We are delighted to invite our members and friends to join us for the 5th annual Billibellary Indigenous History Lecture to be delivered by Laureate Professor Marcia Langton AO.

2026 Billibellary Indigenous History Lecture: The Yiman diaspora and frontier legacy

Reflecting on colonisation in the upper Dawson Valley in central Queensland, Marcia Langton AO developed a historiographic scepticism. Gordon Stephen Reid wrote about her people in his 1981 book, A Nest of Hornets: The Massacre of the Fraser Family at Hornet Bank Station, Central Queensland, 1857, and related events, in which he relied, necessarily, entirely on colonist records, yet acknowledged of the Fraser family survivors, ‘Their revenge against the Jiman, without prosecution, helped to set the pattern for white attitudes and colonial government policy towards the Aborigines of Queensland for 40 years.’

As David Marr demonstrated in his 2023 account Killing for Country, history has a way of both deceiving and enlightening us. In this lecture, Langton examines the issues that have troubled her about the accounts of violence in her grandfather’s country.

Laureate Professor Marcia Langton AO, FASSA, AFTSE, a Yiman and Bidjara woman, is the Associate Provost, and Foundation Chair of Australian Indigenous Studies at The University of Melbourne. She is also the Director of the Indigenous Studies Unit in Onemda, Melbourne School of Population and Global Health. A prominent advocate for Indigenous rights, her research spans Indigenous health, family violence, and data governance. Widely published, her recent books include co-edited volumes with colleagues and include her chapter contributions: Dhoombak Goobgoowana: A History of Indigenous Australia and the University of Melbourne – Vol 1 Truth (coedited with Ross Jones and James Waghorne, MUP 2024), and 65,000 Years: A Short History of Australian Art (co-edited with Judith Ryan AM, Thames & Hudson, 2024); Indigenous Knowledge. Australian Perspectives (co-edited with Aaron Corn and Sam Curkpatrick, MUP, 2023), Law. The Way of the Ancestors (co-authored with Aaron Corn, Thames & Hudson, 2022).

House-keeping

The Zoom details will be sent 24 hours before the event to all those who have booked – please check your Spam or Junk Mail folder if you cannot find the email in your in-box. The Zoom event will start at 6pm (30 mins later than the in-person event).

Refreshments will be available from 5:30pm until 6pm when the lecture will commence.