Keith Taylor
Keith Taylor (1954-)
Authorship of Story About Feeling by Bill Neidjie and as published by Magabala Books 1989, resides jointly with Bill Neidjie and Keith Taylor.
Story About Feeling by Bill Neidjie (Magabala Books 1989) originated from Bill Neidjie’s desire that a book be written that could pass on his story to not just his own people, but to us all.
Bill Neidjie could neither read nor write.
Keith Taylor camped at Cannon Hill outstation (on Bunitj clan lands in Kakadu National Park) during October and November of 1982 and armed with a poor-quality cassette-recorder, Keith offered Bill assistance. During this time, some 8 hours and 52 mins of story and conversation related to story was recorded. Story About Feeling is the name that Bill Neidjie ascribed to the endeavour captured by those recordings.
Bill’s stories flow from an oral teaching tradition stretching back, perhaps in excess of 50,000 years, to the first arrival of human beings to the Australian continent.
All 11 audio cassettes were deposited by Keith Taylor with the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (AIATSIS) in May 1983. Similarly, Keith’s subsequent hand-written transcripts of each cassette were also deposited with AIATSIS. Accession details, for these original source materials, the 1982 audio recordings and transcripts thereof, are:
Original 1982 Audio tapes
Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies; MuraŽ
Collections Catalogue
Call Number:
TAYLOR_K01
Accession no :
018567 - 018585
Title:
Interviews with Big Bill Neidjie
Creator:
Taylor, Keith
Publication Information:
1982
Physical Description:
11 audiocassettes (approximately 30-90 min. each)
Series:
TAYLOR_K01
General Note:
Digital copies are available
Duration: 8 hours 52 minutes
Not auditioned
Duplicate copies with speeds adjusted are stored with the originals
Access:
Open access
Abstract:
Interviews recorded by Keith Taylor with Bill Neidjie, which formed the background to the book 'Story About Feeling' published in 1989
Personal Subject :
Neidjie, Bill, 1913-2002. Kakadu man.
Place:
Cannon Hill (Kakadu, NT SD53-01)
Collection:
Sound Collection
Source of acquisition:
Keith Taylor; deposited on 31 May 1983
Duration:
085200
Sound characteristics:
analogue
Subject Term :
History - Oral history
History - Biographies - Indigenous - Autobiographies
Audio tape transcripts
The hand-written transcripts of the 11 audio cassettes are held, by AIATSIS, with the cassettes themselves, and can be made available to people wanting to listen to the tapes.
Story About Feeling – the book
To create a manuscript for Story About Feeling composed entirely of Bill Neidjie’s words, Keith Taylor, firstly, removed all questions and commentary of his own from the original transcripts and then, secondly, arranged and edited Bill Neidjie’s material thematically. Story About Feeling is also presented in poetic form in an effort, by Keith, to retain the cadence, power and integrity of Bill’s telling and to protect its oral antiquity:
If you got story, heart...
Then speak yourself, stand for it!
Man ask you,
“we want story, before story.”
Anybody sit right round.
Listen this man!
He was standing.
What we call Iwarudj.
One man e standing talking to us. No answer in my day.
I was lying down.
This man with womerra and two spear, standing,
Telling story.
So e like this story I follow now.
Telling, telling, telling.
Just listen careful.
One man, that’s all.
An early draft manuscript for Story About Feeling was deposited by Keith with AIATSIS in 1986. The National Libraries of Australia cites this unpublished edition held by AIATSIS as:
https://trove.nla.gov.au/version/251498143
1985, English, Unpublished edition:
Story about feeling / by Bill Neijie : [recorded, transcribed and edited by Keith Taylor].
The AIATSIS reference details for this early manuscript are:
Call Number: MS 2479
Title: Story about feeling / by Bill Neijie : [recorded, transcribed and edited by Keith Taylor]
Creator.: Neidjie, Bill, 1913-2002
Taylor, Keith 1954-
Added Author: Taylor, Keith
Publication Information: [Kununurra, W.A.], [1985] 1985
Physical Description: 183 leaves; ill.
General Note: Typescript
Access: Open access - reading. Copyright applies. Not for Inter-Library Loan
Abstract: Edited transcription of oral traditions including stories about the land, emotions, the natural environment, effect of mining, mythology, Dreaming and traditional life/law
Place: Arnhem Land (NT)
Collection: Print
Source of acquisition: Keith Taylor Deposit 8th August 1986
Language/group: Gaagudju / Gagadju / Gagadyu people (N50) (NT SD53-01)
Subject Term : Stories and motifs - Creation / Cosmology
Indigenous knowledge - World view
Mining industry
Psychology - Emotions
Sites - Dreaming tracks
Literature and stories - Story telling and story tellers
Story About Feeling was first published, however, in 1989 by Magabala Books, Broome, West Australia, a project of the Kimberly Aboriginal Law and Culture Centre. There have been a number of subsequent reprints, by Magabala, from 1989 to date.
An audio READING of Story About Feeling (as published by Magabala Books 1989 and subsequently read by Keith Taylor in 1990) is also available in audio cassette form:
1991, English, Sound, Other sound edition: Story about Feeling by Bill Neidjie ; [sound recording] Read by Keith Taylor. Neidjie, Bill, 1913-2002.
https://trove.nla.gov.au/version/25246672
[Darwin] : Reading 1990 NT, 1991.
English
Story about feeling / by Bill Neidjie ; read by Keith Taylor.
Neidjie, Bill, 1913-2002.
Taylor, Keith, 1954-
[Darwin] : Reading 1990 NT, 1991
[sound recording]
spoken word
audiocassette
2 sound cassettes : 1 7/8 ips, mono ; in container 16 x 14 x 3 cm
Aboriginal Australians -- Northern Territory -- Alligator Rivers Region -- Social life and customs.
Aboriginal Australians -- Social life and customs.
Aboriginal Australians -- Australia -- Alligator Rivers Region (N.T.) -- Social life and customs.
Northern Territory -- Alligator Rivers Region.
Recorded from Story about feeling / Bill Neidjie ; edited by Keith Taylor. -- Broome, W.A. : Magabala Books, 1989. -- ISBN 0958810109.
English
ISBN
0646069594
Dewey Number
305.89915
Libraries Australia ID
8560628
Bill Neidjie (1913-2002) was awarded the Order of Australia medal in 1989 for his services to conservation.
Keith Taylor (1954- )worked for many years with the Northern Land Council, in the Northern Territory of Australia and was intimately involved in facilitation of and establishment of the Kakadu National Park Board of Management and the joint-management arrangements (with Kakadu’s traditional Aboriginal owners) governing Kakadu.
Keith currently lives in Queensland, Australia, re-engaging in further exploration of both his Poetry and Prose.
