New King

Danny Eastwood’s cartoon is a complex dialogue on the meaning of the coronation of King Charles III for Aboriginal people, and on the title, trappings and power of a ‘King’. The National Museum of Australia has an extensive collection of breastplates that were given to male First Nations Elders by white settlers as a way of adapting the existing leadership structures to suit their own purposes. Many of the Elders who received the breastplates were called ‘King’.