Jakarda Wuka (Too Many Stories)

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. Assoc. 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.

“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

• AcknowledgementsList of figuresList of mapsList of tablesGlossaryForeword by Ian McNivenForeword by Peter HiscockA story about Saltwater People and their rock artA framework to understand Yanyuwa rock art: kinship and relationshipsCreative expressions and rock art in the southwest Gulf of CarpentariaRock art of Wuyaliya clan CountryRock art of Wurdaliya clan CountryRock art of Rrumburriya clan CountryRock art of Mambaliya-Wawukarriya clan CountryMainland rock art: Wurdaliya and RrumburriyaThe importance of rock art and Country for Yanyuwa PeopleReferences