A Place for Strangers: Towards a History of Australian Aboriginal Being

ISBN-13: 9780521446914 / Angielski / Miękka / 1993 / 316 str.

Tony Swain

Opis

Many of the elements ascribed to traditional Aboriginal beliefs and practices are the result of contact with external peoples--Melanesians and Indonesians, as well as Europeans. This controversial and provocative book is the first detailed and continent-wide study of the impact of outsiders on Australian Aboriginal worldviews. The author separates out a common core of religious belief that 1111 precontact spirituality of Australian Aborigines more concerned with place than with any philosophy of time or origins. A Place for Strangers investigates Aboriginal myth, ritual, cosmology and philosophy, and also examines social organization, subsistence patterns and cultural change. It will be of great interest to readers in anthropology, religious studies, comparative philosophy, Aboriginal studies and Australian history.

Recenzje

"Swain has done a remarkable analysis in showing how different horizons exist and respond to external state power. In one sense, horizons must not be fused, since fusion will only come at the expense of Aboriginal peoples and Aboriginality. This book is not simply another account of the Australian Aborigine; it must be read as a a warning on how Gramscian political and cultural hegemony and domination operates within our own horizon." Aram Yengoyan, Ethno History

Spis treści

Introduction; 1. Worlds to endure; 2. Songs of a wayfarer; 3. A new sky hero from a conquered land; 4. Our mother from northern shores; 5. From the mother to the millennium; Conclusion.