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Issue Details: First known date: 1994... 1994 `Narratives of Survival in the Post-colonial North'
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AbstractHistoryArchive Description

Scholars have recently paid more attention to narratives of colonial contact in Australia, as elsewhere (cf. Hill 1988). Western elements and characters (such as Captain Cook) have been widely documented in Australian Aboriginal narratives which nevertheless are clearly not close accounts of past events. This has promoted reconsideration of the distinction between 'myth' and 'history'. If we follow Turner's (1988) suggestion that myth is the formulation of 'essential' properties of social experience in terms of 'generic events', while 'history' is concerned with the level of 'particular relations among particular events', we need not restrict ourselves to seeing myth as chattel for a social order distinct from western influence. In the paper I examine two stories of cultural and physical survival from the Katherine area, Northern Territory, and seek to identify in them fundamental themes and enduring narrative precipitates of social experience lived in intense awareness of colonial and post-colonial relationships between Aborigines and whites.' (Publication abstract)
 

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon Oceania vol. 65 no. 2 December 1994 12248056 1994 periodical issue

    'Discusses the issue of the supposed absence of historical consciousness among traditionally oriented Aborigines. Review of J. Hill and T. Turner's attempts to define the difference between myth and history; Discourse on some narratives of colonization from Western New South Wales; Analysis of some Aboriginal stories about Captain Cook.' (Introduction)

    1994
    pg. 151-174
Last amended 17 Nov 2017 07:06:43
151-174 `Narratives of Survival in the Post-colonial North'small AustLit logo Oceania
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