^[1] Kevin Gilbert, Living Black: Blacks Talk to Kevin Gilbert, (Ringwood, 1978), p. 184.

^[2] Quoted in ibid., p. 193.

^[3] Personal interview with Robert Merritt, Sydney, July, 1982.

^[4] Personal interview with Charles Perkins, Canberra, January, 1983.

^[5] Quoted by Patti Watts in her article ‘Plea for Assistance’, The West Australian, 17 July 1980, p. 58.

^[6] Personal interview with Anna Haebich, Canberra, November, 1980.

^[7] Quoted in Adam Shoemaker, ‘An Interview with Jack Davis’, Westerly, vol. 27, no. 4, December, 1982, p. 112.

^[8] W.E.H. Stanner, ‘Aboriginal Humour’, Aboriginal History, vol. 6, part 1, June, 1982, p. 41.

^[9] Personal interview with John Newfong, Canberra, July, 1982.

^[10] Quoted in Adam Shoemaker, ‘An Interview with Jack Davis’, Westerly, vol. 27, no. 4, December, 1982, pp. 114-115.

^[11] Personal interview with Robert Merritt, Sydney, July, 1982.

^[12] Stanner, ‘Aboriginal Humour’, p. 41.

^[13] ibid., p. 43.

^[14] These events were related by Bostock during a workshop session of the first National Aboriginal Writers’ Conference, Murdoch University, Perth, February, 1983.

^[15] The Cherry Pickers was released by an independent Canberra press, Burrambinga Books, in May, 1988. This was timed to coincide with the Aboriginal protests during the opening of the new Australian Parliament House by Queen Elizabeth II.

^[16] Kevin Gilbert, The Cherry Pickers, Typescript, Canberra: National Library of Australia, mss. no. 2584, 1970, p. 22. All further quotations from The Cherry Pickers will be taken from this manuscript version, and page numbers will be included in parentheses in the body of the text immediately after each citation.

^[17] Kevin Gilbert, Ghosts in Cell Ten, unpublished typescript, Canberra, National Library of Australia, ms. no. 2584, 1979, p. 1. All further quotations will be taken from this version of the play, and page references will be given in parentheses immediately after each citation, in the body of the text.

^[18] Pat O‘Shane’s speech was delivered to students of the Australian National University, Canberra, on 26 February, 1983.

^[19] Richard Broome, Aboriginal Australians, (Sydney, 1982), p. 183.

^[20] Pat O‘Shane’s speech at the ANU, Canberra, February, 1983.

^[21] Personal interview with Candy Williams, Sydney, July, 1980.

^[22] Personal interview with John Newfong, Canberra, July, 1982.

^[23] Robert J. Merritt, The Cake Man, (Sydney, 1978), pp. 32-33. All further quotations will be taken from this edition and page references will be included in the body of the text, immediately after each citation.

^[24] Personal interview with Brian Syron, Canberra, May, 1981.

^[25] Personal interview with Robert Merritt, Sydney, July, 1982.

^[26] Personal interview with John Newfong, Canberra, July, 1982.

^[27] There is a body of American psycho-social work which lends support to Newfong’s theory concerning the de facto emasculation of Black Australian men. For example, Abram Kardiner and Lionel Ovesey, in their The Mark of Oppression: Explorations in the Personality of the American Negro, (Cleveland, 1962) note that ‘The lower-class Negro female cannot be ‘feminine’, nor the male ‘masculine’. Their roles are reversed. Since these values are just the opposite from what they are in white society, and since the values of white society are inescapable, the male fears and hates the female; the female mistrusts and has contempt for the male because he cannot validate his nominal masculinity in practice’ (p. 349). However, Newfong’s conclusion is flatly contradicted by more recent scholarly analyses of specifically Australian sexual oppression, such as Anne Summers’s Damned Whores and God’s Police, (Ringwood, 1975).

^[28] ibid.

^[29] Personal interview with Robert Merritt, Sydney, July, 1982.

^[30] The advertising poster for Here Comes the Nigger, reproduced in Meanjin, vol. 36, no. 4, December, 1977, p. 482.

^[31] Gerry Bostock, Here Comes the Nigger, Third draft of filmscript, Typescript kindly provided by the author, Sydney, 1980, p. 13. All further quotations will be taken from this version of the play except where noted, and page references will be given immediately after each citation, in the body of the text.

^[32] Personal interview with Gerry Bostock, Sydney, July, 1980.

^[33] Personal interview with Gerry Bostock, Sydney, July, 1980.

^[34] Gerry Bostock, ‘Two Scenes from Here Comes the Nigger’, Meanjin, vol. 36, no. 4, December, 1977, p. 483.

^[35] ibid., p. 485.

^[36] George Landen Dann, Fountains Beyond, (Melbourne, 1942[?]), p. 9.

^[37] ibid., p. 68.

^[38] Ronald M. Berndt, An Adjustment Movement in Arnhem Land, (Paris, 1962), p. 34.

^[39] Thomas Keneally, Bullie’s House, (Sydney, 1981), p. 44. All further quotations will be taken from this edition, and page references will be included in parentheses in the body of the text, immediately after each citation.

^[40] Personal interview with Thomas Keneally, Brisbane, September, 1982.

^[41] Berndt, An Adjustment Movement, p. 87.

^[42] Personal interview with Thomas Keneally, Brisbane, September, 1982.

^[43] Bob Maza, ‘Introduction’, in Bullie’s House, p. xv.

^[44] Personal interview with Thomas Keneally, Brisbane, September, 1982.

^[45] Jack Davis, Kullark, in Kullark/The Dreamers, (Sydney, 1982), pp. 43-44. All further quotations will be taken from this edition, and page references will be given in parentheses in the body of the text, immediately after each citation.

^[46] ibid., p. 97.

^[47] Robert Hodge, ‘A Case for Aboriginal Literature’, Meridian, vol. 3, no. 1, May, 1984, p. 85.

^[48] Jack Davis, No Sugar, (Sydney, 1986), pp. 67-68. All further quotations will be taken from this edition, and page references will be given in the body of the text, immediately after each citation.

^[49] In 1986, Davis also wrote his first play for children, the highly successful Honeyspot. Both Honeyspot and Barungin enjoyed popular seasons as part of the official ‘World Expo on Stage’ Australian Drama Series in Brisbane in July–August 1988.

^[50] Wendy Blacklock, ‘The Marli Biyol Company’, in the World Expo on stage programme for Barungin (Sydney, 1988).

^[51] Dennis Davison, ‘Honest Look at the Hidden Side of Society’, The Australian, 9 May 1988, p. 10.

^[52] Quoted in Adam Shoemaker, ‘An Interview With Jack Davis’, Westerly, vol. 27, no. 4, December, 1982, p. 116.

^[53] Personal interview with Brian Syron, Canberra, May, 1981.

^[54] Personal interview with Leila Rankine, Adelaide, March, 1982.

^[55] Personal interview with Charles Perkins, Canberra, January, 1983.

^[56] Personal interview with John Newfong, Canberra, July, 1982.

^[57] ‘You may make political gains, but you have to fight to keep them’. Quoted from personal interview with John Newfong, Canberra, July, 1982.

^[58] Merritt’s The Cake Man has, in fact, already been televised. However, the condensed, one hour-long version which was broadcast on the ABC in 1977 did not do the play full justice.