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ABR Arts

Book of the Week

Näku Dhäruk: The Bark Petitions – How the people of Yirrkala changed the course of Australian democracy
History

Näku Dhäruk: The Bark Petitions – How the people of Yirrkala changed the course of Australian democracy by Clare Wright

The Yirrkala Bark Petitions were intensely significant in Australian politics, contributing not only to major changes in race relations in Australia but to the way Australians understood their country’s history and its future. Clare Wright’s Näku Dhäruk is a lucid, accessible, and engaging account of those 1963 Yolngu1 Petitions from the Yirrkala region of Arnhem Land: her book will deservedly be read widely and throw new light on the complex events which shaped this turbulent time. Yet as powerful and moving as this book is, it will leave some readers with lingering questions. This review will outline some of its many strengths, and will also suggest some of those questions.

From the Archive

February 2004, no. 258

Paddy's Road: Life Stories of Patrick Dodson by Kevin Keeffe

For many Australians, Patrick Dodson is the guy with the land rights hat and flowing beard. With Paddy‘s Road: Life Stories of Patrick Dodson, Kevin Keeffe ensures that Dodson will also be remembered for being the first Aboriginal priest and for his contributions to the reconciliation movement.

More a homage than a warts-and-all tale, Keeffe’s tome contains numerous feel-good and funny moments. For example, we learn that Dodson, the so-called ‘father of reconciliation’, was born in a laundry toilet, ‘nearly drowning in the Phenyl used for cleaning the ... pans’; and that Patrick’s grandfather, Paddy Djiagween, claimed his citizenship rights in person.

From the Archive

October 2001, no. 235

Colonial Consorts: The wives of Victoria’s governors, 1839–1900 by Marguerite Hancock

Nineteenth-century Victoria was reputed one of Britain’s most turbulent colonies. For more than twenty-five years, a liberal Legislative Assembly fought a conservative Legislative Council over reform of the constitution, control of Crown Lands, Protectionism and secular education. In the middle ground between the forces stood the governor, the umpire who was the Queen’s representative, the fount of authority, the conduit for honours, and the head of society, presiding over what passed for a court in Melbourne.

From the Archive

October 2001, no. 235

Tigers on the Silk Road by Katherine Gallagher

Tigers and ‘the Silk Road to Istanbul’ feature in Part I of ‘1969’, the opening poem in this volume, which traces a hopeful setting forth into the undiscovered spaces of Asia and Europe. It is playfully exotic even while the homeward pull of a relationship envelops perception like a cloudscape: