A Better Deal

Yey naartj > now what??

I was reading of a book on Noongar history that will soon be published. And I was thinking about a similar manuscript that myself and members of the Humphries family of Kellerberrin had co-written.
Our book, one of two we have been seeking grants to have structurally edited and published, concerns the Noongar history of the east as told through the stories of the late Cliff Humphries.
Our books titled: "A Kellerberrin Kingfisher" and the other: "Marngart-Menn stories of the eastern Noongar" represent the biography of Cliff Humphries whilst the latter concerns his history and the stories of his people.
The book on Noongar history will be published by a historian who leads a research team within an established Noongar organization.
The problem I have with historians is that for too long they/we have insulated themselves/ourselves from the lives of the people they/we write about.
Their/our claim that they/we represent the interests of a neutral and objective 'history' are rarely challenged. But, I wonder, if they/we have stopped to ever consider, that the stories they/we tell are very often stories that are treasured by someone, even collectively the substance of a family and their community's nourishment.
I am writing more out of fear, I guess, that the said historian will feature material that the Humphries manuscript has delved into and covers.
Perhaps, it could be said, that the other's work will add another slant to the Noongar story. But this particular historian, well-funded by his organisation will have been given the kind of support not available to the rest of us, struggling as we do, to access the kind of grants that historians such as him take for granted.
There needs to be a better deal, I think, for the Noongar deserve that.
The history I have written has been co-authored and critiqued by the Noongar I have worked with.
This history is their story.
Sure Wadjalla historians have never had to consider that stories could be owned by a family.
For the family I work with, who have lived in poverty for much and most of their lives, it is their stories and cultural knowledge that represent the only wealth they carry.
Those who tell their story without informing them, without working with them, negotiating with them, are thieves.
When historians raid the archives, as we do, trolling for details and tracks to the story we'd like to tell, very few of us consider the lives and responsibilities to the people we find there.
The archives are deemed neutral ground, but at some point soon, this will need to change.