Theme

Navigation, Seafaring and Canoe Technology

Australian First Nations

Summary

This theme, created May 2023, uses "Seafaring: Canoeing Ancient Songlines" by Victor Briggs as starting point for exploring the technology and innovation of canoes, navigation and seafaring more generally. It covers materials used in the creation of canoes as well as their design and construction. It also draws in ocean-going navigation in the western Pacific.

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Related Themes

Published resources

Books

  • Briggs, Victor, Seafaring: canoeing ancient songlines (Broome, Western Australia: Magabala Books Aboriginal Corporation, 2023), 112 pp. Details
  • Cary, John William, Kangaroo and canoe: First Peoples and early European Australia (Kew, Vic.: Australian Scholarly Publishing, 2020), 215 pp. Details
  • Edwards, Robert, Aboriginal Bark Canoes of the Murray Valley (Adelaide: Rigby for the South Australian Museum, 1972), 80 pp. Details
  • McNiven, Ian J; and Russell, Lynette, Innovation: Knowledge and Ingenuity (Port Melbourne: Thames and Hudson, 2023), 256 pp. See Chapter 2 and pages 67, 74, 128, 129 150, 156-158. Details

Edited Books

  • Arthur, Bill; Morphy, Frances ed., Macquarie Atlas of Indigenous Australia (Sydeny, New South Wales: Macquarie Dictionary Publishers (Pan Macmillan Australia Pty Ltd), 2019), 293 pp. See Chapters 4 and 5 pp 36-63. Details

Journal Articles

  • Norris, Pay P., 'Dawes review 5: Australian Aboriginal astronomy and navigation', Publications of the Astronomical Society of Australia, 33 (2016), 1-39, https://doi.org/10.1017/pasa.2016.25. Details
  • Norris, Ray P.; and Harney, Bill Yidumduma, 'Songlines and Navigation in Wardaman and Other Australian Aboriginal Cultures', Journal of Astronomical History and Heritage, 17 (2) (2014), 141-8. Details
  • Smith, Lloyd, 'Use of Australian Hardwoods in Heavy Structures in Southern New Zealand', Australian Journal of Multi-disciplinary Engineering, 6 (1) (2008), 77-86, https://search.informit.org/doi/10.3316/informit.167206005094118. Details
  • Walker, M., 'Navigating Oceans and Cultures: Polynesian and European Navigation Systems in the Late Eighteenth Century', Journal of the Royal Society of New Zealand, 42 (2) (2012), 93-8. Details

Gavan McCarthy [P004098]

Created: 29 May 2023, Last modified: 6 October 2023

EOAS ID: biogs/P007232b.htm

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Published by Swinburne University of Technology.
This Edition: 2024 November (Ballambar - Gariwerd calendar - early summer - season of butterflies)
Reference: http://www.bom.gov.au/iwk/calendars/gariwerd.shtml#ballambar
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Cite this page: https://www.eoas.info/biogs/P007232b.htm

"... the rengitj, as a visible mark or imprint on the land, is characterised as a place of origin, the repository of all names, as well as a kind of mapped visual expression of the connection between people and places which is to be carried out in the temporal sequence of the journey." Fanca Tamisari (1998) 'Body, Vision and Movement: In the footprints of the ancestors'. Oceania 68(4) p260