An ethnohistory drawing upon written documents and oral tradition, following the lives of the North Cape York Peninsula and Kaurareg Aboriginal people from 1864 to today. Particularly contentious in the light of current moves for redevelopment of this region.

This volume offers a state-of-the-art survey of linguistic, anthropological, archaeological and historical work focused on Cape York Peninsula and the Gulf Country, in Australia’s northeast. The volume also honours Bruce Rigsby, emeritus professor of anthropology at the University of Queensland, whose work has inspired all of the contributors. The papers in the volume are organized in terms of five key themes, including the use of historical and archaeological methods to reconstruct aspects of language and social organization, anthropological and linguistic work uncovering aspects of world view embedded in languages and ethnographic data sets, the study of post-contact transformations in language and society, and the return of archival data to communities. Its thematic intersections draw together the varied disciplinary threads in an overview of the cultures and languages of the region, and will appeal to all those interested in Australian Aboriginal studies, linguistics, anthropology and associated disciplines.

Millions of years in the making, sustaining human voyagers and societies for millennia, a couple of centuries of that by Europeans - the Great Barrier Reef - in maybe five or six decades the largest living structure visible from space will have become the largest dead one. Vicarious Dreaming documents a series of personal voyages between Cooktown and the Torres Strait that are interwoven with accounts of exploration, exploitation and escape. The travels and tales coalesce around the works of Ion Idriess and the lives of solitary men at the edge of the world, drawn to the wild by folly and obsession, and to an island in the Howick Group that Idriess knew well and which was the site of his first book - Madman's Island. And as with the slow-motion ecological catastrophe that is the Reef's agonal decline there are players - and bystanders; stories of people and places, of life and death, of arrivals and departures, and of journeys that involve even the most remote, uninhabited spaces - the necklace of islands scattered along more than two thousand kilometres of Queensland's Coral Sea coast. At once a journey into the far north of Australia and into the furthest depths of the human mind. A tale of Cape York's past and a new chapter in the exploration of its present. A dream narrative - maybe; a case study - perhaps; literary art, yes, absolutely, in its purest and most ambitious form. - Nicholas Rothwell

This book showcases current research into Indigenous and minority placenames in Australia and internationally. Many of the chapters in this volume originated as papers at a Trends in Toponymy conference hosted by the University of Ballarat in 2007 that featured Australian and international speakers. The chapters in this volume provide insight into the quality of toponymic research that is being undertaken in Australia and in countries such as Canada, Finland, South Africa, New Zealand, and Norway. The research presented here draws on the disciplines of linguistics, geography, history, and anthropology. The book includes meticulous studies of placenames in central NSW and the Upper Hunter region; Gundungurra cave names; western Arnhem Land; Northern Cape York Peninsula and Mount Wheeler in Queensland; saltwater placenames around Mer in the Torres Strait; and the Kaurna in South Australia.

This volume of original essays brings together, for the first time, histories of the making and of the makers of most of the major Indigenous Australian museum collections. These collections are a principal source of information on how Aboriginal people lived in the past. Knowing the context in which any collection was created-the intellectual frameworks within which the collectors were working, their collecting practices, what they failed to collect, and what Aboriginal people withheld-is vital to understanding how any collection relates to the Aboriginal society from which it was derived. Once made, collections have had mixed fates: some have become the jewel of a museum's holdings, while others have been divided and dispersed across the world, or retained but neglected. The essays in this volume raise issues about representation, institutional policies, the periodisation of collecting, intellectual history, material culture studies, Aboriginal culture and the idea of a 'collection'.

Centenary volume of the Torres Strait Expedition suggesting new ways of looking at its work.

The ownership of areas of sea and its resources is often overlooked however, despite Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander connections with the sea being just as important as those with the land.

Hunting and gathering is humanity's first and most successful adaptation. Until 12,000 years ago, all humanity lived this way. Surprisingly, in an increasingly urbanized and technological world dozens of hunting and gathering societies have persisted and thrive worldwide, resilient in the face of change, their ancient ways now combined with the trappings of modernity. The Encyclopedia is divided into three parts. The first contains case studies, by leading experts, of over fifty hunting and gathering peoples, in seven major world regions. There is a general introduction and an archaeological overview for each region. Part II contains thematic essays on prehistory, social life, gender, music and art, health, religion, and indigenous knowledge. The final part surveys the complex histories of hunter-gatherers' encounters with colonialism and the state, and their ongoing struggles for dignity and human rights as part of the worldwide movement of indigenous peoples.

This book tells the story of a French cabin boy, Narcisse Pelletier, and his life with the Uutaalnganu people of north-east Cape York from 1858 to 1875. Even though it is all but forgotten in Australia, and in France is known only in its broad outlines, Pelletier's story rivals that of the famous William Buckley, both as a tale of human survival and as an enthralling and accessible ethnographic record. Narcisse Pelletier, from the village of Saint-Gilles-sur-Vie, was fourteen years old when the Saint-Paul was wrecked near Rossel Island off New Guinea in 1858. Leaving behind more than 300 Chinese labourers recruited for the Australian goldfields - believed to have been subsequently massacred by the Rossel Islanders - the ship's captain and crew, including the cabin boy, escaped in a longboat. After a gruelling voyage across the Coral Sea, they landed near Cape Direction on Cape York, where Pelletier found himself abandoned when the boat sailed off without him. He was rescued by an Aboriginal family and remained with them as a member of their clan until 1875 when he was sighted by the crew of a pearling lugger. 'Rescued' against his will, Pelletier was conveyed to Sydney and then repatriated to France. The author, Stephanie Anderson, came across Pelletier's story by chance in an old French anthropological journal. As she started researching it, her fascination with the story grew. She found that Pelletier had left an account of his experiences, first published in 1876, that had never been translated into English. Now, for the very first time, this remarkable story is available to read in English, complemented by an ethnographic commentary by anthropologist Athol Chase and an in-depth introduction by Anderson. Pelletier: The Forgotten Castaway of Cape York is required reading for anyone with an interest in Australian history, anthropology, or the intriguing world of pre-colonial Aboriginal life.

"Stars of Tagai" creates a picture of a unique sea culture rich in meanings and custom. The author's observations of Islander life over the past fourteen years join with the life stories of Islanders so giving depth to the book's theme: how conservation of cultural tradition underlies a process of renewal. The rhythm of Islanders' lives follows the movement of the constellation Tagai, a mythical hero who stands in a canoe; his left hand, the Southern Cross, holds a fish spear. The stars of Tagai usher in seasonal changes and are a guide to voyaging and cultivating throughout the Torres Strait. The book explores four meanings of the Tagai myth in the life of the Islanders since the mid-nineteenth century. Its main focus is a growing identity and self-awareness. This is the first book to examine the social issues involved in the historic Mabo case and to give a picture of the fabric of life of the Mariam people of the Murray Islands, a subgroup of the Torres Strait Islanders. It considers local historical precedents for current moves for political autonomy, examines the various reasons behind moves for sovereignty in the 1980s, and considers future options.