Across Australia

Fieldwork on the Aborigines of Central Australia by Spencer and Gillen was published in two volumes in 1912.

Baldwin Spencer (Author), F. J. Gillen (Author)

9781108020428, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 30 September 2010

482 pages, 142 b/w illus. 2 colour illus. 4 maps
21.6 x 2.7 x 14 cm, 0.61 kg

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. Gillen and Spencer continued to undertake fieldwork until 1903. Volume 2 of Across Australia (published in two volumes in 1912) describes Aboriginal tribes of the present-day Northern Territory, between Alice Springs and the Gulf of Carpentaria.

10. Sacred ceremonies of the Arunta tribe
11. Atninga or avenging party
12. Alice Springs to Barrow Creek
13. Barrow Creek and the Kaitish and Unmatjera tribes
14. Magic
15. Barrow Creek to Tennant Creek
16. Life in the Warramunga camp
17. The Great Wollunqua
18. Fire ceremony of the Warramunga tribe
19. Death, mourning and burial ceremonies of the Warramunga tribe
20. Tennant Creek to Powell Creek
21. From Powell Creek to the Gulf of Carpentaria
22. Borroloola and the coastal tribes
Appendix
Index.

Subject Areas: Australasian & Pacific history [HBJM]