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Colour satellite image with hand-drawn pictorial additions

Tracey Andrews and Lyn Moore
Balranald Region 2000
colour satellite image with hand-drawn pictorial additions;
28.9 x 28.9 cm
MAP RM 3480

INDIGENOUS COUNTRY

More than 40 000 years ago, ancestors of Australia’s Indigenous people made a difficult and dangerous journey across ocean waters, probably from the islands of South-East Asia, to reach this land. They established themselves across the continent, their lives regulated by Dreamtime spiritual belief and customary law, and influenced by varying climates and the availability of food and other resources.

Seasonal foods would dictate movement within a group’s traditional lands, and wider travel might be required to trade for items such as ochre or axe-heads. With about 250 different languages spoken, and long distances to travel (often across the country of other groups), Indigenous people developed travel and trade routes, and evolved communication systems to pass messages to their own scattered groups or negotiate passage through others’ lands.

Some of these traditional travel and trading routes, such as those now known as the Oodnadatta Track and the Birdsville Track, have become roadways for the contemporary transport of stock, goods, local residents—and tourists interested in learning about the culture and traditions of Indigenous Australia.