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'Traces the life of Nathanael Pepper of the Wotjobaluk people, who was born as the first pastoralists were driving cattle and sheep into Victoria's Wimmera region. In their wake came Christian missionaries, who were just as hostile to the settlers' violence as they were to the traditional beliefs of Aboriginal people. Nevertheless, Pepper converted to Christianity in 1860. The extraordinary story of Pepper's conversion, and his subsequent attempts to reconcile the apparently irreconcilable, reveals much about the deeper symbolic and moral forces at work in this collision of cultures. Robert Kenny challenges many orthodoxies in this profound reconsideration of how indigenous people and Europeans thought about each other. He traces Aboriginal attempts to accommodate the 'people of the sheep' and their pastoralist totem, Jesus, while arguing that it was European animals more than the settlers themselves that ruptured the Dreaming. On the European side, Kenny argues, increasingly powerful scientific and philosophical challenges undermined evangelical Christianity's belief that all humanity was of 'One Blood'. And behind it all lurked the spectre of slavery and the question of the moral order of imperialism. Brilliantly original in conception, and written with a rare lucidity and lightness of touch, The Lamb Enters the Dreaming is a detailed and sensitive exploration of a life, a meditation on the matter of culture and conversion, and a major reappraisal of the relations between Aboriginal and European societies in the first decades of contact in southern Australia.' (Back cover.)
Notes
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Epigraph: What might the cultural history and sociopolitical history of the West look like if we tried to narrate both without mention of major turnings? What would they look like if they were written as histories of a very large number of small campaigns, rather than as the history of a few great movements? What would our past look like if we decided...that history is an endless network of changing relationships, without any great climatic ruptures or peripeties, and that terms like "traditional society", "modern society", and "postmodern society" are more trouble than they are worth? - Richard Rorty.
Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of
Other Formats
- Also e-book
Works about this Work
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From the Paddock to the Page : Squatter Peter Beveridge's Ethnological Writing about the Wadi Wadi in Colonial Victoria
2016
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Oceania , November vol. 86 no. 3 2016; (p. 244–261)'This article examines the ethnological writing about the Wadi Wadi people undertaken by squatter Peter Beveridge in the 1850s and 1860s. In the north of the colony of Victoria, both Beveridge and the Wadi Wadi laid claim to the land upon which they lived. In this ambiguous space, lengthy and close relationships developed between Beveridge and Wadi Wadi people with information and experiences shared. Valuing the knowledge of Wadi Wadi people, Beveridge was able to adapt and challenge aspects of the British ethnological ideas through which he framed his analysis of Wadi Wadi life. The article explores specifically Beveridge's response to the 1841 Queries Respecting the Human Race. It appears that Beveridge purposefully ignored the questions on Physical Characters and recognised spiritual belief as an integral part of Wadi Wadi daily life.' (Publication abstract)
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The Lamb Enters the Dreaming: Nathanael Pepper and the Ruptured World : Book Review
2009
single work
review
— Appears in: Aboriginal History , no. 33 2009; (p. 291-293)
— Review of The Lamb Enters the Dreaming : Nathanael Pepper and the Ruptured World 2007 single work biography -
Religious Conversion and the Historical Moment
2009
single work
review
— Appears in: Australian Humanities Review , November no. 47 2009;
— Review of The Lamb Enters the Dreaming : Nathanael Pepper and the Ruptured World 2007 single work biography -
Wotjobaluk Focus for Joint Winner
2009
single work
review
— Appears in: Koori Mail , 29 July no. 456 2009; (p. 27)
— Review of The Lamb Enters the Dreaming : Nathanael Pepper and the Ruptured World 2007 single work biography -
Aboriginal Tale Wins PM Prize
2009
single work
column
— Appears in: National Indigenous Times , 23 July vol. 8 no. 182 2009; (p. 8)
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Man from a Mission
2009
single work
review
— Appears in: Quadrant , May vol. 53 no. 5 2009; (p. 115-116)
— Review of The Lamb Enters the Dreaming : Nathanael Pepper and the Ruptured World 2007 single work biography -
Wotjobaluk Focus for Joint Winner
2009
single work
review
— Appears in: Koori Mail , 29 July no. 456 2009; (p. 27)
— Review of The Lamb Enters the Dreaming : Nathanael Pepper and the Ruptured World 2007 single work biography -
Religious Conversion and the Historical Moment
2009
single work
review
— Appears in: Australian Humanities Review , November no. 47 2009;
— Review of The Lamb Enters the Dreaming : Nathanael Pepper and the Ruptured World 2007 single work biography -
The Lamb Enters the Dreaming: Nathanael Pepper and the Ruptured World : Book Review
2009
single work
review
— Appears in: Aboriginal History , no. 33 2009; (p. 291-293)
— Review of The Lamb Enters the Dreaming : Nathanael Pepper and the Ruptured World 2007 single work biography -
Overflow
2008
single work
column
— Appears in: The Weekend Australian , 13-14 September 2008; (p. 9) A column canvassing current literary news including a brief report on the rationale behind Scribe's decision to publish Robert Kenny's The Lamb Enters the Dreaming : Nathanael Pepper and the Ruptured World. -
ANU Historian Shares Top Prize
2009
single work
column
— Appears in: The Canberra Times , 10 July 2009; (p. 3) -
Book Prize Helps Turn Victim Back into an Historian
2009
single work
column
— Appears in: The Age , 10 July 2009; (p. 6) -
Aboriginal Tale Wins PM Prize
2009
single work
column
— Appears in: National Indigenous Times , 23 July vol. 8 no. 182 2009; (p. 8) -
From the Paddock to the Page : Squatter Peter Beveridge's Ethnological Writing about the Wadi Wadi in Colonial Victoria
2016
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Oceania , November vol. 86 no. 3 2016; (p. 244–261)'This article examines the ethnological writing about the Wadi Wadi people undertaken by squatter Peter Beveridge in the 1850s and 1860s. In the north of the colony of Victoria, both Beveridge and the Wadi Wadi laid claim to the land upon which they lived. In this ambiguous space, lengthy and close relationships developed between Beveridge and Wadi Wadi people with information and experiences shared. Valuing the knowledge of Wadi Wadi people, Beveridge was able to adapt and challenge aspects of the British ethnological ideas through which he framed his analysis of Wadi Wadi life. The article explores specifically Beveridge's response to the 1841 Queries Respecting the Human Race. It appears that Beveridge purposefully ignored the questions on Physical Characters and recognised spiritual belief as an integral part of Wadi Wadi daily life.' (Publication abstract)
Awards
- 2008 joint-winner Prime Minister's Literary Awards — The Prime Minister's Prize for Australian History Prize shared with Tom Griffith's Slicing the Silence
- 2008 winner The Australian Historical Association Awards — W. K. Hancock Prize
- 2008 winner Victorian Premier's Literary Awards — Prize for a First Book of History
- 2006 winner Australian Centre Literary Awards — Peter Blazey Fellowship
- Victoria,
- 1800-1899