Lamalama Country: Our country, our culture-way.(Book review)

Lamalama Country: Our country, our culture-way

Paddy Bassani and Albert Lakefield with Tom Popp 2006

Edited by Bruce Rigsby and Noelene Cole

Akito in association with Arts Queensland, Brisbane, x+70pp, ISBN 0 646 45686 5

Lamalama Country provides the reader with a good insight into Indigenous Australian appreciation and management of country and resources. The perspective is that of two senior men who were grown up in that country. They list and picture a variety of plants and animals and tell the reader a little about their environmental and cultural significances. Their Indigenous voice is to the fore. Their account is set in context by a useful Preface and Introduction provided by the editors. It talks of groups removed from their traditional lands under the Queensland legislation and their enduring desire to return to look after the Country of their …