Cirrus@Austlit

'One of Australia's finest essayists, the first to cut through 'the great Australian silence' to convey the richness and uniqueness of Aboriginal culture to settler Australians

'The most literate and persuasive of all contributions on Australia's Indigenous people' -Marcia Langton

'W.E.H. Stanner's words changed Australia. In his 1968 Boyer Lectures he exposed a 'cult of forgetfulness practised on a national scale', regarding the fate of First Nations people, for which he coined the phrase 'the great Australian silence'. And in his essay 'Durmugam' he provided an unforgettable portrait of a warrior's attempt to hold back cultural change.

'The pieces collected here span Stanner's career as well as the history of Australian race relations. They reveal the extraordinary scholarship, humanity and vision of one of Australia's finest essayists. Stanner's writings remain relevant in a time of reckoning with white Australia's injustices against Aboriginal people and the path to reconciliation.

'With an introduction by Robert Manne' (Publication summary)

'W.E.H. Stanner's words changed Australia. Without condescension and without sentimentality, in essays such as 'The Dreaming' Stanner conveyed the richness and uniqueness of Aboriginal culture. In his Boyer Lectures he exposed a 'cult of forgetfulness practised on a national scale,' regarding the fate of the Aborigines, for which he coined the phrase 'the great Australian silence'. And in his essay 'Durmugam' he provided an unforgettable portrait of a warrior's attempt to hold back cultural change. 'He was such a man,' Stanner wrote. 'I thought I would like to make the reading world see and feel him as I did.''

'The pieces collected here span the career of W.E.H. Stanner as well as the history of Australian race relations. They reveal the extraordinary scholarship, humanity and vision of one of Australia's finest essayists. Their revival is a significant event.' (Source: Black Inc Books website)

'Paper presented at the Boyer lectures 1968; racial relations and consequences; Phillips native policy; very brief note of kidnapping of Arabanoo, Colby and Bennelong; attitudinal changes, unimportance of native question; discusses development of attitude and relations since 1930, Tennant Creek area; removal of Warramunga people from tribal lands by gold miners 1934; intensification of pastoral industry around 1880s and obliteration of tribes as a result; early ethnologists and their work, native method of fighting, relationship to land and consequences through deprivation; brief account of some leaders; Yagan , Midgegooroo, Durmugan, customs, law and etiquette, mineral industry and effects in Arnhem land, attitudes to new way of life; killing the Dreaming, assimilation problems, land rights, law and Crown lands.'

Source: Trove.

A summary of the Book: Murinbada tribe; 1. The lineaments of sacrifice striking resemblances between the form of a bullroarer ceremony and the form of sacrificial ceremonies in more developed religion Ceremony of Punj; 2. Sacramentalism rite and myth - relations between Punj, and circumcision, totemism (all types), myth relating to Punj, other myths, relations between myth and rite, sequences of conduct; 3. Symbolism in the higher rites geometric idiom of ceremonies, symbolizing processes and types 4. The design plan of a riteless myth - the rainbow serpent, the problem of myth variation, three fragmentary accounts (Marithiel, Wagaman, Nangiomeri), analysis of myth, structural plans of 3 dramas; Myth of Kunmanggur, myth of Punj, rite of Punj 5. The design plans of mythless rites circumcision, mortuary, myth of Kulpi; 6. Cosmos and society made correlative - positive features of Murinbada religion, the dynamical or integrative aspect of the rites, and the underlying philosophy; A concluding note - explanation of series and viewpoint from which it was written. (Source: TROVE)