Purai is an Awabakal word meaning “the world, earth”.

The PuraiPurai Logo new Global Indigenous History Centre is an exciting research initiative integrating global and transnational analytical perspectives and frameworks with research on Indigenous and diaspora histories and other related histories of race.

Drawing upon our extensive national and international connections throughout the world, Purai harnesses collaborations that lead to high-quality original research projects and the development of productive new knowledge networks.

By integrating Indigenous and transnational/transcolonial global historical scholarship with approaches from a range of disciplines, Purai aims to generate new and ground-breaking interdisciplinary research methodologies for the study of global Indigenous histories.

Bayira: Catching songs, stories and dreams

Hosted by the Purai Global Indigenous History Centre, held at the Newcastle NSW Conservatorium of Music, this conference started with a Welcome to Country and opening address by Dr Ray Kelly, discussing the meaning of Bayira. The People's Chorus sang Freedom, Weevils in the Flour (Wendy Lowenstein)  and If I Were Free. Cooks Hill Youth Forum spoke about important Newcastle historical events, such as the first Aboriginal May Queen, the Possum Skin Cloak Project and personal identity. The drama group also sung performance pieces on The Voice Referendum.

Kerri Clarke, an Indigenous artist of Boon Wurrung descent who is known for her work with animal skins, and her son Mitch Mahoney talked about making possum skin cloaks, which involves cutting and sewing possum pelts together then etching designs into the skin with wood burning tools, sometimes adding colour with paint or beads. Kerri and Mitch also talked about their role in the Ngukurr to Newcastle project . Professor Kate Senior also talked about the Ngukurr to Newcastle project Dexter Daniels, and intercultural collaboration for Indigenous rights. “Bayira, meaning to stand up and to speak, was a people’s conference held to celebrate the history of Newcastle’s engagement with Indigenous rights,” Professor Senior said.

Later, in the evening a Paint and Yarn workshop was held by Mr Mahoney in the foyer where participants painted their own clapsticks. Carole Johnson, founder of NAISDA (National Aboriginal and Islander Skills Association) and Bangarra Dance Theatre, spoke about urban dance and activism. Then Dr Jean Harkins and Nicholas K Watson finished the evening with a conversation about Indigenous languages.

Exploring Indigenous Activism Through the Creation of a Possum Skin Cloak

In the school grounds of Cooks Hill Campus of Newcastle High School, on a chilly July morning in 2022, a fire bucket is burning. 36 possum skins are arranged on a decorated table. Earlier on, teachers had climbed up ladders to gather eucalyptus leaves for the traditional fire smoking ceremony. The whole school of about 250 students drift in, they are both wary and curious about the possum skins...

This project is part of a larger University of Newcastle project, Ngukurr to Newcastle, a collaboration with the Ngukurr community in Southeast Arnhem Land which celebrates the unexpected linkages between Ngukurr and Newcastle through the legacy of a largely forgotten Aboriginal activist, Dexter Daniels.

The Cooks Hill component involved the creation of a possum skin cloak as a vehicle for Australian high school students to learn about forgotten aspects of Indigenous history. As they worked from being novices in cloak-making to creators of a new possum skin cloak, they also learnt about the anthropological skills of being a participant observer. When the cloak was pieced together, each student was wrapped in the cloak and photographed.

During this process, the students also created art works combining their stories with images and sharing the resulting exhibition with the Newcastle community in a presentation for 2022 Social Science Week. Students talked to the public about their experiences and told the Dexter Daniels’ story and his connection to the town at a café opposite the old Trades Hall where Dexter Daniels met with the unions in the 1960s and 70s. The combination of their images, art works and stories all became part of a living archive.

Looking Through Windows Programme

It started with a yarn that was transformed into a poem and grew into a video documentary, a community exhibition with a one-act play, opera piece and travelling exhibition.

Led by Dr Lorina Barker from the University of New England (UNE), Looking Through Windows: Tablelands, the coast to outback NSW is an oral history, artistic and multimedia project exploring the removal, dispossession and ‘protection’ of Aboriginal people in New South Wales and parts of Queensland and South Australia.

Part of the  exhibition included a tin humpy recreated in the gallery's  grounds.

But the exhibition wasn't the only event planned, a talk and tour for Young Adults in the Hunter area's refugee cohort and a weaving workshop at Wollotuka Institute were also part of  Dr Barker's and Michael Brogan's (Taragara Aboriginal Corporation) busy schedule that week.

The Inaugural John Maynard Aboriginal History Lecture and Purai Showcase

It was an evening that will be fondly remembered for many years to come with distinguished Professor Larissa Behrendt AO delivering the inaugural John Maynard Aboriginal History Lecture at University House to an on-line and face-to-face audience of over 180.

As part of the Purai Global Indigenous History Centre showcase, the event focused on the unconventional legacies of Emeritus Professor Maynard and launched a webisode introducing the stories of historical individuals who had inspired Professor Maynard’s research and writing.

Co-director of the Purai Indigenous Global History Centre, Professor Victoria Haskins, rounded off the evening by showing how the centre fosters collaborative transnational and comparative Indigenous research networks, the Ayahs and Amahs: Transcolonial Servants in Australia and Britain 1780-1945 project being the most current of these endeavours.