The World of the First Australians: Aboriginal Traditional Life Past and Present

First published in 1964 and this fifth edition published in 1988, The World of the First Australians is a classic in the field of Australian Aboriginal Studies. As well as being a comprehensive reference book, covering a wide range of the many traditional societies and cultures that have existed on the Australian continent, it draws together the threads of Aboriginal belief and practice in general terms. This book brings together some of the material from over 40 years of the authors' anthropological research and fieldwork among Aborigines in many parts of Australia, supplemented with comprehensive statements from other sources. It concentrates on the past and present traditional life of Aboriginal Australians, and the tremendous changes that have overtaken them. The authors cover aspects such as social organisation, economic adaptation, relationship to land an dits resources, growing up and getting married, religious belief, myth and ritual, forms of sorcery and magic, law and order, oral literature and visual art.