AustLit

'R.H.Mathews, having spent the middle years of the 19th century as a surveyor, around the age of fifty began investigating the beliefs, social organisation and languages of Aborigines. Between that time and his death in 1918 he published 171 articles in the scientific journals of Britain, the United States, Australia and (translated) of France, Austria and Germany, as well as corresponding with various well known figures in the anthropology and comparative religion of the period. He also fell into bitter controversy with the likes of Professor Baldwin Spencer and explorer, A.W.Howitt, who thought of themselves as the leading Australian based authorities on the Aborigines. (Introduction)