I'm Australian, from Brisbane (Queensland) in particular. Lately, I've realised how little I really know about Indigenous Australian history. In particular our local history and culture (Yuggera/Turrbal country) is of interest to me.
I'm a little bit ashamed of this, as I'm a high school history teacher. Most of what I know, however, is on topics like Ancient Egypt, Greece and Rome; which is what I've always found most compelling.
I want to begin learning more about Indigenous Australian history and I was hoping you brilliant souls could potentially point me in a good direction.
I'd also like to be clear that I don't just want to learn about their history since colonisation, and am more interested in pre-colonial history. A lot of my education on the topic, both in high school and at university, revolved around post-colonisation.
I recently did a case study on the discovery of "Mungo Man/Mungo Lady" and found it utterly fascinating.
Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!
There are various ways you can learn about Aboriginal history.
Look into local tourist type tours, do them all. It should give you some starting points so you can then take home what you’ve learned and know what to start looking for online and in books.
Find out who the Land Council(s) is for your area. I’m from Darwin (Larrakia land) and we have the Northern Land Council. We also have Larrakia Nation who do education and the like. If you reach out to them they will likely help point you in the right direction. You could also arrange for speakers to come to your school.
Look for Aboriginal art galleries and go to museums as there is bound to be an entire section on Aboriginal art.
Travel if you can so you can learn more about other areas in QLD. The northern part of QLD should have some rich history.
Look into cross-cultural training. If you work for a public school then your Department of Education is likely to offer a free course for staff. I work for the Department of Health and we have a one day course which is compulsory for staff when they join the government. It starts with the pre-colonisation history, did a little around colonisation, and then went on to explain family structures, song lines, connections to the land, art work.
Look out for cultural events around your city and go along. I don’t mean the various marches, you generally won’t learn much from them.
QLD Tourism is another place to check out, they will for sure have information about things you can do, again where you’ll learn and can go away to research.
The QLD State Library will also be helpful. The librarians will be all over the earlier history. I’ve been to some really good talks at the NT Library and I’ve seen some amazing works. They’ll also help you with what books will be good to read.
About 4 years ago the people that run the cross cultural training for the NT Government put a booklet out where we were advised that ‘Indigenous’ is no longer the appropriate word to use and that we were to use ‘Aboriginal’ again. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander. To say ATSI as a word is no acceptable.
The info that u/_pewpew_pew has mentioned is the best to getting to the heart of local mob's history all over the joint. There are also the old academic stalwarts like Henry Reynolds and his work The Other Side of The Frontier - which gives some indication of the old messenger and trade lanes throughout different mob's country. His work also focuses predominantly on QLD nations and clans which might help create a clearer picture for you. The Aboriginal History Journal is also a great resource (also happens to be free online through the National Uni Press) with a load of topics across the board that might be of interest to you. An obvious plug is always Bill Gammage's Greatest Estate on Earth which is more exemplary of coastal groups along the eastern shore and likewise the 'layman-ised' Dark Emu by Pascoe - of which, rightly or wrongly, cops a lot of criticism.
Most of my resources are unfortunately post colonisation but they do often interrelate to what traditions or socio-cultural interactions were usual prior to 1788. For example, Reynolds discusses the use of magics and the conduct of warfare (raids and skirmishes) in TOSOTF. If you're interested, I can recommend some titles, and if mods read this, I'd love to see some more added to the booklist.
As with anything mob related: what goes for one, might not be the case for another and what we have remaining is very mish-mash and sometimes generalised across mob. Sometimes the participants in the history are blurred purely from the loss of language and people, in other places misidentified and/or misrepresented.
Best of luck to you, bud