Working Papers
The working papers collection comprises historical papers as well as current ideas and works in progress on some of the major issues and topics of our times.
“Bran Nue Dae” is kriol, pidgin spelling. There were so many different nationalities aboard the pearling luggers of late nineteenth and twentieth century Broome that a dialect had to emerge. Not only did a dialect emerge but so too did a unique cultural creativity that was busting at the seams to talk about justice, life and freedom. That is what is at the heart of Bran Neu Dae, perhaps Australia’s greatest musical ever written to date.
Bushfire reflections on fourteen years of working papers, reports and writing.
Stephen “Bamba” Albert was a giant on whose shoulders we are all carried.
Kakadu plum (Terminalia ferdinandiana) which is known as gubinge, madoorr, madoorroo (Bardi), garbiny (Yawuru), kabinyn (Nyul Nyul), marnybi (Wadeye), nghul nghul, manhmohpan, murunga (East, Central, North East Arnhem) \äṉ’ka-bakarra (North East Arnhem) and colloquially “billy goat plum”, has come, correctly, to be labelled, as a `’super food` but it is much more than that.1 Of all Australian native fruits the chemistry of the kakadu fruit and tree has multi-various therapeutic and bio-active applications for world food, medical, bio-security, beauty, health and manufacturing industries. For the many Northern Aboriginal worlds this borum (bush fruit) symbolizes a strength, vitality and healthfulness of an ancient world that for the first time, the modern world, has come to recognise and seeks in great quantities.
In 1995 Mrs. P. B. Burarrwaŋa and the students of Gatirri School, Mata Mata illustrated a song that she and her nephew George had written and reflected on. It was all about their homeland and the life they led in North East Arnhem land and the islands of the Arafura sea.
A Tribute to Ḻiya-ŋärra’mirri - Mrs. P. B. Burarrwaŋa, July 2 1956 – December 19 2018 & Goŋ-gurtha Mrs. A. M.M. Burarrwaŋa, circa 1954-2019
A selection of images from the bäpurru honouring Ms. P. B. Burarrwaŋa & Ms. A.M.M Burarrwaŋa, July/August 2019
Over many years Mrs. P. B. Burarrwaŋa worked on projects and ideas in the form of an ongoing creative trust for empowering her Mata Mata homelands community.
Notes of a Short Verbal Eulogy for Mrs. P.B. Burarrwaŋa, Friday July 19, 2019, Mata Mata
“My culture tells me that I cannot turn my back on the saltwater”.
Nardaparli/Vida Brown, Wreck Bay, Feb 22, 2017
