Unless otherwise specified the terms Aboriginal and Indigenous should be taken to refer specifically to Aboriginal Australians and Australian Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander people throughout this volume. When used without capitals the terms aboriginal and indigenous should be taken to refer generally to the native populations of any country. Thus the aboriginal or indigenous populations of Australia are referred to as Aboriginal, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, or Indigenous Australians.
The term Dreaming is capitalised throughout where it refers to Indigenous Australian religious tradition. A number of authors have also chosen to follow a stylistic variation currently common in Australia of referring to senior Indigenous Australians as Elders.
In Australian contexts, language is frequently used to refer implicitly to Indigenous languages and a number of authors herein follow this practice.
As arrangements for the publication of this volume included that all chapters be individually downloadable via the internet,1 no universal table of abbreviations or acronyms is provided. Instead these are introduced in each chapter as they arise.