Songs of Central Australia
Sydney, Angus and Robertson, 1971.
Quarto, liv, 775 pages plus a colour frontispiece, a large folding map (885 x 685 mm) in an endpocket and a tipped-in corrigenda slip.
Blind-stamped cloth very lightly rubbed; endpapers lightly marked; insignificant tiny marks to the top edge and a handful of pages; essentially a fine copy with the near-fine dustwrapper with two short tears expertly sealed and some trifling surface chips to the corners and the ends of the spine (a universal problem with this dustwrapper, but scarcely noticeable with this copy thanks to minimal conservation).
The detailed four-colour map of Aboriginal Central Australia is based on information from Strehlow's field note books, 1932-1969; an extensive index is printed on the verso. 'The first complete account of the poetic heritage of the aboriginal people of Central Australia; an analysis of aboriginal songs as fully-developed oral literature, and their evaluation as authoritative documents of aboriginal religion' (from the original prospectus). One of only 500 copies printed, THIS COPY IS SIGNED BY T.G.H. STREHLOW. From the collection of Richard (Dick) Kimber, with his name in ink on the front flyleaf, and the few small corrigenda made in his hand to the relevant text. Dick Kimber, 'writer, anthropologist and amateur historian of central Australia ... arrived in Alice Springs as a schoolteacher in 1971; in 1974 he became the first Scared [sic!] Sights [sic!] Officer appointed in the Northern Territory. During 1976-1978 he was the co-ordinator of the Papunya Tula Artists and Aboriginal Education Officer for the Aboriginal Arts Board based in Sydney ... He has done historical research for the Department of Aboriginal Affairs, the Australian Heritage Commission, and the Strehlow Research Centre. [He] is one of the few white men to have been initiated into central Australian Aboriginal society' (biographical notes from the catalogue record of oral history tapes held in the National Library of Australia).
Item #99558
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