Recognising, celebrating and acknowledging the diverse Aboriginal cultures and history of our State to achieve lasting benefits for Aboriginal people and the broader community.
Access historical records and information relating to Aboriginal Western Australians.
Warning: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander viewers are warned that this website may contain images and voices of deceased persons.
The department works in partnership with Aboriginal communities and other stakeholders to connect people to Aboriginal culture and history and promotes reconciliation in the wider WA community through a shared and deeper understanding of our past.
The department has the honoured responsibility for delivering an Aboriginal Cultural Centre for Western Australia. The centre will be a powerful symbol of truth-telling and reconciliation as it will aim to recognise, celebrate and acknowledge the diverse Aboriginal cultures and history of our State.
The department leads many truth telling Aboriginal history projects and works in partnership with Aboriginal communities and stakeholders to connect people to their Aboriginal ancestry.
Team members from Aboriginal History Western Australia (AHWA) and the State Library of Western Australia's Storylines will be hitting the road this March to jointly hold free family history sessions in the Great Southern and Wheatbelt.
Aboriginal people who want to learn more about their family history now have a dedicated client space within the State Library to request ancestry information and research services.
More than $1 million in additional funding over 4 years has been approved for the successful Wirnan Cultural Engagement and Learning Project involving 6 art centres in the Kimberley.
Meeting September 2023
A new database is now available, revealing town blocks purchased, leased and licensed by Aboriginal people throughout Western Australia between 1900 and 1960.
Meeting August 2023
Experienced Aboriginal community members announced to join project’s Steering Committee.
Hundreds turn out to Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (AIATSIS) Summit, held at the Perth Convention Centre in Boorloo (Perth).
Meeting March 2023
20 projects throughout the Kimberley, Pilbara, Mid West, Goldfields-Esperance and metropolitan regions will share in $469,384 through the Connecting to Country program.
Bookings to sponsor a Reconciliation Week street banner have now been extended to Friday 10 March 2023.
A significant piece of work that has been undertaken this year is the engagement outreach with Aboriginal people and communities across Western Australia.
The culture shared at this important ceremony shows why it is so vital that we have a place where we can celebrate and learn more about the diversity of Aboriginal culture and heritage.
On 15 August, the Premier the Hon Mark McGowan together with the Whadjuk Aboriginal Cultural Centre Cultural Authority representatives, announced the Terrace Road carpark as the location for the Aboriginal Cultural Centre for Western Australia.
In 2023, the Aboriginal Cultural Centre (ACC) project will expand its membership of the Steering Committee to include suitably experienced Aboriginal leaders from regional Western Australia.
An initiative that will play a vital role in enabling Indigenous language continuation in the Kimberley region will receive a $200,000 support package from the State Government.
The Aboriginal Cultural Centre for Western Australia project marked another milestone today with a cleansing ceremony of the Terrace Road site prior to the start of ground investigation works.
Meeting September and October 2022
A world-class Aboriginal Cultural Centre for Western Australia is a step closer to becoming a reality with the selection of a Terrace Road site as the preferred location for the centre.
A unique insight into the lives of Aboriginal children living at the Mount Margaret Mission, located on Wongatha land in the Goldfields-Esperance region, has been produced by the State Government’s Aboriginal History WA.