DigiCat Publishing presents to you this special edition of "The Stone Axe of Burkamukk" by Mary Grant Bruce. DigiCat Publishing considers every written word to be a legacy of humankind. Every DigiCat book has been carefully reproduced for republishing in a new modern format. The books are available in print, as well as ebooks. DigiCat hopes you will treat this work with the acknowledgment and passion it deserves as a classic of world literature.

The Stone Axe of Burkamukk (1922) is a collection of Aboriginal legends by Mary Grant Bruce. The product of extensive research on the Aboriginal peoples of Gippsland, Victoria, Bruce’s collection was intended to educate Australian settlers regarding the traditions of those they had displaced. Despite drawing criticism for her use of racist stereotypes, Bruce’s hope was that her work would force her fellow settlers to “see that they were boys and girls, men and women, not so unlike us in many ways, and that they could admire what we admire in each other.” Recognizing her prejudices as a product of her time, one can appreciate The Stone Axe of Burkamukk as a record of Aboriginal tales as well as the writer’s status in settler-colonial society. “The camp lay calm and peaceful under the spring sunlight. Burkamukk, the chief, had chosen its place well: the wurleys were built in a green glade well shaded with blackwood and boobyalla trees, and with a soft thick carpet of grass, on which the black babies loved to roll. Not a hundred yards away flowed a wide creek; a creek so excellent that it fed a swamp a little farther on.” As the chief of a prosperous people, Burkamukk is both respected and feared by the inhabitants of the Australian bush. His stone axe, made with a sapling handle by the best craftsman of the tribe, is a symbol of his power and a useful tool for hunting. A generous leader, he often lends his axe to members of his tribe in return for a modest tribute. One day, when a hunting party comes back from a deadly encounter with a legendary kangaroo, Burkamukk swears an oath to avenge his lost tribesman. With a beautifully designed cover and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of Mary Grant Bruce’s The Stone Axe of Burkamukk is a classic of Australian literature reimagined for modern readers.

The Australian Country Girl: History, Image, Experience offers a detailed analysis of the experience and the image of Australian country girlhood. In Australia, 'country girl' names a field of experiences and life-stories by girls and women who have grown up outside of the demographically dominant urban centres. But it also names a set of ideas about Australia that is surprisingly consistent across the long twentieth century despite also working as an index of changing times. For a long period in Australian history, well before Federation and long after it, public and popular culture openly equated 'Australian character' with rural life. This image of Australian-ness sometimes went by the name of the 'bush man', now a staple of Australian history. This has been counterbalanced post World War II and increased immigration, by an image of sophisticated Australian modernity located in multicultural cities. These images of Australia balance rather than contradict one another in many ways and the more cosmopolitan image of Australia is often in dialogue with that preceding image of 'the bush'. This book does not offer a corrective to the story of Australian national identity but rather a fresh perspective on this history and a new focus on the ever-changing experience of Australian rural life. It argues that the country girl has not only been a long-standing counterpart to the Australian bush man she has, more importantly, figured as a point of dialogue between the country and the city for popular culture and for public sphere narratives about Australian society and identity.

Jim Linton and Wally Meadows are serving in the British Army. During the beginning of the horrors of warfare in France, they come in contact with the enemy's deadly new weapon, poison gas. They spend recovering in the green countryside of Ireland with Jim's little sister, Norah, and their father, David. But this time-out spent fishing and riding across the hills brings unforeseen and dangerous drama, which they share with a new friend, the heroic Irishman, John O'Neill.

"Back to Billabong" by Mary Grant Bruce sees the author's beloved characters Norah, Jim, David, and Wally, return back to their home in Australia after four years away during the First World War. However, their return is met with droughts, fires, and other catastrophes that threaten to impede them from settling back into the home they missed for so long. Focusing on family values and fortitude, the book is a heartwarming tale of strength and support.

During World War One, Jim and his friend Wally return to the Front line when Jim's little sister Norah discovers she has been left a legacy. To help the war effort, Norah turns the large house she received into a place for wounded and exhausted civilians with her father. When a message arrives with the worst news of all, Norah and her father somehow keep going on until the day that brings a blessing into their lives.

Two fifteen-year-old twins, Jean and Jo Weston, are just completing their first year at boarding school in Melbourne when their father writes to them that the drought has hit hard. He mentions that he can't afford to pay for the school the following year, so they must return and help and teach their little brother, Billy. Just before they left for home, Helen Forester, their school captain, had a groundbreaking idea that might change lives.