Sign-In
Cart
A World That Was
Paperback
Currently unavailable to order
Please enter your email and a message will be sent to you when this product becomes available on our website.
ISBN13: 9780522874662
Publisher: Melbourne University
Published: Feb 9 2024
Pages: 678
Weight: 2.51
Height: 1.36 Width: 7.16 Depth: 9.64
Language: English
This extraordinary book, written from material gathered over half a century ago, will almost certainly be the last fine-grained account of traditional Aboriginal life in settled south-eastern Australia. It recreates the world of the Yaraldi group of the Kukabrak or Narrinyeri people of the Lower Murray and Lakes region of South Australia.
In 1939 Albert Karloan, a Yaraldi man, urged a young ethnologist, Ronald Berndt, to set up camp at Murray Bridge and to record the story of his people. Karloan and Pinkie Mack, a Yaraldi woman, possessed through personal experience, not merely through hearsay, an all but complete knowledge of traditional life. They were virtually the last custodians of that knowledge and they felt the burden of their unique situation. This book represents their concerted efforts to pass on the story to future generations.
For Ronald and Catherine Berndt, this was their first fieldwork together in an illustrious joint career of almost fifty years. During long periods, principally until 1943, they laboured with pencil and paper to put it all down-a far cry from the recording techniques of today's oral historians. Their fieldnotes were worked into a rough draft of what would become, but not until recently, the finished manuscript.
The book's range is encyclopaedic and engrossing-sometimes dramatic. It encompasses relations between and among individuals and clan groups, land tenure, kinship, the subsistence economy, trade, ceremony, councils, fighting and warfare, rites of passage from conception to death, myths, and beliefs and practices concerning healing and the supernatural. Not least, it is a record of the dramatic changes following European colonization.
A World That Was is a unique contribution to Australia's cultural history. There is simply no comparable body of work, not is there ever likely to be.
Also in
Australia & Oceania
The Secret Life of Lobsters: How Fishermen and Scientists Are Unraveling the Mysteries of Our Favorite Crustacean
Corson, Trevor
Paperback
Island of the Lost: An Extraordinary Story of Survival at the Edge of the World
Druett, Joan
Paperback
Lost Kingdom: Hawaiia's Last Queen, the Sugar Kings, and Americaa's First Imperial Venture
Siler, Julia Flynn
Paperback
Batavia's Graveyard: The True Story of the Mad Heretic Who Led History's Bloodiest Mutiny
Dash, Mike
Paperback
Scapegoats of the Empire: The True Story of Breaker Morant's Bushveldt Carbineers
Witton, Edward
Paperback
Sea of Glory: America's Voyage of Discovery, the U.S. Exploring Expedition, 1838-1842
Philbrick, Nathaniel
Paperback
Lost in Shangri-La: A True Story of Survival, Adventure, and the Most Incredible Rescue Mission of World War II
Zuckoff, Mitchell
Paperback
A Shark Going Inland Is My Chief: The Island Civilization of Ancient Hawai'i
Kirch, Patrick Vinton
Paperback
How Chiefs Became Kings: Divine Kingship and the Rise of Archaic States in Ancient Hawai'i
Kirch, Patrick Vinton
Paperback
Savage Harvest: A Tale of Cannibals, Colonialism, and Michael Rockefeller's Tragic Quest
Hoffman, Carl
Paperback
Terra in Our Mist: A Tūhoe Narrative of Indigenous Sovereignty and Settler-State Violence
Aikman, Pounamu Jade William Emery
Hardcover
The Reef: A Passionate History: The Great Barrier Reef from Captain Cook to Climate Change
McCalman, Iain
Paperback
Voices Beyond the Grave: Japanese Internment in the French Pacific
Ireland, Benjamin Hiramatsu
Hardcover
The Forgotten Children of Maui: Filipino Myths, Tattoos, and Rituals of a Demigod
Wilcken, Lane
Paperback
The Mana of Translation: Translational Flow in Hawaiian History from the Baibala to the Mauna
Kuwada, Bryan Kamaoli
Hardcover
Mutiny on the Bounty: A Saga of Sex, Sedition, Mayhem and Mutiny, and Survival Against Extraordinary Odds
Fitzsimons, Peter
Paperback
Double Sunrise: Qantas Empire Airways Indian Ocean Wartime Services 1943-1946
Goodall, Geoff
Paperback
Burke and Wills: The Triumph and Tragedy of Australia's Most Famous Explorers
Fitzsimons, Peter
Paperback
The Future Eaters: An Ecological History of the Australasian Lands and People
Flannery, Tim
Paperback
The Myth of the Natural Laboratory: Science, Empire, and Their Derangements on Pitcairn and Norfolk Islands
Young, Adrian
Hardcover
Beyond the Meeting of the Waters: A Yorta Yorta Life Story
Guinness, Catherine
Atkinson, Wayne
Hardcover
South Pacific Air War Volume 6: Wau to Bismarck Sea, January - March 1943
Ingman, Peter
Claringbould, Michael
Paperback
The Shameful Isles: The true story of North-West Australia's fatal experiment with medical apartheid
Price, David
Paperback
Contaminated Country: Nuclear Colonialism and Aboriginal Resistance in Australia
Urwin, Jessica
Paperback
'I buy this piece of ground here': An Italian market-gardener community in Adelaide, 1920s-1970s
Regan, Madeleine
Paperback
Clanlands in New Zealand: Kiwis, Kilts, and an Adventure Down Under
McTavish, Graham
Heughan, Sam
Paperback
People Powered Radio: Fifty Years of Australian Community Radio Station 4zzz
Anderson, Heather
Paperback
Pathway of the Birds: The Voyaging Achievements of Māori and Their Polynesian Ancestors
Crowe, Andrew
Paperback
The Road from Coorain: A Woman's Exquisitely Clear-Sighted Memoir of Growing Up Australian
Conway, Jill Ker
Paperback
Riots: Returned soldiers and public disorder in Australia at the end of World War I
Skyring, Fiona
Paperback
Empires of Violence: Massacre in a Revolutionary Age
Mann, Barbara Alice
Penn, Nigel
Dwyer, Philip
Hardcover
Wild Partners: Indigenous Worlds and Industrial Giants in Papua New Guinea
Guinness, Patrick
Paperback
The Battle of the Coral Sea Explained: Expert Analysis of the Pivotal WWII Battle Where American Strength Saved Australia
Lewis, Tom, Oam
Paperback
The Last Tour: Paul and Eslanda Robeson's Visit to Australia and New Zealand in 1960
Curthoys, Ann
Paperback
The Southern Frontier: Australia, Antarctica and Empire in the Southern Ocean World
Howitt, Rohan
Paperback
Aboriginal Mythology: Enthralling Myths, Legends, and Folktales from Ancient Australia
Wellman, Billy
Hardcover
Under the Mountain Wall: A Chronicle of Two Seasons in Stone Age New Guinea
Matthiessen, Peter
Paperback
Queen Liliuokalani: The Hawaiian Kingdom's Last Monarch, Hawaii History, A Biography
Makana, Kale
Paperback
Scapegoats of the Empire: The True Story of Breaker Morant's Bushveldt Carbineers
Witton, George
Paperback
Aborigine Trail: Trials, Travail, and Triumph Using Psychology with Aborigine Police
Rudofossi, Dan
Moloney, Matthew
Paperback
Feathered Gods and Fishhooks: The Archaeology of Ancient Hawai'i, Revised Edition
Kirch, Patrick Vinton
McCoy, Mark D.
Paperback
The White Pacific: U.S. Imperialism and Black Slavery in the South Seas After the Civil War
Horne, Gerald
Paperback
King Kamehameha The Great: King of the Hawaiian Islands, Hawaii History, A Biography
Makana, Kale
Paperback
Miles Franklin Undercover: The Little-Known Years When She Created Her Own Brilliant Career
Davies, Kerrie
Paperback
A Holistic Reading of Chronicles with a Samoan Hermeneutic: Reading Jabez in Context
Moleli Alama, Samasoni
Hardcover
Drink and Democracy: Alcohol and the Political Imaginary in Colonial Australia
Allen, Matthew
Paperback
So Far and Yet So Close: Frontier Cattle Ranching in Western Prairie Canada and the Northern Territory of Australia
Elofson, Warren
Paperback
Aboriginal Peoples and Birds in Australia: Historical and Cultural Relationships
Clarke, Philip
Paperback