Bequeathed from memory to memory, these records remind us how recently central Australian Indigenous people felt the upheaval of colonialism

Massacres recounted in chilling detail, recollections of the first time an Aboriginal person saw a camel or a car, and the double-edged harshness and compassion of missionaries might, for many non-Indigenous Australians, seem like the preserve of a foreign and distant world.

But these experiences, bequeathed from memory to memory of central Australian First Nations peoples, are a startling testimony to the very recent nature of the cataclysmic upheaval of ancient Indigenous civilisation in the continental centre.

Continue reading...