Indigenous Culture Videos

A magnificent stretch of coastline in north-eastern Tasmania was named the Bay of Fires by a French explorer in 1773 as he watched the smoke rise from campfires lit by the first Tasmanians who knew it as Larapuna. We go on a sound journey along the coast, described by Lonely Planet as the `hottest´ travel destination in the world.

In 1956, Albert Namatjira made an unexpected visit to the Cootamundra Aboriginal Girls Training Home, where Lola Edwards was sent when she was just four years old. Namatjira must have been moved by the experience because on his return to Central Australia he painted the girls a gift. The painting, Arreyonga Paddock, James Range, hung in their dormitory until it was expropriated by Government officials in the 1960s. This year, Albert´s gift was donated to the National Museum of Australia. [This program was first broadcast on 19 September 2006]

The award-winning filmmaker Ivan Sen has produced a documentary about the life of the senior Aboriginal bureaucrat and firetalker, Charles Perkins. We talk with the film´s narrator, Charlie´s younger daughter Rachel. And the photomedia artist Dianne Jones imagines herself as a gun-pulling Elvis Presley and even a doe-eyed Jesus Christ in her latest series of works. She explains why. Also, we bring you the last in our series of dreaming stories, the Mermaid and Serpent, from the Wugularr community near Beswick Falls in the Northern Territory.

Nicole speaks with Gloria Larocque, who is from the Sturgeon Lake Cree Nation in northern Alberta and is currently completing her final year at UBC with a First Nations Degree. Gloria is one of the organizers of the annual Indigenous Women's Day in BC, and a member of the KETA society: www.keta.ca. She speaks about Indigenous Women's Day, A CD called Colours of My Life that is dedicated to love for the missing and murdered Aboriginal women of Canada, and issues facing Indigenous women today.

The Ngarinyin people of the northern Kimberley were shifted off their lands and forcibly settled at Mowanjum in 1956. Finally in 2003, the Federal Court ruled that the Ngarinyin had exclusive native title rights over their homelands. But the Ngarinyin had been fighting through the courts for years to regain their homelands and control of their rock art sites. In 1997, a group of Ngarinyin elders, led by the late David Mowaljarlai, took their struggle to UNESCO in Paris. They went to tell an international audience the value of their rock art, the wealth of cultural knowledge they hold about their country, and their fears that it would all be lost when they died. A warning: this program contains the voices of people who have passed away, including senior men from the Ngarinyin clan. This program was first broadcast on 25 July 1997.

In traditional culture, eldership was key to the social and political life of our communities, from the Yolngu to the Meriam people of the Torres Strait. We sit down with two respected leaders in their communities - Wali Wunungmurra, a senior elder of the Dhalwangu clan from north east Arnhem Land and chairman of the Northern Land Council and Ron Day, who represents Mer on the Torres Strait Islands Regional Council.

It's been over 21 years since Australia's first Indigenous media training course was established at Batchelor Institute in the Northern Territory. This coincided with the growth of black media and the birth of Radio Rum Jungle.

From a young Aboriginal bush kid to a staunch politician in the Northern Territory, Alison Anderson has taken it all in her stride. According to the Minister, who looks after four portfolios, it´s all got to do with education and challenging yourself. And - we hit the stage with a retelling of Dorothy Hewett´s The Man from Mukinupin, directed by Wesley Enoch and the historian Professor John Maynard muses on the rise and rise of conservative voices in Aboriginal politics.

Aboriginal resistance to what has been benignly termed the colonial project was sporadic but determined. A new exhibit at the National Museum attempts to tell a complex and multi-threaded story through the cases of four individuals the outlaw Noongar warrior Yagan, the diplomat Bilin Bilin, the extraordinary Fanny Bulbuk, who was an acquaintance of Daisy Bates, and Bullfrog, who survived the Coniston massacre. Teresa Napurrula Ross is a relative of Bullfrog and she interviewed some of those who witnessed the Coniston massacre, including her own father. Sixteen-year-old Axel Best is the great-great-great-great-grandson of Bilin Bilin, the Yugambeh clan leader who was known in his life as the King of the Logan and Pimpama rivers in south-eastern Queensland. Also in this program - Windmill Baby is an award-winning play about redemption set on a Kimberley cattle station. Rohanna Angus is the heart and soul of the play, written and directed by David Milroy. And we remember the life of Uncle Cec Fisher, an elder of the Murri community and a veteran of the Korean War.

How does being named Australian of the Year sit with Professor Mick Dodson? He talks about the need to reinstate the Racial Discrimination Act, the healthy diversity of opinion in Aboriginal politics and the post-apology future. He believes as a nation, `we can do better´. Also - Stephen Page, the driving force behind the country´s foremost Indigenous dance company, joins us to talk about Bangarra´s 20th anniversary. And we pay tribute to the late Aunty Maureen Watson - storyteller, activist and honourable ancestor.

We travel to one of Australia's most threatened freshwater wetlands, the Narran Lakes in north-western New South Wales and go on a journey through the lives of the Murris who call it home. And we return to the Lakes after minor flooding upstream in Queensland brought life and thousands of migratory birds back into the terminal lake system. 'Rivers lakes and plains' first broadcast 9 February 2008, 'Return to the Narran Lakes' first broadcast 10 May 2008

It's been more than 20 years since Sally Morgan wrote My Place, a memoir of her search for identity. It was an unexpected hit with the Australian public and is now even a prescribed text in schools. In this wide-ranging conversation, Sally Morgan speaks about a new anthology she's edited, Heartsick for Country, the protection of rock art sites in the Pilbara threatened by mining and her personal journey since My Place was first published. This program was first broadcast on 3 May 2008

Joe Ross is a Bunuba man from the limestone country west of the Kimberley township of Fitzroy Crossing. An electrician by trade, he's a strong leader in his community. Last year, he supported a call for a ban on takeaway alcohol sales, led by the Fitzroy Crossing Womens' Resource Centre. He says the ban has created a sense of hope and optimism in his community. Also in this program we hear about a new umbrella group representing art centres in the Ngaanyatjarra Lands in remote Western Australia. And we bring you a Ngaanyatjarra dreaming - the Sunbird story from Warburton in the Gibson Desert. Click image to view the Sunbird Video Watch Sunbird

Language death has been likened to the death of a culture, a way of life and the collective identity of its speakers. This week we ask: what is the future of bilingual education in the Northern Territory, where Aboriginal languages are the strongest? There are moves underway to force the Territory's nine bilingual schools to teach the first four hours of each day in what's to many students from remote communities a foreign language, English. In contrast, Aboriginal communities throughout the rest of the country are attempting to recover their lost languages.

He's been described as the black Elvis, but that's probably more to do with the luxurious quiff and the cowboy boots. Dan Sultan has been cast in the new film version of the Jimmy Chi musical Bran Nue Dae, and this week Dan joins us backstage at the Australasian World Music Expo to talk about the movie and his forthcoming new album. Also, we drop in on a major survey of the batik movement which flourished in the Central Desert and bring you the next in our series of dreaming stories - this week, the Devil Devil Story from Jilkminggan. Watch Devil Devil

A rare music collaboration brings together a group of culturally strong women from the Tiwi Islands off Darwin and a 6-piece jazz outfit from Sydney. Ngarukuruwala means 'we sing songs together' in the Tiwi language, and in this program we present a full concert recording from the Sydney Opera House. The Wangatunga Women's Group from Bathurst Island are the heart of this collaboration, and the jazz, blues and swing band led by Genevieve Campbell its musical backbone.