"Strehlow-time,” as they refer to it, signifies not just the presence of the linguistically adept T.G.H. Strehlow as the principal documenter, but a period in history when Anmatyerr, Arrernte, and other Central Australian men would readily share their ceremonies and songs. Their motivations appear to have included a willingness to document and preserve and, just as important, a desire to demonstrate, proclaim, dialogue, and share ....
I hope that this book will help reframe the Strehlow collection as a testament not to a heroic individual but to the cohort of urrempel men who both made the collection and continue to make sense of it."

This should be compulsory reading for those studying museam, archival or library practice. It is a thoughtful, well-explained history of the remarkable archive-currently-but-not-for-long known as Strehlow. Gibson's work here never seeks to speak beyond his own experience working with Anmatyerr elders and men, and Arrente men, to restore connections between the archive and those whose cultural property is in it. Gibson eschews simplistic interpretations: the book looks critically at Ted Strehlow as well as considering the complex motivations his informants had for assisting with the recordings. Stories of colonial ethnography often portray Indigenous peoples as niave victims, or at the very least powerless, but Gibson explores the ways in which the archive was created by elders, and since then, how it's content, curators and physicality has been shaped through an Anmatyerr lens (the Archive is primarily around Arrente men's ritual, but Gibson's focus is Anmatyerr men's interactions). The book tackles, for example, the issues around repatriation with much more sophistication than I have previously read, noting the growing tendency for culturals to view repatriation as a ritual granting absolution. Gibson notes the complexities here: the mismatch between culturals identifying objects but failing to find (or return) those which are asked for; the difficulties of sacred objects of great power being plonked on a table; the issues when no owners can be identified; and the differing beliefs about ownership where objects were traded for. If the book has any central point - and it is far too subtle for just one - it might be that the "sins of the past" are hardly in the past, but rather thoroughly bound in how we currently relate to culture today. Gibson's story of this archive is nevertheless infused with hope - that a partnership based on a clear acknowledgement of whose property this is can thrive.