AUSTRALIANA ABORIGINAL INDIGENOUS AUSTRALIAN ART
“The People of the Sun and Shadow are the Spinifex people. The duality reflects their association with land, defines their kinship and is the backbone of their religion. That association with land, law and people continued, cocooned within the spinifex plains of the Western Desert, for hundreds of generations until the Spinifex People were shaken from their nomadic solitude by the atomic shock of Maralinga. It was 1952 and the Spinifex people were about to meet white Australia.”
About 1,200 Aboriginal people were exposed to radiation during the testing. The radioactive fallout, called “puyu” (black mist) by Aboriginal people, caused sore eyes, skin rashes, diarrhoea, vomiting, fever and the early death of entire families. The explosion caused blindness.
The People of the Sun and Shadow, the Spinifex People, were cocooned within the Spinifex plains of the Western Desert for hundreds of generations until shaken from their nomadic solitude by the atomic shock of Maralinga. When they returned to their homelands in the 1980s, after their displacement, they found the southern third of their country had been converted into a nature reserve, the northern third leased to Aboriginal people in the north and the center deemed vacant crown land. This is a detailed account, in words and artworks, of the culture and history of the Spinifex People, an almost invisible people in modern Australia.
260 p. : ill. (some col.), maps, ports. ; 28 cm. First Edition. #030623 Bibliography: p. 254-260. Aboriginal Corporation stamp on inside cover and prelim.
Painting, Aboriginal Australian — Western Australia — Western Desert. | Aboriginal Australians — Land tenure — Western Australia. | Torres Strait Islanders — Land tenure. | Aboriginal Australians — Western Australia — Western Desert. | Land use — Western Australia. | Stories and motifs. | Culture – Relationship to land. | Art – Painting. | Land rights – Ownership. | Food. | Kukatja people (A68) (WA SF52-02) | Pitjantjatjara people (C6) (NT SG52-11) | Geography – Territories and boundaries. | Native title – Law and legislation – Western Australia. | Outstations / Homelands movement. | Defence – Missile and weapons testing – Nuclear weapons. | Ngalia / Ngalea people (C2) (SA SH52-07) | Stories and motifs – Mythological beings. | Native title – Law and legislation – Commonwealth. | Sites – Dreaming tracks. | Indigenous knowledge – World view. | Pindiini language A102 iatsisl. | Maralinga (Far West SA SH52-12) | Great Victoria Desert (SE WA SH52) | Cundeelee map area (SE WA SH51-11) | Nullarbor Plain (SE WA, Far West SA SH51, SH52, SI52) | Tjuntjuntjara (SE WA SH52-05) | Cundeelee (SE WA SH51-11) | Coonana (SE WA SH51-11)