AustLit

'The most important time of Amalie Dietrich's remarkable life was the ten years from 1863 to 1872, which she spent as a naturalist-collector in the colony of Queensland. Dietrich was engaged for this undertaking by Johann Caesar VI Godeffroy, a wealthy shipping and trading magnate of Hamburg, w h o sent her to collect specimens in Australia for his private museum , the Museu m Godeffroy in Hamburg. She spent that decade in arduous and meticulous scientific collecting on the fringes of some of the newest and remotest white settlements of north Queensland (Sumner 1988a).Dietrich's role in the history of science has not been fully recognised for several reasons. Perhaps most importantly, she published nothing under her ow n name. Furthermore, both the scientific studies of her collections and the popular literature about Dietrich were in German and remained unknown to English readers. Also, the collections were held in European, mainly German, museums . Finally, Dietrich left very little personal manuscript material, while the extensive scientific notes she made concerning her field collections were destroyed in the Second World War.' (Introduction)

 'Aboriginal voices are often heard these days, including singers and song makers. Yothu Yindi is a household name, and the likes of Archie Roach and Kevin Carmody are well known. Until the late 1960s Aboriginal people were mostly spoken for, and, although Harold Blair and Jimmy Little were known as Aboriginal singers, they did not sing many Aboriginal songs. When in 1965 the Australian folk label, Wattle, issued Dougie Young's The Land Where the Crow Flies Backwards' and drinking songs such as 'Cut a Rug7 and 'Pass Him the Flagon', they were something of a novelty. But the poor quality of the recordings, weak distribution, and the musical tastes of the times - folk and rock, but certainly not country - all worked against them catching on.' ( (Publication abstract)

'For the past thirty years, RMW Dixon has been researching the languages of the Cairns rainforest region, producing a steady stream of linguistic publications. A s a result, the languages of the area are among the most technically well described in Australia. The book under review is the completion of Dixon's work on Yidiny, the language originally spoken in Cairns and areas to the south, begun with the grammatical description of Dixon 1977.'  (Introduction)

'My Kind of People was published in 1993 by University of Queensland Press as part of its Black Australian Writers series. In this modest book of 154 pages, Wayn e Coolwell, the presenter of the AB C radio program 'Speaking Out', presents interviews with twelve talented Australian Aboriginal people. In his preface, Coolwell states that his aims are to show the diversity that exists in contem-porary Aboriginal society and to attempt to challenge non-Aboriginal people's stereotypes. The book is subtitled 'Achievement, Identity and Aboriginality' and these terms capture the essence of the main issues that Coolwell explores with his subjects.'  (Introduction)

'These two books deal with Aborigines in Western Australia, principally during the first four decades of this century. To some extent, they cover the same ground. Haebich spans the period 1900-40, while Jacobs studies the life of A O Neville (1897-1954) whose active involvement in Aboriginal affairs started in 1915 and ended with his retirement in 1940, although he continued to be actively involved in Aboriginal issues until his death. But if the ground traversed is to some extent the same, the approach and tone are fundamentally different. Looking back on one of the most difficult, vexed and at times disturbing periods in Australian history, it is all too easy to be critical, condemnatory and even slightly self-righteous. It is tempting to neglect the complex political, ideological and social issues of the time which framed both thought and action. In a focus which sharpens the reader's appreciation of a single man, his life, ambitions, frustrations, failures and successes, Jacobs's life of A O Neville takes us to the heart of the matter. It brings the reader to an understanding (though not necessarily to an approval) of the desire for action which was believed to be 'for their ow n good'. Ironically, despite the title, Haebich does not give us a similarly contextualised view of history.  (Introduction)

'This volume is the last of a series of life histories of Aboriginal me n and women from the East Kimberley compiled by Bruce Shaw. As its subtitle indicates, the book provides perspectives of Aboriginal life before the full impact of the initiatives and reforms of the Whitlam and Fraser governments. As the older people interviewed by Shaw in this book are no w deceased, When the Dust Come in Between forms a record of times no w passed; hard times to be sure, but times which man y of the storytellers look back upon with wistfulness and longing.' (Introduction)

'This novel was announced the winner of the national David Unaipon Award for Black Australian Writing at Warana Writers Week in Brisbane in  September 1992, and has since been published and distributed by University of Queensland Press (UQP) in its Black Australian Writers series. It is Philip McLaren's first novel, so he is to be congratulated for winning such a prestigious national award. Philip McLaren is a descendant of the Kamilaroi people of the Warrumbungle Mountains area of northwestern New South Wales. He has worked overseas for many years in television and advertising and now lives in Sydney, working as a freelance producer of television and film documentaries.' (Introduction)

'Sam Watson's novel, The Kadaitcha Sung: A Seductive Tale of Sorcery, Eroticism and Corruption, is outstanding in a number of ways. Watson skilfully moves between temporal and spatial dimensions, weaving his brutal tale of a sorcerer avenging two related expressions of a major catastrophe: the interruption of Aboriginal cosmology by a rogue Kadaitcha and the British colonisation of Australia. It is a confronting text, in which homicidal and sexual violence erupts or bubbles just below the surface. The challenge of Watson's novel is that it assaults the reader with the undiluted hatred Tommy Gubba and his warriors have for and express towards whites, and towards blacks who have joined forces with whites. It is a black representation of the continuing colonial interface, particularly exploring the strategies employed by southeastern Queensland and northern New South Wales blacks in managing their relations with whites and with other blacks, especially through the adoption of 'Jack-Jacky roles', the exercise of sorcery, employment of supernatural forces and the use of violence. Watson clearly locates the Native Mounted Police in Brisbane, during the present and past. It is in his collapsing of time that the atrocities can be graphically portrayed as one continuous and contemporary flow of violence, not interrupted by the spaces of time or place. This serves to magnify the episodes and overwhelms the reader, allowing her or him no escape.' (Introduction)

'Having a more than passing interest in the affairs of the Wreck Bay Aboriginal community, I am delighted that Aboriginal Studies Press has decided to publish a revised edition of Brian Egloff's commendably accessible and very popular Wreck Bay: An Aboriginal Fishing Community. I found this new edition, with its improved layout and its wonderfully sunny front cover illustrating community life at Wreck Bay, to be far more appealing than its predecessor.'  (Introduction)

'On the morning of 16 September 1993, Oodgeroo of the Noonuccal People died in the Greenslopes Repatriation Hospital in Brisbane. With her death, Australia lost a person of rare genius, one who must be forever remembered as a champion of the rights of Australia's original people.'  (Introduction)

 'On his first major field trip after being appointed assistant entomologist at the South Australian Museum in 1918, Norman Tindale sketched the tribal Aboriginal boundaries in the Groote Eylandt and Roper River area of the Northern Territory. His map was edited before publication and the boundaries removed, on the basis that Aborigines were wanderers with no fixed attachments to land.'  (Introduction)

'William ('Bill') Reid was born on 23 January 1917 in a calico tent on the Cuttabri Aboriginal reserve near Wee Waa, New South Wales, of Gamilaraay (Kamilaroi) descent. His parents worked on nearby Sunnyside station, supplementing their wages with bush tucker. At an early age, Bill took a great interest in the language and culture of the Murrie people and developed a store of knowledge about traditional plants, animals, foods and medicines. At the age of six, he went to Wee Waa where he attended school for two years (his only formal schooling), and then at 13 was sent off to work ringbarking and cutting burrs for 1s 6d per week. His mother moved the family to Brewarrina in 1922 to escape the reserve authorities.' (Introduction)

'In November 1991 Bill Reid heard that there was to be a meeting at Brewarrina Aboriginal Cultural Museum to explore ways for local people, especially children in school, to learn back some of their language heritage, making use of the archival material at AIATSIS. He made sure that he got a lift across from Bourke, from Peter Cooper, then working there for Radio 2WEB. At the museum Bill kept quietly singing a little tune beside me, so infectiously that I was soon singing too, and couldn't wait to ask him what it was. 'That's the curlew's love song!' Then he said with a gleam in his eye, I know the dance for it too'. Terry offered his skills with the video camera, and in next to no time they had arranged to go to a suitable riverbank spot after returning to Bourke, where Bill sang and danced for Peter and for posterity.'  (Introduction)

'Dr Ian Cameron, of Bourke, phoned me at the end of September 1993 to say that he was admitting Bill Reid to the district hospital for blood transfusions. Bill, at 76, was severely affected by a leukaemic illness. I immediately drove to Bourke, to find that Bill was not responding to the treatment. It was clear that his illness was terminal. He was cheerful, however, and made plans to visit me in Sydney for a holiday during the coming summer. He was in the custom of spending a couple of weeks at my home in Sydney each year, looking over the sea at Malabar. Bill died shortly afterward. We were both glad that I had visited him in time.' (Introduction)