The story of Boori, the young warrior who must go on a journey to repay his debt to Perentie, the Old Man of the Hill of Opals. Boori must see and fight the savage warrior Dingo, win his friendship and outwit the thieving Pukwudgies. Throughout the journey he overcomes many perils, from water women and from Ganba the Rainbow snake. When he returns from the inland deserts to his coastal home, he discovers that there are more dangers to be overcome; for Melong, spirit of water and gatherer of storms, oppresses his people.
The elements of Aboriginal lore which make up this stirring tale of magic and high adventure are based largely upon beliefs of the Kabi and Wakka nations, who once lived near the Queensland coast north of Brisbane. (Source: Boori, 1978 edition)
Darkness under the Hills
Melbourne
:
Oxford University Press
,
1980
Z449008
1980
single work
novel
young adult
fantasy
'Boori receives a message from Ganba, the Great One, that an evil spirit called Rakasha has entered the land of the Aboriginal people. So Boori journeys north with his companions, Jaree and the spirit dog Dingo, to bring together the forces for protection against this power of darkness.' (Source: LibrariesAustralia)
'In Australia, where the oppression of native peoples and cultures was, if anything, even more severe than in North America, it has been harder to create contact zones, and, as discussed in chapter 5, attempts by white writers such as Patricia Wrightson to blend their traditions with those of indigenous Australians have been met with suspicion or hostility. Non-Aboriginal writers from Australia have generated such a collection of ignorant, patronizing, and demeaning texts about Aborigines that some of the latter want to call a halt to any further attempts. As the novelist Melissa Lucashenko says, "Who asked you to write about Aboriginal people? If it wasn't Aboriginal people themselves, I suggest you go away and look at your own lives instead of ours. We are tired of being the freak show of Australian popular culture" (quoted in Heiss 10). Whereas American writers often treated native cultures as noble, if doomed, and Indian characters as heroic adversaries or guides to the white hero (as in James Fenimore Cooper Leatherstocking series), early depictions of Aboriginal people at best treat them as part of the landscape and at worst—and there is a pretty clear worst in Austyn Granville lost-world romance The Fallen Race (1892)—as subhuman.' (Introduction)
'In Australia, where the oppression of native peoples and cultures was, if anything, even more severe than in North America, it has been harder to create contact zones, and, as discussed in chapter 5, attempts by white writers such as Patricia Wrightson to blend their traditions with those of indigenous Australians have been met with suspicion or hostility. Non-Aboriginal writers from Australia have generated such a collection of ignorant, patronizing, and demeaning texts about Aborigines that some of the latter want to call a halt to any further attempts. As the novelist Melissa Lucashenko says, "Who asked you to write about Aboriginal people? If it wasn't Aboriginal people themselves, I suggest you go away and look at your own lives instead of ours. We are tired of being the freak show of Australian popular culture" (quoted in Heiss 10). Whereas American writers often treated native cultures as noble, if doomed, and Indian characters as heroic adversaries or guides to the white hero (as in James Fenimore Cooper Leatherstocking series), early depictions of Aboriginal people at best treat them as part of the landscape and at worst—and there is a pretty clear worst in Austyn Granville lost-world romance The Fallen Race (1892)—as subhuman.' (Introduction)
