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Panchatantra: the lion and the rabbit

This is a folk story titled The lion and the rabbit from the Panchatantra, a book that contains a collection of South Asian folk stories dating back at least 2,000 years. The message of the story is that intelligence is power. The story is eight web pages in length and includes text, illustrations, arrows at the top of ...

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Shaun Tan's The Lost Thing

This is a very rich resource for students from the Australian Centre for the Moving Image (ACMI), which gives them an insight into the art of Shaun Tan through a focus on both the book and the film of The Lost Thing. The content focuses on aspects of storytelling, including themes, techniques, forms and language, visual, ...

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The king stands up

This is a traditional Buddhist folktale from Tibet called The king stands up. The story is about a king trying to find an intelligent and trustworthy advisor; the message of the story is about mindfulness. The resource is 15 web pages in length and includes text, illustrations, arrows at the top of the resource to turn ...

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Lady Wenji and the lament of the nomad flute

This is a Chinese folk story called Lady Wenji and the lament of the nomad flute; it dates back almost 2,000 years. The story is about longing for something that cannot be: lamenting. The resource is 16 web pages in length and includes text, illustrations, arrows at the top of the resource to turn the pages forward and ...

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A proclamation to Indigenous Australians, 1829

This is a hand-coloured lithograph made in 1886, measuring 42.3 cm x 25 cm, based on an original timber panel made at the request of Governor George Arthur (1784-1854) in 1829. It depicts a comic-style narrative in four strips of drawings. Intended to be read from bottom to top, the drawings show: a British man shooting ...

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The 'West Australian' polling board for the Federation referendum, 1900

This is a black-and-white photograph that shows a huge polling board with the results of the Federation referendum in Western Australia, which was held on 31 July 1900. The board shows that Western Australia voted to join the Commonwealth of Australia by 44,652 votes to 19,636. It also shows the results for each of the ...

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An exhibition home made of fibrolite, c1930s

This is a black-and-white photograph of the exterior of an exhibition home made of fibrolite (fibro-cement) that was constructed by James Hardie and Co Ltd (now known as James Hardie Industries). The street outside the home is crowded with people, some of whom have come to view the fibrolite home. The photograph measures ...

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'Diggers' auction, Eagle Hawk, Bendigo', 1853

This is a hand-coloured lithographic print that shows a digger (miner) auctioning his mining equipment at the Eaglehawk gold fields near Bendigo in Victoria. A small crowd is shown gathered around the digger and part of the Eaglehawk tent settlement can be seen behind him. The print is from a watercolour painting by Samuel ...

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'Diggers licensing, Forest Creek, 1852'

This is a black-and-white print that shows diggers (miners) at Forest Creek on the Mount Alexander diggings in Victoria lining up before the Gold Commissioner's tent to pay a licence fee. A policeman stands guard next to the tent while, in the foreground on the left, two policemen can be seen speaking to a digger. The print, ...

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Government escort and mail at the Treasury, Sydney, 1851

This is a black-and-white pen-and-wash drawing of the rear of a mail coach outside the New South Wales Treasury in Sydney in 1851. Two uniformed police with rifles sit at the back of the coach while others unload boxes of gold to take into the Treasury. Two mounted police flank the coach as men, women and children in mid-Victorian ...

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Using a pedal wireless transmitter

This is a photograph, possibly taken by John Flynn (1880-1951) and measuring 8.2 cm x 8.2 cm, of an elderly woman seated at a pedal wireless transmitter with three girls behind her. There is no microphone but the woman is operating a morse key. The woman and one of the girls are wearing earphones. The words 'AIM Pedal Transmitter' ...

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Convicts at work, Norfolk Island, 1840s

This is a hand-coloured wood engraving, measuring 10.3 cm x 24 cm, used to illustrate a newspaper article published on 12 June 1847. It shows a group of convicts undertaking hard physical work, making a bridge over a shallow stream. Uniformed and armed guards are evident, although the convicts appear to be working under ...

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A boxing match in Bendigo, 1853

This is a hand-coloured lithograph, measuring 15.8 cm x 19.5 cm, entitled 'A BENDIGO MILL'. It was made by Samuel Thomas Gill (1818-80) from a sketch he did on the spot as he watched a boxing match in Bendigo, Victoria, and it featured in his publication 'Sketches of the Victoria gold diggings and diggers as they are'. ...

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Enrolling in the Land Army, c1944

This is a posed black-and-white photograph, measuring 24.7 cm x 19 cm and taken around 1944 in Drouin, Victoria by Jim Fitzpatrick. It shows a formally dressed young woman seated in front of a desk labelled 'War Agricultural Committee'. A man, seated behind the desk, is handing her a book entitled 'Food front'. The furniture ...

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Pacific Islander labourers in the Mackay District, late 1800s

This posed black-and-white photograph shows indentured Pacific Islanders by their grass hut homes, probably on a Mackay sugar plantation in Queensland. Some are seated on logs or rough timber benches and one woman can also be seen. They are dressed in Western-style clothes. More huts can be seen on the cleared rise in the ...

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Convicts boarding a hulk at Portsmouth, 1828

This is a hand-coloured etching, sized 16 cm x 24 cm, of a hulk (prison ship) anchored in Portsmouth Harbour, England. A large rowboat filled with convicts and soldiers approaches the hulk with oars held upright ready for boarding. The ship has stairs and additional rooms built on it, washing hangs from lines strung across ...

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Pacific Island labourer recruiting ship 'Para', c1880

This is a drawing of the two-masted brigantine 'Para', probably completed by Master Mariner William Wawn during a successful five months voyage to the Solomon Islands in 1894. One of a series of sketches of his impressions of the islands in pencil, ink and watercolour, it shows the recruiting ship offshore at anchor, as ...

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Pacific Islander women planting sugar cane at Bingera, c1897

This black-and-white photograph shows several indentured Pacific Islander women planting sugar-cane stalks, or setts, in freshly made furrows in a large field at Bingera near Bundaberg, Queensland. The women, dressed in Western-style clothes, are following directly behind a horsedrawn plough that is worked by indentured ...

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Rock painting, Carnarvon Gorge, 1938 - item 2 of 2

This 1938 sepia photograph of a large Indigenous rock painting displays many stencilled hands, boomerangs, coolamons and a net-like shape, possibly representing a cycad, on a cliff wall in Carnarvon Gorge in central Queensland. A large rock near the wall shows some engraved art. The photograph was taken during the second ...

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Sheep washing at 'Collaroy' station, 1872

This is an image from a wood engraving, measuring 35.0 cm x 23.6 cm, showing an elaborate steam-driven sheep washing plant at 'Collaroy' station in the Upper Hunter region of New South Wales. It shows sheep moving through several stages of scouring, washing and rinsing. Large boilers and engines are housed in sheds on the ...