Indigenous People of the Kimberley
THE COMING OF A NEW ORDER
An Australian Produced Educational Resource for Upper Primary and High School
Available on DVD and Windows CD-ROM
This twenty-minute documentary, tells the story of the Aboriginal People of Australia’s Kimberley district, whose history with the land dates back over 50,000 years, to when man first settled on the Australian continent.
As well as being one of the first areas settled, the Kimberley
was also to become one of the last areas of productive land in Australia,
where Indigenous People lived in their traditional manner, free from the
influence of European settlement.
The program shows how the intrusion of European gold miners and pastoralists,
following Alexander Forrest’s 1879 expedition of discovery, brought
about a period of change and upheaval to this ancient civilisation, and
introduced the Indigenous People to a New Order that was to challenge
their very existence.
The program consists of one DVD documentary, and one CD-ROM, formatted for Windows.
The CD-ROM contains the documentary, interactive review, teachers’ guide and student work sheets.
A word from our Indigenous Adviser- Rodney Rivers
from
the Gooniyandi Language Group. 
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The program begins with a brief description of how the Indigenous
people of the Kimberley lived prior to the invasion of the Europeans. |
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| It tells how the Aboriginals reacted to the intrusion on their land, and reveals how any resistance by the Indigenous people was met by brutal violence from the Europeans. |
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| It shows that in addition to the Aboriginal's land, the pastoralists also needed their labour, and tells of the ways they went about obtaining it. |
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| It tells of when the Indigenous people began killing the pastoralist's livestock, either for food or in an effort to remove them from their land, they were hunted down and brought to trial by police. |
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| When found guilty, they were either sent to prison and forced labour in the coastal towns of the Kimberley, or shipped thousands of kilometres away to Rottnest Island prison off the coast of Perth. Many never returned to their native land.
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After viewing this program, students should have a basic understanding of...
- Indigenous culture, prior to European settlement of the Kimberley
- how the Great Gold Rush of the 1850’s sparked a period of European growth and expansion in Australia, creating a huge demand for land;
- Alexander Forrest’s 1879 expedition into the Kimberley, and how his favourable report started a rush by European miners and pastoralists to take up the land;
- how the Aboriginals reacted to the intrusion on their land, and how any resistance by the Indigenous people was met by violence from the Europeans;
- the system of the Indigenous People allowing stock on their land in return for meat, and why it was accepted by some and rejected by others;
- the realisation by the pastoralists that, in addition to the Aboriginal people's land, they also needed their labour, and the ways they went about obtaining it;
- how the Aboriginals tradition of sharing, clashed with the European concept of property ownership, and how these cultural differences caused violent feuds to break out between the Indigenous People and the pastoralists.
The following is a letter from the Kimberley Language Resource Centre outlining their use of the Coming of a New Order pogram among the Aboriginal People of the Kimberley.
The Kimberley Language Resource Centre (KLRC*)
highly recommends the DVD Coming of a New Order for classroom teaching
across Australia.
The KLRC has used the DVD in cross-cultural training workshops and shown the DVD to Kimberley Aboriginal People of various ages. The cross-cultural workshops involved several non-Aboriginal teacher participant groups. Other audiences have included Aborininal teaching assistants from schools across the Kimberley and Halls Creek and Fitzroy Crossing elders.
The Response to the documentary has been extremely positive, even though the content can be confronting.
For non-Aboriginal audiences it provides information they have never been told before. They did not learn about the traumatic and tragic consequences of colonisation when they were at school. The Kimberley Region was the last area of Australia to be colonised, and these experiences are kept in living memory. For non-Aboriginal people working in, or visiting, the Kimberley, this information is crucial to understanding the challenges that still face Aboriginal people.
Aboriginal aduiences have found the content distressing, but at the same time feel it is important all Australians know the history of Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal contact and the effects on traditional Aboriginal society. They also believe that their own children are missing out because this history is not taught in schools.
For young Australians nationwide it tells a story that is repeated all over the country and may lead them to ask more questions about the history of Aboriginal people in their part of the country.
*The KLRC is an Aboriginal community organisation set up to advocate for Kimberley Aboriginal language groups and to support community owned and managed language maintenance projects. The organisation is governed by an Executive Committee of language speakers and language activists representative of the 28 spoken languages from across the region.
The South Australian Aboriginal Education Review Committee gave the following review:
"We were impressed with the production and quality. We believe that it contains historical and educationally valuable film footage and information and is an excellent teaching and learning resource. We have recommended it for the South Australian Curriculum, Standards and Accountability Framework as a resource for Aboriginal Perspectives from the middle to senior years of schooling."
The NSW Department of Education and Training Aboriginal Programs Unit gave the following review:
Your resource does not rely on high-technology production values but rather exclusively on the time honoured narrative presentation style, supported by interesting archival photographic and film material, both of which are used to very good effect. The style and presentation of your resource, whilst fairly traditional, is concise and well paced. Establishing the geographical context of the Kimberley such as its river systems, landform, and the central theme of the connection between the Indigenous people and the land, sets the scene for progressing to the historical context of the Kimberley.
Your treatment of the impact of the influx of white people on the Indigenous people of the Kimberley and the corresponding changes to the land usage imposed by gold mining and pastoralism has been well documented. In addition, the narrative is neither inflammatory nor sensationalised. The black and white archival photographic and moving picture material, which you have utilised, speaks for itself leaving no need to embellish the obvious facts of white invasion.
Indigenous People of the Kimberley "The Coming of a New Order"
consists of a twenty minute documentary presented on DVD and Windows or
Macintosh CD-ROM. The CD-ROM also contains an interactive review, teachers’
guide and student work sheets.
1 Set (1 DVD & 1 CD- ROM) $137.50 Unlimited Site Licence $33.00
Indigenous People of the Kimberley "The Backbone of the Pastoral Industry"
Special offer; Order both "The
Coming of a New Order" and
"The Backbone of the Pastoral Industry" with Unlimited Site
Licence
and receive "The Aboriginal People of
Australia" on Audio CD Free.
"The Aboriginal People of Australia" on Audio CD tells the history and culture of Australia's Aboriginal People. Comprising of two 20 minute parts. Complete with Teachers' Guide, Student Work Sheets and Follow-up Activities.
