'The author is Lardil man from Mornington Island; comments on conception beliefs, birth, food plants, camp life, Creation myth, myths on origin of death, Thuwathu the Rainbow Serpent, marriage rules, relations with Mission staff, hunting & fishing, stellar myths, dugong hunting, wild bee myth; initiation myth, describes initiation ceremony, subincision, secret Damin language; flood ceremony, 22 lines of rain stopping song (with free translation), story of Warrenby, sorcery and sorcerers, clay as medicine, love magic, moon legend, death & mourning, burial, inquest, spirit beliefs; relations with Bentinck Island (Kaiadilt) people, stories of early settlement of Sweers Island; work on cattle stations & as deckhand, encouragement to work on bark painting' (Source: Online)
'The art of Lardil artist Goobalathaldin Dick Roughsey (1920-1985) had its origins in bark painting - but the late artist is known as one of the pioneers of the modern style of Indigenous painting using oils and acrylics during the 1970s.'
Aboriginal life writing... 'is a syncretic practice: bound to postcolonial structure of mourning and trauma which while also deeply engaged with tradition and its restoration. This double condition of tradition and continuance has been a consistent problem in the Indigenous paradigm of writing and of life writing particularly. To write of life, it is often necessary to break with precolonial Indigenous tradition: at the very least (since one is writing), the traditional positioning of self and kinship within the complexity of oral culture.' In this essay, the author offers a partial survey of the bounds of life writing, and frames his approach whilst examining the complexities of tradition in post-colonial Australia.
'The art of Lardil artist Goobalathaldin Dick Roughsey (1920-1985) had its origins in bark painting - but the late artist is known as one of the pioneers of the modern style of Indigenous painting using oils and acrylics during the 1970s.'
Aboriginal life writing... 'is a syncretic practice: bound to postcolonial structure of mourning and trauma which while also deeply engaged with tradition and its restoration. This double condition of tradition and continuance has been a consistent problem in the Indigenous paradigm of writing and of life writing particularly. To write of life, it is often necessary to break with precolonial Indigenous tradition: at the very least (since one is writing), the traditional positioning of self and kinship within the complexity of oral culture.' In this essay, the author offers a partial survey of the bounds of life writing, and frames his approach whilst examining the complexities of tradition in post-colonial Australia.
