1. Anangu people
2. Art motifs
3. Autobiographies
4. Bush tucker
5. Fishing
6. Food
7. Glossaries and vocabularies
8. Humour
9. Hunting and gathering
10. Luritja / Loritja people (C7.1) (NT SG52-04)
11. Papunya (South Central NT SF52-16)
12. Schools
13. Social life and customs
14. Tracking

In this autobiographical picture book set in the 1960s, Luritja woman Mary Malbunka recounts her childhood in the remote government settlement of Papunya in central Australia. Her story provides fascinating insights into life in two very different worlds and the challenges this raised.

Each double spread presents her first-person account of a period or event, such as learning at pre-school or going on a family excursion for sugarbag honey. Large blocks of text feature on each page and Luritja words are scattered throughout followed by their English translation. There is a detailed glossary and pronunciation guide in the end pages as well as an author/illustrator biography. The evocative illustrations are a combination of Western Desert Aboriginal art and naive figurative pieces featuring people and places.

Mary Malbunka was born at a Lutheran mission settlement west of Alice Springs and forced to move to Papunya at the age of five.

1. Allen & Unwin Teachers’ Notes by Nadia Wheatley for ‘When I was little, like you’ https://s3-ap-southeast-2.amazonaws.com/dimo.allenunwin.com/assets/teaching_resource/9781741142563.pdf
2. Margolis, Zara. ABC. Sugarbag honey a feast from nature, with stingless insects creating delicious outback bush tucker. Note: video clip filmed in north-west Queensland location. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-01-21/native-honeybees-provide-popular-bush-tucker/9333278
3. Wheatley, Nadia. ‘Remembering Mary Malbunka’. Magpies, May 2005 & available from Wheatley's website http://nadiawheatley.com/remembering-mary-malbunka
4. MacDonell Regional Council. Papunya. https://www.macdonnell.nt.gov.au/communities/papunya