LAUSR

were criticised by missionaries as misinterpretations, rather than as evidence of deep and creative engagement with missionary teachings. Missionaries complained about what they called Anindilyakwa ‘conservatism’, but over time, the language, practices and belief of many missionaries were transformed by their own encounter with the Anindilyakwa world. Rademaker draws valuable comparisons between Angurugu and other missions, noting the very different histories of language translation, even in other parts of the Northern Territory. As she notes, where different Indigenous cultures encountered different missionary traditions, the outcomes could vary widely as far as linguistic and cultural exchange were concerned. There is a crucial lessonhere forhistorianswhowould generalise too widely about either Indigenous or missionary cultures. Some of the phenomena that Rademaker describes, such as missionary anxiety about howtodeterminewhether anAnindilyakwa person was truly converted, were ubiquitous in mission contexts across the world. In places, Rademaker could helpfully have engagedwith themore global scholarship on these common elements of missionary culture and psychology. Throughout her account, Rademaker shows thatAnindilyakwapeople–whether they identified as Christian or not – repeatedly refused to allow their language and law to be reduced by translation to the categories that the missionaries introduced. Through this refusal, Anindilyakwapeople asserted the ontological primacy of their ways of knowing. In this sense – although Rademaker does not use precisely these terms – this book is a powerful account of Anindilyakwa sovereignty.