A World that was: The Yaraldi of the Murray River and the Lakes, South AustraliaThis extraordinary book, written from material gathered over half a century ago, will almost certainly be the last fine-grained account of traditional Aboriginal life in settled south-eastern Australia. It recreates the world of the Yaraldi group of the Kukabrak or Narrinyeri people of the Lower Murray and Lakes region of South Australia. In 1939 Albert Karloan, a Yaraldi man, urged a young ethnologist, Ronald Berndt, to set up camp at Murray Bridge and to record the story of his people. Karloan and Pinkie Mack, a Yaraldi woman, possessed through personal experience, not merely through hearsay, an all but complete knowledge of traditional life. They were virtually the last custodians of that knowledge and they felt the burden of their unique situation. This book represents their concerted efforts to pass on the story to future generations. For Ronald and Catherine Berndt, this was their first fieldwork together in an illustrious joint career of almost fifty years. During long periods, principally until 1943, they laboured with pencil and paper to put it all down - a far cry from the recording techniques of today's oral historians. Their fieldnotes were worked into a rough draft of what would become, but not until recently, the finished manuscript. The book's range is encyclopaedic and engrossing - sometimes dramatic. It encompasses relations between and among individuals and clan groups, land tenure, kinship, the subsistence economy, trade, ceremony, councils, fighting and warfare, rites of passage from conception to death, myths, and beliefs and practices concerning healing and the supernatural. Not least, it is a record of the dramatic changes following European colonization. A World That Was is a unique contribution to Australia's cultural history. There is simply no comparable body of work, nor is there ever likely to be. |
Contents
Introduction | 1 |
The land and the people | 13 |
Living together | 25 |
Marriage and the family | 31 |
Kin in perspective | 41 |
Keeping the peace | 58 |
Living off the land and sea | 74 |
A production economy | 109 |
Spirits | 201 |
Ceremony and song | 210 |
Mythic instigators | 223 |
Mythic shapechangers | 231 |
Power of the miwi | 245 |
In pursuit of death | 252 |
The final act of living | 267 |
Retrospect | 281 |
Coming into being | 131 |
Socialization | 145 |
Male initiation cycle | 163 |
Relations between the sexes | 186 |
Magic and healing | 193 |
to 7 | 301 |
| 597 | |
| 610 | |
Other editions - View all
Common terms and phrases
Aboriginal Albert Karloan anggun Appendix Berndt bird boys called camp canoe ceremony Chapter child clan club coitus cooked Coorong copulate corpse dead eating Encounter Bay European father fire fish girls husband inangk initiation itjan itjanan itji kangaroo Karloan Karpeny Kaurna killed koni Kukabrak kuruwolin Lake Albert Lake Alexandrina lamba lambul lambulei looking luku malalw Manangki manda Manggurupa maramin marriage married milin mimini miwi mother Mulapi Murray Murray Bridge Murray Mouth Name unknown nangan narambi narindjera Narrinyeri nawandang ngadungi ngak ngakun ngar ngatji ngengampi ngildjeri ngop ngopung Ngurunderi novices pangari person Piltindjeri Pinkie Mack Point McLeay Radcliffe-Brown Ramindjeri red ochre referred Rigney ritual River ronggi ruwi sexual sister sitting skin smoke-drying song sorcery spear spirit swamp taboo talk tanal Tangani Taplin territory told traditional ungu Waiyungari walk wife woman women wonitj wonya wonyang wonyangan Wonyil Wonyili-an wurinthin yanarumi Yaraldi young Δ Δ