The Euahlayi Tribe: A Study of Aboriginal Life in Australia, with Original Introduction by Andrew Lang. - Softcover

Parker, K. Langloh

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1500280151 ISBN 13: 9781500280154

Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2014

Synopsis

“In breezy, colloquial language Mrs. Langloh Parker has set down a considerable amount of accurate information concerning the Euahlayi tribe of the Narran river in the north of New South Wales. She makes no pretensions to be a scientific student, but for twenty years she has lived in contact with the Euahlayi, and being of an inquiring disposition and having the grace of sympathy she has acquired a very considerable store of first-hand knowledge about a tribe of whom scarcely anything was known previously, and thus her observations help to fill one of the numerous blank spaces which remain as a reproach to us in the ethnic map of Australia....This charming book appeals alike to the student and the general reader, and the missionary will also find food for reflection, especially I the closing remarks. Mr. Lang’s Introduction points out the scientific importance of some of Mrs. Parker’s investigations and explains the share he has had in the production of this book.” -The Saturday Review

From medicine men to witches to trapping of game and averting demons, The Euahlayi Tribe is the esteemed work by K. Langloh Parker that brings to light in formal terms her firsthand understanding of Euahlayi society. The resulting ethnography is factual and well written. Parker was obviously also familiar with the anthropological literature. She was hardly the detached observer that modern ethnography demands, however, at that time this methodology had not been invented yet. This is not necessarily a bad thing. As Andrew Lang points out in the introduction, Parker lived in close contact with aborigines for many years, and as a female she had access to the women of the tribe, a viewpoint for which we have no other source from that time period.

An eminent name in the field of literature, Parker is famed for her unsurpassed contribution to Aborigine culture. She is the earliest author who brought the miseries and sufferings of Aborigines to the notice of Australians in a focused and meaningful manner.

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

I. INTRODUCTORY

II. THE ALL FATHER, BYAMEE

III. RELATIONSHIPS AND TOTEMS

IV. THE MEDICINE MEN

V. MORE ABOUT THE MEDICINE MEN AND LEECHCRAFT

VI. OUR WITCH WOMAN

VII. BIRTH—BETROTHAL—AN ABORIGINAL GIRL FROM INFANCY TO WOMANHOOD

VIII. THE TRAINING OF A BOY UP TO BOORAH PRELIMINARIES

IX. THE BOORAH AND OTHER MEETINGS

X. CHIEFLY AS TO FUNERALS AND MOURNING

XI. SOMETHING ABOUT STARS AND LEGENDS

XII. THE TRAPPING OF GAME

XIII. FORAGING AND COOKING

XIV. COSTUMES AND WEAPONS

XV. THE AMUSEMENTS OF BLACKS

XVI. BUSH BOGIES AND FINIS

GLOSSARY

About this title

About the Author:

Catherine (Katie) Langloh Parker (1 May 1856 - 27 March 1940) was a writer who lived in Northern New South Wales Australia in the late nineteenth century. She is best known for recording the stories of the Aboriginal people around her. Langloh Parker’s early work with the Euahlayi Tribe provides the reader with a fascinating insight into Aborigine life in the early twentieth century. Saved by an Aboriginal as a child, her accounts of the Tribe provide them with a friendly representative amongst the European Settlers of Australia, in a period where they faced great persecution and disruption to their traditional of way of life. Her recordings contain the best known accounts of the Aboriginal people in North-West New South Wales.

About this edition

• Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform
• Publication date: 2014
• ISBN 10: 1500280151
• ISBN 13: 9781500280154
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 218