Literature in our Collection
(A-L)

Keen, Ian (Hg.): Being Black. Aboriginal Cultures in 'Settled' Australia, Aboriginal Studies Press, Canberra 1994, ISBN 0855751851

Table of Contents        ¦         Cover Text        ¦         Book Review

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements -vii-

Marie Reay: Foreword -ix-

Contributors -xiii-

Ian Keen: Introduction -1-

Diane Barwick: Aborigines of Victoria -27-

Barry Morris: Dhan-gadi resistance to assimilation -33-

Julie Carter: 'Am I too black to go with you?' -65-

Jerry Schwab: Ambiguity, style and kinship in Adelaide Aboriginal identity -77-

Diana Eades: They don't speak an Aboriginal language, or do they? -97-

Jeremy R Beckett: Kinship, mobility and community in rural New South Wales -117-

Chris Birdsall: All one family -137-

Basil Sansom: A Grammar of exchange -159-

Gaynor Macdonald: A Wiradjuri fight story -179-

Marcia Langton: Medicine Square -201-

Patricia Baines: A Litany for land -227-

Peter Sutton: Myth as history, history as myth -251-

Index -269-

Cover Text

It is a common belief that Aboriginal people of predominantly mixed descent, living in Australian cities, country towns and Aboriginal communities, have lost their culture. Often lacking the more obvious markers of Aboriginal identity, such as ceremonies and the general use of an indigenous language, they are regarded as not being 'real' Aborigines. Recent anthropological research refutes these misconceptions. Through a continuity of community, even when dispersed within large cities, Aboriginal people have maintained continuity of identity and culture quite distinct from that of Australians of European or other ethnic origin, and with many features in common with the cultures of Aborigines living in more remote areas. This book brings together the results of research by anthropologists who have worked in urban and rural communities in 'settled' Australia: southeast Queensland; the coast and hinterland of New South Wales; Victoria; South Australia; the southwest of Western Australia; and in Darwin in the Northern Territory. The chapters document many aspects of Aboriginal social life and its development: the bases of identity; the extensive ties of family; the structure of community and patterns of travel; responses to domination; styles of socialisation; ways of speaking; rules of swearing and fighting; economic transactions; beliefs and feelings about country; and attitudes to the past. The volume shows in detail what makes the cultures of Aboriginal Australians so distinctive.