Jakarda Wuka (Too Many Stories): Narratives of Rock Art from Yanyuwa Country in Northern Australia's Gulf...

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li-Yanyuwa li-Wirdiwalangu Liam M. Brady

Jakarda Wuka (Too Many Stories)

Narratives of Rock Art from Yanyuwa Country in Northern Australia's Gulf of Carpentaria

li-Yanyuwa li-Wirdiwalangu , Liam M. Brady, John Bradley , Amanda Kearney

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English

Sydney University Press
02 May 2023

History; Australasian & Pacific history; Prehistoric archaeology

Series: Tom Austen Brown Studies in Australasian Archaeology

WINNER OF THE AUSTRALIAN ARCHAEOLOGICAL ASSOCIATION’S JOHN MULVANEY BOOK AWARD 2023

“…ngabaya painted all this, you know when we were kids we would come here and look and sometimes the paintings would change, they were always changing.” Annie a-Karrakayny

Fully illustrated, Jakarda Wuka (Too Many Stories) draws on a combined 70+ years of collaborative research involving Yanyuwa Elders, anthropologists, and an archaeologist to tell a unique story about the rock art from Yanyuwa Country in northern Australia’s southwest Gulf of Carpentaria.

Australia’s rock art is recognised globally for its antiquity, abundance, distinctive motifs and the deep and abiding knowledge Indigenous people continue to hold for these powerful symbols. However, books about Australian rock art jointly written by Indigenous communities, anthropologists, and archaeologists are extremely rare.

Combining Yanyuwa and western knowledge, the authors embark on a journey to reveal the true meaning of Yanyuwa rock art. At the heart of this book is the understanding that a painting is not just a painting, nor is it an isolated phenomenon or a static representation. What underpins Yanyuwa perceptions of their rock art is kinship, because people are kin to everything and everywhere on Country.

Jakarda Wuka highlights the multidimensional nature of Yanyuwa rock art: it is an active social agent in the landscape, capable of changing according to different circumstances and events, connected to the epic travels and songs of Ancestral Beings (Dreamings), and related to various aspects of Yanyuwa life such as ceremony, health and wellbeing, identity, and narratives concerning past and present-day events.

In a time where Indigenous communities, archaeologists, and anthropologists are seeking new ways to work together and better engage with Indigenous knowledges to interpret the “archaeological record”, Jakarda Wuka delivers a masterful and profound narrative of Yanyuwa Country and its rock art.

This project was supported by the Australian Research Council and the McArthur River Mine Community Benefits Trust.

By: li-Yanyuwa li-Wirdiwalangu , Liam M. Brady, John Bradley, Amanda Kearney
Imprint: Sydney University Press
Country of Publication: Australia
Dimensions: Height: 254mm, Width: 178mm, Spine: 20mm
ISBN: 9781743328774
ISBN 10: 174332877X
Series: Tom Austen Brown Studies in Australasian Archaeology
Pages: 340
Publication Date: 02 May 2023
Audience: General/trade , Professional and scholarly , ELT Advanced , Undergraduate
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

li-Yanyuwa li-Wirdiwalangu (Yanyuwa Elders) are an Aboriginal Australian people of the Northern Territory who live in the coastal region inclusive of and opposite to the Sir Edward Pellew Group of Islands in the southern Gulf of Carpentaria. Assoc. Prof. Liam M. Brady, College of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences, Flinders University. His research is designed to challenge traditional, western-oriented approaches to interpreting and understanding the archaeological record, generate new insights into deep-time social interaction, and draw attention to new ways of thinking about partnership-based research practice with Indigenous communities. Associate Prof. John Bradley, Monash Indigenous Studies Centre, Monash University. John has worked alongside Indigenous communities in the southwest Gulf of Carpentaria in the Northern Territory, for more than 30 years. In that time he's developed a close bond with the local Yanyuwa people and is now among a tiny minority of people who speak Yanyuwa fluently. Prof. Amanda Kearney, School of Culture and Communication, University of Melbourne. Her research involves addressing themes of Indigenous experience, ways of knowing, land rights and the prevailing impact of settler colonial violence on Indigenous lives and lands and waters. Her research has developed with the kind support of Yanyuwa families, the Indigenous owners of land and sea in the southwest Gulf of Carpentaria, Australia.

Reviews for Jakarda Wuka (Too Many Stories): Narratives of Rock Art from Yanyuwa Country in Northern Australia's Gulf of Carpentaria

“This is a special collaboration between Yanyuwa elders, anthropologists and archaeologists. It aims to tell the story behind the rock art in southwest Gulf of Carpentaria. It comes with maps, and glorious photographs of works you may never see with your own eyes, with the aim of explaining as much as can be told about the songlines, the landscape, country and kin.” -- Caroline Overington * The Australian *