-telling of the kind that Australians so urgently need if they are to live in this country with honour. I feel sure that this book will become an Australian classic, not the first of its kind, but certainly the most powerful narrative I have read of frontier injustice and its resonance in our lives today.' --Marcia Langton ...Show more