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instead explains to students why Indigenous people did not use the natural resources available
of coal and gold, pointing to “value depends on usefulness” (Department of Education, 1955/
1966, p. 5) as the contributing factor to selection of natural resources (for example, trees over
coal) to use.
Although the narrative does not overtly articulate that the valuing of Indigenous knowledges
as equal to non-Indigenous knowledges, it does so in a less explicit way, by first using
respectful language towards the protagonist; and second through phrases such as:
As Kooloona roamed his hunting-grounds, he caught, perhaps, a glint of yellow stone
in a creek bed. To him it was a stone among other stones, and nothing more. Gold
had no value in Kooloona’s life. In his eyes its very softness rendered it useless and
therefore a thing of no value. The black stone he sometimes saw in seams across a
cliff face was of no value to him. He had no use for coal; fallen branches were
sufficient to feed his fires. (Department of Education, 1955/1966, p. 5)
The images used are two photographs of Indigenous Australians in traditional environments,
but unlike other textbooks this is not out of context to the narrative or the history that is being
presented. Instead these images add richness to the narrative by providing an illustration for
students to focus on when reading the narrative as a type of visual cue to represent the
fictional protagonist, Kooloona. The photographed captioned “An Australian Aboriginal”
(Department of Education, 1955/1966, p. 5), although presents an anonymity of Indigenous
Australians similar to other textbooks during this era; seems to be included for students to
imagine that it is Kooloona, thereby illuminating the narrative through images. Similarly, the
first image of the textbook, a photograph of two Indigenous men holding spears and walking
is representative of the activities Kooloona engages in through the narrative.
6.10.2 Discourses of key terms that describe Indigenous Australians.
To conclude the analysis of textbook content from this era, two extracts will be used to
demonstrate resistant uses of terminology in Indigenous representations. Occasionally
alternative terms are used to describe the colonisation of Britain, long before the kerfuffle of
the 1994 incident over the use of the term “invasion” (as detailed in Appendix A: Contexts).
Use of the word “occupation” in Landmarks: A history of Australia to the present day
(Blackmore et al., 1969, p. 165) is very radical for this era, as generally textbooks refer to the
British period of colonisation as “settlement” (see, for example, Logue et al., 1965, p. 352;
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