Cirrus@Austlit

'The ‘Corner Country’, where Queensland, South Australia and New South Wales now converge, was in Aboriginal tradition crisscrossed by the tracks of the mura, ancestral beings, who named the country as they travelled, linking place to language. Reproduced here is the story of the two Ngatyi, Rainbow Serpents, who travelled from the Paroo to the Flinders Ranges and back as far as Yancannia Creek, where their deep underground channels linked them back to the Paroo. Jeremy Beckett recorded these stories from George Dutton and Alf Barlow in 1957. Luise Hercus, who has worked on the languages in the area for many years, has collaborated with Jeremy Beckett to analyse the names and identify the places.' (Source: Publishers website)

'Aboriginal approaches to the naming of places across Australia differ radically from the official introduced Anglo-Australian system. However, many of these earlier names have been incorporated into contemporary nomenclature, with considerable reinterpretations of their function and form. Recently, state jurisdictions have encouraged the adoption of a greater number of Indigenous names, sometimes alongside the accepted Anglo-Australian terms, around Sydney Harbour, for example. In some cases, the use of an introduced name, such as Gove, has been contested by local Indigenous people.'

'The 19 studies brought together in this book present an overview of current issues involving Indigenous placenames across the whole of Australia, drawing on the disciplines of geography, linguistics, history, and anthropology. They include meticulous studies of historical records, and perspectives stemming from contemporary Indigenous communities. The book includes a wealth of documentary information on some 400 specific placenames, including those of Sydney Harbour, the Blue Mountains, Canberra, western Victoria, the Lake Eyre district, the Victoria River District, and southwestern Cape York Peninsula.' (Source: Publishers website)

'The entire Australian continent was once covered with networks of Indigenous placenames. These names often evoke important information about features of the environment and their place in Indigenous systems of knowledge. On the other hand, placenames assigned by European settlers and officials are largely arbitrary, except for occasional descriptive labels such as ‘river, lake, mountain’. They typically commemorate people, or unrelated places in the Northern hemisphere.'

'In areas where Indigenous societies remain relatively intact, thousands of Indigenous placenames are used, but have no official recognition. Little is known about principles of forming and bestowing Indigenous placenames. Still less is known about any variation in principles of placename bestowal found in different Indigenous groups. While many Indigenous placenames have been taken into the official placename system, they are often given to different features from those to which they originally applied. In the process, they have been cut off from any understanding of their original meanings. Attempts are now being made to ensure that additions of Indigenous placenames to the system of official placenames more accurately reflect the traditions they come from.'

'The eighteen chapters in this book range across all of these issues. The contributors (linguistics, historians and anthropologists) bring a wide range of different experiences, both academic and practical, to their contributions. The book promises to be a standard reference work on Indigenous placenames in Australia for many years to come.' (Source: Publishers website)

'Ben Murray's death at Port Augusta in August 1994 marks the end of an era in the history of the Lake Eyre Basin: Ben was living history.'

'Janet Mathews will be greatly missed. The Institute will remember her in many ways, but her greatest legacy to it and to Aboriginal people is twofold: her collection of stories, word lists, and songs that appear on the 392 field tapes made between 1964 and 1976, and her friendships with Aboriginal people—especially Jimmie Barker, whose remarkable life story resulted in one of the best selling books ever published by the Institute, The Two Worlds of Jimmie Barker.' (Introduction)

'It is a sad task to have to announce the death of someone as brilliant, lively and witty as Don Laycock. He was born in Newcastle on 6 October 1936 and died in Canberra, 27 December 1988 after a short illness. Don was a man of wide interests whose publications include such diverse items as the book The Best Bawdry (1982), articles on extraterrestial languages and on the history of card-games. Although his professional work was primarily concerned with the New Guinea area, he had an involvement with Aboriginal studies going back thirty years.'   (Introduction)