Songlines: The Power and Promise

What do you need to know to prosper for 65,000 years or more?

The First Knowledges series provides a deeper understanding of the expertise and ingenuity of Indigenous Australians.

Songlines are an archive for powerful knowledge that ensured Australia's many Indigenous cultures flourished for over 60,000 years.

Much more than a navigational path in the cartographic sense, these vast and robust stores of information are encoded through song, story, dance, art and ceremony, rather than simply recorded in writing

Weaving deeply personal storytelling with extensive research on mnemonics, Songlines: The Power and Promise offers unique insights into Indigenous traditional knowledge, how they apply today and how they could help all peoples thrive into the future.

This book invites readers to understand a remarkable way for storing knowledge in memory by adapting song, art, and most importantly, Country, into their lives.

About the series: Each book is a collaboration between Indigenous and non-Indigenous writers and editors; the series is edited by Margo Neale, senior Indigenous curator at the National Museum of Australia.

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