Songlines in action

Reaching Through Time: Finding my family’s stories is the epitome of Indigenous family life writing. Predominantly set in New South Wales, on the east coast of Australia, Reaching Through Time is a journey through more than 200 years of Australian history, from early invasion and colonisation to the present day, through the lens of Indigenous family lived experience. This collection of life stories – skilfully located in the archives, family memory, and secondary sources – traces five generations of the authors’ family. Reaching Through Time is a rich, engaging contribution to Australian history. Bostock is writing against Australian historiography, which has excluded the voices of Indigenous families. As Shauna Bostock says: ‘This book is written for people who want to know our history from an Aboriginal perspective.’

Bostock is a historian, a former primary school teacher, and a Bundjalung woman whose ancestral homelands are located on the Tweed River, close to where the Queensland and New South Wales borders now meet. From the outset, Bostock welcomes us into her world, centring a family’s love for themselves and their connections with Bundjalung Spirit and Country. She says:

My ancestors woke up in that sunshine, drank from crystal-clear streams, hunted game, were guardians of the forest and the mountains, and maintained and preserved sacred sites of earth Magic […] the greatest, most heart-warming reward has been the discovery of an unbroken connection to pre-colonial ancestors – and time immemorial.