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Forthcoming Titles in 2008
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The Two Rainbow Serpents: a Mura track from the 'Corner Country' Half a century ago Jeremy Beckett recorded two detailed versions of the myth of the Two Rainbow Serpents who created and named sites on their journey from the Paroo River to the Flinders Ranges and back. This book provides the texts as recorded, with an analysis of the story and the placenames. The Two Rainbow Serpents always speak in the language of the country through which they are traveling, and so this is not only a creation myth but a record of language distribution in the 'Corner Country'. The two senior elders who told the story give us a unique insight into how they view the landscape, created in the 'Dreamtime'. The detail is unparalleled for N.S.W. |
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Australian Aboriginal Placenames Old and New This volume is a follow-up The Land is a Map: Placenames of Indigenous origin in Australia (2002). It takes interdisciplinary perspectives on Australian placenames of Indigenous origin. It provides an Australia-wide examination of the contrast between traditional systems of toponymy that have long been in force in Indigenous societies and the Anglo-Australian nomenclature that has been overlaid on the Australian landscape. It acknowledges attempts to discover and/or re-instate Indigenous names for geographic features, including newly formed entities such as national parks. The role of placenames in the memory of social groups is considered. |
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Reflections on Biography This edited collection of papers is based on presentations made by Indigenous and non-Indigenous scholars at a conference on the writing of Indigenous biography, held at the National Museum of Australia, July 2007. Maori, Aboriginal and western biographers discuss and analyse the difficulties they have faced, from balancing the demands of western and non-western scholarship, to considering demands not to write anything at all. The collection also contains discussions of teaching Indigenous Studies based on biography in Europe. |