Pat Lowe
Pat Lowe lived with Jimmy Pike in the Great Sandy Desert for three years, where he hunted and painted while she wrote the story of the desert life.
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You call it desert - we used to live there
Traditional life in the Great Sandy Desert
Not so long ago people were living throughout the Great Sandy Desert. They usually travelled in small family bands, meeting up with other bands from time to time for companionship, to discuss and settle matters of importance, to exchange news and to hold ceremonies. They lived by hunting and gathering, and travelled with the seasons and according to whatever food and water were available. They belonged to several different language groups who shared a similar way of life and whose members sometimes intermarried. Each clan had its own territory and waterholes, around which its members moved in the course of the year, occasionally paying visits into neighbours' territory as relations and guests.
Soon after the arrival of European settlers, or kartiya, in Australia the lives of the earlier inhabitants changed radically. The people who had lived in the regions now taken over by the newcomers were quickly displaced, while those who lived in the interior were gradually drawn towards the new settlements, attracted by the stories they heard from travelling relations and intrigued by the European goods and livestock the visitors had brought with them. In time the desert became almost empty of people and the few who remained were finally compelled to join those who had gone before them.
The first draft of this book was written under a tree on the slope of a sandhill where for several years, Englishwoman Pat Lowe shared a desert camp with her lifetime partner, Walmajarri man Jimmy Pike. While spending time in the red heart of country that had been the home to the Walmajarri people for thousands of years, they recorded Pike’s stories through his painting and Lowe’s writing.
You call it desert - we used to live there is a new edition of 'Jilji - Life in the Great Sandy Desert'. With Jimmy Pike as her teacher, Pat Lowe explored the day-to-day lives of the desert dwellers. Through her unique understanding of their use of the land, its features and materials, Lowe writes about the resourcefulness and ingenuity of the desert people.
Illustrated by stunning photographs and the beautiful art of Jimmy Pike, the stories in this book cover all aspects of the desert life of these remarkable people, from birth to death. A great read for the coffee table, and a very useful teaching tool for students aged 10 and up.
270 x 210 mm, 168 pages, paperback, full colour throughout.
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