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y separately published work icon The Prince of the Totem : A Simple Black Tale for Clever White Children single work   children's fiction   Indigenous story   children's  
Issue Details: First known date: 1933... 1933 The Prince of the Totem : A Simple Black Tale for Clever White Children
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AbstractHistoryArchive Description

'A delightful story for children about a little Aboriginal boy, whom you first meet as a baby, then follow his career until he is finally leader of the tribe. An entertaining and informative book of aboriginal life and customs.' (Publisher's blurb, All About Books 6.2 (1934):50)

Notes

  • First broadcast by the Children's Corner (conducted by Nina Murdock), 3LO, Melbourne, 1932 along with the Eena Weena Stories and Natural History Stories also written by Rayment. Lynette Young in The Melody Lingers On (1967): 16 comments: 'At Miss Nina Murdock's suggestion, some were put together in book form, with illustrations drawn in crayon by the author, and published by Robertson and Mullens. They had an immediate enthusiastic reception.'
  • Epigraph: The advent of the First Fleet under Captain Phillip at Sydney Cove on January 26, 1788, meant not only the acquisition of a continent, but also the responsibility, on behalf of the rest of the world, of the protection of primitive aboriginal peoples and a unique fauna and flora. To modern man was suddenly presented the opportunity of studying at close hand the life of the distant past. - Sir Colin Mackenzie., in his Introduction to Ambrose Pratt's The Lore of the Lyrebird.

  • Dedication:
    Message-Stick
    To my Brother, Unaipon
    Trusted and Wise Man of the Narrinyeri: The Centenary of the White Man is at hand.
    His stores of Food are great; his tribesmen many.
    Soon he will be shewing his Cherished Relics to
    the young Men with much telling of Great Deeds.

    But for your brown People there is no more Boorah.
    The Euro and the Emu make way for the
    Sheep; the Whirlwinds of the White Man's Car
    scatter the Seed of the Munyeroo; your sacred
    Churinga rest in his Museums.

    So I send to you Doo-loo-boorah, the Message-Stick, inviting you to live for an Hour in the
    Happy Days of the Alcheringa of your Race.
    - Ka-Val.

  • Dedication: Message-Stick To all White Children: The Aborigines of Australia are not black; they are coppery-brown in colour because the sun has made them so. They are not a low, savage-natured people. In their pure native state the Aborigines lived a happy, contented life; thieving was unknown, and they were an exceedingly truthful, moral people whom one should admire. Of course they were simple and primitive; still living in the Age of Stone. But never forget that, in the dim past, we, too, were like them, and very probably they are excellent portraits of our own ancestors....' The Author.
  • Digitised full-text copy includes handwritten note by author: 'March 1st 1934 The Brown Birrahlees cry--"Gul-lee! Gul-lee! (water! water!)," and the white man answers by sending the stream of life through a water-pipe at Koporilja. Thank you! Tarlton Rayment.'

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

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Works about this Work

Digital Curation, AustLit, and Australian Children's Literature Amy Cross , Cherie Allan , Kerry Kilner , 2019 single work criticism
— Appears in: International Research in Children's Literature , July vol. 12 no. 1 2019; (p. 1-17)

'This paper examines the effects of curatorial processes used to develop children's literature digital research projects in the bibliographic database AustLit. Through AustLit's emphasis on contextualising individual works within cultural, biographical, and critical spaces, Australia's literary history is comprehensively represented in a unique digital humanities space. Within AustLit is BlackWords, a project dedicated to recording Australia's Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander storytelling, publishing, and literary cultural history, including children's and young adult texts. Children's literature has received significant attention in AustLit (and BlackWords) over the last decade through three projects that are documented in this paper. The curation of this data highlights the challenges in presenting ‘national’ literatures in countries where minority voices were (and perhaps continue to be) repressed and unseen. This paper employs a ‘resourceful reading’ approach – both close and distant reading methods – to trace the complex and ever-evolving definition of ‘Australian children's literature’.'

Source: EUP.
Black and White : The Aboriginal in Literature J. K. E. , 1934 single work column
— Appears in: The West Australian , 21 July 1934; (p. 7)
Best Sellers and A.B.A. Recommendations 1934 single work column
— Appears in: All About Books , 12 April vol. 6 no. 4 1934; (p. 80-81)
A Reader's Notebook Nettie Palmer , 1934 single work review
— Appears in: All About Books , 14 February vol. 6 no. 2 1934; (p. 27-29)
— Review of The Grey Battalion May Tilton , 1933 single work autobiography ; Artist Among the Bankers Will Dyson , 1933 single work ; The Prince of the Totem : A Simple Black Tale for Clever White Children Tarlton Rayment , 1933 single work children's fiction ; In Wild New Britain : The Story of Benjamin Danks, Pioneer Missionary, from His Diary Wallace Deane , 1933 single work
A Reader's Notebook Nettie Palmer , 1934 single work review
— Appears in: All About Books , 14 February vol. 6 no. 2 1934; (p. 27-29)
— Review of The Grey Battalion May Tilton , 1933 single work autobiography ; Artist Among the Bankers Will Dyson , 1933 single work ; The Prince of the Totem : A Simple Black Tale for Clever White Children Tarlton Rayment , 1933 single work children's fiction ; In Wild New Britain : The Story of Benjamin Danks, Pioneer Missionary, from His Diary Wallace Deane , 1933 single work
Best Sellers and A.B.A. Recommendations 1934 single work column
— Appears in: All About Books , 12 April vol. 6 no. 4 1934; (p. 80-81)
Black and White : The Aboriginal in Literature J. K. E. , 1934 single work column
— Appears in: The West Australian , 21 July 1934; (p. 7)
Digital Curation, AustLit, and Australian Children's Literature Amy Cross , Cherie Allan , Kerry Kilner , 2019 single work criticism
— Appears in: International Research in Children's Literature , July vol. 12 no. 1 2019; (p. 1-17)

'This paper examines the effects of curatorial processes used to develop children's literature digital research projects in the bibliographic database AustLit. Through AustLit's emphasis on contextualising individual works within cultural, biographical, and critical spaces, Australia's literary history is comprehensively represented in a unique digital humanities space. Within AustLit is BlackWords, a project dedicated to recording Australia's Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander storytelling, publishing, and literary cultural history, including children's and young adult texts. Children's literature has received significant attention in AustLit (and BlackWords) over the last decade through three projects that are documented in this paper. The curation of this data highlights the challenges in presenting ‘national’ literatures in countries where minority voices were (and perhaps continue to be) repressed and unseen. This paper employs a ‘resourceful reading’ approach – both close and distant reading methods – to trace the complex and ever-evolving definition of ‘Australian children's literature’.'

Source: EUP.
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Last amended 28 Apr 2015 14:54:26
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