Since I have all of Tony O'Connor's CDs, there are tracks on each that I prefer. On Kakadu, I really enjoy track 3 with the Aboriginal digerdoo. His ability to transport one to the environment about which he is "making music" is amazing.

We have 9 of T.C's CD's, and each one is a favorite for late night relaxation and good listening. Gave 2 to a friend who was in hospital for 5 days. They made her stay very tolerable and she hasn't given them back. My massage lady plays them in her massage rooms and has had many requests from her clients. Very unusual sounds. I highly recommend any of his CD's. He has a new one, "Live at Sydney Opera House". Wish that I had been there. Tony and his wife are two very talented people.

Having grown up in Utah my brain was filled with positive stories of Mormon and American Indian relations. It would not until many years later, when I started researching local American Indian information, that my eyes were widely open to the myth of my childhood education.
I met Gary Weicks several years ago when he was compiling a manuscript from the intensive research he had done. It started as a project for a Forest Service archeological dig in the Strawberry Valley. He was researching for information on the Army maneuvers held there in 1888. However, it became very intriguing to him to read of the Ute interactions that were written in Army reports. It took him on a new adventure researching the history of the Ute and this adventure took many fascinating twists.
As I read the book it seemed there was a new twist every few pages. It definitely gives you a new look on Ute and Anglo interactions. I believe a book like this is way overdue. It's time to bury the myths of the past and teach the true facts of Utah history.
This is a must read book for anyone who is interested in the old west, military, Mormon, Utah or Native American history. The book also spends time telling about the Lost Rhoades Mines Legend and the early miners of the area. It reveals the comprehensive story of a previously unpublished chapter in Utah history.
Weicks states that, "For over 400 years before the Mormon arrival in 1847, many of the Northern Utes and their preto historic ancestors lived in relative peace and stability within the territory currently encompassing much of Utah. In less than twenty years of settlement by the Brethren in their newest Land of Zion, the collective authorities of the Mormon Church, Bureau of Indian Affairs and U.S. Army convinced Congress to officially dispossess these Northern Utes of all their traditional and best lands except for the sprawling and considerably barren wastes of the Uintah Reservation located in northeastern Utah. By Church Prophet and President Brigham Young's own accounting, several bands of these original first contact Indians - through starvation, pestilence and white inspired epidemics - had experienced somewhere between a 90% to 99% mortal attrition rate in their numbers by 1867."
He goes on to say that, "In the mid-1870s Brigham Young, searching for new areas to colonize with land-seeking church members, began a policy that actively encouraged the Utes to depopulate their reservation where treatment by BIA officials over the years was poor and inefficient. Through the Church leader's ability to significantly control both Indian movements and affairs in Utah, Brigham began quiet efforts to induce Congress to throw open the Uintah Reservation to homesteading. Though the soil was largely infertile, the valuable water, timber and grazing resources of the country were coveted by the surrounding Latter Day faithful as well as the large cattle companies."
Brigham Youngs death slowed down this progress. Problems in Colorado with the Ute pushed many Colorado Ute tribes into Utah in the late 1870s.
In the 1880s mining interests on the Uintah and Uncompahgre Reservations gave another push to move the Utes off their reservations. The depression of 1893 renewed this push.
Weicks said, "In 1897, when the great Klondike Gold Rush began in Canada, Americans were caught up in the frenzy of seizing the moment and embracing the chance of renewed wealth regardless of the ravages of the lingering depression. Additional strikes in Alaska in 1899 and 1902 inspired an entire nation to get swept away in the gold fever so prevalent, especially in the West. Old mining tales, such as the Lost Rhoades Mines Legend centered on the Uintah Reservation, were resurrected and received serious attention throughout Utah and surrounding states. These wild stories of incredible riches sustained additional forward momentum to throw open the Uintah Reservation shortly after the turn of the century."
I found This Was the Place: The Darker Side of Mormon Zion to be written passionately and with a folksy wit making it enjoyable reading. It is written in a way that makes it easygoing and hard to lay down.

This Was the Place is the story of the fate of the Indians of Utah and Colorado in the 1800s. Like many Native American tribes, the Utes, Goshutes, and related tribes, were pushed from one piece of land to another, made promises by the government that were never kept, and were ignored when they were hungry and poor and their ability to feed themselves had been taken away from them.

Weicks gives a well-researched, detailed account of the machinations of government, civilians, military, and Indians as all jockeyed for position. He has used primary and secondary sources, and interviews with historians and experts of today. It's an intelligent accounting of who was there and the sequence of events.

Anyone interested in the history of Utah and Colorado, the tribes living in that area, and relations between white and Indian, will find this book of great interest.

Wisdom Of Stones is really good. I am Australian and I loved it. I don't know why everyone is complaining about the first 30 pages . I thought they were great. I also recommend The Further Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn. Greg now resides in Australia again. Welcome home Greg. John Baranyai

This is typical Greg Matthews, which means that it's superb. This story begins in pre-WWII Australia, but it's mostly a war story, with an especially vivid rendering of a prisoner-of-war camp. There are about 30 pages near the beginning that don't work (no conflict, no action, no nothing) but the rest of the novel is so great that it has to get five stars.

I just recently returned from Australia and I visited the Aboriginal Cultural Center. I purchased the book at the center and found it to be a good introduction to the culture and the poetry. Although the book is presently out of print, it is well worth the effort to secure a copy. I am presently searching for additional copies for gifts. The photography and the poetry are quite exceptional.

The carvings sit, unnoticed by most, on a shelf locked behind glass at the Yellowknife court house. Anybody who walked up and saw them would have no idea of their origin, would have no idea of the social history behind these lumps of soapstone (and one stuffed bird).

Eber's book provides the link. I walked past these carvings virtually every day before reading Eber's book, barely noticing their existence. Now, knowing the stories behind them and the people behind them, I have a much greater appreciation.

This book is a must for anyone interested in Inuit art or the social history of Northern Canada. Recommended highly.

I love this book and reread it every couple of years. It has always been my dream to live in the wilderness for a year, as this honeymooning couple did.
It is well and simply written, with a few maps but only disappointingly blurry pictures. There's lots of great description, including the occasional tedium of holing up for the winter, the joys they had exploring the area once spring arrived, and the terror of dealing with wolves (or was it bears?) trying to break into their cabin.
They are candid about what they did wrong and how they dealt with spending so much uninterrupted time together.

This is such an easy read, you just can't wait to read more. She has a great way with words. This tale tells the story of Maisie's life from when she was a child, travelling around Australia in the early years with her family. Mum cooking in the most raw conditions and children sleeping on a piece of canvas stretched between four rough hewn pegs to keep them off the ground away from the creepy crawlies and cold. She ended up in the Northern Territory, running her own pub at a time when women publicans were really unheard of. Maisie gained the respect of many locals and travellers alike, a hard working woman, with a great generous heart. I work in a public library, where i saw this book censored by a reader. She was an elderly woman who disliked greatly some of the words Maisie used in her book. To the average wide reading person, the words were what we see every day but this lady took it upon herself to black out all the words she did not like with a black texta colour. At least she did not deny doing it when approached! although she did not like me giving her a small telling off for censoring the book. Anyway, back to the story, if there are any others like me who dive on anything set in early Northern Territory, outback life, grab this, you will love it. Up there with the good ones, like Tom Ronan and Tom Cole.

His brother, James, wrote 'Revolution by Night'. Do not go past this book if you want to learn about Aboriginal Art; a book compiled by a bloke who loves the Aboriginal people.

Strict Rules takes us back to 1986 and on tour with Midnight Oil and the Warumpi Band as they bring their distinctive styles of rock through the Aboriginal settlements of the outback. But this is more than a rock'n'roll road trip, it's a sensitive insight into the tragic history and ongoing struggle of Australia's original inhabitants. Intensely interesting. A must read not only for Midnight Oil fans, but for anyone with an interest in indigenous culture.

Ernestine Hill visited Australia's Northern Territory in the 1940s and her text from those years is still of significant value today. Whether the old characters she met in those days are gone or not (they are not all gone - it's still possible to find some of them out in the mulga), the stories she tells about them and this extraordinary land are still worth reading, perhaps more than ever. The Territory is still off the beaten track (except perhaps for Darwin and Kakadu) and the colour you get from a book written forty or fifty years ago is still vivid and impressive. At the time she wrote it (if memory serves me, she was a journalist working in Sydney or Melbourne, who was taking time off to travel Australia), the outback was still extremely remote and unknown even to most Australians. She was criticised by some of the people she wrote about, as having no idea what the place "was really like" and for being "a Southerner" who knew nothing about the north. Yet I for one, who lived for four years in the Top End, appreciated her text very much and I think we can be extremely happy today that she managed to get it published. It will take you back to a world, much of which is gone forever. Yet if you get the chance to stop a bit in the north, you'll be surprised what you find, and Hill's book might just put you on the trail of discovery.

Ernestine Hill wrote a number of books about northern Australia, one other of which I've read. "Australian Frontier" is her story of a trip around the coast from Perth to Darwin in the 40s and it is also well worth reading. In particular she tells some stories of the pearling days in Broome and Darwin, which are worth having a look at. I just hope books like these won't remain out of print forever.