I have written about some largely aboriginal towns in New South Wales a couple of times now. One of these towns was Wilcannia. One of the quotes in this previous post read:
The image of Wilcannia that most travellers along the Barrier Highway have is of a town with a lot of Aborigines standing around in the main street. It is a very racist preconception but one which nearly everyone who has travelled through the town enunciates. It is also fuelled by the bigots of Broken Hill and Cobar who are only too eager to divert travellers to their own centres.
I tried to show a different side.
One group I alluded to only briefly was the Barkandji Boys. Wilcannia is home to the Barkandji people. The Boys consist of Wally, Buddy, Lendal, Colroy and Keithy. In 2002 they had an accidental Number #1 hit on Triple J with “Down River”. These were boys between the ages of 9 and 14 years old at the time and produced the song in a holiday workshop.
You can also listen to it on blip.fm here.
They even won a Deadly Award.
And now there is a book. Down River: The Wilcannia Mob Story
As well as the group’s story it looks at the role of their families and community in their life.
It is available from Kargaru Productions for only $23.95 (ISBN: 9780646484228)
If you want to know more the ANTAR blog also has an article and there is a one page website.
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