Ochre and Rust: Artefacts and Encounters on Australian Frontiers by Philip Jones

Book Description

Secondhand. Very good condition. Ex library copy with no external stickers. Partial date due slip on inside. Minor wear to book corners and edges.

In the Flinders Ranges, a Kuyani man presents a cake of ochre to a European doctor, in earnest proof that the threatened ochre mine is 'as important as the Bible is to Christians'. As netted bags are exchanged for cloth south of Port Darwin, a surveyor's linguistic hobby draws him close to Djerimanga People, near enough to become the unwitting victim of the blood debt.

Ochre and Rust takes nine Aboriginal and colonial artefacts from their museum shelves, and positions them at the centre of these gripping, poignant tales set in the heart of Australia's frontier zone.

As the exchange of the ethnographic objects drew Europeans into an appreciation of Aboriginal culture, new commodities brought Aboriginal people across frontiers into settlements and towns. But while spears and shields accrued value as they passed from Aboriginal hands, European commodities, desired at the moment of contact, soon powdered or turned to rust. (book flap)

Philip Jones is a curator and historian, based at the South Australian Museum.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers, please note that this book may contain descriptions and/or images of people who have passed away.