World of first Australia’s Aboriginal Traditional Life: Past and Present. Ronald M. And Catherine H. Berndt. 1988.

The World of the First Australians has become a classic in the field of Australian Aboriginal Studies. As well being a comprehensive reference book, covering a wide range of the many traditional societies and cultures that have existed on the Australian tinent, it draws together the threads of Aboriginal belief and practice in general terms. Here is a panoramic view of the unique background that gives Aborigines special identity and quality which distinguishes them from other Australians.

These days, not only Australians but also people in other parts of the world are becoming more seriously interested in living and thinking. That interest has been stimulated through what has been happening in two interrelated directiond. One is the current socio-political struggle by Aborigines to obtain what they regard as their legitimate rights.

The other is a growing awareness of Aboriginal achievements in the spheres of art, literature and dramatic performance. A third aspect comes into both of these, and is just as important. To understand the situation in Australia today, we cannot overlook the influences deriving from the Aborigines' traditional past, its continuing persistence, and its significance for themselves and for all of us.

This book brings together some of the material from over forty years of the authors' anthropological research and fieldwork among Aborigines in many parts of Australia, supplemented with comprehensive statements from other sources. It concentrates on the past and present traditional life of Aborigines, and the tremendous changes that have overtaken them. In abundant and absorbing detail, the authors cover such aspects as social organization; economic adaptation; relationship to land and its resources; growing up and getting married; religious belief, myth and ritual; forms of sorcery and magic; law and order; oral literature and visual art; and paths into the present, with an assessment of alien impact, along with the contemporary scene. It also has a chapter on Aboriginal Studies.

The World of the First Australians is a book for all Australians, as well as for all persons who are interested in cultures outside their own. For Aborigines who still retain their traditional heritage and for those who have become estranged from it, this is a statement of their identity and a ratification of their place within Australia itself, whatever other antecedents they may have. For others, it is much more than a glimpse of a life that should concern them all, whatever their ethnic origins may be.

One message, among many others this book has to offer, is that Australian Aborigines have much to contribute to present-day Australian living-and, indeed, to an understanding of world cultures-if they are permitted and encouraged to do so!