Ten postulates concerning narrative in Aboriginal Australia

This article seeks to identify aspects of narratives in Aboriginal Australia, which are distinctive from narratives typical of non-Indigenous Australia, based on comments which have been made in previous academic publications about these linguistic communities. Anecdotally, people unfamiliar with Aboriginal narratives may comment that a story which a traditional Aboriginal audience will find entertaining and rewarding, appears to them to be unengaging, lacking point, or repetitive. One goal of this article is to uncover some of the expectations that these different audiences have about what constitutes a ‘good’ story. To differentiate traditional Aboriginal narratives from stories encountered in the wider Australian community, ten features distinctive of Aboriginal narrative are proposed.