Cirrus@Austlit

'Tongerlongeter is less a traditional biography of a specific Aboriginal man than an exercise in refocusing discursive attention on an Aboriginal figure: a significant proportion of the book is essentially contextual. In terms of biographical detail, the story the authors tell about Vandemonian Aboriginal leader Tongerlongeter hinges on a handful of recorded moments in an under-documented life. The authors situate these moments within a broad narrative encompassing the first third of the nineteenth century, seeking to both relate and reframe the violent encounter between Aboriginal peoples and the ‘white men’ in early colonial Van Diemen's Land.'  (Introduction)