Aboriginality: a cultural construction of identity and a term adopted in the 1980s as an expression of cultural pride.

Bark painting: An art practice applying ochres to flattened lengths of bark with a range of adhesives. Bark drawing and painting was once widespread across Australia and is now generally confined to Arnhem Land.

Batik: A method of dyeing cloth in which the design is produced using a wax resist. The technique has been used primarily by women artists at Ernabella and Utopia and by Tiwi in the Melville and Bathurst Islands.

Black: As Indigenous issues were internationalised and politicised through the influence of Black Power movements in the United States of America, the term 'black' promoted by writer Roberta Sykes and 'blak' the more recent term devised by Torres Strait Islander artist Destiny Deacon, are intended to subvert racist connotations in order to regain cultural pride.

Corroboree: a name for Aboriginal ceremonies used generally across Australia. The name originated with the Dharuk people from the Sydney region.

Dot painting: An art movement transforming traditional Aboriginal designs into acrylics on board and canvas. Dot painting began in Papunya, Northern Territory in the 1971 and later spread to other desert communities.

Dreaming: The foundation beliefs of an Aboriginal cosmology. The Dreaming is both a period beyond living memory when ancestral beings created the spiritual, physical and moral world and it refers to the laws and ceremonies which continue to sustain contemporary existence.

Hermannsburg School: A group of artists originally based in the Lutheran Mission at Hermannsburg who worked in the style of watercolour landscapes established by the Arrernte artist, Albert Namatjira.

Koori/Koorie:An Aboriginal word of New South Wales origin adopted by south eastern Aboriginal people in the 1960s and 1970 as an assertion of unity and independence and to distinguish themselves from the generic term, Aborigine.

Kurrir-Kurrir/Gurirr Gurirr/ Krill Krill: A ritual cycle developed in the Kimberley region of Western Australia.

Land Rights: Since the 1960s land rights have become a major issue for Aboriginal people. With the passing of the Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act 1976 (Cwlth) Aborigines in many parts of central and northern Australia have regained control of traditional land. The landmark Mabo case of 1992, mounted by Torres Strait Islander Eddie Mabo, overturned the concept of terra nullius and paved the way for native title claims.

Law: The body of spiritual, social and cultural knowledge derived from the Dreaming.

Macassans: People from the region of Macassar in south Sulawesi traded with Aborigines along the north coast of Australia for 300 years before the Australian government stopped the trade in 1906.

Moiety: A form of identity and social organisation in which people and their cultural traditions are divided into two separate entities.

Murri: Aboriginal people in northern New South Wales and Queensland.

Nunga: Aborigines in southern South Australia.

Nyungah/Nyoongah: Aboriginal people of southwest Western Australia.

Settler colony: The term for countries such as Australia, New Zealand and Canada where white settlers coexist with an Indigenous minority.

Outstations: Small family settlements founded as a result of the movement off government established reserves and missions back to homelands.

Postcolonialism: A space for reconceptualising colonial relationships.

Primitivism: Admiration and appropriation of Indigenous art as a source of inspiration for western art.

Rom: An exchange ceremony in central Arnhem Land.

Torres Strait Islander: Torres Strait Islanders lost their independence when they were annexed by the colony of Queensland in 1879. Many Islanders subsequently settled in Australia.

Tjukurpa/Tjukurrpa/Jukurrpa: The Dreaming, the Law.

Wangarr: A Yolngu word referring to the ancestral past.

Yolngu: Aboriginal people of north east Arnhem Land and their languages.