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Unbranded
From the riotous picnic races to the famous Mt Isa rodeo, from childhood in the yumba to gutsy outback pubs, Unbranded presents a strikingly original vision of Australia.
With a rollicking cast of stockmen, shearers, barmaids and tourists, this novel is the story of three men. Sandy is a white man; Bindi, a Murri; Mulga is related on his mother's side to Bindi, and on his Irish father's side to Sandy. Their saga . and enduring friendship . covers forty years in the mulga country of the far west. It tells how Sandy achieves his dream of owning a cattle empire; how Bindi regains part of his tribal lands for his people, and how Mulga finally sits down to write about their shared experiences. Mulga's journey also brings him face-to-face with the dark side of urban despair and his people's struggle with alcohol.
"One of the most important Black texts ... a creative work of significance.
I read Herb's novel throughout the night, not being able to put it down.
I found it enthralling."
Mudrooroo
With a rollicking cast of stockmen, shearers, barmaids and tourists, this novel is the story of three men. Sandy is a white man; Bindi, a Murri; Mulga is related on his mother's side to Bindi, and on his Irish father's side to Sandy. Their saga . and enduring friendship . covers forty years in the mulga country of the far west. It tells how Sandy achieves his dream of owning a cattle empire; how Bindi regains part of his tribal lands for his people, and how Mulga finally sits down to write about their shared experiences. Mulga's journey also brings him face-to-face with the dark side of urban despair and his people's struggle with alcohol.
"One of the most important Black texts ... a creative work of significance.
I read Herb's novel throughout the night, not being able to put it down.
I found it enthralling."
Mudrooroo
192 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2000
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76 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
November 9, 2023
This book was written in a simple style making it easy to get through. I did contemplate giving it away after about 100 pages as the story tended to simply meander through the daily adventures of the three indigenous drovers who were the central characters. The lack of a deeper underlying sub plot was a little frustrating. The second half improved as the author mixed in some insightful social commentary highlighting the difficulties faced by aborigines (or Murri) in the outback, and within a modernising society.
June 25, 2023
First published in 1992, author Herb Wharton shared his own experiences and strong ideals as an Aboriginal drover in this compelling novel. Writing through the perspective of Mulga, known for his “independence and search for knowledge”, Wharton wrote of the challenges droving presented, so meticulously that I was able to leave my city life and roam the dusty outback with him. His closest companions, Sandy and Bindi, shared Mulga’s life, but held dreams of their own: Bindi, the spiritual one, dedicated himself as a guardian of his tribal lands; Sandy, the son of an Aboriginal woman and an Irish father, strove to gain a cattle empire, securing economic control for himself and his family. In later years, Mulga “wondered who had achieved the most”.
Although I found the first half of the novel somewhat repetitious in its portrait of the drovers’ activities in the outback, the second half of the novel provided a brilliant commentary by Mulga on the fate of the Aborigine in modern times. For Mulga (aka Wharton), education was the key to the survival of his people. Mulga strongly argued that “{T}he time had come for the aborigines to decide whether they would continue to endure their third world conditions in segregation or isolation or join the real world of today.” His urgent message reflected his belief that “all the problems could be cured by the Aborigines themselves” through money diverted to housing, health, and education.
The writing was powerful, with sensory imagery that carried me into the lives of the Aborigines both in the outback and in the cities. Wharton’s account of his people was nowhere more powerful than when he reminded readers that “there were a lot more African elephants on earth than Murris (Aboriginal people of Queensland and Northern NSW). Yet the African elephant was listed as a endangered species.”
Although I found the first half of the novel somewhat repetitious in its portrait of the drovers’ activities in the outback, the second half of the novel provided a brilliant commentary by Mulga on the fate of the Aborigine in modern times. For Mulga (aka Wharton), education was the key to the survival of his people. Mulga strongly argued that “{T}he time had come for the aborigines to decide whether they would continue to endure their third world conditions in segregation or isolation or join the real world of today.” His urgent message reflected his belief that “all the problems could be cured by the Aborigines themselves” through money diverted to housing, health, and education.
The writing was powerful, with sensory imagery that carried me into the lives of the Aborigines both in the outback and in the cities. Wharton’s account of his people was nowhere more powerful than when he reminded readers that “there were a lot more African elephants on earth than Murris (Aboriginal people of Queensland and Northern NSW). Yet the African elephant was listed as a endangered species.”
August 8, 2023
A lovely positive story about three men set in maybe 1980s outback QLD or NSW. They’re all related and v gd friends. A white man, his
Half brother with indigenous mother and his full blood tribal cousin. All work and play together in cattle breeding, fencing, driving etc their lives take different tracks, the white man as a wealthy landowner, the half caste (is that a permissible term these days?) a searcher for his place in life and a writer and the Aborigine fighting to improve his peoples lot and culture. Very good. Sensitive sympathetic depictions of life and landscape.
Half brother with indigenous mother and his full blood tribal cousin. All work and play together in cattle breeding, fencing, driving etc their lives take different tracks, the white man as a wealthy landowner, the half caste (is that a permissible term these days?) a searcher for his place in life and a writer and the Aborigine fighting to improve his peoples lot and culture. Very good. Sensitive sympathetic depictions of life and landscape.
March 19, 2024
(3 stars = I liked it)
Fictionalised autobiography of an Aboriginal stockman in the pastoral outback. Despite simple prose, it absorbingly evokes that long gone world with its tall stories, colourful characters (so much grog!) and damages of colonisation.
Fictionalised autobiography of an Aboriginal stockman in the pastoral outback. Despite simple prose, it absorbingly evokes that long gone world with its tall stories, colourful characters (so much grog!) and damages of colonisation.
August 30, 2025
Reading this book was sitting around the camp fire with the fellas or on the next bar stool at the pub.
Herb hit a few nails on the head in this book:
Education, proper health care, sense of community, housing and reclaiming land rights are the way forward.
Herb hit a few nails on the head in this book:
Education, proper health care, sense of community, housing and reclaiming land rights are the way forward.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
May 2, 2024
The setting felt deeply real and compelling. But, the storytelling method did not suit me. I can enjoy meandering tales, but this was too much, with almost no central thread at all.
January 4, 2025
Originally published in 1992, this meandering Australian story draws heavily on the author's own experiences. There's no plot per se, more a recounting of several decades in the lives of three outback cattlemen in Queensland. Sandy is white, Bindi is Aboriginal, and Mulga is related to both, and the first half or so of the book tells of their young lives driving cattle across vast stations and distances. It's more anthropology than fiction, as the reader gets to understand life on a station, the different roles of the drovers, and the sounds and scents of what must be a completely vanished life -- such as an outback horserace and rodeo. (One thing I couldn't ever quite work out is when events take place -- it seems like it must be well after World War II, since that is never referred to, so I'm thinking the 1950-80s? There are large swathes of the book that feel like they could just as easily have been from the 1870-90s...)
As the men age, Sandy settles down to own large swathes of land and become quite wealthy, while Bindi becomes more attuned to indigenous land rights and Mulga wanders between drover life and spells in the city. In the latter part of the book, it grapples quite a bit with what it means to be Aboriginal in the face of modernity, and the Mulga's voice becomes a rather clunky vehicle for the author's own viewpoint. The main thrust is that in order to survive Aboriginal people must adapt to modernity, with education as the key lever. While recognizing that the white settlers reaped all the profits from the land (grazing, mining, etc.), he has no time for protracted intergroup squabbles or overemphasis on land rights.
All in all, it's more of an interesting glimpse into a bygone drover life than anything else. Readers with a deep interest in Australia should check it out, but it's a little too esoteric and loose for the general reader.
As the men age, Sandy settles down to own large swathes of land and become quite wealthy, while Bindi becomes more attuned to indigenous land rights and Mulga wanders between drover life and spells in the city. In the latter part of the book, it grapples quite a bit with what it means to be Aboriginal in the face of modernity, and the Mulga's voice becomes a rather clunky vehicle for the author's own viewpoint. The main thrust is that in order to survive Aboriginal people must adapt to modernity, with education as the key lever. While recognizing that the white settlers reaped all the profits from the land (grazing, mining, etc.), he has no time for protracted intergroup squabbles or overemphasis on land rights.
All in all, it's more of an interesting glimpse into a bygone drover life than anything else. Readers with a deep interest in Australia should check it out, but it's a little too esoteric and loose for the general reader.
May 1, 2024
A story of working the land, reading the seasons and reading the needs of the animals. The interactions between man and the land, and the search for contentment and home.
Told through the stories of three men, who begin a muster together out on vast Australian land. Mulga, Bindi and Sandy work and ride together, camping under the stars, and striving for the same aims, despite their differences.
A vivid depiction of Country, farming goals, unflinching aspects of this very real animal and weather reliant work.
Reflections on learnings and listening to Country, sustainability and the sense of ownership in these colonial pastures. Some beautiful sharing of the vision of future for Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal collaboration and harmony, hope and possibility.
Told through the stories of three men, who begin a muster together out on vast Australian land. Mulga, Bindi and Sandy work and ride together, camping under the stars, and striving for the same aims, despite their differences.
A vivid depiction of Country, farming goals, unflinching aspects of this very real animal and weather reliant work.
Reflections on learnings and listening to Country, sustainability and the sense of ownership in these colonial pastures. Some beautiful sharing of the vision of future for Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal collaboration and harmony, hope and possibility.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews