1. Babies
2. Bilingual books
3. Board books
4. Country
5. Culture
6. Plants
7. Storytelling
8. Warlpiri people (C15) (NT SF52-04)

This colourful board book created by Warlpiri Elders celebrates the central role storytelling has played in the Warlpiri way of life. The book shows how Warlpiri children are given a good start in life. The smoking ceremony evokes the ancestral beings, the laws and the land connecting with the child and provides the pathway to being healthy in mind, body and spirit and knowing how to behave into the future.

The opening double page spread contains a reflective mirror to further enhance the message of the baby’s inclusion in Warlpiri Culture and traditions. Respect for parents and for their land or Country are important messages expressed in both Warlpiri and English words and through the storytelling of the artwork that fills the book.
Included is a CD that contains various Pirltirrka and Warlpiri stories told by the Warlpiri women who created the book’s artwork.

1. Waltja Tjutangku Palyapayi Aboriginal Corporation. ‘Baby and Mother Smoking Ceremonies’ https://www.waltja.org.au/116985-2/
2. The Conversation. ‘Six decades, 210 Warlpiri speakers and 11,000 words: how a ground-breaking First Nations dictionary was made’ by Carmel O’Shannessy, Jane Helen Simpson and Otto Sims Jungarrayi https://theconversation.com/six-decades-210-warlpiri-speakers-and-11-000-words-how-a-groundbreaking-first-nations-dictionary-was-made-205019
3. The Guardian 9 July 2018. ‘Welcoming babies to country: the Indigenous ceremony revived after 80 years’ by Ben Smee https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2018/jul/09/welcoming-babies-to-country-the-indigenous-ceremony-revived-after-80-years
4. Queensland Government, Queensland Studies Authority. ‘Birth ceremonies, totems and rites in Aboriginal society’ https://www.qcaa.qld.edu.au/downloads/approach2/indigenous_res012_0804.pdf