The Wailing: A National Black Oral History by Stuart Rintoul

Book Description

Secondhand. Good condition. Wear to book corners and edges. Some minor marks on front cover top left corner. Book covered in plastic contact. Previous owner has signed inside page, now covered with blank ex libris bookplate sticker.

A hungry young girl sneaks under a missionary's fence and steals the swill from a pigs' trough. Eight children are ripped from the bosom of their families in a single day. A boy is hung in a sack on a clothesline as punishment. A woman gets a letter in the mail telling her that because she has married a white man, she herself is now white. A child runs in terror from the welfare authorities and whispers to her grandmother the question that has haunted black Australia for two centuries: 'Iwenhenge? Why?'

These are just some shocking realities of life for Australia's indigenous people, from behind the stile that divided white and black Australians.

This book is about memories; about the 'long time', of poison in the flour, deadening years of protection and assimilation. But it is also about the pride and power of black Australia in 1993. (Trove)

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