First Knowledges: Innovation

I've enjoyed reading all the volumes in the First Knowledges series (this is the seventh title, and there are at least four more scheduled), but Innovation: Knowledge and Ingenuity, by the husband and wife team of Ian McNiven and Lynette Russell, is one of the best. It serves as a brief, digestible history of Australian First Nations peoples and the adaptations and inventions they have made over their long 65,000 year occupation of this continent.

There has long been a notion that First Nations people lived in a static, changeless world, stuck in a 'Stone Age' lifestyle. In fact, they were quick to adapt and change as their environment changed, willing to develop new methods of hunting and trapping (like the ancient, massive fish traps at Budj Bim), adopting some foreign inventions (like using Reckitt's Blue laundry powder for painting, or glass and ceramic for spearheads) and rejecting others. Even when missionaries attempted to introduce Christianity to First Nations communities, it was usually added to their existing spiritual beliefs, rather than replacing them.

It's impossible to read this book and not come away with a profound admiration for the resilience and ingenuity of First Nations people, both before and after colonisation.