#gurindji

To celebrate International Year of Indigenous Languages, the Royal Australian Mint launched the new coins.

Money, or an object which abstractly represented the value of goods and services, did not exist in Australia before European colonisation. Trade occurred, but it was between items deemed to be of similar worth, for example, pearl shell, quartz, food or songs. With the entry of money into the Indigenous economy, new words were needed to refer to coins and later, notes.

Most Indigenous words for money come from words for “stone”, “rock” or “pebble”, no doubt in reference to the size and shape of coins. On the new 50 cent coin, you’ll find words for “stone” from across Australia: 

Brenda L. Croft, b. 1964 Self–portrait on country (Wave Hill), 24 June 2014 Australia (2014)  Inkjet print on archival paper [Source]

The artist is revisiting a major site in the Australian Aboriginal civil rights movement. UQ Art Museum has an interview:

Q: The 1966 Wave Hill Walk-Off marked the birth of the national land rights movement, contributing to the establishment of the 1976 Aboriginal Land Rights Act (Northern Territory). Can you tell us about your personal connection to this history, and how it influenced your decision to develop Still in my mind: Gurindji location, experience and visuality? 

A: I am connected to Gurindji/Malgnin/Mudburra peoples through my father Joseph’s side. He was born on Victoria River Downs c. 1926. He and my grandmother, Bessie, were taken to Kahlin Aboriginal Compound in 1927 and from there he was removed from her care in 1930 and taken to Pine Creek Boys Home, then to the Bungalow/Half-Caste Children’s Home in 1931.

My father lost contact with my grandmother in the early 1940s, when women and children were evacuated from Darwin following the Japanese bombing of the city; he thought she had died. It was not until 1968 that he learnt she was alive through correspondence with the Northern Territory Chief Protector of Aborigines. In 1974 our family travelled to Darwin to be reunited with her, shortly before her death later that year.

Mervyn Bishop Wailwan People (b1945)

Prime Minister Gough Whitlam pours soil into the hand of traditional owner Vincent Lingiari (1975) gelatin-silver photograph

'From little things, big things grow' by Paul Kelly & Kev Carmody *video contains images of deceased people*  Gough Whitlam's passing has dominated the media cycle since news broke yesterday morning, and rightly so.  When I reflect on his life and the impact he had on Australia, his most impressive achievement was clearly the shift that occurred in the Australian identity while in office. See 5.40. The Whitlam years marked a departure from a sense of Britishness that lingered too long after the war, and the arrival of a new idea about what it meant to be Australian. While I doubt anyone can articulate that idea with any degree of accuracy or consensus, to me, this clip of Paul Kelly and Kev Carmody singing about Whitlam resolving the Wave Hill walk-off in 1975 sums it up quite well.