Across Australia
Eminent biologist Sir Baldwin Spencer (1860–1929) was born in Lancashire but moved to Australia to take up the chair in biology at the University of Melbourne in 1887. As a member of the 1894 Horn Scientific Expedition to Central Australia, Spencer made the acquaintance of F. J. Gillen, an advocate of Aboriginal rights, with whom he later formed a working partnership. Spencer and Gillen returned to Alice Springs in Central Australia in 1896–1897, to carry out observations on the local Aboriginal tribe, the Arunta. These observations were published in 1899, in The Native Tribes of Central Australia (also reissued in this series), which represented the most comprehensive study of Aboriginal customs and habits. Gillen and Spencer continued to undertake fieldwork until 1903. Volume 1 of Across Australia (published in two volumes in 1912) describes the region's topography, and the customs and beliefs of the Arunta.
Product details
September 2010Paperback
9781108020411
408 pages
216 × 140 × 23 mm
0.52kg
74 b/w illus. 5 colour illus. 2 maps
Available
Table of Contents
- 1. Introduction
- 2. The Lake Eyre region and the Urabunna tribe
- 3. From Oodnadatta to Charlotte Waters
- 4. Animal and plant life on the lower steppes
- 5. Charlotte Waters to the Macdonnell ranges
- 6. The desert region of Lake Amadeus
- 7. The higher steppes
- 8. The Arunta natives and some of their customs and beliefs
- 9. Alice Springs and the Arunta tribe.