Alice’s dreaming is centrally about the childhood, memories and writings of Alice Duncan-Kemp (1901-1988), who grew up on a pastoral property named Mooraberrie in the first decades of the 20th century.

Mooraberrie was a vast sheep and cattle station located in the Channel Country between Birdsville and Windorah in inland south-western Queensland. A 2015 native title determination recognised Mithaka people as the traditional owners of the region.

Duncan-Kemp published four books in her lifetime and another was published posthumously. All of these works drew on a childhood spent in intimate contact with Mithaka people. Her extraordinarily detailed and empathetic observations formed part of the documentary basis for the 2015 native title determination.

Review: Alice’s dreaming – Tom Griffiths (Black Inc.)

What then of the word “dreaming” in Tom Griffiths’ title?

According to the historian Patrick Wolfe, the word “dreamtime” entered the Australian lexicon via the early anthropological research collaboration between Frank Gillen, the postmaster at Mparntwe (Alice Springs), and Baldwin Spencer, a professor of biology at the University of Melbourne. Their famed partnership resulted in a huge collection of objects, images and films, which has been digitised.

The Arrernte term “alcheringa” was translated by Gillen as the “dream-times”: a long-distant epoch in which the world was created and rules of conduct were laid down.

Wolfe was critical of the generalisation of Spencer and Gillen’s notion of the “dream-times”. He showed that dreams were a counterpoint to European scientific rationalism; the connection between “dreaminess” and Aboriginal people reinforced some of the racist presumptions of both 19th-century anthropology and the popular imagination.

The mid-20th century anthropologist W.E.H. Stanner preferred the term “Dreaming”, which better captured the complexity of an “impalpable and subtle” concept that refers to cosmogony as well as institutions, totemic affiliations and ever-present responsibilities to Country.

Specific, local terms are more preferable still. Arrernte people today conceive of the “Altyerra” or “Altyerre” , rather than “alcheringa”, and Yawuru people in and around Broome conceive of the “Bugarrigarra”, to mention just two........

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