There is a growing body of evidence to suggest that some species are active promoters of fire in the northern Australian savannah landscapes, using small fire-sticks and embers to spread fire throughout the open grass and woodlands of the semi-tropical north.

The story deals with women harassed by men. However the painting’s subject is centred on the ascension of the women to the rank of stars. Their metamorphosis sublimes their deed to deliberately refuse the status of a permanent victim and act in consequence … In these paintings, there are neither stars nor women.

I was freelancing for rock’n'roll magazines and having the lazy time of my life. A visit from half a dozen traditional Aboriginal men from Australia’s Top End was well into the realms of the unpredictable, but they were rock’n'roll and so was I and that seemed enough to seal the occasion. Nonetheless I began battening down the hatches and warned all my friends that I had some pretty unusual visitors coming to stay. This is how it happened according to my diary at the time.

The Sunrize Band played extensively throughout the Northern Territory, Western Australia and Queensland and toured with Carlos Santana, Jimmy Barnes, Hunters & Collectors, Painters and Dockers, Paul Kelly, Spy v Spy, Bob Geldof and many more. One highlight was a tour to New Guinea, where, in Ngarritj’s words “Those crazy blackfellas in the audience threw coconuts and bananas at us as a sign of their appreciation.”

Yanyuwa traditional owners established the li-Anthawirriyarra (people of the sea) Sea Ranger Unit as a means for managing their vast estate. The rangers are employed to monitor and manage heritage sites such as Macassan camps; monitor and manage turtle and dugong populations and survey, map and eradicate feral animals.

The Tjanpi Desert Weavers have a whimsical and very often funny approach to their art and I’m sure more than a bit of that rubbed off on their northern counterparts, where often weaving is more utilitarian.
You can see some of the Tjanpi Weaver’s wonderful work at their website.Yesterday the Tjanpi’s whimsy won over the practical.

It is unsurprising that across Aboriginal Australia the Pleiades – and their heavenly companions in Orion’s Belt – are very much alive as actors in culture, life and the seasonal calendars that provided essential relationship between the lived here-and-now and the journeys and adventures of the heroic ancestors.

On Saturday new NT Chief Minister Mills flew to Gove on the far north-east of the NT. This was a very different trip to last week’s fly-in, fly-out trips to Nguiu, Ramingining and Wadeye. No triumph, no candidates, media or minders in tow. At the 2012 NT election the CLP didn’t put a dent in the firm 32-year Labor hold on the local seat of Nhulunbuy.

The new Timorese Government is not an oligarchy. For Aristotle an oligarchia designated the rule of the few for the few, rule that was exercised not by the best, but by bad men unjustly. Aristotle differentiated an oligarchy from an aristocracy where government by the few is vested in the best individuals. In the case of Timor the people (civil society) decided the best individuals are those that formed the government led by Xanana. It may be an aristocracy but it is an elected one.

A real highlight for me was catching up with Amadeo Rea, whose magistral book “Wings In The Desert ” on the ethnoornithology of the Northern Piman peoples is one of my all time favourites. I’m looking forward to bringing my interview with him to these pages soon.