Dr Murray Garde considers the Wubarr ceremony performed in 1948 and examines the tangled cross-cultural politics of non-Aboriginal involvement in secret Aboriginal religious ceremonies in Western Arnhem Land.

Dr Louise Hamby examines the dispersed collection of fibre objects collected by the 1948 Expedition – the objects and the process and politics of their collection.

Closing remarks from the Barks, Birds and Billabongs symposium.

Dr Ian S McIntosh examines how Yolngu people negotiated disclosure and concealment in relation to Bayini bark paintings. What did they tell Charles Mountford about it and why? What did they tell other anthropologists and how is that issue significant?

Professor Jon Altman describes transformations in the customary economy of Aboriginal people in western Arnhem Land over 60 years – a comparative analysis made possible because of research undertaken by Frederick McCarthy and Margaret McArthur in 1948.

Robyn McKenzie examines Fred McCarthy’s celebrated collection of Yirrkala string figures as artefacts of cross-cultural exchange, looking at problems of definition, description, interpretation and analysis.

Whereas the 1948 Expedition presented vast collections of plant and animal life classified according to Linnaean taxonomy, Emeritus Professor Dr Ad Borsboom explores how the Yolngu organise and present knowledge through mythological Dreaming stories.

Arts Editor for Radio National, Tony MacGregor examines the 1948 ABC radio feature about the Expedition both as a remarkable contemporary account and as a media object of an emerging form – the radio documentary feature.

Dr Lynne McCarthy explores the work of Raymond Louis Specht, Expedition botanist, and considers his botanical collection as both a process and a product.

Craddock Morton, Director of the National Museum of Australia, introduces, contextualises and launches the book by Sally K May: Collecting Cultures: Myth, Politics and Collaboration in the 1948 Arnhem Land Expedition