WEST AUSTRALIANA Aboriginal –
-
Australian Aborigines are legendary hunters and trackers. Few people have more than a sketchy idea of the skills they have to master from early childhood onwards in order to provide for their own needs and those of their families. The author lived for three years in the desert, hunting and exploring her Walmajarri partner’s country.
Their amazing ability becomes even more impressive because they use no technology, just whatever they can make with their own hands and the natural resources. All the members of the society learn at an early age to provide for their own families, both individually and cooperatively. To sustain their mobile lifestyle of hunting and gathering, they manufacture tools, build shelters, obtain water and gather and prepare food. Their apparent simplicity belies the complexity of the skills and knowledge needed to survive. Of course, contact with outsiders brought much of the traditional methods of the Aborigines to an end. The book describes the hunting lifestyle, both before outsider contact and after it. It also shows how their tracking methods have become useful in police investigations, utilizing their understanding of animal behavior, excellent memory and a faultless sense of direction.
- First Nations (AIATSIS) Subject:
- Subject:
-
- Pike, Jimmy
- Hunters — Australia
- Hunting — Australia
- Tracking and trailing — Australia
- Desert animals — Australia
- Australia — Social life and customs
- First Edition. SCARCE!
- 112 p. : ill. (chiefly col.) ; 26 cm. #141125