Great reading about Aborigines

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Great reading about Aborigines

Postby Stroller » Thu 11 Aug, 2016 8:59 pm

If you propose a book, please do us the favour of saying what its about in brief so we don't have to go looking everything up.

This is to go along with my other thread by Australian authors. I've got more than enough of those to follow up on now and I'm interested in any that might be available on kindle especially but if not, I might want to check them out some other time.

I'm especially interested in stories about East Australian but not coastal aborigines. Are there any books about aborigines west of the divide?

In recent times two wonderful books I read were:
The Last Nomads - which was about a couple in western australia who really were considered to be the last nomadic aborigines. This book was about finding this lost couple because they were the parents of someone who was not lost and there was a long drought and everyone was worried about them. I adored this book. It was hugely enlightening.

First Australians - the book that went with the TV series. There are excellent essays for each state and what happened to the aboriginal populations. Pretty shocking actually. And again highly enlightening if you didn't see the tv series. I still haven't read them all and must do this one day. Speaking of which, I wonder where my copy has gone. I've just realised its missing.
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Re: Great reading about Aborigines

Postby stepbystep » Fri 12 Aug, 2016 10:54 am

My 3 faves. I'm sure there are plenty of others too...
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Re: Great reading about Aborigines

Postby Redtail » Fri 12 Aug, 2016 2:52 pm

Reading this one at the moment. A brilliant all round and well-balanced history of settlement by two very different peoples, millennia apart.
9780670078714.jpg
9780670078714.jpg (180.24 KiB) Viewed 17299 times


From the Penguin website (in far better language than I can muster):

Compelling, groundbreaking and brilliantly readable, The Story of Australia's People: The Rise and Fall of Ancient Australia is the first instalment of an ambitious two-part work, and the culmination of the lifework of Australia's most prolific and wide-ranging historian.

The vast continent of Australia was settled in two main streams, far apart in time and origin.
The first came ashore some 50,000 years ago when the islands of Australia, Tasmania and New Guinea were one. The second began to arrive from Europe at the end of the eighteenth century. Each had to come to terms with the land they found, and each had to make sense of the other.
The long Aboriginal occupation of Australia witnessed spectacular changes. The rising of the seas isolated the continent and preserved a nomadic way of life, while agriculture was revolutionising other parts of the world. Over millennia, the Aboriginal people mastered the land's climates, seasons and resources.
Traditional Aboriginal life came under threat the moment Europeans crossed the world to plant a new society in an unknown land. That land in turn rewarded, tricked, tantalised and often defeated the new arrivals. The meeting of the two cultures is one of the most difficult and complex meetings in recorded history.


More here https://penguin.com.au/books/the-story-of-australias-people-9780670078714
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Re: Great reading about Aborigines

Postby Moondog55 » Sat 13 Aug, 2016 5:39 pm

Fiction but Mick Woiwoods book
"The Last Cry"
about the effect on the local population during the decades of the settling of Melbourne and regional Victoria

http://www.abebooks.com/LAST-CRY-Mick-W ... 6386450/bd
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Re: Great reading about Aborigines

Postby Stroller » Sat 13 Aug, 2016 9:30 pm

I wish i could have a look at that one but alas its not on kindle.
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Re: Great reading about Aborigines

Postby Moondog55 » Sat 13 Aug, 2016 9:37 pm

Stroller wrote:I wish i could have a look at that one but alas its not on kindle.

Happy to lend you the hard copy to scan
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Re: Great reading about Aborigines

Postby Stroller » Sun 14 Aug, 2016 2:22 pm

OK Thanks but it will have to be down the track. I"m currently looking for books for my travels which will take all of the rest of this and the next year. I can't take hard copies. Too heavy. Thanks for hte offer anyway. Very kind of you.
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Re: Great reading about Aborigines

Postby Moondog55 » Sun 14 Aug, 2016 2:39 pm

No scanner??
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Re: Great reading about Aborigines

Postby puredingo » Mon 15 Aug, 2016 9:30 pm

I posted this in the other thread but it's more relevant here.....Baal Belbora by Geoffery Blomfield is an interesting read, if not gruesome account of the Aboriginal population that occupied the mid north coast and how they were driven into the falls country.

I enjoyed it because as I've never been to that area so the description of land and people was appealing BUT be warned this book comes with a heavy portion of white guilt ready to be rammed down your throat (assuming your white?) and if not get ready to rage against the machine and rise up against the oppressors.

The author has an unapologetic and unabashed bias for the Aboriginal view (and after reading you can see why) but there is also great reading on the early white settlers plight and the problems they faced pioneering a new land.

Something for everyone really...read it, you'll like it.
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Re: Great reading about Aborigines

Postby Stroller » Tue 16 Aug, 2016 9:28 pm

I bought that one just now Puredingo.
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Re: Great reading about Aborigines

Postby Osik » Tue 30 Aug, 2016 12:05 am

Benang by Kim Scott is one of my favorites novels , took a third of the book to get into it but couldn't stop reading after that. Sprawling multi-generational story set on the west coast and rooted in the history of the place. Not east coast but I think brilliant at filling in some of the silences of the lived experience from within and out.
In a completely different vein,'Singing saltwater country' by John Bradley (+ yanyuwa families) is written by a whitefella in an effort to tell the story of some of the gulf of carpentaria songlines and the cultural history of those that sing them. Alternates between his experiences of living in community and the stories of the songlines themselves.
Both very different and neither of them eastern Australia (west of dividing range) but both made a big impression on me. If you haven't got it yet 'Forgotten War' by Henry Reynolds would be another book that speaks to the silences of Oz's official history and is one that we should probably all read in school (but didn't).
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Re: Great reading about Aborigines

Postby ribuck » Tue 30 Aug, 2016 5:01 am

What I would like to read is a book about how aborigines lived in the areas where we now walk. What kind of fires did they make? How often? Did they put them out, or keep them glowing for the next meal? Presumably in addition to cooking fires they also had fires for warmth, spiritual rituals, etc. But did they boil liquids? How often did wildfires escape from their campfires? Where did they pee and sh*t? Apart from various taboos (e.g. don't swim in waterholes) what other practices contributed towards avoiding water-borne illnesses? What about food poisoning? Did they have a concept of "leftovers" and if so how did they keep them?

I know very little about the ordinary day-to-day aspects of their lives, and would love to know more about the parts that overlap with how we get by when bushwalking in these places.
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Re: Great reading about Aborigines

Postby Stroller » Wed 31 Aug, 2016 6:42 am

Ribuck from the little i've read of aboriginal stories around the ridges, I would say keep reading from wherever they come from and you will possibly find answers or at least likely answers to your questions if not a book on the subject. For instance, a book i read a few years ago called The Last Nomad set in western australia explained or showed a lot about the way aborigines used fire. There were lots of things in that book that broadened my understanding of aborigines. Although living in the desert and living in forested mountains seem to be worlds apart, given how basic life was, there has to be much overlap in the things they did. Eg the use of animal fur for warmth, right?

Like you i'm interested in the nitty gritty of every day life and i think these details are to be found scattered over a lot of books though you may not find any or only few listed in the area you are interested in for fairly obvious reasons. Eg If you know about the history of aborigines in victoria and new south wales, you may find that there were no populations there that were ever studied or the people who came from there were dispersed and killed early on and before anyone bothered to find out anything about them. Anyway i'm reading the Bush by Don Watson, in the hopes of finding out about anything of victorian aborigines as well as life in the bush in the region. I think you just have to read widely if you want to gather this sort of detail. Or go and dig through the bibliographies of other academic studies about aborigines to find promising sources.

Try the mitchel library. Phone them/email them and ask. Ditto other important libraries such as the national library in canberra and whatever the one in melbourne is called. If none of these people can come up with a book for you, there isn't one.
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Re: Great reading about Aborigines

Postby slparker » Wed 31 Aug, 2016 11:08 am

i have a reasonable library of australian history focused on aboriginal history. My library is heavily weighted towards tasmanian history - as that's where i grew up but I have a few suggestions.

general history or accounts of of Aboriginal ways of life:

[*]WEH Stanner's collection of essays 'After the dreaming and other essays', published by Black inc. is a great place to start with aboriginal worldview, description of kinship, religious, ceremonial and cultural life. he was an anthroplogist in the 1900s in North Australia. he is an extraordinarily good non-fiction writer but can get technical - although it is written for a general audience.

[*]As above - Bill Gammage's history of fire use by Australian Aboriginals can be dry and academic but fascinating reading
[*]The story of australia's people by Blainey - very good but somewhat sanitised in part
[*]Henry reynolds series of books on frontier violence - illuminating, impeccably researched, but can be polemical - perhaps should be read alongside blainey for a balanced view
[*]The first australians - accompanying book to the SBS series. Very good in that it is told from an aboriginal perspective, like it or not.



Tasmanian Aborigines:


general contemporary Tasmanian aboriginal history:
[*]Bonwick's 'Last of the Tasmanians' - written by a contemporary tasmanian historian. general hearsay accounts of frontier violence and aboriginal ways of life - available online as an ebook. can't be trusted but you get the feel for what actually happened in 1820 tasmania.
[*]Ling Roth's The aborigines of Tasmania - Written by a british anthropologist - ueseful because he gathered all the available ethnographic data (except for Robertson's journals) into one volume in the early 1900s. Good accounts of observations of tasmanian aboriginal way of life from baudin's french expeditions onwards, to milligans work but missing robertson's journals entirely. available online as a PDF/e-book. Dry and academic but authoritative in its way.
[*]West's tasmanian history - fascinating, authoratative, old, available online

[*]Plomley's 'Friendly mission' - the published diaries of GA Robertson in his commission to 'reconciliate' or round up the surviving clans of Tasmanian Aborigines in the 1830s. This offers insights into aboriginal hunting, mythology, cosmology, use of fire, inter-clan relations but is scarce in its detail for such a large book. Interesting to me because it is about the area where i grew up. Expensive, hard to read, the text to have, available from larger libraries.
[*]Plomley's 'weep in silence' is also in the same vein - about Tasmanian aboriginal history from 1830 onwards. A collection of contemporary journal articles it is also expensive and difficult to wade through but has insights into Tasmanian aboriginal ways of life.
[*]Plomleys 'Jorgen Jorgenson and the Aborigines of Van Diemen's Land' Interesting reading, primarily about the western tiers and big river aboriginal people Jorgen Jorgensen was a dane who was a british convict, was once king of Iceland (seriously), ended up a drunk in campbelltown and has his likeness on Ross Bridge in central tasmania....
[*]Plomley's collection of language, essays, tribal divisions are all available online (with the exception of the tasmanian language and wordlists)

[*]Ryan's Aboriginal Tasmanians: comprehensive, flawed, inaccurate by design or laxity but probably the best single account of Tasmanian aboriginal history available

[*]Boyce's Van Diemen's Land. The best history of Tasmania - very good sections on tasmanian abotiginal people and frontier violence. The appendix is almost thrilling in its outrage of the final history of Tasmanian aboriginal people and the probity of windschuttle's attempt at debunking the black war.

[*]Van Diemen's Land by Murray Johnson - less successful than ryan or Boyce but more evenhanded than ryan. Contains nothing new.

[*]Nicholas Clement's Black War - excellent history of frontier violence in Tasmania. Very even handed approach, accessible and draws on comprehensive primary sources. A great read and ought to be a standard text in tasmanian high Schools, in my opinion.

[*]Reynolds 'Fate of a Free People' another fine history of frontier violence and dispossession

[*]Reynold's History of Tasmania. Not particularly good, Boyce is the go-to here.

[*]Sue Kee's Archeological series on Tasmanian aboriginal archeology of the midlands and north-east tasmania. Only available from the Launceston or Hobart Reference Library, or academic libraries. The history background is very comprehensive and includes plomley's work plus excerpts from diaries and letters of contemporaries such as Batman, Danvers, Anstey etc. Very good summary of what is known of Tasmanian aboriginal life.

[*]Fullers bookshop has published two superb books on Tasmanian aboriginal history - Levee, Line and Martial Law: A History of the Dispossession of the Mairremmener People of Van Diemen's Land 1803-1832 and Beyond awakening. The Aboriginal tribes of North West Tasmania: A history. these are both very, very good histories with a substantial amount of information on what is known about tasmanian aboriginal ways of life, trade routes, hunting patterns etc. Now out of print. Available from libraries, probably.

[*]Nic Haygarth - northern midlands history - some good history summarising what is available from other sources

[*]Port Dalrymple history - bethell - snippets of tasmanian aboriginal history of the launceston area

[*]Stancombes' Highway in Van Diemen's Land (Midlands highway history), as with Bethell some excellent snippets of tasmanian aboriginal history contained within

[*]The last man. A recent book on genocide in tasmania - a bit dry and academic.

Online:

Good well researched and written aboriginal history of the north tasmanian region (meander valley, western tiers) by Shayne breen, a Tasmanian academic. These are available on PDF online.

Queensland:

[*]Warrior by libby Collins - focused on a Queensland aboriginal resistance fighter in the colonial period - good account of the local aboriginal people

WA
[*] Jandamarra - focused on kimberley aboriginal resistance in colonial period. Fine book with good descriptions of aboriginal life in NW australia

NSW

[*]Blackfella's Point - similar to above about the Eden/twofold bay area - similar tales of dispossession and violence with some good accounts of indigenous life - well written
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Re: Great reading about Aborigines

Postby Stroller » Wed 31 Aug, 2016 11:28 pm

That's an impressive list. Slparker. I hope for your sake, you were able to copy and paste all that. I'd hate to think you typed it out for our sakes.
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Re: Great reading about Aborigines

Postby slparker » Thu 01 Sep, 2016 9:31 am

Stroller wrote:That's an impressive list. Slparker. I hope for your sake, you were able to copy and paste all that. I'd hate to think you typed it out for our sakes.


nah, i typed it out for the sake of those interested in reading more.

I think that I missed a few bits here and there, i have quite a few primary sources from trove.nla.gov.au as well but most of those are referred to in the texts that I have already mentioned.
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