A Place for Strangers
Towards a History of Australian Aboriginal Being

This controversial and provocative 1993 book isa detailed study of the impact of outsiders on Australian Aboriginal world-views.

Tony Swain (Author)

9780521446914, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 9 August 1993

316 pages, 5 b/w illus.
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.7 cm, 0.43 kg

"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

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 1993 book is a detailed and continent-wide study of the impact of outsiders on Australian Aboriginal world-views. The author separates out a common core of religious beliefs which reflect the precontact spirituality of Australian Aborigines. This book investigates Aboriginal myth, ritual, cosmology and philosophy, and also examines social organisation, subsistence patterns and cultural change. It will be of great interest to readers in anthropology, religious studies, comparative philosophy and Aboriginal studies.

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.

Subject Areas: Biography: historical, political & military [BGH]